check this out: [URL=http://www.madblast.com/omarosa.cfm]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the correction, Ziploc, and I apologize for the inadvertent diss on your school.

She just sounds like an altogether inspiring teacher, and I think it's great that she gives her students credit for enough intelligence to recognize a bad example when they see one.

The contrast between her and Sonnefeld crystalized for me exactly what the Viceroys meant about Kwame having great schooling, but needing more real-world experience. Sonnefeld seems to know the theories inside out, but if something doesn't fit his thesis, he wants to throw it away as useless. Actually, a fair number of the so-called experts from academia who have commented on TA have taken the same attitude. The Dean of the Wharton School is the only exception I can think of offhand: when he was asked if TA was required viewing, he responded that it wasn't, but only because the faculty hadn't had to require it--the students were bringing it into the classrooms on their own.

From the NY Post:

Ah, the rumors of a Clairol contract for Ho-marosa are overstated. From the NY Post article cited just up-thread:



I predict she'll be so awful that Clairol will refuse to ever work with her again.

And TwoP gets a mention:



Unfortunately, she is opening VH1's "Divas" special, although the VH1 producer who hired her seemingly did it holding his nose.

Well Dateline pretty much reported the Clairol thing as if it were news. So either they believed Oma, or the letter-writing campaign worked and Clairol has second thoughts.

No worries, Rarab, I might have gone a little Bill there in my defense of my school.

What I don’t like about Sonnenfeld(besides for the snobbery over a TV show) is that he seems to have watched the show second-hand. For instance he says:



If he had watched the show closely he would know that Carolyn and The Trumpinator gave the smack-down to the women for the sex peddling. More importantly, as Carolyn has emphatically stated in interviews, the sex did not carry the women far. The lesson here was that sex sells short term, but will not give you long term success. Sonnenfeld seems to have missed that point entirely. Here is a good example of where learning from the mistakes of the apprentices can be a helpful lesson.

Although the Apprentice was at times full of incompetence and questionable ethics, these situations can provide useful starting points for discussion about complicated situations in the business world. So although all of the individuals in the Apprentice are not my role models, I enjoy discussing the business aspects of the show and debating what could have been done better and even what was done well.

--Yale News
And if he really thinks that people are stupid enough to view the majority of the apprentices as corporate leaders, in the words of Kwame, "That's just silly".

Kwame on Conan, about losing to Bill: "Close but no cigar."

hee!

Does anyone else get the feeling Bill and Trump have different ideas of how "in-charge" Bill is going to be? On Access Hollywood a reporter asked him skeptically "Now you're not going to actually run the full project by your self?" and Bill replied "Absolutely, without a doubt. I'm going to get dirty. I'm going to be there and make it happen" He also joked on one of his appearances that he might want to hyphenate the Trump logo that will inevitably be emblazoned on the building with his own name. Consider what Trump says later on Access Hollywood: The same reporter posits "He's not running the building," and Trump says, "No, Bill will be a big part of the team, but I have people that throw up buildings every week. I mean, these guys are real builders. Bill will be a very instrumental part of the team and I actually think Bill is going to do a great job." If the job isn't even defined yet (which is my assumption from Trump's vagueness), how critical could it be? I hope he isn't given some "created" job that just ends up making him a nuisance.

ETA: This Chicago Sun-Times article has me thinking that maybe Bill will be used as sort of a goodwill ambassador and be more of a community liaison. I don't know anything about the politics of construction, but I imagine it is a factor. He may also be used as a poster boy to drum up sales of units. Here is part of the article that got me thinking about this:

The more I read about Bill's usefulness to Trump in smoothing the waters for the Chicago project, the more I understand why Bill was given the first selection of employees in the final project. As I mentioned on Kwame's thread, it was clear that the person who chose second would eventually end up with Assarosa, no matter how you slice it. Therefore, the order of selection was critical. Yet, The Hair just handed the first choice to Bill on a silver platter. Why wasn't there some fairer way of determining who would choose first? Bill did a better job and I think he deserved to win, but I wonder how successful he would have been had he been saddled with Assy or some equally debilitating impediment. But what if the plan was for him NOT to be handicapped, clearing the way for a win and thereby ensuring that The Hair would have a local media darling, Chicago's hometown boy, as ambassador on a project that has received some measure of local criticism? Just asking.

Don't post copyrighted articles. Just post or paraphrase them.

summerprincess, you might want to acquaint yourself with the FAQ's of this board since it's against the rules to post full articles from publications...they do allow putting links to the articles, but not the full articles (although you can summarize what the article says, as I've done in this post about a tidbit from the Post about Omarosa or quote one bit of the article).


