Tuesday, 30 May 2000
12:15am (Wednesday morning)
n exciting day for Bryan today to say the least. First of all, I went back down to the MTV Beach House. I saw them tape the end of TRL. And today's TRL is actually the one that they taped today. But it still wasn't actually live hehehe. Anyway, whoever said that you had to be buff or totally good looking to get in... was talking out of their ass. All you do is sign your name into this list with your phone number and the days that you will be available to come. If they need more people on a certain day, they will call you and ask you to come down. All they have to look at is your name and your phone number. They have no idea of you are tall or short, skinny or fat, or anything.
 The catch though, is that they start taping most of the shows pretty early, like 10:30AM... and they don't tape on weekends. Which is why fat ugly people can actually get in, because really, not that many people are available at 10:30AM on weekdays, and even if they are, they probably don't want to wake up that early. So that's how it is.
By the way, they don't tape on weekends because the city of San Diego doesn't want them to. They think it will get too crazy with weekend beach crowds and all. So to cover their weekend shows, twice a week, they tape 2 shows in one day. Which basically confirms my suspicions that there really is no voting for TRL, since, how can they know what the results are for the second show's voting when it's still the same day as the first show, hmmmm? But they also do not show TRL 7 days a week. So why are they taping 7 shows a week? Because the entire second week of June they will not be taping TRL. Which means the shows you see that week will actually be taken from that stockpile of extra shows that they taped.
Which is really funny because when MTV re-runs TRL in the evenings, they actually have the nerve to write "previously recorded" on the screen when even the original showing at 1PM was actually previously recorded :)
Anyway, on my way back from the Beach House (but before I got the call telling me to come on down tomorrow), I sort of randomly stopped by the Robert Cromeans salon in PB. I was thinking all day that my hair was getting a little long, and well, there just happened to be a big empty parking space in front of the salon, which is rare since that street is so busy. I didn't even know if I'd be able to get in since I guess they are usually booked a solid month in advanced, but luckily someone canceled their appointment so I got in. So couple that with the parking space thing and I think it was destiny. I'd never been to a salon like that before. I mean, they offered me water and coffee or whatever I wanted while I waited. The girl who cut my hair was totally fine too. And the guy whose hair she cut right before mine is the manager for Blink 182 hahaha.
I told her that I was sick of my hair and basically that she could do whatever she wanted to it. So now it's kind of spikier than before. It looks good, but the bad thing is that now, if I do not put gel or whatever in my hair, it looks really really bad because practically every single hair on my head is a different length so it looks all frizzy even though it actually isn't. So I guess I have to do my hair every day now. The shampoo she used had peppermint in it. It was like an Altoid for my head because my whole head felt the way your mouth does after you eat an Altoid. And the hair washing included a nice 5 minute long neck massage, which was nice coming from that hot chick haha. Well it came out to $35 which is the most I ever paid for a hair cut in my life, but on the other hand, it was cheaper than I thought it was going to be. Good thing I am a guy too, cuz this other girl got a really short hair cut. She paid like $90 or something like that. Anyway, I'll definitely go back because, well it was definitely worth it, and plus, I wouldn't mind making an appointment with the same girl because she was so nice to look at.
Anyway, I got home and MTV left a message on my machine telling me to come down. They also said that if I can't wear a white t-shirt or anything with a logo on it or else they won't let me in. White is bad, it blows up on the TV screen. But I didn't have anythign colored with no logos... so I had to go out and buy a new shirt because the only other option would be for me to not wear a shirt and well... nobody wants to see a really skinny asian guy with a major farmer tan on TV with no shirt on!! So I went to Ross or Marshalls and got a dark blue shirt for cheap.
I stopped by VONS on the way home with Mimi, and we BBQ'ed some steaks at my house and had a good dinner and I guess that's it for today or something. Hopefully I will wake up in time tomorrow to get inside the Beach House and hopefully I will be able to see myself on TV that evening! Oh yeah, if any of you guys are in the San Diego area and want to audition for Say What Karaoke, I have the number to call to schedule an audition, so e-mail me about it. They are taping the show on the 21st and 22nd of June.
Wednesday, 31 May 2000
12:15am (Thursday morning)
ow what a wild day!!! I totally thought that I was just going to be in the overhead crowd shots on TRL, but I ended up being on the upper deck for the whole show!!! I was hanging out by the BBQ up on the upper deck with Raymond the amazingly annoying VJ. It was really cool being up there cuz like, I got to be on TV a lot because there are so few people up there. Today, it actually was live, at least for the east coast. Before we got in, they picked a bunch of people out to be in the "front" and to sit on the lounge chairs on the lower deck... and also to be on the top deck and I was one of the lucky ones!!
