So I got to see Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!
(Yes, I haven't blogged in a while. Oops.)
Fourteen years living in Chicagoland, four years listening to the show and this is my first time going to see it. And it's:
A) Like watching sausage being made.
B) Like watching a great chef cook.
C) Like going to four stand-up comedy shows at once.
Want a hint? Think "all of the above".
Our tale starts at 3:30, as we got out of the car at the Palatine Metra Station and watched the Metra bound for downtown take off. We had planned ahead to budget for time, so we were fine - but it was a bit annoying to be THAT almost. So we hung out in the train station for 50-something minutes. We heard two announcements that "For those traveling to the Taste of Chicago, we remind you that we allow no glass containers on board, and no alcohol after 7PM". Kind of frightened me, as I'd completely forgot about the thing.
Train pulls up, and it's fairly crowded. Myra wants to sit in the same row as me, so we bounce from car in front to car in back to "let's go up the stairs". It turns out that this was Myra's sole expected goal for the trip - to ride the top of a Metra train on a trip downtown. On the way to our seats, my cell phone clip broke again, and it dropped to the bottom of the car (after bouncing off a passenger, I believe). Nice man handed back up to me, though - go go kindness of strangers.
Myra's ride wasn't all it could have been, as we were joined a few stops down by a family of ten, who sat on opposite sides of the second floor and talked loudly the whole way down. And I'm not sure how much Myra got to look out the window. But we got there. My sense memory of Ogilvie helped me navigate out to Madison, and the walk from the train station to Chase Auditorium was nice, warm and relaxed.
The first step to seeing Wait Wait is getting your tickets online, dealing directly with the floor manager (who is pretty awesome in person). The second step is arriving at 6:30 Thursday evening. Note I don't say AFTER 6:30. This is because the line formation process is a little...ragged. They set up four desks, similar to registration pickup at a game convention. A-G, H-M, N-Z and You're-Screwed. Wait, that last should read "Onsite Tickets". They have 500 seats for the show, about 50-75 are reserved for NPR members, and the crowd is full. They ask you to form a serpentine line from the doors. However, they wind up with about twelve layers of serpentine and exactly two velvet ropes. So it looks like two lanes of line and one big milling crowd. I leave it only to the sheer community spirit (and NOT sheeplikeness) that the line functions as well as it does. (Not that there aren't exceptions. Had two people try to snug themselves in line between us and the wall - and then the guy complains that I'm forcing him against the wall as I sway from foot to foot. I got to haul out the "nervous condition" line while (seriously unintentionally) positioning myself to hold the velvet rope stand and block him from getting in line in front of me. Line snakes down a staircase into the basement of the Chase Building and into the Chase Auditorium. They have the -tables- set up for souvenir sales next to the doors, but they're empty at the moment.
We take seats - Myra graciously gives up the aisle for me, as the seats are business-seminar-narrow. She apparently spends the rest of the evening reminiscing about my post-show review of Wicked, when my leg was pretty much stuck in one position. But we got good phone picture shots of the set. The floor manager works the crowd a bit, but at the end his goal is to squeeze every single ticketholder into a seat, and he's good at it. He paces back and forth in the front, pausing when he sees empty seats. He'll point at the back at the next ticketholder, signal number and beckon. Very much a mix of a deejay and a military commando. There's a small table in the middle of the set with a ball in the middle - I hypothesize that it's a conference call center for their work with phone calls. Turns out it's a little less techie-cool than that. As the lights come down and the show for the studio audience starts, it blossoms and flares to life as...as a disco ball. Oooo.
Then we get intros of the hosts (Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell) and the panelists (Paula Poundstone, P.J. O'Rourke, and Julia Sweeney). The panelists seem to spend a LOT of their time writing on notepads and looking down. But Peter clearly shows his experience at doing this - he immediately bonds to the crowd. He notes that this is the time of year when photographers show up in Chicago, take pictures, and use them to lure people to move to Chicago just in time for winter. He also notes that "if this is the Taste of Chicago, I can no longer walk around with my mouth open". Cute. He also takes the time to note that among the audience are twelve gay squaredancers. They of course are completely respectful and understanding of this rare assemblage of performers. (They later have their picture taken with the show stars and staff on the stage.)
