Man Up! (5 page)

I made a mental note to always cross my legs the “lady way” (knee on knee) and not the “macho way” (ankle on knee). To help rehearse for my big
Tonight Show
interview, I enlisted my roommate Ryan to be on crotch patrol—an act of true friendship—diligently watching me sit, cross, uncross, and stand over and over again while keeping his eagle eye squarely between my legs. It occurs to me now that the whole issue could’ve been solved with a simple sewing kit, but sadly, the gift of
Project Runway
had not yet been given to the world, and I knew no better.

I put a ton of thought and energy into my fancy Hollywood business attire, only to walk in and find that the woman who was interviewing me was a high-powered, no-nonsense entertainment executive wearing sweat pants! Yes, sweat pants! Ugh! I never thought that I’d feel overdressed in my fashionably flammable second-hand suit, but I’d underestimated the power of Casual Friday.

About thirty minutes into the interview, I think the casually elastic-waisted NBC executive could sense my unabashed eagerness to work in the entertainment industry and warned me, “This is a hard job. It’s not all about Hollywood and show business glamor. In fact, this job is not about that at all. It’s about getting the work done behind the scenes, and that’s not always fun or pretty.”

I thought for a second. She might have been right, but I wasn’t scared. I leaned in closer, lowered my voice and, in almost a whisper, asked her, “Do you know those garbage cans at McDonald’s? The ones with the flaps where you dump your tray? Well, when I worked at the Micky D’s in Mount Vernon, Washington, I had to crawl inside those cans and scrub off the dried Big Mac secret sauce every day for $4.50 an hour. It wasn’t fun or pretty, either. But I would do that here, for free, just to be a part of things.
That’s
how badly I want this.”

She reached out to shake my hand. “Can you start on Monday?”

When I got home that night, I just couldn’t shut up about my great news. I told my friends, “I can’t believe it. I’m going to be an intern at the freakin’
Tonight Show
 ! I know it’s totally unpaid and I’m at the very bottom of the showbiz totem pole, but I just feel like it’s the start of something big.”

It had finally happened. Even though I wasn’t technically earning a living, my television career was officially underway. And little did anyone know, it was the beginning of the most outrageous story involving an intern since Monica Lewinsky.

I
couldn’t sleep the night before my first day as an intern at
The Tonight Show With Jay Leno
. I tossed and turned for hours in my dorm room bunk bed, letting my imagination run wild. Would I get to meet Jay Leno himself ? Would I make a whole new group of fancy Hollywood friends? Who will be my secret Santa at the
Tonight Show
Christmas party?

In reality, my first day in show business was decidedly unglamorous and utterly exhausting, just as promised at my interview. My job didn’t require merciless manual labor, but the sheer amount of tedious tasks was overwhelming.

Day one of my internship included running around the NBC studio all day making copies, sending faxes, and bringing tapes to
this
person, who needed me to bring something to
that
person, who needed me to fill their printer with ink and then pick up the lunch orders. But, uh-oh! Wait, a minute! The lady in accounting forgot to mention that she doesn’t like mustard, so I’ve got to go get her a new tuna sandwich even though she has perfectly good legs and could totally get her own damn sandwich, but I’m gonna do it because I’m just an intern who isn’t getting paid
anything
. But I’d better thank my lucky stars because there are like 5 billion other people who would take my unpaid, thankless job in a heartbeat, so don’t screw it up, sweetheart!

I loved it. It was high energy and high pressure, and most important, we were making television, people. After a lifetime of being a viewer, I had crossed over and, even though my contribution was minuscule, I was a part of it nonetheless. I felt both exhilarated and validated.

Without question, the very best moment of my first day was when Jay Leno approached me to introduce himself. I was hurrying down a hallway between errands when I glanced up and saw someone who looked eerily like Jay Leno walking toward me. It took about a millisecond for me to realize that it was, in fact, Jay Leno himself. It’s weird, but my first thought was,
Wow. In person, he really does look exactly like Jay Leno.

