Big Brother: Adventures in the Audience: Flipit Goes to Big Brother

I got a chance to check out the Big Brother taping today with B-Side. Come on in! I will have the recap of the show up in the AM. It was good, people. It was very good.

So yesterday, I get an email from our TV Patrol writer/Live Feed recapper Chooch asking if it’s true that tonight’s live episode won’t be live after all and will instead be taped early because Chia was threatening to lose her shit and curse up a storm if her nominations were overturned. My initial thought was “of course not! Chia’s all class!” I emailed B-Side, daddy of TVgasm, and one of my friends who works over at BB. They confirmed that the show was being taped early but neither knew why. B-Side told me he was going to be in the audience though, and since I can’t pass up a chance to giggle with him, I called my trusty BB friend and snagged a space. B-side and a Chia meltdown all at the same time? Add a stick of cream cheese and a guest appearance by Lucille Bluth and I would be in Heaven.

9:30 AM: Why the hell would I set my alarm clock so early? WHY? I have these goals before I go to bed about waking up early and going to the gym and flossing my teeth and shit, and guess what? Never happens. Well, the gym part. I do, in fact, floss. Snooze.

10:30 AM WHY THE HELL DIDN’T I SET MY ALARM CLOCK FOR EARLIER! I have to be across town in forty five minutes or I will embarrass the friend who got me a ticket and be locked out of CBS for life. Jump out of bed, take the dog downstairs. Bitch turned thirteen this week, which you would think means she could poop on command like most 91 year olds. Nope. She sniffed the grass for close to ten minutes and only pooped when I threatened euthanasia. It’s hard to imagine that a dog would know what that word means, but that threat works every time.

I’ve got a syringe in my pocket.

Aaaand….poop.

11 AM Should I be on the freeway right now? Yes. But if I don’t have my venti iced nonfat one pump no ice mocha every morning I turn bipolar. So I am in line, listening to a Tom Jones remix. My ears feel molested. How many ways can one man make money off “Do You Think I’m Sexy?”? I think this is like the twelfth time he’s released that shit. And yes, Tom. You are sexy. Now please learn a new song. And people, when you are in line at Starbux, decide which fucking muffin you want so you know when you get to the front. Some of us are late, k?

11:10 Rush Limbaugh is explaining why he called Nancy Pelosi a Nazi. LOL. I should really do this whole morning thing more often.

11:15 There is a long line of cars in line at CBS and I HATE lines. I am still traumatized by the Russian crack whore taking five minutes to decide on a zucchini walnut muffin at Starbux. I park on the street in a two hour zone, cuz really how long can this take?

11:17 Security guard lady asks if I have a phone or camera. Why, yes, both! No? But I’m a doctor!! The look she gave me was so rude. What about me doesn’t say doctor? Everything? K BRB.

11:19 As I get back to my car, I wonder why a doctor would have an excuse to bring a camera to a show taping. That was a dumb lie.

11:22 OK after a cigarette (that lying and putting the camera back thing was tiring) I’m back in the parking garage, and unamused security lady points me toward a long ass LINE! NOOOOO! Don’t you people know who I am? Oh, yeah. I’m no one. SHIT.

I get to the back of the line and as luck would have it, I’m behind a giant, and I mean GIANT, lesbian and her two tiny friends. The only place in this town you can find an authentic, dykish mullet is at a Big Brother taping. I asked if this was just the security checkpoint or the line to get in and she gave me a severe frown and shook her head. Hey, piss off roller derby. I didn’t want to be an outright diva and squeeze to the front of the line that wrapped up the stairwell, so I was a covert diva and took the elevator up two flights of stairs and walked down one. Sorry, but there’s no way I’m spending a half hour stuck anywhere near that woman. My friend put me on the list. Thank you friend. That woman was scary.

11:26 YAY! Line averted! I checked in at another table where two PA guys (who were totally husband material) sat. They took my picture. They took everyone’s picture, but for a moment I pretended it was just me and made lots of Julia Roberts laughing poses. They looked at each other like they were deciding whether to ignore me or take five and beat the crap out of me. They sent me off to fill out a confidentiality agreement and a questionnaire. Thankfully, this next line was one that was lined with benches so I could sit my fat ass down. You know why I never leave my house in the day? CUZ IT’S HOT!

