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Im Fired!On the road with The ApprenticeREBECCA SCHOENKOPFPublished on June 30, 2005Photo by John GilhooleyOkay, so I wasn't at my best at the bright, shiny hour of pre-9 Saturday morning when I made it to Huntington Beach to audition for TheApprentice. After all, I'd been out with LongTallGinathe night before, at a Newport Beach wine bar and then at LeQuaion the Peninsula, and while the first place was a nightmare (including but not limited to the bar manager, who, in a misguided and wholly unprofessional attempt to sidle up to us, mocked for our benefit other patrons and then told us he'd "tap" me before he "tapped" Gina, because he'd sooner "tap" a Jewish girl "with big boobs" than a French woman, and who padded the bill with an extra snifter of Sauterneswhile he was at it, at $60 per warmed shot, and who should be fired? Heshould be fired) and the second place was lovely—an incredible Modernist, indoor/outdoor-hybrid restaurant, all wood and concrete right on the marina—but everyone spoke only French while I smiled pleasantly and drowned myself in champagne for going on three hours, picking out the occasional word (mostly fromageand, I think, syphilis), and finally, about five minutes before we left, I started answering everybody in German, which I thought was hilarious but Gina said was outrageously rude (which is ridiculous), and we got in a big fight (our first!), and I accused her of always making it TheGinaShowand I'm sure she accused me of something or other as well (oh, that's right: outrageous rudeness), and then I think she felt bad but we're still totally friends—it was just a squabble!—and we didn't get home till going on two, and then in the morning my head, she hurt!, and I was dry—how dry I was!—but I still made it out of the damn house in my swell and sorta-maybe-kind-of-could-be-pulled-off-as-"professional" black polyester '80s shirt-dress that didn't breathe in the pits but even at all!, and got there, indeed, pre-9, and then schmoozed for a while after I cut in line (just to show off that requisite "businessperson" cut-throatedness) with some former Weeklyfolks, and telling them about my fight, and they totally agreed with me, or at least claimed to, maybe so I wouldn't start fighting with them instead. So maybe I wasn't at my best, and I was getting steadily jacked on coffee too. * * * Sure, I was just auditioning for The Apprenticefor work—you know, "Hey, here's what it's like to audition for TheApprenticeblah blah blibbity blah." But here's a dirty little secret for you: I would freaking loveto be on The Apprentice! I would! I mean, it's not like I would accept the job redecorating Trump's office once I won (and make no mistake, fool, about who would triumph!), but it'd be fun to turn it down. Nicely, and politely, of course, because I'm totally like that. * * * So we're in our "group interviews," where eight of us in suits (or polyester '80s shirt-dresses, as the case may be) try to show off our wit, shark-like-ness, can-do attitudes and shiny teeth while expounding on such topics as "Should a Business Be Able to Dictate Its Workers' Personal Lives?" (In a breathtakingly beautiful pander to Mr. Trump, I say "yes.")
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