DaveCon 2002
What's the Deal with AFLers and Giant Trip Reports?
Helen's Huge, Massive, Big Honkin' Trip Report
by Helen P. Read
Part III: The Big Show!
At last! It's 6:30, time to "load the audience." The guests of CBS headed up to the balcony, and we were brought right down front, where we filled rows 1 and 2 (and part of row 3?) of the center section. I had the aisle seat in row 2, right in front of Dave's desk; nobody was in front of me (the front row has fewer seats). Beautiful!! Carl was seated to my left, then Traci, then Rocco. Karen, Brad, and Renee were in front, close to the center of the section. Not sure exactly where everyone else was, but I did notice Micah (of "Bumper Music" fame) was at the other end of my row, in front of the band. He must have been psyched to get that seat.
Eddie Brill came out to warm us up (not that we needed it--we were psyched). They played the Dave Talks to Kids tape on the monitors, which I mostly ignored. I was too busy watching various staffers (Pat and Kenny, Corky, et al.) running around on stage. Eddie came back and told a couple of jokes, reminded everyone not to woo etc., then introduced the band. We roared and applauded wildly as Eddie introduced Sid, Will, Anton, Tom, Bruce, and Al. Felicia was not there (Andrew Gold was filling in), which was a big disappointment for Brad.
The band played a song without Paul, and the pages tried to get the audience to clap along to the music by demonstrating these huge, exaggerated clapping motions and telling us to watch and do it with them. What a silly (and difficult) way to get the house rocking! How about if we just listen to the music and hear where the beat is, okay? If one or two of them had just started clapping to the beat in a normal way, everyone would have jumped in. Better yet, don't do a thing. The AFL section would have started up the rhythmic clapping without them, which we did throughout the show itself, trying to hypnotize Dave :-).
While the band played, Will Lee flung guitar picks into the audience. One of them went flying up my row, sending us all scrambling. I don't think anyone found it.
Finally Eddie introduces Paul, who joins the band for a song. I've completely lost track of time by this point, and have no idea how close to 7:00 we are getting. At this point I was expecting a few more introductions. The other times that I was there, Eddie introduced Biff (who was totally out of town this time, on the Map Across America tour), Alan Kalter, and maybe one or two others.
Well, this time, it was the band, then Paul, then *BOOM*, here comes *Dave* making his mad, diagonal dash across the stage. Dave's entrance is always a highlight of the evening. Coming to the show, you know intellectually that Dave will be there, but emotionally, it's always a huge surprise when he comes running out like that. Holy cow, it's Dave! David Letterman! *The* David Letterman!
Yes, it happened again: for the third straight year, I was dazzled by the stageside beauty of Mr. David Letterman.
Dave came right down to the edge of the stage to greet the audience, the way he normally does, and before he said much, he kind of stopped and looked up and down our rows. Traci thinks he knew it was the AFL section, but I don't know about that. Still, it's fun to think he had some vague idea of who we were.
Dave talked for a minute, saying something about not wanting us to think he was 'faced, and talked about the three categories of shows that they do, and their relative percentages. According to Dave, some of the shows are great, some of them are okay, and some of them just blow. He may have also talked about something else, but I never remember much of what he says, because I'm so distracted by just looking at him from only a few feet away. Several of us noticed that Dave seemed to have on more make-up than I remembered from the past. I didn't like the effect in person--I thought it made him look older--but it looks fine on TV.
Dave asked if there were any out-of-towners, and our entire section went nuts. When he started to say "Does anyone have," before he finished getting out the words "a question?" almost every AFLer's hand shot up (except for Bill Lehecka, who has been called on twice before, and is no longer permitted to even *think* about raising his hand, even if it takes ten of us to hold him down). Brad, who was sitting in the front row, right in front of Dave's nose, was chosen. He told Dave he was from Princeton, New Jersey, and turned around to take a half bow, by which time Dave is getting the signal and tells Brad to sit down. The band started the theme, Dave went running offstage, Alan Kalter started the opening announce (I had a great view of Alan from my seat), then Dave made his grand entrance. We would have given him a standing ovation, but Eddie Brill had explicitly warned us not to (wastes time, or something).
Needless to say, I enjoyed the show. There were microphones right over our heads, and throughout the entire show, you can hear us all laughing our heads off, applauding like crazy, roaring and yelling, and doing a lot of rhythmic clapping to the music. (We didn't woo, I swear it.) My mom, after watching the tape, commented on how loud the audience was, with all the laughing and clapping. Yup, that was us, the audience ambassadors. We set the tone, and it rippled back from us. Seriously.