I was actually served a hamburger from the BBQ by Raymond, though not while on camera. That was cool, free burger. And I could have "requested" Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" but they didn't like what I was going to say hahaha. I wanted to say "Yeah I'm Bryan from San Diego and I requested Break Stuff because, sorry Carson, but Fred Durst got it from Christina first!!" which is a reference to the eminem song, in case you didn't know. Oh well whatever.
Those two girls on the right side of that picture with the BBQ actually ended up getting kicked out. They kept hanging over the railing talking to the people on the boardwalk, trying to draw attention to themselves all the time. It was so funny, the stage manager girl pointed to them and said "hey you two! They need you down on the beach, just follow that guy!" and they thought they were going to go do something really cool AHAHAHAHAHA. They were really annoying. And they just graduated from La Jolla Country Day School. I mean come on, who wants to hang out with people from there??
I was in the back of one of the "request" shots. And at the end, I was on TV for like 20 seconds straight, sitting behind Carson Daly, that was really cool!! Anyways, my name is on the list for tomorrow and friday as well, so I'll be on TV again! BTW, they are taping 2 shows on both Thursday and Friday. Presumably the first ones will be live and the second ones will be saved for later.
Tomorrow I am actually going to venture out and wear shorts ahahahah. Everyone will see my skinny legs!! I borrowed a hawaiian shirt from one of Ben's roommates, cuz well, I noticed that I wasn't looking very "beachy" today.
Anyway, I don't know if I'll get as lucky tomorrow as I was today, but I hope so!!!
Thursday, 1 June 2000
11:30pm
uch, my head hurts. My scalp is all sunburned pretty badly from spending 10 hours or so straight... in the sun. And boy, did a lot more of my suspicions about TRL get confirmed today! First of all, yes, some TRL's are actually live. Like yesterday's, and like today (live on the east coast and central time zones anyway). But some, most definitely are not. Because after the end of today's TRL, about an hour later they started taping another TRL... TRL for Monday.
I don't know if it was my skinny legs hanging out or if it was my hawaiian shirt, but I didn't get anywhere on today's TRL. I was in a pretty bad spot, but Cami did say that she saw my head pop in for a split second one of the times that Carson was talking. There were no special guests or anything like that. It was pretty boring actually most of the time. There were these two really ugly white trash looking girls that got kicked out today. One of them was wearing this tiny thong bikini which was bad cuz she had some rash or pimples or something on her butt. But the worst part was that they'd keep going up on the main stage an dancing like they are at a strip club or something for all the folks on the boardwalk. Which I guess would have kind have been cool if they were really good looking but they were ugly. When they got kicked out, the entire beach house cheered. They cheered louder than they did for anything else in the whole show actually. Even Carson Daly acknowledged their ugliness with a disapproving look to the crowd behind the girl's backs. The lesson of today and yesterday: Sure, everyone at the beach house wants to be on TV. But if you are obviously attention starved, they will kick you out.
Anyways, the real interesting part was the second show. I had a better seat. I was sitting at the edge of the pool near the green bridge with my feet in the water the whole time. The water is FREEZING COLD. Anyway... the second show we did is going to be shown on Monday. And MTV pulled out all the stops to make you believe that it was a live show.
There were 3 or 4 live "fans" calling in, who were actually people in the back of the beach house. They had statistics showing the percentage of e-mail and phone "votes" for the particular video they were about to announce. They said it was Monday when it was really Thursday. They talked about the show we did just an hour ago as if it was last week. They even announced the toll free number to call to try and be one of the "live" fans calling in. And come monday, people all across the nation will actually try to call in, and they will believe that they actually have a chance to be on the air. But they won't. Why won't they? Because the show was taped 4 days before they saw it.
After the opening shot where Carson says "This is TRL for Monday, June 5" was finished, he turned around and looked at all of us and said "now you guys all know what BS this all is. I mean, I just said it was Monday even though it's really Thursday".
Even some of the people inside the beach house didn't understand what was going on. I had to actually explain to this girl that we weren't actually broadcasting live at that moment, and that we already did that this morning.
Anyway, this raises some important questions. Like, if they are willing to make up voting percentages, and pick the videos and arrange them however they want on a non-live show, what is to stop them from doing it for the real shows? I mean, if they will go so far as to make up actual voting percentages and phone calls for a taped show, seriously, why whouldn't they do it for all the shows? These "fans" even tell Carson all about how they love him and they want to give shout-outs to their friends.
