I would attribute that more to Tammy not saying the women cannot handle a strong, opinionated Asian woman and less to any bias on the part of the writers. Oma brought race into the equation with that exact statement about ''strong black women'', and on other occassions, whereas Tammy did not.



It detailed information about the million dollar advance Trump negotiated (sans agent of course) for his book (to be released when The Apprentice finale is shown), ''How To Get Rich: Lessons from 'The Apprentice' and Other Big Deals''. Also included in the deal is a reprint of another of his books, ''Art of the Deal''.

Black Enterprise.com is doing weekly recaps of the show. Pretty interesting stuff.

Alfred Edmonds, of the Black Enterprise article, is also on USA Today's panel of experts. Here's my favorite quote from his Black Enterprise article:

Exactly! Had the guys identified and exploited the profit center, they might have won, finally. It's their unwillingness or inability to ask questions -- and they fail to ask a lot of questions -- that keeps tanking them. The women, by contrast, ask the right questions, then frequently come up with the wrong answer: sex. Which just shows that it's more important to ask the right questions than to come up with the right answers.

Deborah Tannen, a linguistics expert who writes for popular consumption, has delved into this somewhat. Men, she claims (oversimplifying, no doubt, as I am likely doing as well), view conversation as competition. They supposedly see asking questions as a sign of weakness. And in the context of this show, that is wrong in ten thousand different ways. It's like they're proving her point. And it's a point I never quite believed. But they're making her sound insightful.

I read a book of hers called "You Just Don't Understand." It was about the differences between men and women in the way they communicate. Pretty interesting stuff and hard to deny that the patterns are there in myself, my husband, and virtually every couple I've consciously observed. (FWIW, Mr. archer is reluctant to ask questions in mixed company.)

At least they're not asking Jonathan Gray for his Mars vs. Venus analysis.

Sam just sat in with the Elliot in the Morning Show (a DC radio show) for about an hour, and actually managed to come off as not being a complete tool (or, as Elliot put it at the end, Sam went from being a massive dick in his opinion, to only being a small one). Here are a few things that I remember:

- He and Omarosa are friends, and speak to each other often. He seems to think she has a good shot of winning everything.
- About the famous "death stare," he claims that he doesn't even remember looking at Donald after the firing, and suggested that perhaps the camera was set up at another angle to make him look like he was.
- He was late for his audition at a local hotel because of business, and when he called the producer to say that he was on his way, he was told to just keep on driving. He showed up anyway and convinced the producer to see him, but was told he'd have to wait two hours. Sam then sent up room service to the producer while he was waiting.
- This part, I was only half-paying attention to, so I have no idea if he was joking (God, I hope he was), but he claims that he did extensive research on all his fellow contestants, to the extent that when one of the women made a smart-ass comment to him, he was able to fire back with a comment about her having been fired from a Pizza Hut when she was in high school.
- The live finale and reunion show are scheduled for April, to coincide with Tax Day.

They discussed the possibility of Sam calling in and doing commentary after every episode, so there might be some more info forthcoming.

Oh, I could so see that.

Now the big question: Who couldn't make the cut at the Hut?

Lo and Behold, guess who's on the cover of TV Guide this week? Our own beloved Donald, sitting on a throne, flanked by Omapot and Erekettle. The title says, "The Apprentice: Why the girls are on top." (Insert your own joke here). You can read part of the interview with Donald that will appear in this issue here.

In this brief clip he talks about the women's tactics (which he doesn't seem to have much of a problem with) and some of his personal habits--like the fact he has never smoked, is a teetotler and, oddly enough, has never had a cup of coffee. Strange that Donald and I should have so much in common.

http://www.tvguide.com/ads/images/mp04020701.jpg

That TV Guide cover is just... gahhh. Way to promote a serious businesswoman and downplay the "sex sells" techniques.

Honestly. Why? Do either of them ever expect to work in the "real world" again? Just when I don't think I can be any more embarrased to be a woman from watching the show.

Sorry, some1105, I didn't realize there was a problem accessing the article. Here's the gist:

Trump has made a deal with Random House to publish a "spin-off book" called "How to Get Rich: Lessons From 'The Apprentice' and Other Big Deals." His advance is more than a million dollars, and they're going to reprint "The Art of the Deal" as well. The "Lessons" book with hit the stores in April, in time for the big finale. It will "combine advice from Trump with a behind-the-scenes look at the show."

