The bouncer who runs reality television

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 23:00:00 +0000

Mike Hansen had a mission: to find telegenic Southerners who love to party for a new reality television show. Together with his fellow talent scouts, Josh and Candy, they meandered through the Deep South in a second-hand RV, dropping into small bars and local rodeos and taking breaks to cook steaks in WalMart parking lots. As they approached Arkansas, Mike stumbled upon an online ad for a biker rally promising 10,000 attendees and “greatest mullet” contests. They decided to drop by. The directions brought them to a sign that pointed down a dirt road through a forest that was too narrow for their four-wheeled home to maneuver. So they set off on foot. Eventually, the trees cleared. “The first thing that we see is a huge Confederate flag with a little tiny camp, maybe 10 tents, and there was a bunch of people sitting around,” Mike recalled. There was a fire and a keg of O’Douls non-alcoholic beer. One of the bikers came up to them and said, “goat.” “Goat?” Mike asked, somewhat confused. “Goat,” the biker repeated, this time making shapes with his hands. He was saying, they realized, that he was deaf and that Goat was his name. “We discovered that everybody around the whole camp was deaf. It was a deaf biker rally.”

Salon.com > Rupert Russell

The bouncer who runs reality television