Dave’s been watching the Republican National Convention on the C-Span in his free time and heard something odd earlier in the day. We see a clip from the convention. Introducing the next speaker, we hear the announcer say, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, another old, boring, white guy.” Was that necessary? You would think the Republican Party already had the old boring white guy demographic locked up.

And, boy, Vice President Dick Cheney’s entrance into the Convention Monday night was remarkable. We have the clip. We see him enter. We hear him introduces. And then we see thousands of young teen girls squealing with lustful glee over the dashing (?) Veep. Hmmm. Old and bald and yet the girls love him. Perhaps I too may be still attractive to the teens? Naah. It’s probably the power that attracts.

And now a Message from John Kerry. From an August 26th campaign stop in Minnesota: “Yes, I have a plan. My plan is to / wake up in the middle of the night in a sweat and say ‘I don’t know what I’m doing.”

And a Moment with George W. Bush. Dave says it must be very difficult to be President. You really have to be on 24/7, unlike here where Dave has to be on 1/5. From an August 18th campaign stop in Hudson, Wisconsin.

Bush: “Roger Ripwinger is with us. Hi, Rog, how are you?”
Roger: (off camera) “I’m doing great.”
Bush: (not even looking up) “Yeah, well, me too. He is . . . . . uh . . . . whaddy do?”

Hey, it happens.

GEORGE W. BUSH STRAIGHT TALKER: From that same August 18th campaign stop in Hudson, Wisconsin: “See, I, uhh, . . . .” (shakes head with an open mouth, mutters.)

BIFF HENDERSON AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION – Day 2. Madison Square Garden, 33rd Street and 8th Avenue, 20 blocks south of the Ed Sullivan Theater.

So what goes on during the day at the convention? Biff relays, “Nothing. Nothing goes on.” How’s the food? “Better than Boston.” Dave doesn’t like the split-screen effect on his monitor, Dave on the TV left, Biff on the right. Dave wants it the other way. Can this be done? Our technical director Tim Kennedy starts pressing a bunch of buttons on his board and the switch is made. I wasn’t there to see it but I was impressed with Kennedy’s performance. And I always thought all those buttons in front of him were just for show. It’s a good to have all those buttons when angling for a nice salary boost during the year-end review. “I deserve more! Have you seen all those buttons in front of me?!”

What does Biff have for us tonight? It’s his one-on-one interview with First Lady Barbara Bush . . . . or is it Laura Bush? Biff is told it is Laura Bush.

We see the clip. Biff is high above the fray of the Convention floor, which is where we see the First Lady. We hear Biff yelling from above, “Laura Bush! Laura! Laura Bush!” That’s all Biff was able to get.

While Dave is talking to Biff, Dave hears convention music playing in the background. Dave asks Biff if he can turn and tell them to turn it off. Biff complies, bellowing a beefy, “Hey, shut the hell up!” or “Would you turn off the damn music” or something like that. I missed much of this segment. I was elbow-deep in the shack copier trying to unjam a jam.

TOP TEN: Things I Can Say Now That I’ve Won the Gold Medal – And here to present tonight’s top ten list, ten members of your Gold Medal winning United States Women’s Olympic Soccer Team.

Helping out tonight:
#10. Heather O’Reilly – “Thinking soccer ball was Letterman’s head made it more fun to kick”
#9. Lindsay Tarpley – “I’m saving on my Gold Medal insurance thanks to Geico”
#8. Cat Reddick – “Now that the Olympics are over, it will be fun to use our hands again.”
#7. Briana Scurry – “I swiped a couple miniature bottles of shampoo from the Athens Marriott”
#6. Abby Wambach – “We tested positive . . . for being 18 really hot soccer babes.”
#5. Kristine Lilly – “I regularly go to McDonald’s to satisfy my Olympic-size appetite . . . . . . I just made $10,000 for saying that.”
#4. Joy Fawcett – “It was such an honor to play in front of dozens and dozens of crazed fans.”
#3. Julie Foudy – “Thank goodness I won this thing – On the way to the theater my medal stopped two bullets.”
#2. Brandi Chastain – “I’m pleased to announce that I’m now Mrs. Bob Costas.” #1. Mia Hamm – “It’s pretty clear who wears the pants in the family now, huh Nomar?

Very nice bunch. Very sweet during rehearsal and they were happy to be here, as we were to have them.

