In the Presence of Greatness

First of all, I have to vent a little. A few problems, all related to getting settled here in Californ-Eye-Eh, are currently really annoying me and dammit all I am going to tell you about them. So, in no particular order:
1.) Dammit, my car is being repaired. It was supposed to be that I'd bring it in this morning and pick it up this evening for touch ups and repairs. But NOOOO, of course I get dropped off after work at the dealership (by fellow new NBC page Tracy, who was extremely nice to help me out with transportation!), only to find out that my car HAS NOT EVEN BEEN LOOKED AT YET! Sonova, they weren't planning on telling me about this? I TOLD them to call if anything got held up. AND ... they assured me that it'd be no problem to give me a ride back to my apt from the dealership if I needed. So Tracy drops me off, I talk to the guy there ("Uh ... yeah, your car, uh, yeah we didn't really get to it today ..."), and I'm freakin' stranded. Poor Tracy had to turn around and pick me up again. See, this week the car has been flashing the "Service Engine Soon" light on the dash while the engine is running, and I wanted this checked. But nope, apparently DOING MORE THAN ONE THING PER DAY IS TOO MUCH for my good friends at the dealership. Of course, it didn't occur to me until after I finally got home that ...

2.) Dammit, my NBC page uniform! The two blazers I had are at the cleaners and were supposed to be picked up today. Not gonna happen. And then, I try on the pants that I finally got today to complete the uniform, and they are WAAAAAAY too long. So those are going to have to be shortened, and I need the whole uniform ready by THURSDAY. I better have my car by tommorow evening, so I can run to the cleaners, and they had better be able to shorten those pants ASAP by Thursday morning. Dayum. But, at least I finally can stop worrying about ...

3.) Dammit, my shower is still messed up! So the same inept plumber dudes come by at like 9 pm last night with the brilliant solution of using a variant of DRAINO to fix up the drainage system. Well, it seems to be working okay, except that the stuff they used caused my apt to smell REALLY BADLY the whole night. But then, as the plumber pointed out to me LAST NIGHT, yet DID NOTHING TO FIX, the fawcett is loose and is causing little water streams to spray out at crazy angles when the shower is on, which is bad. CAN THEY PLEASE JUST FIX THE FREAKIN SHOWER ALREADY? But hey, it's okay because soon I'm going to be ...

4.) Dammit, I cannot find an apartment. So I am already almost to the midway point for the month I'm staying at this place, and I can't find anything on Craig's List or other sites, don't have potential roommates, and I NEED an apartment ASAP. Of course, I found a place that sounded good over the weekend, go to visit the place, only to find out they were only showing it from 1 to 3 pm. And apparently the residents don't exist at any other time, because they weren't answering calls or emails or doorbell rings. Will someone from BU please move to LA and get an apt with me?

Okay ... now that that is settled ...

It's been a VERY cool few days at NBC. That coolness does kind of stem from a very sad event though, the passing of the king of late night TV, Johnny Carson. While his late night gig was sadly pretty much before my time, I can see and respect the talent of this man in all the clips I see and tributes I hear. He hosted the Tonight Show for THIRTY YEARS, 1962 to 1992, and his humor, style, and class is all just as obvious looking at his career and work today as it was back then. Leno, Letterman, Conan, and all other late night hosts owe a HUGE debt to Johnny, and there will never be another like him. That being said, Monday's Tonight Show was simply amazing to be a part of. Originally scheduled was aTABLOID STAR, Paris Hilton. What we got instead were true, bonafide LEGENDS. Ed McMahon, Bob Newhart, and Don Rickles graced the show with their presences, and it was really a sight to behold. Sure, some of the ditzy teenagers in line were disappointed that their pornstar/heiress/TV flav of the month was replaced with a bunch of old dudes, but for everyone else it was a great show - one that celebrated a kind of comedy that you don't see much anymore, the kind practiced by the likes of Rickles, Newhart, and of course Carson. They were true characters. They had a larger than life mystique. They were from the old school of comedy -- and yet their appeal, amazingly, was universal. While today you see comedians who appeal to specific demographics, these guys, Johnny especially, were American icons. They reached an extremely large, broad audience, and made all kinds of people laugh in a time when the nation was bitterly divided, as Jay pointed out in his opening essay. As a fan of comedy, it was a very momorable and special show to be a part of.

Today there was another humbling experience, as a group of marines attended the show (featuring Dennis Miller as guest), just before they begin a tour of duty in Iraq. To see these extremely young looking guys (most probably younger than myself) laughing and having a good time, just days before they put their lives on the line in a foreign country, was really amazing. For a while I was scared they weren;t going to get into the show, because they were in the back of the line and had a large group, but luckily they did and had a great time. At the end of the show many stopped and said thank you to me (I got them into the line and gave them their tickets), as if I did anything so great that deserved a thank you. All I could really say was that we really appreciate what they do, and wished them good luck. I was just feeling guilty that these guys almost didn't get into the show and yet we had rows of obnoxious high-schoolers and plenty of stuck-up LA types who got in no problem. There really should be some kind of NBC policy towards the troops that helps get them into shows, but I guess I'm not in a position to change corporate policy at this point.

