"CAN YOU GET HIS AUTOGRAPH?!," I said.
This won me the fanboy award of the day. Maybe it was the all caps reply, or the fact that I said this within moments of the admission that someone I work with has been in close proximity to someone who breathed the same air as Stephen Colbert. It's impossible to tell what exactly fit the criteria.
The award? A ticket to see a taping of The Colbert Report.
The company I work for had given donations to several foundations and causes at the end of last year.
Arrangements were made, and I was told I'd be sitting in a guest area. I got an email from a representative at WikiMedia with contact information in case I had any trouble.
I just had to spend the weekend trying not to vibrate from anticipation. Which isn't easy. I vibrate a lot when I'm excited.
I checked and rechecked the route; I would take the R train to 57th street on the West Side, then hike the last few blocks to the studio. I checked with Google for a travel estimate, and double checked the route with HopStop on my phone. I then padded the estimate to take into account the fact that I'm a lumbering oaf with a poor sense of direction.
I managed to get to the 57th street station and accidentally exit on 55th street. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand how the subways are marked; it's like going to the 51st street station and apparently exiting at 54th street, where I keep seeing this wonderful "Melt Shop" where I promise myself that next time I'm going to try one of their grilled cheese delights. Every time I find a subway station marked as a street, I never manage to exit at that street. It's just weird.
At any rate, seeing as I was headed to 54th street, fortune was obviously on my side in that I was now closer to my goal; somehow, given a 50/50 shot, I usually go the wrong way first and end up backtracking. I checked my Trello note to verify the studio address once again and trekked off. But before I could continue, my phone chimed.
The email was from Sara, the person coordinating my visit with WikiMedia. She said the crew was running a little behind, so I could arrive closer to 6:30 than 6:00. I sent a message back saying I wasn't all that far away, but I can just take my time now, so it's all good!
Plus there was a chance that it would make me a better target for a mugging. I don't know if it was my imagination, but that area of the island seem less lit than the areas I was used to. Or it could have been my imagination. I don't know.
I turned and walked back to the middle line, and noticed a guy with a clipboard.
"Excuse me," I said. "Is this to see...the Colbert Report?"
"Sorry, but if you wanted to get in you'd have to be here before six. Tickets are all sold..."
"But I'm," and at this point I'm fumbling with my phone so I can pull up the email, "I'm looking for Sara. She said,"
He cut me off. "You must be a guest, then? Guest seats can get in up those steps," he said, pointing beyond the amateur paparazzi. "If your name's on the list you can sign in there."
Guest seating...on the list. Squee!
I walked up the stairs and another gentleman opened the door. I stepped through and found an attractive young woman sitting in the foyer. She looked up. "Are you Bart?"
"I am..."
"I'm Sara!" she said, shaking my hand. I'm feeling the sweat on my arms and back, despite the chilly January air that had soaked through my thin jacket during my several block walk from the subway station. At least my hands were dry. Thank $DEITY for small miracles.
We signed in at the desk, where we were issued little Colbert Report name tag stickers, then directed to a conference room area.
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| Face hidden since I didn't ask her for permission... |
It was quite interesting, just looking around at all the books and works of patriotic art.
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| What could be more patriotic? |
The seats were in a small section right in the front, near the area where Stephen does interviews with guests. I sat down and sent a message to my wife letting her know that I was now seated in studio, and that was when a stern looking man in a suit jacket firmly warned me that I would need to turn off my cellphone. I nodded an acknowledgement and tucked the phone away.
A man in a seat next to me had his camera phone out over a "break," and I heard him get chastised and told to put the device away. I'm guessing there was a "no camera or recording device" rule somewhere that I must have missed.
Regardless, I was a guest of someone else's kindness, and I wasn't going to embarrass my company by getting kicked out or chastised by Colbert security. I wanted to, but didn't. Take pictures. Not get kicked out.
The set; oh the set! Quite shocking how much smaller it is in person to see. The desk where Stephen does his routine must be only 15 feet or so from the table where he interviews guests. When he does his runaround bit, you'd think there'd be a lot more room...you'd be wrong. All camera angle trickery. I think the entire set was smaller than the average high school stage, not more than 40 feet wide. There were two cameras taping him, along with one boom camera; those were all that I noticed, at least. There are also two television sets mounted on top of the set, so you can see what is being recorded, complete with the news story and picture-in-picture effects.
A comedian came out first to warm up the audience. He was actually funny; Paul Mecurio. I wouldn't mind seeing his full act at a comedy club. He even managed to find an unemployed pedicab driver a date in the audience...but I guess you had to be there to see the humor in that.
