SHIRLEE SMITH GOES TO HOLLYWOOD (1999)
Flashback to 1999 and see how things ain’t changed a bit. Kids still shooting up schools. White folks still making up excuses. Shirlee Smith still loud, pushy, and obnoxious.
“Shirlee Smith Goes To Hollywood” was originally published May 13, 1999, in The Pasadena Weekly.
“If I wake up in time, I’ll go.” That’s what I told myself when I went to bed sometime after midnight on April 30.
Without the alarm going off, my eyes popped open at 3:30 a.m. which, darn it, meant there was enough time to drive from Altadena to the KABC TV studio in Los Angeles to audition for Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect Citizen Panelist.
My sleepy image, in the mirror that morning, wasn’t looking anywhere near camera ready.
The thought of returning to bed kept spinning through my head as I spread Colgate on my toothbrush.
“Why do you want to be so foolish?” I mumbled while, again, looking in the mirror still wondering if it were possible to make myself ready for the camera.
Why in the world would I want to wake up just to line up in the cold for a 5 a.m. call-time audition?
The bigger question was, “Did I want to line up ?”
Well, from the night I heard Bill Maher announce his show was holding auditions for a common person, well, they dressed it up and called it “Citizen Panelist,” I started planning my attack on the media establishment.
I knew this could be an opportunity to let the experts and the celebrities know that the little folks now had a chance to say what needed to be said.
“Even if I’m not selected,” I said in the days before the early morning drive to the studio, “I’m auditioning just because I should.”
“What to wear, where to park, should I take an umbrella with this crazy unpredictable weather?”
“Maybe, I should just go back to bed? “
“NO, I’m up now.”
I realized slowing around I’d get there and be number 53 and the cut-off number for the audition was the first 50.
I got there at 4:23 a.m. and was number18. Hopefuls who arrived at the appointed hour of 5 0’clock, didn’t make the cut-off. Those of us who made it, knew how the game works and we played the right time to get there card.
Staff moved our line from outside the studio to inside the lot to a holding area where we were allowed in groups of 10 to move our cars that were parked on the street, mostly in a two-hour zone, to an area we would park in for the day. We would be there until 2:30 in the afternoon.
Next was the commissary with breakfast treats and then we had to fill out paperwork.
As usual, I wasn’t too swift with this aspect of the audition, which came to my attention last week, when I got the big call saying I was it and I was asked to explain where the city of Alt was,
The city of Altadena, I then realized, should always be spelled out, unless, of course, I’m addressing a piece of postal mail.
Oh, well.
After the paperwork, next was to tell the camera who we were and why we should be chosen as the Citizen Panelist.
“I’m a mother of five, foster parent, former welfare recipient . . .” and who knows what else I blurted out. I think I said something about hidden people who never have a voice.
Then came the time to sit in a small semi-circle with several other hopefuls and discuss each person’s specific issue.
One young lady shared her belief that men should not be held legally or financially responsible for the children they fathered. “After all,” she said, “it’s the woman’s body.”
The final round was with Bill. Finalists were picked and I was one of five.
“Mom, I saw you on the evening news taking part in that audition,” my daughter, Pia, called to say, and then quickly added, “Uh, we’re gonna have to do something about your hairstyle.”
“It’s Hollywood,” my friend Bill Allen said, in a more diplomatic tone than the one Pia had used.
“Hollywood Dahling, Hollywood” he kept saying.
Yes, something had to be done about a lot of things!
If you turned on Politically Incorrect last Wednesday night, Citizen Panelist, Shirlee Smith, may have looked a bit different than the regular Shirlee Smith, but, I sounded exactly like I always do, here, in my regular weekly newspaper space.
Shirlee Smith Goes To Hollywood was originally published May 13, 1999, in The Pasadena Weekly.
