Addie Shrodes

Editor

An anxious crowd gathers purposefully around the entrance to Ann Arbor’s Bistro Bar and Grill, not daring to pass through the heavy wooden doors until called upon. Just outside the idolized entrance, a small pop-up tent hosted by Detroit’s AMP Radio pounds All-American Rejects. Underneath, a coordinator hands out doughnuts, pens — and applications. This is an interview, but not for a job. It’s “The Real World” auditions for the MTV show’s 24th season. Arguably the original reality show, “The Real World” sends seven or eight strangers ages 18-24 to a different location each season for five months and tapes around the clock. They live together, are given part-time jobs — and hearty access to booze — and the show pastes together the often-dramatic results. Three to four casting teams travel the country in six-weeks hosting 12 open auditions, explained Kasha Foster, the casting director who led the Ann Arbor auditions from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 20. The teams look for people to stand out in a short 10-person-group interview. “We’re always looking for people who are curious about others, curious about life, just interesting people with a little charisma,” Foster said. By 3:30 p.m., about 250 people showed up, and Bistro Manager Scott Henman expected to have 500-600 by the close of the day. “Everyone looks fresh-faced and excited, so that definitely makes it easier,” Foster said. The teams review video auditions and narrow down the candidates before choosing the final cast. “You meet so many interesting people, and you know everyone has something about them that makes them special,” Foster said. Smokin’ Escape With a sleek build clothed in a cherry-red jacket, high tops and tank, Jodie Walden seems adept and undaunted. A crystal-studded buckle holds tight jeans purposefully below matching red briefs. But a corner smudge of meticulous eye liner hints at a dispirited individual who wants friends, wants purpose — wants to get out of here. A once-troubled individual who was sent to “Judge Judy” at 16 for keying her ex-friend’s car, Walden works at Race Track, her sister’s bar in Clinton, and lives with her parents and boyfriend of four years in Ypsilanti. The 22-year-old auditioned for “The Real World” because the show would give her what her life lacks. “It’s like meetin’ a family,” Walden said of the show. “I don’t have any friends basically; I got my boyfriend and that’s it.” Walden also wants to find a purpose beyond bartending. “I just want some-in’ new — I feel like I’m meant for more than this,” she said as her watery blue eyes scanned the scene. Her long-term relationship is one of the reasons Walden wants the new experience. “I love my boyfriend to death, but I don’t know how it would play out,” she said. “Being with someone, it’s going on five years, you kind of get dependent on somebody, and I want to see how’ll I’ll be without him.” Enthusiastic Emo A smile full of naïve optimism marks a fresh high school graduate from a town of less than 2,000 people. Don’t let the large ear gauges and pale-orange hair poking out of a beanie fool you into thinking he’s a punk. Taylor Louchart is as bubbly as the chestnut freckles radiating from the center of his nose. “By looking at me, people automatically think, ‘aw, hoodlum,’ but I’m really not — I’m like a giant teddy bear,” the 18-year-old from West Branch said with a hearty smile that dimples with metal cheek studs. Louchart, who aspires to attend fashion design school in San Francisco, doesn’t want to get on “Real World” for the fame or the drama; he just wants new adventures. “I was born in a small town — it’s not my fault,” he said. “I’m very worldly and I know all that stuff, but I haven’t had much of a chance to engage in it a lot.” But he doesn’t want to engage as much as he might claim; he backs down from conflict, even though he talks a big game. “I say, ‘If there’s a fight, I’m gonna get up in there,’” he said exaggeratedly. “But really, I just kind of back down. No drama for me.” What a Chance As he lies on the sidewalk with a “Real World” application, what stands out about Julian Rashad (pictured left) is his fly white sunglasses and glossy red sucker. But it’s his gray sweater vest that brought him to the auditions. He hadn’t planned to go, but he dreamt about the auditions the night before and woke up deciding he would if he got one more sign. “I’m just like, Lord give me a sign,” the 19-year-old from Rochester said. “I was looking all over for this shirt that I wanted to wear today, and I couldn’t even find it, and then all of the sudden it was sitting on my bed this morning, and I’m like, ‘alright, that’s a sign.’” He said his extended family “would be haters” of him going on the show, but they were even unsupportive when he got a part-time job at Brilliant Sky Toys and Books. “I just definitely got more haters than people who want good things for me,” he explained. He feels like the show