A Verizon Service Representative will be with you shortly. Thank you.
14:23:19 We apologize for the delay.You are next in the queue. A representative will be with you shortly.
My chat (pretending to be my father) with Verizon in the United States…annoying!!
Lauren(15:14:27):http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/FiOSTV/Channels/Channels.htm
You(15:46:52): wont ever leave your side
You(15:47:25): This is why I am speaking to you and wasting my time
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My experience going on a UK reality TV Show – completely plagiarized!
I haven’t posted in a long, long time…but this is changing in 2012 so stay tuned. This isn’t about traveling, and some of my new stories won’t be…but every day is a journey, isn’t it?
Yes, I’ve done it. I’ve kicked my bucket list and made it onto reality television. Finally. But not just finally, twice now. I think I may have an addiction.
This is the story of the 2nd show, the “Devil’s Dinner Party.”
Well…I have to say, this gent deserves full credit for describing the experience I had going on this show a few months back to a “T” albeit I can’t say I enjoyed the obnoxious interview process as much, and frankly found the teams completely unorganised and calling to ask the same questions over and over again umpteen times! That said, it was still a hilarious and thrilling experience…getting picked up in a private hire Black Mercedes from a business meeting (where I had to apologize for my more casual dinner wear attire by explaining I was about to go on a ridiculous reality TV show!) to hide around corners avoiding other contestants and eventually getting into my own little studio where I too crushed all available Haribo and had man-makeup put on me before entering the labyrinthical passages at Teddington Studios and ultimate filming this show. I did well, but didn’t win!!
“The dream was, of course, Come Dine With Me but it didn’t happen. He’s how I survived the The Devil’s Dinner Party selection process…
The dream was to appear on Come Dine With Me. To be critiqued by the mighty Dave Lamb, to devise and cook an incredible menu, to host an enchanting evening that leaves tellies and bellies trembling across the nation… I’ve got a semi just typing about it. Naturally I would definitely NOT come across as a total tosser. I would kick ass. But alas, the show’s production team didn’t agree. I fell at first telephone interview hurdle.
I cooked nothing but beans on toast for weeks after. Sometimes I just ate cold beans with my hands, straight from the tin. I cried every time I heard Lamb’s voice on adverts and put my fingers in my ears and shouted ‘LA LA LA I’M NOT LISTENING’ every time someone said the word ‘come’… Just in case the words dine, with and me were about to follow. That was embarrassing.
A friend thought applying for Devil’s Dinner Party might rouse me from my fug of rejection. A brand new game show, it didn’t offer a chance to flex my cooking muscles, but it did involve food and a prize six times the puny jackpot on Come Dine With Me. I took my hand out of the bean tin and got my life on track. The two months that followed were a whirlwind of questions, interrogations and, eventually, a ridiculously slick production procedure that would put the secret service to shame. The whole application process is an experience I can’t recommend enough.
Here’s how shit went down…
The application
The four page document was a commitment. Any game show application form is. Your sole role is to sell yourself as THE quirkiest, chirpiest, most interesting human being ever. Even with a million trivial pursuits and daft anecdotes this gets tiresome. I’ve got a whole folder of incomplete application forms, but I persevered with this. I’m glad I did… they called back within 24 hours.
The call
“Hi there, this is Barrington from Devil’s Dinner Party! Have you got ten minutes?”
Make that thirty. He grilled me like a Foreman. If you’ve not seen the show (don’t worry, I haven’t yet either), it’s based on the contestants’ first impressions of each other, and how they deal with tricky questions and scenarios about each other. To asses whether I was a suitable candidate, Barrington wanted Dave data on a major scale…
“How attractive do you think you are?”
“You have an unusual job. How do you think people will react to that?”
“What do you hate in people?”
“What do you love in people?”
“What do you think your friends say about you?”
“Are you flirty?”
“How about with older ladies?”
An intense interrogation, but I must have said something good… Three days later they invited me to a filmed audition.