I had a fantastic view of Dave throughout the monologue and the very entertaining desk banter with Paul that set up some of what Dave later used to tease Connie Chung.
Next, Mailbag. Throughout Mailbag, my view of Dave was obstructed by Tony with the cue cards, and stage manager Frank Comito (in what I remember as Corky's position, giving Dave signals to go to commercials etc., but with Biff out of town things were probably switched around), and the black box with the monitor and clock, and the cameras. It was pretty much impossible to see Dave for most of this, so I looked around at the band, Maria Pope, Alan Kalter, and anything else going on. There was a monitor on the floor right in front of me, so I could occasionally glance at it peripherally without taking my eyes off the stage, but I mostly kept my eyes away from the monitors. Whatever is on the monitors you will see on TV when you get home. If you can't see Dave, look at the set, look at the people running around the stage, all the things you can't see at home. The silliness with Biff and Bruce Willis on the beach in Hawaii for Biff's Map Across America Summer Tour was funny, but I only watched it out of the corner out of my eye, knowing I would see it later.
The highlight of Mailbag for me was a small moment during Letter #4, which asked "How do you choose your live audience?" Dave started to set up the reply by saying "You know, we try to do the best show we possibly can each and every night." We all started laughing, and Dave gave us a big smile and a little laugh, and asked "Remember the three categories we talked about earlier?" (Some of the shows are great, some are okay, and some just blow.) We had made that connection a moment before Dave did, and he seemed to really get a kick out of it.
After the commercial break, they did a military Top Ten (Top Ten Ways the Army is Celebrating Its Birthday). Number 5, "Cap'n says we're getting walkie-talkies" didn't have any audio on the first try, which we initially thought was part of the joke. They did it again with audio, and when the show aired the next night (June 21) they showed only the second try on that entry. It was funnier without the audio. The chyron caption was missing on another entry, which was also fixed before the show aired. Dave enjoyed the delivery of number 2, "Asking Taliban soldiers if they want a ballon and then saying 'Ha! I bet you do.'"
Next up is Connie Chung. When Dave was introducing her, Frank Comito (standing in Corky's position) pointed to his left (Dave's right), the direction that Dave needed to point. I thought this was kind of funny--Dave knows which direction the guests have been coming out for 20 years--but maybe with the recent temporary change when they had the guests coming out from the wrong side for a while he just wanted to make sure Dave didn't get confused.
Connie is quite the hugger, apparently. She gave Dave a hug (stay away from the neck, Connie), sat down, then got up to hug Frank Comito and cameraman Dave Dorsett. During the break after her first segment she hugged several others, including Maria Pope, Barbara Gaines, and Laurie Diamond.
Nice interview with Connie. She and Dave have a good rapport, and it's fun to watch Dave tease her. Tony put down the cue cards for the interview, so I had a better view of Dave for this part of the show.
It's the Friday show, so next up is the stand-up comic, which was a nice from the musical guests that we saw at the last two DaveCons. I don't always enjoy the stand-up comics watching at home, but Gary MuleDeer was hilarious, at least he was to those of us sitting there in the theater all excited to be there. I wonder if some of the comics that we think are lame when we're watching in our living rooms are actually quite funny when you're right there in person, with a big audience around you. I rarely laugh at the comedians watching at home, but I was laughing my head off throughout MuleDeer's segment. The equipment had all been moved away from the desk at this point, and I had a great view of Dave sitting in the dark, laughing *his* head off at parts of MuleDeer's act.
During the Act 5, some of us were hoping to see a reprise of Paul-as-James-Brown, with Dave throwing the cape over him and leading him away. They didn't do that, but instead they did an audience sweep, and most of us got on TV. Look for me in a bright red shirt, sitting on the aisle. I'm clearly visible at the beginning and end of the sweep (you can see me doing the rhythmic clapping), and pretty much my entire row gets on. (We were also visible from behind in the opening sweep from the audience onto the stage when Dave comes out for the monologue, and you can briefly see Karen, Ann, and some of the others in the front row after Dave comes out and they take a quick shot of the audience.)
Well, before you know it, the show is over. It was as exciting as ever to see it in person. During the commercials, there were no ass-chewings, just happy looking desk conferences between Dave and Maria Pope, Barbara Gaines, Laurie Diamond, not sure who all else. Dave looked happy and relaxed and in a good mood throughout the show; I like to think we as an audience had something to do with that.
Part IV: The Post-Show Festivities