The Apprentice Show Series on NBC: Clay's Take

Well... I guess one way to look at it all is... I now can't do any worse on this show than I did on my last one.

As I said in the Boardroom at the beginning of the episode, there is so much deja vu going on for me now.

Almost 10 years ago, I met Ruben Studdard randomly in the hallway of the Glendale Hilton during Idol's "Hollywood Round." Despite our differences, we struck up a fast friendship that lasted through the entire season, and then we ended up competing against each other in the final.

At the very beginning of the Apprentice shoot, the producers threw a little reception for all of the contestants. Many of us had no idea who would be on the show with us. I knew that Debbie would be participating. I knew about George Takei, Lisa Lampanelli and Penn Jillette, but that was it.

That night, as people arrived at the reception, I was standing in a corner sort of avoiding the crowd. I am NOT very good with crowds and get sort of uncomfortable, so I was pretty much hiding. I turn around and there stands Arsenio Hall. I had grown up watching his talk show before I went to bed every night in middle school. (I was never cool enough to know what the popular music or pop culture topics were, so I watched his show as an education. It helped me know what was cool!) Here in front of me was this legend that I had grown up on. He was hiding in the corner too!!! Ha ha.

We both bonded very quickly over our mutual reclusiveness, and throughout the competition, Arsenio became an incredible, incredible friend.

So, just like on Idol, I stand at the penultimate point in the competition head-to-head with a great friend. It's an incredible honor, and at the same time stressful.

This final task is a BEAR!!!! Walking up to the final task delivery, I think Arsenio and I were so excited to be in the final that we didn't anticipate how much of an undertaking we would be met with.

A fundraiser. A party to throw. A commercial to write, direct, shoot and edit. And a performance! This really is like a final exam at the end of an already tough semester.
Fortunately, we get help.

He and I both explain a bit of our thought process behind choosing the people to help that we chose. I can't speak anymore to why he chose folks than he already has said, but I can go in depth a bit more about how I went about choosing them.
When we found out we had to do a variety show, I KNEW I wanted both Debbie and Aubrey. The two of them are vocalists in a similar vein to me so I thought taking them would be important to my process.

I KNEW that I had Aubrey no matter what. With the tension between Aubrey and Arsenio, I had little doubt that he would not pick her. So I felt I was set with her.

I also knew I wanted Lisa. I wasn't sure how her brand of comedy would play in my variety show, but I had LOVED working with her and she is a BRILLIANT worker and multitalented. So I wanted her.

I also knew I would like to have Penn. I respect Penn's mind. He's brilliant and creative, and I wanted Mr. Trump (AND PENN) to know that I harbored no ill will against him.

My plan was to pick Lisa first because I thought she would be the person I'd most like to have. But, when Arsenio picked Adam, I panicked. Adam is brilliantly creative in the same way that Penn is. If Arsenio took Penn AND Adam, I was worried he would have a powerhouse duo on the team. So, I snatched Penn up first.

I certainly didn't expect for Arsenio to take Lisa. He had never worked with her before. We know now that Arsenio was trying to keep Lisa away from me in the same way I was trying to keep Penn away from him, so I lost that one.

I still wanted a musical theme, so losing Lisa meant there was room made for Dee, and that made me just as happy.

Debbie Gibson is a musical prodigy. She may sing her stuff a LOT!! ;-) But when it comes to writing music, arranging and playing, she is like few people I have ever met. Building a medley of songs and getting them arranged in a great way was so important. Debbie was my first musical pick.

Again, I KNEW I would get Aubrey, so I could save her till the end. I didn't pick her last because I didn't want her. I picked her last because I knew I could.

In the end I KNOW I have the strongest team!

When we did the fundraising task with Dee as the head of Unanimous, it was really important to him to talk to us about March of Dimes and show us how important the charity was, so I wanted to do that with my new team.

Explaining the work of National Inclusion Project is not so easy to do in just a few words or sentences, so most of them didn't know about what we do. I was so thankful to be able to talk to them about how important the work is to me and how much I REALLY valued their help during the task.

Penn's charity, Opportunity Village, is not too unlike National Inclusion Project in that it helps individuals with disabilities participate in the greater world and keeps them from being ostracized. Therefore, I knew Penn would have the mind and the heart for helping to come up with the concept for our charity ad. He took the initial seed of an idea that I had and I truly believe he made it better.

Aubrey has an incredible eye for design and is a perfectionist when it comes to producing. I thought her party for Crystal Light was incredible (even if we did win over her team). Having Aubrey take the lead on the party was a no-brainer. And for our party, Aubrey stepped outside of the box (I'd love to think she took that cue from our outside-the-box beach party, but Aubrey is pretty creative on her own) and really got to work on an original design that encapsulated the mission of National Inclusion Project.

Debbie knows her music. So giving her a bit of direction on what I wanted for the variety show and letting her brainstorm some more was perfect for her.

If there was consternation, I think it came from the fact that there was confusion over what the meaning of "delegation" is. While I certainly trusted each person to handle the task I asked him or her to handle, the bottom line is that my butt is on the line for all of it. Therefore, I don't have the luxury of just letting other people make final decisions for me.

Not wanting to have ALL of the walls in the event space painted was a decision made out of using our resources wisely. We certainly didn't have time to get it all done and I wanted to focus on more important things than painted walls. The compromise, which was painting ONE wall and doing so elaborately, was a fair trade off, I believe.

I certainly wasn't trying to take authority away from Debbie in the arrangement of the musical medleys. I just believed (after hearing the first drafts) that certain tweaks needed to be made. I feel that, as the project manager, I needed to sing a bit more vs. less and that certain parts of certain songs could be shortened to keep the medleys moving at a faster (more entertaining) pace. I absolutely wasn't taking authority away from Debbie or Aubrey - I hadn't given it to them in the first place. I have to make the decisions myself.

That came into play with the mural as well. (And let me preface this by saying, Debbie and I were friends before this entire show started and we are still friends and will remain friends.) My concern with the mural had nothing to do with my trust of Debbie's judgment; it had nothing to do with my trust of her cousin's talent. To me the issue was that this mural, if it is to be put on the wall, would be 70 feet wide and twenty feet tall. I don't want to have any surprises.

Debbie wanted SOOOO badly to help. In fact, Debbie's passion for helping during this task is the most genuine of anyone's on the show. She attacks every cause as though she has a personal investment... I could NOT be more appreciative of her for that!! BUT I NEED TO SEE A SKETCH BEFORE IT GOES ON THE WALL!!!!!!!!

And yet, somehow, while all of this drama is going on over on my team, Arsenio's team is singing "Kumbaya" and having a virtual lovefest with each other! My take on it all is that Team Arsenio is working so well and so peacefully together because... well... they're attempting some pretty easy and pretty basic elements.

-A video shoot against a white backdrop versus a video shoot with children in the grass underneath a housing project.
-A basic cocktail party versus a patented "Aubrey O'Day over-the-top" themed carnival party
-A variety show based on individual comic performances versus a variety show that tries to blend everyone together and get the one and only Dee Snider to sing Motown!
-A fundraising effort calling big name celebrity donors versus a fundraising effort calling random people in the phonebook!! Ha ha.

Taking big risks does NOT always prove to be the right thing to do. Arsenio seems to be having a relatively low stress task... I seem to be having a stroke!