In other news from today's NY Post, a tidbit said that Omarosa was doing a photo shoot yesterday when the strong winds blew her dress up, revealing that she was wearing no panties and was in dire need of a good bikini wax (ewwww!). It said she should get herself pronto to J Sisters, a NYC place famous for their Brazilian bikini waxes...

Another article said that Bill will most definitely not be running the show at the Chicago Trump project - they quoted one of Trump's competitors saying that project managers have 25-30 years' experience to handle a build like that. However, a former Trump project manager said that someone who works hard for Trump can definitely go places. And Trump himself said he'll be very much on top of Bill as will the folks working for Trump who are very experienced in this field (this news is no surprise to anyone, I'm sure).

And last bit from the Post said the Mark Cuban (billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks) has offered Kwame a job to manage his investment portfolio (man, that's gotta be one extensive portfolio!).

Omarosa goes to the psychiatrist. (No, actually the psychiatrist goes to her.)

Summerprincess and Crazyleggs, you might want to check the FAQ before you post. Just a friendly reminder.

The funniest quote from that article about the psychiatrist's take on Oma was this:



Also, his bit that "Oma must have skipped kindergarten because she never learned to play nice with others" - so true.

Trump mentioned on Friday's Dateline that he didn't understand how the women could be such stars for four weeks, then completely fall apart when the teams were reshuffled.

Uh, Donald? Maybe it's because your dumb tasks were at least 75% luck? With a couple notable exceptions, which team would win was basically a toss-up, week to week. I realize that final sales is the easiest figure to quantify, but I hope Burnett comes up withmore encompassing tasks next season.

For anyone who wants to want the finale again, NBC is airing it tonight (9 p.m. EST).

Extra Article with Apprentice Updates

It gives updates on most of the Apprentices. It's a pretty good read.

While I think Amy is a great team member and is very creative, her quote about returning the A2 (" "I’ll be back there if Mr. Trump fires Carolyn and puts me in her spot," Amy told us.) shows that she's just as delusional as ever about her capabilities.

Of course, she might have said this tongue-in-cheek, but part of me thinks she could do Carolyn's job. I don't think so!

I heard her say that, and was like, "as if!!" I can hear her now: "Mr. Trump, I can't oversee the teams because the women want to be me and the men want to sleep with me, which makes it hard to be effective." I'm starting to think that Amy is sharing Omarosa's reality.



I think the phrase just means showing off or showing your "bling", so to speak.

I love this quote from an article about Assy pushing her 15 minutes, "begging" to be a Miss USA pageant judge:

"There was no way we were going to make her a judge," a pageant source told Us. "Mr. Trump is annoyed."

Hee! Describing DT as annoyed was probably an understatement!

And not to worry about Kwame – lots of good things are happening for him: The Star's web site reports that Kwame accepted Mark Cuban's job offer of managing one of his portfolios. And a Yahoo News story reports that he's considering an offer to promote KFC's new line of oven-roasted chicken -- "Once we negotiate a higher fee, yes," he told tvguide.com. He's also going to produce a film about FSU's football coach, Bobby Bowden for which he needs to raise $2.5 million (anyone doubt he'll get it?). AND Greta van Stustern has invited him to accompany her to the White House correspondents dinner on May 1.

The story also reported that Amy is considering a job offer from DT to run the sales team at Trump Tower. "He offered me a job and called on two occasions to make sure I was still interested," Amy told Us Weekly. She had yet to accept the position. Heh.

Just a quick comment:

I've been keeping up with the episdoe threads religiously. I have only just recently become aquainted with the "media articles" thread. Now that the show is over, I will be devouring this thread in its entirety. Money, money, money, moooooney.........money!

*sigh* Sad, but true.

She'll do it if she can do it "on camera" though, right?

Goobaletta, are you referring to Amy running the sales team?! (I figured you are...and I can totally see her including that in her negotiations since she said on Extra or Access Hollywood last night that 'she has offers to work in FRONT of the camera' which I think would suit her far better).

Either Access Hollywood or Extra had some "naughty video" of Ereka they were using in their teaser for Friday's show. Did anyone see it or know what it was about?

I haven't seen this posted yet, but during the host chat on Regis and Kelly, they were talking about The Apprentice and Kelly mentioned the preview of TA2. She was not happy to see Omaros's picture and said (paraphrased), "Haven't we, as a nation, suffered enough?" It was pretty funny.

