Helen's Dave-o-rama

June 14, 2004

DaveCon 2004:
Helen's Unusually Short
Trip Report

I'm going to try to make this one short and sweet. We'll see how that works out.

 

I flew down to NYC on Sunday, June 13. Since I was going down the day before the show, for once I didn't have to get up at 4 a.m. to make the crack-of-dawn flight. Instead, I got on a mid-morning flight, and arrived at LaGuardia at a very civilized 1:00 p.m. After collecting my gear, I got in line at the taxi stand, and watched as the person who doles out the cabs--I don't know what the official title is, so I'll call her the Taxi Marshal--anyway, I saw the Taxi Marshal chew out one of the cabbies, who had just kicked a passenger out of his cab, claiming the guy had cut in line. Taxi Marshal says no, he was next, you just didn't want to go to Brooklyn. She yells at him a bit, says he shouldn't get a fare for this, but then tells me to get into his cab. Oh, great. This is really confidence inspiring.

Well, we got all jammed up trying to get into Manhattan due to the Puerto Rican Day Parade. My cab driver kept saying "Djoy. Djoy. Everything is closed. Djoy." [Use the MikeMack translation here.] He repeated this over and over, but eventually did get me to the hotel.

After I got checked in and settled into the hotel, I headed down to the Lower East Side, where I met up with Traci for a visit to the Freakatorium, a little storefront museum of freaks and curiosities. Remember that guy Johnny Fox who ate a martini glass on the show? This is his place. He was a nice guy with lots of interesting stories, and Traci and I had fun hanging out with him. He's got all kinds of cool stuff in his collection: pictures and mementos from circus freaks (JoJo the Dogface Boy, Tom Thumb, various people missing limbs or whatever, and several sets of conjoined twins including the famous Chang and Eng); a live two-headed turtle (cool!); the skull(s) from a two-headed cow, and that sort of thing. The one item on display that he does not own is Sammy Davis's glass eye, which is on loan from a friend.

By the way, Johnny Fox said that Traci and I were the first people who have ever come in and said we saw him on Letterman. What is wrong with you people? Get yourself down to the Freakatorium next time you have the chance. Admission is only $5.

Before we left, Traci and I got a couple of pictures of Johnny Fox swallowing a sword (I got to pull the sword out of his mouth), and bought a couple of souvenirs for Tony Mendez. Oh, one other thing we learned is that Johnny Fox was on Is This Anything? on December 26, 2003, swallowing a neon sword. The martini glass, by the way, was a real glass, supplied by the Late Show.

After the Freakatorium, we met up with Carl, Brady, Rona, Karen, and Steve for dinner at a nice Italian place, La Pizza Fresca Ristorante. I tried to order a ginger ale and was told they didn't have any. I've never heard of a restaurant with a bar that doesn't have ginger ale. The waiter told me that a lot of places don't have it, and they try to fool people by mixing Sprite with a little Coke and calling it ginger ale. Weird. So I ended up having Sprite with my meal, instead of counterfeit ginger ale. Bill Lehecka arrived just as we were finishing dinner, to join up with part of the group to go to a comedy club. Comedy clubs are not my style, so I headed back to the hotel, where I discovered that it is possible to channel surf with one's eyes closed. Soon I was out like a carp.

 

Monday morning I walked up to the Ed to see what was going on. Mark Leckner was hanging around with a couple of women (don't know them) outside of Rupert's. I went in and chatted with Rupert for a moment and bought an orange juice. After hanging around with Mark (and whoever the women were) for a while, I went for a walk up to the edge of Central Park, then down 5th Avenue, over to Broadway, up through Times Square, and eventually back to the hotel to regroup. I got to the hotel at about two minutes before noon, and was amused to see the huge line of people waiting to check out. Checkout time is noon, and apparently people have to wait until the last possible second.

Next, it was time for lunch with the AFL crowd at TGIFriday's (right across from the Ed). Once again, I was confronted with the Bogus Beverage. I asked if they had ginger ale (no) or Sprite (yes, according to the waiter). Well, whatever that was that they brought me, it wasn't Sprite. It tasted like tonic water with a slice of lemon and a slice of lime thrown in. I passed it around the table, and it didn't fool anybody. Yecch. When the waiter came with the check, we questioned him on it. He feigned surpise and claimed that the Sprite button on the machine must be broken or something and was incorrectly dispensing the wrong thing. Riiiiiiiiight. We did get him to take it off the check, at least.

