Back in May, I found out through Twitter that the Daily Show was going to be taping in St Paul during the RNC, and that tickets were available. I ended up reserving 4 for last Friday's taping

Fast forward to last week - and Jenni had an extra ticket on Tuesday, so I was just going to go then. But then riots and stupidness happened and we decided not to go on Tuesday - with left me with the 4 for friday which we did decide to use.

I sorted out who would go with, and left several co-workers dismayed that they couldn't go after there being a possibility that they could... oh well, should've gotten tix in May! 

Having heard that people were getting there increasingly early every day from some of those that had reported back in blogs and on Twitter, I decided that we should get down there nice and early last Friday. I couldn't get out of work till 12:30 but decided that I'd head down there immediately afterwords to secure a spot in line. Erin was the first to arrive and she was already in line by the time I got there. I had originally gone to the back not realizing she was already there, so it was pretty funny when I realized it and was able to move up 10 people in line or so.

Cindy and Jake, her co-worker showed up soon after, and we prepared to wait... we were all there by 1:30 and they did not let us in until close to 5, so it was a good 3.5-4 hour wait. We were allowed to come and go from the line and let our friends placehold till they actually came out with the "ticket" we'd use for admission, so some of us did that. I ended up going to Jimmy John's a few blocks away, and who's standing there inside the entry with his entourage, but John Stewart himself!! almost ran into them and didn't even realize it was him until I noticed that there was a bit of a comotion going on... He left before I could say anything or get a picture, and I ended up following them down the street back towards the theater.

The show was taped at the History Theater at McNally Smith college of Music, which is right on the edge of downtown St Paul, a few blocks from the capital. It's a relatively small theater and there's no bad seats. Given that we were there at 1:00 or thereabouts, and were about 50th in line, we figured we were going to be able to get in with no problems. The line kept growning and growing, and it was pretty clear that a lot of people were not going to get in.

They started letting VIP's in about 4pm... it turned out that there were about 150 VIPs, including Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak.

Around 4:30 they started coming around with the tickets which just consisted of a laminated card with a number and Daily Show St Paul written on it.
We were 226-230 in our group, and figured since we got the card that we were getting in for sure.

The line was configured as such that it curved back on itself, and so the people that showed up around 3pm were next to us. They started to realize they probably were not getting in, though I didn't see anybody actually leave until the line started moving. I think a lot of people thought they could just waltz in at 3:30 and walk right in, but if you got there that late, you probably didn't get into any of the 4 tapings during the week. I knew this from doing my homework, which was good. I had also seen somewhere that they typically overbook these things by 50% to account for no-shows - since the tickets are free, there's little to no disincentive for people to just not show up, as we had done for the Tuesday taping.

So, finally, the line starts to move. They told us as we were going into the building to turn off all cell phones and that if they saw anybody using them during the taping that they would confiscate them (and cameras). We went through metal detectors and were herded into the lobby of the theater.

From that point on, they seated us by number. We ended up sitting in the second to last row on the left side of the stage, right in front of RT Rybak (Minneapolis Mayor) which was pretty cool. The theater was small enough that you could see everything quite easily. It's quite cool to walk into the theater for the first time and see the Daily Show set you'd been watching on TV all week.

Paul Mecurio, the warm up guy, finally came out and got us to try and make as much noise as we could while picking on members of the audience.

Finally, Stewart emerges to do his Q&A. People asked lame questions, but the last one was "If you could have any food on a stick, what would it be?" Stewart didn't really have an answer...

and just like that, the taping started. If you watched the daily show last Friday the 5th, you saw that the food on stick thing got into Stewart's intro. Kind of cool to see that go from a pre-show question to an ad-lib on the actual show in 3 minutes flat.

There was only 1 correspondent segment on the show, and it was done by turning one of the video screens behind stewart to the right into a green screen. So the correspondent was literally 2 feet from Stewart when doing the split screen bit, which is pretty funny to watch in person. There was lots of video clips on Friday's show and less live stuff, so we sat and watched the clips with Stewart most of the time. Stewart laughs a lot, and mugs even when he's not on camera. Some "instant-classic" clips were in this show about McCain and such.

And just like that, it was over. After the tape stopped rolling, Stewart thanked the crew for all their hard work the past two weeks on remote shoots, and brought out all of the correspondents. Then, we left - the set dismantle was already beginning behind us.