Wouldn't be surprised if she's holding out on accepting the offer pending a deal to be on TA2 -- not as a contestant, but maybe as someone who monitors the tasks, or she gets to choose a contestant for her sales team, etc.

Today's NY Post:


Given the public's negative response to Clairol over its rumored signing of Om.and to Oprah given her interview of Om., I cannot see too many companies signing her to endorse anything.

Edited to Add:

Grossest Story to Date
OH-MAROSA!
3/4 Down the Page.

Tashanir, the only thing I can think of was that they were teasing the segment that showed her in her college TV soap. In the scene she's flirting with a young man, they kiss believably, and then they disappear into a room and shut the door. The young man? He was African-American.

Grossest Story to Date
OH-MAROSA!
3/4 Down the Page.

OMG. I am thoroughly traumatized. TMI. I need to go bash my head against the wall to get that image out of my brain. OMG...

I hope it worked. I sent a letter via their web site, faxed a letter and snail-mailed a letter. In my fax and snail letter, I listed Proctor & Gamble products that I loyally buy but won't if OImafamewhore is signed on. :-)

Don't double post

"

Trump doesn't have a financial investment in Bill, because NBC is paying his salary. Trump doesn't have to get $250,000 worth of work out of him, so he could just make Bill the "CEO of Go-For, Inc." on the building site. His job would consist of fetching coffee and sandwiches for the crew.



It would be a good match, because Cuban and Kwame are both laid back. The first meeting between Cuban and the head coach of the Mavericks was held at Cuban's home. The coach dressed in a suit and a brief case full of strategies. When Cuban answered the door, he greeted the coach in jeans, a t-shirt, while eating a bowl of cereal. When addressing the strategy for the team, Cuban pretty much just said, "I want to make it to the quarter-finals this year," and left the rest to the coach. This pretty much Kwame's approach to management.

Don't double post

Re the NYP's story on Assorama's, um, ass-o-rama, where's a vat of bleach when I need it?!? EW!!!

girlsogroovy: You're not supposed to double-post a few minutes apart.

...and you're not supposed to use spoiler tags for anything but spoilers.

EWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!

Good for you, Girlysogroovy. I will follow your excellent example.

See now, this is very interesting to me. I'm sort of in the business. And the last thing you want to do as an agent--or allow your client to do--is to admit that the 'datebook is free after tomorrow'. And saying that 'the phone is ringing' means dick, and everyone knows that.

The correct line is to say something like 'we're getting all kinds of offers, and they are coming from many different directions. Omarosa is right now deciding which of them she wishes to pursue...' You do not want to underline to the media the unignorable fact that your client is past her sell-by date. Maybe some idiot will come out of the woodwork and hire her to shill for his used-car dealership or his floortile and carpet emporium. It's all money. But no one is gonna go for a woman with a completely open and available datebook.

So either Mr Delaney isn't up to the job. Or he, too, has taken a scunner to Ms Manigault-Stallworth, and reckons the 10% of the putative dealership ad money is worth going without in order to get back at this self-obsessed blob of pus that has been infecting his universe!

Holy SHIT. GoddessMelissa, I realize that you warned us, but still.....now I'm stuck with that image forever. Where DID I put my scissors....?

Looks like Asso should have gone for a two-fer on the spa visit during the bargaining task. No wonder she was holding Amy's hand.

Edited because Miss Alli's fabulous recaps put a world of Apprentice factoids at your fingertips, and you might as well be accurate, even when posting about Assorama.

I was totally expecting Cuban to make a move on Kwame (so to speak) after reading his blog entry from earlier this week.


I think Kwame is going to end up with a MUCH better deal than Bill's. Sure some of the bluster is because of Cuban's show The Benefactor and the resulting publicity of having a "mogul war" but I think Cuban's sincerely pissed off. He'll make sure Kwame has some real power in his organization, I bet.

Edit: Oops, Dougintx, you already posted this. I'm an idiot, but I'll leave the link.

Coming from Kelly, that statement is gold. I don't even watch Regis and Kelly, but I've suffered enough from exposure to Kelly.

And the link to OImsuchaliarosa and the skirt blowing up? I've ordered an extra 55 gallon drum of brain bleach for TWOP. Help yourselves!

OMG, even though at my age I can't afford to lose any more brain cells, I'm desperately searching for brain laser therapy to destroy the memory cells holding that bit of info. I feel like the guy in The Wrath of Kahn who had the creature inserted in his ear that ate his brain. Aaaahhhhh!!