After lunch, we went down to the Ed to pick up our tickets, then burned some time loitering on 53rd St. Marilyn talked to Rupert about the underside of his flip-up countertop, which looks extremely grungy on TV. Rupert admitted that he has gotten complaints about it, and agreed to let Marilyn spruce it up with contact paper. It turned out *great*. Look for it the next time they go to Rupert's. That black, faux-marble contact paper on the underside of the counter is Marilyn's handiwork. We gave Rupert the leftover contact paper for future use, and stuck an AFL decal on the door of the refrigerator next to the counter. (I designed the logo, Marilyn printed it on a decal.) The decal is transparent, so I don't know if we'll be able to see it on TV, but still, we'll know it's there.

OK, time for the show!

 

After the audience prep speech, we were led into the theater and seated in rows 2, 3, and 4 in front of the band. Nice seats! I have sat in the center a couple of times, where the view of the desk is completely blocked by equipment, and you end up spending most of the show looking at Tony Mendez's ass. From the band side this year, I had a nice view of Dave throughout most of the show (the exception being the monologue, during which he was blocked by a camera).

Eddie Brill did his usual warm-up, introduced the band (Anton wasn't there; Sean-somebody from SNL was filling in), and then...wait for it...here comes Dave doing his diagonal dash across the stage a split second before Eddie introduces him. That's one of the best parts of the entire show. Even though I know intellectually that Dave will be there, it just about stops my heart when he actually comes running out.

Dave made some general comments, talked about his pants being too tight because he has gained 7 pounds (setting up a comment at the desk during the Act I), and then asked if anyone had a question. Nearly every hand in the AFL section shot up, but we were too far off to the side to catch Dave's eye. He picked someone directly in front of him who asked a really lame question about Dave's speeding tickets. (Hello? Have you watched the show in the last 10 years? Could you think of something any less timely to ask about?) Dave managed to make something out of nothing (I forget exactly what he said), then ran off to make his grand entrance.

Good first act. Lots of Bush-bashing, even during the monologue, and a story about Dave's weekend when he got to the desk. Some of us groaned audibly when Dave started to set up an Osama clip congratulating him on his 4000th late night show (I despise the Osama clips), but it actually had a nice line in it about ratings and lead-ins.

We did our job as audience ambassadors and egged Dave on when he hemmed and hawed about a piece that he wasn't sure he should do. He warned us that we wouldn't like it, and we just dared him to show it. What he had was supposedly a clip of the new Garfield movie, which turned out to be nature-show footage of a pair of lions, um, doing it. The entire audience, and most especially the AFL contingent went crazy for it. Dave looked quite pleased (and a little surprised) by the reaction.

First guest, Paris Hilton. Holy cow. As Traci so eloquently put it, she is such a little princess. We were sitting right under the mics, and at times literally had to clamp our hands over our mouths so as not to laugh at her inappropriately. Some of the high (or low) points:

Segment producer Matt Roberts sat with Paris during the commercial break. When she was through with her second segment, she turned and gave the audience a wave on her way out. That's right, Paris honey, wave to your people. Ick.

Dave seemed to be in a good mood throughout the show; we saw several desk conferences during the breaks, but no ass-chewings.

Dwight the Troubled Teen--what we saw during the show but you did not see at home--was fantastic. LS staffer Gary Mintz played the part of Dwight. He completely froze, which made for perhaps the best DtTT ever. We laughed our heads off.

Patti Scialfa used cue cards for her song, which we thought was interesting. Tony Mendez told us later that a lot of musical guests use cue cards or even bring their own teleprompter. (Another little tidbit from Tony is that the flowers that Alan Kalter has been giving to what's-her-name at the end of the show each night are fake.)

And that was the show. We gave Dave a standing ovation on his way out.

 

Bill Delace tried to get us out the doors, but I had written to Tony Mendez as I do each year, and was expecting him to come out for us after the show. (I met Tony back in 2000--Tony still remembers this--in the basement of the Metropolitan Opera House where I was waiting to take the tour. Each year since then I have written to Tony to let him know when we were coming, and he has generously given us backstage tours after the show and put us on the Tony Mendez Show.) Anyway, after a brief delay (Tony always runs offstage to ditch the cue cards, then comes back for us), Tony found us and invited us onstage.

Alan Kalter was still at his post, so I shook his hand and asked him if there is anything that he won't do for the show. He said there actually are a couple, but he can't tell me.

Meanwhile, we had to go sit in the audience again, while they did some retakes.

First, the band re-did the music for the closing crawl. Al Chez came over to say hi to us for a second, but couldn't stay to talk because of the other retakes.

