The last week of June, first week of July is going to be super busy…party wise   June 28th is the UB party followed by the party I am hosting to kick off the main event on the 30th at LAVO.  I am really excited about that because I have never hosted a party at a nightclub before Lindsay/Paris style LOL.  I feel so celebutante today.

The day after the LAVO party I will be going to my brother’s annual World Series party at the Golden Nugget. That one is on July 1st. Then the day after is the annual Ante Up for Africa $5K buy-in event at the World Series of Poker with an after party at PURE nightclub at Caesars. That one is hosted by me and Don Cheadle for the charity we founded with Norman Epstein. We founded the charity in September of ‘06 and have raised to date $2.1 million to benefit the people of Darfur. We are hoping to raise close to half a million on July 2nd.

After the Ante Up for Africa event the main event of the World Series of Poker starts. Phew. I am getting worn out just thinking about that week…mostly thinking about how much fun I am going to have! Oh…and i am squeezing in instructing at the WSOP Academy Main Event Primer in there. Almost forgot about that…that one is June 29th through July 1st.

Anyway, as they say, You’ve come a long way, Baby!  I couldn’t be prouder of my New Hampshire and the other New England states who have now all fallen in line on the gay marrgie issue (Rhode Island is the lone hold out now). I hold my head up high when I say I am a New Englander.

The $40K didn’t last long for me unfortunately. I was out by dinner break when I donked off my money to Antonio Esfandiari with my top pair against his set. Oops! But here are a bunch of pictures of top pros who came out to sail off for the $40K too. Come to think of it…all these guys got knocked out Day 1 as well. Maybe if I take a picture of you it is bad luck…hmmmmmmmmmmmm….

Barry Greenstein and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson

My Brother…Hi Bub! See Elky on his left?

Mike "The Mouth" Matusow…wait he was out day 2 but didn't cash…

Antonio Esfandiari…the evil doer who knocked me out then didn't cash! That is Justin Bonomo right next to him on his left. He is chip leader going into Day 3!

Since Antonio knocked me out, freeing up my Friday, I decided last minute to play the $1500 buy-in Omaha 8 or better event. The event got almost 1000 players! A record!  I am starting Day 2 at 2 pm today and I am 30th in chips of 197. Also in good chip position today are Phil Hellmuth, Hollywood Dave, Rafe Furst and Andy Bloch.  Hopefully it will be a good day!

My kids did send me this utterly cute video last Sunday.

My kids are pretty damn awesome so they gave me a pretty great make up Mothers day today. This morning at 8 am they all came in singing Happy Mothers Day to You and each of them gave me cards and gifts. Leo gave me a necklace, which of course I am wearing right now. Lucy gave me a bracelet (wearing that also). Nelly gave me flowers. Maud gave me a Yoga Mat carrier (pretty damn thoughtful since I do yoga every day). My favorite quotes from the cards: Maud in inimitable 14 yr old style said “Happy Mothers Day for giving birth to me and stuff” lol. Nelly’s card read, “Dear Mom, The best gift I could ever have is thinking of you on Mothers Day.” Who knew a 7 year old could say something so heartbreakingly awesome?

After the whole gift presentation ceremonies I went off to yoga then we all went off to The Griddle where we feasted on pancakes in an awesome display of screw it it’s Mothers day who needs to eat healthy today? I shared Nelly’s pumpkin pie pancakes and Leo’s Oreo pancakes. Smartly I only ordered a side of ham for myself.

After breakfast I got the best Mothers Day gift of all: A nap! Yes folks, I got to nap for 2 hours this afternoon…that was a huge luxury. Dinner tonight is Fogo de Chao because the gluttony of the day wouldn’t be complete without it. Plus it is my kids favorite restaurant and isn’t that what Mothers Day is really about?

My biggest regret about the finale is that the show never actually showed my whole space during the charity auction. When Trump delivered the task to us I understood we were doing a high end auction to raise money for charity, in my case Refugees International. To that end, I integrated the charity into my decor so that about 60% of the decor was devoted to that. When my guests walked in the room not only did they have no doubt what charity they were donating too but they also could educate themselves about RI though the videos, pamphlets and posters around the room. This was a high priority for me in producing the event and I won the charity integration part of the challenge with practically no contest. I think they made the choice not to show the whole room because the show tried to paint me as the black hat in the competition. I regret that the wide shot of my space didn’t make the edit because I believe the images of refugees throughout the space would have been a powerful platform for RI and I think that was a huge lost opportunity for them.

With the help of Elaine Martyn and Ken Bacon from RI, I created these 3 by 5 foot double sided poster boards that hung from the ceiling in the room and they never really showed this on TV. I was really proud of those boards and happy to find out last week that Elaine and Ken had rescued them after the auction (the contestants were shooed out). When I went to the Italian Embassy in DC last week for the Refugees International 30th anniversary gala, those boards were hanging from the ceiling as part of the decor of the event! I was stunned and completely taken aback.

I also had the video of Darfuri refugees playing on many of the Kodak frames placed throughout the room. I am hoping that anyone who cares enough to read this blog will watch this video so you can see why I am so passionate about the refugee issue.

I also want to thank everyone who came out and donated over the course of the show. Erik Seidel, Shelly Maxwell, Scott Ian, Andy Bloch, Perry Friedman, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitar, Beth Shak, John Hennigan, Nick Schulman, Erik Brooks, Rafe Furst, Kim Scheinberg, Mori Eskandani, Todd Rubenstein, John Moonves, Cliff Josephy, Mark Kron, Mike Murray, Tracy Scala and the inimitable Phil Hellmuth. (If I left anyone out I really apologize). Just as important as donations are the people who helped me out during the show to put the event together. Tony Luisi, Yshai Simkhai, Sara Csillag and Mark Birnbaum deserve a HUGE thank you for coming to the rescue when disaster struck.

I also want to thank the people who generously donated some incredible auction items for the finale so that my donors would have some cool stuff to buy: Matt Damon, Ray Romano, Brad Garrett, Hulk Hogan, Pamela Anderson, Perez Hilton, Thomas Lennon, Natalie Gulbis, Judith Ripka, Arik Kissling, Mark Birnbaum (again!), Sen. Al D’Amato, Rep. Robert Wexler and Herschel Walker. Auction items were a judging criteria that didn’t get discussed in the finale so these guys never got their due. Thank you!

My Apprentice experience was almost completely a positive one. During the course of the show I, with the help of the poker community, raised over $700K for amazing charities. I made some incredible friends, not just with some of the other contestants (Brande, Herschel, Jesse and Natalie) but also with some of the producers who worked tirelessly putting up with me for weeks on end! I think, most importantly though, my faith in the poker community, my second family, was completely affirmed. This community stepped up in such a huge and selfless and giving way. Poker players deserve the biggest shout out of all.

As for the finale of the Celebrity Apprentice, I will be blogging more thoroughly on it later in the week as I process last night. In the meantime, I want to thank Mr. Trump for the way he hired Joan Rivers. In the previous 7 seasons of The Apprentice he has never done anything but pointed to the winner and said “You’re Hired.” Last night, instead, he looked at me and, after asking if I knew what he was going to say, and said, “Annie, You’re Fired.” Nice slowroll. Good game, sir.

http://video.tvguide.com/Celebrity+Apprentice+Annie+Duke/Celebrity+Apprentice+Annie+Duke/2263611?autoplay=true&partnerid=OVG

Now Melissa and Joan’s tirades came, in part, because the Rivers thought that I was manipulating Brande in some sort of conspiracy to get rid of Melissa, who they believed to be my stronger competitor. The opposite could not have been more true. Brande was by far my stronger competitor and I went against what would be good short term game playing to stick by Brande’s side. Against Melissa, Melissa has to be project manager so if we lose the next challenge she goes home since she would have PM’ed and is not an effective fundraiser. Against Brande, on the other hand, I have to be Project Manager so if we lose I go home since Brande is such an effective fundraiser and I am the PM. I knew that going into last week’s challenge. I knew it was to my advantage to take Melissa with me. But Brande deserved it more. Brande was my friend. She was the better player. So I went against my short term best interest in recommending Melissa get fired but I really felt it was in my long term best interested because I could then live with myself after the game.

Well, we go into task delivery and man, I have this big moment of regret on that decision. First, of course, Joan comes back in grand entrance style. Then we find out we are writing a jingle and a 30 second spot for Chicken of the Sea. A jingle? WTF? With Clint Black, grammy award winning songwriter on the other team? Are you kidding me? I know we have lost before we even start. I know I am going home. And somehow I feel it is justice. I recommended Melissa get fired when it was in my interest to keep her, the weaker player, around. With Brande on my team I am, indeed, PM which means we cannot lose the challenge. Period. Or I go home. I have been more than willing to take credit where credit is due me for what I do in the tasks (too much for most people’s liking, agreed). So it is some sort of poetic justice that I am going to die by my own overconfident sword.Whatever. I deserve it.

So Brande and I immediately are in the crappiest of crappy moods. I mean we are total BITCHES because we are in the depths of despair. We are already facing the boardroom in our minds. And we don’t like it. We get it together just enough to research Chicken of the Sea before our meetings with the execs. What we found out in that meeting was that the execs 1) like radio spots that are more serious and informative 2) Chicken of the Sea is bought by moms overwhelmingly and 3) The jingle should be catchy for kids because it is their moms who by the product.