Next week... it all comes to an end!

We'll all find out together if Debbie's mural ever gets done (or if we argued for no reason at all). We'll all get to laugh our heads off at Arsenio's comedy show and, hopefully, our musical variety show will pull together. We'll all watch what I think is an INCREDIBLE ad for National Inclusion Project, and we'll see if Arsenio can make some "magic" happen with the side of Magic Johnson's head!

Either way... it's been an amazing ride with some amazing people, and if I end up coming in 2nd again... it will be 2nd to an AMAZING FRIEND.

See you next week for the live finale... and MORE than a few surprises.

This episode has to be one of my favorites. So much interesting stuff happens in this episode, but I think the most important take away is that you all get to see a bit more of a REAL picture of Lisa Lampanelli.

For weeks, Lisa has been lambasted as the Queen of Mean. Loved by few, hated by many! I think that this task really shows off the truest side of Lisa.

I'll probably get slammed for saying this, but I find Lisa to be a pretty nice lady.

YES YES YES... I'll admit, she comes across as unhinged and mean as hell at times. That said, so often these tasks last for two or more days, yet the audience only sees a small sliver of that time. If in the course of 48 hours, Lisa yells at someone for five minutes, you're typically shown the entire five minutes. So in a 25-minute display of us working on the task, you see 20 minutes of calm-and-working-Lisa and 5 minutes of crazy-ass-mean-Lisa. It certainly doesn't means she's gonna be a church youth minister any time soon or even that she would be allowed to go into some bars in town. She certainly has a mouth on her and a temper that can flare and say things that are WAY WAY meaner than many of us might deem necessary or appropriate... but... much more of the time than you see, she's a fun-loving and nice person. AND... she's a shrewd player of this game!

As her only teammate this week, I was actually never worried about her temper or her reputation for being rough with people. I know that I'm intelligent and a hard worker, and I knew that she almost always respected those things out of people. In fact, she usually only lost her temper with folks she didn't think were pulling their weight.

The negotiation between Lisa and Teresa for models was a great example of what I think is a better representation of Lisa. Lisa is SMART SMART SMART. She came to the show to win. When she stepped out into the lobby to negotiate with Teresa, I honestly don't believe she had any intention of it going the way that it did. In fact, listening through the door, I was surprised that she was even arguing with Teresa. That was until I realized that Teresa had shown herself to be way too desperate for that redhead. Lisa is too smart and savvy to let her competition get every thing they want. Anyone who thinks Lisa did wrong by Teresa needs to check themselves and recognize that Celebrity Apprentice is NOT Celebrity Kum-bah-ya Sing-a-long! It is a competition. And although we are all playing for charity, we want to win money for OUR cause... not for someone else's.

Teresa is the NICEST lady on this season. That's just the bottom line truth. No matter what you may think of her on Real Housewives of New Jersey, this woman is the epitome of hard work and generosity. She is just incredibly nice.

But when Teresa showed her hand, Lisa saw an opportunity not only to attempt to sabotage the other team and help us win, but to have fun with it.
When she came back into the war room after the negotiation, Lisa was in a delightful mood. She had not been mean to Teresa, she had just exploited a weakness. Which is what Lisa is about... winning.

To say that Lisa played unfairly would be to blame a hockey team for scoring a goal when the goalkeeper isn't minding the goal. That's not unfair. That's how the game is played. Either you look sharp and pay attention at all times, or someone is gonna walk over you.

Teresa's team regrouped. I actually think that Aubrey's concept was really clever. I LOVED the use of yoga poses and thought everyone (especially Aubrey) looked great in the pictures. They just didn't look like they were hairdryer ads.

Lisa and I got along swimmingly for the entire task. Lisa didn't look for ways to trip me up. I certainly didn't give her any reason to be upset with me, and we produced something great.

Even in the Boardroom, Lisa didn't try to go after me and say that I should be fired if we lost. She stated that we both should speak to our own strengths. For Lisa, throughout the competition she gave respect to those who she felt earned it. Just as we all do in our everyday lives. She saw a LOT more of what went on during the tasks than the TV audience gets to see, and she often clashed with those around her who she didn't believe were up to the task. She wasn't always right (but neither are any of us) and she certainly doesn't handle her anger the way most of us would hope to!!! I certainly don't love the name calling and the screaming. But - and it's a big BUT - I respect Lisa for always speaking her mind and telling what she honestly believed to someone's face and NEVER speaking only behind their backs! There's something to be said for someone who always lets you know where they stand. As much as I HATE the idea of calling names or screaming at folks, I'd rather know the way someone feels than think they are kind and find out that they have been talking smack behind my back. Love her or hate her, Lisa is GENUINE always.

Through our interviews, we learned little about each person that we didn't already know... except... Marlee Matlin is stunning in person; John Rich won't let you speak (unless you are older than he is); and Aubrey worked with Fidel Castro (which I think may have been the most amazing revelation of the season and one that I am not sure I would put on my resume).

Mr. Trump fired Lisa for being too emotional... which is true, and despite what I may have said earlier in this post... that woman is effing CRAZY!!!!!! ;-)

And we are left with three...
Al three would be interesting combinations for the final task match up.

Aubrey vs. Arsenio would pit two admitted rivals against each other, both of whom would be determined to beat the other!!

Arsenio vs. me would pit two great friends against each other and would be frighteningly reminiscent to me of my match up against Ruben nine years ago.

Aubrey vs. me: The Tie-Breaking Rematch of the Gingers. After both of us beating the other in one task each, Aubrey and I may finally get the chance to see who would come out ultimately victorious! And either way, we'll have the youngest ever winner of Celebrity Apprentice

Next week, we'll find out right away who the two finalists are... and they will start right in on the hardest task of the season thus far.

Only two more to go!!! Don't miss a minute!

Show of hands... How many folks did I upset this week? Ha ha.

I must say, this week was certainly one of the most frustrating tasks of all for me. I'm not sure if you discerned that from the episode or not. ;-)

When I heard the words "write and perform a jingle" come out of Mr. Trump's mouth, my heart sank. After weeks and weeks of doing task after task that I was not always completely comfortable with or "in my wheelhouse" with, finally a task that I knew something about!! When Dayana stepped up immediately and said she wanted to be PM, I was a little surprised. Since I had been PM the week before, I assumed I would not be up to bat again, but in a task that would require live performance and writing, Lisa seemed a better fit to me. In addition to performing live for over 20 years, Lisa went to Harvard, was an editor at Rolling Stone and generally is the best writer amongst all of the contestants on the whole season. When I asked Dayana, "Are you sure?" (which I actually did at least two more times that were cut out), I was hoping to encourage her to suggest that maybe I should break convention and repeat as PM, but alas!

Lisa was the first person in the car to suggest the Frankie Valli connection. The Good Sam mascot has a very buttoned down Father Knows Best look to him; the company was established in the '60s, and as a singer, I tend to gravitate towards that styling. Additionally, our feeling was that with the success of shows like "Jersey Boys," "Hairspray" and "Memphis" on Broadway (not to mention with Mad Men on TV), the '60s were a perfect style that would appeal to a broad range of ages.

