My Guy Jay

So, the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Oh, you mean you’ve never been? Back stage? Let me share:

Cool, huh?

Senator Fred Thompson (to whose campaign I am a Senior Advisor) was a guest on the show Tuesday night and I got to tag along.

Well, here’s how it works: You pull up at the gate and there are a bunch of reporters, photographers and videographers waiting. You are waved through by a guard but the reporters have to stand outside because, notwithstanding rumors to the contrary, NBC is private property and they prefer to have non-NBC crews wait outside.

SIDEBAR:

You can see this at work every Sunday in Washington. Each of the major Sunday shows draws a small crowd of reporters who wait for the guests to come out, stand in front of a spray of microphones, and answer questions from reporters who represent other networks and newspapers.

The reporters can’t go inside the rival outfit’s studio, so they wait until the guest comes out.

END SIDEBAR

A few reporters, photographers and videographers had been let in and they got excellent shots and footage of Sen. Thompson, his wife Jeri and their two children getting out of the car. Why reporters think the 187th version of this is going to be any more newsworthy than the 75th version is beyond me, but there they were.

A greeter … greets you, and you are led to your dressing room. In news operations like Fox or CNN, there is one green room for all. At an entertainment show you get your own dressing room.

There was a bottle of white wine, some beer, soft drinks, candy and salty snack foods available. I limited myself to some M&Ms. I wasn’t certain how carefully they searched the staff of guests on the way out so I didn’t steal the wine.

I knew that Travis Tritt was the musical guest. I had traded e-mails with his manager so I went upstairs to his dressing room to introduce myself.

Memo to NBC: Travis Tritt’s dressing room was bigger than Fred Thompson’s. Travis Tritt will not be President of the United States. Understand what I’m saying?

The truth is Mr. Tritt is a terrific guy. He is from Newt Gingrich’s old Congressional District and we had met before. I mentioned that and he pretended to remember me.

I asked if I could bring Sen. Thompson up to visit and he enthusiastically agreed.
Mr. Tritt has a new CD a copy of which he autographed and gave to Sen. Thompson. At my very excellent suggestion they both signed another copy to be given to Jay Leno later.

Here’s a photo of Thompson and Tritt



Back down in our (smaller) dressing room, Jay Leno and his producer came in to chat about the monologue and the two segments in which Thompson would be participating.

They actually go over the questions Jay (I think it’s ok to call him Jay now that we’ve spent 1.7352 minutes together) is going to ask during the appearance.

The producer, Dave Berg, is one of those people who spends 20 minutes a night, five nights a week, with people … like me.

Let’s do this. Let’s don’t do that. Can we swap this with that? How about if we didn’t do this, but did that, instead? When do you want my boss in make up?

You understand. Dave Berg is a hero. He puts up with people like me each and every workday and never, ever, changes his expression.

It’s a religious thing, I think.

Anyway after the monologue and about 2⅓ hours later, it was Sen. Thompson’s turn and he nailed it.

After the appearance, Mr. Leno came in to thank Sen. Thompson and invite him bck any time and to, I think, make nice with me because he knows if he messes with me he’ll never have lunch in Olde Town Alexandria, VA again, buddy.

Seriously, though. Everyone was very nice and very understanding. I told each of them to let me know if I could ever do anything for any of them.
Then I decided, what the hell, and took the wine.