Okay, so that meeting got us some focus and I immediately tasked Brande with putting together the 30 second spot while I went to work on the jingle. On the van ride over, I find out that while I always thought of myself as the least musical person on the planet it turns out that crown would go to Brande. I actually forbade her to sing! So I gave myself the jingle job by default. During the van ride over, me and Brande’s attitudes really changed. I think we realized the absurdity of what we had been tasked with. And we just decided to try to have as much fun as possible with the whole thing. I mean, I just got it into to my head that if I go home from The Celebrity Apprentice because I lost in a song writing challenge to Clint Black. Whatever. I could hold my head up high. From that point on we spent much of the day just laughing our asses off.

In the midst of all the laughter, we did get our work done. Brande and I discussed the 30 second spot being a conversation between two moms on a playground and after we had the concept she went to work writing it and rehearsing it with Maddie (our singer). I went to work on the jingle and was dismayed to find out that despite the fact that we had professional musicians they were not allowed to write a single note for us. Dammit. I had some fantasy that we would write the lyrics and kind of hum a little but the musicians would do the actual work. Not so. Had to write every damn note.

So, Brande left me alone with the guy on guitar and I can’t explain what happened. Don Jr. had come by earlier and said he liked our lyrics. I figured out that lyrics to jingles just really have to mention the brand name a lot of times and I just went with that in writing it. That boosted my confidence some. But I still to this day don’t have any idea how I wrote the song. I just started humming notes and was trying to think contemporary yet nostalgic and out popped this jingle. Here are the lyrics:

Moms they want it fresh
Kids they want it fast
Chicken of the Sea is the name you can trust
Chicken of the Sea is the tuna that you know
For a healthy choice anywhere at home or on the go
Ask any mermaid you happen to sea
What’s the best tuna, Chicken of the Sea

I pretty much went with jingle writing 101 there (after researching jingles on the internet). I hit all the brand points of health and convenience moms and kids and repeated the brand name three times. Brande included all the same brand points in her 30 second spot and also included all the different products in the product line, like the fact they also carry other seafoods like salmon. Between the two I think we hit all the messaging and Brande did amazing voice over work for the 30 second spot.

After watching the reaction of our musicians to the jingle we had done I really came out of the depths of despair and found my hope again. They really liked what we had done. At that point I knew that if we lost it was not because we had given up, given in to our hopelessness in the task. If we lost it would just be because we couldn’t beat Clint Black in a songwriting challenge. And if that was how I got fired from Celebrity Apprentice so be it as I said before.

Before the boardroom, in my private interview, I teared up when asked about the challenge because this one was so stressful. I knew that if we lost, and at the beginning of the task I thought the possibility of that was 100%, I would be the one with my head on the chopping block having to argue myself vs Brande. And I didn’t want to have to do that. I had no desire to fight for my spot vs Brande. All I wanted was for the two of us to be in the final two together and I was stressed out at the prospect of both arguing against Brande and knowing I was going down anyway as PM of the project.

When we went in the boardroom, we got to hear KOTU’s jingle and commercial. When I heard the jingle I thought we really had a chance. I don’t think country was the right choice because it is a very narrow demographic. But more importantly I thought the song was not uptempo enough and didn’t say enough about the brand. I also didn’t think it was a song little kids would like as much as our jingle. I also didn’t like the commercial they did. That is my personal opinion, of course, but I didn’t think it was funny or informative enough. The executives did like the KOTU commercial in its tone and I am not going to argue with them on that. Their opinion matters more than mine. But they agreed that the brand messaging just wasn’t there.

The moment I knew Athena had won was when Don Jr. gave the positives and negatives of our jingle and commercial spot. All they said they didn’t like about it was we didn’t get in that the product also comes in pouches. That was it! One tiny thing on the negative list! The list of negatives for KOTU was pretty long and, yes, we did pull the victory out! At that moment Brande and I just grabbed each other in disbelief and friendship and solidarity. We had pulled through this thing together to get to the final four and we couldn;t believe we had managed to overcome such huge odds. I am embarassed that I cried in the boardroom but I was really overwhelmed by the whole two day experience.

I have to say that Clint was such a gentlemen in this challenge. He was so encouraging in that boardroom in saying that everyone has music in them and they just need to find it. He really meant that and you could see how much he just really loves what he does and really believes everyone has a little of that in them. And he was very gracious in the loss. The really great side of Clint really shone through that night and I hope everyone can see that, despite his drawbacks, there is a good and gracious man in there. I thought he exited with amazing class and grace. An interesting contrast to last week’s exit.

So, now we are down to the final four and we all have to go get interviewed by Piers. Before the interviews, while in the war room, Joan pointedly ignored me and Brande. And I mean pointedly. They didn’t show it but when we went in to argue for the final four in the boardroom Joan claimed to Trump that we had ignored her. WTF? I was so mad about that and glad they showed how she ignored the two of us on TV. Anyway, we go in to get interviewed by Piers and Brande is first to go. I thought it was unfair that Brande got painted as not bright enough for the final 2. Nothing could be farther from the truth. She is very smart. She runs her own business (Financially Hung) and I think she played the game brilliantly to get to the final four. In the end, the proof is in the pudding. And depsite both of the Rivers women coming at her with guns a blazing she managed to outlast Melissa quite nicely, even when it was in my best interest to have Melissa stick around. I wish people would give Brande Roderick more credit for that. But Piers didn’t see that, unfortunately so Brande ended up getting fired first.

When Piers interviewed Jesse James he mainly just pushed him on his lack of fund raising and really got on him about not leveraging his marriage to Sandra Bullock. I feel kind of two ways about this. First, I deeply respect Jesse for keeping his personal life out of The Apprentice and we should all respect his right to keep his private life private. But, on the other hand, I am disturbed by him saying that he was holding back for the end. I really felt all the charities were super important and all deserving of a share of the money raised on the show. I came out strong with the money because I really wanted to raise a lot of money for charity full stop, not just my charity in particular. So I think Jesse made a mistake there because it is really about the charities in the end. So Jesse got fired because he wouldn’t leverage his relationship with his wife. I think that is unfair. But what is fair is that he admitted to holding back. And that is a fair reason for the firing.

So that put me against Joan. When Piers interviewed Joan he gave her every opportunity to retract her statements about Hitler in regards to me. He gave her every out to say that was uncalled for and over the top. But she wouldn’t even admit those comments might have been just the littlest bit out of line. Gotta love a woman for her conviction, I guess. But Piers clearly was not happy about how personal she made her attacks and clearly agreed with me that the mother daughter thing had no place in business when they both knew what they were signing up for. In my case he just kept asking me about strategy and how I might have gotten my opponents to do what I wanted them to in the game. He also asked if I talk too much. I gave him a big fat YES on that one. No arguments there. When he asked me what my biggest fault is, which they didn’t show, I said that it is that I suffer fools so poorly. He actually said he thought that was a good thing since he is like that too. But I think it really is my absolutely worst quality. That and I talk to much

After Trump decided on me and Joan as the final two, I said I respect her. I also said later, very harshly, that I don’t like her and she has made the game personal for me. Now I want to clarify why I said in the boardroom that I respect Joan Rivers because I understand it looks weird in light of the fact that I clearly don’t like her. I do respect her in as much as I hope I could still have her energy at her age and have the longevity of her career. She is clearly a very shrewd woman and I absolutely respect that about her, I respect her ability to persevere. However, that does not mean I like her. So my comments that she has made this personal for me and that I do not like her at all as a person in my private interview are not inconsistent with what I said in the boardroom. I would like you to find me the person who can come under 10 weeks of escalating attacks, being called Hitler and worse than white trash (what office environment allows that, btw?), and still like the person delivering those attacks. By this point in the show I am angry. She has attacked me without stop. She has attacked Brande. She has attacked all poker players spewing the most hateful comments about them. She had repeatedly told me I wasn’t even allowed to talk to her because I was so beneath her. Of course I took that personally. But that does not mean I don’t respect her energy or her longevity of career. It does mean I don’t respect her tactics or her boundaries of what is acceptible behavior. I don’t think Joan could understand that I could feel both things at once because for her it is all black and white. If she doesn’t like you then you are 100% bad with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. You are worse than Hitler in her eyes.

So next week is the live Finale. I am really excited for that and busy putting on my thinking cap about ways I can argue for myself in the final boardroom. I am leaving for New York Tuesday to shoot some stuff for the show then Thursday I am going to the Refugees International Gala. Then I head back to NYC where my family is meeting me for the finale. And I am having dinner with the gay guys from room 702 (remember the hotel challenge?) I can’t wait to see them! So tune in next Sunday to see who wins! And who I end up with on my team I can’t wait!

How to Determine if you are of Sound Mind as a Decision Maker

The one thing I was sure of was that Joan would regret the Hitler comparison once she saw the show. She is a Jew, after all. My father is Jewish. So I figured that when she saw that, she would cringe and decide she should have kept to the despicable and 16 personalities and white trash comments. All deeply personal but not nearly as offensive as referring to Hitler (or Mussolini or comparing choosing two cupcakes to Sophie’s Choice). And yet, Joan tweeted the following yesterday:

I just compared Annie to Hitler and I feel terrible. My apologies to Hitler.

Referring once again to Godwin’s Law, I have nothing more to say.

Anyway, on to the auction. I was really proud of my team in our auction. I think everyone did an amazing job. Jesse was under represented on the episode because he was the one who really organized the auction itself and I don’t think that was shown. He figured out where to seat our donors, coached people on bidding against our guys to make the auction seem really exciting and made the beautiful auction brochure. Brande brought in a ton of money and did a great job with the models. Melissa, depsite her constant complaining that I did not praise her enough, did a great job with the jewelry and was a wonderful stage manager for the actual show. And I was very happy with my auctioning skills. All in all we raised over $150K profit in that auction! And my friends were amazing in their support. Also, Stewey Rahr, Brande’s donor, was just so generous with us. In fact, we was so sweet that he even bid on one of the other team’s items just because he felt bad for them. You are a good man, Stewey Rahr.

