He Said My Name!

Last Wednesday I got to do something that I've been wanting to do since I was twelve.  When other girls were loving Josh Hartnett and Leonardo Di Caprio, I had my sights on Dave.  I adored his quirky sense of humor and his laugh and the way he's simultaneously self-depricating and confident. 

Attending the taping of The Late Show was an interesting experience.  For one, it was approximately ten million degress in New York the entire time we were there.  And when you combine the insane heat with my body's sweat production (I'm a sweater!), it gets a little ugly.  There was a good amount of standing in line, too, which didn't help the situation.  But I'm not complaining.  The tickets were free and I got to see Dave.  I have no pictures of the event, however, because the website said that there were no cell phones or cameras allowed in the studio, and Matt and I were really scared of having something so silly ruin our chances of seeing the show.  And then, while in line, one of the interns told everyone to turn off their cameras on phones.  Dammit!

What kills me about the fact that I didn't have my camera is that we walked around the corner to the Hello Deli, where we met Rupert G., and after the show we met Biff, one of the show's stagehands.  I told Rupert that I'd loved him since I was very young, and I bought a huge bottle of the water to keep from dying.  When we saw Biff, Matt told me to leave him alone because he was just getting off work, but then Biff made eye contact with me so I had to say hi.  Both men were extremely nice, probably just nodding and smiling until I left them alone.  Oh well.

When we finally got to go into the studio, I was giddy.  I was giddy mostly because I was about to see my teen idol, but also because we were going to be in air conditioning.  I've heard for years about how Dave likes to keep the Ed Sullivan Theater frigid, and I was fantasizing about off of my sweat freezing.  Well, that part was a little bit of a disappointment, because the theater was just a little bit colder than our house (thus the $250 electric bill we got yesterday).  But it was a hell of a lot cooler than the street had been, so I was happy.

The seating for the show is done somewhat randomly.  Originally I hadn't wanted to be in the balcony, but I made peace with it when the Late Show people/cheerleaders told us that the only way to the bathroom was through the balcony.  Because I'd consumed approximately four gallons of water during our travails around the city, trying to keep from becoming dehydrated and dying before I got to see Letterman, I very much needed to be sitting near a restroom.  So even though we were in the balcony, and all the way over to the left side where we had to peer over the sound booth, it ended up working out.

The warm-up comedian came out, and he was only kind of funny.  (Years ago, I went to see Conan with Tanya and that warm-up comedian was insanely funny, so perhaps I had set the bar a little too high for the Letterman warm-up guy.)  Then they introduced the CBS Orchestra, and then Paul came out, and then came my main man, Dave.  He introduced himself to the audience, and made a couple of jokes, picked on people, and then went back backstage to get ready for the show.  At that point, I was wide-eyed and sporting a very stupid grin.

The show was everything I'd hoped for.  Paul dropped an f-bomb, and Dave even said my name a few times. (Sure, he was talking about the Barry Manilow song, but still.)  Matt and I were both fascinated by watching Dave during the commercial breaks.  From what I saw, Dave is actually tight with Michael Keaton, and he actually gets angry with the producers when they don't do things like have video ready.  Interesting. 

Here's the show we attended, broken into parts.  As you can see, Dave is handsome, Michael Keaton is little, and we helped to make up one hell of an audience.









Happy Wednesday!