Okay, as many of you know, your intrepid reporter loves to play poker. I’ve had a good deal of success at it over the last couple of years and would love to hit it big time someday. You know those guys that win a big WPT event on TV and you never see them again? I would have absolutely no problem being one of those guys. To play under the bright lights at the final table, just once, would be a dream come true.
Seeing that I don’t have the bankroll, or time really either, to try to slug out satellite tourneys at Foxwoods or buy directly in, I figured that this would have to remain a dream for a while. Then I saw something on Fox Sports called “The Best Damn Poker Show.” It stars world champion Phil Hellmuth and superstar Annie Duke as team captains in a reality TV type of setting. They play down to a final table and have teams and there’s plenty of back-and-forth between the two captains. It makes for good TV and some decent TV poker too. I have it on my TiVo season pass list and have seen them all so far.
So I was watching it last week when I saw they are accepting audition videos for the next season. I couldn’t help myself, I had to do it. Why not? It’s worth a try, right. I’ve got charisma and poker skill, and at least average looks.
My biggest hurdle, though, was coming up with a camera to make the video. My video camera is not digital, we got it like eight years ago. There’s no way that I have to be able to record something and then get in onto the computer. So, I had to borrow one.
Our awesome sales manager at The Enterprise, Chris Avis, came through and said he’d lend me his new camera, a great Sony gizmo that records directly to DVD. I thought I was in business, and I recorded one that I was happy with. Then I tried to get the thing onto the net and just couldn’t do it. Every time that I put the disc into my computer it claimed there was nothing on the disc, but I could somehow play it on the camera. I was more confused that Chris Webber at the end of a big game.
Then I Googled the specific camera to find out that I was not alone. Apparently this is something that happens quite a bit with that particular camera. The good news, I wasn’t entirely crazy. However, I was still out of luck and in need of a camera and time was winding down. The deadline to get the video in is tomorrow, after all.
But, my ace in the hole, Aaron, came through. As you might remember, Aaron and I were in Boston the other day for the Celtics game and I hooked my boy up and got us onto the court for pregame and we had a photo taken of the proceeding. It’s currently my wallpaper on this laptop. His little digital camera has a video mode, and it actually works pretty well. I sped over to his job and picked it up on Friday afternoon, with a 12-hour window to get it done.
So I started recording videos on Friday night around 10 PM. Take after take after take and finally I got one that I thought was in league with the one I had before. My plan was simple, tell them who I am, what I do, why I want this, and why I can get it done. All of that, plus I wanted to keep it to around 2-3 minutes. Anything more drones on. Also, I wanted to make sure it didn’t look too much like a hostage tape.
I showed the clip i was happiest with to Lyra, to get her point of view, and she wasn’t overly thrilled with it. “I liked the other one better, and our room is too messy.”
I didn’t even notice that the bed was only 3/4 made, and didn’t think it really mattered. But, if she wasn’t totally digging it, it wasn’t good enough.
So I waited until everyone went to bed, and then tried again. It took about another 10 takes to get one that i was remotely happy with. I’d end up speaking too quickly, trip over my words and then let out a cuss word. While it would have been funny to release that one (and maybe they’ll show up on the Director’s Cut one day), it wasn’t going to make it.
Finally, around 1 AM, I got one that I could live with. I don’t think it’s awesome by any means, but it gets the job done. I hit all of my points, and lay out a convincing enough argument to consider me for the show. This isn’t Survivor or Big Brother, it isn’t like I’m up against millions for a spot, just hundreds (I hope).
The following is my audition. I know many of you will probably just laugh. First of all, to add to the hilarity, I had no help, so that’s why there is a three second gap at the beginning. I would have cut that gap out, but the editing suite I downloaded was a trial edition and would have had a message across the top to buy the whole one if I posted it. That too might have been funny, but a tad too unprofessional, more than the 3-second gap at least.
And, I’m wearing pajama pants. You can’t see them, but I was wearing maroon PJ pants with reindeer on them. I threw the nice shirt over the T-shirt I was wearing.
Anyways, here you go. I’m sure Eagle One, or one of my other readers will have interesting comments, but I wanted to share it nonetheless. Hopefully I’ll be the one having the last laugh when I jet out to LA to film the show. That would be unbelievable. My fingers are crossed. That’s the funny thing. In poker you don’t want things to come down to luck, but in this case I think it will have to. Hope you’re rooting for me. I am.
The views and opinions in the Enterprise blogs are those of the author and are not neccessarily shared by Falmouth Publishing.
No comments? How can that be??? The three second gap is not nearly as cool as the crash at the end!
I am rooting for ya Rich!!!
Elle