FARRAH FAWCETT – You’re never quite sure what you’re going to get with Farrah. Fawcett runs hot and cold. Bah-dum-bum. Farrah is just back from Greece, being there to enjoy the opening ceremonies to the Summer Olympics. Dave is curious about the ceremonies. All he knows about it is it’s usually guys on stilts and a bunch of flying birds. Farrah says it was fabulous. The Athens committee combined the ancient with the new. I “Played the Dave” and said, “I feel we do the same here when we book our musical guests.” Dave didn’t bite. BUZZ. Farrah was fascinated with the flying performers, exclaiming “I always wanted to do wires.” Dave was unsure what she meant. Farrah says in order for the performers to fly, they need to be tethered and lifted by wires. Farrah always wanted to do that, be lifted and tethered. I’m sure there are places in the Village where she can have that done.

Following the opening ceremonies at the Olympics, Farrah spent a lot of time swimming in the very salty Aegean Sea and mentions how her shoulders are now so big and muscular. Dave asks, “And all that salt from the Aegean Sea causes your shoulders to swell?” She laughs, explaining the high salt content in the Sea enabled her to stay buoyant for long periods of time which allowed her to swim for longer than she is accustomed. All that swimming built up her shoulders. Dave wonders why, if Farrah and he are of similar age, why Farrah looks so much better than he does. Dave says, “I look like Buddy Ebsen right before he died and you look great!” Farrah says her hair hides a lot and, in fact, she and Dave probably look very much alike. If I hadn’t still been fighting with the copier, I may have placed a call to the Graphics Department to have them create a shot of Dave in Farrah’s hair but I was afraid my phone call would have been filled with leftover profanity from the copier.

Dave and Farrah both salute the dignity of growing old gracefully and embrace “our wrinkles and old age.” Farrah’s film, The Cookout opens Friday.

ACT 5: “The Late Show would like to welcome our audience members who are part of the Republican National Committee.” (shot of 3 conservatively dressed audience members.)
“The Late Show would also like to welcome our audience members who are a part of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network! Welcome and enjoy the show.”

THE CLARKS: From their new CD, Fast Moving Cars, the Pittsburgh-based The Clarks performed “Hell On Wheels.”

And that was our show for Tuesday August 31, 2004. Wahoo EXTRA!

Truthfully, what I’m looking forward to most in this Republican National Convention is the balloon drop. I’m basing my November vote on what Party has the better balloon drop.

Is it really necessary to have the wives of Presidential candidates speak at the conventions?

Article in today’s paper about a survey on a sex-toy website, asking “Who’s the candidate you’d most like to sleep with?”
45.3% of the 1,185 respondents chose Bush.
32.8% chose John Kerry.
This tells me that more Republicans visit sex-toy websites than Democrats.

The shocking thing about the Men’s Olympic basketball team isn’t that they only won a bronze. The shocking thing is they lost 3 times in the process. And from what I saw, they lost those games because the other teams were BETTER. They didn’t lose due to lack of effort. The other teams were simply better.

A lot of things have changed in basketball over the years but a few things have remained constant: the ten-foot basket, the size of the rim, the size of the basketball, and the distance from the foul-line to the basket. This is one of the only objective studies you could make to judge the shooting ability of today’s NBA players to those of years ago. I suspect you would find the players of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s had a higher foul-shooting percentage than the players of today. Someday I’ll look that up.

Word is Jason Giambi may be close to returning to the Yankees. One question. Can he pitch?

Trouble with the home computer. My keyboard doesn’t seem to be functioning. A few hours after my daughter was instant-messaging a friend, I tried to start and finish this Wahoo. No luck. My keyboard was on the fritz. I punched the keys but nothing registered. The cursor was blinking but nothing appeared as I typed. I turned the computer off then on, but again, no luck. I plugged in another keyboard and then another. Still no success. I banged the side of the computer. I felt a little better but the keyboard still wouldn’t operate. Each time I plugged in a new keyboard certain lights would come on which told me it was getting “juice” but that was it. So instead of doing Tuesday’s Wahoo Tuesday night at home, I had to come in early Wednesday morning to do it at work. Gee whiz. This Wahoo Gazette thing doesn’t seem worth it at times. Now I know why no other talk show, daytime or night, has anything remotely similar to the Wahoo Gazette. I guess the standard has been set too high.

Have a good day.

G22 and proud of it.