I certainly can't blame Dayana for not knowing American musical styles, and as project manager, I knew that she needed to be the one to make the final decision. When the band arrived, we chose a basic chord progression, and I asked them to play those chords in the style of Duran Duran (Dayana's favorite), disco, funk, blues, '80s Chicago power ballad, soul, country, bluegrass... you name it, we went through it. I even asked them to play it like The Carpenters would have (a personal favorite of mine, though not appropriate for the task). It wasn't until 45 minutes later, countless styles rejected by Dayana that I finally asked them to play a Frankie Valli, mid-60s pop sound. Dayana liked it right away and said that's what she wanted.

It's very important that it's stated that the blow up by Lisa after Don Jr. arrived DID come after hours of a GREAT deal of patience by Lisa. I have always said (and Lisa knows it) that I don't necessarily like to handle things in the way she does, but Lisa's feelings of hurt and anger were justified after having her massive amounts of work minimized. That exchange actually went on for about 15 minutes and ended up making its way out in the hall where Lisa and Don had a long talk, and Lisa vented her feelings. (I joked to Don, "You see, you think it's funny. You get to leave and go back to your office. I have to clean this up!! Thanks for coming in and stirring the turd so I have to smell it all day!" ...He was a great sport and was so enjoyable to work with.)

I went and tried to discuss with Dayana how what she had said upset Lisa. Despite having incredible conversational English, Dayana sometimes mixes up words, and what she explained to me was that when she said "loud," she was just trying to say Lisa was a strong player. I tried to tell her that praising me for all of my work and then not recognizing that Lisa had done a LOT as well was enough to be insulting. She said okay, but I don't think it mattered to her. Her apology to Lisa was pretty insincere. But the blood between the two of them is so bad now by week 12 that I don't think anything would smooth it over.

Despite Dayana's beauty and occasional good contribution, she can suffer from what we spoke about weeks ago with regard to Lou. In order to feel like she is having input, she often comes up with (last minute) suggestions that don't make sense. For a performance set in the '60s, she believed that we needed a hippie to be on stage. I tried for 10 minutes to explain to her that the hippies we think of didn't really come about until the late '60s and that having a hippie on stage would not fit with our theme. It was ideas like that that peppered the entire first part of the task until finally Dayana decided to focus in on cutting and pasting things from the Good Sam website onto placards to hand out.

Folks... it took two hours!!!! I was done with recording the band, the background singers and myself. I had finished producing the track and the vocals and had multiple copies burned and sent of to various places. Lisa had written the lyrics and the script, designed the presentation and gone shopping for the costumes and come back. All of this before Dayana decided to start on "graphics." Our rehearsal time with the dancers was supposed to be two and a half hours long. By the time we made it, we had 30 minutes to work with them. My patience - which I think I have a lot of - was gone.

Even as I write this, I feel it is a bit therapeutic. It was the most nerve-wrenching day of my time there.

Fortunately, Lisa carried the brunt of the work in the Boardroom. Following my mantra of not speaking unless spoken to, I am pretty sure I made it through about an hour of the Boardroom (before edits) without saying a word.

Despite Dayana's protestations about neither Lisa nor I respecting her role as project manager, Mr. Trump hit the nail on the head by saying that respect is "earned," not just given. And Dayana had certainly not earned any this week.

Dayana is a classy woman. She is NOT stupid. She is intelligent and poised. But she was few of those things on this task.

Oh... and some stuff happened on the other team too. ;-)

In fact, as the task was progressing, I spoke with the producer, Monica, whom I knew had been assigned this episode. I told her I had no idea how she was ever going to include anything from Team Unanimous in the episode. There was so much drama over with us on Forte, I figured she would have nothing dramatic to show of Unanimous, by comparison.

I should never underestimate Aubrey!

Don't miss next week for any reason... With Lisa and I alone on a team... what happens if we don't agree on something!?!?!?

If nothing else, I think it will give you the perfect opportunity to see Lisa Lampanelli's TRUE colors!

The next episode is DEFINITELY "hair-raising"!

Before you jump on me... It is a game. I lost my last one. I have no desire to lose this one too!

Trust me, this week was NOT an easy week for me. The hardest part about being a project manager, as I said last time I did it, is having to single out two people who you might bring back to the Boardroom with you. This week was even tougher for me. We'll get to my thought processes a bit later.

Our task this week was to create in store displays for Mr. Trump's new fragrance, Success, at Macy's. Pretty straightforward.

As luck would have it, I found myself up against Aubrey again. Aubrey is always formidable. In fact, I think her party for Crystal Light would have been superior to ours if we had both attempted to do they same type of cocktail party. She's a smart cookie.

In this task, again, she probably had a bit of the upper hand. However, I had the deck stacked by having a much stronger team for this. Penn is an incredibly creative mind. Lisa is as well and is a helluva worker, and Dayana was the perfect face for the project.

Our process was pretty straightforward, and everyone on Forte did an incredible job of every part of this task. And we turned out a KILLER display. No kidding - that display was stunning. The lightbox/backlit picture of Dayana looked so professionally done that we all believed that we had it in the bag.

If I were a sore loser... if I were bitter... I might say.... That I would never use a slogan for a cologne that had any word in it that sounds like "stinks"!!! Just think of the puns that could be used... Always Trust Your End Stinks! I thought our slogan was MUCH MUCH better... and I might also say... Unanimous won based in large part on their smell card and their take-away brochure. We were told that we were to make an "in-store" display, not marketing materials. Without those marketing materials, our display KILLED theirs. In fact, when the executives walked in the room at first, we could hear them gasp to themselves at how breathtaking it was. I would have done no gasping with Unanimous' display.

But... I'm not bitter!!! And, as evidenced by my history, I am certainly not a sore loser! So... I won't say ANY of that stuff above!!!

Congrats to Aubrey and Unanimous. GLSEN is a GREAT organization that does incredible work and they deserve the $40K!

Plus, those take-away cards were pretty incredible. And Dayana HAD suggested it to me... and I DID make the choice myself NOT to do them. So, shame on me.

So, why in the hell did I bring Dayana back in the Boardroom? I'll let you in on my thought process...

Truthfully, no one did a poor job on Forte. All three of my team members really gave their all. When everyone does a good job - and the project manager makes a sizable error in judgment (no takeaways) - the finger always points to the project manager. So early on in the Boardroom process I knew that I was gonna be in the line of fire. Knowing that, and given only that information, I had to make a strategic decision about who I'd rather have up against me in the final Boardroom.

Fortunately, the Trumps and the executives often give clues as to who should be blamed for a task's failure. In this case it was pretty clear that Penn should be brought back. I like Penn and have a great deal of respect for Penn, but he was pretty much handed to me on a platter to bring back.

That left Dayana and Lisa.

Bear in mind, neither of them really did ANYTHING wrong on this task. Neither of them really deserved to come back.

Lisa may be a loose cannon at times - some may find her hard to work with - but Lisa is STRONG when it comes to creativity, work ethic, and organization.

Dayana is creative as well. Dayana is a hard worker, no doubt. And Dayana is very organized... BUT.... remember, as viewers we all have much more information to base that on than I did at the time. In that moment, I had only seen Dayana in two tasks and had heard everyone else call her a weak player. That information alone was enough for me to believe that moving forward without Dayana would be easier than moving forward without Lisa.

Add to that the fact that Lisa is a fighter. Her arguments in the Boardroom are passionate and they are coherent. Dayana's history in the Boardroom has not shown her to be a strong fighter in the Boardroom.

