13 September 2007

Late Night 

My son got tickets to Late Night with David Letterman, and after a slightly odd family luncheon, we struck out to attend the Wednesday show with the twelve leading NASCAR Drivers, Viggo Mortenson, a Tatooed Lady and the rock band Daughtery.
 
I think the lead singer in the latter had been on American Idol, but I only know that because someone told me.
 
I have admired the cool and disengaged humor of Mr. Letterman since we were both young, and I had never attended the taping of one of the evening talk shows, so I was up for it. My son thinks Dave is pretty funny, and it was all his doing that we made John’s Gold List to qualify for the tickets, which involved a lot of probing questions online to see whether he really understood where Dave was coming from.
 
They have taped the show for fourteen years at the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is located on the edge of what used to be Hell’s Kitchen. It is on the west side of Broadway, between 53nd and 53rd Streets.
 
Here is how divorced from reality I am. I thought they did this stuff at night. I thought Dave had been sleep deprived all those years before the big shoot-out for Johnny Carson’s legacy, and that Conan O’Brian was actually awake at one in the morning.
 
Not true. Taping was supposed to start at three, which wasn’t true either. It was Show Biz time, three standing in for four-thirty, which was actually eleven-thirty at night on the monitors, and God only knew what time it was supposed to be on the West Coast.
 
We swam upstream in the clog of pedestrians after lunch at The Playwright Irish Bar across from the Hotel, which is now a Comfort Inn, but used to be named The Governor. Then the wood was rich and dark and the pillars in the lobby soared twenty or more feet to the ceiling.
 
New York is a place that is constantly re-inventing itself, ripping things down and throwing them up again.
 .
Mom asked the Punjabi waiter at the restaurant which playwright the name referred to, assuming it was William Butler Yeats, but the Punjabi claimed he was not familiar with him.
 
My son and I excused ourselves a little early, and struck out in the sunny streets. The weather was warm and the sidewalks were jammed. We had nearly twenty blocks to cover, and learn the ways of crossing the streets with the real people. We passed a demonstration against Guantamamo, and buses and tourists and the spires soared up from the canyon floor all around us, draped in gigantic ad posters for television and theatrical productions. The signs were all brightly lit against the daylight.
 
In time, we could see it up Broadway, the big yellow signs that announced the Late Night at the Ed Sullivan Theater.
 
The Sullivan is a big place, and sat twelve hundred in the audience in its prime, though it has been taken in for a more intimate audience of four hundred now. It was designed by an architect named Herbert Krapp for the Hammerstein theatrical family, and features concrete pressed to resemble intricately carved panelling of English Oak.
 
There is white paint slathered on it now, which makes it a bit incongruous, but it is likewise on the list of National Historic Places. It is cold as hell, too, to keep the computers that run the high definition television cool and operating.
 
It was not like that, back in the day, of course.
 
Legendary showman Bill Rose acquired the property in 1934, and in June of that year, he he opened The Billy Rose Music Hall. His headliner act was the first Benny Goodman Orchestra.
Diminutive in stature, whenever he wanted to attend a show, Rose's practice was to book four tickets: one for himself, one for his female companion, and the other two for the two seats directly in front of the other seats; thus, Rose was ensured of an unobstructed view.
It turned into a nightclub for a while, but the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation obtained a long-term lease on the property and began broadcasting from there in 1936. It has had a variety of names since then, but all have involved audiences who get free admission in exchange for wild enthusiasm for what it is presented.
 
The galaxy of old radio stars were all here, in front of twelve hundred people in the audience. The CBS Radio Playhouse- or Radio Theater #3- was converted to a television studio in 1950, when it became CBS-TV Studio 50.
 
In addition to the Ed Sullivan show, the quiz shows “What’s My Line,” and “To Tell the Truth” were broadcast from the facility. They named the theatre after Mr.Sullivan in the late sixties- and that means that everyone from Elvis Presley to the Beatles were on the stage there. Next door was another CBS sound stage that was sold to private club developers and became the legendary home of cocaine and public debauchery, Studio 54.
 
Walking up to the Sullivan from Times Square, it is all David Letterman today. My son had been clever enough to compete for tickets, and we were an hour early. I don’t know what we thought- perhaps that we would simply stroll up to the “will call” window, pick up the admission passes and sit down.
 
I had a sinking feeling as I looked at the line of people that snaked back from the front of the theatre and around the corner, past the Hello Deli that Dave sometimes pops out to visit during the show.
 
While we were standing there, a nice young woman came by with blank forms that inquired if we had any “Stupid human tricks” that might be useful on future shows. I muttered that I used to be in a business that made people disappear. But my son elbowed me and I did not fill out the paper.
 
The Letterman enterprise is supported by young perky people who are determined to Support the Show at all costs. It was a little like Marine boot camp; we were challenged and encouraged to shout back at them and raise our voices in a joyful noise whenever prompted.
 
We were told the sad story of the Tuesday audience, which had failed to demonstrate life and engagement. They had not supported The Show, and because of their marginal performance, it was important that we not let Dave down.
 
I don’t think we did. We were processed in several lines, at least one of which was intended to identify the most photogenic of the audience and triage us into places. Security personnel stood in the aisles on the side to ensure only enthusiastic activity was conducted.
 
We wound up in the seventh row on the lower level, in back of the booms that transit the stage and occasionally pan the audience to prove that we are real.
 
Paul Shaffer’s Most Dangerous Band came on and was loud and fun. The warm-up comedian was funny, and a little blue. Dave had a minute and a half of intimate time with us before the red lights came on, a couple questions shouted from the crowd.
 
Then the show rolled over us for an hour, clapping like crazy, clapping like we needed to make this show a success. There was wild noise from snarling guitars and horns, punctuated with Dave’s sardonic approach to the monologue, and the NASCAR Drivers who all got their lines right, and information on the Western that Viggo was working on, and the very strange and lifelike tattoos that covered nearly every square inch of the pretty woman from LA.
 
I liked the rock act that closed the show, and abruptly I could see the credits rolling on the flat-screen monitors. Dave took off his jacket and tossed it across the arm of one of the two seats next to his desk. He thanked us for our attendance and a bank of doors opened along the far wall of the Ed Sullivan Theater, and they were done with us.
 
Just before six pm New York time, we were on the street, feeling like midnight in the dusk.
 
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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