Trump says that he and his ghostwriter have already written 80% of the book, and Trump negotiated the book deal himself (which included the reprint of "Deal") rather than using an agent. As for the exact amount of the advance: "'I can't comment on the amount,' Random House editorial director Jonathan Karp told the Post, 'but he got exactly what he wanted, and by the end of the negotiation I needed oxygen.'"

Hee. God help me, but I want to read it.

Trump's books are good reads. I met, briefly one of the people mentioned in a book of his, and his response to my "How accurate was trumps portrayal of the situation?" was a 9/10.

Good reads, all. I can't wait for the book either.

Here’s a piece on NBC’s insane scheduling practices that talks about The Apprentice.

The funny thing about that TV Guide cover is that I believe I saw a taped piece on one of the entertainment tonight type shows that was at that photo shoot. It was the same exact set up, only Sam was also included. He was sitting on the ground below Omarosa to DT's right. If he was airbrushed ou of the photo, that would crack me up, but probably they just went with another shot.

I hate to ask it since who wants this image since its Sam, but do you remember if he was appropriately dressed or did they tart him up like the women?

No he was in a regular suit that wasn't open to the navel to display his lingerie. He was sitting or kneeling on the floor in a very subservient manner to DT, but that's probably his natural positioning around him.

Apprentice's Latest Loser Speaks at TVGuide.com

Okay, that article is cool because it's good to know that the fired contestants stayed in NYC and still got to meet with some of Trump's corporate people and all. But where the hell does Bowie get off calling Carolyn a "young lady"? Jesus.

And saying she had a "good little sense of humor" - god, patronize much?

The last line mentioning what the women wore is also thick with sleaze.

Now, this is funny. I have a subscription and my copy has the line: "Can the men compete?" instead. I guess they don't want to offend their subscribers? It's a tacky cover anyhow.

It's common to have the Headlines, or Bullets be different for subscribers and newstand buyers.

They're different, and most magazines spend ungodly amount of time and money figuring out the difference.

Weird, eh?

Yeah, I noticed that too. I don't remember ever seeing one where the cover headline was different. It's interesting, indeed.

Suddenly, I feel guilty for holding the women in such disdain due to their overuse of sex to win challenges. What message is the women's team actually getting from their mentors? Within a week of seeing a really watered-down, lukewarm, half-assed "warning" from DT and Vice-Carolyn where they were essentially told that they are intelligent women who don't need to rely on their bodies and their sexuality, we see the same DT flanked by a couple slices of cheesecake on the cover of TV Guide. Are we to believe that Trump is ready and willing to put either of those Maxim models in charge of one of his companies?

P.S. Ereka appears to have some powerful thighs, and a right cankle, but maybe that was just the camera angle (cf. TVG p 33)

The Donald was on The Daily Show last night. Pretty good interview, but not a whole lot of new stuff for the show. Jon thought it was funny that the winner got to work and the losers didn't.

Just to add to what BassetHound said, TD said the finale would be a live, two-hour show and that's when the winner will be chosen. I think he also said that NBC is pushing for another season.

Here are this week's USA Today links.

The funny part is, in the print edition they got the panel of 12 to snark on Trump. The question they're asked is: If you were on the board of directors for The Trump Organization, would you vote to fire Donald Trump as CEO? A couple would, including the guy from Yale B School, and several others would admonish him. Others praised him. Here are some of the better quotes:
Alfred Edmond, editor in chief of Black Enterprise:

David Moore, Sonostar Ventures chairman:

Cynthia McKay, CEO/attorney, LeGourmet Gift Basket:


Also, a couple of people think George and Carolyn should run the show. Not a bad idea IMO.

This was on CNN.com today--apparently a second season was just ordered.

NBC Announces Season 2 of the Apprentice

Oh my god...I was thinking the same thing. She looked kind of bottom heavy. Those were some powerful thighs.