is a place where he can be himself, as his life can conflict with his religious upbringing. “Nobody’s a perfect person — I’m a Christian, but I party and I cuss and shit,” he said as he caught himself and chucked embarrassedly. “But, I mean, it’s alright.” Get Real Honestly is paramount for Bryan Cajamarca, who radiates charisma with long-lashed brown eyes and a dimpled smile. Why not live in the ultimate realm of candor, reality television, and open a gateway to his dreams? Raised Roman Catholic, Cajamarca, 19, told his family of his bi-sexuality two years ago because he wanted them to embrace him in his entirety, he explained as he toyed with the rosary beads around his wrist. “If they were going to, in the end, come around and still accept me, then I know they’re always going to be there for me,” he said. “But if things end up on the rocks, that will show me how it really is.” His parents kicked him out of the house initially, but the situation improved, although “it’s still always causing conflict.” A broadcast journalism major at Macomb Community College, Cajamarca has done theater acting since high school, and his ultimate goal is to be a professional actor. His parents don’t want him to share his entire life on television, but “that’s not their decision,” he said with a chuckle. He believes it’s just as important to be honest and television as it is in life. “I want to tell everything about me, because a lot of people watch the show and love to say, ‘I know exactly what they’re feeling — I know what they’re going through,’” he said. School of Hard Knocks An ambitious accounting student at Eastern Michigan University, Tiffany Deloney sees “The Real World” as a way to propel herself farther from her difficult past. After Deloney’s mother died when she was 10, she and her seven brothers lived with a father they didn’t know. The 23-year-old moved from Flint to Ypsilanti when she was 17 to get away from her father and attend Washtenaw Community College. She works at Citizen’s Bank to help put herself through school, and, as the oldest of eight kids, helps support her brothers, who now live all over the country. But she still has to take out thousands in student loans. “Sallie Mae will be callin’ me soon,” she said as she smiled to reveal similarly expensive braces. She will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in December, and plans to start a master’s program at EMU next fall. She wants to open a business and do accounting for celebrities, and she hopes she would be able to make connections on “The Real World.” “I think it would give me a lot of opportunities,” she said. Her tweed jacket paired with a camouflage hat and glittering gold hoop earrings reinforce her unconventional approach to business. Serial Spree A self-described weird party girl, Nicole Adair came to the “Real World” auditions with her best friend on a whim. It was close to her hometown of Ypsilanti, and the 20-year-old would rather be on “Real World” than a dating show, “because those girls all look like sluts.” Her life is interesting enough. “We should always have video cameras following us,” she said of herself and her friend as she smiled widely and pushed back a piece of frizzled bleached hair. “We party a lot, and all this crazy stuff happens to us. On our way here, this lady got out of her car and threw a hub cap off of her car onto oncoming traffic.” Adair’s studying at Washtenaw Community College for an associate’s in criminal justice, and wants to be in the FBI. She is especially interested in murder cases. “I’m a big fan of different serial killers,” she said matter-of-factly as she adjusted her black-framed glasses. Her favorite? The “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, who murdered 13 Californians in 1985. Prove to Music A black baseball cap pulled sideways around Abe Boumelhem’s fire-scarred face doesn’t hide his joyous eyes. An accident when he was 7-months-old left his face and left arm disfigured, but that hasn’t slowed him down — and he wants to prove that to everyone. “I want to show people all around the world that I can make it in the real world,” he said. Boumelhem, 20, is a surgical technology student at Baker College, but he is also an award-winning singer and dancer with the artist name “Royal.” He has been on the Detroit dance show “D Party,” and is producing his first album titled “The Pain,” which he describes as radio-ready dance R&B. He wants to promote his celebrity on “The Real World” — and drop names of those he’s hung around, such as the Ying Yang Twins, Akon, Lady Gaga and Jermaine Dupri. Interviewed by local television crews at the auditions, Boumelhem never misses a moment to prove his success and bolster his name. But his talent comes from more humble roots. He started to learn singing and dancing from his mother at the age of three. “I always did karaoke with her, and growing up with her, it’s like okay, this is something I really want to do,” he said.