Jere-Rigged

A Really Big Shoe

Just in from a taping of The Late Show with David Letterman at the Ed Sullivan Theatre on Broadway. Guests were Jennifer Lopez and Snoop Dogg. Fun.

I happened to walk by the theatre on my way home from an audition this morning and they were basically giving out tickets. It was nice.

I was sitting in the second row of the balcony on the stage left side. You will not see me. Even during the big crane shot of the audience most of us were hidden by the graphics they were displaying at the time.

It was amusing to see how, during a comedy bit with Rupert Gee, the owner of the neighbouring Hello, Deli, Dave made a mistake and stopped the segment to go back and fix it.

First, he showed an amusing clip of George W. Bush where it appeared the President was confirming something we've all suspected for years (I won't blow the surprise here), then Dave launched into a segment called "May We Shave You For Spring," in which Rupert would choose someone from the street to have his facial hair shaved on camera by a barber from that little barber shop in the Columbus Circle subway station. Dave went through small talk with the gentleman to be shaved (So where are you from? Park Forrest, IL, suburbs of Chicago. Why are you here? Some bike race through the five boroughs of the city. Blah Blah Blah.)

Then Dave asked that the barber be introduced and brought out. Unfortunately, Dave had failed to notice that the barber had been there on camera throughout the entire segment. I don't know how he could have missed the guy. I not only saw him, but quickly deduced exactly who he was from his clothing. And I'm not exactly Sherlock Holmes, folks.

Anyway, Dave immediately halted the segment ("Geez, would it have killed somebody to...") and had everyone prep to do it again. In seconds, Dave and Paul went back to joking about the videotape of President Bush as though it had just happened and then Dave reintroduced "May We Shave You For Spring" and they were off and running. This time, after Dave asked where the guy was from, the follow-up was "And what do you do for a living there?" and then jokes were made about the guy's profession instead of his bike race reason for being in New York. Then the barber was brought out and the shaving began.

Frankly, I didn't think the segment was funny enough to merit the trouble taken to fix it and that the mistake might have turned into the funniest part. But what do I know? Personally, I'd rather do a live show, because I think the energy associated with that would be much more fun. Of course, I'd be saying "shit" and "fuck" all the time and probably get fired off my live show. But that's just me.

Jennifer Lopez was pretty good. She seems very normal and I didn't detect any traces of the bad behavior that she's rumoured to exhibit off-camera. Perhaps the current marriage is good for her. The way she speaks is very much "Jenny From The Block," for lack of a better term. It's doubtful she's gone through any speech or elocution classes to clean up her grammar or phrasing. She was promoting her new movie with Jane Fonda.

Snoop Dogg did a number from the album he was promoting and talked a lot about coaching his son's football team. It was cute.

And it was all over and done with in an hour. Actually, a little more since they redid that one segment. Maybe an hour and 2 minutes. Fun!

What an unexpected thing to happen. Just one of the many reasons I love New York.

Posted by Jere at May 3, 2005 07:24 PM | TrackBack