Feeling like a vampire, I threw on some shades and on four
hours of sleep, I went to retrieve my car at the scene of the crime. I can tell
you that tequila and herbal X are not your friends the morning after an epic
night of partying. Frankly, I was amazed that my car was still there and it
wasn’t jacked up.
Recovery was on my agenda for the weekend. I wanted to make
sure I was in fine form for Monday. Plus, I had several things I had to do for
various classes so the plan was to hang out at the beach and then work on some
scripts.
After a day of playing in the sun and surf, I was ready to
go home. The minute I walked in the door though, my roommate Stacey had other
ideas. “Hey, remember that real cute guy I met in directing,
Adam?” I nodded.
“Well, he is throwing a party tonight at his place and he wanted us to come.”
Rolling my eyes, I told her, “Look, I have to do some
writing and I have to be sharp for Monday.”
“Well, this is Saturday. You will have a day to recover.”
I realized that resistance was futile and that she would
just bug the crap out of me until I relented.
“Okay. When is this soiree?”
“10 p.m.”
“At least that gives me a little time to get things done and
besides you will need the bathroom for several hours. You know 45 minute lips
and stuff.”
Looking rather annoyed, she disappeared. Once again,
derailment of my best laid plans. I spent majority of the night punching up
scenes for my screenwriting classes.
Stacey was busy doing her primping thing and unfortunately, since I
don’t necessarily heed my own advice, a bottle of vodka was calling my name in
the fridge.
While I waited for drama queen, I decided to toss back a few Cape Cods. Finally, she emerged from her lair looking like Norma Desmond waiting for her close up. We headed into the night toward Loyola Marymount and whatever potentially bad decisions were awaiting us.
 |
| My lips are drop dead sexy. |
Once we got to the neighborhood, parking was a bitch. We
ended up having to walk a block. LMU is located in a lovely suburb of Los
Angeles called Westminster. At the time I attended the university, the area was
rather posh but not like Beverly Hills outrageous. Adam’s parents lived in a
really beautiful house which could have been featured on the pages of “Architectural
Digest.”
I knew some of the people milling about so as I stopped and
chatted with everyone, Stacey was whisked away to hold court somewhere. Lucky
for me, I found the bar right away. I figured that sticking with vodka was
probably a safe bet.
After several more drinks, I was feeling quite relaxed. Stacey
had disappeared and I managed to find some people from my classes and spent
majority of my time with them. I had to use the bathroom so after I was pointed
in the right direction, I headed off.
The staircase to the upper level was magnificent. By the time,
I reached the top, I couldn’t remember if I needed to make a left or right
turn. I decided on the left. Wrong call, on my part.
Remember that scene in The Shining where a guy in a costume was in a rather suggestive position? Well, I came flying through the door and stumbled in to the 50 Shades of Grey dimension. For a moment, I had to pause and focus because I wasn’t quite sure what I was seeing. After I figured it out and became monumentally frightened, I hightailed it out of there before something insane went down.
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| Care to join us? |
Getting my bearings, I decided to try door number 2 which
was on the right. Stealing myself before heading in, I turned the handle and
walked in to several people focused on cutting lines of coke on the bathroom
mirror. They must have been ingenious because somehow, they managed to take the
ornate item off of the wall. Not wanting to disturb the potential Scarface
scene, I extricated myself rather quickly.
 |
| My heart is beating so fast, man! |
Several people were already frolicking sans clothing in the
pool. After leaving behind the Studio 54 house, I managed to somehow enter a
portal into the 60s. Stacey and company were passing around joints and just
walking into their circle left me in a “Purple Haze.”
I told her I was going to
motor and I was rather relieved that she and Adam had hit it off so I wouldn’t
have to wait around for her. Not one to pass up recreational “activities” I
took a couple of hits and left.
 |
| Groovy |
Thankfully, the drive home passed without incident. PCH was
beautiful and the moon was out. I guess you could say it was the type of thing
you picture when you dream of living in LA. The moment I was inside my house, I
went into my bedroom and immediately crashed.
Sunday passed without incident and before I knew it, Monday
rolled around. I was due to report for duty at 9:30, so that meant getting up
at an ungodly hour to get ready. Extremely nervous, but dressed for success, I
headed into the early morning full of excitement and butterflies in my stomach.
