A face, a voice, an overdub has no choice

[austin_dern]

My father and I spent the rest of our hour before Late Night got started accepting people wandering around Rockefeller Center's lowermost levels and looking for a restroom because, as the pages repeatedly warned, admission to the studio began at 4:30 and there would be no stops for anyone until the show's taping would be done around two hours later. They mean this. Late night talk shows are done live-to-tape and they hate it when anything disrupts that timing. We ultimately found a bathroom off to the side of the ice skating rink but below it, in what turned out to be 10 Rockefeller Center, and from there we ended up walking around trying to see how many buildings we could get without making a systematic effort and without really knowing what numbers there were. 45 Rockefeller Center is kind of disappointing, in that it has a really dull lobby, but it's got some neat statues of Art Deco gods built into the walls which photographing will prompt the security guy to ask if you need help with anything.

With it about 4:15 we walked back to 30 Rockefeller Center and got to the mezzanine level where we showed our tickets and our wristbands, which neither of us had actually put around our wrists. My father couldn't figure how to seal the thing, and I wanted to see how long I could get away without it. I do that. We were lined up on the mezzanine level again, although this time on the other side of the building, where the only thing of interest to look at was yet another door marked ``Top Of The Rock'' and yet down at the bottom of the Rock. This was the employees' entrance, though, so I suppose they do have to come in an inconspicuous way. I hope they don't have to walk to the top.

For this new line we were to be arranged by our ticket numbers, so the line saw a bit of shuffling as people below our number, 14, were put in ahead. This must have gone on behind us too, but that wasn't nearly so interesting to me. As the line grew a reporter and an HD camera person with WNBC wandered around the line picking out people and asking whether they were fans of Conan, and how did they get tickets, and how excited were they, to which everyone gave identical answers. The small woman behind me in line was one of those picked --- she was a fan, and she got tickets by sending in e-mail, and she and her friend were very excited --- for the camera interviewing. I did my best to stand up straight and accept there was a nontrivial chance that my stomach would end up as background to her brief exchange. I did my best to hold my eyes as wide open as I could, because I've learned that when I leave my eyes their normal opening I look in pictures as if I'm asleep. Whether my stomach did get on the local news I have no idea. Nobody seems to have recognized me, not even my mother. Probably I wasn't on.

Trivia: The launch of what became Vanguard 1 on 17 March 1958 was briefly delayed at the last moment to allow Explorer 1 to to pass overhead, and avoid possible interference of signals. Source: Vanguard: A History, Constance McLaughton Green, Milton Lomask. NASA SP-4202. (I'm mildly horrified to find I haven't done a Vanguard 1 anniversary trivia point before. It's not possible to get all the space anniversaries out there, but given my quirky love for the unloved you'd think I'd have put more into Vanguard.)

Currently Reading: Civilisation, Kenneth Clark.