Laughter = good. Booing = bad.

So Letterman was very cool. While the guests weren't the greatest due to all the stars being in LA for the Golden Globes, I did love seeing Amy Sedaris. There was some magician (I can't remember his name). He did some slight of hand card tricks. It was okay. Then, the weirdest part, America played with Ryan Adams and Ben someone-or-another. I'm sure the kids know him. But what WAS cool was that I was in the fourth row right behind the band - spitting distance, not that I would spit on them. I think that would have been frowned upon.

I was there by myself, which was a little weird since everyone else was all coupled up, but my guest couldn't make it so they recycled his ticket to the standby audience. Aside from the standby audience, the show also sends people out to Times Square to hand out tickets. I guess they want a diversified audience.

There is A LOT of pepping the audience up by the interns before the show. That quickly grew tiresome. Actually I was more excited about being at the show BEFORE they started trying to get us excited about being at the show. Anyway, what happens is you show up at 2 p.m. to queue for the tickets you've already been given. You get to the front, you tell the guy your last name, you show your ID. They send you inside. You go to another person who asks, "Who's list are you on?" I told her I was on Jamie's. They send you to another person who asks your name and checks your ID again. Then they hand you your ticket. You go stand in a group and they tell you to come back at 3:30 p.m. and stand in line again...this time lining up in the order of the number on your ticket. I was 54 (I think. I can't remember, exactly now.)

I had an hour to kill so I went to Starbucks. A little before 3:30, I return, queue up again. In the first line I had made friends with the people behind me, Vivian from Alabama and Robert from England. And so that gave me something to do in the second queue as well since they were right behind me. Anyway, after waiting for a while, they cram you into the foyer of the theatre and talk to you about what you can and can't do (yes to clapping; no to booing. yes to laughing no to high pitched sounds like whistling and "woo-hoo"s because of the finely tuned microphones or something like that). They go on about how important it is to be animated and to laugh LOUD even if you're not sure something is funny. And so on. Finally we are let into the theatre and there are staffers whose job it is to direct the pretty people (I guess) to the floor and the un-TV friendly people up to the balcony. Once in the theatre proper, staffers direct you to the front or the back, to the aisle or inside. I'm not sure what it says about me that I was so close. But I was glad for the view of the band.

There's a warm up guy that tells jokes, they show funny clips of Dave skits, the band plays. Then Dave comes out a few minutes before the show and talks to the audience. Then the show starts. Most of the show is obscured. You can't see anything because of all the cameras on stage. Probably the people in the balcony can actually see what's going on stage better. Meanwhile we are watching it on monitors.

During the commercial breaks Dave and the writers are constantly scratching out notes and rewriting the next bit. That was weird to me. You'd think they'd have it mostly set by the time the show starts.

The hour went by fast. There was only one screw up that they did over. That was when Dave was introducing America and he stumbled and then called the cue card guy over to confer. Then the band started back up and they came in from "commercial break" again. I've never been an America fan but they were great. And when they went out to commercial break, the Late Show band started playing the "Through the desert on a horse with no name" song, which I think is the only one of its songs that I know. So America joins in and the lead singer starts singing the lyrics, totally impromptu, and they finished the song coming back in from commercial break. That was a nice moment.

And then it's over and everyone is dumped back out in the cold before you even know it.

I walked back to Grand Central afterward. I needed the air to slap me back to reality. But the walk was also over too soon. I suppose I could have kept walking, but instead I caught the 6:51 home.

I guess I'll watch it again tonight. See if it seems different on my TV at home, though since I watched most of it on the monitor the first time around, I suppose it won't.