Welcome to today's episode,

The City of New York v. Mark Coen, or
The Million Dollar Bus Ride?

It all started last week, when I found an email from the good folks at Millionaire in my Yahoo account, saying that I was welcome to come down to New York on July 31 for a 1 pm audition. This was unexpected for a couple of reasons:

1. I'd requested the audition several weeks previous, and assumed the lack of response indicated no audition, and

2. My lack of ever getting an audition spot for Jeopardy! suggested to me equal bad luck across the game show spectrum.

So, surprised as I was, I happily made the arrangements for the audition, taking the day off from work and searching out transportation.

I'd decided to make it a one day trip given that I'd be spending most of the weekend in a marriage prep class that you need to take before a Catholic wedding. Also, my most likely source of living space for any extended trip, Matt Boggie, is currently working out of DC. I do get along with his wife, but I think she'd rather have her husband around than his no-account friend.

You may be asking yourself, "why didn't I hear about this before?" You may especially be asking yourself this question if you are part of that subset of friends and acquaintances that I usually tell personal things to. My two part answer:

a. How much do I really ever tell anyone? (there's at least one obvious example here)
b. I didn't want to jinx things.

I did mention the audition to the other RD who I share office space with, but to other folks I just said I was going out of town.

In any case, that's how it came to pass that I got up at 5:20 this morning to start my journey. I got ready, Sarah got ready (and big ups to her for getting ready well before she needed to so she could cart my ass to the bus station), and we were off. We made pretty good time, perhaps not surprising for 6 am on a Thursday.

Got to the station and they almost immediately started boarding for the 7 am bus, the only one that would leave at a reasonable hour and get me to New York in time (were I really concerned I could have taken the 2:30 am bus). I do have to admit some trepidation with the bus, in that traffic could play havoc with the schedule. On the other hand, Amtrak would have cost 3 to 4 times as much and is known to break down on occasion (such as my initial trip on the service, which had a multi-hour breakdown in New Rochelle).

I was on the second bus to New York (good thing, in that it wasn't full), and we pulled out about 10 minutes late. Our driver sought to make up for this, and we passed the first bus in Framingham (for those not familiar with the geography, it's about 20 minutes west of Boston).

Entertainment on the ride down (and I use the term loosely) was in the form of the movie The Adventures of Pluto Nash. And, unlike my subjection to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days when flying out to California, the bus had the audio playing for all to hear (Concord Trailways, who we'd take to get to Maine if we didn't want to drive, goes with headphones, which gets my seal of approval).

About all I can say about Pluto Nash is that it is loud. If there were an Oscar for Best Volume in a movie, it would win hands down. What really surprised me were the number of people in the movie who should have known better. Peter Boyle, Alec Baldwin, Illeana Douglas, Joe Pantoliano, John Cleese, Luis Guzman - all appeared in this pile of dung for reasons as yet unknown (I exempt both Randy Quaid and Jay Mohr, for obvious reasons).

It was not a good movie. What it really needed was a talking pie.

Anyway, our driver leadfoots it to New York, and we get into the Port Authority bus terminal 10 minutes early (note to Boggie: the old neighborhood looks the same, nice to see that the West African market is still in business). I then begin my assault on the New York city subway system by heading the wrong way.

Cue the foreshadowing music.

I took the time to parse the subway system before the trip, because rather than use something that makes sense, like color-coded lines with clear geographical names, New York uses some odd combination of color, number, and shape that semioticians in the 28th century will write doctoral theses on. Thankfully, I had a local boil it down for me so I thought I knew where I was going (thanks again to Boggie).

So I got to the right platform for the number train that I wanted, but was immediately unsure if it was going in the right direction. Such is my first suggestion for the New York subway: route maps in the stations. The ones in the trains are nice but only help you figure out your way once you may have already started going the wrong way.

(The foreshadowing music should be louder now.)

And yes, it'd probably not be a problem if I took a second to consider the difference between "uptown" and "downtown," but I'm not from the area. What do I know from either of those?

In any event, I ask a man on the platform if I'm on the right platform for Lincoln Center. He doesn't know, and to be honest his command of English did not appear to be that strong. Another guy, standing nearby, says I should go to the other platform. Which I do.

I get on the train. It goes to the next stop, Penn Station. That doesn't seem right. Then it hits 28th Street. Nope, not right at all.

(Foreshadowing music comes to jarring halt.)

I reference the map on the train and verify that I am going the wrong way. Probably a good thing, as an older man was about to ask me for directions (that happens a lot to me). I get out and reverse myself, and get to the stop I want in more than enough time.

In retrospect, I just should have asked for 66th Street.

Oh, and my other suggestion for the subway: fans in the stations. It was a lovely day in the city, but in the subway it was 100 degrees if it was one. Fans may not bring a lot of relief, but it would at least help the sweat evaporate that much faster.

The place I need to go to, 30 West 67th Street, is pretty much right there (it's an ABC building, with handy Disney Store to reference as a landmark). I kill some time in the large Barnes and Noble across the street, and wander over in the 12:15 to 12:20 range. To find a fairly sizable line, a good 60 people at least. Not that it matters, we're all going to get in.

I didn't chat folks up in line too much (I tend to keep to myself in such situations), and my relative silence makes me privy to the all-on verbal assault of a woman just ahead of me in line, holding court with four other women. For reasons unbeknown to me I take an almost immediate dislike, probably due to the volume of her speech (both in loudness and number of words).

