The Sweet Six
I barely managed to fill out my bracket this morning. Yes, my Apprentice bracket. Here are my odds on the remainder of the tourney.
First, a survey of the carnage to date:
Bowie/Jason/David
We never really knew you, flattened as you were by the women's steamroller of shameless sex appeal.
Sam
The Apprentice would not be as much fun if everyone was a strong candidate. That might be better for Trump's business (the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the boardroom, still to be acknowledged, is what business the Apprentice will actually run), but if everyone in the early rounds of American Idol were rigorously pre-screened, the show wouldn't have William Hungs to parade in commercials and outtakes, tarred and feathered, and Simon Cowell couldn't use his snarky voice. Early rounds of elimination-style reality shows need their human disasters, and so let's all pay tribute to the Sam's of the world who whore themselves for their fifteen minutes of fame so that we can have 15 minutes of self-satisfied derisive laughter around the water cooler.
My favorite moment remains the time Sam was waiting outside the boardroom and pantomined the human evolutionary chart by lying prone on the ground, getting on his hands and knees, then standing up hunched over, and finally standing tall as Homo Erectus.
Kristi
When she finally got pulled into the Boardroom, Trump expressed amazement because she had "shown so much" up until then. Huh? I didn't think she'd showed anything, other than her long legs in one of her numerous interview spots in the early episodes. Maybe Trump was referring to all she had shown in her cameo in Red Shoe Diaries 17.
Tammy
For calling Regis Phil and for driving Carson Daly to the edge (which for him manifests itself as a wry comment and an arched eyebrow or two) by constantly pushing him to give his pal Tiger Woods a call to propose a round of golf, Tammy deserves special commendation for pop culture obliviousness (Omarosa is a contender in this category as well for not being able to pronounce Isaac Mizrahi's name; these sure are some sheltered people). She got kicked out for extreme disloyalty that Trump found "obnoxious," but I thought her honesty was refreshing. However, I still don't understand her comment about the team being duped.
Katrina and Troy both wanted to renovate the same apartment, and Katrina insisted they write down their choices on a piece of paper. Why that was necessary I have no idea. Instead of jotting down one of the apartments, Troy wrote down "whatever you want" on his paper, driving Katrina to try to reduce him to ashes with laserbeams from her eyes. So they flipped a coin for it and Troy won. How is a flipping a coin a dupe? He had said he wanted the second apartment before he eavesdropped on Katrina's conversation with her team and heard her choose the same place.
Jessie
The first to beg for her life in the Boardroom. ("Please don't fire me Mr. Trump!") Trump did say to Kristi that he was disappointed she didn't fight for herself in the Boardroom, but begging seems so undignified.
Ereka
Temper, temper. Actually, temper, temper, temper. Ereka was an emotional active volcano the entire time, obviously not taking cues from the steely demeanor of man-eater and Trump left-hand lieutenant Carolyn Kepcher (one of the most imposing women to ever grace the small screen). Her open-the-kimono sales pitch for Trump Ice ("Hi, we're being tasked with creating buzz for Trump Ice. Would you like to buy a few pallets?") was like something a third-grade girl scout would conjure up: "If we sell the most Thin Mints our troop gets to go on a trip to Disneyland!" Her obvious preferential treatment of twin sister/gal pal Katrina and her sly attempt at forming a Survivor coalition with Bill marked her as a schemer and a lousy leader who places personal friendships above actual performance.
Don't take this harsh criticism as meaning I wouldn't tune in to a special Apprentice 1 on 1 competition special episode between Omarosa and Ereka for the right to be the apprentice to the Apprentice.
Omarosa
The first several episodes, I wasn't as put off by her arrogance as many were. If she could back up her 'tude with some productivity, she'd be nothing less than another version of the Donald. But it turned out to be all bluster. Her hypochondriactic tendencies after the plaster/cement from the grassy knoll gave her a "concussion" was childish, her negotiating skills while trying to sell Trump Ice were amateurish, and when she didn't feel like dealing with members of her team she'd hang up on them and leave them shouting into their cellphone communicators on the sidewalk. An unmitigated disaster.