Anyway, on to KOTU’s auction. Well. What is there to say? It was an unmitigated disaster. The series of decisions that were made in regard to that show were pretty astonishingly poor. In particular, I think the decision to put all the bidders on one piece was terrible. Yes, the task is in the end judged on money raised. But this is Ivanka Trump’s jewelry and it is absolutely an insult to her to have pieces of hers not even sell. I feel that decision was inexcusable. Also, I can’t fathom why Joan didn’t come out immediately and take the mic from Clint. I am not sure why it took her so long because it was clear that Clint was completely failing at the auctioneer job. And then poor Natalie. I feel that Natalie was set up right from the start. It made no sense for her to be the one picking out the jewelry. That should have been Joan’s job. She designs and sells jewelry for a living after all. But even so, Natalie was picking jewelry she knew the donors wanted without being told they had decided to not have the donors bid on but one piece. That is a set up, plain and simple.

So we go into the boardroom and the first thing that happens is I praise Melissa for the amazing jewelry she picked out. I find that ironic since Melissa had spent the whole show griping about how she wasn’t getting enough praise for all the great things she was doing. I wonder if Melissa was surprised and somewhat chagrined after all her whining in private at all the praised heaped on her at that moment.

Trump then turned his attention to KOTU and here is where I think it gets interesting because as Trump is quizzing Joan about her inability to raise money (she raised a paltry $8K on this challenge, by far the least on her team) Melissa jumps in to defend her mother. Piers, rightly so, remarks on this, wondering why Melissa is defending a member of the other team. She says she is defending Joan because she is her mother and Piers says so what? It is a game and that doesn’t matter. She is defending a member of KOTU while not defending a member of her own team. Piers felt this was inexcusable and I must say I agree with him. If Melissa wants to figure out why I turned my back on her, since she keeps remarking on it, she need look no further than her behavior in this boardroom where she never once puts her mother in her place as her mother viciously attacks me (as evidenced by the painful, reluctant response of Melissa to the question about whether or not I am a bad person). But the moment her mother is attacked by Trump or by Piers or by Ivanka, Melissa jumps right in to defend her even though she is not on her team.

Now this dynamic makes the game very interesting to play because, while there are two teams on the show in Athena and KOTU, there is also a third team: Team Rivers. That means that the other players have to be very aware of this dynamic and know that if they go against one, they will be attacked and ganged up on by the other. I was certainly aware of this.

Anyway, during the attacks, Joan Rivers compares me to Hitler. How fun! First, let me say that I find comparing anything that happens on Celebrity Apprentice to the slaughter of 6 million Jews to be offensive. But aside from that, I find the comparison to be absurd, so absurd in fact that there is really no response to it. Anyone interested should check out Godwin’s Law. What Godwin’s Law states is basically that the longer an argument continues in a newsgroup on the internet that the probability that someone references Hitler or the Nazi’s approaches 100%. I guess we need to add a corollary for reality tv now! Another corollary of the law is that once that happens, the argument ends. This because there is no where to go from there. The comparison is so absurd that there is no response and, in fact, responding would trivialize the Holocaust itself.

So for anyone who is wondering why I didn’t attack Joan in the boardroom, this is why. What exactly am I suppsoed to say to her? That I’ve never invaded Poland? That I have never killed anyone? It was just so silly and offensive and responding would have handed the power back to Joan so I held my tongue and just tried to act as professionally as possible. But, make no mistake, I was totally steaming inside. And hurt. I did not enjoy the vicious, personal attacks and watching Melissa defend her mother in that boardroom, well my thoughts mirrored Piers. Who’s team was Melissa on? It was clear from that boardroom that there was only one team she cared about and it was neither KOTU nor Athena, it was team Rivers.

The verdict was delivered and not only did Athena win but we set a record for money raised in a single week with a grand total of $245K for Refugees International. They are an amazing charity, advocating for the over 40 million refugees around the world, and really deserve the money. I am so honored to be playing for them on the show. In the end, this is why I did the show, to help organizations just like this one not only raise money but also raise awareness about such an important cause.

Anyway, on to the firing of Natalie Gulbis. I find that firing illogical and believe that Joan was setting Natalie up for that from the beginning. For all Joan’s tears in the boardroom, she spent a tremendous amount of time in her private interviews bashing both Natalie and Clint and there was no doubt she was setting them up for failure. And yet I feel that pretty no much matter how you look at the task, Joan was the one at fault here. There are only two ways to judge this task:

1) Say that the task was solely about money raising and the show did not matter.

Joan made this argument because when Piers, Ivanka and I all criticized Joan for the decision to not insure that all the pieces sold, Joan argued vehemently that this task was just about the money. But Joan raised the least money on her team by far, only bringing in $8K as PM of a money raising task. Natalie, depsite failing to bring in Phil Hellmuth, managed to bring in more than Joan. So if the task is just about money, as Joan argued, then she should be fired since she raised the least by far (which was not made clear on the show).

2) Say that the money didn’t matter so much as the show.

Well Joan argued against this as a criteria for firing but, even so, Joan should still be on the chopping block if we go this way. Joan sent Natalie to pick the jewelry when clearly that should have been Joan’s job. Joan made the decision, as project manager, to put all the donors on one piece of jewelry, insuring that some pieces would not sell which had to embarass Ivanka trump. Joan did not step in as auctioneer quickly enough. All around, Joan made a lot of mistakes in her decisions here.

Now if you go with (2) then you could also argue for Clint going since he really screwed up that auction. But Natalie seems to me to be in third place in terms of who to fire, by the criteria that Joan herself put forth. When they went in the boardroom, for all Joan’s tears, she never suggested that she was responsible for the loss (as pretty much every other project manager had). She allowed Natalie to take the fall, never once stepping in in her defense or suggesting, perhaps, that Clint might be another choice. Joan set the bus in motion and as soon as she had the chance, ran Natalie right under the wheels. Well done.

Now, I am going to quickly cover the Schwann’s Challenge. I will look at team Athena first. Jesse was project manager here and was somewhat hard to work with. I am a huge fan of Jesse’s but he really locked us out on the marketing side of things. On the food side, Jesse and I butted heads about what to make but, in the end, I agreed to cook all three dishes so we could have a taste test. Jesse was really pushing for the chili. The rest of us wanted the turkey meatballs because they were original and originality was a huge piece of the puzzle. I am glad I pushed so hard for that dish and that Melissa and Brande backed me up because the originality, in the end, was so important. One thing about me, I do push on things but only if I truly believe I am right and in this case I really felt strongly about the originality piece. I think Brande put it best, that Chili is something you can get out of any can but turkey meatballs with gluten free pasta was something unusual and different.

In terms of our marketing plan, I have to confess I was completely freaking out about it. Jesse did not share any details with us at all. I had really been in charge of the marketing plan on most of the challenges, that was kind of my niche. So I was having a Type A, control freak crisis about not seeing any of the marketing. I kept calming myself down by telling myself that I had complete faith in Jesse and Melissa to execute something great since they are both smart people. So imagine my surprise when I walked in that boardroom and found out we had no marketing plan at all! (That was the first I had heard about that). I wanted to die! Sometimes Type A control freaks have a right to be freaking out!

One thing that wasn’t shown was that Brande made an awesome dessert. For some reason it isn’t made clear in that episode that Brande made the dessert. I think it was the single best tasting thing we produced and the Schwann’s guys agreed.

On to KOTU: I think Clint made some really good points. I think he was absolutely right to say that chicken was not the way to go. We had discussed chicken on Athena and decided that too many of their dishes were already chicken dishes so it would not be judged original enough. Clint voiced his opinion about this but no one backed him up so he was over ruled. If originality is the reason they lose well Clint can’t be blamed for that. Clint also voiced very strong opinions about the dessert and, in fact, they were the exact opinions of the executives…that the dessert would not freeze well and would be complicated to package. Another point for Clint. Where Clint falls down on this episode is in the marketing plan. Clint went with a TV campaign but the executives made it clear that they do not advertize on TV (until this episode!). That was a big fall down on Clint’s part. But, on balance here, I think that Clint had more going for him on this challenge than against him.

When we got to the boardroom, Trump asked Melissa what she thought of how we did. Amazingly enough, she immediately ran down the food, saying that if we lost it would be because of the food! That was pretty cheeky from a woman in charge, with Jesse, of a marketing plan that never got produced. The question was really, in the end, whether our food was good enough and original enough to overcome the lack of any marketing campaign at all. And, apparently despite Melissa’s opinion that the food should have lost it for us, our food was so good and so original that we won the challenge depsite not even completing the marketing piece. They specifically cited the gluten free pasta and the use of turkey as very original and key in our win which vindicates my arguing so strongly for that piece. They also specifically cited Brande’s dessert in the taste category, saying it was the single best thing they had all day.

As for KOTU, they liked Clint’s chicken dish but hated the dessert and thought there was no originality to the food. They also felt the TV campaign was, in some ways, worse than the no campaign at all produced by Athena. So who should be fired? It seems like Joan is safe somewhat by fiat because she actually managed to make zero major decisions despite being on only a three man team. That leaves Clint and Herschel. Now, there are arguments both ways. If Trump feels the marketing piece ultimately caused the failure, then Clint must go. If Trump feels the lack of originality and the dessert caused the failure, then Herschel must go since Clint was on record in disagreeing strongly with those decisions. Ultimately, the marketing can’t have failed the task, really, since Athena did not even produce a marketing campaign to compare it too. Therefore, it must be the food and in that case Herschel must go. So Trump did the right thing here.