I didn't wanna go up against Lisa in the Boardroom, because she had done NOTHING wrong and would NOT have been fired for that task. Therefore, the best-case scenario would have been that Lisa and I would not have been fired, but I would have made an enemy of her moving forward. Not smart! Let Lisa go free. Don't poke the sleeping lioness when you have NO weapon against her. Bring Dayana back. She might not go home, but she won't put up as violent a fight. And, she won't hold a grudge about it next week when we have to work together.

Penn being fired was disappointing. He is an incredibly smart guy. While I might not be able to handle any long car trips with him, I respect him a LOT!!!! And he was a REAL asset to the team, who brought up a lot of the idea for which we were celebrated. But when the writing was on the wall, it was kill or be killed. Not something I am used to, but something I learned to do for The Celebrity Apprentice.

Tune in next week to see me finally get to do something closer to my expertise!!! And see if Dayana actually held that grudge against me after all!! Teresa and I will play "peacekeepers" in the MOST EXPLOSIVE episode of the entire season... and only one of us will be successful!! Don't miss it!

Just when you thought things couldn't get more explosive and emotional...
And, who would have thought puppets and imaginary characters would bring so much out of people!?

I'll spare you the recap from this episode and just try to highlight some important points that I think may not be made clear in a two-hour episode.

Lisa.
Wow... Lisa...
Truth is, Lisa doesn't really yell that much! Ha ha! But when you have only 30 minutes to show all that happened in a full task, sometimes all you end up seeing is the dramatic parts. In fact, if a task takes 50 hours to complete, in that 50 hours, one might lose their temper for only 5-10 minutes.

However, when the show gets pared down and the task only takes 25 minutes, 10 minutes can sound like a lot. So, as emotional as she may seem, Lisa is a bit more stable than you might think. That said, she certainly went in on Dayana this week!

Here's the rub: As you have no doubt noticed over the course of this show, a lot of the tasks really require only a certain number of hands. Often times, the number of team members is far greater than the number of people needed to get things done. In situations like that, the project manager and a few team members end up coming up with the creative and making a lot of the decisions while other members must decide how they might best be utilized.

As a project manager, it can be difficult to come up with certain things for people to do. It can be even more difficult to deal with folks whose skills and hands aren't needed when they insist on being used somehow.

Let me give some examples:
During the O-Cedar mop task, we had to shoot a viral video. On Unanimous, since our video was only going to include Lou on camera, we had a lot of extra hands. Penn wrote the script; Dee directed and edited, and Arsenio and I found ways that we could be useful (but not get in the way). We shopped for props and wardrobe and we helped Lou with some of the direction. Paul Sr. came up with the "I'm Gonna Mop the Floor With You" tagline, but then found himself in the position of needing to decide whether to stay out of the way and be available if anything was needed or to try to insert himself into directing and shooting a video when he admitted that he knew very little about doing so. Paul made the choice to stand aside and be available to help, but not try to insert himself and be in the way. It's a risky choice. If we had lost, the argument could have been made that Paul did nothing. But had he tried to be one of "too many cooks in the kitchen," the argument could have been made that he was in the way and hindered our progress. We won that task, so it didn't matter. But had we lost, it probably would have been a good strategy on Paul's part that he was not a hindrance.
Other people don't make that choice. As we saw last week, Dayana and Lisa really had the commercial for Entertainment.com under control. But, Lou tried to insert himself a lot in to areas where he might not have been needed. That does little more than to remind a project manager that you have nothing to offer, and often makes you look worse.

In this week's task (and in previous ones), that has been Dayana's predicament. In a task where there could only be two puppeteers and one host (and Lisa had already assigned those roles) Dayana struggled to "look like" she was doing something instead of actually doing something. If I had been in her position, I'd like to think she would have jumped at the opportunity to be the "point person" on designing the puppets. (Something that I suggested a few times and she never latched on to). Taking a vocal role in doing something that Lisa had not really assigned to anyone would have given her a strong argument that she was instrumental in the task.

Of course, the reaction to her trying to "insert" herself was probably a case of the punishment not fitting the crime, but as the competition wears on, emotions get high and nerves get frazzled. Gotta hand it to Dayana. She really handles herself with grace and class. I can totally see why she won Miss Universe! (And, she is even hotter when she cries!) Also, props to Penn. I'm not sure that I would have said the best way to listen to someone's problems is to "just look at them," but he certainly seemed to be what Dayana needed, and my respect for him grew watching how he helped her out.

On to the task...

It certainly was an interesting one, and one that gave us a brief respite from the corporate or marketing type tasks that we had been subject to for the past weeks. As most of us were performers, it was nice to be able to do something a little bit closer to our wheelhouse.

We were told that we would be doing four different set-ups for our improv performance. In case the set-ups were unclear last night (they were to me, and I was there), they were as follows:
- Gibberish Translation set-up - The audience provided a foreign language and an obscure skill that someone might have extensive knowledge of. One performer was to speak in gibberish in the style of the given language. The other performer was to "translate" that gibberish into a speech about the given topic. The gibberish part was easy. All one had to do was make up sounds. The translation part was a beast, and I drew the short straw on that one. Fortunately, Lisa was very over the top with her gibberish, and Penn combined two topics from the audience to give me something very specific to work with.
- TV biography set-up - The audience provided a historical figure. One performer created the narration and guided what would be a biography of that person. The other performer had to act out whatever was made up by the narrator.
- Infomercial set-up - The audience provided a type of product line that might be sold on TV. Two performers together grabbed items we had never seen before out of a box and had to come up with what their purpose was within that given line of products. Penn helped us out by accepting the very broad suggestion of medicinal products. Unanimous' audience gave them a more specific product line: panty hose.
- Newscast set-up - The audience provided an obscure location and a strange breaking news story. Much like the biography set up, one performer played the newscaster and directed the questioning and the direction of the story while the other performer played the on-scene reporter and had to answer the questions asked by the anchor.

We had professional improv helpers in our group who were able to support us and play puppets, too. However, the rules stated that in every sketch at least one "celebrity" had to play a leading role. Lisa and I decided that it might be more difficult, but probably also better competitively, for us to use the professionals as little as possible. So, in every sketch, Lisa and I played both leading roles. Unanimous chose to rely pretty heavily on their professionals, which likely resulted in the judges believing that they played it too safe.

In the end, however, Paul's strategy of stepping back and letting others with the expertise do the heavy lifting didn't cut it this time. (Probably doesn't work as well when you're the project manager!) He went home when Unanimous lost and handed Forte their first win in SIX TASKS!!

For the record, I am now the person who has been on the winning team more than anyone else! #HOLLA ;-)

Lets see next week if Forte can keep the "success" alive.
It will be "The Battle of the Gingers - Part Two"
Don't miss it!

After last week's drama, it was hard to imagine that this week's episode could rise to the same level of entertainment... but wrong I was!

The show starts off with the "fallout" from the preceding week. Arsenio is still venting about his rift with Aubrey in the Unanimous war room when Lisa walks in and gets upset at him for his name-calling towards Aubrey. It's sorta one of the most ironic moments in my recollection of my time on the show, because almost immediately after yelling at Arsenio for making things personal and calling people names, Lou and Dayana return to the room (allowing us to realize that Dee had been fired). Lisa turned on a dime from chastising Arsenio for name-calling and began right away calling Lou and Dayana "brain-deads" and "losers"... pretty darn funny, if you ask me.

