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I missed the first half of the show last night because Candyce and I were watching The Hills on Tivo. (More about The Hills later.) Once Spencer moved out of Heidi’s apartment and the show was over, I skipped over to MTV to schedule a recording of the Real World thingy at 10 PM, and what do you know? The show is on right now…at 7 PM Pacific time (duh). After feeling stupid for a half second, I pressed record and Candyce snuggled in close for the main event.

Me on the red carpet at The Real World Awards Bash.
“29 and married” is the new “22 and famous.”

Party Like it’s 1999

We filmed the show a few weeks ago in Los Angeles. I had an absolute blast at that night, despite the fact that I was the only cast member who showed up from RW New Orleans. I was really looking forward to seeing everyone again. All day my heart was giddy with the thought of the seven of us being together for the first time in several years. When I got to the party Jonathan Murray, the creator/owner of show, told me I was the only one from my cast who showed up. I was so disappointed.

It was a rush to spend time with casts from the shows that aired before ours…all the people I met at the 10-year reunion. It was also a blast to be re-united with everyone from The Gauntlet too. I talked to a couple folks from that show and we made peace with our past. It was good to hug and makeup.

The show was filmed in a cool modern house perched on a hilltop in the Hollywood Hills. This made for a glamorous backdrop for the show, but it created many problems. First of all, there was no place to park. The homes are packed on top of each other because Real Estate is so premo. And the steep, winding streets that connect these lux homes are very narrow. So if you lived in LA and wanted to show up whenever you wanted to, you had to have a friend drive you there like a soccer mom and drop you off.

I got there in one of several vans full of out-of-towners that were staying at hotels in the area. It was a lot of fun to be in a van for 45 minutes with 10 other kids from different seasons. Although most of us had never met one another, we had a strong connection because we’ve all been through the same dramas that comes with the show.

Flashing Lights

The red carpet experience was amusing. When you see “red carpet” photos, you usually see glamorous people looking glamorous. If you watch some video footage of the passage over the red carpet, you’ll see that person sparkling from the flashes from cameras. I suppose every red carpet has unique circumstances, but of the handful that I’ve been a part of, it’s never been totally glamorous, especially at this event.

You basically have 100+ people trying to make their way from one end of the carpet to the other. Once you’re on the carpet, you’ll have your picture taken, you’ll be interviewed by lots of people with microphones standing next to people with cameras. You don’t hurry because you want the media to get a good look at you so they will talk about you once the event is over. Everyone uses this same playbook, so the line is slower and longer than at the DMV. But nobody really cared. The people who crossed over the carpet were having fun at their party…the people still waiting for their time to shine had their own party 100 feet away. Good times.

What’s Wrong Here?

It’s hard to write about all of this because there’s so much to say. So I’ll just get to the point. The awards categories were ridiculous and humiliating. The word “honor” is no where near any of these categories:

1. Steamiest scene
2. Person you love to hate
3. Best meltdown
4. Best brush with the law
5. Best fight
6. Best phone call gone bad

I’m not surprised that these were the awards categories, because the show has gotten so raunchy over the years. The early seasons were a creative mix of unique individuals placed in a cool house in a cool city. The content of each show slowly evolved until the ratings spiked with the raunchy drama of RW Hawaii (season 8.)

When they chose people for season 9 (my season), they purposely tried to re-created the essence of the earliest seasons. Our ratings were high, but I suppose they weren’t high enough. Every season after us gets more scandalous than the season before.

I don’t blame Bunim-Murray or MTV for letting the show spiral down like it has. They will tell you that they are a business, and this is the stuff that sells. “We give the viewers what they want.” They’ll explain that MTV is a part of Viacom, a publicly traded company whose share holders expect high returns. So who do you blame? Is it MTV? Is it Viacom? Is it the thousands of Dads around the country who own stock in Viacom but won’t let their kids watch RW? Or should you just blame the stupid kids on the show who make stupid decisions?

I don’t believe that nobody is to blame just because it’s a complicated problem. We are all at fault. We’ve allowed public indignity and self-exploitation to pass as entertainment: pornography, Girls Gone Wild, Jackass, cage fighting, and half of the videos on YouTube. The history books will not judge our society kindly.

