After-the-fact DNC Blogging, Monday 7/26, Part 1:  In which I Accidentally Possibly End Up on Letterman
 
Arrived at around 6:30, do the now-familiar security tango.  Up one escalator, and I have that sensation that you get at an event such as this, where you look at someone, idly think that that sort of looks like...and then you realize, you know, this is the DNC, it probably is...in this case, the Daily Show's Samantha Bee, sitting on the floor against the wall, looking adorable.  So I go over, and narrowly avoid being that Chris Farley character (God!  Stupid!  I'm so stupid!) :

Don:  Excuse me, are you Samantha Bee?
SB: Yes.
Don:  Oh, I like you.  You're very good.  ...bye.
(Don starts to move off, on the theory that she's busy.)
SB: (inaudible)
Don: Sorry?
SB: I was going to shake your hand (her hand is indeed out)
Don: Oh!  Sorry! (Shakes hand).
SB: Rob's over there, too (points at Rob Corddry, with 2 other people, his bald head with its back to me).
Don: So he is.  (And here I veer way too close to the edge) He's very shiny.  Uh, well, take care now.

This brief interaction causes me to lose my traveling companion, and we spend 20 minutes trying to find each other using the overloaded/intermittent cell phone network. 

Following this, we spend what seems like an hour finding "that room we were supposed to get to", which we believe is up with the anchor booths. This turns out to be wrong, but it's a good mistake, because we wander the circumference of the Fleet a couple of times on a couple of levels, passing various Famous Media People (some of whom are surprisingly short, even accounting for the common fact that famous people are often surprisingly short), and eventually there a big crush up ahead and it's coming towards us. 

The crush turns out to be Michael Moore, and he's pretending to ignore someone for comic effect:  that is, he keeps walking past someone who's yelling "Michael!  Michael!", and then the camera lights turn off and Moore says "Was that OK?"  The crush wobbles and reforms; I realize that the guy with the mike is Biff Henderson of Late Night With David Letterman.   As I stand and watch, Henderson's producer moves Biff and Moore, and the camera, into position, a few steps at a time, slowly (it seems to me) rotating about my position, until they come to a position that the producer likes.  I'm looking at the back of Biff and Moore.  Straight beyond them, pointed at the two men, is the camera.  Moore is, you may have noted, on the large side, but Biff Henderson is not, and I can see the camera lens, and therefore...well, fuck, I say to myself, I'm not moving.

It takes them longer than you'd expect to do this Q&A:

Biff: Which do you think the President is more likely to have seen, Fahrenheit 911 or Spider-Man 2?
Moore: Oh, Spider-Man 2, for sure.

This all happens at about 7 PM: LNWDL has already taped for today, so it wouldn't be on until tomorrow.  TiVo, don't fail me now!





- posted by Don Porges @ 7/27/2004 01:09:00 AM |