A great experience to have, and I'm so glad we were able to get in. It was totally worth the wait.

So hey LJ, how goes it?

OK, I've had enough of the long-form episodes of the Office. They can't fill it with enough material for one topic, and last night's episode was so schtizophrenically all over the place that it was hard to follow. And also, when did this show become a drama? It's not been overly funny at all this season. The only thing I found mildy amusing (if not completely off the wall)was the Dwight agro tourism bit at his farm.

But otherwise, depression city. Although Dwight seems to be back on track now, Micheal is a wreck, and I found his storyline to be more depressing than anything else.

I hope they go back to the half hour format soon - I had read somewhere that they were not going to do full hours all year. It's a sitcom, and they almost never work in the extended format. I want something that's laugh out loud funny for 22 minutes - which The Office has been until this year.

Does anybody else share my sentiments or am I just crabby?

I think they are taking a great show and running it into the ground.

So we are through the main premiere week of TV Shows. My favorite new TV show thus far may in fact be Dirty Sexy Money, with a strong consolation nod to Journeyman. DSM is kinda what I thought it would be, it feels sorta Arested Developmenty in a dramatic kind of sense. Two things not to miss - Billy (I can't call him William, sorry) Baldwin as the DA running for US Senate having a tryst with a tranny and playin the jackass politician so well, and Peter Krause doing his thing. A great role for him. Hope this makes it.

Journeyman is worth watching, at least for now, because it's one of those shows where its not immediately obvious what's going on, in a very Lost sort of way. Dude just warps in and out of the present day and, thus far, has tended to go back to the 80s and 90s. There's an ex fiancee (wife?) that's supposed to be dead but may not in fact be. It hooked me enough. Plus I need more Monday night shows anyway.

Big Shots seems like a waste of time. I might give it another epsisode or two, but it's Desparate Husbands, and still very much a chick show.

Speaking of chick shows, Private Practice is lame - I couldn't even get 5 minutes into it without wanting to stab my eyes out.

From the returning regulars, CSI was aight, but lets move on with things. This story got way too drawn out. The Office was OK, not quite sidesplitting as usual, and I think the hour format is sorta weak - it's a sitcom and there's a reason why they are usually a half hour long.

Watching Survivor for the first time in its entirety (I've caught bits and pieces of other seasons) and liking it so far. Interesting cast.

Really wishing that the Amazing Race was on right now, but alas, it does not come back until January.

Otherwise, business as usual on the TV front.

Lots of new shows coming up. Fall is always one of those times with lots of new stuff coming out. The problem is choosing what to watch and being vested in. Here's a few I'm looking at.

Dirty Sexy Money: I'm mostly intriuged by this one because Six Feet Under alum Peter Krause is starring in it. Not to mention Donald Sutherland and Billy Baldwin. The premise looks kind of stupid. But I love Krause, and he might carry this. Wednesdays at 9 central, ABC. Starts Sept 26th.

Big Shots: uhhh... gonna check this one out. If for no other reason then we need more shows about men. or whatever. Thursdays at 9 central, ABC. Starts Sept 27th.

Private Practice: Will end up watching this one by default. My wife is a huge Gray's Anatomy fan and this is the spin off. I've watched Gray's with her since season 2, so by default, will at least check this one out. Wednesdays at 8 central, ABC. Starts September 26th.

The Big Bang Theory: Nerds and chicks. The previews look mildly amusing. Need some comedy to replace The Class which was canceled.

That's it for the new shows.

As far as returners, I'm going to watch the usual: CSI, Gray's, The Office, etc. I'm also going to try and catch Survivor:China from the get go - I've not watched one season of it from start to finish, and really have not ever been vested in the show at all.

24, Lost and Amazing Race are all coming back at the mid season.

I've stuck with the Apprentice, but I'm done with that this year. Tired and worn out show. Biggest Loser and Beauty and the Geek are filling out my reality slate this fall.

I'm also watching Tell Me You Love Me on HBO. Interesting show about sex and relationships. I like it... even if it is a bit graphic.

Anything else y'all are watching this fall?

Went to DJ Tiesto at myth last night. Was generally impressed with the quality of Myth (even though it is in Maplewood). Drinks seemed to vary from bar to bar quite a bit - at the full service bar they were 2.50 more than at the portable stations. A nice place.