The audition
Destination: a fancy Bristol hotel. Here I underwent all of Barrington’s questions – and more – in front of a camera. I was to fix up, look smart and back myself up to the max; the executives were going to watch the videos and pick the final contestants. The production crew pummelled me with questions and scenarios, including what my first impression was of them. I played safe and told her off for wearing scruffy shoes and him off for having low trousers and revealing some rather natty boxers. They were putting me off my A-game… but not enough to stop me from securing myself a spot on the show.
Another critical point of the game we have to discuss my weight loss and previous as an erstwhile fat fucker.
Don’t call us. We’ll call you…
… and call you, and call you, and call you. I’m unsure if research is just as thorough on other game shows, but the very nature of the game demanded this level of contestant background; each round a player is removed from the dinner table and the remaining players have to guess how they’ll react to a particular multiple choice dilemma. The more the producers know about you, the trickier – and more entertaining – that question will be.
I was called no less than 10 times. Each call well over 10 minutes… What’s my political stance? Do I believe in a God or Gods? What do I think of vegetarians? Have I had any embarrassing illnesses? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Which episode of Quantum Leap did Sam jump into a nun? The works.
This reached fever pitch in the final week before filming with different producers calling each day, asking the same or similar questions. One last thing, one last thing… They were making sure they knew everything they could about the six contestants to make the episode as entertaining as possible. And we were contractually bound to tell them everything.
I must add, I wasn’t complaining. I liked the attention and the drama as everything built up to the big day.
Show time
And so began one of the most bizarre, unforgettable days I’ve had so far. Even the hotel breakfast was shrouded in intrigue as I smiled and said hello to every single hotel guest, just in case they were my future competitors. They weren’t of course. This is the cool part of the story; meticulous measures were being taken to ensure we never crossed paths until we saw each other for the first time on the camera.
It was just like being in 24. I’d imagine. Even my taxi driver was in on it, turning down leafy cul-de-sacs when fellow contestants were within a two street radius. A clear five minutes was left between each studio arrival where we were all assigned our own body guard (!) and taken through the building waiting for the all clear at every corner.
“We’re moving player three to the stairway. Are we clear?”
“Just clear. Proceed.”
And so on. The same ruthless process took place on every toilet and ciggie break. Unfortunately I had two hours to kill…
“Com 1 this is Com 3, player 3 wants another fag and a slash.”
“Com 3, can you ask player 3 if it’s really necessary.”
“Com 1, player 3 says ‘don’t hate the player, hate the game’”
“Roger that. Move to stairway four. Clearance in two minutes.”
What fun! I was already implicated in a fucked up, freaky spy game before I even got a sniff of the cameras. Body guards? Clearance? Stairways? These aren’t regular things in my life. I made as many mission requests as possible. I also helped myself to the entire table of Haribo in my dressing room.
Just as the tension had built up in the days before filming, the last moments before show time were naturally the most thrilling. The final march to the set, my body guard and I waited on every corner for what felt like hours. We had to be absolutely silent: at points we were separated from other contestants by a flimsy brick alcove. Slowly but surely we edged our way around the maze of corners until the final doorway which led to the set of a cosy living room and dining room, loaded with bright lights, massive cameras… And five other contestants who each looked just as excited, nervous, charged, scared and interested in the £6000 prize pot as me.
The end
And that’s where this story ends. The game itself is a whole other feature. But that can’t be written until I’ve seen the episode for myself. If it’s written at all. At 8pm tonight I’ll be tuning into Sky Atlantic for my game show debut and I have no idea how I’ll be portrayed. Wine was involved and there was at least one occasion where I was jeered up to make over confident declarations by the producers while filming between rounds. Another critical point of the game we have to discuss my weight loss and previous as an erstwhile fat fucker. Yes, unlike my Come Dine With Me fantasies, I fear I will come across as a total tosser.