Next week, more good times as Joan calls Brande a dumb blonde and calls me and my friends white trash!

Yes. I am a complete luckbox.

Herschel wanted to step up as PM on KOTU but Trump practically insisted Joan be PM. I think, in retrospect, that he wanted to see us fight it out since Joan had such acrimony towards me. That did not occur to me at the time, though. Herschel hadn’t won money for his charity yet. Joan had already won over $160K. So I really think Herschel should have been allowed to take this one. But Trump really wanted Joan and it is Trump’s show so she became PM opposite me.

So Athena immediately went into our boardroom and the first thing that happened is that I divided the tasks up right away to get everyone going. I had two goals on this: 1) I wanted to raise the most money because that is ultimately what we are judged on but 2) I also really wanted to put on a great auction and do Ivanka proud. I had grown to really like Ivanka and it is her jewelry we were going to be auctioning and I wanted to put on a show that would really showcase her jewelry well.

So I assigned everyone to fundraising (obviously) then I assigned Jesse to create the auction catalog and to manage the auction in terms of placing our donors in the audience and having plants in the audience to bid against our donors to make the auction seem truly real and exciting (Jesse’s idea 100%). Jesse grew up in the auction business so that part of the task really made sense for him. I assigned Melissa to pick all the jewelry and I assigned Brande to handle the models and the clothes. Melissa piped up at that point that she wanted to do that job as well which would have left Brande with no job. That clearly made no sense and when I insisted on Brande handling the models Melissa complained in a private interview with what has become a refrain for her: “This is what I do for a living.” Okay, I get that but Brande needed a job and she is a model so she seemed well qualified for that task.

This is where I get really impressed by Brande. I lobbed some pretty harsh criticism at her in the last boardroom. But instead of taking it personally, she took the criticism to heart. In fact, she agreed with me since she, herself, had admitted that was her strategy. And I immediately saw a huge change in Brande. A huge positive change in her. She really offered to step up, being incredibly proactive about getting clothes set aside for us at the store and getting the models’ headshots sent over right away. That was a huge time saver and she would not have done that the previous tasks so this was a big change. I am always the most impressed by people who are willing to own their mistakes and failures so they can learn and grow from them. And Brande was a shining example of this on this task. As I felt any good boss would do, I complimented Brande on all the good things she was doing. Rightly so, she was kicking ass and taking names and deserved the praise.

Melissa, however, did not feel the same. Apparently, the fact that Brande had been floating down the stream not really doing much on the previous tasks meant that I was not supposed to acknowledge the change in her on this task. I guess admitting when someone has really stepped up and put in renewed effort and leadership on a task is two faced in Melissa Rivers’ world. In my world it is just giving credit where credit is due and judging someone on their present performance rather than their past performance.

Brande and I had bonded early in the game and then had fallen out some over the previous two tasks. When I saw how much she changed in this task I completely renewed my respect for her and we really bonded and became really great friends. On the other hand, my respect for Melissa really eroded on this task because I saw how undermining she was of Brande at every chance and how divisive and disruptive she was.

When I stepped back as Project Manager, what I saw was really interesting. I saw that Melissa was trying as hard as she could to throw Brande under the bus, despite the fact that Brande was overall doing a really great job. Melissa shot down Brande’s ideas at every chance incessantly pointing out to me all the things Brande was doing wrong. Melissa should have just let me sit back and judge for myself instead of tattling on Brande all the time. I can see for myself what people are doing well and what they are not. Melissa did a great job picking out the jewelry. Brande was, indeed, too focused on her own outfit and Melissa did step up to the plate and pick up the slack. However, Melissa was also causing a lot of disruption on our team because of her sniping about Brande. I was particularly disturbed by Melissa’s comments about Brande in her private interviews which I think were, frankly, quite mean and uncalled for.

I also found Melissa and Joan’s private comments about my fundraising really telling. They seemed to give me no credit for just having really good friends. They attributed my fundraising ability to my being powerful in the poker world (which is not really true…there is really no such a thing as power since we all work for ourselves). They claimed that the people I called were just scared to say no to me. I will address that with a story. For this task, I called Scott Ian (the guitarist from Anthrax), Perry Friedman who had come out on the Wedding Dress Challenge and my brother, Howard Lederer. They all immediately agreed to come out and help me on this challenge. They all live on the west coast so were going to catch a 6 am flight to NYC. After I talked to them I went home and went to bed. When I woke up at 5 am my friend, Andy Bloch, IM’ed me. He had heard from Perry and Howard that I was looking to raise money and asked me why I hadn’t called him. I told him I was really only calling people who could do $25K or more on this one and we had only discussed a $5K donation before (I had talked to him on the Wedding Dress Challenge). He told me of course he would do $20 to $25K and that he was getting on the same flight as the other guys! I have some pretty freaking kick ass friends and I frankly think it says more about the Rivers personal relationships than mine that they couldn’t fathom that anyone would come donate to me just because they like me.

Anyway, everyone on my team was doing a great job and the team was working really well (despite the fact that Melissa and Brande were having problems and Melissa was having problems with my renewed friendship with and respect for Brande). Jesse, as usual, did his job quietly and really well. The auction booklet he created was ridiculously great. The jewelry Melissa picked out was beautiful. And the models were set.

Now, on KOTU everyone was working really hard to fundraise. But I think they were worried that with me and Brande working together (Brande had raised a ton in the previous shows) that Athena was going to be tough to beat. So they made a decision that I find somewhat mindboggling. Clint came up with the idea to pool all the donors on to the least expensive piece. If a piece didn’t sell, then the wholesale price of that piece would not be deducted against the total amount raised. So they figured that that would create the most profit for them. But what it would also create, it my opinion, is embarrassment for Ivanka when only 1 of the 5 pieces of her jewelry sold at her auction. Joan agreed to this stratgey which I think is in poor judgement. You will have to watch the next episode to see how that one plays out.

Natalie was sent off to pick out the jewelry. First, I am not sure why Joan did not do that job. She owns a jewelry company after all. I have no idea why she sent Natalie, who has no experience with that. But she did. So Natalie Gulbis gets deeply criticized by Joan for picking jewelry that was not flashy. But Natalie was picking pieces that she knew her donors wanted to buy because she had not been informed of their strategy change to put all the donors on one piece. So I think the criticism of Natalie was deeply unfair here. I think it was a bad decision to assign her in the first place since Joan should have done that part and she was getting pieces her donors wanted anyway, and isn’t that the point?

Anyway, Natalie calls Phil Hellmuth to get him to donate to KOTU. Phil is the most famous poker player in the world and we happen to not only work together but we also are good friends. You will have to see whether or not Phil comes through for Natalie on the next episode. Again, another cliffhanger you will have to tune in for.

So, tune in next week to see of Phil screws me over and to see if KOTU’s strategy to create the most profit for their auction works. Also, find out how Piers Morgan plays into the episode and why I get compared to Hitler! Fun times all around.

So, we get the first task delivery and Trump puts Brian McKnight on our team. When we find out what the task is, I thought immediately that Jesse should be project manager. He knows a lot about retail display and design and he had not been PM yet so it seemed like a natural fit. But he didn’t want to do it (luckily since he ended up violently ill). I also did not want to do it because I was really trying to wait till a money raising task to step up to the plate. Brian volunteered so we went with him. Natalie stepped up on the other side. I’ll talk about KOTU first.

So, I thought Natalie did an amazing job and I thought Joan was very harsh about her in her private interviews. Natalie had a really tough task here as PM since she had to manage Clint and Joan who clearly hated each other. Natalie chose Clint’s idea for the packaging and display looking like a safe over Joan’s idea which was the bodyguard idea. I honestly think that is why Joan didn’t like Natalie as PM, because Natalie didn’t pick her idea (going so far as to say something like “I don’t know what rock she climbed out from under.”)

But I think Natalie kicked ass because she somehow managed to squash the conflict between Joan and Clint which sure seemed like an impossible task. She kept the team incredibly harmonious and I think she went with the best idea during the brainstorming session and really played to her team’s strengths in the task. I aslo think she did a great job with managing the deadlines.

Now, onto Athena. When we got in the van to go to our war room one thing was really clear: Brian didn’t want to be there anymore. He had just come back from a concert and was basically saying that he really enjoyed being back to his real life and had totally lost his enthusiasm for the game. I totally get that because the Celebrity Apprentice world is completely crazy and surreal and when you get back to your real life when you are done filming you completely realize how nice it is to be normal again. Brian got a taste of that mid show and I think it just made him lose his desire to keep at it full steam ahead.

So we go in and start working. It is clear that Jesse is the one who should design the package and the display because he actually has experience at it. He had designed retail displays and started immediately using all this jargon like “end cap” and such. So he gets to work with that and I started researching the brand since I was assigned to brand message (which seems to have developed as my niche). Brian is going to manage all of us and Melissa is assigned to work with me on the package insert and getting the presentation together. Brande is going to help Jesse but doesn’t really offer up any ideas.

What I found really interesting here is two things: 1) Brande and I have the same comments about Brande’s performance on the task and 2) I am alone in my panic the whole time.