Then the show starts - we don't get the full theme music, but we get Carl's intro and the opening monologue by Peter. Then they go straight to Who's Carl This Week. The caller comes on, gets greeted by Peter, and gets the first question. She gets it right, and Peter and the panelists start talking about the recent spy arrests in suburban New Jersey.
Annnnnd they keep joking about it.
Annnnnnnnnnd they keep joking about it.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd they keep joking about it.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd...wait. I get it now. They are putting down a LOT of material, and then going to edit it down later to final form. They spend more time in the studio on the first question than on the whole segment in the final show. My brain frames it this way.
If the final radio show is a fine aged cheese, the studio show isn't even the milk. It's the GRASS. (Or the CORN, actually.) I later note that I think they even mix up the order of segments in the editing room - but I would exposit that for each minute of material that makes it on air, another minute has been cut from the studio show. Each of the panelists and Peter just milk each segment - some hit, some bomb. It's a luxury of the medium of the live show, and in refined form it makes for an awesome radio show. It's why the show works as it does. (It also is a strong testament to the skill of the editors that by the end of the show, they have already figured out where they need to recut and add new material. It's also a testament to the tech level of the show that the whole thing is run on digital displays and given to Peter and Carl live. (There's a potential that they will soon be embraced by - I mean, they will adopt a well-known large scale portable computer screen presentation format. I think that, as a functioning element of public radio, their absorption into the genius was something inevitable.)
I will let the show itself stand as testimony to what I enjoyed - granted you won't hear about the huge inflatable whore most likely, but you'll be able to get a lot of the same jokes I did. 10:00AM Saturday, folks.
After the show, they (as I said) do some retakes of moments in the show that the editors want to redo - including redoing the final question-answer from one of the panelists. (I sort of think this panelist was off their game that night - I've heard them before and they work well. Everyone has an off day.) Then there's a brief Q&A, and then they open up the stage so that all the fans can come up, talk, and get autographs.
I am really impressed with this part. Yes, there were some people that left both before and after the Q&A. But they at one point tell THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE "Come on up here, shake our hands, come talk to us". Yes, we're NPR folk, so we're pretty docile. But that's a LOT of people, nonetheless. We stay briefly, and I get autographs to my own copies of books written by P.J. O'Rourke and Paula Poundstone. Woot! (I later find out that copies of Paula's book is sold outside. But mine is clearly read and used. So it's still got fanboy cred.)
And that's more or less it. The walk back to Ogilvie is quiet and warm, with nothing bad happening. We get to the station at 10:35 to catch the 10:30 train - not agaaaaaaain. So we wait for the 11:30 train. We get to the top floor of Ogilvie, and realize there's nowhere to sit and nothing to drink as all the shops we can see are closed. We pace a bit, and I see there's an escalator going down to the first floor. I suggest we just ride down and back up, but Myra can clearly see that the seats are taped off and closed, and she doesn't want to waste the time. (To her credit, by this time the combination of loose socks and uncomfortable shoes have given her the beginnings of an ugly blister on her foot. So she was inclined to be a bit grumpy. We paced a bit, and then looked into the area where the trains parked and found an air-conditioned waiting area. With benches! Yay! We hunker down for a wait of forty minutes, with my books and her taking looks on Facebook. There's not many people there - despite it being the Taste, apparently they either leave earlier or later. But a few minutes later, a family of six or seven comes in, and the mother proudly tells the father that the kids have found an open Dunkin Donuts and an open ice cream shop. They leave, and Myra and I are hungry enough and I'm CERTAINLY thirsty enough that we decide to follow them.
They head straight down the escalator that I wanted to go down twenty minutes ago.
Myra takes the limited number of I-Told-You-So's that I hand out as a generous limit, and buys me an Icee and some mini-cookies as a reward. Yay! (Plus this is technically an extension of my birthday.)
Then we get on the train on the lower floor, and it's so uncrowded that I fold the seat the other way and we have our own booth on the train home. It's a lovely end to a wonderful day trip - one I should have made a long time ago.
If you haven't listened to the show.
If you have listened to the show.
If you like Wait Wait, you'll love their Twitter feed.
Or you can LIKE Wait Wait directly on Facebook.
(Note: This show sells out each time. You want to go, book early and show up early.)
