I was watching The Apprentice on Sunday and the contestants had to create an ad for South African tourism. Lil Jon was excited because he wanted to do something exciting about safaris. After all, that is what most people think of when they consider going on a vacation to South Africa. However, the South African Tourism people did not want to focus on that. They wanted to focus on things people don’t immediately think of, like vineyards and golf.
Personally I think that is a mistake. If I want a wine and golf vacation I can stay in the United States and skip the twelve-hour international flight. I can also skip the jet lag, the language barrier, the twelve-hour international flight home, the jet lag on the trip home, the lost luggage, etc, etc, etc.
And there is this: During The Apprentice, Gary Busey repeated ( and repeated and repeated) to the South African executives how years ago, when he was shooting a film in Johannesburg, he heard some people being murdered right behind his hotel.
That did not go over well with anyone.
South Africa has been spending a lot of money lately to promote their part of the world. Here in NYC, they sponsor the traffic reports on the all-news station I listen to during my drive to work. However, I am not their target audience. They are aiming at an upscale (and specifically white) demographic that has never considered traveling to South Africa. The attractions they focus on are:
– Golf -Wine -The Nelson Mandela Museum -Beautiful sunsets – Street festivals
Take out the Mandela museum, and what is on that list that I can’t do in almost any other country of the world? To be fair, one of the people in the radio ad does say there is nothing like hearing a lion roar up close, but on the other hand, I heard lions roar in The Bronx Zoo, The London Zoo, and The San Diego Zoo. And what is a nature preserve in Africa but a bigger zoo?
However, although I think their focus may be misguided, there is a particular part of the radio ad that I truly believe the South African tourism board really needs to rethink. I can’t find it online, and I have not managed to make a recording of it, so I’ll have to describe it to you as best I can.
The premise of the ad is that a man and a woman are describing their recent South African vacation, but there was so much to do that they only have time to talk about their top five favorite things. The couple’s voices and their interests are very, very, stereotypically white. You just know they are the kind of people whose idea of rocking out is to put on some James Taylor and then fall asleep to his sonorous tones. (I’ve seen fire, I’ve seen rain….sssnnnnnzzzzzz.) For an exciting evening they drink an extra glass of wine, watch John Stewart, and phone in a donation to PBS. They may even read a ribald article in The New Yorker.
Anyway, they list the first few things they loved: golf, wine, sunsets, The Mandela Museum. You know, all the stuff people want to see in South Africa, not the wild animals or nature preserves. Not the savannah or native villages. You know, stuff like golf, which I can do right here at home, and wine, which I can get right here at home, and sunsets, which I can see right here at home (or anywhere else in the world- they have the sun in the North Pole too, just not every day.)
I do admit that I can only see The Nelson Mandela Museum in South Africa, but truth be told, I wouldn’t go there anyway. There are plenty of museums in NYC I haven’t been to either.
(And just as an aside, did you see there is a reality show about Nelson Mandela’s family? What a way to honor your family legacy, Mandelas. You should be so proud. They fight and argue and act stupid like every other stupid reality show. One granddaughter says “when I spend money it has my grandfather’s picture on it!” Ladies and gentlemen, brains like that do not come around every day.)
But to get back to the radio commercial, there is still one highlight to go. I’ll try to recreate it as best I can.
VERY WHITE SOUNDING MAN: You know, you really impressed me when you joined the Soweto Street Party and learned the latest local dances. VERY WHITE SOUNDING WOMAN: You weren’t so bad yourself. I didn’t know you had moves like that. VERY WHITE SOUNDING MAN: You didn’t know you married a Zulu Warrior, did you? BOTH: HA HA HA HA HA!
Does anyone else see a problem here? Did you catch it?
Go back and reread it.
And now I will rephrase it for you.
WHITE WOMAN: You weren’t so bad yourself. I didn’t know you could dance so well. WHITE MAN: You didn’t know you married a black man, did you?
Get it? When she compliments his dancing and his rhythm, he compares himself to a black man.
And never mind the fact that the proud history of the Zulu Nation has been dumbed down to them simply being great dancers.
BTW- until I googled it for this post, I was sure he said “Sweater” Street Party.
This could all be attributed to some dumb USA ad agency at work. God knows they create enough dumb ads, but as seen on The Apprentice, the people in charge of the tourism board are a pair of South African women. They really ought to have known better.
Donald Trump with the brains behind South African Tourism.
In honor of the return of Donald Trump and his ego, I represent my take on the cast of The Celebrity Apprentice All-Stars. A lot has happened since this originally ran back in October. However, not a single bit of it matters EXCEPT THIS:
Yeppers, that’s Dennis Rodman and North Korean lunatic Kim Jong Un. I HOPE AND PRAY that he convinces Kim to appear on the next season of Celebrity Apprentice.
Also this week, Mr. Blog favorite Paul Teutul showed up and bought a meatball, Brett Michaels got fired, and Omarosa continued to be her usual crappy self. (And if you are expecting a weekly rundown this season, sorry, that’s it.)