The next day we find out that our task will be to create a commercial for Entertainment.com, the coupon and savings company. When asked for project managers, Unanimous agrees that Teresa may be in the best position to hold the fractious team together. On Forte, before the team can even huddle to decide on the leader, Dayana pipes up and tells Mr. Trump that she will be project manager. This prompts Lisa to give us one of her several gems of the night... "Evita over here decides she is gonna be project manager. Well, I'll cry for you Argentina, because you're gonna lose this task." I'm not sure if that's sorta racist or not, but it was sorta funny.

Aubrey and Arsenio kick-start the task with a "heart to heart" to try to make up from the last week's fight. It's really hard to tell if there is any sincerity from Aubrey during the conversation, but thankfully right after the conversation is over, Aubrey clears up any confusion for us. "Arsenio apologized, but do I like him? No. Will I ever really like him again? Probably not." ...Good to see that conversation worked! :-/ Ha ha.

Over on Forte, Dayana is really taking charge and has decided to show the product as a catalyst moving a relationship forward - using actors to show a couple progressing through their relationship using the savings from the coupons. Dayana certainly is adorable in her interviews, and she really has a grasp on this task. Lisa even chimes in to say that Dayana seems to be a lot more bearable when she is in charge. (I'm not sure if that's because Lisa doesn't wanna piss Dayana off in case they lose and Dayana wants to bring her back to the Boardroom, but if it is... it works for them this week.)

Unanimous decided to use two of the members of the team to portray a father clipping coupons and overhearing something tawdry-sounding in his daughter's bedroom. Using double entendre, we made it seem that something was happening in the room between the daughter and her boyfriend, but when the father busts into the room, he finds that they are just using the Entertainment.com online app.

With Penn gone for the day and Dayana and Lisa clearly in charge of the video shoot, Lou tries desperately to find a purpose for himself. When the task requires fewer hands/minds than are available, sometimes folks get lost. When this happens, in attempts to keep themselves from potentially being fired, the left-out party might end up presenting opinions that really don't fit with the concept or have a place in the project. This happens with Lou. He wasn't really needed for the project, yet he wanted to chime in to feel included and he got ignored. Unfortunately, the one task that Dayana did give to Lou (creating signs and emailing them to the printer), he was unable to do on his own because he wasn't sure of how to use the computer.

Things on Unanimous were far more collegial. Paul had sacrificed himself and allowed us to transform him into a stiff, fatherly figure. It was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. Paul being dressed like a nerd is the equivalent of me being dressed like Marilyn Manson. It's just a complete 180! He was a real sport about it all!

If there was a theme to this episode, it might have been HYPOCRISY!

In addition to Aubrey's feigned attempt at making peace with Arsenio, she also goes after Teresa behind her back in interviews. Though she was supportive of Teresa's directing ability during the shoot, she makes fun of her directing ability in interviews even calling her a "Muppet baby" and saying "people put their hands on her back and tell her what to do and where to go." (Can we talk for a second about how Aubrey is playing for a charity that she says uses her as a spokesperson speaking out against bullying, yet it seems that Aubrey RARELY says anything about anyone else that couldn't be construed as a low blow or bullying itself!?!?!)

Plus... During Forte's editing session, Lou tells Dayana directly that he likes their commercial and that if he didn't love it he would tell her... and then IMMEDIATELY the shot cuts to Lou in interview saying "I didn't like our commercial."

The producers of the show do try to get folks to talk about certain things in these interviews, but they NEVER put words into anyone's mouth. Everyone chooses what to say on his or her own. These two are great examples of why you really have to stay true to what you think and how you feel at all times, because the camera never lies... and if you say one thing at one time and then a different thing later, it will come back to bite you in the butt!

In the Boardroom, the Unanimous team is pretty good at sticking together as a cohesive group and supporting each other.

Forte, on the other hand, has it out for Lou. Dayana stays as classy as possible but admits that Lou is her weak player. Dayana barely needs to say anything because Lisa goes after Lou in her classic Lisa way. When Lou makes a completely classless threat towards Lisa saying "Lisa is lucky she isn't a man because I would throw her through that wall," Lisa responds with the line of the season thus far: "Get ready for an elevator ride, Lou." Ha ha.

When Unanimous wins and Dayana has to choose two people to come back to the Boardroom, I am surprised that she gives Penn a "pass" given that he was absent for so much of the task. But, maybe it was strategic choice. Having Lisa in the Boardroom to support her against Lou was probably a pretty good tactic. I love Lou, but his arguments are barely coherent and really show his desperation to stay in the task. Yet, they don't seem to connect because Mr. Trump doesn't buy them, and he fires Lou. After being fired, Lou makes a desperate plea saying, "Take it back. I don't wanna be fired." I gotta say, it's an interesting tactic, and if Mr. Trump had taken it as determination, I wouldn't have been surprised... But it doesn't work. Lou takes that elevator ride as Lisa predicted!

Next week brings another twist and split that I'm not that happy about! And, if you think you've seen shouting and tears in previous episodes... you ain't seen NOTHING like what happens next week. I think Lisa bursts a blood vessel, and Dayana is even hotter when she cries!!

Hey all...

So, for starters, we're gonna call this week's episode week 7 and 8. I know that it's only week 7, but to help me keep track of where we are with the tasks, I'm gonna call it 7 and 8. Keep up!! ;-)

This episode started off wonderfully for me. As a result of winning as project manager during last week's task, I was able to present a lot of money to my charity, National Inclusion Project. We traveled to a camp in upstate New York and got a chance to play some parachute games with some kids, and it was a nice respite from the craziness of Manhattan for a bit. PLEASE take a look at www.inclusionproject.org and find out more about how the organization is able to make sure kids with disabilities don't get left out!

Our first task this episode is a fundraiser. We were told we would be designing and publishing "celebrity" guidebooks of New York City. The team that raises the most money selling would win. There would also be a surprise cash bonus for the team that created the best guidebook.

The women, under the direction of Teresa, dive right in to creating an elaborate design showcasing the different hot spots that each of them enjoyed in the city. They spent a LOT of time running around the city trying to take pictures of as many places as possible. That ate away at their schedule and caused them to get behind in the making of their book. Of course, this created a lot of tension as Lisa felt the pinch and felt she was left with the responsibility of putting the guidebook together on her own. And Teresa felt pressured by Debbie in general.

There are a lot of unseen deadlines that are required of us during each task. Concepts must be approved hours before things are due to the printer. These hidden deadlines can really add to the stress and make things combustible. It's TV right!? ;-) To prevent this, over on the Dee Snider-led Team Unanimous, the concept is to stay in the same location and go up as high as possible to simply take broad shots of general neighborhoods in Manhattan. It certainly made things far less stressful since we went to the roof of Trump Tower and never left the building (therefore being done with out photography in a matter of 30 minutes) but the pictures showed practically nothing! We each wrote blurbs to go with a neighborhood that we were paired with and most of them reflected connections we had to those neighborhoods and sounded personal.