Anyway, in case you wanted to know, Eminem was finally knocked out of the top spot and was demoted to #2 in the countdown this coming monday (heh, I just talked about this coming monday in past tense, and I can actually do that!). N'Sync beat them out and got #1. The Jessica Simpson video which world premiered just yesterday on TRL got enough votes to be #9. Or was it #10? I can't remember. The guest was the guy from Road Trip, no not Tom Green, no not Stiffler, but the guy who was the main character, the boyfriend dude whose name I don't even know. And there was this crazy guy on the top deck who knew all of the dance moves to Britney's "Oops" video, and Carson talked to him a little bit too. This is for you people who still believe adamently that every single episode of TRL is live and that the voting is for real. If what I say comes true then... hmmm.
And for you people who actually believe that stuff, I also have this tidbit for you -- tomorrow they are taping two more shows of TRL, even though there is a Real World Marathon running as we speak through the whole weekend. They aren't even showing TRL tomorrow at all, but they are doing two of them!
Anyways, the reason why they do this is because the other shows, where there are a limited amount of them (like Say What Karaoke), they shoot those all in a row. And you really can't shoot that show right after a TRL, because it would just be too crazy to move all that stuff around. So they shoot a bunch of Say What's in a row and then show those whenever they want. But obviously they can't simultaneously shoot TRL and Say What so they have to stagger the times. So to cover the days where they are not shooting TRL so they can shoot other exciting shows, they have to make some TRL's in advance.
But in defense of even the taped TRL's, I will say that they still shoot them as if they were an actual live broadcast. Like, the won't edit stuff out unless it's REALLY bad, and they won't start something over unless whoever is talking messes up REALLY bad. And they still actually wait out the length of the video before they come back with everyone cheering again. This one call in fan from this coming Monday's show was so fake it was obvious, that we were all laughing. Even Carson admitted to the camera that it was obviously fake :)
Anyways, tomorrow morning I'm going yet again. I'm actually going with Cami this time. I got a reversible floppy hat (red on one side, black on the other) to cover my head so my scalp doesn't fry more than it already has. I'll probably be wearing the red side out, but since these are being taped, I'll let you know all the details when they come out. I don't have any screen shots of today's show because there was no rerun, and the broadcast it here on the west coast during the time that they were recording the second show.
BTW, if you are thinking about coming down, oh man, if the sun is out it can be really bad. Since the sun comes from a certain direction, it makes shadows in the other direction. Shadows would look kind of bad on TV, and it would hide a lot of people's faces and eyes. So, on top of the building next door (the lifeguard tower), they have four GIGANTIC mirror type things, to reflect sunlight back into the beach house from the other direction. It's like 5 suns beating down on you at once!! No wonder my scalp is so fried! In addition to that, they have electric lights as well, to cover the other angles that are missed by the mirrors and the sun. It is very bright down there!!
Friday, 2 June 2000
10:45pm
etiring. I am retiring from the MTV beach house for a while. I'm just too beat up by all the sun, the reflected sun, the loud music, the constant yelling, screaming, cheering, constant pushing and shoving and the long hours. But I did get on Tuesday's show. Eminem reclaimed the #1 spot, N'Sync fell all the way back to #3, and Backstreet Boys got #2. And there were even more ridiculous "live" phone calls. Some person "called in", claiming to be from Kentucky. Carson was like "so what do you do out there in Kentucky" and the guy was like "Nothing. There's nothing to do in Kentucky, you know, it's all farmland."
Um. I really don't think that's what somebody from Kentucky would actually say about Kentucky. I mean, it's such an obvious stereotype. I've seen Canadians pop veins in their heads trying to convince me that it wasn't all cold and snowy there (even though it is). They want to defend their homeland against those negative stereotypes to the death. I don't see why someone from Kentucky would feel any different.
Anyway. I didn't get into the second show, they weren't letting people from the first show into the second one today... too many people around for the second one. Oh well, I don't think I could have handled it. I mean, my legs were more burnt than I had previously thought, so I wore pants again. Anyway, all I want to do now is be in a quiet, dark room. Which I am now. Which is the exact opposite of where I've been all week.
If one good thing did come out of this whole experience, my sleep schedule has gained some regularity. I mean, I've been waking up at 8:30 every day this week. Today I woke up at 8:24, without my alarm going off or anything. And it's 10:30 and I'm getting tired already. Hopefully the days of sleeping at 5am are over for me!!
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