Two Sets of Fun Tickets

Two weekends ago we had a very "ticket-oriented" weekend. It started on Saturday, when we woke up early to try to get tickets to the "Glee" concert. Anybody else watch "Glee?" I love that show, and in May the cast is going on tour to four cities. Of course, New York is one of them, so I was dying to get tickets to one of the shows Memorial Day weekend. I even invited my sister, cousin Molly, and my cousin Jacob's wife Zita to come for Memorial Day to see the show, too (and they're all coming!). Tickets went on sale to the general public at 9:00 a.m. that Saturday, so Eric and I were up with our computers ready to go at Ticketmaster.com right at 9:00. But, it didn't matter. Apparently tickets went on pre-sale to American Express cardholders a week prior and all seats for all shows were sold out by the time they even went on sale to the public. Awesome. And by "awesome," I actually mean "rude" and "unfair."

Eric and I decided to go out to Radio City Music Hall (the concert venue) just to be sure they didn't have any on sale there. It was a long shot, but we were willing to try. It was a terribly rainy day but we went anyway, and as expected, it was all for naught. No luck. (Apparently they have added another show the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and tickets go on sale to the public this Friday. BUT, they're doing the AmEx pre-sale thing again, and they're already on sale to those cardholders. So I expect the same outcome. Stupid not-having-an-American-Express-card!)

So, the day seemed like it was off to a pretty lousy start. Lots of rain, no tickets, bummer. But it ended up being one of those awesome New York days that just surprises you, you know? After Radio City, we wandered over to the NBC store in Rockefeller Center, where we did some shopping and caught sight of the open casting call for "The Biggest Loser." There's always something going on around here!

Then we decided to head home and stop at Crumbs for some cupcakes, but on our way we passed the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Late Show with David Letterman is filmed. They had a sign outside that said "free tickets," so we went in to investigate. To be honest, we don't watch the Letterman show, but it films just blocks from our apartment, so why not check it out? We ended up putting our names in for the ticket lottery, and an hour later we got a call that we had been selected for Monday's taping! So, awesome!

Then, as we were relaxing at home that afternoon, Eric managed to find a couple of tickets to that evening's Big East Championship basketball game at Madison Square Garden for a very reasonable price. We have been wanting to get to an event at MSG, and since Georgetown was playing, Eric thought this was a great opportunity. So, that poor boy went out in the HURRICANE we were having by then to pick up the tickets. (I kid not about the hurricane - our weather that day was INSANE. We got four inches of rain, and a wind gust of 74mph was recorded at JFK airport. It was CA-RAZY. It was so windy, the wind-measuring device at JFK actually blew off the roof and shattered on the ground. So, yeah.)

We were so excited. Back in my pre-blog days (better known as "early in Eric's last year of law school"), we had season tickets to Georgetown basketball games in a block with a bunch of Eric's law school friends. We had a great time going to all the games with everybody! I have missed that since we moved to New York - both the friends AND the sporting events!

At a Georgetown game back in early 2008

At a game with friends: Chris & Leah (they're now married with an adorable new baby boy!), Greg and Will

With the (rather handsy) mascot

So, that night we went back out in the rain again (still awful) and headed down to Madison Square Garden for the game! We had a great time, even though Georgetown lost. They were ahead at the very start of the game but then trailed for nearly the whole rest of the game - until the very end when they tied it up, just to make me tense. I really don't handle close games well, especially basketball games. I think I may have covered my eyes for the last couple minutes, I'm not sure. Regardless, we had fun despite the loss!

The entrance to the Garden

I turned my free "New York Life" foam finger into a Georgetown spirit device, with the help of the permanent marker I apparently keep in my purse.

The teams lining up before the game

Pre-game

Georgetown cheerleaders, and my mascot friend!

Boo, West Virginia wins.

Shucks.

After the game - we had a good time anyway!

So, our rainy Saturday turned out to be a pretty fun day. Eric had to work on Sunday, but on Monday he took a half day so we could go to the Letterman taping!

We were told to arrive at the theater between 1:00 and 2:00 on Monday afternoon to claim our tickets. After we made our way in to the theater and had tickets in hand, they told us to go stand in a certain spot. After a few moments, a woman from the Late Show pulled us aside to talk to us. She told us we had been "hand-selected" as part of the "audience elite," which meant we would be seated in one of the first three rows, right by the stage, and would probably get on TV! We had about 45 minutes from that point until we had to get back to the theater, so we went to grab some pizza for lunch then came back to get in line once again.

Our tickets!

In front of the theater

Once all the rest of the "audience elite" had assembled, they brought us all inside to wait (rather than outside in the rain like the rest of the audience - we were so VIP!), then they started to talk about what was expected of us (ENERGY! LAUGHTER! ENTHUSIASM!) and what was going to happen. Before long they brought us in to the theater and got us seated. Eric and I ended up in the third row on the aisle, directly in front of Letterman's desk!

They had a comedian come out to warm up the crowd, and the band played a few songs to get everybody ready. Then Dave came out and did his monologue and the show was underway! The main guest for that show was Jennifer Aniston, which I was excited about. It always surprises me when celebrities are like, normal people-sized. I guess I always picture them as really tall? I don't know, but Jennifer was small and had really cute shoes.

We had a great time at the show, and afterwards we waited around outside for the guest for the next taping to come in (they did two tapings that afternoon) - Gerard Butler! So, we got another celeb sighting to add to our list, and he's an attractive Scotsman to boot! (Although really, aren't we all?)

Gerard Butler, about to head in to Letterman

Naturally, that evening we tuned in to the Letterman show to see if we could spot ourselves. It was really interesting to see what all made it into the show and what parts they cut. For example, Dave's monologue was much longer in person, but they cut it down a bit for the show that actually aired.

We did manage to catch sight of ourselves on TV a couple of times! The first was just a really, super-duper fast pan of the audience at the beginning of the show. If you didn't know exactly where to look for us, you never would have picked us out, but I found us. I'm right on the aisle, and you can sort of see my fun pink shoes I was wearing, too!

It's a pretty bad picture, but it kind of gives you an idea of how big the theater is and how close we were to the stage. I circled us there! (That's me on the aisle, and Eric is next to me.)

A little closer look - there's me in the middle on the aisle. Can you make me out? Can you see my pink shoes?

We also were on twice more during the "what's coming up tomorrow" segment in the middle of a commercial break. We were on right at the start, and then again when the camera came back down and we were right under the "We'll Be Right Back!"

Do you see us there on the left?

A closer look

See us right under the "We'll Be?"

Another closer look at our pixelated selves. Eric seems to be hitting his head on the "Be."

We're famous! Ha.

Anyway, what had started out as a dreary, rainy, Glee-ticket-less day turned into not one, but two really fun events. You just gotta love New York!