So, as for Brande (this obviously becomes important later), I clearly have some harsh things to say about her performance in my private interviews during this task. At this point in the game, I felt very strongly that Brande was not taking any initiative. She was basically sitting around waiting to be told what to do. Now, when told she worked very hard. But at this point in the game with so few people and so much to do that was in many ways a liability to not have someone willing to step up to the plate. I think I compared her to dead wood floating down the stream. Obviously, I felt strongly about this. What I think is really interesting though is that Brande echoed my thoughts. In her private interviews she clearly said that she was just sitting back being told what to do because she felt that if she didn’t stick her neck out she couldn’t be fired. My criticisms exactly! It turned out we were on the same page about what her strategy was! The problem was she thought her strategy was good and I felt it was a liability to the team and a poor long term strategy for winning the game.

As for my panic…clearly I spent the whole day completely panicked about time. First, neither Brian nor Melissa seemed to realize that we had to get the design team over to the building place in Brooklyn. When I pointed that out, neither of them seemed to think this was a problem. So I offered to call the display house while quietly saying I was not in charge of the display or the deadlines just to make it clear that this was not my issue but I was willing to take up the slack. I found it interesting that Melissa’s reaction to this was to say that I was just setting myself up to not be fired. Um. No. I was trying to get the design team over to the construction place so we could actually present a display at all since without a display we would not even complete the requirements of the task.

As for my general panic about the time, I clearly say over and over again, “Am I allowed to panic about the time yet?” and the reaction from Brian and Melissa is to dismiss my worry. They both spent the day incredibly relaxed about the deadlines, not worried about whether or not we could get everything done and, in fact, spent much of the day chatting about music! I really liked Brian’s laid back vibe but he really took this one overboard, so much so that I felt like a crazy person for being so freaked out about our time. And Melissa, for all her criticism of Brande not taking the bull by the horns, did not step up to take up any slack on her own part in terms of being aware of deadlines and whatnot.

Now, at the design house disaster struck with Jesse getting deathly ill. Brande took up the slack as much as she could but also seemed unaware of many of the deadlines and was way too non-chalant about them. The report back from Jesse, however, was that Brande did really work hard, despite her time management being poor. That was important in terms of who should be fired. If Brande really did take up the slack for Jesse then it would seem like the argument for firing her if we were to lose would have to be an overall argument about her strategy rather than her performance on this task in particular because the time management would really fall directly on Brian’s shoulders.

So we finish the task at about 10 pm solely because we have completely run out of time. It turns out that I was justified in my panic because we just totally don’t get everything done we need to. Brian and I head back to his hotel room and work until 2 am to write the presentation together while the rest of the team heads to bed. Mind you, I had to get up at 5 am to start day 2 of the task so this was practically an all nighter. But I had a great time working with Brian. I think we wrote a great presentation together. And I have to tell you I love that guy! I was really happy I got to have him on my team for a bit because I had a great experience with him writing that damn presentation late into the night. We had a great time and did a kick ass job working together.

So we go in the next day and Brian does a fantastic job on the presentation. That guy is freaking dynamic, I can tell you that. He is an amazing speaker. Jesse was still completely laid out, poor thing. He was still just so sick. But he showed up and that shows what an amazing competitor he is (unlike Rodman with his dog/cat/too hungover to show up to work allergy). Brian’s presentation was so well done that I thought he might actually save the task for us.

But, alas, that turns out not to be true. Natalie hits this one out of the park and wins the task for KOTU because they really love the creativity of Clint’s safe idea and they like Natalie’s use of celebrity in the task. When Athena comes back in the boardroom, the big criticism of our team is time management and George is very harsh on Melissa and Brian on that front. When Trump asks everyone who should be fired, Jesse and Brande and I all point to Brian because, in the end, his management of this task was poor and whatever I thought about Brande’s game strategy, Brian’s time management was clearly what failed the task and you have to judge on what goes wrong that task in picking who should be fired. I believe that is the only fair way to handle the choice based on the task at hand. It is only when there is no clear choice in the task at hand that I think you should look at overall performance in the game.

Melissa, however, points the finger at Brande and then Trump asks me what I think about Brande. Here is where it gets interesting because Joan announces to her team that I am going to be incredibly harsh about Brande. The first thing that is interesting about that is that Melissa was not particularly harsh on Brande, she just said that Brande was not carrying her weight. The second thing I think is amazing to me is that Joan assumed that I was going to say something deeply personal and cutting about Brande, she seemed to think I was going to call Brande an idiot. She went so far as to claim that I had actually called Brande stupid and an idiot in a private dinner with her and Melissa.

Now, I need to set the record straight here. I did have dinner with Joan and Melissa. And I did express that I felt Brande should go, that I thought she was drafting and never taking a leadership role. I said about the same things I said on the show. But I did not call her an idiot. I think Joan may have interpreted my comments about Brande’s performance in the game as me saying she was stupid (because that is how Joan attacks people by going after them as people) but obviously I didn’t say those things. We are interviewed privately all the time. You saw my private comments about Brande, which were harsh but not personal. We have cameras on us all day, much of which I am nowhere near Brande. If I had ever called Brande an idiot, wouldn’t they have shown it to back up Joan’s claims? Of course they would have. But they didn’t because I never said it.

What I did say about Brande, however, was very cutting indeed. I said that I felt she was not sticking her neck out, that in poker there are people who play to win and people who play to last. That the ones who play to last might last longer than the ones who play to win but they don’t win money in the long run because in order to have colossal successes you must be willing to risk colossal failures. Now, anyone who plays poker knows that is a biting thing to say about someone’s tournament strategy…in fact one of the most harsh criticism’s you could levy at a poker player. And I lobbed that one right at Brande because I felt it was true.

But apparently that was not enough for Joan. Despite the fact that her own daughter had not levied any particularly harsh criticism at Brande I guess that Joan expected me to be meaner, to be more personal in my comments about Brande (I guess to take up the slack for what Melissa failed to do). I was not caustic enough for the Rivers women I guess and I will not apologize for that. I do not think there is a place for attacking anyone’s intelligence in this game, for attacking who they are as a person. This game is about business strategy only so I don’t know how to respond to someone who thinks I am not nasty enough about another player in the game.

Anyway, Brian picks Melissa and Brande to come into the boardroom with him which I feel was the right choice, Brande because of her overall game strategy and Melissa because she was shooting the shit just as much was Brian on this one. I was shocked when I watched the show tonight to see that Melissa immediately said she thought *I* should have been brought in with Brian. What? I was the only one even panicked about deadlines, which was our undoing. I did the brand messaging and the Lifelock people said they thought we really understood the brand better than the other team. I stayed up will 2 am writing the presentation with Brian. What did I do that deserved Melissa’s comment? I was shocked.

Anyway, Trump figured out that Brian really wanted to go home and fired him. This was the right decision on this task for sure and Brian truly wanted it that way.

When I came out of the boardroom, Joan attacked me for not throwing Brande under the bus harshly enough. I pointed out to her than I had, indeed, thrown Brande under the bus and Joan persisted in saying that I was not cutting or personal enough for her taste and then proceeded to call me a two faced snake in the grass. In her private interviews about me, Joan went so far as to say I would spit on the ground and drown my own mother in it. Joan rivers, you owe my mother an apology. You really do. She has nothing to do with this game and is an amazing woman who doesn’t deserve to be caught up as collateral in your hateful comments.

So, this week on Celebrity Apprentice the task was to create a viral video for All Detergent. As I suspected going into task delivery, the teams got shuffled up. I stayed on Team Athena along with Melissa Rivers, Brande Roderick, Tionne Watkins and Jesse James. Team Kotu becomes Herschel Walker, Clint Black, Joan Rivers, Khloe Kardashian and Natalie Gulbis. Brian McKnight was away at a concert but I assumed whichever team lost the task would end up with Brian on their team when he got back. Melissa volunteered to Project Manage Athena (since she has experience in production) and Clint volunteered for Kotu.

So, let me start with Athena because, once again, the less interesting stuff happened on Athena. As we were heading over to the war room, we started throwing out ideas. So we come up with this idea that Jesse could get scrubbed in a bathtub by midgets. Now, the original idea was Joan getting into a bathtub, little people scrubbing her with All Detergent, and Brande coming out of the bathtub. That would have been hilarious. But we didn’t have Joan on the team anymore, which really bummed me out because I figured Joan was the ace in the hole on this task. The reason we were focused on midgets was that the detergent was called All Small and Mighty and, as Isaid repeatedly over the course of the task, you can’t really say All Small and Mighty and viral in the same sentence and not expect to get little people. And, as you notice, KOTU wanted to use a midget as well but after the first guy couldn’t act the agency had no more options to send them since Athena had already booked the other three they had available.

At first, Jesse was very resistant to get scrubbed by the little people. To be fair, we did want him in a Speedo in a bathtub so the concept did evolve from what he initially refused to do. Let me tell you, when he was initially refusing to do it I was pissed off! I was very happy when Jesse got moved to our team (and even more sad to see Natalie move over to KOTU) but when Jesse said no to concept that the rest of our team liked I was really annoyed that he wasn’t being a team player. That being said, we did finally convince him and once he said yes he was the best addition to the team ever. Slightly bumpy start but then huge asset after that. And, yes, he is a totally awesome dude, too.