For entertainment value, though, she's up there with Sam, Nick, and Troy. Her Boardroom breakdown guaranteed her enshrinement in the Reality Show pantheon, and really, is that so terrible a fate? The size of the delta between her the business woman she sees in the mirror and the one we see through the tube may be as large of that of Sam or Nick.
Heidi
Another of the female hotheads. Not since Tony Soprano's mistresses have we encountered such an assemblage of female rage. Heidi is, by self-proclamation, feisty. On her good days, she's that and also hard-working. On her bad days she's constantly cussing and ranting and driving everyone nuts because she's letting someone else drive her nuts. In other words, she's a useful worker bee (if you could tolerate her constant griping) but not management material.
Here's hoping her mom makes it out of cancer treatment okay, though.
On to the Sweet Six. Odds in parentheses...
Katrina (50-1)
Soon she'll have a lot of free time to join her girlfriend Ereka to simmer and seeth over the injustice of it all. If she hadn't opened her mouth to kiss Ereka's ass in the Boardroom after the Trump Ice debacle, perhaps Trump would have forgotten about her tantrums after the apartment renovation episode. As it is, she's too much of a hothead to be leading any business unit.
She criticized Bill for capitalizing on her sex appeal in the pedicab assignment, forgetting she was parading around the sidewalks of Times Square in twenty-inch heels the week of the Planet Hollywood competition.
Kwame (20-1)
The pedigreed MBA hasn't show much thus far except for realizing that the price of gold is not really negotiable while the price of a Callaway Big Bertha is. He doesn't seem to offend anyone else--that Omarosa was willing to cry on his shoulder is his greatest accomplishment to date--but he also hasn't displayed the spark or leadership or insight that you'd expect from a Harvard Business School grad. At least he could flash some trademark HBS ego from time to time. We need more drama, Kwame. Don't go quiet into that good night.
Nick (15-1)
I've never met a copier salesman, but I can grok Nick if you replace "copier" with "used-car." His delusions of sales grandeur exploded in the Trump Ice episode in which he made the analogy Nick:sales as Pope:prayer and then proceeded to strike out with a distributor. Then, in the Boardroom, he professed to bringing a certain "charisma" and "energy" to his sales pitches. For someone who does sales for a living, his demeanor during his pitches screamed smarmy sales guy, and that's either to be expected or quite surprising. What it doesn't scream is Apprentice.
Nick's not an idiot, though, and he showed himself a good judge of talent when they first broke up the boys and the girls. Some leaders succeed by surrounding themselves with good people and delegating tasks appropriately. Trump damned him with faint praise during his 10 minute visit to Trump's palace, a reward for winning the art auction (I kept waiting for Trump to extend the back of his hand and allow Nick to kneel and kiss it). Trump said that even when he said that Nick was doing bad, he wasn't doing that bad. That's pretty bad.
At this point, Nick most optimistic scenario is that he ends up dating Amy who ends up as Trump's Apprentice.
Bill (10-1)
Bill is like Kwame and Amy in that he's agreeable and reasonable. Is he a leader? He hasn't shown himself to be assertive or decisive. He needs to trust his own thinking and step forward more. Self-confidence attracts those who lack it.
Troy (5-1)
Ah, the sneaky fox from Idaho, the "country bumpkin" with the saavy of the gifted human charmer. His removal of his belt before the meeting with the Fab Five from Queer Eye didn't accomplish as much as he claimed, but it demonstrated his ability to read others and react appropriately. Is he equipped to lead a company, though? Doubtful. He needs to head up sales, though. He's a closer.
Amy (3-1)
Can she pull off the undefeated Apprentice season? In her own quiet way, she's a very cunning diplomat who has managed to avoid making any strong enemies, and she's even attracted a puppy dog in Nick. She hasn't shown any overt leadership or brilliant ideas to remember her by (advertising on the back of the pedicabs was smart but an obvious one; not surprisingly, it came from the one contestant with Internet experience since that was the only business model of hundreds of Internet flameouts), but she hasn't made any obvious mistakes (her seeming interest in Nick is her worst display of judgment thus far) and she's clearly the player of choice among her teammates. Trump was right: if she's everyone else's first choice as a teammate everytime there's a redraft, then they've already elected her the strongest leader. I'd like to see her lead a team one of these weeks, and I'd like to see someone step up to challenge her.