But the bulk of the task was about fundraising... Team Forte spent less time making phone calls to call big donors than did Unanimous, but both teams pulled in some pretty big checks. Penn called Blue Man Group, a performance troupe he had been instrumental in helping get off the ground. They offered to bring $8000 in cash to Team Unanimous' cause. But as Penn explained, BMG does not handle money. As performers, their characters do not exist in a world that has money, and so they would need to deliver the money in a different way. As I recall, Penn had told us that they were going to bring the money in a blue balloon and put it on the ground and pop it. We would have to reach down and pick it up.

I remember thinking it was sorta silly and why couldn't they just come in their street clothes and make a donation like a normal person? I mean... Vince McMahon has made donations to Apprentice. You didn't see him setting up a wrestling ring and having someone pile drive a suitcase of money. But, whatever! It wasn't my task. It was Dee's, and Dee loved everything Penn came up with! The chaos that ensued as a result of them BLOWING THE BALLOONS UP in MID-AIR and BLOWING $8000 in TEN DOLLAR BILLS all around the streets of NY could not possibly be portrayed in a TV show. It was PANDEMONIUM. And it pissed me off. In the end, we collected a little over $4000 of that $8000. (That number is verified, Dee.) And I felt it was inexcusable that anyone would think that while raising money for charity it is okay to let money fly all over the street. (Even as I write this, I am getting mad again.)

I expressed my displeasure in the Boardroom and felt vindicated a little bit when Mr. Trump agreed that it wasn't the greatest idea in the world. In fact, in the end, when the men's team won out over the women by only $14, it became even more obvious that losing money because of something so foolish could have been the death of us! And, if I'm being honest, there was a part of me that wished I had not fought that homeless man for those two 10-dollar bills. Had we lost, Penn's antics might have been exposed more.

But for Teresa, it seems that the reason for firing this week was based not on fundraising ability, but instead on whom she didn't care for. Instead of bringing back the team member who raised the least amount of money, Teresa brought back Dayana and Debbie. Mr. Trump even commented on Teresa's decision not to bring Aubrey back and seemingly regretted that he had to fire Debbie Gibson. Debbie had NOT raised the least amount of money on her team, but she had raised the least amount amongst the three ladies in the Boardroom.

Dee was able to present a SUBSTANTIAL check to March of Dimes as a result of his win, but he couldn't celebrate too long because our next task began immediately! Upon meeting Mr. Trump for our "task delivery" he surprises us with the news that he will be switching up the teams!! Lou, Dee and Penn move to Team Forte. Aubrey and Teresa take their place on Team Unanimous. I was actually surprised that Penn and I were separated. I mean... it seemed that he would probably continue frustrating the hell out of me, and that might have made for great TV. But we were rescued from each other, somehow.

Immediately, Team Forte got to work designing the concept for their "live health segment" for Walk with Walgreens. Though Lou was the project manager for the team, Dee and Penn were the ones who brought the working style of the former men's team to the Forte war room. They focused on trying to make sure everyone got along, and it seemed to work.

But over on Unanimous, Aubrey brought the "style" she was used to over on the former women's team: "Aubrey's Way." Aubrey quickly stepped up with some great ideas, but she seemed to steamroll over Arsenio, the project manager, on several occasions. In fact, Arsenio tried several times to "convince" Aubrey to do things his way (as opposed to "ordering" her to), yet Aubrey insisted on making the membership kit box her way, not Arsenio's. As a participant and observer, it certainly seemed to me that Arsenio was going OUT OF HIS way to encourage an environment of collaboration and camaraderie. In fact, there were several times when I privately asked him why he wouldn't just tell her to be quiet or listen to him. Yet, he insisted to me that he wanted to make the transition to our new team members as smooth as possible.

By the time we got to the Boardroom, Arsenio had spent all his energy keeping the peace within the team, and I think he felt proud of himself. Paul and I certainly believed he had achieved his goal.

What you didn't see in the Boardroom scenes this week: The first thing Mr. Trump asked each of us was how we felt about Arsenio as project manager. I spoke highly of him (as televised). Teresa spoke highly of him, as did Paul. When Aubrey was asked, she gave a very lukewarm "eh... he was only okay." This shocked me and appeared to be posturing. I am pretty sure THAT is what set Arsenio off on Aubrey. After days of trying to guide the team to work together AND of allowing Aubrey to steamroll large parts of the task, Aubrey threw Arsenio under the bus... and so he started swinging. It was a contentious Boardroom to say the least.

Aubrey felt that Arsenio and I were ganging up on her. Paul agreed with us that she should be fired, and even when Aubrey turned to Teresa for support, she only got a tacit response. If one person has a problem with you, it could be their problem. But when three (and maybe four) people do, you probably ought to take a look at the way you are doing things.

It turned out not to matter who Unanimous believed should be fired, because we won, and Team Forte was on the hot seat. PM Lou brought back perennial Boardroom favorite Dayana and Dee Snider.

At one point, Lou seemed to accuse Dee of spending time wooing Dayana, which I must say is one of the most preposterous accusations I have ever heard! Ha ha. I love Lou, but he was clearly grasping at straws to try to point the blame on someone else. And it must have worked because Lou ended up being safe. Dayana, the most resilient contestant in Apprentice history, escaped the ax again. Dee, who had designed a membership kit that displeased the Walgreens executives, took the elevator ride to a waiting car.

Make sure you DO NOT miss next week's episode to find out how Lisa reacts when she discovers that the two team members she despises the most are still in the game! That alone is worth tuning in for! But there's a LOT more excitement and "entertainment" in store in next week's episode... you may even see Paul Sr. as you've never seen him before... in a sweater vest!

In this week's episode, it was the battle of the redheads. One of us a rather unnatural redhead and one of us a redhead trying desperately to hide it. Yes, this week Aubrey heads the women and I take the lead with the men's team. After running my mouth off at Penn last week, it was only appropriate that I took the helm of Unanimous this week.

After Mr. Trump informed us that our task was to throw a party to launch a specific flavor of Crystal Light Mocktails (pomegranate for the ladies; peach for the men), we are treated to a showcase of why, as contestants, we can never trust the producers!! ;-) During interviews/confessionals for this episode, one of the producers interviewing me tried hard to get me to talk about why Aubrey was better suited to throw a party than I am. Granted, she is. Aubrey loves parties and throws them and attends them often. But that wasn't quite what I said in the interview. Even though I was pretty confident that my colorful choice of words would prevent the producers from using that footage, somehow they did anyway.

When we split into teams, it was obvious from the start that Aubrey and the women had the upper hand on this task. Teresa, Aubrey, Debbie et al are lively ladies with lots of experience throwing parties, and they immediately jumped into coming up with themes and ideas for their event. Meanwhile, over on Unanimous, the men were struggling. Despite the names on our team, we really aren't partiers, so when it came time for brainstorming we were lost. The edit of the show may have made it seem like our brainstorming session was quick and to the point, but the fact was that for almost 45 minutes we were completely silent around that table.

I finally honed in on a beach theme. My extended family sells peaches every summer at a roadside stand on a small road that tourists travel on their way to the North Carolina beach. So peaches and beaches are sort of connected to me. Doing something laid back and vibrant was gonna be far easier to pull off than trying to be classy (which I don't think I have ever been in my life).

The women went high concept. They decided to portray the pomegranate as the "forbidden fruit" which is now accessible because Crystal Light makes it only five calories. It was a clever idea and one that they pulled off quite well, if you ask me.