How many times a week do I watch Big Brother? 3. Do I have live feeds? No. Do I have After Dark? No. Do I have a life? No. That question wasn’t really on there, but the rest of the questionnaire really makes you ask yourself that. I gave my real address and phone number, cuz Jessie’s totally gonna call me one day you guys.

B-side is still nowhere to be seen. Damn him he better not stand me up. We actually didn’t have plans to come together in the first place, so I guess it wouldn’t be standing me up, but irrational anger can be fun and I’m totes bored. Weird not having a cell phone to text or read the internet or basically just avoid people. Like I always say, if you can’t avoid em, judge em. There’s a lady next to me talking enthusiastically about how she and her son are known as “that mother and son team!” cuz they come to the tapings all the time. What a catchy nickname. I suppose the BB staff is too polite to say “that crazy bitch and her twitchy kid are here AGAIN.” Next to her is an older guy with a Spanish gay accent, a bright pink shirt, and little tortoise shell glasses cuz he’s smart. “Jew know da gayme ees so eenteeenze dees jear! Eeed ees like washing chase!” It took me a minute to figure out he was comparing Big Brother to chess. I hate when people do that. It’s like comparing ding dong slapping to fencing.

OMG there’s a guy who looks just like Blind Guy from American Idol!!! I want to get his autograph. He is laughing and smiling very animatedly, like he thinks cameras are all around him. I can’t stop staring at him and smiling. He probably thinks I’m in love with him. Cuz, unlike the guy from American Idol, this Blind Guy isn’t blind.

I swear to you he looked just like this.

B-Side arrives with his friend IndianJones!! I make a beeline towards them. They were trying to fill out their paperwork and I was like OMG YOU GUYS good to see you isn’t this crazy you watching tv what are you watching omg it’s so good to be around PEEEOPLEEEEE. B-side actually had to say, yeah I’m gonna finish up this paperwork. HAHA. I kept talking. IndianJones is a little quiet. Probably cuz last time I saw him I got drizunk and told him how pretty his eyelashes were and I couldn’t stop staring at him and if he went to a bear bar he’d get a husband in a second cuz he’s a big slab of beef. Why do I act like such an ass? WHY? I make a conscious effort to stand at least three feet from him. Luckily, he’s wearing sunglasses to I can’t stare at his eyes. Well played, IndianJones.

We had fun making fun of Real Housewives of Atlanta and catching up. B-side’s hoping Chima loses her shit today, and we both hope Jessie gets shitcanned. Then I try to get him as obsessed as I am about Blind Guy. Still can’t stop staring, and he’s still acting like he’s playing to the balcony. We get to move in to the backlot, which is always exciting cuz I think I’m gonna finally meet Sandra Bullock and become her best friend and call at three in the morning when my car’s towed. No? Well, Nicole Sullivan’s here and she’s cute. She’s pregnant? Or is that prosthetic? Not realizing that I will be asking myself that a lot tonight…

BB has a pretty big staff, and that Grodner hires some pretty cute stagehands. The cutest one is talking to Nicole and smiling and putting his foot on a truck bumper looking all interested. I want to kill Nicole Sullivan right now. And just when I thought we couldn’t complain about the heat any more, we’re let in! Hallelujah! Oooh, the set is so much nicer than it was last year, when there were fake dusty gnarly flowers all over the walls. The chairs? Still terrifying.

LA has a way of making you feel super fat as it is, but these seats are downright evil. IndianJones is a big strong (gorgeous lovely) man, and I’m a chunky bastard. So of course B-Side sat right in the middle of us. Poor thing!! We had no choice but to sit with my left arm flab covering his right pec like a rubber blanket. I owe you a coke, man. Sorry about that.

Karma got me back real quick. The dude next to me is built like a Mac truck. I sat kinda sideways the whole time. Guy was massive. And warm. And I felt a little love coming from him at points. Kidding about that, it was just gross. The place fills up, and the warm up guy comes out and does his thing. I give the Heavens a silent thank you for letting us play a quiz show, cuz audience warm ups can be painfully awkward. Ellen DeGenerous makes you dance. A friend came in town and I thought about what it would be like to be in the middle of this:

and said “uh no. But we have great movie theaters!” BB treats their audience to a quiz show. Warm Up Guy is the same one as last time, and he’s kind of a perv. He picks on all the girls he wants to bang, and then a few normal people in between just so no one accuses him of being a perv. B-side and I make fun of the people who go up to play, cuz that’s what you do. You may win a t-shirt, but you also subject yourself to silent but penetrating public ridicule. Blind Guy is a couple rows down from us, and every time a question is asked, he nods his head very seriously and puts his finger on his chin and then smiles real big and makes bug eyes. This guy is a trip, and finally B-side is laughing at him with me. Probably just to get me to stop pointing and guffawing so openly.