I arrived on time which was terrific. Making my way inside
the building, I stopped at the security desk to pick up my pass. It was
official! I now had access to CBS- Television City. I rode the elevator up to
the production offices. The closer I got to the door, the more nervous I
became. Counting to ten,
I walked in to what was going to be a pretty intensive
three-month gig.
Everything was pretty quiet. First order of business was to go
see Billy in his office. Before I could knock, he opened the door and seemed
rather surprised to see me.
“Oh, hey! I see you remembered where we were.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s pretty busy so let me take you around to meet some of
the people.”
This was like a whirlwind of information. I met
both segment producers, the producers, the research department and then I was
ushered in to meet perhaps the scariest person of all, Peter Lassally. This man was a legend in talk show host
production. He was the executive producer of The Tonight Show with Johnny
Carson for years. He also executive produced Letterman’s show.
 |
| Legendary Producer |
Normally, I am pretty cool but this was enough to make me
want to pass out! As it turns out, he was extremely nice even asking me about
what I was doing at LMU.
After narrowly escaping a freak out episode, Billy took me
to meet Tom’s assistant, Kelly. Kelly was a nice chap from the UK. He had been
with Tom for years. He was in charge of basically running Snyder’s life on the
show.
Another interesting bit was actually going to the studio and
seeing where the “magic” happened. I really enjoyed this because I was wanting
to get experience in television production as well. I was introduced to the “booth”
personnel which consisted of the director and his group.
Introductions made, Billy and I walked up to the offices
where my day officially began. I did your standard routines like help with
administrative functions, mail, and even assisting Kelly with Tom’s fan mail.
Then of course, there was picking up lunches and coffee runs.
Since my desk was the very first one in front of
the door, I routinely got a glimpse of all incoming traffic. As it just so
happens, I was involved with a task from the research department when I got the
surprise of my life. I was in the midst of working on sorting the mail when Tom
Snyder walked in.
 |
| The late, great, Tom Snyder |
This was straight up bananas. I grew up watching the
Tomorrow show and now this man was actually standing in front of me. I thought
he would ignore me and just carry on but that didn’t happen.
“So, you must be the new intern?”
“Yes.”
“Nice to meet you….”
“My name is Susan.”
“Nice to meet you, Susan.”
“It’s a pleasure, Mr. Snyder.”
“Call me Tom.”
Well, that threw me for a loop. Then he sauntered away to
begin his day leaving me to quietly stroke out. Thankfully enough, the rest of
the afternoon passed without further incident.
My internship only required me to be there three days out of
the week. However, this quickly turned into five days. I was very eager to take
advantage of this opportunity and to be honest with you, it was way better
getting hands on experience then discussing theories in a classroom.
The show filmed on Friday nights and for the
first part of it, I would man the telephones in case we got a call from our
other executive producer, Robert “Morty” Morton. For all of you fans of the
early Letterman years on NBC and CBS, he was a familiar face and also the
executive producer of The Late Show with David Letterman.
 |
| Hey, Morty! Welcome to transfer hell. |
Of course, the very first night I helmed the phone, around
10:15, it rang.
“Hello. Late Late Show.”
“Hey, hi!”
“Hi?”
“Yeah, this is Morty.”
Okay, at this point, I damned near dropped the phone. Be
cool, don’t lose your shit, Susan.
“How are you, Morty?”
“I’m great. Who is this?”
I just looked at the receiver. It sounded like he was in his
car or something and this whole conversation was unbelievable.
“I’m Susan.”
“Susan, can I speak with Tammy?”
Tammy happened to be one of the producers.
“Sure. One moment, please.”
Now, this phone was pretty standard and straight forward.
The transfer button was not a big mystery.
However, suddenly, I felt like NASA
needed to talk me through the mechanics of this phone transfer from Mission
Control.
After fumbling with several buttons, I managed
to find the right combination. I rang Tammy’s office and announced the call. Of course, when I hit transfer, how was I to
know that I was actually going to send our executive producer into oblivion?
 |
| NASA? Can you help me transfer this call from Mission Control? |
Smiling and feeling pretty confident, I immediately got a
call from Tammy. She was pretty livid. I felt like I was being yelled at by
Charlie Brown’s teacher. Fortunately, Morty did call back and this time, he
reached his proper destination. Good times.