So, the concept is that we will have three little people dressed as All Bottles. I was put in charge of brand messaging. Tionne and I were also assigned to get the costumes and props. After doing the brand research I needed to and after Tionne found the places where we could get the costumes and props, T and I went off to do our errands while Jesse, Melissa, and Brande stayed behind to write the script. While I was gone, Melissa obviously took some shots at me in her interviews, saying she wanted me out of the room because I was disruptive and wanted to run everything. As usual, she said all that behind my back and not to my face. One of the reasons I love Brande so much is that the one time we had an argument she told me she was pissed off and why she was pissed off right to my face. She was direct and I love that. Melissa, on the other hand, could not have been nicer to my face at this point in the game. Yet, obviously, she was somewhat sniping when my back was turned. Lucky for me, every time we had been in a boardroom, Trump had asked the PM if I overstepped my bounds or stepped on their toes. I think Trump kept asking that because he suspected I was the type who would want to be the leader on every task. Yet, every PM who was asked that insisted I was very deferential, including Khloe on the Zappos Challenge. So whatever Melissa was saying about me wanting to be in charge, she was confusing that with me being willing to stick my neck out and get my ideas across. I actually specifically always deferred to the PM because I had seen on the previous season that not doing that was a huge mistake in the game. And, anyone who has watched the last three episodes has seen an Annie that was in the background, causing no conflict and doing whatever the PM told me to do. So, I obviously knew how to subordinate and not take over.

So, anyway, Tionne and I went off to get electric blue unitards, yellow wigs, blue gloves, and high tops for the actors to wear (so they would look like the All bottles). When we were at Home Depot getting the Scrub Brushes (we found yellow ones!) Tionne found these electric blue rubber gloves the same color as the unitards and she also found these yellow hard hats. I really enjoyed the afternoon with Tionne. I hadn’t gotten to spend much time with her before plus she had been sick coming into the show with a horrible sinus infection. That was finally clearing up at which point the real Tionne was emerging. She got her energy back and she is really freaking hilarious. She did a great job finding all the costume stuff and I had a really good time getting to know her better.

After we got all the stuff, we brought it all to the laundromat where they were setting up to film. I wasn’t at the war room when Don Jr. came by so I don’t know how true the edit was on the meeting but if it was edited fairly I wish Melissa had paid more attention to Don Jrs concerns about taming it down a little because in that case we could have left off that end bit with the midgets swearing. That is not to say I don’t stand behind the video, because I do. Melissa and Jesse did an amazing job writing it and it was really, really funny (as you saw when it got played in the boardroom). But Brande seemed to pay attention to what Don Jr had to say since she was concerned it might be too out there so it seems liek maybe the edit of that meetin was fair.Again, I don’t know. I wasn’t there.

Anyway, we got back to the set and dressed up the midgets and the rest of the day was just ridiculously fun. Jesse was a good sport and had a blast the whole day. He was awesome in the video. The midgets were amazing and game for whatever we did. Melissa did a really great job directing and producing. I made sure the branding was there. Everyone contributed and we all had a blast, never stopping laughing the whole day. Editing the piece was even more fun because even after watching it over and over we still thought it was hilarious, the sign of a good viral. I can’t remember the last time I laughed as long or as hard as I did those two days.

We had a harmonious team, and we produced a really funny product. It was a great day.

Now on to KOTU. Oh my lord. During the whole task, Melissa was getting texts from her mother telling her what was going on. We were also getting reports from Khloe and Natalie. By saying they were telling us what was happening, they weren’t selling out their team by telling us their ideas. They were texting us about what was happening with Clint, that Clint was locking them out of the process and being a complete dictator. The interesting thing about this challenge was that I was so upset that Joan had been moved to the other team when I heard what the challenge was. Joan Rivers starring in a viral video would surely get passed around by the target audience. We substituted Jesse but I figured Clint would obviously have Joan be the star and I knew we would lose to that. Joan was a huge asset for them. Also, this is right up Joan’s alley for what her wheelhouse is in the writing department. Joan is obviously known for being outrageous and pushing the envelope. And viral videos are meant to be outrageous. So here is KOTU with the most obvious star for the video and the most obvious writer for the script. I figured we were fucked.

But then it turns out we weren’t because Clint became a dictator, not a project manager, and decided to do the whole thing himself. And by himself I mean he locked out the rest of his team from doing anything, literally he locked them out of the editing bay. Clint wrote the piece (which was a dirty joke about masturbation which was not funny, offensive, and didn’t even make sense), he directed it, he made all the decisions about the actors and the editing. He was a one man show and despite his teams constant objections to the idea (and Ivanka’s objections as well) Clint refused to listen to any of them and just went full steam ahead. Ignoring the biggest asset he had on his team (Joan) was completely ridiculous and, frankly, disrespectful. I can’t say it enough, I thought Athena was sunk. In the target demographic there is no way we could compete with a Joan Rivers viral (even with Jesse starring in ours). All her ideas were very right on target and funny that she threw out on the show. Clint should have listened.

So, we get into the boardroom and, obviously, Joan was really harsh on Clint. No love lost between those two. Joan got very personal. Instead of focusing on why Clint failed as a project manager (as Khloe and Natalie did) Joan focused on why Clint failed as a human being, talking about how she never wants to see him again and that he is a bad man. Personally, I believe that no matter what your personal feelings are about someone that the boardroom is supposed to be about the task and who did their job well and who didn’t. So I felt Joan stepped over that line several times in the boardroom with Clint. While I wholeheartedly agree that Clint really screwed up as PM in a huge way, I feel the comments should have been kept to just that, the copious ways in which he screwed up as PM. The deeply personal comments made me feel bad for Clint in there.

Athena had no drama in the boardroom. We had all gotten along well and all stood by our product. In fact, when they showed our video the other team was laughing their asses off and we were told that Perez Hilton loved our video (thank you, Perez!) and hated KOTU’s. Seemed like a sure win. NOT.

The All executives hated both virals . While they loved the branding in ours (yay! I was in charge of that) they thought the rest was offensive. Now, I take offense to that in a lot of ways. Our video was great. Melissa did a fantastic job. Jesse did a great job. They wrote a really, really funny and, more importantly, viral video. Everyone on our team was on board and thought the thing was hilarious. And Perez thought it was really viral and really funny. So, my only explanation is that the All executives wanted a commercial and not a viral. I am not sure they understand the difference between a commercial and a viral because there is no question that we produced a viral, we gace them what they asked for. As I said the whole task, you can’t really say the words viral and All Small and Mighty in the same sentence and not expect little people dressed up as All bottles. Both teams went to the midget thing, afterall. I also feel like if All didn’t like either of them then Perez should have been the tie breaker. Why was he there otherwise?

So, we find out both teams lose (no surprise on the KOTU side). So both teams have to send people into the boardorom. Melissa picked Tionne, because she volunteered, and Brande. I think Melissa knew that I couldn’t get fired since the branding was the only thing praised with our video and Jesse couldn’t get fired since he had done an amazing job and worked his ass off. Brande got chosen kind of by default just because she hadn’t contributed quite as much as the others. Melissa got shafted, as far as I am concerned. She should have won as PM. But Tionne is really the one who got shafted here. Tionne did an excellent job on this task and had just come off a great week as project manager. She was just coming into her own in the game having finally gotten over her really bad sinus infection. When Melissa asked for volunteers, Tionne was the only one who wanted to support her in the boardroom which was a really nice gesture. Look, I knew not to volunteer. I know how Trump reacts to that. At the same time, Tionne didn’t volunteer to be fired, she volunteered to be by Melissa’s side. That makes her a really good person (better than I am for sure) and I was sorry to see her punished for that. Melissa knew she got a get out of jail free card on that one for sure. Trump made it clear that if T hadn’t volunteered that Melissa would have been fired.

Then there was the KOTU firing. Clint, to his credit, didn’t bring Joan in the boardroom with him. He was smart enough to know that Trump would never fire her for this task. So he chooses Khloe and Natalie who did absolutely nothing wrong. Also very much to Clint’s credit, he told Khloe and Natalie that he was absolutely the only one responsible for the failure and he would take the bullet, as he should. Whatever happened in the task up to the point, I feel like there was definitely some redemption here for Clint because he didn’t make any excuses. He took 100% full responsibility for what he had done.

In the boardroom, Trump commended him for just that. It was clear Natalie wasn’t getting fired since Trump was quizzing Natalie about Clint’s performance and not criticizing her at all. I really commend Natalie here because she kept her comments completely on the professionial level. She slung no personal insults towards Clint at all, just really descrbing his failures as a leader on the task. Then there was Khloe. As you are sitting there completely expecting that Clint will get fired (after all he was basically insisting to Trump that he take the bullet) Trump starts this conversation with Khloe about her DUI. Now, I want to make it clear that Khloe is doing everything required of her in regards to the DUI and I happen to know that she is deeply regretful of driving drunk and is making reparations. Trump didn’t care and fired her for it.

I can only say in regards to this WTF??? How does Khloe’s DUI have anything to do with the game? I have to say I was completely confused. Clint admitted it was all his fault. He LOCKED his team out of the editing room. Short of breaking down the door, his team had no way to even give any input in the project. There was no one else to blame but Clint. Instead of Clint getting fired, though, Khloe got fired for something she had done 6 months before she even came on the show. I found the whole thing bizarre. And, needless to say, I was shocked, everyone was shocked, when Clint walked out of that boardroom safe. I guess sometimes Trump acts in mysterious ways.

One thing, as a closing note…Herschel came up with a ridiculously funny idea for his team’s viral that wasn’t shown on TV. He wanted to get into a bathtub, have midgets scrub him with All detergent and then he gets out of the bathtub a white man. I thought that was hilarious (and similar to the Joan Rivers/Brande idea we had). Too bad Clint didn’t listen to that one. I am sure the All executives would have found it offensive but at least KOTU would have produced something that was really funny.

