Last week, The View had two new ladies at the table, comedians Noah Garfinkel and Joe Mande.

A number of years ago, there was a contest of sorts on The View during one of their endless cast reshuffles where viewers could send in audition tapes and a lucky few would get to guest host at the big table. This was back when the show looked like it was taped in the Golden Girls living room, which I think was better. Or at least if you’re going to tape in a Geraldo studio, start hitting each other in the face with chairs. Anyway, my roommate at the time, Glen, insisted that we send in audition tapes, so we interviewed each other about why we should be on the show and what we would bring to the discussion. I gave Glen super softball questions, the kind of non-confrontational conversation starters that a would-be guest host could really open up on and demonstrate his unique personality for The View‘s producers. Questions like “describe yourself,” and “that’s very interesting, keep describing yourself.” Then when it was Glen’s turn to interview me it was like, “Gabe, give me three steps to solving modern racism,” and “What do you think is the biggest threat facing humans as a dying species on a failing planet?” And to this day I am sure that it was Glen’s difficult, polarizing questions that kept me from being on the show. Glen’s questions and never sending the tape in.