I don’t know what I expected him to look like, but it was surreal to see someone that famous up close. He was more tan than I expected, and it was odd to see him out of a suit and tie. Instead, he wore the denim-on-denim shirt-and-jeans ensemble that I’ve come to know as his off-camera uniform. Not many people can pull that off (or should even try, for that matter), but on Jay it looked great.

“Young person,” Jay cheerily boomed as he approached. Oh my God, he
sounded
just like Jay Leno, too! “I’m Jay.”

I remember thinking it was both ridiculous and very humble that he introduced himself by name, as if anybody in America wouldn’t know who he was. He extended his hand and asked me my name. As we shook hands, I stammered, “I…I’m Ross.”

He continued down the hallway smiling. “Welcome to showbiz, kid.”

Seriously. It was like a movie. Totally weird, but completely fantastic.

A few weeks into my internship, I had things pretty much figured out. On a typical day, I’d leave my dorm two hours before I had to be at the NBC studio at 8:30 in the morning, slogging through Los Angeles traffic the entire commute. Once I arrived, I’d begin the task of distributing mail to the producers and writers. When that was finished, I’d stock the office kitchen until lunchtime. For an industry that demands that those in front of the camera be fit and trim, it might surprise you to learn that, in every television office, set and trailer, there is food
everywhere
. It’s called Craft Services. And for everyone, except people like lowly interns, it’s totally free. If you’re a higher-up raking in the big bucks, you’ll never have to pay for a granola bar or a fist full of Red Vines ever again.

Despite all these free snacks, the bigwigs still needed a proper lunch (yeah, that’s free for them, too) and it was my responsibility to make it happen. This was my favorite part of the day, not only because I’ve always loved lunch in general, but because I had a totally illegal food smuggling operation going on that I’ve still never told my bosses at NBC about.

Okay, don’t judge me. Remember, I was in college, I had no money, and I was working for free way later than my beloved dining hall was open. I was begging my mom for gas money just to be able to drive to my internship in the morning, so I certainly didn’t have cash to eat out every day, let alone buy groceries. I was in college-survival mode and had no other choice. So, imagine how agonizing it was for an unpaid intern with an unhealthy relationship with food to not only pick up lunches for the
Tonight Show
writers and producers, but also listen to their downright pornographic orders. “Ross, could you snatch me a hot, juicy burger smothered in gooey jack cheese and loaded with thick cut bacon?”

It was sheer torture! Totally inhumane! You’ve heard of blue balls? I had blue belly!

So here’s what I did, and it sounds like I’m describing a scene straight out of
The Pink Panther
, but I’m absolutely not kidding. When I’d grab the food from the NBC cafeteria, I’d
accidentally
add one extra daily special to the order. Oopsies! Then, on my way back to the offices, I would
accidentally
“misplace” the extra entree behind a huge potted plant. Oopsies again! Once I was on my own lunch break, I’d
accidentally
“find” the “misplaced” lunch behind the plant and
accidentally
devour it without even chewing, like a snake swallows a mouse. Oopsie-doodle-do!

It was probably
technically
against the law and I probably
technically
should’ve been fired, but you have to admit, it was also
technically
kind of genius.

I was living on the edge! But even with the excitement of my daily cafeteria heist, the day-to-day tasks of office maintenance bored me. At the same time, I knew I was surrounded by some of the top minds in television, and I wasn’t about to let the opportunity to pick their brains pass me by. I’d dreamed of working in TV my entire life, and these people were actually living my dream.

I wanted to learn from these insightful and accomplished professionals, so I asked the receptionist to send out an e-mail asking if any writers or producers would be willing to meet with an eager intern who had a lot of questions. Thankfully, despite their high-pressure jobs and hectic schedules, one of the busy writers actually responded!

His name was Anthony, and he was a relatively new writer on the show. I had seen him around the studio, but didn’t know him well, beyond delivering mail to his office. He was in his midthirties, Italian, from New York, and he looked like the handsome lovechild of Adam Sandler and Ralph Macchio.