This week on Celebrity Apprentice our task was to run a hotel. each team was given a floor of the Loews Regency and we had to provide room service, housekeeping, bell service, concierge, everything you need to run a hotel well. We would be rated on the overall service experience provided to the guests. So this challenge was right up my Type A alley. Hands down, my favorite task of all in terms of my own experience. But at the same time, the most painful to recall because of what happened with Rodman. So, I think I will start with Athena and just briefly go over our experience then really focus on the KOTU team this week since, obviously, they were really the meat of this episode.

So, when we got this challenge Melissa suggested Tionne as project manager and Tionne took on the task. We were missing Khloe because she had to be in LA on a personal matter. But Tionne assigned the rest of us our jobs right away so there was no confusion. That was a relief because one of the issues the previous weeks was that the PM did not assign tasks right away. Joan was assigned concierge since she had the most NYC connections. Brande and Tionne mainly did housekeeping. Natalie was on room service. Melissa was supposed to help anyone who needed help and also man the front desk when it was too busy for one person to handle. And Tionne assigned me bellman and room service. I was concerned at first when Tionne gave me a job that involved communicating to the customer. I felt that my biggest downfall in the game was communication and that that was the worst place for me to be. I wanted to be on housekeeping where I didn’t have to talk to anyone because I felt like communication was my weak suit. But I am really glad, in retrospect, that Tionne assigned me those jobs because I LOVED them. I mean I really, really got a kick out of this whole task and said right after we were done that if poker playing stopped working out I was going to do room service in a hotel as my next job. I couldn’t have been happier this whole challenge with the jobs I was given!

So, really quickly, strong and weak points to our team. I think Tionne did an amazing job organizing us. Brande was great on housekeeping. I think Natalie got a bad rap on this episode. She got those amazing free baskets and cases of free water for us to hand out to the guests. I got free champagne and wine and flowers for their rooms as well so between the two of us we had some rocking amenities. On the whole I think Natalie did a great job on room service. I understand that 702 wasn’t happy with her but everything else she did on this task was great so it is too bad that got focused on so much. I think that Joan was both a star on this task and the weakest link at the same time. I know it seems weird to say that but she did amazing work and some sloppy work too. You saw some of the mistakes she made on the episode in terms of not quoting costs in advance to the guests and that was a pervasive problem. That being said, she did take responsibility for those mistakes and rectified them by removing the offensive charges. She also was not thorough in taking the room service orders and room service found themselves having to keep calling back the guests to clarify the orders…things like not asking what kind of bread on a sandwich or what kind of cheese…that kind of thing. But she did get every reservation and every show ticket we needed so in that sense she rocked it. Lots of good from her, some bad. But most of the bad she took immediate responsibility for which is a nice side to see from Joan. Less brash and softer and more vulnerable.

I think I enjoyed this task much more than the rest of my team did (just as I disliked the wedding dress challenge while my team loved that one). I really enjoyed the whole experience immensely and I particularly loved the guys in room 702, Matthew Garber and friends. It was the night of one of the presidential debates and they were having a debate party and I just thought they were a hoot. I thought it was interesting that everyone complained about those guys so much in the boardroom in terms of them being difficult. From my perspective the producers clearly coached all the guests to be difficult and I figured that is what we signed up for when we agreed to do Celebrity Apprentice. Celebrities getting abused, right? So, I would expect nothing less than trying to be ridiculously difficult from our guests. So I guess because of that expectation I just thought that 702 was hilarious in the way they were executing the producers’ directive to be difficult guests and so had a great time with them. Anyway, fun fun challenge for me personally. I want to run a hotel full time now!

Interestingly, despite the fact that we could see Dennis being totally wild and erratic the whole challenge, I did not think that meant we were a lock to win. I also could see clearly that Jesse, Herschel, Brian and Clint were doing an incredible job. And the fact is that this was a subjective task. Just because I would not want to be served by Rodman does not mean there aren’t others who would love to have that kind of interaction with him. And clearly that was the case with the guests Rodman went off to dinner with. They loved this crazy, rambling drunk guy just hanging out with them and many times that is the case with bigger than life celebs. And that was a scary thought to me that the KOTU guests might actually like the Rodman show. Tough because I really didn’t want to see anyone get fired from our team here. If we lost the task I thought Tionne would have had to bring in two of these three: Joan, Natalie and Khloe. Joan was criticized in the boardroom for some of her mistakes but also praised for her high points at the same time so I am not sure she would have been the right choice. The question with Joan would be whether or not the good things she did outweighed the bad and I believe the answer there is yes. Natalie was openly criticized for her handling of 702 so I think Tionne would have had to bring her in despite her shining in getting all the baskets and amenities for the guests. Khloe would be a choice because Trump clearly criticized her for not being there the first day. I don’t personally think she should be fired for that because Joan missed 3 days herself during the previous 3 challenges so in fairness to that Khloe should be given a pass on that too. But Trump was obviously irked by it and you have to listen to him very clearly in who to bring in so I think Khloe would have been a strong candidate.

Luckily, Athena won the challenge so none of that was an issue. But the win was by a very narrow margin which is a testament to how amazing Brian, Clint, Herschel and Jesse were during the challenge since they obviously compensated well for the disruption Rodman was causing. And, the narrow margin is also a testament to how much slack larger than life celebrities like Rodman get cut in terms of their behavior by the peope who interact with them. Because I think some of the guests really enjoyed him even though they would have been appalled if a “normal” hotel employee acted that way.

Which brings us naturally to KOTU and the boardroom. I am so sad for Dennis Rodman. And so sad for the other members of his team. First, it is difficult just from a game perspective to feel sabotaged by a member of your team, no doubt. Particularly one who is taking no responsibility for the failures. But on a personal level that must be even more horrific. I know that Jesse James has personal experience with alcohol abuse and that his experiences with Dennis were painful for him. Brian, Clint and Herschel all were also frustrated with Dennis but you could tell they wanted him to just get help because everyone could see that deep down inside there was a good guy in Dennis that just was destroyed by the alcohol abuse.

I don’t think anyone thought when they signed on to the show that they would be doing what ended up as an intervention in the boardroom. I mean that is truly what it was. An intervention. And a tough one to watch and participate in. From a personal perspective, I grew up with an alcoholic mother. She has been sober since I was 17 years old but much of my childhood was very difficult because of the alcohol abuse. I understand how alcohol can change someone. My mother is the most amazing individual I have ever known. She is intelligent, incredibly funny, perceptive, and her mind just works in such a fascinating way. She is astonishingly unique and inspiring. But when she was drinking, well, I would not have used the same words to describe her. And I think Dennis is much the same. Sober he is almost painfully shy, sweet, intelligent and perceptive. Drunk. Well you saw for your own eyes what he is like drunk and that is an awful transformation to bear witness to.

I think all of KOTU really just wanted to see Dennis get help but I think Jesse felt that the most keenly of all of them. And to see the sadness in Jesse during that boardroom was so hard. When Dennis was talking about his past achievements in sports and Jesse just pointed to Herschel and said look at the difference between these two great athletes, that just said so much and hit the nail right on the head. What else can you say? You can see where Dennis’ life has been and you can see so clearly where it is heading if Dennis doesn’t change and that path is not a path you want to see anyone go down.

I just truly, truly hope Dennis gets the help he needs. He can be so much more than he is right now.

xo
annie

Well, I survived another week…yay! Tonight I watched the show while commenting on Twitter. I tweeted on the @CelebApprentice account. Really fun and Joe was replying to some of my tweets. I mean he was sitting right next to me but he wasn’t telling me what he was tweeting and I just kept bursting in to laughter during the show whenever I saw one of his replies. One great example of a Joe tweet tonight was something like: Next week the task is who can drink the most in gay bars while wearing a wedding dress. Rodman project manages. I love my man. He is freaking funny.

Anyway, on to my analysis of the episode. I was pretty sure going into this challenge that from a strategic standpoint the women winning could be bad. Here is why. Personally, I really knew my team at this point. I had a good understanding of what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses were. I was finally getting along with them (well most of them). The men’s team was a bit of a mess. I had no idea what any of their strengths or weaknesses were. I knew Rodman was a complete, disruptive mess. I also understood that if the women won this challenge the teams would be reshuffled. They can’t have the teams be 8 on 4 and I did not want a reshuffle. I was comfortable where I was… that on my team I was unlikely to be brought into a boardroom and I wanted to keep it that way and avoid the reshuffle.

In poker we call this a freeroll. I figured if we won the challenge then I would avoid the boardroom which is always good. It is always good to not even fade the possibility. But I also figured that if we lost the challenge I could keep myself out of the boardroom and then not fade the reshuffle of the teams. Two weeks ago I was begging for a reshuffle of the teams. Now I was going to be happy staying put where I was. Two weeks can change a lot. Because I considered it a win either way and the only sure way to stay out of the boardroom was to win the task, I was going to work my ass off to try to make sure we won. But if we lost I was probably okay with it, too.

When I heard the task I knew that I could not contribute much to the show itself. Putting on a stage production for a product launch is definitely completely outside the realm of what a poker player’s skills are! I assumed Melissa was going to step up since it sounded like a big production thing which is what Melissa says her skill set is. I definitely didn’t think it was a good task for Claudia. It seemed like something someone who has experience mounting live shows should take on and that would be Melissa or Tionne. But Claudia seemed really excited about it so I guess the group let her take it.

The men did not make the same mistake. Brian McKnight stepped up to the plate and he has put on tons of live stage shows. It is what he does. It is completely in his wheelhouse. That being said, even with all that experience, the volatility of he men’s team might get in the way anyway. And the fireworks started right away. When Clint and I were negotiating for the order in which the shows went on Rodman was sitting away from his team and there was clearly tension. But then that tension erupted with Rodman completely getting in Clint’s face in a very threatening way. I thought it was a joke at first so I wasn’t really scared about it but then I figured out it was real and was completely freaked out. Dennis is a huge dude in person. His hands alone are bigger than my head. And to see that kind of anger erupting from that body is, frankly, scary. It was very uncomfortable. And then Dennis stormed off and quit.

