So, what to do with that presence thing? Well, you not only have to look good in person, but you have to have a walk. And if you haven't figured out yet, the judges are thinking of one thing when they see people walk. Nothing less than fierce will do. Who do you call when you are trying to improve a walk. Why Ms. J. Alexander of course. The girls were called out to the Los Angeles Coliseum, home of the 1984 Olympics and home of the National Champion USC Trojans. Being in a rather ghetto part of Los Angeles, the girls wouldn't feel like they were too far away from their loft.

Ms. J, who greeted them in a cheerleader's outfit (and a male cheerleader's outfit to boot), had not one, but two tasks for the girls to help them with their walk. The first was simple enough - put on some chunky platform shoes and walk back and forth down the yard line. Some of the girls have some good talent in this area already, including Keenyah, Rebecca, and Brandi. Then there are the girls who aren't quite so natural, including Michelle ,who Ms. J said looked like she had spina bifida. It's hard for me to speak ill of somebody named Sarah, but you know that something is wrong whenever the show plays clown music when you are trying to walk.

Once the functional parts of the walk were out of the way, it came time to work an accessory with some high heels. The twist was the high heels were placed in some random location in the stadium. They could be anywhere in the stands, and the girls had to find them before they could move on to the next task. EVERYBODY is learning from the Amazing Race these days.

The girls ran around the stadium for a little while before finding their shoes (all of them were in the same location), and got a change to take a look at their accessories. I am sure that some of them were thinking necklace, earrings, bracelets, hand bags. You know, the normal stuff. Instead the girls had to choose among things baseball bat, a golfing bag, a football, and a hockey stick. The key was that you have to take anything you are given, and make it look completely natural on you. Once again, Michelle and Sarah were the worst. Michelle looks really strange and awkward, but Sarah simply looked like she was miserable, and seemed to be oblivious to the fact that her walk lacked energy and took a long time to finish. If Sarah's walk was a party, I would be off in the corner watching two turtles do the nasty in their tank (that actually happened to me in Santa Monica once).

Last year, team "Pink Positive" won a lot of hearts with their upbeat attitudes and happy to be here approach to the game. This year, everybody is being very friendly. Sarah was getting runway tips from Keenya, and everybody is together taking turns at throwing poses. What we need is some animosity to make things interesting.

The Tyra mail came and told the girls to be ready for the next challenge at 6:45 AM. For a town that doesn't get anything done before 10 AM, this is a huge request. We sort of had an idea that it had something to do with runway because J. Alexander doesn't just show up for nothing. We just didn't know where the girls would be shipped off to and what the challenge would be. The destination turned out to be K-Mart, and the challenge was a runway battle, although it lacked much of the emotional depth and raw energy of that scene from Zoolander. To add a little more pressure, the girls would go head to head against each other to determine the Queen of the Strut.

Rebecca was determined to take this thing from the start. Although she doesn't have the verbatim lookalike quality of Reese Witherspoon, she is fairly close. She's sort of like Reese Witherspoon once removed. Besides the fee they received for the product placement of K-mart all over the place, there was a semi-practical reason for the whole mess. The girls had just learned how to walk with random things, and so they were at it again. They also got to meet their first guest judge. It came down to Rebecca and Naima, with Rebecca winning it in the end. Without Brita, Rebecca has to be seen as the front runner. She's been taking good pictures and she does have that walk.

For her win, Rebecca got to pick five friends for a reward. The six girls got a chance to go shoe shopping at famous shoe designer Stuart Weitzman. To make it even better, the other girls weren't just going to go back to the loft and complain about not winning or getting picked. They were going to complain and wait on the winners hand and foot (I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waiter). Right on cue, a simple act sure to cause jealousy and resentment throughout the loft.

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Posted by J-Unit on March 17, 2005 12:33 AM