Next, Alan Kalter re-did the opening announce. Apparently (I got this by listening to Alan talking to one of the stage managers) he had been told by Research that Patti Scialfa's name is pronounced Skee-alfa, so that's how he saie it in the original opening. However, Dave introduced her as Patti Skalfa, so they had Alan do the intro over, pronouncing her name the same way as Dave. (I think Dave actually said Skee-alfa at least once during the show, but he definitely said Skalfa when he brought her out to sing.) It was interesting to watch Alan re-do the voiceover while he listened to the theme song on his headphones. You could see him swaying from side to side with the music, pausing in between his lines, and timing just when to say them. It took two takes to get it. (I forget what happened on the first take--it might have been noise up on the stage. The AFL was very quiet the entire time, though; it wasn't us.)

Lastly, they reshot Dwight the Troubled Teen. Tony held Dwight's cue cards, which we could see from where we sat, and the other cue card guy (Bill) held the cards for Alan. Well, Dwight was still quite nervous, and this took a few tries. On the first take, Dwight jumped in too soon, and Alan, right in character, stopped him and said "Dwight, this isn't your line yet". On the second take, Alan once again corrected Dwight. "Dwight, I have never had a thigh job; it's a dye job." On the third take they pretty much got it, although Dwight blew the last line, saying "I hate you all" instead of "I hate all of you". Close enough; they decided to keep that.

It was fun to watch them reshoot Dwight, but a shame that they didn't keep the much funnier original take where Dwight completely froze.

After the reshoots, we shot the Tony Mendez Show. Tony explained the concept (which was his idea). First, he would invite us up on stage and we would hesitate, as though we weren't really sure we wanted to come up with him. Then we'd see Mike McIntee, and run up on stage, brushing past Tony to get to Mike. We'd then fawn all over Mike, ask him for autographs, make a lot of noise, take pictures of him, etc. Then we'd see SeaBiscuit over on the side of the stage, and run over to make a big fuss over SeaBiscuit, again giving Tony the brush-off. I think it was Walter who suggested that someone hug SeaBiscuit (Donz did the honors). Then we'd see the CBS page and run back to the other side of the stage, elbowing past Tony again, and go nuts over the CBS page. Finally, a distraught Tony would put the prop gun in his mouth, change his mind and turn to fire on us. As Tony said, this would be a violent TMS.

We did this in several shots. The running across the stage scenes were done separately, without Mike or SeaBiscuit or the CBS Page in place. We just ran yelling and screaming past Tony in the direction we were told to go, then stopped. Then we'd do the scene with Mike (or whoever), and stop again. After we did all of our scenes and got out of the way, Tony did the gunplay scenes. When he was supposedly shooting us, we were completely out of the line of fire. They put the sound effects for the gunshots in later.

It was tons of fun taking direction and having an actual script to work with, which was different from the other TMS episodes we've been in. Dake, Marilyn, and Traci delivered their lines beautifully, and one of the Faceless Pod People got in a lovely "Out of my way old man" while shoving past Tony.

After the TMS, Tony took the new people on a tour of the theater, and the rest of us headed over to McGee's. Tony had to stay to do some post-tapes so that the other cue card guy (Bill) could leave (it was Bill's birthday), but promised to join us at McGee's later. Before we left, Walter passed out collapsible plastic drinking cups with the Late Show logo on them. Thanks Walter! I suggested to Walter on the way out that they ought to do a remote TMS at the Freakatorium sometime.

 

McGee's, I am happy to report, had genuine ginger ale, the first to be found all weekend.

An interesting dynamic developed at McGee's. The Cronin-Hill-Hall twins, who had not seen or spoken with each other since, well, forever, ended up on opposite ends of the room, with some of us gathered around Brad near the food, and others over at the bar with Tom. We sent Carl over to try to get Tom to come over and talk to Brad. Carl reported back that Tom was insisting that Brad would have to make the first move. They remained deadlocked for the rest of the night. Very, very funny.

Tony Mendez eventually showed up as promised. Tony always has great stories, and is just a lot of fun to hang around with. Traci and I gave him the souvenirs we'd bought for him at the Freakatorium, Devil Duck (a pink rubber duck with horns on its head) and Evil Bendy (a yellow Gumby-type figure, also sporting horns). Tony seemed quite taken with them, and said he'd use them on the TMS. (Devil Duck was seen on the next night's TMS. Be on the lookout for Evil Bendy as well.)

After Tony left, the crowd eventually thinned out, and around 11:00 or so Traci settled up the bill and we headed out. We said our awkward good-byes out on the street, and I headed back to the hotel. I fell asleep watching the show, and came home the next day.

So once again, another DaveCon comes to an end. Thank you Traci and Renee for all your hard work in making this happen. A big thanks to David Kay and Barbara Gaines for arranging tickets for such a large group (which they normally don't even do). And a big, big thanks to Tony, Mike, Walter, Jay, and all of the Late Show with David Letterman family for their kindness and hospitality.

See y'all next year.

Pictures