First, a survey of the carnage to date:
Bowie/Jason/David
We never really knew you, flattened as you were by the women's steamroller of shameless sex appeal.
Sam
The Apprentice would not be as much fun if everyone was a strong candidate. That might be better for Trump's business (the 800-pound gorilla in the corner of the boardroom, still to be acknowledged, is what business the Apprentice will actually run), but if everyone in the early rounds of American Idol were rigorously pre-screened, the show wouldn't have William Hungs to parade in commercials and outtakes, tarred and feathered, and Simon Cowell couldn't use his snarky voice. Early rounds of elimination-style reality shows need their human disasters, and so let's all pay tribute to the Sam's of the world who whore themselves for their fifteen minutes of fame so that we can have 15 minutes of self-satisfied derisive laughter around the water cooler.
My favorite moment remains the time Sam was waiting outside the boardroom and pantomined the human evolutionary chart by lying prone on the ground, getting on his hands and knees, then standing up hunched over, and finally standing tall as Homo Erectus.
Kristi
When she finally got pulled into the Boardroom, Trump expressed amazement because she had "shown so much" up until then. Huh? I didn't think she'd showed anything, other than her long legs in one of her numerous interview spots in the early episodes. Maybe Trump was referring to all she had shown in her cameo in Red Shoe Diaries 17.
Tammy
For calling Regis Phil and for driving Carson Daly to the edge (which for him manifests itself as a wry comment and an arched eyebrow or two) by constantly pushing him to give his pal Tiger Woods a call to propose a round of golf, Tammy deserves special commendation for pop culture obliviousness (Omarosa is a contender in this category as well for not being able to pronounce Isaac Mizrahi's name; these sure are some sheltered people). She got kicked out for extreme disloyalty that Trump found "obnoxious," but I thought her honesty was refreshing. However, I still don't understand her comment about the team being duped.
Katrina and Troy both wanted to renovate the same apartment, and Katrina insisted they write down their choices on a piece of paper. Why that was necessary I have no idea. Instead of jotting down one of the apartments, Troy wrote down "whatever you want" on his paper, driving Katrina to try to reduce him to ashes with laserbeams from her eyes. So they flipped a coin for it and Troy won. How is a flipping a coin a dupe? He had said he wanted the second apartment before he eavesdropped on Katrina's conversation with her team and heard her choose the same place.
Jessie
The first to beg for her life in the Boardroom. ("Please don't fire me Mr. Trump!") Trump did say to Kristi that he was disappointed she didn't fight for herself in the Boardroom, but begging seems so undignified.
Ereka
Temper, temper. Actually, temper, temper, temper. Ereka was an emotional active volcano the entire time, obviously not taking cues from the steely demeanor of man-eater and Trump left-hand lieutenant Carolyn Kepcher (one of the most imposing women to ever grace the small screen). Her open-the-kimono sales pitch for Trump Ice ("Hi, we're being tasked with creating buzz for Trump Ice. Would you like to buy a few pallets?") was like something a third-grade girl scout would conjure up: "If we sell the most Thin Mints our troop gets to go on a trip to Disneyland!" Her obvious preferential treatment of twin sister/gal pal Katrina and her sly attempt at forming a Survivor coalition with Bill marked her as a schemer and a lousy leader who places personal friendships above actual performance.
Don't take this harsh criticism as meaning I wouldn't tune in to a special Apprentice 1 on 1 competition special episode between Omarosa and Ereka for the right to be the apprentice to the Apprentice.
Omarosa
The first several episodes, I wasn't as put off by her arrogance as many were. If she could back up her 'tude with some productivity, she'd be nothing less than another version of the Donald. But it turned out to be all bluster. Her hypochondriactic tendencies after the plaster/cement from the grassy knoll gave her a "concussion" was childish, her negotiating skills while trying to sell Trump Ice were amateurish, and when she didn't feel like dealing with members of her team she'd hang up on them and leave them shouting into their cellphone communicators on the sidewalk. An unmitigated disaster.