Tune in and see for yourself… But no matter how much of a dick I look; all that grilling, interrogating, secrecy and studio subterfuge was an experience I thoroughly enjoyed and will never, ever forget and will definitely try and go through again. Come Dine, I hope you’re reading!”
-another contestant from a later show, but with a bit more passion….great article!!
Asia: Thailand and Vietnam
Off to Thailand and Vietnam, Website all about Thailand on April 20 and then coming back to England the weekend of May 8.
I am so excited I can barely contain myself, but wondering what, if any essentials I absolutely MUST bring.
I plan on just taking a medium/large hiking pack w hard exoskeleton.
Shorts
Tshirts
1 button down
Jeans
Sneakers
Sandals
Sun tan lotion
Standard toothbrush and other random needs
In my estimation, 20 days in Thailand/Asia probably necessitates the most simple packing job possible, especially as I’d love to pick up some cheap clothes and shoes there. But what things might I not have thought of? Do I need a water thermos bc quality of water is bad? Any sorts of repellents? Anything at all that I might not think of?
More importantly, and MUCH more importantly really, I need some gritty advice on where to go. In my research for the next month, I will of course lay out where I have to go…Ko Samui, Ko Pi Pi etc (when is Full Moon party next month??); but what I really need is some proper advice for the more secret spots that I absolutely need to explore.
After my Russian debacle, ending in me being essentially barred from traveling back within Russian borders for the rest of my life, I do realise that I am going to need to err on the side of caution for this trip…especially as, and please forgive the pun, it seems to be, more than any other place I’ve heard, one giant booby trap trying to fuck you…ie people planting drugs on you, getting robbed/mugged, and some ladies who may not be all that ladylike or really lady at all (!) trying to have dealings with tourists.
So glad to be leaving dreary England for a bit, but would like coming home alive, with my mingy finances intact, and at least a slight semblance of self-respect left.
Comment away, I need some help big time.
NK
sat night
Well it was good lads. Brixton for football, scored lefty, almost got eaten by neighbors dogs but had a good run around. Then 7 games of Beirut (beer pong) undefeated. No big whoop 
Then to Ladbroke Grove for a little taste of Bohemian Luxury for Jean’s going away partayyyy…MMmMMMMMmmm hmmm, great party…Grant’s made it better.
Then supposed to go to Egg, but stayed at JAX (our flat is on Jack the Ripper’s alley where he used to carouse and where he committed all his crimes-literally on our front door step).
Night all,
Nick
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Drawn out Disaster
I think we look like a bunch of dumb humans making jokes about all these random groups of animals dying. You heard it first. This is very very bad. Increased intensity and frequency of disasters. Check. Random animals falling out the sky. Check. Hundreds of thousands of fish and other animals washing up dead on various country’s coast lines. Check. It doesn’t take too much of a stretch of the imagination to continue seeing all this stuff get worse and worse and worse. Could we be on the brink of a slow Armageddon? Yes.
5000 (!) dead Blackbirds rain down on Bebee, Arkansas on New Years Eve 2010
http://news.oneindia.in/2011/01/04/arkansas-its-raining-dead-birds-in-bebee.html
500 dead birds fall out of the sky in Louisiana
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12118589
100,000 fish found dead in Arkansas River
http://www.examiner.com/political-spin-in-national/dead-birds-dead-fish-now-being-reported-worldwide
40,000 dead crabs was ashore UK coasts
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20027655-503543.html
Massive flooding across Southeast Asia, Pakistan, Australia
Japanese Tsunami from earthquake in Chile luckily turned out to weaken before it hit
Chilean earthquake
Hurricane Katrina
Haitian earthquake
How many people and animals have died in the past 1, 2, 3, 4 years? I hate to be sensationalist, but, I think we have pushed the boundaries of the Earth’s environment too far. We should be checking all major fault lines, trenches, ocean currents, and wind streams…though this is far beyond anything our scientists can predict or interpret…too many complex systems interacting with one another. Let’s just hope there is no connection and these are really all just totally random occurrences or at least occurrences that have nothing to do with the influence of man…but can we honestly discount the impact 6 Billion+ humans have on this planet? I think not…and I don’t have to be a scientist to make that claim.
