Today was all about the Letterman show. One thing I forgot to mention on yesterday’s blog, earlier in the week KN registered us for the online raffle to get Letterman tickets. We got picked, but had to answer trivia questions which I totally forgot about. I actually missed their call, so rang back and was asked the questions (which caught me off guard). I got them all wrong. Woops!
I was so disappointed, I am a David Letterman fan, but it has been years since I’ve been a solid viewer of the show. The questions they asked were “what store does Letterman go to visit now and then the past 10 years”, I answered “The Pizza Store” – WRONG! It was the Deli. Second question was “what colour hair does the announcer have, who introduces Letterman on every show”. I said grey, WRONG, was red...of course!
So after that disappointment yesterday, the lady from the Letterman show mentioned we could still go in a raffle for tickets the next morning, but we’d have to line up and enter at the box office from 9.30am. Which we did, but first we had breakfast.
A quick meal at “Europa Cafe”, across the road from the Ed Sullivan theatre on Broadway. Another quick, cheap, easy meal – plenty of this around! After breakfast, we lined up at the theatre, filled out a form, and were advised they will make phone calls to the successful applications from 10am – 12pm.
As we had to be around to take the call, and near the theatre if we win, we decided to spend the morning at Times Sq for more souvenir shopping. There’s plenty of these stores around naturally and it’s interesting how the pricing for the same items drop the further away from times square you go.
While shopping around, KN had to get her nails done, so we looked in a nail shop run by the usual Asian nail peoples. The pricing was apparently over the top, interestingly we found a place around the corner who were nearly less than half the price. Conveniently they also did men's haircuts, particularly head shaves for men, which was perfect for me.
FYI I shave my own head with clippers back home once a week, didn’t bring my clippers overseas as there was no point, so always planned to visit a barber shop at least once during this trip. So I had my hair clipped. A young chap by the name of John clipped my hair, was very precise with how he cut it, and styled it up a bit too!
I only know of one place back home that does these kinds of haircuts for men back home, normally it makes more sense for me to do it myself, but this guy makes it such an art form I couldn’t say no. So if you’re ever in town and need your hair done or your nails did, check them out!
While I was getting my hair cut at Cohen’s, I got the call from the Letterman show! Two tickets for KN and I, simply had to pick the tickets up between 1-2pm! There are a number of lists, under the name of the page’s, and all based on seating areas in the theatre. We were on Karen’s “Gold List”. So after our trip to Cohen's, we made our way back to the Ed Sullivan theatre and picked up a couple of hot dogs from one of the many food carts in NYC.
Made it to the theatre and the line was growing already, just to pick up tickets.
We get there, receive our tickets, and the way the system works is they write on each ticket issued in numerical order – and within the colour coding of the lines (Red & Blue). Depending on which list you came under, your seat allocation will either be to the left, middle or right – up close, up back, or upstairs on another platform. Either way the theatre is set up so you are nice and close.
After picking up our tickets, they split us up in groups, where one of the lead page’s hypes up the group and advises us on some of the ground rules. No camera’s, no yelling, heaps of energy, and to come back at 2.20pm and line up in our designated groups.
So we headed back into times sq for a bit more window shopping and I decided to try a NY pizza. We stopped at the “Famous Famiglia Pizzeria” in times square. My first slice of NY pizza since we’ve been here and it was awesome. I know a lot of the locals will say there’s so much choice, don’t have to go to Times Sq to taste real pizza, but it did the job for me!
There’s a pizzeria back home called “New York Slice Pizzaria”. It pales in comparison, this pizza was so good. The sauce was so nice, plenty of nice cheese, meat, and the base is nothing like pizza I’ve had back home.
Getting closer to 2pm, we made our way back to the theatre. On the way, we stopped by a cupcake shop we walked past earlier that we had to check out. It’s called “Crumbs Bake Shop”, on Broadway right near the Ed Sullivan theatre! KN ordered a Red velvet and peanut butter cup cakes, were absolutely delicious.
We finally arrive at the theatre for the third time today and get in line as directed. It felt like we were at a line for customs at the airport again. So many checks of ID, tickets, so on and so forth. When they let us in the building, there was another line up before we could actually go in the theatre. The same lead page was hyping the crowd up, laying down the law again, but this time emphasising on how they need the audience to laugh and cheer as much as possible. Even if Letterman isn’t funny, we had to laugh at everything he says. There was so much of this reminder, I felt as though I’d have to force myself to laugh the moment he opens his mouth.
The wait in line felt incredibly long. It was starting to heat up and others in line were beginning to get frustrated. I was feeling even worse (sick) and was contemplating going outside and just bailing on the whole show! I pushed through, finally they let us in and showed us to our seats.
We ended up on the fourth row from the front, and like the SNL studio, we were surprised by how much smaller the theatre actually is. So many lights in this place, the set/background/props look totally different to when it’s on TV, I was literally gob smacked for a few minutes just soaking the place in. Meanwhile feeling like I was going to pass out and dreading the thought of having to leave the show while filming.
But the show was about to start and this is how it works. They have a host/comedian, that warms up the crowd (for the life of me I can’t remember his name). He was funny though and did an awesome job. It’s then followed by another warm up “video”, featuring Alec Baldwin, and other crew from the show. It was hilarious, couldn’t stop laughing through it.
Once that finishes, the band (CBS Orchestra) come out and play a couple of songs, followed by Paul Shaffer who comes out and joins the band. When they’re done, Letterman comes out!
Off the camera, he also warms the crowd up, picks someone from the crowd and starts a random conversation and makes jokes. Someone from the crowd raises his hand for a question, who comes from San Diego, and Letterman works his magic and just comes out with the jokes.
As soon as he’s done with that, he runs backstage, puts his suit coat on – then they start recording on camera and does his usual routine. Starting off with a joke that the viewers from home wouldn’t get (now I do), saying something along the lines of “You know something, here’s a tip, do yourself a favour and don’t have a conversation with someone from San Diego”. Haha, funny guy.
The rest of the show is just as you see it on TV. But during the commercial breaks, it’s cool how they change the sets around as they need, move the props/backdrop, and the band plays a couple of numbers and they’re amazing too. On this show, the celebrities interviewed were Mark Harmon (NCIS), Matt Lauer (NBC Today Show) – he did a skit with top 10 travel tips and it was funny, Mike Judge (Beavis and Butthead) and the Eli Young band (a country band I’ve never heard of before).
Once the show was finished, we were beat, and made our way back to the hotel to just hang out and rest. I was still feeling sick, but the Letterman show was definitely the highlight of the trip for me so far.
Tomorrow ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, stay tuned for a “Seinfeld” breakfast, coffee round 2, PK occupying wall street and a bar in Hoboken!
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