Cathedral

To celebrate my birthday, Kristie got us a pair of tickets to be audience members of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. We were two of 113 “show enhancers”, in a room with about 10 rows of seats facing a small stage. The stage was surprisingly much smaller than what I thought it would be.

Before the actual taping, we were given general instructions on when and how to clap, laugh, stand up, cheer, and snicker. Instructions that, by the time the show was in full gear, became unnecessary because Craig Ferguson is damn good and we just went on instinct.

The show we went to wasn’t taped in the same sequence as is shown on TV, and I’m guessing that’s how most of the shows are done. The first segment that we saw was a musical performance, which usually happens near the end of Craig’s shows. After the band played a song, it took the stage crew about 15 minutes to break down the musical equipment and set up the stage pieces, including Craig’s desk. Then Craig Ferguson was introduced and began with his monologue. After the monologue was taped, they taped the show’s prologue, about 2 minutes, where Craig usually talks to the audience to prep them for the rest of the night. On this show, it was the comedian Steven Wright who kicked off the very beginning of the show, with Craig walking into the shot while the audience giggled.

The next taped segment involved viewer e-mails. Again joining Craig was Steven Wright, who injected his own minimalist cosmic perspective into each response. After e-mails was a comedy sketch involving the Reno 911 actors, shot in front of a blue screen. After that segment was the first interview with a young actress from the show E.R. Then they shot the epilogue, which is Craig with his feet up on his desk, his tie loosened, reviewing some highlights from the show.

A nice surprise came at the very end, where actor Michael Caine did a very funny interview, with a couple of minutes involving a story about Somalian camels. This segment will be shown on another night.

So in terms of the sequence of how the show was taped compared to their order during the TV broadcast (in parentheses), the segments were taped in this order: Musical performance (6), monologue (2), prologue (1), e-mails (3), comedy sketch (4), interview (5), epilogue (7), Michael Caine interview (bonus).

Experiencing the show live is very different than simply watching it on TV. It was more like a puzzle than a completed package. Because I was part of this production of the suspension of reality, I couldn’t indulge in it. It’s probably the adult equivalent to being a kid at Disneyland and seeing Mickey Mouse take off his head to reveal an exhausted, sweaty-faced college-aged girl underneath. Or actually being the exhausted girl.

After seeing the effort and planning that those involved put into every Craig Ferguson show, I have a lot more respect for show business people, especially the crew, and what they have to go through every day. I am not as much in awe of stardom as I am of work. Wrapped around each joke is the toil of a small army of people, their jobs and futures depending on how much each subsequent viewer with an itchy remote control finger laughs, watches a commercial, buys a product.

I went to tell my parents about the show, but they were at church, attending the Lenten Day of Reconciliation, where catholics go to confession to receive the Sacrament of Penance, in preparation for Palm Sunday, then Good Friday, then Easter.

Before the taping of Craig Ferguson’s show, the warm-up comic, Chunky B., tossed miniature chocolate bars to the audience. Outstretched hands grasped at the air and most of us were able to catch at least one bar.

During mass, my parents, like most everyone else, knew when to stand, kneel, sit, pray, say the proper Amen’s and other responses. During the Lord’s Prayer, they held their outstretched arms to the sky. During communion, they received their own version of miniature chocolate bars.

Joseph Campbell, the American mythologist, was once asked about the events that happen during one’s life. He responded by saying (and I’m trying to recite this from memory), “When you’re going through life, it seems as if nothing makes sense, and nothing is in the right order, and many times you wonder why things happen the way they do. But if you’ve lived long enough, and you look back at all the things that happened and where you are now, it seems as if everything happened for a reason, and the whole story now makes sense.”