Weeks went by and every day was a new experience. One morning,
I remember walking in to the kitchen area only to be shocked to see the
comedian, Steven Wright getting a Coke from the refrigerator. Trying to be
nonchalant, I gave him a nod and a “What’s up?” So smooth, I know.
Another fun experience was Friday night cocktails on the set
after the show. It was sort of like a wrap party with a full bar. Tom was
partial to vodka martinis. He actually made me a drink and we talked about going
to Catholic school. Who would’ve thought that one day I would’ve been kicking
it, knocking back drinks with a talk show legend? Priceless.
I also got to take a couple of turns in the production booth
as well. One of the highlights is they actually let me do the teleprompter! No,
I didn’t do anything crazy like Anchorman (F&*# you, San Diego!). The
energy of doing a live show was exciting and just being in that atmosphere was
better than any college class.
One memorable incident occurred in the elevator.
I was bringing something to one of the producers. On the way down, someone got
on with an entourage. Now, my pleasant ride was jam packed. Out of the corner
of my eye, I noticed this guy with a smug look on his face almost saying, “Yeah,
you know who I am.” Years later, this wonderful individual would be the star of
a show, we will call “40 Pebble,” on NBC. What I can tell you is at the time he
was wearing these gigantic hideous green glasses. I remember that I wanted to
punch that arrogance right off his face.
 |
| You know you want me. |
My
internship was almost finished. However, it was going to go out with a bang. We
were all called to a meeting in the conference room by Peter Lassally. David
Letterman was coming to our offices to prepare for the Oscars. I could feel my
heart skip a couple of beats.
 |
| Don't look at me! |
The very next thing I know, me and the other intern, Mike
were shuffled into a closed-door meeting with Billy where we were given
explicit instructions on how to handle Letterman’s impending visit.
We could not
engage Dave in any way. The kicker was we weren’t allowed to look at him! This
news sucked really hard. Here I was getting the chance of a lifetime to be
around someone that I had a crush on since I was sixteen and it was just going
to be extremely awkward.
Activity was amped up in the office. One of the tasks that
we were challenged with was creating a “playbook” for Dave to study of all the
Oscar nominees and the films. This sounds easy, but it wasn’t. The research was
painstaking and the actual construction was a bitch trying to get the binders
together.
I won’t lie, it was also exciting. I spent several nights
helping out until 2 a.m. Things were crazy, we were punchy but it was totally
worth it. Finally, the books were assembled and waiting for Dave and his
writers.
The day after one of the marathon playbook sessions, I
entered the office only to be greeted by the exceptionally animated receptionist,
Kathy. “Susan, don’t be too excited but Dave is here. So, make sure if you see
him, don’t make eye contact and don’t talk to him.”
“Okay, Kathy. Sure.” Inwardly I thought if I accidentally
glance at him will I turn into stone? Will I cease to exist? Shrugging it off,
I grabbed some coffee and headed into the conference room to begin the task of
sorting mail. This was a mind-numbing activity but it would help to take my
mind off being nervous.
About half way through the sorting, the door to the
conference room opened. I looked up to find myself face to face with David
Letterman. Holy crap! Damn it! I just looked at him. We stood there for a
moment. Immediately, I averted my eyes and pretended to care about the mail.
He left the room. Breathing a sigh of relief,
the door opened up again, Letterman looked at me with this quizzical look on
his face. Of course, me being so poised, I stood there with what I am certain
was a look of abject terror on my visage. Thankfully, he left the room.
 |
| Yep. I am so smooth. |
After
the Oscar ceremony, my internship drew to a close. Everyone was so gracious.
The entire staff threw me a going away party. Even Tom and Peter Lassally
attended and they sang, “Happy Trails.” That was something to see and a great
memory that makes me smile to this day. Another parting gift from the crew,
they put my name in the credits. I still have that VHS tape. You never know when
it might come in handy.
 |
| Hey everyone! I was on tv! |
My learning experience ended. I didn’t know quite where the
road would lead me. Then again, I was certain it would be exciting.
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