I MET JULIE CHEN: 'Operation Meet Chenbot' Officially A Success!

After six years of unbridled adoration, my gentle stalking of Julie Chen has reached a stunning and wonderful milestone. That’s right. Tonight, I had the pleasure and joy of meeting the one and only Chenbot, thus filling the void in my Big Brother viewing experience. Julie was like the Holy Grail of Big Brother for me. I’d met all my favorite players, I’d gone to the live show, I’d freakin’ tasted slop, but the one thing I had never done was meet Julie Chen, and now I can say that just short of actually going on Big Brother and winning, my BB experience is complete.
All the gory and awkward details after the jump…

Well, as you all may have inferred by now, I went to tonight’s live eviction show of Big Brother. It was a fairly low-key affair as the ouster of Jerry was pretty much a foregone conclusion, but of course, I still enjoyed it all. Unfortunately, I was alone at this penultimate taping. None of my friends were available to join me; so I had to fly solo all the way in the back of the crowd. For some reason I thought my solitary status might make me a prime candidate for aisle or front row seating, but alas, the seating coordinator placed me in the rear. Truthfully, I didn’t really mind that much — everyone gets on TV in the audience. The only thing that sucked was that this one fake flower on the set that was jutting outward and into my hair. Try as I did, I simply could not sit in any position that prevented full-on flower penetration. I felt very violated. Thank goodness I recently cut my hair. Otherwise it would have been a tangled mess of hair product and petals.
Anyway, prior to the show, my friend Joe Adalian at TV Week (and co-author of the Big Brother blog Oh Brother — read it) told me he was going to do his best to make “Operation Meet Chenbot” a success. Joe, it turns out, is quite chummy with the people at CBS, not to mention Julie Chen herself. He said he’d pull some connections and get me a meet-and-greet with Julie, but as exciting as this news was, I figured it just wouldn’t happen. I mean, there were so many moving parts — surely it would all fall through.
Well, I asked Joe if he’d be going to the taping, and he said he’d try, but he couldn’t guarantee anything. I knew that if he showed up at the studio, a Chenbot meeting would be highly probable. If he were a no-show, then I’d be out of luck.
Sure enough, Joe couldn’t make it to the show. I put all my hopes and dreams of meeting Julie aside and sat back and enjoyed the proceedings. Unlike previous visits to the set, there actually wasn’t too much that was noteworthy or funny. The audience was by and large well-behaved (with the exception of two different women who got VERY competitive in the pre-show trivia. But hey, I get competitive too; so it’s okay).
Anyway, once we went live, the hour pretty much sped by as usual. When it was over, the last thing I was thinking about was meeting Julie Chen. In fact, I was getting kind of restless because I actually had to go from the Big Brother set directly to E! for a taping of The Soup. (I’m a very important man about town.) Fears of bad traffic and missed Joel McHale opportunities began to seep into my brain, and I secretly wished we wouldn’t have to sit through the ten minute Early Show interview with Jerry directly after the show.
WELL. Once the live show ended, the crew on stage began prepping for the aforementioned Early Show interview. While that happened, Eric the stage manager made an announcement:
“Is there someone here who’s friends with Joe Adalian?” he asked.
Oh my God. It was happening. It was happening.
I raised my hand and said yes, and Eric told me to follow him. I rose in front of everyone and joined him on stage, thinking we’d go back to some room or something to talk with Julie. But no. Julie was already right there because she had yet to actually leave the stage. She extended her hand to me.
“Ted?” she asked, perhaps still thinking about the ruthless spider perched in the Big Brother backyard.
“It’s Ben, actually,” I said warmly, trying to organize my thoughts — a fruitless endeavor to say the least.
Julie asked me how I knew Joe Adalian, and somehow I managed to stammer out a few words about how we did roundtables together on Fox Reality, but try as I may, my voice was all sorts of shaky. I mean, it was embarrassing. I even finished off a sentence with a nervous swallow. Listen, I’ve been around famous people before. I’ve even been on TV several times! I’m pretty good at holding my own in the calm and collected department, but I swear, I was a total mess with Julie. I think it’s because the entire thing caught me off guard.
Even worse, I could tell my awkwardness was making her awkward. Oh how I wished I was in my “smooth” mode (my friends are now chuckling and asking themselves: “And when have you ever done THAT?”). Luckily, I did manage to get it together a bit, and I told her that I used to be with TVgasm. Before I had even gotten to finish my sentence, her eyes widened as she realized that we were the site that had popularized “Chenbot.”
She revealed that she not only had the mugs that we saw on the Early Show two years ago, but also a poster and plenty of other items. I told her my readers would be very excited to know that she had all the merchandise, and I also reaffirmed that it all came from a place of love. I don’t remember much of what she said in return because I was still in a hazy cloud of embarrassment, but she did crack a joke about getting royalties.
Sadly, just as I was getting a grip, it was time for the interview to start. We told each other “nice meeting you,” and I retreated to my seat where I spent the next five minutes thinking about how ridiculously nervous I had just gotten talking to Julie. The last time I had had jitters that bad was when I got called in for a meeting with a Hollywood A-LIster last year. Not trying to brag; I’m just equating the situation (and I would LOVE to tell you all about that, but I literally had to sign a non-disclosure form. Sorry!). And for those of you wondering, the latter situation turned out just as disastrously (I wound up extolling the virtues of German pastries within the first minute — not even joking).
Anyway, embarrassment slowly transitioned into glee, and as we eventually all shuffled out of the studio, a person came up to me and asked why I had been plucked from the crowd and summoned to the Chenbot. I felt very cool, and I realized that while I may not have acted cool, at least I inspired awe. And isn’t that what it’s all about?
So to Joe Adalian, thank you for finally making my reality dreams come true. I think we all owe you a massive debt of gratitude.
(And the answer is yes, I’m already bugging Joe to help me meet Julie a second time so I can forge a less “nervousing” impression, if you will.)