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April 30, 2002

I swear to God, I thought I was going to die before I took my seat in Rosie O'Donnell's audience.

My mom and I made it to the lineup at Rockefeller Center at 7:00 a.m., 45 minutes early. We had already eaten breakfast in our room, so we were ready to stand there for as long as they told us to.

I need to back up and tell you about breakfast. And dinner the night before.

I went out to meet Kymm on Wednesday night for dinner. My mom and I had visited the enormous grocery store across the street from our hotel for lunch, and we brought back some chocolate-chip cookies. When she announced she was too tired to go to dinner with Kymm and I, she said, "I'll be OK. I'll just eat the cookies and have a coke."

The next morning I told her I was ordering breakfast.

"Why are you doing that?" she asked. "We can go out to breakfast after the show."

"Mom. It's 6:00 in the morning. The show won't be over until 11. I'm not waiting five hours to eat."

"Well, I don't want anything. I'll just have some of those cookies and some coffee."

Can you imagine anything more disgusting than a breakfast of cookies and coffee? When this breakfast follows a dinner of cookies and coke? Can you?

I ordered her some toast, which she munched through appreciatively when it arrived.

We stood in line for so long. And it was so hot. And there were many, many women there, and some men, and a few kids. All scrunched into line for two hours. I took off my jacket. I wanted to take off my blouse. I seriously considered it. I was wearing a camisole. It would have been OK. I mean, kind of OK. Probably pretty bad. But at that point, I wasn't thinking clearly.

"You should go to a doctor," my mom said to me at one point. "to find out why you're so hot all the time." I must have given her a look that was extremely frightening, because she quickly added, "Although you're wearing a coat and it is a little warm in here." And she turned away.

By the time we were released upstairs to stand in line in an air-conditioned hallway, my hair was all wet underneath from sweating for so long. No longer cute and sassy, it was now just limp and sticky.

After a bit of a wait the warm-up guy, Joey Kola, burst into the hallway and told us what we'd be seeing on that day's show. Even though Lisa Kudrow was the main guest, we wouldn't get to see her as she had taped her interview with Rosie earlier. After listening to everyone groan and cry, Joey soothed us by announcing that while the Lisa Kudrow tape played, Rosie would come into the audience and answer questions. Everyone began to coo, and he announced the rest of the guests for the day, finishing with the dramatic announcement that after the show, we'd be staying to watch Ted Danson tape a segment for a future show. There was more cooing and even some applause.

I guess now would be a good time to tell you that these people were easily pleased.

We were herded forward, and eventually wound up being taken in pairs to the page who would seat us. When we entered the studio, my mom and I found ourselves at the top of the studio audience's seats, and I saw where the page was leading us...down the steps about halfway and over to two seats next to the wall. In the corner. Behind the band. I tried not to act like a three-year-old, but I was disappointed.

Suddenly, our page stopped walking and turned to us.

"If you ladies don't mind being separated, you can take those two empty seats in the first two rows..."

<Whooooooosh!> was the sound of Glo and I stampeding down the steps and over to our lux front-row (and second-row) seats, leaving the blessed page in our dust.

I pushed my mom into the first-row seat--the CENTER section of the first row, tank ya Jesus--and I sat directly behind her. There were two girls a bit younger than me next to my mom, and I grabbed one of them by the shoulders.

"I AM AMY AND YOU AND I ARE GOING TO BE BEST FRIENDS!" I screeched at her. She smiled politely back at me.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HAPPY I AM?" I asked her, surveying the studio like a king. I leaned forward again. "I'M SORRY. I SAID I WAS HAPPY! DO YOU KNOW THAT? HAPPPPPPY!"

At that point, the two women in my row were staring at me. One was very, very, very large. And the one next to me was very, very, very old. It turns out that she had no idea where she was. Do you think I'm exaggerating? Well, I'm not. She didn't speak one word the entire time we were there. And, according to her friend, she hadn't ever seen the show. I had no idea why she was there, but I didn't really care because I was enjoying my snacks!

Yes! Snacks! Rosie leaves snacks on everyone's seat! Here's what I found on my chair when I arrived:

How did I feel about this discovery? Here's how I felt:

Happy! Greasy, pasty, and happy! I actually don't even remember eating the snacks, I was so busy taking pictures of them. And of John McD.

Finally, after a lot of tuning up and camera testing and whatnot, Rosie appeared on the set. Joey told us (from his position on the steps of the audience, where he was running around trying to get us excited and throwing koosh balls at us) that the first thing that was going to happen was that Rosie would introduce the musical number (a woman from "Throroughly Modern Millie"), and we'd watch the performance. After that, Rosie would go away and come back at 10:00, when the show started.

While Joey was explaining all of this to us, Rosie was wandering around chatting with cameramen and producer people and kind of smiling and nodding at us. The first thing I thought when I saw her was, "Holy CRAP! She looks so THIN in PERSON!" No kidding! Poor Rosie, the butt of fat jokes everywhere, and she's really pretty normal-sized!

The second thing I thought was, "Why isn't she happy?" I mean, she wasn't exactly moping. But she was just wandering around, being kind of low-key, and waiting for the musical number to begin.

