<\/span>They want Dave fans, and made us answer a simple trivia question: Who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Alan Kalter? Of course, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the answer until the lady from Late Show mentioned \u00e2\u20ac\u0153redhead.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Oh, the announcer guy!<\/p>\nSo we got our two tickets. We toyed with the idea of seeing both O\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Brien and Letterman on Monday, but there really wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be time to do both. So we opted for Letterman. Conan is funny, but Dave\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a legend.<\/p>\n
Of course, there is apparently a difference between having tickets and having tickets. Not everyone, it seems, who gets on the waiting list actually gets in, according to the pages. We would be attending the second taping of the day, which we learned would actually be for Friday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s show.<\/p>\n
To be honest, it had been a while since Aly and I have had the energy to stay up late enough to watch Letterman. Small children do that to you. But we assumed it would be a decent show for no other reason that it would be a Friday Show.<\/p>\n
We got in line around four-thirty to check in \u00e2\u20ac\u201c sort of a pre-ticket screening, where they size you up and decide where to place you. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say that, of course, but it was the impression that I got.<\/p>\n
We had spent the day hauling toddler across Central Park, first at my favorite place in the world, The American Museum of Natural History, and then at the Central Park Zoo, so we we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re exhausted.. (The Zoo, by the way, is much better than it has any right to be, given its small size and lack of, you know, animals. What few exhibits it did have were done well.)<\/p>\n
We were also a bit nervous \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Aunt Erin was a little late for the pickup and we were afraid the pages\/linemasters wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t let us in if they saw us with a third. There were plenty of people on stand-by for seats, after all. We were also on edge, we showed up a half hour early to see a huge line. Through some back in forth with a harried page, we almost thought that we lost our chance. Fortunately, the line was for the early taping, so we looped the neighborhood a bit, up and down Broadway.<\/p>\n
The Hello Deli was closed, but the block it was on was taped off for some sort of Show-related activity. It was that block, just off the stage door, that you always see when they do something outside during the show. This time it was a man in a gas-powered Barcalounger. <\/span>We didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wait to see him, but decided to press on while the toddler was napping in the stroller.<\/p>\n\nErin<\/place> arrived in the nick of time, and we got inside the entrance of the theater where we shuttled down a long rope line to another page, who asked dumb questions and got some dumb \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but very enthusiastic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c replies.<\/p>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, you excited?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Uh, you bet!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s your favorite part of the show?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Uh, knocking a meatball off the Christmas Tree,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I blurted. Fortunately, I think he was looking for speed, not content.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yeah, me too,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, and handed us tickets with little sticker dots on them.<\/p>\n
We were then shuttled to the front of the lobby, almost underneath the marquee, with another group of people, where another page, Blonde Page, asked to see our tickets. She pulled us and another two couples aside.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re lucky night \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re guaranteed to get in!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t before? I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ask. We hopped a train to NJ, stayed in a hotel, which we still need to pay\nErin<\/place> for, and weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t necessarily guaranteed we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d see the show? Eh, what do you want, it was free.<\/p>\nWe met up again with tot and Erin and tried to scope out food. Of course, I was in panic mode, so I steered the group toward pizza. We made it back just as the line was beginning to reform for our showing.<\/p>\n
There was too lines, we later figured. One was full of old(er) people who had gotten tickets from people they knew who worked at CBS. The other, our line, was full of the younger crowd. We would end up sitting in the front row.<\/p>\n
Inside, the Ed Sullivan Theater is surprisingly dank and dingy. Before they let us in to grab our seats, we wait in a small lobby, again in two groups. The theater is, notoriously, cold, something you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve probably heard alluded to on the show. Dave likes it that way. About 59\u00c2\u00b0F.<\/p>\n
In lieu of rehab, the lobby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s intricate plaster ornamentation had been painted over \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a number of times, apparently. That, combined with the chill and the low lighting, made the place feel like an old subway station in winter.<\/p>\n
That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when Enthusiasm Page comes in. After giving us a lecture about using the bathroom \u00e2\u20ac\u201c now or never \u00e2\u20ac\u201c she went into the You Have to Be the Best Audience Ever speech. She discussed, at length and volume, why we must cheer, clap, laugh (but never woo or hoot!) in order to charge up RoboDave so that he would tell the funny jokes (as opposed too\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, deliberately sabotaging his own show?).<\/p>\n
I, of course, had to pee. I knew I should have peed at the pizza place, but my desire to get in line overwhelmed from my Prime Directive (Never pass up a chance to pee, spaceman!). I waited in line with tall blond Canadian, in town because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a friend of the stand up comedian who would be warming us up for Dave. <\/span>Of course, after I get back in line, they open up some magic bathrooms downstairs for everyone to use. <\/span><\/p>\nSo then we were given our final marching orders on how to be the Best Audience Ever (applaud and yell and clap and Dave might talk to us before the show!) and the ugly people were sent up to the balcony.<\/p>\n
We were supposed to start getting rowdy as we entered the room and, as the Best Audience Ever, we ran down those aisles like Rod had told us to come on down on The Price is Right.<\/p>\n
Miraculously, we were seated at the front row, dead center. The band would be to the left. Dave\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desk to the right. And Dave would stand directly in front of us to deliver his monologue.<\/p>\n
Of course, between Dave and us would be two cameramen, their cameras and the show clock, affixed to a wide screen flat panel TV on coasters. When he came out, we could see him, but when he sat down, he disappeared from sight. Well, I could see the top of his head.<\/p>\n
We would actually be watching the show on some flat panel widescreen TVs at the edge of the stage. As Best Audience Ever, we were told to laugh at some old Dave bits. They were, of course, hysterical.<\/p>\n
But first was the stand-up, a mountain of a man who told some very, very tired jokes. About three of them, something to do with dining out near Broadway, I think. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know, but I probably laughed my ass off. <\/span>Of course, I was also thinking about what the Canadian girl did for her tickets and her whirlwind tour of NYC, but that left my mind as the comic introduced the band one by one.<\/p>\nWe clapped along to them for a bit before Dave came out. We screamed hysterically for a few minutes, giving Dave just enough time to make a few jokes about what a great deal the free show was. Before we knew it, Dave disappeared and Alan Kalter had already gone into the introduction of the show.<\/p>\n
For an older guy, Dave was pretty fast. We can see his silhouette darting back and forth behind the stage, obviously getting amped up before the show. He came out and I tried to scream and laugh, but my throat just wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t in it anymore. So I clapped even harder and made faces like I was laughing. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what I was trying to prove at that point. I just did it, dammit, out of duty.<\/p>\n
The show was taped in real time, meaning that they broke for commercials and everything. Of course, The Best Audience Ever, clapped in time to the music throughout the commercial breaks, and the time flew. Top Ten. Will It Float? (It did! A can of deck sealant!) Kevin Spacey and, lastly, Gilmore Girl the Younger.<\/p>\n
Kevin Spacey was great. Duh. He was there to hype his Broadway show, but gave a great interview. The difference between him and Alexis Whatsername was obvious.<\/p>\n
Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Dave Letterman is a great interviewer. He let Kevin Spacey talk and tell stories. He interjected every so often, but he largely let Spacey lead. It was about Kevin. The Ex-Gilmore Girl was not, however, a good interviewee, and this is where Dave shined. She was a nothing, a vacuous blip. But Dave made it about himself, making Alexis look good by comparison. No longer was she stupid, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in on the gag\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with Dave.<\/p>\n
For all that, Aly and I are visible for, perhaps, a few nanoseconds at the introduction of the show. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m fairly certain I saw myself, slapping my hands together and jaw agape like I was expecting to catch a fish, at the end of the first commercial break as the boom camera came in from behind the band.<\/p>\n
Also, it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really funny. The Late Show was fun, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get me wrong, but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think I offered a genuine laugh the entire time I was there. OK, maybe during that Outback Steakhouse\/kangaroo meat sketch, but otherwise my laughter was purely forced to demonstrate that we were the Best Audience Ever. But I was a good audience member.<\/p>\n
And before I knew it, Dave said Goodnight Everybody, and we were dumped out onto the street.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d dash this off quickly, because I promised I would… \u00c2\u00a0By the time Dave Letterman made it out on stage, my voice was hoarse and my hands stung from clapping non-stop. It was hardly the effect that the pages were going for, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure, but I can see why they wanted to put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7V2xo-24","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}