I was willing to brave Star Jones (and trust me... to me that's like driving a spike through my brain) and watched the last few minutes of "The View" to see Kristi. She actually came off fairly well--very calm and collected, although she made some statements that now, after the fact, I'm not quite clear about. If I heard things right she seemed to be implying that the crying jag of hers was AFTER her boardroom visit (maybe she meant the FIRST visit--when things were totalled, not the second visit when she was fired), and she totally ducked the issue of whether Jessie backstabbed her (and she WAS asked). She defended her boardroom demeanor and said that it is still her philosophy--and one she expects in her own business from her managers--to not pass the buck and to accept responsibility (a not unreasonable explanation I think as long as you don't sit there and just take it--as the editing implies that she did). She also says, that an important sequence was cut from the boardroom--that at one point she DID speak up (after Omarosa tried to pin everything on her) and said something along the lines that although as manager it was completely her overall responsibility, that she thought Omarosa was trying to evade blame for misplacing the $180 dollars, and that Omarosa was--by far--the most persuasive speaker in the game. She also stated, to "The View" audience, that she was absolutely sure where the lost money was--that it was somehow misaccounted for by Omarosa, and that the editing is what created the impression that she ever had any doubt. There was no mention of possible lost receipts or expenses, as we've noted here.

She also said some unintelligible nonsense (prompted by blech... Star Jones, of course) about finding it peculiar that the crying was aired in her case, but also that she was now embracing what it meant to be female in the workplace, and that if this included being emotional, then so be it. At the end, although she wouldn't predict a winner, she expressed extreme admiration for Amy.

Thanks, Kromm, for the sacrifice you made in the name of TWoPpery -- appreciate the recap!

Entertainment Weekley Review. Apparently you need an access code read these if you aren't on AOL.



Please don't publish codes that are used to bypass other publications' pay structures. If you want to see something you have to pay for, then you need to pay for it. Thanks.

Slate has an article about the sex/women/sucess/poor men problem of The Apprentice. I find it interesting that the author more or less points out that Trump is the hypocrit here and pities one of the viceroys.

Breast for Success

Thanks, catrina. That was an interesting article. I think Miss Alli (among others) might take issue with the author when she calls the men "moderately attractive," at least in the case of Boyfriend Bill. Well, Troy and Nick aren't bad to look at either. Come to think of it, the four left really were the most attractive of the bunch, huh? Interesting. Not that I'm saying their looks are the only reason they're still in the game, but, just like the women, I'm sure it's a contributing factor.

I think Jason is the cutest guy.

I agree the Slate article was interesting and appreciate the link. But...



Are the author and I watching the same show? To me, Carolyn looks tireless, confident, and generally amused. And I don't see Trump ignoring her at all, at least no more than he ignores George. (George urged him for three weeks to drop Sam before he finally paid attention.) Pehaps Trump ignores non-slutty women AND old men, but I doubt either.

And. . .



Uhhhm, I don't recall an exclamation of any sort. I seem to recall a very calmly delivered line, sincere and emphatic, but not excited and emotional, as the writer implies. Apparently, Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor at Slate and author of the article, went to the Elaine Benes school of exclamation points.

Weird, because the overall theme of the article is right on, IMO, and she didn't have to alter reality (which is all on tape after all) to make her point.

Was Kristy on "The Today Show?"

This is hearsay, but TWoP is not a court of law, so it's admissable:

My SO watched the Don Imus show, which I've never seen, and Trump was on, and Kristi was on. Imus is going to interview the losers each week.

Here's what my SO said happened with Kristi:
Imus asked if she realized she was being set up by Jessie, and she said not at the time (duh), only after she'd given it some thought. She didn't have feelings about Jessie one way or the other as a friend, so in retrospect she doesn't feel horribly betrayed. She wasn't close to any of the other contestants and didn't like most of them (!). She greatly admires Trump. She's getting married in 2 months.

Here's what he said happened with Trump:
Trump said he'd happily hire the top 5 or 6, then amended that to top 4 or 5. He claims he's getting calls about some of these people from other execs who want to hire them, and he can't pass the info along while they're still in the running, but he expects several of them to end up with some great companies once the show is over. He likes the show. The finale hasn't been shot, it will be with the top two in a live, 2-hour broadcast.

If anyone actually saw Imus and disagrees with anything above, I'll defer to you.

ETA: I also came across this article on sex in the workplace, using The Apprentice for examples.

I noticed and was amused by that moment, because Carolyn did perk up. It's subtle. Borrowing from Dorothy Parker -- Carolyn's range of expression runs the gaumut from A to B.

But the tone and timing of that little comment, barely waiting for the Donald to stop speaking before tacking on a gratuitous point. It looked like that sort of sparky glee that people get when the idea being spoken was originally theirs. The boss tells it and then they jump to add some part of it they think he forgot to include, even though the point has been made perfectly well.

