Mo Mandel is the host of truTV’s competition series Barmageddon. Barmageddon is a competition series that seeks to settle, once and for all, which bar owner has the best recipe for success. In each episode, Mo travels to a different city and pits two bar owners against each other to see who can turn the most profitwhile running the other owner’s bar.
In his time as host, Mo has seen some incredibly disgusting things, usually before or after the cameras stop rolling. I asked Mo for the most disgusting story he could think of off the top of his head. He did not disappoint.
Here’s Mo’s recollection of his worst day on the job.
Let’s be honest, bars can be gross. In fact, that’s part of the fun, the grossness, the low hygienic and cultural standards, the feeling that anything can and has already happened inside those unwashed unregulated walls. You know the kind of grossness that I’m talking about: A chunky girl smoking a cigarette on the patio and then it turns out that she’s pregnant. A sloppy old man falling off his stool so many times that you make a drinking game out of it. A horny bastard with no self control having unprotected sex with a cocktail waitress in a bathroom stall even though he promised himself that he would never ever do that again and then his producer yells that it’s time to shoot another scene and he suddenly remembers that he is in fact the 32 year old host of Barmageddon on truTV and not some 19 year old at a frat party and thus should perhaps behave in a more elevated manner for a slew of professional, ethical, and legal reasons. We’ve all been there right? Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about. Just plain gross.
That’s why when Bro Bible asked me to write about the grossest thing that has ever happened to me in a bar I knew that I was more than up to the challenge, and I have here condensed it into one magnificent story that might just be harder to digest than most American tequilas. If you pay attention this will not only shine some light on the perils that I’ve faced while hosting Barmageddon but it will also help explain the complete armageddon that occurred within my body, mind, and soul.
It all started the week we were shooting in a bar that still allows people to smoke inside. Yeah, there are still some bars in America in which smoking cigarettes is perfectly acceptable, and they’re usually located in the kinds of small towns where dying of cancer is probably the best thing that will ever happen to a person. As a non-smoker, I was having a tough time hosting a TV show inside of a smoldering ashtray. By the midway point of our first day of shooting, I felt nauseous and my eyes were stinging something awful. Not just from the second hand smoke but from the depressing image of old men hunched over whiskeys while puffing away on Marlboros and playing video poker. Booze, cigarettes, gambling — how many vices does a man need to carry out during one lunch hour? Might as well get a blowjob from a hobo to put a cherry on your lunch break.
All the smoke and sadness churned my insides and suddenly I felt a shit brewing that I usually only take in a locked hotel room and in close distance to a hot cleansing shower. But this was the kind of situation that offered no chance for compromise. I yelled something to my cameraman about how I needed to take a phone call and then shoved future emphysema patients out of my way, as I sprinted towards digestive salvation. As soon as reached the bathroom I pulled open the door, only to see a man staggering in the doorway from side-to-side like a lost extra from The Walking Dead. He had a look of wild drunkenness about him usually only witnessed in teens on prom night or in cellphone videos of yourself taken at your own bachelor party.
As shocking as this poor bastard’s image was I think I scared him more then he scared me because as soon as I entered that bathroom he looked up at me as though witnessing something truly horrifying. Then, on purpose and while maintaining rigid eye contact, he burped twice and puked directly onto my shoes. I can’t even say he puked onto my shoes because, in truth, he puked into my shoes. The waste poured out of his mouth with the accuracy of a thousand snipers, landing directly onto the tongue of my sneakers and then quickly dripped down inside the fabric and onto my socks. It was truly one of the worst moments of my life and one of the worst things to have ever happened to America herself.
As the last of the digestive remnants dripped off of his chin, he burped once more, and staggered away. No apology, no nod of being sorry or even a “hey, apologies for giving you Hepatitis, bro.” He left me shaking and unable to process the occupational hazard that had just befallen me. I stared down at my puke-soaked feet and reached for numerous paper towels. Suddenly, my stomach reminded me, I needed to take that shit. Like right now!
I was torn; wipe puke off my feet before it fully soaks through my socks and onto my skin or rush into the stall and handle Satan’s business? It was like a full blown Sophie’s Choice of bodily fluids. I leaned towards the sink but knew that it would ultimately be the stall that would win out. I raced inside and quickly handled my business while feeling that foul wetness collecting around my feet. It was just such a horrible feeling. It was like being betrayed by the universe and then being betrayed by your own body all at the same time. If it wasn’t for the needed evacuation of what I’d eaten I’d have be able to clean up the evacuation of the Cheetos and Corn nuts that he had just eaten in the parking lot!
I finally finished, cleaned myself off and then held my shoes beneath the sink until my producer came in to find out what the hell was taking so long. He took one look at me standing there before the running water, barefoot, my belt still unbuckled, my socks already hanging out of the garbage can, and then shook his head and stormed away while muttering, “Why can’t I work for Anthony Bourdain?!”
But HERE’S THE MOST DISGUSTING PART, which is not only completely true but also somehow makes me feel better about this entire horrible experience. When I walked out of that bathroom, my feet still damp (from puke) and my mind still racing (again, from puke) I peered through the haze of smoke and despair, past my crew who looked equal parts bored and pissed off, saw the culprit himself, the vomiting motherfucker who had ruined my week, dancing with a real live female AND THEY WERE FULL ON MAKING OUT! The chick was loving it! She wasn’t scratching and struggling to pull away as though the victim of a vicious random tonguing, no, she was kissing right back, somehow not tasting the stomach acid that must have still been caked inside his mouth.
It was right then and there that I knew that no matter how gross a bar is, no matter how disgusting the bathrooms or how sticky the gutters behind the drink wells are, the most disgusting thing about every bar is always the customer. The vial, nasty patrons.
I watched the retched couple mouth-screw and was suddenly mesmerized by their hideous passion. I stared for longer than I should have, long enough to force my producer to clear his throat in irritation. “Anytime you’re ready,” he said, “It’s not like we’ve been waiting for you.” I shot him a scowl, made a mental note to piss on his hotel room door later that night, smiled at the camera and said “I’m Mo Mandel and this is Barmageddon!”
When the cameras stopped rolling I bummed a cigarette off an old man killing it at video poker and took a long, horrific puff because if you can’t beat ‘em, join in with their awful fun.
Barmageddon is back with all new episodes on May 25th at 10pm ET/PT on TruTV.