David Letterman

I met David Letterman in London.

He had taken The Late Show there for a week and I went there to interview him and to help get the word out. The show was broadcast out of a theater and he was onstage with Paul Shaffer and his Late Show Band. 

David's guests were The Abfab Girls, two actresses from the hit show Absolutely Fabulous. I saw most of his show before I went upstairs to  prepare for David with two cameras, mics, and lights. The show ends and up the stairs he comes smoking a cigar.

"Great show," I say.

"Piece of shit," David responds. I remember thinking, "This might be different."

That's how I met David Letterman.

As they're putting the mic on him I say, "nice cigar."I didn't know it then but it was a Cuban cigar. "Oh, you like?" he answers with a devious smile, "here have one." I was ready to try one to attempt to warm the room up and that's when I made a bad mistake. When I lit it up I inhaled. A very bad mistake. All of a sudden there were three David Lettermans. That coupled with the fact he was not very warm and friendly and that coupled with the fact he didn't know me or care to know me made for an interesting time.  The interview was a lot of yeps and nopes and sweat on my fevered brow.

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The second meeting was a couple of months later at The Ed Sullivan Theater in New York. I forget what it was for but I expected David to be not so friendly and I expected him to figuratively punch me in the face during the interview. Didn't happen. In fact it took almost the whole time to put my imaginary dukes down and realize I didn't need to put them up in the first place.  He was warm, funny, and smart. David couldn't have been nicer. When the interview ended he hung around and chatted with me and the crew for a while before he left. 

I remember thinking, "This is sure different than the first go round."

Turns out his head writer did stand up comedy at Catch a Rising Star. I did stand up comedy at Catch a Rising Star. He saw me, told David, and because of that I was 'in the club.' 

That changed the whole thing.

Cut ahead to the 'The Blizzard of '96' and that was the third time we got together. It snowed so much in Manhattan that they were dumping snow in the East River and cross country skiing down 5th Avenue. My friend Howard Grufferman drove me to Dave's studio to read the Top Ten List. Being the weatherman on CBS This Morning and Dave being on CBS, there I was. It was a wild night to say the least. The audience, which usually numbered in the hundreds, was much smaller. It didn't even fill the bottom seats and there was no one in the balcony.

The Top Ten List was Blizzard Safety Tips.

There I was..."Number 10..." As David read the number I would read the list. It was a hoot. Finally he said, "Number 1," and I wrapped it up by saying the Number 1 Blizzard Safety Tip, "Flannel Condoms From L. L. Bean."

Great time.

We shook hands on the air and as I was leaving I heard a loud whistle from David's direction. 

I turned and he threw me a cigar.

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