TJ's Week Four: The Daily Effing Show

This week's awesome thing was so freakin' awesome, I can hardly contain myself even 24 hours later.

Way back in 2008 (God, what a dump THAT place was), I managed to snag some of the free tickets to see a live taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. So I got to be in the audience for the January 28th show.

I got to see:

Jon Stewart
John Oliver
Wyatt Cynac
some astrophysicist who thinks Pluto ain't a planet

That's, right. ME. I got to see MY VERY FIRST taping of the Daily Show. Oh, and I guess Tony happened to be there too. Whatever.

Back to Jon.

Throughout the show, while Jon Stewart sat within what Tony called "flying tackle distance," I kept turning to m'colleague during breaks in filming and saying things like, "You know what this is like? It's like seeing Jesus after thinking for years he might not be real."

Ten minutes later: "You know what this is like? It's like finally seeing the Taj Mahal after only seeing it on postcards and TV for your whole life."

Two seconds later: "You know what this is like? It's like when I saw the Pope when I was a kid, and it took me awhile to realize he was actually there, and it hadn't been, like, a weird dream."

Moments later: "You know what this is--?"

"Yes, TJ. I do. It's like some sort of religious experience, apparently."

And it was. Except Jon Stewart wasn't quite as short as I was led to believe he would be. I was rather imagining a pocket-sized terrier-comedian. (They must prepare us for that so we're not disappointed in the reality, I guess?)

The show, too, was much smoother than I thought it would be. Besides a few expletives that would need to be bleeped for the broadcast that night, the entire show was run through and filmed in under half an hour: no screw-ups, no re-takes, nothing, absolutely nothing, that might need to be cut. It was like watching a live performance, because it was that cleanly done. I don't know why, but I thought it would be choppy and messy to make a show.

So everything exceeded my expectations. I've never laughed so hard in my life, both at the show itself and because of the good company of Tony and Will, who was nice enough to indulge us even though he's been to TDS tapings a zillion times. It was truly awesome.

Not that I'm judging Shayne or anything, but he said he couldn't make it to NYC in time to see the Daily Show with us. I guess some things are more important.

I will now doodle hearts on my letterhead and write over and over in cursive, TJ + Jon 4eva.