You don’t have to look far to know that something is not right here. Two people from The Real World are dead. Frankie from RW San Diego died of cystic fibroses. Pedro from RW San Francisco died of AIDS. When it came time to remember and honor these two souls, how could viewers take their deaths with any sincerity? Can one person be entertained by the raunchy drama of RW for the first hour of the show, then pause for three minutes melodramatic mourning, then flip the switch back to gorging your eyes with the footage of the threesome in a hot tub?

Life Goes On

I was inside saying my goodbyes when I stepped up to the window to see that the two hosts standing on stage reading lines off their Teleprompters into the cameras. Except for a handful of kids waiting for their awards, the only people listening to them were from production crew holding cameras and microphones. It was pitiful.

The irony was inescapable. We were invited to this hilltop in Hollywood to be congratulated for our achievements, yet everyone lost interest before the night was over.

The reality is that each person at that party was a fragile soul. We all know what it’s like to be famous and what it’s like to be ordinary again. We know what it’s like to be humiliated and exalted on national television. We know criticism and praise. We know that this big and exciting thing we are apart of us not as big and as exciting used to think. It’s easy to leave the crowning party when you stopped caring years ago.

Life goes on. People get old.

I love my life. I am blessed. I married the girl of my dreams. Later this year we are going to have a baby, the most miraculous promise that’s ever been made to me. I have never been more excited about a new chapter in my life.

The Business of Show Business

I suspect the reunion was labeled an “Awards Bash” because MTV/Bunim-Murray has had a tough time with reunions in the past.

Smart cast members realize after their season has aired that they are in fact famous and now have some negotiating power when MTV calls to film another show. In the year 2000, I rallied our cast from The Real World New Orleans and negotiated for a significantly larger payment for our season’s reunion show. I’m sure I was not the first person to do this, or the last.

To avoid negotiating payments with twenty different seasons, the clever people at MTV/Bunim-Murray by scratching the word “Reunion” and replacing it with “Awards Bash.” Those two words appeal to everyone’s battered egos. You feel privileged to be invited to an awards ceremony, especially when you know that they will be honored for your achievements (even if they are ridiculous achievements like “Biggest B!tch.”)

If you refuse to come to the event, people will perceive you as a sore loser, or even worse–as are entirely forgettable. For most people, these two fears worked in tandem to overcome the temptation to play hardball and ask for more money.

Me? I was too busy play those games, and deep down I don’t think MTV would’ve cared if a all seven members of a season didn’t show up.

I knew it might be the last chance I have to see some of the other kids from The Real World seasons over the years, and I didn’t want to miss that chance.

So You Want to Be a Rockstar

I flew to Los Angeles on Southwest airlines, a low-budget ticket for people who don’t care to travel in style–or in my circumstance–a low-budget ticket that lets MTV save money. There’s no first class section for the privileged. Nobody gets a meal. There isn’t even assigned seating. The irony is that airplane was filled with people donning their best celebrity clothes.

The girls are supertan with a tight low-dipping bust-bearing shirts, a velour tracksuit, and always big sunglasses. The guys wore their designer T-shirts and jeans. These shirts are delicately put together, and have layers of abstract designs near the shoulder. The jeans have excessive stitching on the back pockets, the thighs are splattered with bleach, and finally, three pounds of bedazzle. Hollywood here we come!

If you see one of these people in the ordinary spots of life like the hardware store or at the post office, you might pause to admire their appearance. You might even look twice just to see if this person is somebody famous. It is because they stand in contrast to masses of people around them.

But as the 150 of us from the plane stood around the baggage claim waiting for our luggage, they looked like a bedazzled army gearing up for the Battle of Los Angeles. I wondered how these people felt about one another. I mean, they had to know they’re all dressed the same.

I couldn’t help but absorb the irony of the moment. Eight years ago, I wore the celebrity costume too. With The Real World New Orleans playing around-the-clock on MTV, I passed through airports across the country as a bonafide celebrity. I took pictures with vacationing families. I signed autographs for groups of pretty girls. I waved back to strangers as my car pulled away from the curb.

Now I’m standing at the baggage claim in a simple T-shirt, jeans, and flip flops. Nobody recognized me. I’m just another guy waiting in silence waiting for his suitcase.

