But I just realized I never told the story of our Tonight Show adventure.
I'd read reviews that said you must/need/have to be there way early to get a good seat. The ticket said to be there no later than 2:45 (taping was at 4:30), but we decided to play it safe and go around 11:30.
We get to the studio lot and there's a cattle corral. Literally. It's a brick-walled, iron-fenced area with lines and arrows drawn all over the ground. There are four trees scattered around, each with a bench around the base.
We were the 4th & 5th people there.
We walked in, sat down, and this 8' tall Bozo the clown lookalike came up to us, smoothing down his hair, and said, "Uh, you got an extra ticket?"
We told him no. And he continued to tower over us and stare. Poor, sheltered Little Sis was giving me panicked google eyes out of the corner of her face. He eventually went away.
No sooner did he go away than this very "Suth-uhn" woman dressed entirely in red (excuse me: CORAL) breezed in and shouted, "IS THEE-US THE JAY LEH-NO SHOW?" as she stood right next to the sign that said... "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
The giant nodded and went up to her, asking if she had an extra ticket. She launched into some story about how no, but her husband was supposed to be meeting her there, along with two Sicilians and a British woman. HAD ANYONE SEEN TWO SICILIANS!?
At this point, LS (who'd been in LA for about 18 hours) was like, "OMG OMG OMG. People here are SO WERID!"
The woman came up to the rest of us and introduced herself as "Buh-Neece" and wanted to know if any of us had been here before, how long we've been waiting, did anyone know if there was a restroom available blah blah blah blah blah. I ignored her.
She latched on to some poor guy who'd made the mistake of telling her that he'd been to the show about 10 times. She didn't leave him alone the entire time we were in line.
And we were in line until 2:30. Thank god for the shade. Although the trees dropped a TON of sap, and anyone who made the mistake of sitting underneath one had sappy asses (and most didn't even realize it).
At about 2:00, the line had probably 200 people. We were all standing there, bored out of our minds. All the sudden, three guys came up to the front. One was pushing an old dude in a wheelchair, and the third guy looked like his son. They very much had a "gangsta" aire about them.
So they cut in the front of the line, with the son (who was about 7' tall and 300 pounds, and was wearing a black leather jacket and continually dabbing his upper lip with his handkerchief) saying, "You know, we ain't cattle. We ain't gonna be herded around and told where to go. We're gonna sit right here."
You could hear people rumbling, but no one dared say anything, lest they be shot or something.
Finally, the pages appeared and took the first 70 of us. Those three guys were the first ones out the door, even though they'd started at the end of the line. People were PISSED.
So they herded us to another waiting area with water and benches. The three dudes parked themselves directly in front of the water. One of the pages asked them to either sit down or move, and the son looked at her and said, "Excuse me? What? We aren't sitting. We've been herded around like damn cattle. I ain't sitting. And you can't make me."
There were two Burbank cops right there and neither did anything.
So they stood directly in front of the water, blocking everyone from getting any, and the son kept teasing the other guy (who was AA), calling him his bitch, his "token black guy," and several other names I don't care to repeat.
By this time, the pages were all giving him side-eyes, but no one did a damn thing. *smh* When it came time to go through the metal detectors, it went crazy when the son walked through, but NO ONE DID ANYTHING!
Little Sis was whispering in my ear, "OMG HE PROBABLY HAS A GUN OR A KNIFE OR SOMETHING!" And he probably did. Apparently they don't really care about Jay's safety that much.
We were finally seated inside and had great seats - directly in front of the musical guests, and just to the left of the main stage. Little Sis got to shake Jay's hand, and if you watched, you could see us for about .15 seconds. All in all, it was a long day, but it was a great experience. I'm glad I was able to get us tickets.