Live From New York...

It's a lesson in how to stalk your favorite celebrity!

Last week most of my classes were canceled, so I took the opportunity to run up to New England. Excellent choice, if I do say so myself. The first order of business upon my arrival in NYC? Well, a stop at Arby's for curly fries. But IMMEDIATELY after that, the priority was getting in line for Saturday Night Live.

For those of you unfamiliar with the ticketing process, allow me to sum up:

1. Friends and family of the cast, musical guest, and guest host get automatic seats.
2. People who enter the annual ticket lottery each August and win tickets get next priority.
3. People who get standby tickets get last priority.

There are 200 seats in the studio. 200 even. Each Saturday night at 8:00, the entire cast and crew do a full dress rehearsal of all the skits they're thinking about doing. They gauge audience reaction at the dress, then have the slightly shorter live show at 11:30. For both the rehearsal and for the live show, they mail out 200 regular tickets. Thus, in weeks when the guest host and musical guest bring large entourages, it is possible for people with actual tickets to not get in. Most weeks, the musical guest and guest host do not bring absurdly large entourages, a number of individuals with regular tickets don't show up, and a few people with standby tickets therefore get in.

We were, of course, trying to get standby tickets. This is a dirty process. Literally. One must sleep on the sidewalk outside Rockefeller Plaza all night. One can only leave the line for short restroom breaks to the 24 hour McDonalds two blocks away and entirely peopled by sleeping homeless bums. One should bring both an umbrella and an air mattress. Unfortunately, this one only brought the umbrella, so I'm afraid my jeans will never be the same.

At 7:00 on the morning of the show, the staff distributes tickets to those waiting in line. 200 for the rehearsal and 200 for the live show. I waited in line with my friends Steffany and Megan. We were numbers 44, 45, and 46 for the rehearsal. This was not particularly positive, since most of the stuff I'd read online indicated that they rarely admit people past the 20s in standby tickets.

The ticket I received looked like this:



We then stumbled back to Steffany's apartment and slept for many hours.

At roughly 5:30, we headed back to our sidewalk-away-from-home to wait in the standby line to hopefully, pleasepleaseplease, get in. A picture for luck:



We made it back to 30 Rock without much to report, and then proceeded to wait in line from 6:30ish to 7:57ish...at which time we went up the magic elevators and into the studio! We were herded into seats and Poof! Live From New York we were actually watching Ryan Reynolds host SNL!!!! VICTORY!!!!!!

I was giddy. He was amazing. For those of you unfamiliar with how pretty Ryan Reynolds is, please reference one of the promo shots from the SNL I attended:



Why yes, he's lovely. For those of you who missed his SNL night of fame, it is available for $2.99 on iTunes. Also, The Proposal (funniest movie of the year!) is out on DVD today. Get thee to a store and rent or purchase it today. You will be glad you did.

And for those of you wondering if sitting on the sidewalk all night in the rain is worth it for the possibility of seeing your favorite movie star, the answer is absolutely. 100%. Without question. But make sure you take friends for company, and if you're of legal age then take an entire thermos of adult beverages to get you through. ;)