There is this Wispy Guy sitting in front of us who’s just all over the place. He claps wildly and moves his head a lot for no reason. I know that description didn’t make much sense, but I don’t wanna call the guy retarded and get an inbox full of hate mail. Wait. I just did. Sorry. I only have this grainy pic of him now, but you can totally see it.

Now imagine his head bobbing up and down maniacally.

He kept making us giggle, but not in an evil way. In more of a “aw isn’t he precious?” kinda way. He gets to go up and play and he wins a shirt! He takes it like he’s accepting his first Emmy, and it’s adorable. In a sad forlorn kinda way. I keep raising my hand, but I don’t think I’m gonna get called cuz I’m whispering and laughing through the whole thing. I didn’t get called (what. Ever.), but B-Side did! He was asked who he thought would win, and he gave a fairly in-depth analysis about how Russell could pull through and might not be as dumb as he seems. LOL. I love that B-side can turn any opportunity into a talking head segment on CNN Entertainment. He wins a shirt. I try not to be jealous, but it doesn’t work. When he sits back down I feel way less guilty about the arm flab blanket I’m covering him with.

The Warmup Guy asks who we want to go home. Everyone applauds loudly at Jessie’s name. HAHAH. Perfect. Quiz show over. Now it’s time to get trained by the Audience Trainer. I’m not kidding. Here’s how to clap! If you don’t smile when you clap, you look insane, you guys. He makes one side of the audience clap without smiling to prove his point. It was our side of the audience, and this guy is making it very easy to applaud while scowling. It feels natural to me. We learned that clapping rapidly is better than clapping loudly, and also how to fade a clap out. Jesus. Are we getting scale for this bullshit or what? Bring on the bot!

After about five to ten minutes of clap practice, this really old guy with big dentures comes in smiling and I think “YAY! A JERRY GUEST APPEARANCE!” Nope. Just Len Moonves. Kidding, Les! I’m still totally interested in doing that remake of The Nanny for you. Show that Fran Drescher skank how it’s done! Call me! He’s there to support his hot ass wife, Miss Julie Chen, which is cute. And here she is! She’s got her hair swept up today and is wearing a dress that looks like one of those chimney blow things. What are those things called ? I ask B-Side what a chimney blow thing is and he shrugs and holds his shirt tight to his chest in case I’m just trying to distract him with stupidity in order to get that damn shirt. Chen’s hot and super preggers. Why aren’t her boobs big? They should have grown. Something’s fishy. Well, baby robots don’t need milk I guess, so I just ignore it.

We promise to clap properly and not try to stare at ourselves in the monitors, and we’re off!! I’m going over the actual episode in the recap, so join me in the morning for that. During commercials, we talked about how Julie was wearing stiletto platforms while pregnant. How can that be comfortable? Or good for the baby? If there even is a baby! No pregnant woman would wear those shoes. I’m being silly, I know, cuz even if it’s just a bot baby, it’s still a baby. It counts. Being in the crowd was really really fun, and hearing people root against Jessie was wonderful. YAY BB!

Early Show Interview:

So wow. Jessie acted like a douchebag. Shocker! His exit interview for the Early Show was just amazing. He couldn’t put one single sentence together and said “more so” randomly like twenty times. He has a paranoid delusion that America voted for Jeff to get the power just to get rid of him. Why? Cuz America hates him. WAAAH. This seems very true, cuz as he talks the audience is sniggering and guffawing.

Every time Julie asks him a question (one of which was “why did you sleep thirteen hours a day instead of playing harder?” HAHAHAH), Blind Guy nods and reflects as if he’s being interviewed. This guy is relentless. He’s nodding and squinting intently like Jessie’s stuttering and um-ing is super intelligent.

At one point, Jessie says something like “you know how it it is. You throw noodles at a brick wall and only one’s gonna stick.” Indeed, Jessie. Indeed. He calls Jeff’s move “brilliant” a bunch and tries not to spill bile everywhere. Doesn’t work. When he’s done, he raises his hands in triumph and leaves without looking back at Chendra or the audience. And it’s better that way. Cuz in real life? His ears are really giant and I always want to remember him like this: