I met up with the AFL gang at the Manhattan Chili Company, next door to the Ed Sullivan Theatre, at around 1:15 on the day of the Big Show, Monday June 18, 2001. Twenty-three of us would be attending the show. It was nice to see old friends from last year Renee Stravitz (EZMAMA1D), Karen Lynch (KLynch4296), Traci Gilland, Ann Sweeny (Malficent), Kate McGuiness (Pepsi), Rona Kluger, Marilyn Sargent, Nick Tuske (Cybergolem), Bill Lehecka, Brad Hill, Shirlee DiBacco (Foxyscribe), Cathy Doyle (CathyD888), and Lance (who as far as I know has no last name), along with new faces Cheryl Levenbrown (Levenbee), Rocco & Leslie Andrews, Patrick Smith, Greg Anderson, Greg Donofrio (Westerner99), and Chad Riden. Doug Schorzman and Jeff Rubin were introduced as Cheryl's "testosterone brothers", which I take it means that they were ringers brought in to help even out the gender balance, because of the Late Show's policy of giving out only a certain number of "women's seats".
While we ate lunch and waited for everyone to arrive, Traci passed out "DaveCon 2001: A Dave Odyssey" buttons, which feature a picture of Dave's smiling face superimposed on the 2001: A Space Odyssey obelisque. Renee passed out copies of the letter we would present in exchange for tickets, and we all admired Bill's palm. (The Palm Pilot is pretty neat, actually; the whole thing, including screen and keyboard, folds up into something a little larger than a deck of cards. I don't know how Bill can read his Impressions on such a small screen, though.) Karen and Brad were very late to arrive, though they both claimed to have written excuses. Brad made his usual grand entrance. As he reached across the table to greet me, he knocked over a carafe, dumping about a liter of water down my pants. Karen and Brad had lovely DaveCon2001 T-shirts for all of us, which we had to stash away in backpacks before going into the theater, since they prohibit matching attire or anything with a logo on it. (We had to take off the buttons for the same reason.)
Around 3:00 or so we went over to the Ed to wait in line. It was a beautiful day, sunny, warm, and dry, which allowed my pants to dry out. A homeless guy who was loitering nearby started harassing the line, so we asked a LS security guard (I think her name is Dorothy; Tony had her on the Tony Mendez Show recently) to send Bill DeLace or Dominic out. Dominic (what is his last name?) smoothly and professionally marched the guy up the street, and we didn't see him again. I wonder if it's actually true about the guy who gives Dave the finger every day when he comes to work--we may have seen him.
Don Giller (aka Donz5), with his usual impeccable timing, arrived to say hi at the exact moment that we were led into the theater to pick up our tickets. Renee, our Ticket Queen, had arranged with the audience coordinator David Kay to have our tickets dotted, so that we would once again be seated right up front near Dave. We each presented our letter with a photo ID, which was matched against the AFL list, and received a dotted ticket. We were instructed to return at 4:25 and line up in the dotted-people's line. People without the coveted dots were told to come back at 4:30 and line up in a different line, in order of the numbers hand-written on their tickets. (Our tickets were not numbered.)
After claiming our tickets, we went back outside and talked to Donz, who had some charts and graphs to show me (he had tried to e-mail them to me a while back, but there was a problem with the file format and I couldn't open them). Don had charted things like what time during each Late Night various bits (Top Ten, Hal Gurnee's Network Time Killer, etc.) had occurred, so that you could see trends like the Top Ten moving all over the place and then stabilizing. Very cool. (For my own efforts at creating charts and graphs, see Marv and Tony Charts and Graphs and Dave's Mom's Pies Charts and Graphs.)
Traci wanted to walk around the corner to see if anything was going on on 53rd Street, and several of us tagged along. We very much wanted to meet Mike "The-Guy-Who-Writes-the-Wahoo" McIntee, whom we didn't get to see last year. Traci had e-mailed to alert him when we were coming, and we hoped he would stick his head out the door when he came down for rehearsal at 4:00. Brad had e-mailed Al Chez, who spent quite a bit of time talking to us last year, and actually got a reply from Al ("See you Monday"). And I had written to Tony Mendez, whom I met quite by chance the day after the show last year (see last year's trip report Part 3). In my letter to Tony, I reminded him that he met me last year, told him when we were coming, that we all watch the Tony Mendez Show every night, and that we hoped he'd have time to say hi after the show. I also suggested that he have us on the TMS on Monday night. Sometimes he has a guest on the TMS without Dave, so why not us? Okay, it's a very long shot--not going to happen--but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. The most I really expected was that Tony would come out and chat with us on 53rd Street after the show; I'd be happy just to talk to him for a minute and get a picture.
(I actually sent Tony two letters, or four, depending on how you look at it. When I met him last year, Tony told me that he doesn't know a thing about computers, doesn't get e-mail, doesn't get the Wahoo. The Late Show web guys Jay Johnson and Walter Kim sort through all the e-mails that come in to the Late Show and direct them to the appropriate people, but I didn't know if they would print stuff out for Tony in a timely fashion, so just to make absolutely sure Tony would get it, I sent two e-mails about a week apart along with hardcopies of each via snailmail.)
As we rounded the corner onto 53rd, someone (Greg D?) spotted Paul Shaffer walking by. I turned around and said something brilliant like "Hey, Paul." He said something equally exciting like "Hi" and kept on walking, pretty much like last year. Paul's not a big chat-with-the-fans type, I guess. We also saw Felicia and Will arrive for rehearsal. Will's hair looked different in person--sort of gray-blond, instead of blond-blond as it looks on TV. Paul's hair looked the same as it does on TV.
Dominic was stationed at the door to the Ed, monitoring the comings and goings and preventing people like us from wandering in. Traci talked him into pretending to throw her out of the theater so she could get a picture. What a great sport he is to play along with that. He really threw himself into the part, grabbing Traci by the neck.
Meanwhile, Sid was sitting outside the Ed smoking a cigar. He asked Don about his "insane little world". Don showed him a picture of himself with his cat, Sparky, who had recently died at age 19.
Brad and I went into the Hello Deli to say hi to Rupert. Brad gushed about the Fun with Rupert clips that they have rerun the past two Thursdays, and asked if they will continue to air them on Thursdays. Rupert had no idea, and said he was surprised that they would rerun them at all. After the incident that caused them to stop doing it (someone pulled a knife on Bill Delace), Dave didn't even talk about Fun w/Rupert for two years, according to Rupert. Rupert thinks that bringing back the clips is a good sign, and that Dave might be thinking about going out and doing it again. (!!!) How great would that be? I'd be ecstatically happy to see Dave doing any remote again, let alone Fun w/Rupert. Rupert is also trying to convince them to release a tape of Fun w/Rupert clips. I asked Rupert if it was scary doing it, and he said not really, it was just a little uncomfortable the first time they did it. He pretty much acted as an extension of Dave. Before we left, Rupert asked us where we were from, and Brad, who apparently lives on the equator, and sometimes mistakes Vermont for Alaska, told Rupert that I'm from Maine. Maine? Did someone conk you in the head, Brad? I had meant to buy some Altoids, by the way, but the big display wasn't there and I didn't see them anywhere. Brad did buy a lovely beverage, though.
After visiting with Rupert (what a nice guy), Brad and I met up with the others. We had missed Mike McIntee, who came out for a minute while we were in the deli. Shoot. I had really wanted to meet him. Nothing else seemed to be going on (everyone was probably inside at rehearsal), so we went back to the Chili Company until it was time to line up at 4:25.