From October 17, 2012
This time around, Donald Trump will feature a roster of all-stars from previous editions of his show. This is a problem. There are rarely any legitimate celebrities on this show, so can he really make a team of all-stars? And this being Donald Trump, will he simply fill it with busty models who’ve appeared on the show? That what I would do.
Well he didn’t, and I won’t sulk about it. But If the Donald can rerun contestants then I can rerun my descriptions of them. I’ll post my original comments along with my updated opinions.
A Baldwin.
The Baldwins are pretty much all the same nowadays. A Baldwin, by definition, is a poor actor, who is addicted to drugs, alcohol, or drugs and alcohol, and his best years are behind him. Other than Alex, or Alec, who cares, a Baldwin doesn’t need a first name as they are all pretty much the same guy. While this Baldwin was on The Celebrity Apprentice another Baldwin was on Celebrity Rehab and it was hard to tell which was which. This particular Baldwin (Antonio? Eugene?) had replaced his drug addiction with a Jesus addiction. Despite the fact that Jesus had clearly abandoned him (why else would he be on The Celebrity Apprentice?) he stuck to his religious guns. At least he did whenever it helped him. The guy was such a hypocrite that he made your typical democratic candidate seem electable.
Well a lot of time has passed and as I look back at Billy Baldwin’s time on the show I am left with one thought: He was on the show? I don’t remember a single thing about him.
Trace Adkins.
Before this show I never heard of him. Pretty soon I’ll have forgotten him. He’s a country star, maybe one of the biggest. What that means to us in NYC is that we’ve never heard of him. New York radio is run by brain-dead chimpanzees. For example, for years and years there was a radio station called WCBS-FM. They played oldies from the 50’s to the 80’s and pretty much everyone’s father or grandfather listened to it in the car. I was one of those kids in the back of one of those cars so I can name more Four Seasons hits than hits by anyone who recorded from 1990 onward. The station made so much money that the guys in charge changed it to something called “Jack.” The theory was, apparently, if ain’t broke, let’s break it. Jack was pretty much the same fourteen songs over and over, broken up only by a pre-recorded DJ bragging about how they never played the same songs over and over. And a couple of years later WCBS was back. K-Rock was a rock (duh) station with good ratings and money coming in. So they turned it into a “hot talk” station filled with talk shows that no one heard of and fewer listened too. If Jim Jones were broadcasting on K-Rock his Kool-Aid would have stayed in the pitcher. In fact, it was rumored that K-Rock regularly broadcast Eliot Spitzer’s phone calls to his prostitute but because no one ever listened it took two more years for the scandal to break. So the rock music is back. There are a lot of stations in NYC all playing the same music but not a single one plays country. Country is one of the biggest formats in the country, yet here in NYC I can’t hear a single banjo, harmonica, or steel guitar. (Not that I want too.) I can hear The Milkshake Song on a dozen stations but anything from south of the Mason-Dixon line may as well be broadcast on FAA frequencies. But, bringing it back to Trace Adkins, he’s tall and quiet and hates to take off his cowboy hat. He must be bald.
A lot has changed since then. K-Rock has dropped rock-again, grrr- and is now some typical pop music station. Eliot Spitzer has kept a low profile and his new baby is somewhat softening his douchbag image. Trace Adkins? Still invisible in New York.
Dennis Rodman
LIL JON
A picture is worth a thousand words. Or more in this case. I’m dying to see him interact with The Donald. Need I mention that he’s a rapper? That’s close enough to a singer to bring the musical total up to five so far.
Lil Jon impressed me on the show, so much that I went out of my way to listen to his latest single and wow, it is so full of profanity and pornography that if Trump heard it his hair would stand on end, which would be an improvement.
LISA RINNA
Lisa Rinna is best known for once being relevant. I take that back. She is best known for her huge disgusting lips from botched plastic surgery. Seriously, she’s hideous. She recently had a show on TVLand where she underwent surgery to fix them. Let’s hope this was taped after, not before.
Since the show, Lisa Rinna has… has… um, let’s move on.
GARY BUSEY
Once an actor, Gary Busey now makes a living panhandling. HA ha ha, I’m just kidding. But you were halfway believing me, weren’t you? This is from Wikipedia:
At Pinsky’s recommendation, Busey was seen at the facility by psychiatrist Dr. Charles Sophy. Sophy suspected that Busey’s brain injury has had a greater effect on him than realized. He described it as essentially weakening his mental “filters” and causing him to speak and act impulsively.
Remember The Golden Girls? He’s Sophia! The same thing happened to her: Sophia had suffered a massive stroke, which, on more than one occasion, was said to have destroyed the part of her brain that acted as a censor. Who says life doesn’t imitate art?
BTW- He did his own singing as The Big Bopper in The Buddy Holly story, so I’m counting him as Singer Number Eight, though I’m sure the closest he comes nowadays to holding a tune is watching TV.
