I had a hell of a day. This morning when I woke up, my primary concern was what am I going to wear on Kendra’s show today? Appearing on reality TV is not something I’ve ever aspired to, or even remotely imagined for myself. However, that is exactly how I spent my entire afternoon. Yes, I played a version of myself on Kendra on Top, a show that chronicles the life and times of ex-Playboy bunny, ex-party girl, now mom and TV star, Kendra Wilkinson. Kendra is, among other things, raunchy and hilarious, and has also launched a line of sex toys and products with Evolved Novelties, the company for whom I do many creative things, including sourcing and creating all the content for www.evolvedworld.com.
After a last minute call to Dr. Ava during which she told me to remove my skinny jeans in favor of a black dress, I was off to Beverly Hills to film ‘reality,’ along with Lucy Vonne, our ‘toy whisperer’ who knows everything about sex toys and is therefore a huge comfort to me in situations like this. She’s also adorable and apt to say things that make grown men blush. Plus she loves unicorns, and in fact has a unicorn horn tattooed on the inside of her finger so she can pretend to be a unicorn whenever she wants by pointing her ‘horn’ out from the top of her head.
It’s a trippy thing, filming reality in an ‘action’ / ‘cut’ environment. For the purposes of reality TV, reality only happens while the cameras are rolling. I’m not sure what everything else is, but it’s not going to be on the show. And in terms of fake reality, it was pretty real. There were no scripts, and we actually had to think on our feet, say things that were true and generally be ourselves. There wasn’t any manufactured conflict or fake fights during which I would have had to cringe for being so inauthentic. I ‘kept it real,’ as they say, and Kendra certainly did too. I truly have to hand it to her – the girl has reality down. I’m not sure I can say the same for myself. Although the irony was not lost on me that the show was being filmed in the same building as my ex-shrink.
We congratulated ourselves for a job well done with a satisfying lunch at Kate & Mantilini’s after, but little did I know that there were more layers of reality in store.
My incredibly talented friend Cara Pifko, Canadian star of stage and screen, is now hosting a music cabaret night at the C.A.P. Theater in Sherman Oaks, along with her friend Reign Morton, called In The Moment. I wasn’t sure what to expect at all, since Cara’s description of the night, while accurate, couldn’t possibly have prepared me for what was to come.
An incredible house band backed up all the performers, including Cara who did this great little R & B improv about her role at the theater, then introduced Reign. Reign then told a story about how this night had come to be – how he had witnessed an ‘artist appreciation’ night at a club in Paris, and was so impressed with the love in the room that he wanted to start something similar in Los Angeles. He had been a street busker at the time, and barely had a place to live.
The idea behind the night he created is that everyone supports each other, and that anyone in the room can be a performer. At the end of the story, Reign said, “We’re about to get really real here,” which was just so apropos of my day. And real it certainly did get. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such great performances at a small club.
There was a waif-like tall woman named Gladys Nyoth from Cameroon who sang like an angel with a dirty mind, leading a free-style vocal jam with two other singers who proceeded to create a whole narrative around a couple making love for the first time and all the baggage they bring to the moment. Wow.
Then there was this woman named Jaire, who sang an original tune called Sabotage that was so remarkable it needs to have an entire Broadway play written around it. I told her that after the show, along with the fact that the woman in front of me bawled her eyes out during her performance. “It’s such a powerful song!” the woman had said to me when I asked her if she was okay.
Yet another woman, Bresha Webb, brought the house down with her version of Tyrone, and another comedy song about meeting someone you think is great and then discovering they have bad breath. Her comic timing was a treat – she should be on SNL the way she milked one joke for three minutes at least and had people laughing the whole time.
There were so many other great acts I should mention, but my head is swimming with talent. I’m not usually one to write blogs at two o’clock in the morning, but I just had to stay in the moment of this very ‘real’ day long enough to write all this down. I just wish I had pictures.