To some, it may sound like the eighth circle of Hell.
But if you're attracted to the idea of living for 100 days under 24-hour observation on national TV in a makeshift house on a studio lot with a handful of other attention-seeking nobodies, CBS has got a proposition for you.
Producers of the network's unscripted competition Big Brother are coming to town, casting for the show's 11th (?!) cycle beginning noon Saturday at Beef O'Brady's, 10029 W Hillsborough Avenue, Tampa.
Sarasota native and Big Brother 9 alum "Crazy James" Zinkand is an attention hog, previously known for videotaping a friend who jumped off the roof of a Sarasota resort into the pool and missed.
His audition advice, delivered by e-mail Monday: "They totally need stories. That is what you do mainly in the house is tell your past and what you want to do in your future. … Be proud of who you are. Wether (sic) it be the whitest redneck to grace this earth or the most flamboyant Drag Queen, tell them your issues and your struggles but tell them how you can overcome them all."
The local stop falls midway through a 25-city casting tour, ranging from New York City to Flowood, Miss. (I don't know where it is, either).
CBS officials suggest you bring ID — you need to prove you're over age 21 and a U.S. citizen — and be prepared to tell a camera why you should be on the show. Eventually, 40 finalists will be flown to Los Angeles for a week of auditions, where aspiring contestants prove they can handle repeated questioning from Big Brother's wooden host, animatronic Early Show newsreader Julie Chen.
The winner gets $500,000, two runnersup also get cash, and everybody else gets a stipend that Entertainment Weekly recently reported was about $750 a week. Not bad pay for lounging around a prefab home and starting fights with some of the biggest narcissists on the planet.
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