His appearance on the show just solidified my opinion of him. He is a certified loony bird.
Claudia Jordan? Sorry, she was on the show? Are you sure she is a celebrity?
DEE SNIDER
He does not need this show. Twisted Sister does well enough without this show. Why is he here? He must have liked it when he guested last season. I only hope he wears his makeup to the boardroom..
It hasn’t been long since his time on the show ended. So what’s he been up to? He put out a cd of popular standards, like Mack the Knife. Yes, he really did.
PENN JILLETTE
This man is smart. Too smart to be on this show but you know what? He says he has wanted to be on this show for years. I expect he’s using this show just for material. He is much more than a magician but you can read about when I attended his Vegas show right here.
NEVER have I wanted to eat my words more than I do right now. Smart? No way, maybe he has knowledge but he has no common sense. His time on the show was marked by inaction and weakness. Great at what he does, horrible on The Apprentice. Why is he back? I have no idea.
Brett Michaels.
1983- Poison tops the charts. 2005- sex tape with Pamela Anderson 2008- MTV’s Rock of Love with Brett Michaels 2009- Michaels suffered a fractured nose and cut lip at the Tony Awards show after performing Poison’s song “Nothin’ but a Good Time.” When he turned to exit the stage, a descending piece of the set hit him in the head before he could duck under it, knocking him on his back. 2010- Celebrity Apprentice
And you know what? He won, and the show almost killed him. Literally. How will he do this season? I don’t know, but it is a miracle he is here to be on the show at all.
Brande Roderick
‘Nuff said. Thanks Donald.
Marilu Henner.
Remember the attractive redhead from Taxi? The one Judd Hirsh wanted to nail but was to wishy-washy to date? The same one that Danny DeVito wanted to slam upside down in his cage? Well this isn’t her. This is her maiden aunt with the same name and a craggy face. And she never stops talking. She’s like some eternally chirpy chipmunk who claims she wrote a book but no one believes her but they humor her anyway. But for my purposes, this nugget from her bio says it all for me: Henner started her professional acting career starring in the first national touring company of Grease, later appearing with the Broadway company. Can I never get away from that show? I reviewed Grease and, out of sheer sado-masochism, reviewed the sequel. Then I was forced to dredge it up again because the Curse of Grease, already hard at work on John Travolta, claimed another victim in Jeff Conaway, noted drug-abuser and former supporting character on Babylon 5, a show so good it doesn’t deserve to be mentioned on the same internet as The Celebrity Apprentice. Now here it pops up on Marilu Henner’s bio. That does explain a lot. Like why no one has heard of her in the last decade. But to be fair, her bio also mentions that Henner’s entire life is a testimony to the power of her approach to health. So here’s to her, her craggy face, and her scrawny body.
Since then what has she done? Lobbied to get back on The Apprentice, I suspect.
Omarosa
The nobody from season one returns. People hate her. I don’t mean that in the good way, like you love to hate a soap opera villain, I mean that in the you change the channel when you see her way. That’s the difference between good and bad heat. Take the WWF for example. The Undertaker was the biggest bad guy in wrestling and the fans hated him but paid good money to see him and boo him. Then there was X=Pac, a piece of garbage who was only on the roster thanks to his good buddy Triple H. He was hated by the fans too, but rather than pay a cent to see him they’d flip channels when he came on tv. Nobody could stand him. That’s Omarosa. No one wants to see her but Trump is pushing her. Why? No idea.
La Toya Jackson
Well, she claims she’s a singer, though I’d dispute it. What’s to be said about the member of the Jackson family that even Michael thought was weird? In addition to having about as messed up a face as Warwick, she also has her own Psychic Network. What does this tell me? It tells me that LaToya Jackson cannot lose The Apprentice! Would you enter a contest that you have psychically foreseen yourself losing? No way! She had to have had a vision of her winning it all!
I’d also like to add this scary nugget, courtesy of Wikipedia, currently celebrating ten years of helping students write bad term papers:
On January 10, 2007, the reality TV show Armed & Famous premiered on CBS starring Jackson and other celebrities. The program documented Jackson‘s basic training and service as a reserve police officer with the Muncie Police Department. Jackson maintains her badge by continuing to volunteer as a deputy. The show was eventually removed from the CBS lineup, due to its inability to compete with American Idol. VH1 subsequently aired the remaining episodes. On the show, Jackson demonstrated her phobia of cats, after she began hysterically screaming and locked herself in a squad car. This fear, she revealed, was caused by a childhood memory in which a relative was attacked by a cat. She underwent on-screen therapy to try to relieve her of this phobia.
She didn’t come off too good on the show, but the Jackson clan in general has been looking pretty bad since Michael. The fighting and backstabbing of The Apprentice will be a relief to her.
So there you go. My pick to win it all? I tossed a coin and it came up “anyone but Gary Busey.”
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
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