I was on French TV yesterday. As part of my Francisation class we attended the filming of health/cooking show about a month ago. Kampaï!: À Votre Santé complete with Quebecoise superstar (Mitsou), taste-testing, fake laughing clips (see photo above), and my unshaven face directly on Radio Canada, also known as French CBC.

It was interesting to see firsthand how shallow and fake television programs are, especially of the talk show variety. The first thing we did when we arrived in the television studio was practice laughing and smiling and to record these clips for later use, and the rest of the time we just followed the directions of the rodeo clown. We were his docile heifers for sale, while blonde Mitsou jumped and danced around the ring like a bull with its balls in a vice.

Upon arrival the multicultural students of Centre St-Paul and I huddled next to the CBC/RDI gift shop expressing excitement in broken French. I wandered through the building as much as security allowed me to and eventually started to notice the large quantities of beautiful people that were filing in the building; well dressed, hair done, most likely showered as if they were going out on the town, waiting with the weather torn, transit weary language students. I instantly decided that the beautiful, television-friendly girls would be placed in the front rows of the audience during the filming. That was indeed the case, but much to my surprise, wearing a dirty sweater, salt saturated sneakers, glasses, gnarly beard and pants I haven’t washed since I bought them, got me in the front row, but on the side less filmed. Obviously.

If you are interested bad health/cooking shows, or need some ideas for what to cook for Valentines Day (also known as the world’s stupidest goddamn holiday), or if you understand French, or just want to kill forty minutes this weekend, click the photo above to watch the entire episode. Or if you want to see me in all my acting glory, laughing because of the awkwardness of it all, now you’ve got the chance.

I’d say that you won’t regret it, but then I’d be lying.