Hoping for the best, but quasi-
expecting the worst,
Nick
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Random Green blog commenter saves my life and boosts my career into the atmosphere
Fouronthefloor aka “Nigel” has single-handedly legitimized my career. This brilliant and devout blog reader, Nick Katz fan, and devout green historian commented on a post I wrote for Green Prophet. Through his wizardry of words, his comment has just won the coveted “Webby Comment of the Decade” award, as well as punted www.greenprophet.com into the top position for most read blog focusing on the Middle East and Clean Technology on Wednesday mornings between 7:53 and 8:12 AM local Cairo time!! Thank you Nigel!! I just got six job offers, and would love to discuss them with you, as I had NO idea someone has been following what I have been doing so closely for almost now 2 decades. The fact that you know exactly where I live here in London, that I have identical triplet cousins, know that I ordered not one but TWO spicy salmon handrolls last night at the sushi restaurant, that I wipe sitting down, that my OCD prohibits me from touching anything metal in public, well really anything public in public and frequently comment on how awkward I look on subway rides with my sleeve pulled up over my wrist and hand to hold on to the rails to stop from falling down shows me that you are a dedicated friend. A trusted friend. Someone who I would like, nay…LOVE to meet one day. Please, do give me a ring Nigel, and everyone else, check out his comment…just wonderful:
nigel says:
May 13, 2010 at 2:50 pm
He certainly keeps his head where the green is.
In twenty years, could we draw, retrospectively, causal relationships between the failure of the Reagan era Promise, the disillusionment of educated youth who no longer find fulfillment in the corporate/banking dream of America, the international dance scene (from Trentemoller to Tiesto) and a resultant boom in green energy advocacy and development?
Only He, the Prophet, the grAYz-a! will know for sure. Stay tuned folks – we might be witnessing the birth of a new breed of global citizen. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
http://www.greenprophet.com/2010/05/12/21139/suntech-israel-electric-solar/#comments
Frustrated in London
I am paying for two phone plans right now. Isn’t that fun? In addition, I can not get any of the pictures off of my blackberry because my pin is still attached to my Verizon plan even though I am on Orange here in the UK…so I can not email anything with my set account. Problems are two fold here, one, I know I am not an interesting enough writer to keep anyone enthused for more than hmmm maybe 30 seconds when I don’t have any pictures and two, my job search here in the UK is proving more than difficult, so I can’t very well just shut down my Verizon account just to show back up in the USA and have to start all over again with a new phone number and everything. (THIS JUST IN, just edited and added a picture, so I take some of this back, but still send the cameras!!)
So, for the time being, anyone have a free digital camera they want to send me? Please just postmark:
Nick Katz
109 Stevenage Road, SW6 6PA
London, United Kingdom
Thanks in advance! I will make sure to send the inferior cameras back.
In the mean time, I am now going to be doing some writing for a blog www.greenprophet.com which I am very excited about. They report on clean tech issues in the Mid-East and I will be attending an engineering and energy conference in San Diego from July 29-August 1 and covering the event for them. If anyone is in San Diego around that time, let me know I would love to meet up. I will be interviewing for jobs in San Diego during a week that I tack on either prior to this http://www.engex.org/ conference or after.
There is another Torture Garden party on Saturday night, so as you can imagine, I am again excited! It is the Torture Garden’s birthday http://www.torturegarden.com/events/birthday/ and just so happens that it is my triplet cousins’ birthday today…I bought them DJ Hero and were up until all hours of the morning ripping it…going to have to take it easy on DJ Hero tonight to get ready for TG tomorrow. Richie Hawtin comes to Ministry of Sound on Sunday night and Deadmau5 is here all weekend as well, so it looks to be a busy one! I have been working so hard on TRYING to work that it is about time I get to let off some steam.
