Grin and Bear It: How to Be Happy No Matter What Reality Throws Your Way (5 page)

One afternoon, we were driving back from a Gordy and Lolly appearance at Luna Park, a restaurant on Melrose. We were both still in our costumes when we got into a huge fight. I told Chris to get out of the car. I dropped him on La Cienega, a very busy street in West Hollywood. Seeing a man dressed in drag isn’t necessarily a strange sight in West Hollywood, but it always makes me laugh thinking of Chris stranded on the street dressed as Lolly as I sped off as Gordy. (The fact is that Gordy and Lolly probably got along much better than we did!)

In 2004, while trying to get people interested in the Gordy and Lolly script, we developed a pilot presentation with a friend who very much believed in the project—enough that he put up his own money for all of the production costs. We started shooting in the fall of 2005.

I had an orthodontist friend of mine make a set of braces for Gordy to wear to add to his goofy, nerdy look for a flashback scene of him in high school. My friend sent them via overnight courier several days in advance of the shoot, but they never arrived. On the day we were set to film, I called the delivery company to see if they could help me track the missing package. They said they couldn’t. If I wanted to search for the box, I would have to drive to their main facility an hour south from where we were shooting. I was determined to wear those braces so I got into my car dressed as Gordy and that little man drove like a bat out of hell. When I arrived, the clerk behind the desk told Gordy that it was against their company policy to let anyone not employed there in the warehouse or on the trucks.

“You don’t understand!” I pleaded with the clerk. “I’m a woman playing a man for a movie and he wears braces. If I don’t get that box, my life will be
over
!”

The clerk looked at me with a blank stare.

“Do you have a dream?” I asked, sincerely but perhaps a bit overly dramatic. “Do you understand how important it is to follow your dreams? If you don’t let me get on that truck and get Gordy’s braces my life will be ruined!” I offered my driver’s license and credit card as two forms of identification to prove I wasn’t a total freak, which worked. Realizing this little man with a mustache, receding hairline, and stuffed socks in his pants wasn’t leaving without that box, the clerk even helped me find the package. I wasn’t willing to take no for an answer. This time determination and perseverance really paid off.

Gordy—a man I could always count on.

Even though we had interest in the Gordy and Lolly script from the Farrelly Brothers (
Dumb and Dumber, There’s Something About Mary
), we couldn’t seem to get anything off the ground. Luckily, it sparked another idea for a reality show called,
The Wannabes.
Reality television was still in its infancy back in 2006. I’m not sure anyone really expected it to take over scripted shows the way that it did, but I really believed in every ounce of my being that we were onto something. We wanted to create a show that could have been a child of
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Like
Curb
, it was supposed to be semiscripted but would follow our actual lives. The plot was based on us (of course!), trying to make it in Hollywood as actors and, in my case, as a rapper, too.

Rehearsing for
Showtime at the Apollo
—2002.

Holla!

My rapping career was actually born back at UCLA when I was in a comedy rap group called Juicy. Nothing was off limits. We even turned the funky fresh jam “Supersonic” by J. J. Fad into a remix called “Liposuction.” Then, in 2002, I entered the infamous
Showtime at the Apollo
talent show as a rap duo with Todd Lewis, Jeff’s brother. But more on my TV better half later.

If you aren’t familiar with
Showtime at the Apollo,
the crowds are notoriously rough. They will boo anyone off the stage with such vigor, it’s often terrifying to even think about going out there. If you can survive amateur night at the Apollo, you can survive anything. That audience is known as one of the toughest in the business. Knowing this, Todd and I decided to go for it. I haven’t always known where I’m going in life, but like most hard-core rappers, here is where I have to give thanks to God.

We were the second to last act that night, following a Japanese dance team, Aretha Franklin’s doppelgänger, Barry White’s doppelgänger (with a bigger tongue), a Boyz II Men a cappella–style group with three of the most beautiful African American men I have ever seen, and a hot sexy singer who came out and killed it with her voice and body, not in that order. The crowd had gone crazy for each one of these performers. And then it was our turn.

I didn’t know if the producers were setting us up for a fall by putting us toward the end of the show or if they knew it would be great television to have two extremely white nerdy rappers go out on that great big brutal stage. Just before Todd and I went on, Kiki Shepard and Rudy Rush, the co-hosts of the show, were looking us up and down, like we’d stumbled into the wrong hood. All I could think was,
Don’t forget to rub the stump.
There’s a tradition to rub what remains of the tree of hope, a lucky wishing tree that was cut down in 1934. A legendary section of the trunk sits at the side of the stage. Rubbing the stump is known to bring good luck and has been a longstanding tradition for amateur night for many years.

Chris and Todd’s girlfriend, Carrie, were in the audience. You could easily spot them in the crowd. Chris was standing next to an Apollo regular who asked why he was there.

“My wife is performing tonight.”

“Aw, great, man, I’ll cheer for her.…”

When the Aretha Franklin look-alike came out he turned to Chris and asked, “Is that your wife?’

“No.”

When the Japanese dance team came out, he turned and asked, “Is that your wife?”

“Nope.”

When the hot sexy African American girl came out, he asked, “Is
that
your wife?”

“Nuh-uh.”