We made an appointment to meet at his office the next day, and I arrived with, like, a thousand questions. He answered each one politely, getting a kick out of my enthusiasm. Having only interacted with Anthony as an intern, bringing him his lunch and FedEx packages, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated as I sat across from him in his office. But it wasn’t long before the intern-writer dynamic melted away and we actually began to bond, sharing stories of growing up and our mutual adoration for all things related to Hollywood. I was grateful for his time and made sure not to overstay my welcome.

“Well, thank you so much for this,” I said as I got up from my chair and prepared to leave.

“Sure, buddy. Hey, really quick,” Anthony asked before I left, “is it worth it, coming here every day and busting your ass for free?”

I answered instantly, without thinking, “One hundred percent, yes. Because I love TV and I’m gonna be a talk show host someday.”

He chuckled, assuming I was joking. I wasn’t. After quickly realizing I was serious, he added, “All right… Well, I hope you do it, buddy! I can say I knew you when.”

My internship lasted only three months, but the lessons I learned and the appreciation I have now for the amount of work that goes into producing a TV show—from makeup to wardrobe, to the prop department to sound—will last a lifetime.

I was reflecting on these lessons as I drove in for my last day of work. At that point, I had a hectic week of finals to prepare for, the holidays were right around the corner and I had already received my letter of recommendation from the
Tonight Show
producers.

Truth time? There was a moment when I considered calling in sick and skipping my last day. I mean, there were a gazillion things I needed to take care of before the end of the semester that, frankly, seemed much more pressing. But I wanted to honor my obligations and finish strong.

About an hour before show time that day, I was refilling the stapler in the copy room when I received a message instructing me to “go see Joe.”

There was only one Joe it could be—the
Tonight Show
head writer (and a dead ringer for Ray Romano). An intern called into the head writer’s office? This could not be good.

My interactions with Joe up to that point were…well, come to think of it, we had never actually interacted, and he scared the crap out of me. This was the man who, along with Jay Leno, was responsible for the most-watched monologue on late-night television and helped to create the
Tonight Show
’s most iconic segments, including “Jay Walking” and “Headlines.”

In a panic, I racked my brain for a reason behind the call, but the only thing I could come up with was that I had done something terribly wrong. But what? Then I remembered, “Oh my God, the lunches!”

I knew for certain that the jig was up. I had been caught. There was no doubt, I was about to be forced to watch grainy black-and-white surveillance footage of myself scarfing down embezzled beef and stolen salmon. I prepared myself to learn a very valuable lesson: how to be fired in show business.

Have you ever seen the movie
The Green Mile
? It’s about a guy on death row, and the Green Mile was what they called his final walk toward the electric chair. That final scene was so over-the-top dramatic and also
exactly
how I felt walking toward Joe’s office that day. I could hear the film’s theme music in my head, intense and building slowly. First came the strings. I lingered on the stairway, leading up to the second floor. Then the French horns joined in and my stomach began to turn.
Oh no,
I thought.
What will I tell my mom?

Next, the music continued in my head with a single snare drum, matching the pounding in my chest. My mind continued racing:
Maybe they’ll even arrest me. Oh no! My life will never be the same again! What will my prison-bitch name be? Will it be mandatory that I wear one of those hideous orange jumpsuits? I simply can’t wear orange—not with my skin tone!

And, for the record, my prison bitch name would be Muffin Top.

The film score in my head continued with trumpets wailing out of nowhere, like police sirens.
I can’t go to the slammer! Who’s going to tape
Dawson’s Creek
for me?

An ominous timpani drum began beating, perfectly timed with each step I took toward Joe’s door.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Here I was, the frenzied climax of the theme music still orchestrating my every move. I had to be strong and accept my fate. Turning the office doorknob with a shaking hand, I heard the climactic crash of cymbals, and suddenly the music in my head went completely silent. I could never have imagined what awaited me on the other side of that door. It wasn’t at all what I had expected. But I was right about one thing—my life would never be the same again.