For entertainment value, though, she's up there with Sam, Nick, and Troy. Her Boardroom breakdown guaranteed her enshrinement in the Reality Show pantheon, and really, is that so terrible a fate? The size of the delta between her the business woman she sees in the mirror and the one we see through the tube may be as large of that of Sam or Nick.
Heidi
Another of the female hotheads. Not since Tony Soprano's mistresses have we encountered such an assemblage of female rage. Heidi is, by self-proclamation, feisty. On her good days, she's that and also hard-working. On her bad days she's constantly cussing and ranting and driving everyone nuts because she's letting someone else drive her nuts. In other words, she's a useful worker bee (if you could tolerate her constant griping) but not management material.
Here's hoping her mom makes it out of cancer treatment okay, though.
On to the Sweet Six. Odds in parentheses...
Katrina (50-1)
Soon she'll have a lot of free time to join her girlfriend Ereka to simmer and seeth over the injustice of it all. If she hadn't opened her mouth to kiss Ereka's ass in the Boardroom after the Trump Ice debacle, perhaps Trump would have forgotten about her tantrums after the apartment renovation episode. As it is, she's too much of a hothead to be leading any business unit.
She criticized Bill for capitalizing on her sex appeal in the pedicab assignment, forgetting she was parading around the sidewalks of Times Square in twenty-inch heels the week of the Planet Hollywood competition.
Kwame (20-1)
The pedigreed MBA hasn't show much thus far except for realizing that the price of gold is not really negotiable while the price of a Callaway Big Bertha is. He doesn't seem to offend anyone else--that Omarosa was willing to cry on his shoulder is his greatest accomplishment to date--but he also hasn't displayed the spark or leadership or insight that you'd expect from a Harvard Business School grad. At least he could flash some trademark HBS ego from time to time. We need more drama, Kwame. Don't go quiet into that good night.
Nick (15-1)
I've never met a copier salesman, but I can grok Nick if you replace "copier" with "used-car." His delusions of sales grandeur exploded in the Trump Ice episode in which he made the analogy Nick:sales as Pope:prayer and then proceeded to strike out with a distributor. Then, in the Boardroom, he professed to bringing a certain "charisma" and "energy" to his sales pitches. For someone who does sales for a living, his demeanor during his pitches screamed smarmy sales guy, and that's either to be expected or quite surprising. What it doesn't scream is Apprentice.
Nick's not an idiot, though, and he showed himself a good judge of talent when they first broke up the boys and the girls. Some leaders succeed by surrounding themselves with good people and delegating tasks appropriately. Trump damned him with faint praise during his 10 minute visit to Trump's palace, a reward for winning the art auction (I kept waiting for Trump to extend the back of his hand and allow Nick to kneel and kiss it). Trump said that even when he said that Nick was doing bad, he wasn't doing that bad. That's pretty bad.
At this point, Nick most optimistic scenario is that he ends up dating Amy who ends up as Trump's Apprentice.
Bill (10-1)
Bill is like Kwame and Amy in that he's agreeable and reasonable. Is he a leader? He hasn't shown himself to be assertive or decisive. He needs to trust his own thinking and step forward more. Self-confidence attracts those who lack it.
Troy (5-1)
Ah, the sneaky fox from Idaho, the "country bumpkin" with the saavy of the gifted human charmer. His removal of his belt before the meeting with the Fab Five from Queer Eye didn't accomplish as much as he claimed, but it demonstrated his ability to read others and react appropriately. Is he equipped to lead a company, though? Doubtful. He needs to head up sales, though. He's a closer.
Amy (3-1)
Can she pull off the undefeated Apprentice season? In her own quiet way, she's a very cunning diplomat who has managed to avoid making any strong enemies, and she's even attracted a puppy dog in Nick. She hasn't shown any overt leadership or brilliant ideas to remember her by (advertising on the back of the pedicabs was smart but an obvious one; not surprisingly, it came from the one contestant with Internet experience since that was the only business model of hundreds of Internet flameouts), but she hasn't made any obvious mistakes (her seeming interest in Nick is her worst display of judgment thus far) and she's clearly the player of choice among her teammates. Trump was right: if she's everyone else's first choice as a teammate everytime there's a redraft, then they've already elected her the strongest leader. I'd like to see her lead a team one of these weeks, and I'd like to see someone step up to challenge her.