It seems a small thing to describe in such detail, but I had found it such a moment, also seemed to be the first time she seemed anywhere near authentic. I haven't noticed a thing she said since, so presumably she's gone back to A.

Oh, please. For Jessie to set Kristi up means that Jessie somehow knew Trump was going to come down hard on Kristi for not standing up for herself. I think that presupposes not only a lot of planning and forethought, but an eerie knowledge of Trump's thought processes from someone who had never been to the boardroom herself.

Yeah, but she did say that she personally would support Kristi and say things to help keep her on the team, and then when they got in there, she attributed nothing to anything but Kristi sucking. That's the part I did see as a setup. I agree that Jessie couldn't have known for sure how the silence bit would play with Trump.

This is really a media sighting per se, but they say that a sure sign that your show is a hit is when it's parodied. I saw the first one on MAD TV last night. Of course it was a massive riff on The Donald's hair and the winner of the contest was the person who had the guts to criticize it. It was pretty amusing.

My theory on this is that one of the men could have told Jessie about Trump's preference for people who defend themselves.

Looks like The Donald will be on Last Call with Carson Daley on Monday Feb. 9.

The weird thing to me is that the main thrust (ha ha) of the girls' strategy wouldn't work in the actual environment that they're aiming for. I'm assuming that what they eventually want is a job in some sort of financial/business venture. The general dress code there is pretty conservative - something along the line of what Girl Viceroy wears, hopefully better cut. (The woman looks like a box.) Sure, you can flirt while wearing a suit, but the big contrast between the girls/boys (hoochie dress vs. business suits) would be gone. The commentary (especially in the Slate article) seems to assume that behavior on TV stretches over to real life. And, yeah, it does, but women have been using sex for ages, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, yadda yadda yadda. Because some girls are tarting it up on TV (shocker there) doesn't mean that there is a hoochie around every corner in the actual workplace.

I think the whole "working girl" issue says more about who can be on TV than it does about an actual workplace. While all sorts of people get ahead in real life, using all sorts of methods, sex makes for more interesting TV. That's why all the girls are thin and moderately attractive - well, Heidi would be with a paper sack over her head, but still.

I guess Donald wasn't on Last Call? What exactly happened I don't know, but they now say they have someone else on instead. Hmmm...

My TiVo guide listed the show as a repeat -- if it was, I saw it when it originally aired, and Trump didn't really say much. He repeated his "200 IQ, 150,000 applicants" mantra. As I recall, neither Trump nor Carson mentioned that Carson would actually be in one of the upcoming eps. At the time, only one or two shows had aired, so Trump didn't go into any detail about the challenges, or teams, or individual personalities. It was the exact same spiel he gave on The View and Regis and Letterman and every other talk show.

The Wall St Journal has an article headlined "Trump Show Has a Message: Trump," categorized as an Advertising story. No surprise, it's mostly about how Trump is using the show to push the Trump brand (like the purported "best golf course in NY"), and how other companies are scrambling aboard for product placement opportunities.

Tidbits I thought were interesting:
In negotiations for season 2, Trump insisted on more airtime for himself.

He doesn't actually live in the apartment they toured as a reward -- apparently it's purely for showing off, and he actually lives upstairs.

A Trump casino manager is quoted as saying Trump never told him to fire anybody, which the writers took as evidence that Trump is "a mellower boss" than seen on TV.

TVguide.com has an interview with Kristi up.

From the interview:



OK, I'm thinking that out of all of them, he might be my first choice. I kind of liked Troy, but he's WAY too corny, and I hated that he wore his hat into the board room. I guess I still like Kwame. But other than that, i find them all very annoying. I have to assume the relationship will be something gross. It just squicks that they hook up in that crowded suite anyway, where they're all sleeping together. And it bothers me even more that they're using that as a plot point on the show. It's so not needed. People already like the show, so why add in the "relationship" factor?

The most interesting tidbit from the Wall Street Journal article is that the boardroom is FAKE! It said that Trump doesn't have a boardroom big enough so they built one in the BASEMENT! That of course means that the down elevator goes to hell and that those cabs? Haunted cab rides to hell of course!

I think they're lying about the size of Trump's real boardroom. My former office (weep now for Arthur Andersen ... or not) had boardroom as large if not larger than the one shown. I think the real problem was that his boardroom probably has 1) windows and B) has one door, thus depriving us of the highly dramatic ENTRANCE of The Donald.

edited to correct html errors and spelling.