We attended a taping of Conan today.  Here's the breakdown: Virgins dressed as vikings/Star Wars characters and Pete and I gathered in the Warner Bros. parking lot.  We were assigned a ticket number (10 and 11) and were asked to return at 3PM for the taping.

In the interim I caught up on episodes of House -- will he ever let his guard down? -- wrote a few more sketches, blog posts and suicide notes.  When we arrived it looked like circus circus; people were camped out on benches and sitting Indian style on the cement floor.  

By sheer chance (or perhaps Divine Intervention from a God showing leniency after exposing us to radiation in San Fran), we were the last two people allowed in the studio.  There were no seats for us so we leaned up against the back wall like passing vagrants.  

This was it.  After three months, untold bills, successes and disappointments, we had arrived at the studio for a taping. A plan we had conceived 6 months earlier had come to fruition and instead of feeling relief or pride, I was thinking about writing more skits, about how we were going to finish the skits before I left for Boston, and about House.  Will he ever let love in?

There's a pretty good movie called GATTACA with Ethan Hawe.  He lives in a time where people's fates are predetermined -- he had a life expectancy of 30 years but was determined to become an astronaut despite facing discrimination from the space agency (and the world!).  He takes a job with the organization as a janitor and tries to infiltrate the organization.  There's a scene in which he is watching a rocket blast into space and he says, "I've never felt farther from my dream than when I was standing five feet from it."

That's about right.   

Pete and I had traveled across the country -- we did the work of 20 people (and even became other people) and despite all of our efforts, we were relegated to sitting in the rafters of the show I wanted to write for.  It's like watching another guy bang the girl you want to be with.

After the show wrapped, Pete and I didn't say very much.  We just kept working on the project and talking about logistics.  They say nature is a humbling experience and witnessing it I can say that's true -- nature must have been humbled in my presence.  But this is the first time I felt humbled. 

Then, I punched Torio in the face. Now he feels humbled (and pain).