. .
They came on the last day, Sunday, because that’s when they were having all the workshops Tom-Tom wanted to go to.
There was a Q&A called How to Create, Produce and Pitch Your Reality TV Show; she also didn’t want to miss How to Become A Host/Reality Star — Parlay Your 15 minutes of Reality Fame into a Career either. But Tom-Tom told Dr Phil the one she was looking forward to the most was Where Are They Now? Catching up with Reality TV Stars and Their Lives Today. That sounded the most promising — lots of rotten fruit on the ground for the takin, she hoped.
. .
Rikki & ReeRee walked thru the empty Hall of Autographs. It was huge. There were dozens of roped off lanes, each ending at tables with the headshots & names of whoever was scheduled to be signing. R&R didn’t recognize any of them.
They sat down and Sharpie-circled events in the Expo Guide, deciding which ones they wanted to attend. Rikki said he probably should check out How to Make it in Hollywood. Reeyonna started getting excited about meeting Audrina, who seemed to be the biggest star there. Rikki circled Manouschka Guerrier from The Private Chefs of Beverly Hills. (Lately he’d been thinking that if movies didn’t work out he could become a personal chef to the stars.) Ree circled Eric Roberts from Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew because one of her BFFs said he was Julia Roberts’s brother, which she still didn’t believe. Julia Roberts didn’t mean that much to her but she was so good in the Eat, Pray, Love movie she went to with her mom. She circled Gretchen Bonaduce too, not just because she was Danny Bonaduce’s ex-wife (Ree & her friends liked getting up in the trees and watching The Partridge Family) but because the Guide said she was on Gimme My Reality Show! which Reeyonna never heard of but thought was a really funny title. Both wanted to meet Mischa Barton, who actually maybe was a bigger or maybe the same size 
as Audrina. It didn’t say what reality show Mischa was on but ReeRee watched The O.C. on SoapNet. Rikki circled Tila Tequila from Dance-off Pants-off. “Don’t even go there,” said Ree.
. .
Tom-Tom & Dr Phil were upstairs trying to find Room 506. A crazy-looking couple started pointing at them. “O my God, I can’t believe it!” The gal had magenta hair, a pierced nose & some kind of Wild West brassiere. The guy looked girlish and both wore skull bandannas. Tom-Tom girded herself for the pleasant rush of being Idol outed.
“It’s Phil! From the second season of Intervention!”
“We loved you!”
“Your interventions were the only ones that didn’t end in relapse!”
“Why did you disappear?”
They introduced themselves as Kent & Vyxsin from The Amazing Race, Season 12. They said they were going to be at Hooters on Sunday in Burbank offering live TV commentary when the show came on. They gave them little hot pink vouchers that said WATCH THE RACE WITH THE RACERS!!! ***ADMISSION IS FREE***
. .
R&R walked down one of the long, roped lanes. At this moment, they were literally the only visitors to the tent that held the vast Hall of Autographs.
When they reached the table, a jowly man with a big smile & big white teeth shook hands without getting up & gave them a glossy cardboard 5 × 7 of himself. They looked at the card — he was someone on ABC’s Eyewitness News. He’d written, in festive silver marker, “ABC 7 CHEERS! George Pennacchio.”
As they left the Hall of Autographs, Rikki grabbed a few postcards from another empty table.
If we could make Snooki a star, just imagine what we could do with you… DON’T MISS YOUR CHANCE. Follow us on twitter — be the
that you are
On the way to Audrina, they passed some people standing on a red carpet getting their picture taken by pretend paparazzi. Big posters on the wall behind them said OnTheRedCarpet.com.
A trio of skeevy slores walked by. (Kim K’s word for slutty whores.) They had stickers slapped on their grimy bosoms, “Follow us @PlayboyTV.”
. .
They found 506, an enormous, empty room filled with hundreds of set up chairs. A staffer told them the event moved to 501. 501 was ten times smaller. It was SRO.
Omarosa was on a panel with reality stars from True Beauty and Chef Academy. She was frickin fierce. She said she beat out half a million people to get on Celebrity Apprentice & that her goal from the beginning was to get the most camera time, she was going to do whatever it took, & as it turned out becoming the 1st African-American reality show villainess was the deal that worked. Omarosa said she’d been on thirty-frickin-seven reality shows & Tom-Tom didn’t even know if she was kidding. (She was even on a show about floral arrangements, on the Logo Channel, whatever the frick that was.) Omarosa was a mutherfuckin trip. She said that apart from whatever she was up to in RealityWorld, she was a full-time professor at her alma mater Howard U & taught an MBA program. Say what? She was also pursuing a freakin frickin doctorate in the frickin freakin ministry (Tom-Tom knew she wouldn’t be kidding about any of that), confessing that her true purpose on Earth was to spread the word of Jesus. She started going on about how fortunate she was to have partnered “with my friend, Mr. Trump,” & how she was always on the look-out for reality shows to develop. Hey I should probably try & talk to her after, maybe ol Sasha Fierce would be interested in Bad News Bears, and Trump too. Tom-Tom’d had way stranger bedfellows in her time. She looks like she’d be a nasty fuck too be my villainess black BIATCH. Pound that nappy ponderosa for days—––—––
The other reality mavens on the panel (she hadn’t heard of any of their shows) possessed a cheerleading, bulletproof, nearly robotic self-confidence that Tom-Tom hoped would rub off. Most of the time she held it together pretty well but like a lot of artists, she had her bleak moments — something the thrilled-with-themselves panelists apparently knew nothing about. Tho maybe they were just hiding that shit cause it didn’t play in public; maybe they’d share their darkness with her after the event, one on one. All she knew was that if she were to succeed, there’d be zero room for fear/self-doubt. She probably did a little more speed than she should have; her heart was hammered. Her focus went south and she flashed on joining Omarosa’s seminary, licking the salty, Ubangi lip-sized clit of merciless Mother Africa while Ivanka & Donald did their father/tall drinka daughter Rump Tower thing. All those thighscrapers…
When Omarosa was done, they went down the line, & every single panelist said how lucky they were to have triumphed in doing whatever the fuck they were doing, how they “were flown all over the world” to cook, to DJ, to fuck, to suck, to bla. Tom-Tom was getting pissy.
A panelist said, “I’m an attentionwhore.” No shit. Another said, “The lower you feel the higher you heal.” Huh? Another said, “Life is short, eat the red velvet cupcake.” Gimme some. Another said, “There will always be h8trs. They love to drink the H8torade.”