It’s been a week or so since we filmed the Real World 20th Awards Bash in LA, and I know I have to discipline myself and just write about it. It’s hard to write about the reunion because there is so much about the past that I have to explain before I can talk about the present. And who really wants to spend hours writing about the past?

Plus, it’s hard to write about something that could potentially be so juicy. If chose to write about my day-to-day dramas over the past 5 years, it would read like a transcript of This Old House. Here I have a rare chance to write about something like a Hollywood insider, but there’s nothing more exhausting than writing a play-by-play of the night’s drama. Plus, these people are my friends, and it’s not right to exploit them so I can get a few thousand more visits on my website.

Now I’m just going to type and see what I can come up with…

Real World Reunion vs. High School Class Reunion

A Real World reunion is essentially a high school class reunion except a little more complicated. My theory is that there are 4 Stages you go through on your path to your first class reunion.

–Actually, before I write any more, I should say that nobody likes to admit this stuff, much less write about this one their website. We were all fragile in our passage through high school, and it’s hard to feel cool by stepping back and analyzing that part of your life. It’s much easier to be confident as an adult and act like high school wasn’t that big of a deal.–

But I’m in Stage 4, so I don’t mind writing about the subject…

• Stage 1: Get me out of here! This begins in your last years of high school or shortly after you graduate. This stage is entirely a reaction to the self-absorbed kids who act like the social ordeals of high school are the biggest thing in the world. You cannot handle the ugliness of cliques and the silly games of popularity. You believe that you belong somewhere else where you will thrive. I would never come back here for a reunion! Why would I want to relive this at a reunion?
• Stage 2: This is why I’m hot.* This stage begins a couple years after you graduate when you have accomplished things as your own person. You’ve got new, cooler friends who understand you more.** You still replay those social games of high school in your head, except insert your new self into those same situations because you now have the upper hand. Although there’s a big desire to go back and show “them” what who you’ve become at a class reunion, it’s a greater temptation to ditch the whole event because your too cool. The hope is that your absence will add to your mystique.
• Stage 3: What’s going on here? After you graduate college you promptly get hammered by grown-up realities of jobs, dating, bills, traveling, etc. You are too busy to mull over high school. Years pass.
• Stage 4: Let’s get along. You realize that you have more in common with your high school classmates than you ever would’ve imagined: you grew up together. A reunion is something you don’t want to miss. You’ve been through enough real-life trial to understand that the spats you had in high school were trivial. A reunion gives people a chance to reconcile with others and make peace with their past. In a bizarre twist, these old classmates become your new best friends.

*Stage 2 is when 90% of rap songs are written and recorded. These guys in their early 20s have a microphone that allows them itemize their success (in no vague terms) for all their peers to hear. For more information, listen to all rap released since Puffy recorded “Mo Money Mo Problems.”

** By default, everyone upgrades to “new cooler friends” after high school because your age group is growing up and maturing. The irony here is that your new cool friends might be the “them” that someone else loathes from high school.

My So Called Life***

I know these stages because I passed through all four stages for three times. I went to my first high school as a freshman, and then spent my sophomore and junior years my second high school. I left that school my senior year to be a full-time student at a local college. So my “high school memories” were spread over three campuses with three unique groups of peers.

Everyone is different. Some people will be in Stage 1 and never come to a reunion. Some people may sit in Stage 2 way too long. These are the girls who get plastic surgery in time for their 20th reunion, or the guy who leases a Porsche three weeks before his 10th reunion. You have to wonder if some people hit Stage 3 and become so overwhelmed by the trials of life that you’ll never see them again.

Me? I arrived at Stage 4 when I turned 22. By then I had been through the big dramas of being on a reality show, and I looked back at my teenager years with friends as a blissfully simple time. In part 2 I’ll write about the new drama.

*** “My So Called Life” is a reference to the short-lived teen drama in the 1990s starring the young Claire Danes. Her crush on the show was a hunky Jared Catalano played by the actor Jared Leto, who is now the lead singer of 30 Seconds to Mars, a reasonably successful rock band. If they handed out awards for 1990s people who’ve done pretty well doing something new, Jared Leto would get 2nd place. Billy Ray Cyrus wins 1st by a landslide.