Our training is almost at an end, and I think most of us newbies at NBC are feeling more confidant that we can do the tours, Tonight Show stuff, etc in the coming weeks. If I could just get my uniform all set ...

Oh yeah, Sunday provided a MUCH NEEDED fun diversion from all dis craziness. Fellow Northeast - to - LA transplant Paul Lurie was nice enough to put me on the guest list to a party that he won via a drawing. The shindig took place at Howl At The Moon, a local dueling piano bar in the Universal Studios CityWalk pavilion (to which I get free parking as an NBC-Universal Employee -- sweeeeeet, cuz it usually costs like $10 ...). Basically it's the LA equivalent of Boston's own Jake Ivory's. Now the slightly annoying thing about these kinds of places is that it's very difficult to carry on a conversation with the pianos constantly a-dueling. But nonetheless I was able to meet some cool people (and some pretty crazy people - I guess that's par for the course in LA when yer in the showbiz), and it was great to get out for a bit on the weekend. Of course staying out late Sunday screwed up my sleep schedule for the next few days, but hey, I've still got some of that ol' college willpower in me ... at least I hope I do. Well, I felt sapped of all willpower when I had to wake up at 6 am this morning to bring my car in before work at 8:30 ... but then again I have NEVER been a morning person.

One thing I'm realizing is that the working man has precious little free time during the week. I get home, eat dinner, watch some TV, and I'm done. It sucks. I have time for like one phone call a day, which of late has been my parents calling every five seconds, so I just haven't been able to talk to everyone like I'd like to. And I have got to cut back on IM and whatnot. I get home, start chatting to ppl, next thing I know it's 8:30 pm and I'm starving and haven't eaten and have a million other things to do. Things should calm down a bit in the coming weeks though, as out NBC schedule gets a bit lighter (not good in terms of getting payed though, and you know I gots to get paid).

RANDOM THOUGHTS:

- taped the FOX Sunday night lineup and still haven't watched yet. I think only King of the Hill, Malcolm, and Arrested were new though.

- SWEEEEEEEEET episode of 24 on Monday! That first ten minutes was simply KICKASS AWESOME. Honestly, no other TV show even comes close when it comes to staging action sequences. At the first commercial break, I called my brother in Boston, screamed "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN!" and hung up. Intense. The Arab son vs. his kra-zay father story is kinda cool, but I hope they throw in some twists to keep it from being too predictable. Right now it looks like it's gonna be Mother gats mad at husband, Husband kills repentant Mother, Son tracks down over-the-edge Father and ultimately goes all patricidal on his old man, thus saving the day. And then ... SPOILERS ...

... Aisha Tyler is EVIL? Sure, we knew she was bitchy, but full-out, terrorist-lovin' evil? Nah, I don't buy it, it's too obvious. I call her as a double agent. And ya gotta love the Sec. of Defense character. Reminds me of a politically-motivated Hannibal from the A-Team. But this show is really carried by Kiefer Sutherland, who seriously deserves and EMMY for his intense, consistent acting on this show.

- I'm watching Real World now and it's killin' me. I don't know why I am watching this buncha idiots being mind-numbingly stupid 24/7, but this show is just so darn addicting, despite seemingly lowering the bar for its cast members each and every season. Oh Landon and Shavonda, why deny your love, you two crazy kids? Oh wait, they aren't denying it anymore as of tonight. Who would have guessed?

- It's hilarious - before every Tonight Show they pick a mix of twenty-somethings and senior citizens to get up on the stage and dance for the crowd. Aside from there always being one atrociously bad white-girl dancer each time, you can ALWAYS count on some old grandma getting up there and shaking it like it's 1949, but EVERY TIME, they will for some inexplicable reason, start to DO A STRIPTEASE for the crowd. Every freakin' time. Today a large older woman wearing a sweater got ready to dance, and I said to another page, "I GUARANTEE this woman will remove that sweater while dancing as if she were a 70 year old stripper." and SHE DID, like clockwork. What is with these people? They must have like years of repressed desires in them, accumulated from years of sitting and watching TV and being innundated with pop cultural images of young woman prancing around and being singers / strippers / divas. So now, when the spotlight is finally on THEM, they think that it is their right, nay, their solemn DUTY, to start a-strippin' right there at the Tonight Show. That being said, it is pretty hilarious.

- Alright, more to come soon from sunny Burbank. So long Ladies and Germs, and goodnight Johnny Carson.