Finally, Rosie did the intro and we watched a very thin woman with a very big voice sing. Rosie sat over near the band (which was right next to me) and kind of stared into the audience, not really paying attention to the performer. I tried to politely pay attention to what was happening on stage for awhile, then I gave up and gawked at Rosie and John McD and the wrinkled old woman next to me.

Singing lady ended, Rosie thanked her, and we were treated to piped-in music: Britney Spears and NSync. The main entertainment was watching the two guys from "The Amazing Race" practice the intro. They were complete morons. When they got to the part of the intro where they say, "Hit it, John!"--they lost it.

"Hit it, who?"

"Who's John?"

"Where do we look?"

"Why are we saying this?"

Obviously, they had never seen the show before, and they weren't trying to conceal this fact at all. The producer people down in front of my mom were all grumbling and making faces, and when they finally choked out, "Hit it, John!" at the right place and in the right way, John gave them the dirtiest, most withering look.

It was all very enjoyable.

Finally, it was almost show time and Joey began instructing us when to clap loudly, when to clap moderately, and when to stay quiet. He also pointed out the cameras that panned the back of the audience, and encouraged everyone to wave into them. My mom and I weren't going to be on camera much, but we were practically on top of Rosie's desk, so we didn't care.

The show started at 10:00, and the goons did their intro sounding only about 85 percent stupid.

They came down and told Rosie how much they loved her show (gag!) and chatted with her for a few painful minutes. Then Rosie did her before-guests chit-chat with John, which is my favorite part of the show.

Look at me. Look at my greasy, moony face. And when you're done looking at me, look at the woman next to me and know that she thought she was at someone's 8th grade graduation or perhaps at a wedding, because she sure as hell didn't know she was at the Rosie O'Donnell Show.

Oh yes, if you click on that picture? You'll get the whole animated sequence! See me clap! See me wave! See the lady next to me look blankly into the camera! Don't forget to come back, though...

After Rosie got done chatting with John and went to commercial, she came out into the audience and asked us if we'd rather sit and watch the tape of the Broadway singer and Lisa Kudrow's interview, or if we'd rather ask her questions. So 40 minutes of questions with Rosie it was.

We were allowed to take pictures any time we wanted, as long as it wasn't when the cameras were rolling, so I sat there and took five million pictures of her like a complete stalker psycho while she talked.

It was at this point that I noticed something that made me feel really weird, for some reason. If you've read Rosie's new book, you'll remember that she talks about how her show persona isn't really who she is.

And she's right. The person standing with us answering our questions was nice and funny in a dry way, but she was nowhere near the goofball who appears on TV five days a week.

In fact, after the Q & A with the audience ended, and she went back to her desk to do the rest of the show, it was kind of uncomfortable to watch her slip into her on-screen persona. It just seemed really fake.

I liked the person who stood in the audience and talked about having pre-cancerous cells removed from her fallopian tubes and how shitty it is to have the press take things you say out of context and how Parker tells his friends that his mom is gay in a most entertaining way. She was much smarter and...I don't know, believable than the Rosie I'm used to.

In fact, listening to her talk reminded me that I had seen her like this before...Dennis and I went to see her do stand-up at the Improv in Chicago the year before her TV show started. She was a lot more raw and funny than she is on her aimed-at-everone show. For the first time, I really understand why she has no interest in continuing her talk show. The person up there every day is her, but it isn't.

In addition to thinking all of these deep thoughts and wondering if the woman next to me was going to pass out, I also became best friends with David Evangelista, her hair stylist. "David!" I called. "Can I take your picture?" He posed happily.

He was so nice and friendly to everyone. After he did a ten-second makeover on an audience member, I asked him what the product was that he had used. We had a little discussion about it, and he recommended it for my hair. (He must have felt sorry for me...the poor greasy girl from the Midwest!...If only she'd use this BedHead!...)

Another pleasant surprise was Rosie's replacement for next fall, Caroline Rhea. She was at the show, but sitting down next to the producers so that no one would see her. When Rosie introduced her, people clapped and cooed, but she was very embarrassed and didn't want any fuss. I waved to her and she waved back, and when an audience member asked Rosie a stupid question about Caroline taking over the show, we rolled our eyes at each other.

I hadn't planned to welcome Caroline Rhea into my world, but I will now. She was so nice!

When it was time to jump into the live show again, Rosie ran back to her desk and did three more interviews: Jamie Kennedy, Jessica Alba, and the really uninteresting Ted Danson.

The audience was released (actually...we were pretty much ordered out..."Do not walk toward the stage! Leave the studio!") and we were given

• Rosie's book
• A soccer ball (fun to carry through Manhattan)
• A t-shirt
• Tickets to "The Elephant Man"--a play on Broadway that would be starting about the time we landed back in Chicago. I left them at the hotel for Kymm, who was supposed to say something nice about Rosie O'Donnell in her journal as payment, but apparently that was too much for Mighty Kymm...that's OK...I hope you get crappy seats, Kymm, next to a fossil who has no idea where she is...
  

So yes, it was a fun experience, it was fascinating to see how the show worked, and it was very exciting to see Rosie in person and in action...if not a little disconcerting...but I'm glad we went.

This next picture is for Dennis. Dennis! I found the Mecca!

David Letterman...he is our people.