I was so excited to be in the live studio audience of Conan O’Brien! Wow! What a thrill! As I was walking around the neighborhood Wednesday I looked up to the heavens and what did I see?
The Conan blimp! I chased it as far as could, but chasing a blimp on foot isn’t exactly practical. So as the sun set I knew what I had to do. Get my ass to the Conan audience for a live show while he was in NYC!
My sisters Linda and Natalie and my brother-in-law Matt and I scored tickets to a show and man were we excited!
Oh I guess I should add that I am talking about the time I went to see Conan back in 1994.
Yes, this is my scrapbook from high school. We went to see Conan on April 18th, 1994. I am pretty sure it was his second season on the air and we were die-hard fans. I was a late night TV aficionado at the tender age of 14. My mother had a penchant for collecting mini black and white televisions from tag sales and putting them in every room in the house. I set one up 2 millimeters from my pillow starting at the age of 10 and would have Carson and Letterman lull me to sleep. Ok ok, Ed Mc Mahon was doing the lulling.
When we went to see Conan we even bought a disposable camera and took all these awesome pictures. I think 5 in total. Notice the Jay Leno billboard. I was not into Leno. Mainly because I felt an emotional connection to Mc Mahon. And of course the Bette Midler send off on the final Tonight Show. Gotta love the Bette.
Also I think I should take a moment to pay homage to the amazing outfits my sisters and I wore to see Conan. We embraced the sweater wrapped around the waist look, which was just catching on thanks to the grunge craze. And yes, we were all wearing backpacks both Nad’s and mine were of the small to mini variety. Lin‘s was of course as big as her body. For some reason she liked to carry her entire life belongings on her person at all time which as a freshman in high school basically included a large pound puppy collection and 20 textbooks. Delicately straddling that line between nerd and nerd. And let us not shy away from the fact we are all in a variety of denim and items from the Gap. But of course, not actually from the Gap. From the TJ Maxx in the Mountview Plaza in Naugatuck. That is where all of our designer clothes came from. I still to this day have never actually bought something from the Gap. Why when I can get the max for the minimum?
I always had a connection to Conan. Later, “in the year 2000″, when I was working as a receptionist as SNL, Conan was right downstairs. My co-receptionist Jen was a former intern from Conan. We shared a desk. A small desk. A desk meant for one person. Now she works over at The Colbert Report and has HER OWN DESK! But I digress. I liked to paint at this desk, as you do when you are a receptionist for a television show, but since I was a quote-unquote starving artist, I did not have any money for canvases, so Jen would go scavenge the trash around 30 Rock for things I could paint on. Lo and behold she would come back upstairs with all the discards from Conan skits and I would use them as my canvases! I ended up giving most of my paintings away or throwing them away. In this photo you can see one I did in the far left corner. But, I just routed around and found one in my closet!
Conan did a bit about real ads in papers like Leno’s. But his were ridiculous. This one was about Alaska having hundreds of words for snow and thousands of words for murder.
The boards were perfect for painting so I would do them at the desk and then give them as presents. I know my friend Lauren still has one, hers had something to do with tacos and fire. I used all sorts of “trash” to make things. I still do. In fact, there is a word for it these days. Hoarding.
In all honesty, I did get to see Conan last night….on TV. It was amazels. I only saw the show live when I was in high school a few times. We would go and wait in line and hope they wouldn’t catch Linda being under 16. And we would try so hard to get on camera when they shot the audience. One time when we went Donald Trump was the guest, now that was exciting. One time Al Roker was the guest. That was also exciting. Pretty much everything about it was exciting. The two things that were the most surprising were how small the set and audience was and the fact that they shot the show at 5pm! The magic of television! It transported us all the way into the future! I just transported you guys all the way to the past!
The Conan blimp! I chased it as far as could, but chasing a blimp on foot isn’t exactly practical. So as the sun set I knew what I had to do. Get my ass to the Conan audience for a live show while he was in NYC!
Oh I guess I should add that I am talking about the time I went to see Conan back in 1994.
Yes, this is my scrapbook from high school. We went to see Conan on April 18th, 1994. I am pretty sure it was his second season on the air and we were die-hard fans. I was a late night TV aficionado at the tender age of 14.
My mother had a penchant for collecting mini black and white televisions from tag sales and putting them in every room in the house. I set one up 2 millimeters from my pillow starting at the age of 10 and would have Carson and Letterman lull me to sleep. Ok ok, Ed Mc Mahon was doing the lulling.
Also I think I should take a moment to pay homage to the amazing outfits my sisters and I wore to see Conan. We embraced the sweater wrapped around the waist look, which was just catching on thanks to the grunge craze. And yes, we were all wearing backpacks both Nad’s and mine were of the small to mini variety. Lin‘s was of course as big as her body. For some reason she liked to carry her entire life belongings on her person at all time which as a freshman in high school basically included a large pound puppy collection and 20 textbooks. Delicately straddling that line between nerd and nerd. And let us not shy away from the fact we are all in a variety of denim and items from the Gap. But of course, not actually from the Gap. From the TJ Maxx in the Mountview Plaza in Naugatuck. That is where all of our designer clothes came from. I still to this day have never actually bought something from the Gap. Why when I can get the max for the minimum?
I liked to paint at this desk, as you do when you are a receptionist for a television show, but since I was a quote-unquote starving artist, I did not have any money for canvases, so Jen would go scavenge the trash around 30 Rock for things I could paint on. Lo and behold she would come back upstairs with all the discards from Conan skits and I would use them as my canvases! I ended up giving most of my paintings away or throwing them away. In this photo you can see one I did in the far left corner. But, I just routed around and found one in my closet!
Conan did a bit about real ads in papers like Leno’s. But his were ridiculous. This one was about Alaska having hundreds of words for snow and thousands of words for murder.
Fashion Advice From Mr. Burns.
When is It Appropriate to wear a TuTu?
This post is awesome.
I still have the script you gave me back in the day.
OMG! Roric… when I saw Mare posted I was going to forward it to you! hahahahaa!
PS- that was a GIANT LL Bean backpack… i mean giant.
did he leave?