Fourteen years living in Chicagoland, four years listening to the show and this is my first time going to see it. And it's:
A) Like watching sausage being made.
B) Like watching a great chef cook.
C) Like going to four stand-up comedy shows at once.
Want a hint? Think "all of the above".
Our tale starts at 3:30, as we got out of the car at the Palatine Metra Station and watched the Metra bound for downtown take off. We had planned ahead to budget for time, so we were fine - but it was a bit annoying to be THAT almost. So we hung out in the train station for 50-something minutes. We heard two announcements that "For those traveling to the Taste of Chicago, we remind you that we allow no glass containers on board, and no alcohol after 7PM". Kind of frightened me, as I'd completely forgot about the thing.
Train pulls up, and it's fairly crowded. Myra wants to sit in the same row as me, so we bounce from car in front to car in back to "let's go up the stairs". It turns out that this was Myra's sole expected goal for the trip - to ride the top of a Metra train on a trip downtown. On the way to our seats, my cell phone clip broke again, and it dropped to the bottom of the car (after bouncing off a passenger, I believe). Nice man handed back up to me, though - go go kindness of strangers.
Myra's ride wasn't all it could have been, as we were joined a few stops down by a family of ten, who sat on opposite sides of the second floor and talked loudly the whole way down. And I'm not sure how much Myra got to look out the window. But we got there. My sense memory of Ogilvie helped me navigate out to Madison, and the walk from the train station to Chase Auditorium was nice, warm and relaxed.
The first step to seeing Wait Wait is getting your tickets online, dealing directly with the floor manager (who is pretty awesome in person). The second step is arriving at 6:30 Thursday evening. Note I don't say AFTER 6:30. This is because the line formation process is a little...ragged. They set up four desks, similar to registration pickup at a game convention. A-G, H-M, N-Z and You're-Screwed. Wait, that last should read "Onsite Tickets". They have 500 seats for the show, about 50-75 are reserved for NPR members, and the crowd is full. They ask you to form a serpentine line from the doors. However, they wind up with about twelve layers of serpentine and exactly two velvet ropes. So it looks like two lanes of line and one big milling crowd. I leave it only to the sheer community spirit (and NOT sheeplikeness) that the line functions as well as it does. (Not that there aren't exceptions. Had two people try to snug themselves in line between us and the wall - and then the guy complains that I'm forcing him against the wall as I sway from foot to foot. I got to haul out the "nervous condition" line while (seriously unintentionally) positioning myself to hold the velvet rope stand and block him from getting in line in front of me. Line snakes down a staircase into the basement of the Chase Building and into the Chase Auditorium. They have the -tables- set up for souvenir sales next to the doors, but they're empty at the moment.
We take seats - Myra graciously gives up the aisle for me, as the seats are business-seminar-narrow. She apparently spends the rest of the evening reminiscing about my post-show review of Wicked, when my leg was pretty much stuck in one position. But we got good phone picture shots of the set. The floor manager works the crowd a bit, but at the end his goal is to squeeze every single ticketholder into a seat, and he's good at it. He paces back and forth in the front, pausing when he sees empty seats. He'll point at the back at the next ticketholder, signal number and beckon. Very much a mix of a deejay and a military commando. There's a small table in the middle of the set with a ball in the middle - I hypothesize that it's a conference call center for their work with phone calls. Turns out it's a little less techie-cool than that. As the lights come down and the show for the studio audience starts, it blossoms and flares to life as...as a disco ball. Oooo.
Then we get intros of the hosts (Peter Sagal and Carl Kasell) and the panelists (Paula Poundstone, P.J. O'Rourke, and Julia Sweeney). The panelists seem to spend a LOT of their time writing on notepads and looking down. But Peter clearly shows his experience at doing this - he immediately bonds to the crowd. He notes that this is the time of year when photographers show up in Chicago, take pictures, and use them to lure people to move to Chicago just in time for winter. He also notes that "if this is the Taste of Chicago, I can no longer walk around with my mouth open". Cute. He also takes the time to note that among the audience are twelve gay squaredancers. They of course are completely respectful and understanding of this rare assemblage of performers. (They later have their picture taken with the show stars and staff on the stage.)