But I am going to talk about Athena first because I think the dynamics on Athena were the most interesting this week, despite the Rodman meltdown.

After the Rodman scene, the girls went on our way to start working out the details of our presentation and two things were clear right away: Claudia was not a great leader and Melissa and Claudia really, really did not like each other. Talk about a personality conflict on steroids. Holy cow. Now interestingly, early in the day that conflict really did come from Melissa. Melissa was pushy and aggressive with Claudia and, as Claudia said, Melissa was somewhat obnoxious in the way she was dealing with people. Melissa was essentially trying to be project manager and completely stepped out of bounds. If she wanted to project manage, she should have stepped up to the plate. But letting Claudia take it and then totally stepping on Claudia’s toes was really not okay and it was obnoxious. However, once Claudia snapped at her about it, Melissa stormed off for a cigarette and when she came back she completely transformed…to her credit. She apologized to Claudia and basically just said I will do whatever you tell me to do. That was the right move by Melissa. She made it clear she would completely defer to her PM. But by that time Claudia had made this whole thing personal and did not see what Melissa was trying to offer at this point.

This whole thing reminded me of what happened with Scott and Tom on the Zappos.com task. Yes, Tom was annoying. That was clear. But Tom had the best ideas and Scott allowed his personal feelings for Tom to get in the way of seeing that Tom’s ideas were actually the best ideas on the task. That is why Scott got fired. You sometimes have to work with people you don’t like (as Khloe said in the boardroom). But just because you don’t like them does not mean you should close your mind to what they have to offer. To do that is a fatal error. Don jr. said so. Trump said so. Ivanka said so. They are spot on there. Claudia was the Scott Hamilton of this task for sure. Melissa was the Tom Green.

So, Claudia ran the creative on this and decided to do these three little scenes or vignettes live on stage. Natalie and I were sent out to get props for the stage show. This was the second task in a row that we spent together and we had a great time, as usual. At this point, while we were out, we were still under the impression that Melissa was really causing all the problems. If you had asked us at that point in the day who should be fired if we lose I know I would have said Melissa, hands down, and I think that Natalie would have as well.

When we returned, I was tasked with writing a marketing brochure for the phone to hand out to the sales reps. But I couldn’t even think or concentrate because the room was complete chaos. There was a screaming baby, people just yelling over each other. I mean, as I said on the show, it was like the 7th rung of hell. At this point, Natalie and I both heard what the structure of the show was and I felt like it was too much like a high school talent show with all the skits. So I asked if I could talk to Claudia in private. We went to a room alone (I thought it would be disrespectful to the project manager to discuss it in public) and I told her that I thought the skits were too much, they were cheesy and that she should edit the show down. Let Joan do her thing and maybe do one great skit. 2 max. Claudia just kind of smiled and dismissed my input. Fine by me. I said my peace and just hoped I was wrong.

Finally, everyone left and Khloe stayed behind with me while I wrote the marketing brochure in a quiet room. It was so great to have some peace again. Khloe was a great sounding board for the writing as well. At that point, Claudia and Brande and Tionne went off to edit the videos and Melissa and Natalie came back to the war room and we all started timing the show out. Now I heard what was happening during the rehearsals and all the reports were that Claudia was refusing to listen to Melissa, that Melissa was being completely shut out. I mean Melissa actually knew how to stage the show. Cutting her out of the process was not smart and it was clear that everyone who came back to the war room felt like Claudia was not managing the task well because she was letting personal feelings cloud her judgment. The person whose input I trusted the most on this was Natalie. Natalie was 100% that Claudia was at fault. She was clear on that. Natalie is a very fair person and I really trusted her judgment on this so at that point I was very sure where to place the blame but I did want to see for myself. I had that opportunity the next day.

When we went in to rehearse the next morning it was a total disaster. The show was horrid. Joan Rivers was very funny but the timing was off, the skits were horrid and cheesy and Claudia was, frankly, dismissive and rude to Melissa. Claudia just could not see how bad this show was despite tons of input the day before and the morning of to that effect. I was doubtful the show would even get mounted at all that morning. When I was asked to rate how bad I thought it was on a scale of 1 to 10 my answer was “A Billion!”

In the meantime, Claudia had snuck a peak at the boys’ rehearsal and was very sniping about it. One thing I did not like from watching the show was that Claudia’s comments always seemed so personal about everyone…personally insulting. I think comments on this show should be kept to business and to make fun of someone’s face (as she did in commenting about Melissa), whether you like them or not, is below the belt…in my opinion. Claudia should not have been so sniping about the boys’ show. She should have been quivering because their show rocked. Sometimes, overconfidence can really hurt. And she was overconfident. And dismissive of anyone trying to give her any warnings that the show might be failing.

Okay…so we get to the boardroom. I am not really confident. There was a moment where I thought Joan really pulled it out…they caught that on tape. I think it was just the exhilaration that we had a show at all. But by the time we got to the boardroom I was feeling like we had lost. In fact, Trump asked me how I thought we did and my answer was something like: If we won it is only because of Joan Rivers. The rest of the show was just so bad. So, immediately the fighting starts between Melissa and Claudia. But what is also clear is that the whole team is backing up Melissa on this one. Regardless of whether Melissa was obnoxious or rude or whatever, she was the one who pulled the show together so we could stage anything at all. Everyone on the team knew Melissa had come through. And no one was going to throw her under the bus.

After we found out we lost, Trump asked me a lot of questions about it. I think I was really fair. I didn’t want to get personal. I wanted to keep it to business. And I believe I did that. My point was that both Melissa and Claudia had been obnoxious to each other to begin with but Melissa had put her head down and decided to just work hard and not make waves that first morning but Claudia had refused to accept that, continuing to be rude and completely closed off to Melissa’s input (or mine or Natalie’s for that matter). Claudia, as everyone pointed out, had allowed her personal dislike of Melissa to completely get in the way of making good business decisions. I also said of Khloe, when asked, that she was at loose ends, waiting for a job to do. But I said it was Trump’s decision whether that was Claudia’s fault for not managing Khloe well or Khloe’s fault for not stepping up and volunteering. I personally think both are at fault but the bigger fault there lies with Claudia.

Interstingly enough, Claudia really allowed her personal feelings to get in the way of making a good decision about who to bring in the board room. There was no question that Melissa was not getting fired. Claudia should have heard that loud and clear and not brought Melissa into the boardroom. Trump basically told her to bring Khloe in. Claudia heard that. But Trump also told her loud and clear to bring in Tionne. Trump felt Tionne should have performed. I think he might very well have fired her for not stepping up to the plate and doing so. We will never know because Claudia’s friendship with Tionne stopped her from hearing the advice from Trump. Claudia’s hatred of Melissa drove her to bring Melissa in with her instead. Big mistake because now Claudia had to hope Trump would fire Khloe. She only had one out instead of two.

In the end, Trump fired Claudia and I believe it was the right decision. As I said in the boardroom, Claudia made a lot of noise, and I think was kind of mean about her team members, but she didn’t really produce. If you are going to be that loud, you need to produce. Period. She didn’t. So she was the first to go.

Now onto KOTU.

The men did an amazing job this week. There is actually not that much to say. Jesse James, as usual, hit one out of the park with his video. He always just produces in such a big way. Brian was great and put on a great show. There were only two interesting things about the boys this week. First, the dynamic between Clint and Brian was quite amusing with Clint clearly getting pissed that his expertise as a performer was not being utilized. That being said, Clint really acted like a team player and subordinated himself to Brian well. Kudos to him for that because I imagine that for someone with his performance experience that must have been really hard to sit back like he did.

Now on to Rodman. Obviously, the blow up was very out of the blue and crazy. But what I found more interesting were his comments when he came back to the war room to try to work and Brian wouldn’t let him be involved. First, I don’t really blame Brian for that. Rodman has been nothing but a disruptive force on his team and I don’t blame Brian for wanting him out of the way (I would have taken the free monitors, though). Second, I find it interesting that Rodman just complains and complains about how unfairly he is treated, how everyone is persecuting him for no reason. He was disruptive on the first two tasks, spent the whole third task either drinking, drunk or too hungover to even show up, then blows up the morning of the 4th task delivery and quits the show briefly. Is he not able to take any personal repsonsiblity for his behavior, take any responsibility for why people treat him the way they do? I mean say what you want about me, but I take full responsibility for why some people really don’t like me. I totally understand the things I do that get under people’s skin, that rub people the wrong way. Dennis’ behavior is so outrageous and yet if you listen to him he is as meek and quiet as a lamb and never does anything that might piss people off (or scare them for that matter). A little more self awareness would go a long way with that guy.

On a closing note, I was asked a very interesting question tonight. Someone asked me why I defended Melissa so vehemently in the boardroom tonight and gave Joan big props when they had been mean to me on the previous tasks. First, I want to say that Melissa and I had no problems up until this point. We were actually getting along. Joan, obviously, is another story. But even so, even if Melissa had been asshole to me, it shouldn’y matter and I found the question a but confusing. The answer is that they did the best job on this task. Period. How they feel about me as a person, whether they like me or are nice to me, has nothing to do with my judgment of who performed on a task. They did the best job. If I don’t say so then that is dishonest. I think the person who gets fired should be based on merit and not personal like or dislike. Claudia would have done well to take that to heart herself.