August 31, 1999
MTV Open Casting Call at Champions
4 p.m.

I start my trip to the open casting call for MTV’s ninth season of “The Real World” and “Road Rules” with good journalistic intentions. I will throw myself onto the casting couch to find out what it feels like to be one of the rejected twenty-somethings of the MTV generation. Or I might experience what it is like to live in a phat house (or motor home) with seven strangers.

As I arrive at Champions, a bar and restaurant at 1206 Wisconsin Ave., music blares from a local radio station’s party van. The place wasn’t too hard to find because, as my astute friend notes, “loud music equals cool.”

I walk up to the front of the line of hopeful “Real World”-ers and obtain a questionnaire, which serves as my r?sum? for the MTV interview. The questions that will distinguish the MTV elite from average college kid include: Do you have a boyfriend? Where does the relationship stand? What is the best advice someone gave you? What is the most important issue facing you today? What is your most embarrassing moment?

As a graduating senior in the spring, I feel thankful I won’t be discussing any of MTV’s “The Real World” questions in a real-world job interview.

As I fill out the questionnaire at the back of the line, the guy behind me wants to compare answers.

“What was your most embarrassing moment?” asks Mike, a 24-year-old butcher from Fairfax, Va. Without giving me a pause to respond he begins, “Mine was when I was in junior high and I farted and everyone laughed.”

I decline to share my embarrassing moment with Mike, but I do loan him my pen as I ponder the most important issue facing me today.

“I think the most important issue facing me today is getting a new car because I totaled my old one last month,” Mike says.

Just then, a super-trendy MTV lackey straight out of Urban Outfitters comes up to me and jots the number 216 on my hand.

“About how many people have been here today?” I ask.

“What number do you have on your hand?” she queries. I look down.

“Two hundred and fifteen people have been here today,” she says, as I note my brilliant investigative reporting. “You have about a half an hour until your interview from this point,” she says like I’m waiting in line for a ride at Disneyland.

“See, I should be on `The Real World’ because I see things, simply, as they are,” says Mike, the butcher. “I study martial arts, so I believe in living life with simplicity. I got soul.” As he talks, I strain to hear if my number is called.

“I read people really well,” he continues. “You have a lot on your mind.”

I admit I’m excited for the interview and a bit nervous. I’ll also admit I watch a lot of “The Real World.” I remember when Puck got kicked out of the San Francisco house and when John got to be a country-western singer in Los Angeles. I even had a crush on Eric during the first season, before he became an MTV VJ and made those exercise videos. Could I be on the “The Real World” and still remain a Hatchet editor?

Finally Mike and I are called upstairs, dashing my visions of a trendy MTV office with lots of video monitors and leopard print pillows. The casting couch turns out to be folding chairs.

Sasha, my interviewer and MTV casting director, asks six of us to sit down. She looks exhausted. I wonder how, after talking to 200 people that day, she will remember any of us. When she opens her mouth, it’s obvious she’s just going through the motions.

“Do you think the world is going to end after the year 2000?” she asks. About half the table votes yes.

“The world is really going to end on Cinco de Mayo, because all the planets will be aligned,” Mike says, semi-convincingly.

Then Sasha asks if we have ever damaged our parents’ cars and lied about it. Everyone at the table owns up to dinging the family vehicle at one point in time. Mike looks sad as he remembers his totaled car.

After a couple more questions, we hand in our questionnaires and are quickly rushed out of the building. The whole interview takes 10 minutes.

So far, I’m still waiting for that second call-back from MTV. But even if it never comes, the day wasn’t a total waste. Mike the butcher promised he’d hook me up with some cold cuts.