When it came time to decorate and design the space for the party, Teresa was a huge asset to Forte. As she explained to the cameras, she has exquisite taste and was invaluable in helping to choose decor and really make the place sparkle. Aubrey decided to make the "Garden of Eden"/"Garden of Crystal deLight" theme run through the decor and used high concept photos of flowers and plant life to convey that. Patricia was in charge of printing those photos and making sure that the Crystal Light logos were in as many places as possible. The Forte room looked INCREDIBLE. Seriously. If you had seen what these rooms started out as (bare and dirty walls, stained concrete floors) you would have been amazed at how great those women made their room look.

In fact, if you want to see what the room started out looking like, checking out what Unanimous' room looked like would be a great place to start. Having no decorating sense of my own (despite my mother being an interior designer), I decided that beach theme meant bare minimum! To cover the dingy walls, we simply put up curtains and shined colored lights on them to give the effect of a sunset. To cover the floors, we just threw down what seemed like a dump truck full of sand. Lou had a clever idea to build a fake "boardwalk" leading up from the front door to the main floor. As far as furniture goes... well... that was a big concern. We had been provided with a budget for furniture and decorations from New York Lounge Decor, a party supply company in New York. I immediately felt that we would have no problem staying within our budget there because we wanted so few items. However, when the representative showed up to go through the catalog with us, everything that they were able to provide looked like it belonged in high class/high end restaurants and nightclubs. They had almost NOTHING that would fit with a beach theme. It was clear immediately that the ladies would be going with a party more like a wedding reception, and I was concerned that we were on the wrong track. But we forged ahead anyway. The decor providers were able to offer two small tiki bars, which Paul and Lou modified to fit our needs. Penn and Arsenio scoured the city for beach chairs and beachwear despite it being the middle of winter in NYC. Dee worked on signage for our space, and I tried to supervise and help in as many areas as possible, all while never taking off my coat because it was cold as hell in that room. (I'm thin-skinned... gimme a break!)

On the day of the party, set up continues right up until the last minute for each team. When the doors open on Unanimous, a flood of people walk in. Of course, when you watch the episode on TV, it seems like there is a stressful moment for us when no one is showing up. But, in real "reality" we had a line of 30-some people outside waiting to get in. (You know those TV folks have to make it dramatic!)

The executives visit both parties and are really tasked with the challenge of comparing apples to oranges... or maybe I should say pomegranates to peaches... because both parties were SOOO different. The women had a very classy affair, while us guys had limbo games and hula shirts and women in bikinis.
In the end, the Crystal Light executives believed that Unanimous had done a better job of capturing the "fun" and "lively" "party-in-a-pack" type atmosphere that they were looking for, and therefore we were safe for another week. And I was able to send $50,000 back to my charity, National Inclusion Project, an organization that helps include kids with disabilities into activities with their non-disabled peers. The organization's goal for the past eight years has been to prevent kids with disabilities from being left on the sidelines. Please check out the website at www.inclusionproject.org

The women of Forte were really shocked. Remember, most weeks we are only able to judge our own teams chances based on how well we feel we did on our own task. Only rarely are we actually able to see what the other team did. So, knowing that they had thrown an incredible party and likely believing that we had attempted to throw a high-class affair similar to theirs, the women were confident that their party was superior to anything we might have been able to cobble together. I'm sure that once they saw this episode they understood what made ours stand out! ;-)

Aubrey, through tears big enough to drown a moose, chose Dayana and Patricia to come back to the Boardroom with her to risk firing. The fact that she held much greater disdain for Dayana than Patricia was not enough for Mr. Trump. Mr. Trump believed that a major flaw in the Forte party was the lack of Crystal Light signage. That was deemed to be the responsibility of Patricia, and she was fired.

Patricia was one of the classiest women on Team Forte. Her organization Wayuu Taya Foundation is very important to her... please check them out as well, at www.wayuutaya.org

Next week is a SUPERSIZED version of the show... starting at 8PM/7 central (instead of 9)... it's a longer episode, but I PROMISE you it is the best of the season thus far. If you want drama... next week is for you!!! The men's team LITERALLY blows it... and Mr. Trump finally mixes the teams. Sending EVERYTHING into turmoil. DON'T MISS IT.

What a week we had this week with our O-Cedar task. O-Cedar may be the leader in cleaning supplies, but we were certainly able to make this week's proceedings a little dirty!

The week started off with Mr. Trump announcing what our task would be in the lobby of the New York Public Library. As I have said in the past, we always tried to guess what the task might entail by looking at our surroundings. This week the setting gave no clue whatsoever. Our task this week was to create a "viral" video to promote O-Cedar's ProMist mop. During the delivery of the task, the Trumps and the executives were positioned so far away from us that I worried that it would be hard for Lou to read their lips while they were telling us the task. Yet, when we were asked to pick our project manager, Lou stepped up right away. The team had to make sure he had "heard" what we were tasked with doing before he volunteered, but he had been called out in the Boardroom so many times he didn't care and was going to step up no matter what.

Over on Forte, Tia had been accused of flying under the radar for too long, and she stepped up as well. Not without some cutting remarks from Aubrey.

The biggest challenge this week (creatively, at least) was determining the difference between a "viral" video and a regular commercial. The videos that I know of that go viral usually involve someone falling off of a table or getting hit in the crotch with a bat. How to make something that appealing while still keeping the product at the forefront and showing it in a positive light was going to be a challenge.

Let's go ahead and address the elephant in the room... I do not dislike Penn. But I do think he is not the greatest team player all of the time. In about every situation, given a task to handle on his own, I think Penn would be incredible! But, by his own admission, working with people that he didn't get to choose as teammates is not something Penn likes to do. That frustrated me this week. At the end of the day, we have to support the vision of our project manager. Several of us didn't feel that Penn was doing that, and I made my feelings clear. Nuff said.

Over on Forte, I think they might have been better served by speaking their minds a little bit more. Dayana, Debbie and Aubrey spend a good deal of time whispering their concerns about the task to each other. Uh... ladies... these microphones that they have us wear are pretty high tech. Did you really think that if you whispered they wouldn't be able to hear you?? In the end, the only person who really made an effort to speak her mind to Tia was Aubrey, and it seemed to us viewers that Tia didn't seem to pay much attention to Aubrey's concerns. In fact, a suggestion made by Aubrey and ignored by Tia was then accepted by Tia when it was suggested by Lisa. That said, I know a lot of things end up on the cutting room floor when they edit the Unanimous footage together, so I have to realize that some stuff gets cut from Forte as well.

Back in the war rooms, Dee is doing most of the editing for Unanimous giving the rest of us time to do nothing. The computers in our respective war rooms had not been updated with the appropriate software needed for editing, so we had a LOT of downtime in general this particular evening. I wanted to try to clear the air with Penn... maybe not the best idea. He has said he doesn't like to have serious conversations with people. He has said he has only had a serious conversation about three times in his life and only with his partner Teller and with his wife. My guess is that this is probably because he rarely wants to hear what other people are thinking or feeling... but what do I know? The conversation with him was one of the oddest conversations I have ever had with another human being and ended with him just staring blankly at me and not saying a word for two minutes! We were called away to look at the video edit. That's the only thing that stopped the blank staring. And then, after we had looked at the edit, Penn came up to me and said "I'm sorry, Clay. I think we were having a conversation. Shall we finish?" WTH?!?!?... You mean, should we get back to you staring at me and not talking??? I think I'll pass.

