Helen Read's Big Honkin' Trip Report
Dave Con 2000
Part 1: Before the Show

I had to leave the house very early to catch a flight from Vermont to NYC at 6:55 a.m. on Thursday June 22, 2000, the morning of the show. I packed the night before, stayed up to watch Dave (I was too excited to sleep, and wouldn't have time to watch the tape in the morning), then went to bed and tossed and turned for, oh, 4 hours until the alarm went off. I tried to nap a bit on the plane, but it was awfully noisy (I was right by the propellor--if you've never flown on a little turboprop, which is pretty much all we get out of Burlington, suffice it to say they are darn noisy, and the temperature regulation can leave a lot to be desired; sometimes you freeze on the plane, this time it was broiling). My plane got into Laguardia about 15 minutes ahead of schedule, and I took a cab to the hotel, where I checked in and got settled. At that point I was a bit overwhelmed by the traffic, the crowds of people, the tall buildings packed together, and the utter lack of plant life. I was no longer in Vermont, that's for sure.

Around 12:45 pm, after looking at a map in the room to orient myself, I walked over toward Joe G's, where I was to meet up with the other AFLers. (Of all the pizza places in New York, Joe G's...is one of them.) About a block or two away from the Ed Sullivan Theater, I suddenly spotted the Late Show marquee, and broke out into a huge dopey grin. I got to Joe G's, two doors down from the Ed, and found the AFL group in the back room.

There were introductions all around as various AFLers arrived. In attendance were our ticket queen Renee (EZMAMA1D), Traci (who did an excellent job coordinating the Dave Con), Carl, Shirlee (Foxyscribe), Mark Monroy and his friend Royce, Kaitlyn (Pepsi), Kathie Freeman (Kathie8), Cathy (CathyD888), Brad Hill, Karen Lynch (KLynch4296), Ann (Malficent), Marilyn, Nick (Cybergolem), Bill Lehecka (Old Matador), Sally Drell, Libby (Quintilla) and her mom Jane, a couple of people that I don't know from AFL (Rona and Lance), and, of course, me. Have I left anyone out?

I recognized some folks from pictures on their web pages, and some I did not. For some reason I immediately knew who Brad was (though I don't remember ever seeing a picture of him); he recognized me also, and came up and gave me a big hug. It was great to finally get to meet everyone in person, and match up a face and a voice and a personality with a screen persona.

While we waited for everyone to arrive, Traci gave out buttons with "AFL Dave Con 2000" and a nice goofy picture of Dave's face on them. Karen and Brad gave us each a Dave Con 2000 T-shirt. Thanks Traci and Karen and Brad!

Renee passed out copies of the letter from the Late Show ticket people that we would need in order to claim our tickets, and we went and lined up outside the Ed. When we got to the front of the line inside the theater lobby, each of us showed an ID and had our names checked off on the list. We were all given dotted tickets, thanks to the audience coordinator (David Kay), who had arranged the group tickets for Renee. (If you don't know about the dots, more about that later.) Then we went back to Joe G's, where we enjoyed lovely beverages and burned some time until it was time to line up for the show at 3:30.

Mark and Royce were already standing at the head of the "dot" line outside the Ed, so the rest of us joined them in line. A little while later one of the pages kicked the AFL group to the end of the dotted-people line; it wasn't clear why. Donz5, with impeccable timing, showed up to say hi to everyone just as we were being led into the theater.

We waited in line for a while inside the lobby of the Ed, which is quite pretty, though we thought murals of Hosie Cows on the ceiling would be a nice addition. Eventually they started leading people into the theater; we saw a lot of people going up the stairs toward the balcony, and Brad spotted a couple who got pulled out of line to sit in the Know Your Current Events seats along the aisle (Dave did not choose this particular couple, which was just as well, because the guy looked like a Know Your Cuts of Meat type).

Finally, the only people left in the lobby were the AFL group and the other dotted people. We were given a pep talk, explaining that we had dots on our tickets because we are knowledgeable about the show (well, duh, we are so darn knowledgeable that we already knew what the dots are for before we got there). They explained that we would be seated right up front, close to Dave, and we would be ambassadors, and set the tone for the audience; everything would ripple back from us. We should laugh, and applaud, but don't whistle, don't make whooping noises that sound like sirens on tape, and don't shout anything out because if you do, they may have to stop the tape and do something over.

Then, at last, we were led into the theater, where we were seated in the center section, rows 2 and 3. (Had we not gotten kicked to the end of the dot line, we probably would have had rows 1 and 2.) In each of the first few rows, pre-selected people were already seated in the two seats by the KYCE aisle; we filled in the rest of rows two and three. Eddie Brill, the warm-up guy, came out to, well, warm us up, and soon the show would begin.