Was at a bookstore flipping through "In Touch" magazine - of course, there was an article about the Apprentices, with estimates of how much each one could make from having been on the show. Oma was listed at the highest - just over $1 million. And they had a full-spread photo of her in a bathtub covered in money.

But the funniest thing from the article was this quote from Oma (who is now 30 since that makes this quote even sillier):



Well, considering that I don't think Miss Oma has even made a million, I'd say her chances are nil, LOL. Not only is this woman bat-shit crazy, but she's delusional beyond belief.

I'm going to actually have faith in Trump, and assume that he will put Bill in a productive line of work. The Donald clearly likes Bill and thinks he's capable, and I don't see why he'd decline to put him to work in an area he already specializes in-- say, helping renovation in some areas, or serving as a neighborhood laison. I think chances are high that he'll end up in a position that makes the most of his skills, and lets him accrue very important contacts for his future, whether or not he decides to continue with Trump. And if he does an excellent job, he may even have the oppurtunity to KEEP being gainfully employed by Trump at higher and higher positions.

Will Bill probably end up as the "Big Boss" of the project straight off the bat? No, most likely not. But I very much doubt he'll be a "gofer." He won the show because he is a shrewd, capable businessman, and he'll surely use his capability to advance further along the Trump heirarchy or at least garner contacts from the Trump-based work.

And what's to say all the offers that Kwame is getting from Mark Cuban or whoever isn't a false "gofer" employee position made to garner good publicity for the employer? (I know I sure as hell never knew who Mark Cuban was before I heard of him offering a job to Kwame.) If I was to be very, very cynical, I would say (and am saying!) that if Kwame is hired because of his stint in this show, it will because people like his personality or see him as being a big PR and press boost for them or their companies-- not because of his demonstrated skills. Kwame came off as far, far, far less competant businessman than Bill throughout the whole series, and was a downright embarassment during his final task. Why should he suddenly be deluged with offers while the actual (and very deserving) winner get scut-work?

xaxat posted a link to a NY Times article yesterday but it required registration. I came across this article from the NY Times at Sirlinksalot today. It sounds like it might be the same article but it does not appear to require registration, in case anyone wanted to read it who wasn't registered.

It mainly talks about resistance to and problems with the project and the long road ahead to completion. It also talks about Bill's role (only to the extent that it's unclear :-) ).

I've been thinking today about why Assy on TV makes my blood boil, and why I bothered to write to Clairol, and why I'll write to VH1 about her possible appearance on that network's "Divas" show. I've begun to think that this is related to our national media obsession -- an obsession I'll freely admit I share, or why would I be writing here? --, and what role the media plays in our moral lives.

Let's face it, this country is filled with famewhores. For better or worse, the people of this country and this culture see media exposure as a good thing, and sometimes even a reward for a job well done, and thus a desireable thing to which to aspire. Media exposure and attention has become proof of moral goodness. Added to that, those who aren't anxious for media exposure are all too willing to join the fun by gleefully following the famewhores' progress. We like to watch, and we like to be watched. If it weren't so, the TV schedules wouldn't be filled with dreck like The Littlest Groom, The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, The Real World, Fear Factor, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Nor would there be an entire industry devoted to following the "celebrities" these programs create: Access Hollywood, Extra, E!, and so forth. We argue about Assy's villainy, and whether the Bachelor chose the right woman, did the right person get voted off the island, and which celebrity marriage is likely to last, as if the lives of famewhores had become new parables of right and wrong.

And to a large extent, so they have. And parables have moral lessons, a format set early on by Aesop and the writers of the books of the Bible, the Talmud and other religious texts. The moral lessons in the new parables are taught by ensuring that the people of whom we disapprove (who will NOT disappear, even though we say we want them to -- because we really don't, as we need our parables) receive only negative media exposure, thus casting the subjects in the proper, meet and just light, as it were.

I can understand why so many people thought Assy on Oprah was poorly done on Oprah's part. Oprah has become a sort of barometer for what's worthwhile in the culture at large today. She's so well thought-of, that any connection to Oprah in any context is seen as a reward by the culture in general. A book that gets reviewed on Oprah, regardless of whether it's part of the regular Book Club, is rewarded with increased sales and profits for its author. A movie star appearing on Oprah is rewarded with increased box office. And so on, and so forth ... For better or worse, many people have made Oprah the uber-dispenser of cultural approval and acceptance. Consequently, it's generally felt that association with her is therefore to be reserved for the deserving few.

