THE VIEW

Yesterday, Christine, JR and Matt and I attended an early morning taping of The View. Okay, it wasn't really that early but we got to the uptown studio at 830am, which is earlier than I've had to wake up all year. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling chipper...


...but everybody else was.


We stood in line outside for an hour with lots of wholesome American women. That girl in the powder blue coat on the right brushed her hair about 200 time or so before entering the studio. Our crew is at the back of the line here because JR split his pants getting into the taxi cab.

There were some real gems standing outside of the studio with us, such as these two women. Lots of ladies opted to wear red and be festive for the holiday season. They also called their friends back in Ohio and Indiana to tell them they'd be on live television in two hours!!!


Inside the studio, we had to wait another hour before being seated. At this point, I was ready to pass out. Matt was so hyper that this lady told him to stop bumping into her and that he had already done it 10 times. Another lady pushed Christine to get into the elevator before her.


This is what life looks like to me at 10am. Intense and unpretty, as TLC would say.


JR posed with a photo of the twin towers in an attempt to be "funny." I told him he wasn't.


I cheered up on the way up because I was about to see Rosie, Barbara Wawa and Bette Midler, the headline guest of the day.


Before the show started, they tried to rile us up by inviting audience members to dance on stage. Notice how the ENTIRE AUDIENCE is women and fags. What's that about? Oh, and the guy and girl dancing together were quite a scene.


Watching the taping was just like watching it on TV. Rosie and Barbara had an awkward fight about rich people etiquette, Joy cracked jokes and Elizabeth whined. During commercials, Rosie would entertain the audience telling jokes or fielding questions while Barbara was made to look human again.


Seriously. Matt kept alleging that Barbara is a robot that they plug in for a few episodes each week. She's a smart cookie but that speech imediment has got to go. Her only audience interaction was to hug the slutty dancer girl for a 'be right back' spot.

After much speculation, we found out that the audience gifts were a handheld massager (read: vibrator) and Bette's Christmas cd, along with a crappy View bag. Matt was pissed because they had given away a $400 Nikon camera two days earlier...


...but not as pissed as the lady who sat next to Christine. She was like, "WHAT?!?!?!? My train ride here cost more than this crappy present!!!" I was like, ummm, you got free tickets to see a TV show. Calm down.


In the end, we made the most of our new presents, attempting to "massage" one another in our nether regions as we rode the elevator down and took the subway back to the East Village.