Also just got back from a good two days (Monday and Tuesday) at www.walshawlodge.com and took inventory of all the stuff my cousins own in the house (took 2 days of misery) to get ready for this rental season which is heating up. If anyone ever wants a sick place to stay in the UK, this house is truly amazing.
Time to go eat, I am starving!
Until next time, and hopefully with some pictures,
Nick
Posted in Food, Music, Partying, Uncategorized, Work
Tagged house real estate energy fun torture fetish party
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Monday Night
On a conference call with my identical triplet cousins on Skype…it is like listening to the 7 dwarves argue but with British accents and their voices slowed down a bit.
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Amsterdam and beyond…if you’re interested
This BLOG, post, and perhaps the rest of my blogging career is now officially dedicated to one Lauren Fridling, who single handedly convinced me to get back into doing this! Lauren, you are the woman…hopefully my writing will be up to snuff I trust you’ll let me know!
In London Tube @ Hammersmith Station
Well, I’m now sitting at a little cafe called de Saloon in Amsterdam…just on the edge of Rembrandt Square where I stayed at the Eden American Hotel with Paul Massey (US buddy who was here for a “work” conference haha) last night. Second spot I walked in to check out (first was “Little Buddah” which is the same as the Paris Buddha Bar chain but for smaller venues) and it has free wireless! Have my back pack with me and was on my way to rent a bicycle, but got distracted…obviously.
I haven’t “blogged” for a while (I can’t stand that fucking word, it is so embarrassing…seriously, who is the person who first started doing this and thought that would be a smart name?!?!) and thought I should catch everyone up. And by everyone, I mean just me since I have no readership and need to remind myself of the last few months of my life regardless! So, plan is…at this moment in time…and I will likely get lazy and completely change my mind…so please forgive me…OR better yet, write me a note urging me on as the last months have been INSANE, scary, fun, weird, great, depressing and every other colorful word you can think of to describe these moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and now months of my life. Oh yea, right, the plan. I want to just write stories of days that I remember specifically enjoying, this may or may include things like:
Torture Garden @ Mass – yea, full fetish gear…whoops! www.torturegarden.com
Broken hands and fighting at 6 AM (this morning outside the Eden American Hotel where Paul and I just thought we’d go outside for a minute to chill…yea, bad decision…Paul and I NEVER escape trouble…it hunts us down and tries to take us out in every GD foreign city we go to). –>this in turn could be a baller segway into the “Russia Escape” story if anyone is interested…not wasting time on this giant unless I get some requests!
Fulham Soccer game – just kidding, not writing about this…wish I had been at the Juventus game that we WON, then I would write, but the game I went to we looked like shit and lost 2-1 to Man City–the richest club in the world right now
K, I’m bored…let’s see if anyone reads this, then I will go on…my new Macbook Pro is sick…it is imPOSSIBLE not to get completely distracted and open 1,200 tabs though, anyways, enjoy…and more colorful posts to come!
hostels and movie festival
Just met with the Director of Operations for www.bedsandbars.com who own and operate 16 hostels in the UK and Europe. Sounds like Edmund is going to set me up a meeting with him and his Managing Director in London!! I could get my dream job doing real estate with hostels and traveling through Western Europe and South America helping w due diligence, acquisitions, management, and operations!!
Now I’m on my way to the biggest film festival in Europe, the Berlinale www.berlinale.de to check out a British film at 8pm before I go to Golden Gate tonight with an absurd dude from Miami I met and whom I will be staying with. He has a supermodel high end men’s designer from Serbia staying with him too…hopefully she can tailor and design a suit for me for my meeting in London 
Golden Gate is apparently the most wild club in Berlin for a Thursday night so hopefully will have a spicy post tomorrow. Last night was insane too, but my phone was dead so I couldn’t take any pics or movies…sorry!
Nick
Berlinale pictures below, and the crowd for this first movie entitled “The River” which is a 1950s film about living in India