And Assy definitely isn't deserving, or at least that's been the general judgment so far. She's not going anywhere, at least for the next couple of months or so. She'll be in the press for a bit longer, possibly even as long as the entire summer, until The Apprentice II starts up and we find someone new to hiss at. At that point, she'll be gone, and we'll all be writing about someone else. But for now, she serves a definite purpose as whipping girl for the culture. And whipping girls must never, never be rewarded -- ever.

And I apologize for this long-winded bloviation. I'm working on a Saturday, and my brain is fried.

Watched the Dateline story last night and was horrified to see how many of the candidates are hoping to find work in entertainment. It is amazing that people think the one reality show will be a foot in the door for the Industry.

Note to Apprentices: Please ask most former cast members of the Real World and Road Rules how their entertainment industry careers are going!!!

I'm not...maybe some of them did the show for the exposure and networking/business opportunities that could come out of it (even without winning), but since some of them have done some acting/modeling (Kristi, Amy, Omarosa, probably Katrina and Ereka too), this does not surprise me. After all, they do get exposure and make contacts that they'd normally never get...so if their goal is to get into TV/media or just to get better business opportunities, it can do that quickly!

P.S. And for some folks, reality shows have given them TV roles (not many, but some) - Elisabeth on "The View" was on one of the early "Survivors" and then got her own 'bargain shopping' show on cable and now is one of the five hosts on the View. I think Keith Fame, another Survivor person, still has his TV show on Food Network (and he gets to travel the world for that show). Colby (Survivor) is doing ads for Schick razors.

So for some, it has indeed opened the door to new careers.

One of the articles, I can't remember which one, mentioned that the job offered to Kwame was managing one (or more) of Cuban's investment portfolios, which is something that Kwame is qualified to do, and incidentally something that Bill would not be qualified to do. I disagree that Kwame came off as a less competant businessman than Bill--Bill merely had a better track record on a bunch of meaningless tasks.

Bill, on the other hand, is a hometown boy being associated with a large product that is meeting with some opposition. If there's one thing I've learned from being in this town for a few years, Chicagoans are proud of, and take care of their own. If Bill is a figurehead in this project, it will almost certainly make it proceed better. This is not to say that he won't earn more responsibility, but he had a better chance at being the big boss at the golf course than at the building project, but it only takes a cursory glance at the Inside Edition piece they did on Bill to know that he would never have taken that job in LA.

I read that too, but until Cuban finds out what Kwame's track record of managing investments is, I'd wouldn't be so eager to hire him unless it was for some other type of more PR-related work. Yes, Kwame worked for what is probably the top investment banking firm anywhere, but that doesn't quite tell you what his individual track record is. I'm sure Cuban will check that out (as anyone hiring anyone should), but I'd damn make sure he's got the real smarts and track record to manage even a single investment, much less one or more portfolios.

Gah, the Sun-Times article called Ogoawayalready "Snarky". That's at least the second time I've seen that word applied to her. Being a Twopper, I feel somewhat protective of the word "snarky", so it galls me to see it misapplied. Because, while some delusional bitches are snarky, and a few snarky people are delusional bitches, those descriptions are hardly interchangeable. So, media types <waves to NY Post intern>, please let it be known that you need to knock it off. Quit smearing the noble calling of snarkiness.

Now that the show is over, and the storm of media articles will wind down shortly (I presume!), I just want to thank all of you who took the time to look up articles and post the links, especially goobaletta, who did so many! This lurker loved reading them, along with all of the commentary. Thanks!

Roger Friedman, better known as Fox411, recently posted his experience at The Apprentice Finale Party.

*curtsy* You're very welcome. It's one of the weirdest obsessions I've ever had. And as long as these boards are up, odds are I'll keep posting relevant articles. Perhaps not so often, but often enough to keep the addicts going.

As to Mark Cuban hiring Kwame? A man in his position surely knows people at GS who can tell him what Kwame's qualifications are. Clearly MC is no fool or he'd not be where he is financially, etc., so I have no doubt that before he offered Kwame that gig that he checked him out thoroughly.

ITA. Anyone with a lick of sense knew damn well "Billy" was going to stay in Chi-town. TD's got at least that lick. And I've read enough articles about that project that your comment about Bill being a means of smoothing the ruffled feathers of the locals has got to be right on target. Trump NEEDS Bill there. He was damn lucky to have a qualified Chicagoan go so far in the show.