From what she was saying it seems like she's tried out before. At one point she references the all pop culture edition of the show (tryouts August 9, see the show website to request an audition) and says something about it being "too easy," yet when she mentions that the "little girl from the Pepsi ads" is an occasional patron of the deli she works at, she doesn't seem able to come up with her name (Hallie Eisenberg, though the spelling may be off).

As I'm trying to ignore this woman, I notice someone checking in with the staff. I had thought I might see someone I know. It did not occur to me in the slightest that it might be Mike Hoey-Lukakis, who you see linked to the left. Turns out he's on vacation this week, and was able to get the audition to work into it. We chatted for a while, caught up (I think it's the first time I've seen him since TRASHionals), and made plans to do something after the audition if there was time.

At the appointed hour, the production staff troops us off, not into the ABC building, but down the street a little to a bar they rented out for the auditions. We're put into tables of four. I wind up with two women from New Jersey (one of whom had been a guidance counselor and had at least heard of Babson) and a guy from Manhattan.

The test was 30 multiple choice questions, with 11 minutes given to complete. Interestingly, I recognized some of the questions from episodes of the show, including one on the source of the Faulkner title The Sound and the Fury (uttered by Macbeth) that was on earlier this week.

I answer about 25 of the questions straight away, leaving the other 5 for some extra thought. I thankfully had time to double check my answers as well, as there was room for error given that the scantron sheet went from top to bottom and the question sheet read in rows from left to right.

When it was over, the sheets were collected and scored. That actually went very quickly, no more than 5 minutes for what I'd estimate as 60 tests. They didn't say what the passing mark was, which made me a little antsy.

Then it was the announcement of who passed, by test number. One of the Jersey women at my table (not the guidance counselor) was one of the first called.

And then the numbers rolled. Once they got past the first dozen, I started to worry. I thought I'd done well enough to pass. Could I have choked? Did I do too well? I don't think they'd cut high scorers out of hand, but the conspiracy theorist in me got to work.

And then, finally, they called number 77. My number (well, Ray Bourque's number, really).

(In the interest of full disclosure and Schadenfreude, I should mention that the talkative woman from the line did not pass.)

I then wandered over to the bar to wait for my interview. I was a little apprehensive about this, given that I'm not exactly the sort of person who will just start talking about themselves at the drop of a hat. I passed a couple of minutes chatting with another person who passed (high school teacher from North Carolina) before my name was called.

So I go to the table, am greeted by a producer, and have my picture taken (also problematic, I don't photograph well). She compliments me on my test score and says she likes my application. She then asks me to tell her something interesting about me.

And here's where the problem is. I've written all this stuff on the application, in the hopes that the person who sees it will ask about specific things on it. By asking an open-ended question, I'm left to figure if I should start repeating what's on the application. It's not what I'd normally do, and were I doing the interviewing it's not how I'd start. But I'm not in TV production, so what do I know.

I start to talk about the impending nuptuals, she asks me about how I proposed, and at some point she breaks from the question to say that I sound like somebody. In the back of my head I know who she means, and she says the name just about the same time I do.

Casey Kasem.

I've been told this before, and while I don't hear it, I assume there's something to it given that it's been said to me by different people in different places. I do take the opportunity to mention my mediocre radio experience, but it doesn't take. The producer does call over another of her number to see if he can hear it. He can. I suppose it's a good thing, as it's something that resonates that wasn't on the application.

And that was it. I will say I think the audition went OK. The staff was very nice and the whole process went very smoothly. My only regret was that I forgot to take the souvenir pencil with me.

As I was leaving Mike's group was just being led down the street. I walked with him, told him how things went, wished him luck, and waited across the street. In the meantime I called Sarah to let her know how it went and tell her that I'd bumped into Mike. As we tried to coordinate my return, Sarah discovered that there was an earlier bus.

So, as much as I did want to eat lunch with Mike at Tavern on the Green, I bade him farewell after he got out (he also passed the test and got an interview). Many thanks to him for understanding; I'm sure lunch didn't disappoint.

The trip back to Port Authority went without incident, though I am reminded of something else I wanted to mention about the New York subway. They've replaced tokens with fare cards (like the DC Metro), which is a good thing. Except that it's very hard to find a machine that will take something other than exact change (and even take bills at that). As flukey as the T token machines are, trying to find the right fare card machine to take whatever bill I had started to resemble the Let's Make a Deal problem on crack.

But I did get to the 3 pm bus, only to have the driver take one of the more roundabout routes possible - the Lincoln Tunnel back into Jersey, the Turnpike to route 46 to the lower deck of the GW Bridge to the Cross-Bronx to 87. If nothing else, I did get to pay homage to the Vince. Not that I could actually see it from the bus.

Another plus to catching this bus was that it stopped in Framingham, absolving Sarah of having to either wait around after work or make a special trip back in to Boston (she could have had me take the T out to Wellesley, though that would have taken twice as long as driving, at least). Another minus was all the traffic, first in Jersey and then in Connecticut (construction related on 84 from Waterbury almost all the way up to Hartford).

A moderate plus was that they showed Ocean's 11 on the return. A minus is that it was the remake. A plus was that, with the Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow credits, I feared that I'd be subjected to Pluto Nash again.

It was an eventful 12 hours, what with all the intermodal transport and trying to find my way around the big city. Whether or not it will turn out to be profitable will be something I'll find out... eventually. I'm looking forward to four months of expectantly checking my mail for a postcard.