As a philosophy major in the mid 1990s, I never had a chance to do an internship. A decade’s worth of hindsight now tells me I should have been a communications major. Since everyone’s going back to school these days – “financial aid” rings so much sweeter than “unemployment” – I spent Saturday imagining myself an intern . . .
LOL, what a night for us! Meet the new boss same as the old boss, like my supervisor says. Social media had so many predictions about where this network was going a few months ago when the boss said he’d be pursuing other opportunities, everyone freaked out for absolutely no reason. “Easy, killah,” I told my buddies. You hear stuff in the halls, but nobody’s changing anything really. We had more credentials for Saturday than Beau Rivage had security and concessions staff. One pal, I think he’s salaried or freelance or hourly or whatever, he told us it was like this in Michigan in January. Some big football stadium. He said they actually parked trailers on the floor where the fight was supposed to happen. To save money and material on black curtains, they just plopped the ring in the far corner. Genius. So, Saturday, there were some problems with taking our brand to the next level. We had that young kid in the eight-rounder, the Olympian that Papa, like, hinted might have been a victim of politics. Wasn’t too clear on that. Didn’t ask questions about it because, dude, it ain’t my place. While I’m on the subject: Just because it isn’t my place doesn’t mean it isn’t yours. Fans like you are what give us these amazing opportunities. Your feedback is so very important to us. Be sure to log-on to our message board and express your feelings. And if you can, y’know, log-on from a number of different devices (so their IP addresses register as unique hits), that’s even better! Make your voices be heard. Antihero, that was totally the angle for Berto. Kid can’t sell tickets because Haitians don’t care about boxing. Plan was to repackage him innovatively. Build him up as a guy who didn’t know he couldn’t draw a stick figure at the box office. He was brash. That was the keyword we focus-grouped. “Brash” scares older people, reminds them of flash mobs and stuff. We were going to make him brash, and the viewers would hate him for his not knowing they hated him. And then, just like that, the youngest 1/3 of our viewers would make him their favorite and just go sick with talk of skillz. But dude messed it up. He’s been in two awesome fights. Now we have to start over. And don’t even get me going about Max! What was that crap he pulled during his closing soliloquy? He basically sold out the shop. He told the viewers – sorry, “our guests” – that we know they know about Berto’s advisor. He implied our guests might consciously choose to cheer against a guy like Berto because they resent his advisor. Thanks, Max. We gave him the red light on that one. He got the message. You see the way he went away from that point? We zoomed him out anyway. That let Papa know to take the mic back. Max is an awesome guy, but sometimes he’s too smart for himself. Then it was Money time. It’s not like we scheduled a Berto fight just to lead-in to Money time, but that’s probably what we did. Like they’d tell an intern about that? My supervisor did watch me a lot more while we watched “24/7” than “Boxing After Dark.” He thinks I still live at home with my parents, which I don’t. Well, in the summer I do, but I’m back in the dorm this week, so I don’t know how he thinks convincing me to convince my dad to buy the pay-per-view is such a brilliant strategy. (Nobody in that Campus Survival class told us our bosses would always be dumber than us.) You see some of that mic work on the Money shots? That was me. Some of it, I’m not trying to brag. I was there for the scene with 50 Cent, Money’s BFF. I told my director I thought it was like Money and 50 had rehearsed the phone call with the money stacks. He asked me if it wasn’t twice as delicious to imagine they hadn’t. Still don’t get that. My buddy was there in Money’s home theater when Money kept yelling at him, at my buddy with the boom arm, to tell him who trains harder. My buddy, like, totally shrugged at Money, but he kept yelling at him. He said it took 17 shots to get the right feel. Then my buddy told our supervisor, “Floyd’s a douche.” That’s how I got my shot. Dude, 50 Cent looked mad uncomfortable during those scenes! Goodbye, cred. I haven’t been over to the Ortiz camp, though I tried to cold-call his dad and schedule a surprise training-camp visit (epic fail), but I hear Oscar totally dissed every word Oscar’s ever said in a Mayweather promotion. Maybe he’s working his program? Going to the convenience store to get Roger a sandwich wasn’t fun as it looked but still cool. I got a text from a chick whose internship took her to the VMAs a week ago. I replied: “I’m with Roger Mayweather right now … 2nd place is still a winner LMAO.” But those midnight runs are a bitch, I won’t lie. Money runs for about 45 minutes. He talks the whole time. We get 38 seconds of usable footage. You do the math. Oh well, I have to be in class on Tuesday. My amazing summer is over, yo. But I had to share. Ur welcome.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