What I didn't like - the place was a fucking mob scene for a dance show. you could barely move anywhere in the whole joint. or at least anywhere where you could clearly hear the music. kind of defeats the purpose of a dance show. the crowd was an interesting mixture of people, but more than a few frat boy douchebags were in attendance, including at least one that tried to steal one of my glow sticks.

Jumi and Josh bailed about half way through tiesto's set. I hung around for another half hour but also bailed early. Tiesto's set was ok, but the 5 minute video intro followed by it taking him a good 15-20 to get anything going in it kind of killed it for me. The fact that I would go from being able to move around to pinned up against the wall in minutes sucked too.

So yeah. Don't think I'll be going to another techno show there, unless I know it's one that won't draw as much.

I was on the 35W bridge that collapsed just a few hours before it happened. I had to go attend to some business with my brother who lives in Columbia Heights, which is just north of there. I was also cursing it the whole time because traffic was a clusterfuck on that bridge even at 3. On my way back, at around 5:30 I took the central bridge through downtown to meet some friends in South Minneapolis. I would have probably been on that bridge at some point right before the collapse, but the construction deterred me. That freaked me out a little bit tonight. Normally, I wouldn't be anywhere near that bridge during that time of day, because I live and work in the south suburbs.

So, we were out at dinner and at around 6:30 my brother kept calling me but my phone would not answer the call, it would drop right away. I tried to call him back and got no service. Thought it was a little strange because I had full bars of service. By the time we got back to our friends house in south Minneapolis, their neighbors told us that the bridge had collapsed as we were getting out the car. They said the Washington Avenue Bridge and at first I thought maybe it had been that one, but we turned on the TV and realized very quickly that a huge disaster had just occurred on a bridge that I've been over thousands of times.

Not even 20 seconds later the texts from friends and family started rolling in. Very strange feeling that. I've not lived in an area where personal concern for people's lives was that kind of widespread thing as the result of a tradgedy.

Talked to family and friends as we could get service tonight to tell them we were OK. My parents even called from their trip in Alaska to make sure we were OK. I also called my grandma and she was relieved - she's a CNN junkie and I knew right away she was going to be trying to call. She was, for an hour and got all circuits buy over and over again. I think I need to get a land line for emergency purposes.

This one hit too close to home for a lot of us, I'm sure.

Headed out to Chicago on Thursday night with cashbox, f_o_n_y and soyouthink. WE are going to see the Cubs on Friday during the day and the Brewers on Saturday night.

I was in charge of Cubs tickets, and was having some trouble finding anything for a decent price. The game has been sold out for a while, and day games on Fridays at Wrigley - not always the easiest ticket to come by.

Wendy found us a good deal which seemed shady at first, but seems to have worked out. I paid for those tickets yesterday afternoon. I had an Ebay auction where I was bidding on seats as well, and I was praying I'd get outbid. Well, I didn't. So now I have two sets of 4 tickets for Friday's game.

Thank goodness for Craigslist. I listed the extras on there and already have a commitment from someone to buy them, whom I have to meet on Friday morning in Chicago.

In other news, I made a nice steak dinner last night for Katie and myself. I picked up some grilling steaks from Von Hanson's meat market. They were pretty good. I need to do that more often- Von Hanson's has such a good selection of meat.

Otherwise, just crusin' though the week, trying to get to Thursday so I can leave town yet again.

TIME TO FIND A NEW COLO.

That is all.

Love,

billhelm

White Light Riot's (my cousins' band) new CD came out today. It's called Atomism. It's available at all the local indie record shops. It should also be on Itunes shortly, if it isn't already. I've had an advance copy for several months and I have to say, it's worth checking out. And I'm not just saying that because they are family. It's good stuff.

They are playing a CD release show at the Fine Line on Saturday night, with the Alarmists. I will be there.

They are also gonna be on TV - Kare 11 Minnesota Showcase on Thursday at 10 and the WCCO morning news at 6 am on Friday. I'm firing up my DVR to record these.

They have a blog here as well. That they actually seem to be updating on a semi-regular basis. And doesn't require a Myspace login.

They are also playing on Friday at noon in Peavey Plaza downtown, and at a Mill City concert series in July. They are also playing at Summerfest in Milwaukee, which we will be stopping to see on our way back from Ohio.

I'm really excited for them, the album got a pretty good review in City Pages. There's going to be writeups in the strib and pipress this week too.