I have to stop traveling at so much. In 2004, I was in the studio 50 hours each week for 52 weeks. That might seem like an unimpressive time sheet for an over-achiever, but consider that I spent 43 of 52 weekends on the road. That’s a lot of work. I am proud of these numbers, but I’m beginning to feel stunted by the grind.

In the three years since I’ve graduated college, I have been in a creative gridlock. I have tremendous creative freedom at lifeteen.com, and I love every pixel of it. I have creative freedom when I travel and speak. So what’s the problem? I have no time or energy to be creative with other projects. I could keep doing this work/travel thing, but I will inevitably keep doing the same thing. I’m ready for something new.

Maybe all kids from “The Real World” deal with this problem–the inability to see beyond the present “good life”. In a society that adores fame and fortune, most people wouldn’t think twice about going on a TV show. You just do it. And that’s what I did. If you have a chance to do another show, you better damn well do it. What could be better?

I meet random people on the street, and they are always ready to tell me who’s on the new Road Rules Challenge. It’s fun for me to hear, because a lot of these people are my friends, and it’s always good to hear what friends are up to. But when you see the same people going back on yet another show, I can’t help but wonder, what are you doing with your life? Will you be doing this when you are 30? 40?

It seems like the Road Rules Challenge has become a career for some people. For other kids from reality shows with no sequels, the thing to do after your show is to travel and speak at universities. This is the ultimate affirmation for someone who’s trying to sort out their identity. When you have a booked speaking schedule, you know that you were cool on television. People like me, they really do! But you’re not just an airhead celebrity, you are smart and eloquent. You are worthy of standing behind the podium at a university, commanding the attention of academia.

And that’s what I’ve done for the past four a half years, and I am ready for something different. After clocking in over 225 talks, I am ready to slow down. That means only two weekends a month. This is a difficult decision, because speaking is a ministry, something I love and share with my whole heart. It’s not just a gig. It is my passion! But, it’s time to have a little faith and stop a good thing.

With two weekends free each month, I can make nomoho.com and kustoms.com into very big websites. On the other two weekends, I’ll travel and speak, and have some cool sites for people to check out when I leave.

I find that the further I get from MTV, the happier I am. It is a difficult realization, because the further I get form MTV, the further I get from fame and glamor. That’s fine, I just don’t want to lose my influence.

This society values fame and glamor so high. In conversations with strangers and new friends, I am obligated to explain my past, not share about my future. My stories under the spotlight aren’t increasing. I know my value doesn’t change just because other’s perception of me is warped.

Going into The Real World, I was afraid to mess up a good thing. My life rocked, so why would I risk losing it? But this was a unique opportunity and I had to take it. New Orleans was fun, but it was also bizarre and stressful. During filming and as it aired on television was coo. I wasn’t just the popular kid in my town, my state, or in the country, but around the world. People who would have snubbed me in their selfish pursuit of cool, those individuals had to take me as I am. It was crazy…it didn’t matter where I went, I was the popular kid. If I had different values, that means I would’ve gotten laid a lot. But then again, dogs get laid a lot.

I could avoid this whole predicament if I played time-tested games of ego. I would be materialistic, discriminating, and shallow. I would strut in and out of salons and bars with the air of “do you know who I am?” I would surround myself with pretty people in fancy clothes. I’d spend all my money on a car and a house I couldn’t afford.

I am not going to create a new me to wash away any fleeting insecurities about being on MTV, then not. I don’t want to complicate my life by inventing new ways of acting superior. My life is much too exciting and rewarding to be anyone but myself.

My only dream has always been to find my soul mate. Next to her, nothing really matters. More MTV fame would make it next to impossible to find her. When we were in New Orleans filming the Real World, I was so frustrated that none of us could make any real friends. The people that made their way into our lives were manipulative and shallow. They didn’t care about us, just fame. As long as the cameras were rolling, they would’ve befriended seven tree stumps.

I’ve hung out with enough more-famous people to know that there are millions of women who will hold your hand through life for the wrong reasons. I could be rich and famous and miserable because I would wonder, “would she like me without all this?”