Finally, when I came out, he turned to Chris and said, “Oh no, man, please tell me that’s not your wife.…”

“Uh, yeah … that’s my wife.…”

“I can’t do it, man … sorry.…”

The minute we stepped onto the stage—me in a Brownie uniform, beanie and all, and Todd in Boy Scout shorts, thick black glasses, and a green sash full of Cub Scout badges across his chest—we were booed and laughed at. The host Rudi Rush introduced us.

“I’m Jenni, yeah.”

“I’m Todd.”

“And we’re from Los Angeles.”

I announced meekly that we were going to do “a little song from camp … God Bless New York.” We wanted to be SEEN. And boy, were we ever.

As expected, the crowd was raucous and had no time for our brand of silliness. People were visibly cringing in their seats, holding their hands over their open mouths in horror. The music started and we began our ultra-white, super-geeky dance moves, complete with lip biting and protruding thumbs. But as soon as the music kicked in and turned into a beat, we quickly transformed into street badasses attacking with the words, “Who’s the black sheep? What’s the black sheep? Here they come, yo, here they come.”

We covered the stage with our moves repeating, “You can get with this. And you can get with that.” We stunned the crowd, including the Apollo regular next to Chris. Everyone was on their feet, clapping, fist pumping, whoop-whooping it up and having a great time. When we finished, one of the hosts came back to congratulate me.

“Girl, come here and give Kiki a hug!” she said as she threw her arms around me.

To announce the winner of the show, the producers bring each of the acts back on stage for a final audience vote. Todd and I stood up there with all of this amazing talent waiting to hear who won. When they announced that we had tied for first place, the crowd went nuts—but then, they were asked to break the tie and scream for the winner and we lost to the a capella group. But it was an incredible moment. For the first time in my career I felt SEEN
.
Finally I’d done something I thought would make my mother proud—and happy. I wanted to keep my big win a surprise, so I didn’t tell her the results of the show that night. I simply told my mom when the show was set to air, and warned her that since the show came on so late at night, she had to promise to stay awake for the entire episode or she would miss the big surprise at the end. I knew she’d call me the next morning.

When the phone rang early the next day, I was sure I was about to get my mother’s approval—it was a moment I’d been waiting for my entire life. “Jennifer, I saw your show,” she said. Here it comes … the moment I had been waiting for.

“Did you like it Mom?”

“It was horrible,” she said.

My heart sank. I knew full well she wouldn’t approve of me rapping, dressed as a Brownie, gyrating my pelvis in front of three thousand strangers, but I held out hope that she might somehow come around. I asked her why she didn’t like the show.

“Well, that man was on the whole time selling that cheap face cream, which looks like a terrible product. I guess you came out toward the end of the two-hour segment, but Jennifer, it didn’t even look like you. Did you straighten your hair and gain weight since the last time you came to Palm Springs? Your ankles looked less swollen, though, so that was good.”

That ankle comment was my mom’s way of being supportive. I tried not to react.

“Mom, what channel were you watching?”

“Oh, I don’t remember. I think the peacock,” she said.

“Didn’t you check
TV Guide
? The show was probably preempted and replaced by infomercials because I wasn’t selling face cream. I was a rapping Brownie!”

“Oh, Jennifer just get in something I can be proud of already! Nia Vardalos’s mom gets
My Big Fat Greek Wedding
and I’m stuck with a rapping Brownie.”

You have to love my mother’s version of nurturing.

With her approval ever-present in my mind, I actually thought
The Wannabes
might be something that would make my mom happy. As a way of hedging my bet, I put her in
The Wannabes
pilot. She did some great improvising, including my always asking her for money. To be fair, there wasn’t a lot of imagination needed as I was still asking my mom for money all the time—in fact, she called us the “Needabees.” Still, she helped make those exchanges feel just a little funnier and more authentic because of her no-holds-barred candor.

The original concept for
The Wannabes
was about Chris and I doing odd jobs as we struggled for that big break. Enter Jeff Lewis. Jeff was a professional house flipper and real estate developer in Los Angeles, and he had hired Chris to be his house assistant long before we came up with the concept for our show. Then one day, I filled in for Chris because, naturally, he had an audition and I didn’t. Whenever Jeff spoke throughout the day, I took detailed notes so I wouldn’t forget to do anything he wanted me to do. Little did I know that perfectly executing the delivery of a honey-glazed ham would end up in a job offer: He wanted one for his grandmother, and he was over-the-moon thrilled when the ham had been delivered exactly to his specifications. I sealed the deal with a Post-it listing of who he needed to call over the weekend. He immediately offered me a job as his executive assistant, and I agreed to work for him on the condition that he would let me go on auditions whenever I needed to.

Up until then, I had been waiting tables around L.A. and doing odd jobs, and I was completely over that lifestyle. A secure job with a steady paycheck would be a new experience. Besides, I thought, when I make my money acting, I’d like to know more about real estate because it could be a smart investment.

Initially, Jeff was only supposed to have a small role—and even that was a tough sell to him. Convinced I needed him for authenticity and a little drama, I pleaded with Jeff to participate. Despite his consistent refusal, I gave it everything I had to wear him down and get him to say yes. Whenever we were driving around I would slip into our conversations:

“You will earn extra money.”

“You’ll be able to showcase your skills.”