Sunday, September 11, 2011

Suze Sux

We showed up at 5 pm, as instructed, to the Polycom owners home. He lived in a nice area and had a nice home. We were told to sit down at the kitchen table and make sure the lighting was good. There was a large tv screen on the kitchen table. They lit a candle behind us. We saw ourselves on the tv screen as we would appear to Suze and the audience. They provided subs, snacks, drinks, dessert, etc for us. WOW...not expected.
The show began taping. We were able to watch it on the screen in front of us. They kept telling us we were coming right up. Finally after they focused on three or four stories, they came to us. We had been prompted on what to say, and ask Suze. We did as instructed. Let me inject here the email we had received from our producer:

"I hope you are well! I wanted to follow up with you and the Wife with a few questions. Suze is really interested in highlighting questions that are specific to same-sex couples- such as benefits, living wills, parental rights, etc. Do you have any of those questions for Suze?

I think the hesitation is that Suze can't tell you to not have a child. If she looks at your finances and sees that you can't afford it, she would never be able to give you that advice on tv. I'm wondering if there is a way to repackage your question so that you get parts of your bigger question answered? let me know your thoughts! Thanks"

The polycom video began recording us. Suze said hi to us, then asked what our question is. I said "hi size, the wife and I are wanting kids but being a same sex couple we have obstacles such as 2nd parent adoption and artificial insemination so we want to know if you can help us?" The Wife said "we don't want to put a price tag on children but we also don't want to go into debt."

Suze answers with "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?" Then she asked us what it would cost to have a child. I told her roughly $1000. She asked what we would have left and I responded with $1000. She said "YOU ARE DENIED!!" Then she said this isn't a same sex issue. It doesn't matter if you're straight or gay, if you can't afford kids, you don't need to have them. She asked if we would try to save more money before having them because one of us would have to take off work when the child is born, and how are those bills going to get paid? We both said "YES". And the camera then quit recording us.

We were SOOOOOO pissed off!! We had to sit there while the producers reviewed our segment and then we were free to go. They asked if we wanted to watch the rest of the show, we both said NO. We left the hosts home, grabbed some chocolate chip cookies on the way out, and headed towards home. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant on the way home and talked about it some more. When we got home, we composed this email to our producer.

"Producer A & G

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be on the Money Class. We enjoyed the experience and DB was a great host! He made us feel very comfortable in his home and took care of us, far more than we expected.

However, we must say, we were disappointed in how things panned out. Per the email below, we were told Suze would never tell us we couldn't afford a child, and this is precisely what happened. We had submitted five other questions, per your request, that we thought would be addressed, and were not. We are also upset to be told on air that this was not a same sex issue--we are fully aware that asking if we can afford children is not a same sex issue. However, we were prompted by you, to mention this detail. We feel as if we were then slapped in the face with it on national television.


Thank you again for all of your time."

They may pull our segment from the show after receiving that email, but we didn't care. Maybe we should have just gone to the wedding instead.

This hollywood life is for the birds!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Saturday Choices

We were invited to my former roommates wedding....and we have been selected to be on Suze Orman's Money Class show. Both happening at the same day, at the exact same time. When thinking about the opportunity the SO show is, I can't imagine turning it down--altho the wife would not care a bit if I said forget it! I don't know if she doesn't get as excited as me about money, and trying to figure it all out. Or if she is insecure about being on tv because she feels her weight gain is going to make her look horrible.

Either way, we got the final call tonight everything is a GO for Saturday at 6 pm. We'll be video conferencing with Suze Orman in front of a live audience. LIVE!!! LIVE!!! LIVE!!! That scares the ba-Jebus out of me. We've got to practice a little bit in front of the mirror, but we don't want to be TOO scripted.

I feel bad for missing the friends wedding. But when I sit back and remember her betrayal, I searched in my heart as to why I was going to the wedding. And it was simply because she came to our reception. That's no reason.

We went to my Wife's family reunion on Sunday. It's the first time she has been to the reunion in years. Remember a post or two ago when we had the clairvoyant reading? She mentioned a candle going out and it's my Wife's dad? Well, the lights kept going on and off Sunday at the pavilion and I was watching the on/off switch and no one was near it. I can't help but think it might have been her dad. I won't dismiss it for sure. COOL. I find it ironic we had a candle go out the night we spoke with the clairvoyant about him, and then the lights were repeatedly going on and off at the pavilion...it was bizarre!!

Suze O. Let's impress.