When the teams finally present their concepts to the executives, we get a chance to see the "viral" videos in their full form. Unanimous has shot an informative piece with an actress talking about the benefits of the ProMist mop while Lou dances around in the background pretty much looking like a fool. It was great that Lou was willing to commit to it and let the joke be on him, and I think it made the video really special. Forte's concept was a take on the "What's Your Number?" question. It implied that it was asking women how many lovers they had had, but was in fact asking them how many mops they had used in their lifetime. I thought it was a cute concept. Not sure it was executed as well as it could have been, but certainly a clever idea.

In the Boardroom, we discover that the executives preferred the video done by Unanimous. The men head back to our war room while the women duke it out in the Boardroom. It doesn't take long for the team to pile on to Dayana as the weakest member of the team and on to Tia as being the cause of this week's loss. Aubrey goes after Tia with full claws and even makes an intentionally "unintentional" dig at Tia's age. Aubrey may very well be one of the smartest members on the women's team, but here I don't think she was smart enough to hide her intent. Implying that Tia was 50 was obviously not an accident (see Aubrey's nasty 100- year-old comment earlier in the show) and it just made her look petulant. Tia took the high road by not fighting back. In fact, she took the highest road possible and took responsibility for the loss of the team. She "fell on the sword" and allowed Mr. Trump to fire her for the team's loss.

It surprised me that Tia went out without a fight. I honestly believed (as did many of the members of Unanimous) that had she put up a fight she could have survived. However, in the car ride out, Tia explained that she felt the team was beginning to devolve into a lot of backstabbing and cat fighting. She said she did not want to be a part of that. Tia Carrere and Adam Carolla. Two very classy exits from Celebrity Apprentice. Savor it. No one else will go down without a fight for the rest of the season. Promise!

In tribute to Tia's graceful exit, please checkout her charity, After School All-Stars, at http://www.afterschoolallstars.org

Next week, I attempt to put my money where my mouth is, and after weeks of trash talking most everyone on her team, Aubrey attempts to gain your sympathy. Which one of us will be successful? Tune in to find out!

Well hello folks...
Let's try something different today. Let's see if I can recap some of this week's episode without the need for you to take an intermission during the reading of this blog! I just seem to write soooo much!

This week's task was back in the men's team's wheelhouse again after a week of high fashion had us at a disadvantage. This week we were charged with creating a launch presentation for the all-new 2012 Buick Verano. Present the car to an audience, and answer questions about it from both the live audience and folks following the presentation online and on Twitter.

With Michael Andretti on Unanimous AND Adam Carolla (the host of a car talk show on the Speed Network) we should be perfectly positioned to take the women down this week. Debbie Gibson steps up for the women. Though Mr. Trump all but directs Michael Andretti to step up as project manager on Unanimous, Michael suggests that Adam take the helm. Personally, I felt Adam was a great choice. He is knowledgeable about cars and he had been a real leader already amongst the group. It seemed time for him to step up.

Split in to separate vans, Forte struggles to keep communication lines open between Debbie as the project manager and the Forte teams members who were not with her at all times. On Unanimous, the lines of communication are open, but the communication coming from PM Carolla is not jiving with the instructions that were given by the Buick executives. Adam, one of the funniest comedians in the business, wants to put on a funny presentation. Most everyone else does not.

Lou, much like last week and the week before (and the week before) feels that a concept showing him as The Hulk would be a good idea to demonstrate his strengths (forgive the pun). What you didn't see in this week's episode is that the idea of having Lou rip away a covering to reveal the Verano was actually Adam's idea initially. Granted, Lou jumped on that suggestion and rode it all the way through the task, but someone else in fact suggested it.

The ladies' concept is not really that different from the men's. Both teams use team members volunteering from the audience with interruptions that show different aspects of the car. Forte's "interruptions" are a bit more in line with the mood and tone of the product though, whereas Unanimous takes more of a humorous slant. That said, what Unanimous lacked in appropriate tone we more than made up for in factual content. The ladies struggled to answer questions about the Buick Verano; Adam had a command of the information about the car that I would say may have even rivaled the makers! You don't see it as much in the episode, but Adam answered questions from the audience that I was sure he would be stumped by. But he answered without hesitation every time!! It was a sight to behold!

In the Boardroom, the tensions between Debbie and Teresa (who had felt left out of the task) started to surface. Some expert prodding by Mr. Trump (and especially by Don Jr.) successfully got Teresa to vent some of her frustrations with Debbie.

On Unanimous' side of the table, The Trumps are very upset that Michael had not stepped up to the plate as project manager. Several team members chime in to defend Michael's choice. I find that it's smarter to keep your mouth shut until called on. Yet, in situations like that when I wanted to say something, letting my "feelings" show on my face would usually entice one of the Trumps into asking me to speak up. Then I got to say what I wanted without having to jump in to a conversation without being asked! ;-)
When the men's team loses the task, the women head back to their war room and Debbie immediately tries to clear the air with Teresa. Teresa informs us in confessional that she is NOT buying it! I have a STRONG feeling that we haven't seen the last of this!!! ;-)
Meanwhile, the men all do their best to stand by Michael's decision not to be project manager, but only Mr. Trump knows how truly upset the executives were not to have Andretti leading the task. As a businessman, Mr. Trump knows the value of a brand. The fact that the Andretti name was not associated with the task as much as it could have been really has him hot under the collar. So, when Adam falls on his sword and says he will not be bringing anyone back to the Boardroom to be fired, Mr. Trump can stand it no more. Like a judge vacating a verdict from a jury, Mr. Trump tells the men that he will be firing two people that evening and that everyone is on the line.

It's clear to me, at that point, that Mr. Trump is none too pleased with Michael's decision not to step up and that he is likely on the line to go. However, the general consensus amongst the men is that Lou was the weakest member of the team. In the lobby, we all tell him as much. He MUST stop offering only one trick if he wants to remain successful. (I secretly have a feeling that he will be with us next week, so I tell him that he better step up next week.)

Back in the Boardroom, Mr. Trump fires Adam right away. It seems to be a signal to all of us, that taking the bullet for the team's loss without bringing anyone back will not be tolerated.

Then, the pressure is on for Michael. Mr. Trump is clearly upset still that Michael had not been project manager. (What many of us know is that Michael had a HUGE amount of $$ ready to be donated during an upcoming fundraising task and was holding out to be project manager then, but I guess the lesson is... you gotta step up when the task is so perfectly suited to you.) Several of the men attempt to protect Michael (knowing he has the mother lode ready for a fundraiser), but Arsenio seems to be the only person smart enough to know that when the blood is in the water you might as well just get out of the shark's way. Arsenio co-signs Mr. Trump's opinion that Andretti is too big a name to not be attached to the project. Michael says goodbye.

It was a shock for Unanimous to lose two members in one sitting, and two smart ones at that. And maybe a lesson for future project managers not to fall on their swords... But maybe not!! ;-)

Tia, who Mr. Trump felt might be flying under the radar, will get a chance next week to exercise some control, but will Lou finally step up too?

Next week could "go viral" when someone finally loses their cool!! Wonder who it could be!! ;-)