Then the show starts - we don't get the full theme music, but we get Carl's intro and the opening monologue by Peter. Then they go straight to Who's Carl This Week. The caller comes on, gets greeted by Peter, and gets the first question. She gets it right, and Peter and the panelists start talking about the recent spy arrests in suburban New Jersey.
Annnnnd they keep joking about it.
Annnnnnnnnnd they keep joking about it.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd they keep joking about it.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd...wait. I get it now. They are putting down a LOT of material, and then going to edit it down later to final form. They spend more time in the studio on the first question than on the whole segment in the final show. My brain frames it this way.
If the final radio show is a fine aged cheese, the studio show isn't even the milk. It's the GRASS. (Or the CORN, actually.) I later note that I think they even mix up the order of segments in the editing room - but I would exposit that for each minute of material that makes it on air, another minute has been cut from the studio show. Each of the panelists and Peter just milk each segment - some hit, some bomb. It's a luxury of the medium of the live show, and in refined form it makes for an awesome radio show. It's why the show works as it does. (It also is a strong testament to the skill of the editors that by the end of the show, they have already figured out where they need to recut and add new material. It's also a testament to the tech level of the show that the whole thing is run on digital displays and given to Peter and Carl live. (There's a potential that they will soon be embraced by - I mean, they will adopt a well-known large scale portable computer screen presentation format. I think that, as a functioning element of public radio, their absorption into the genius was something inevitable.)
I will let the show itself stand as testimony to what I enjoyed - granted you won't hear about the huge inflatable whore most likely, but you'll be able to get a lot of the same jokes I did. 10:00AM Saturday, folks.
After the show, they (as I said) do some retakes of moments in the show that the editors want to redo - including redoing the final question-answer from one of the panelists. (I sort of think this panelist was off their game that night - I've heard them before and they work well. Everyone has an off day.) Then there's a brief Q&A, and then they open up the stage so that all the fans can come up, talk, and get autographs.
I am really impressed with this part. Yes, there were some people that left both before and after the Q&A. But they at one point tell THREE HUNDRED PEOPLE "Come on up here, shake our hands, come talk to us". Yes, we're NPR folk, so we're pretty docile. But that's a LOT of people, nonetheless. We stay briefly, and I get autographs to my own copies of books written by P.J. O'Rourke and Paula Poundstone. Woot! (I later find out that copies of Paula's book is sold outside. But mine is clearly read and used. So it's still got fanboy cred.)
And that's more or less it. The walk back to Ogilvie is quiet and warm, with nothing bad happening. We get to the station at 10:35 to catch the 10:30 train - not agaaaaaaain. So we wait for the 11:30 train. We get to the top floor of Ogilvie, and realize there's nowhere to sit and nothing to drink as all the shops we can see are closed. We pace a bit, and I see there's an escalator going down to the first floor. I suggest we just ride down and back up, but Myra can clearly see that the seats are taped off and closed, and she doesn't want to waste the time. (To her credit, by this time the combination of loose socks and uncomfortable shoes have given her the beginnings of an ugly blister on her foot. So she was inclined to be a bit grumpy. We paced a bit, and then looked into the area where the trains parked and found an air-conditioned waiting area. With benches! Yay! We hunker down for a wait of forty minutes, with my books and her taking looks on Facebook. There's not many people there - despite it being the Taste, apparently they either leave earlier or later. But a few minutes later, a family of six or seven comes in, and the mother proudly tells the father that the kids have found an open Dunkin Donuts and an open ice cream shop. They leave, and Myra and I are hungry enough and I'm CERTAINLY thirsty enough that we decide to follow them.
They head straight down the escalator that I wanted to go down twenty minutes ago.
Myra takes the limited number of I-Told-You-So's that I hand out as a generous limit, and buys me an Icee and some mini-cookies as a reward. Yay! (Plus this is technically an extension of my birthday.)
Then we get on the train on the lower floor, and it's so uncrowded that I fold the seat the other way and we have our own booth on the train home. It's a lovely end to a wonderful day trip - one I should have made a long time ago.
If you haven't listened to the show.
If you have listened to the show.
If you like Wait Wait, you'll love their Twitter feed.
Or you can LIKE Wait Wait directly on Facebook.
(Note: This show sells out each time. You want to go, book early and show up early.)