11 july 2000
i was really on the jerry springer show
I was really on the Jerry Springer Show. Lately, I've had a few people ask me if the photo on my splash page is for real, so I may as well come clean and tell you that it is. I have a high-speed camera, and Gramma and Grampa have a large-screen tv, so it was easy enough to snap a few photos to send everyone in last year's Christmas card. Attending a Springer taping was definitely one of the funnest things I did last December.
Before I moved from Chicago at the beginning of this year, I worked for a high-tech startup in the NBC Tower, right off of Michigan Avenue. We shared real estate with some pretty cool people, including the local NBC news team, Jenny Jones, Stedman Graham's sports marketing company, and of course Jerry Springer. Aside from the occasional run-in with Oprah's INCREDIBLY GORGEOUS AND WELL-DRESSED HOLY MOLY HUNK OF A BOYFRIEND, my daily encounter with a Springer audience was definitely the high point of my day.
I usually entered the NBC Tower from Columbus Avenue, which is considered the "back entrance", and is the only doorway the Tower management allows a Springer audience to congregate. And with good reason. There are plenty of regular folks who travel from afar to meet Jerry -- fraternity and sorority members, visiting couples who don't want to ascend the Sears Tower a fourth time, Japanese tourists who want to use up their final roll of film, and a few regular Chicagoans who just think it would be a hoot.
It is the Other People who make the back entrance a necessity.
They are loud. They are either missing teeth, or have their initials engraved on the front two. They wear fishnet hose and airbrushed t-shirts that say "I'm With Stupid", "Jerry Rulz", or "NASCAR Loves Jerry". They have mullet haircuts. They're smoking Dorals in the doorway. They have made a pilgrimage to see strippers. They didn't come all this way not to see some damn strippers, dammit. They are discussing the clever questions they will ask today's guests, like "why you so stoopid" and "I know you bought those shoes at Pic and Pay, skank".
I wanted to be part of that audience, in spite of my recurring Freaks movie nightmare where I'm drinking from the communal beer can and dancing on the table to their cries of "ONE OF US! ONE OF US!" I, too, wanted to see some strippers. Or pimps. Even some run-of-the-mill cheaters would have been okay. I wanted to clap my hands with the rest of them in a big, hooligan chorus--"Jer-RY! Jer-RY! Jer-RY!" I wanted to get in touch with my inner undesirable.
So I scored a few tickets, and became one of The People Who Must Use the Columbus Avenue Entrance. Before I even arrived at the studio, however, the show sent an information packet filled with (get this) RULES! Like, we were not to arrive wearing white shirts or anything with a logo. (They wanted us to look our best on national television.) The rest of the rules were pretty standard stuff. Leave the pagers, cellphones, videocameras and guns at home. Don't snack. Don't spit.
I guess following these high audience standards distinguished us from the guests.
Once there, we were each led through two metal detectors. Our bags and pockets were searched. We were then systematically herded upstairs to the Audience Holding Area, which was a big redneck nirvana. "Hey Wayne, look here! They gots Bugles in this vending machine! You want some?" There were also plenty of televisions to sedate everyone while the staff decided where each person would sit. Believe it or not, they do put quite a lot of thought into their audience seating arrangement. Considering the content of their show, this was one of the least chaotic events in which I've ever participated.
After an hour, we were finally led to the promised land. I stepped into the Jerry Springer Studio, and the preview for Too Hot for Television, Part II began to roll. Yeeeeeah, porn!
To be continued tomorrow. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, and each other.