Then came THE STEPHEN. He actually started off by letting the audience ask questions before he "got into character," drawing a distinction between the Stephen Colbert of onscreen and the Stephen Colbert of the stage persona. They sounded a bit alike, but you can tell when he's breaking character. He avoided getting too personal, though; I think he was acting as a second warm-up to the audience, winding us up so he could feed off the energy for his own performance. And he was a funny guy, both as Stephen Colbert and Stephen Colbert.
One neat thing they do is overlay graphics on the fly. When he's pointing to an image hovering over his shoulder, it's already there. As in, we can see it on the TV above the set, and he can no doubt see it on a monitor; I was suprised it's not added in post production.
His comedy bits are already mostly pre-assembled. When he does his on-comera bit then the home audience sees a cut to a clip, he really does pause and we (the audience) see the clip play. The stage manager then does a quick countdown to let Stephen know when the camera will "go live" again, and Stephen steels himself and poses for the camera to cut back to him. During the time camera cut away; Stephen will grab a drink from under the desk and stash the mug away just as the clip ends and he's live again.
No NASCAR race is complete without crashes, and no studio taping is complete without flubs. Stephen had a couple errors during the recording. One of them I'll have to see what it looks like...at one point he has to sign agreements because he's being racist, and the lawyers keep coming in to warn him. When the woman steps up, Colbert flubbed a line with the word "hormonal" (or a variant of the word.) Instead of reshooting that scene, he just looped the word "hormonal."
It was good to see him flubbing a line. Watching the entertainment product, it all seems so fluid and perfect, but here you see the manufacturing of the product, humanizing the process. For someone with an old background in theater this was quite fascinating!
The show was taped from about 7:15 until 8:00. The crew will then stitch everything together and iron out the rough parts in time for the show to air around 11:30, which I thought was an amazingly tight schedule.
The taping ended and I was taken backstage where I walked three feet from Stephen Colbert! He was engaged in conversation with someone, so I couldn't bring myself to interrupt.
We slipped into the green room, which was in reality slightly larger than a walk-in closet, but had a monitor mounted on the wall and some comfortable seats. Jimmy Wales was in the room with a painter friend I had met earlier while waiting in the conference room. All the guests were standing around, and Jimmy stood and began introducing himself.
I extended my hand. "I'm Bart, with Stack Exchange," I said. "I wanted to thank you for the opportu-"
Before I finished, he was already talking to someone else. After a few moments, Sara turned to me and asked if I had my headphones.
"Yes, I have them right here," I said, holding them up.
She then asked if she could show me out. Which was understandable; I am not a well-known name, and these people were staff members or friends. I was Charlie Bucket. Only I doubt Stephen would ever offer me a spot at the Colbert news desk.
I wanted to ask if I could get a picture of Stephen Colbert, as I was so close to him...just a few more moments and he might have completed his conversation, giving a lull through which I could force myself to engage in some interaction with one of my heroes.
I was kind of ushered out through the exit and onto the sidewalk. Perhaps I should have been more forceful. I should have shown more...moxie. Is that the word? Had the guts to interrupt Stephen Colbert outside the green room, and ask if I could take his picture? That is probably the only chance I'd ever get.
I sighed, messaged my wife that the taping was over, and was at least happy that I had a couple of pictures from the conference room of the Colbert Report offices, which most of the audience would never see. I was offered drink from their kitchen. I almost used the bathroom near the kitchen, just to say I did that..."I flushed Stephen Colbert's toilet." I'd write that in my Christmas cards.
Then I walked back to the apartment.
As I headed up fifth ave, inwardly lamenting that my new sneakers weren't broken in well yet and were now squeezing the hell out of my feet, I saw two people huddled on the sidewalk under a blanket. Like most New Yorkers, I have grown pretty used to ignoring the homeless at this point. If you engage them, you risk being robbed, or taken advantage of, or perhaps followed and harassed. The city can have a certain dehumanizing effect that way.
This couple had a sign that I glanced at as I passed. Cardboard, with big markered letters, saying they were travelers that were hungry and had no money or family.
It's possible they're scammers, or just posing as homeless. But I had a good night, and felt really thankful for my employers generosity in letting me attend the taping. Maybe I also inhaled a few too many vapors from passing cars as I trekked across the island. I had traveled long enough that my feet were begging me to just get to the apartment so I could take the shoes off and let my feet breathe.
I stopped at a vendor in front of the Apple Store. "How much are the pretzels?"
"Two. Two dollars."
"Give me two then," I said.
The vendor bagged them up; I gave him a five, he gave me a buck and the bag. Then I walked back to the couple. They nodded a greeting when I stopped in front of them; I handed the brown bag to the young man, nodded, and turned away. Despite my earphones I could hear them say something about blessings and thanking me as I walked away.
I didn't really need that. Not that time. I had my thanks in the form of a good night from my employer, and all I wanted to do was try to improve someone else's night a little as well. Maybe it wasn't much, but that's gotta count for something, right?
Great story Bart
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