During the break, Dave and the family went to a rodeo. Dave exclaims a rodeo is non-stop action and is actually even better than this show! Dave recommends, "go if you can get your hands on one." He tells all about the rodeo and how one cowboy got thrown from a bull and probably broke his pelvis. Dave's favorite part of the rodeo was how the rodeo announcer would proclaim, "He's fine, everybody!" Not only is the guy an announcer, he's also a doctor able to make a diagnosis from long range. What did Dave learn at the rodeo? "Everybody likes to ride the Mexican bulls."
And then there was the Queen of the West, a trick-riding champion. She would hop on the horse and ride backwards, upside down, then backwards AND upside down, and then all that again. And then she would grab an American flag and ride around the arena holding the flag high over head. And then when you thought you saw it all, sparks would come out the top of the staff. Dave says there is a lot involved that the Queen of the West has to worry about. When she's riding upside down backwards, she's probably thinking about, "I hope the sparks come out the top of the flag later."

Anyway, I've never been to a rodeo but Dave has now put the urge in me. Harold Carpenter, our head Larkin, poked his head in the shack and suggested Cowtown, New Jersey for the nearest rodeo. For over 50 years they've been having rodeos every Saturday night. I may have to look into that.

Also on the program, Dave's mom. It's her 84th birthday today. Dave said when he was a teen, he thought it was cool to smoke and drink. He admits he and his mom didn't quite see eye to eye during the time. Dave sighs and says, "As it turned out, mom was right."

Before we go any farther, Dave wants to take care of some safety issues. We have to put away the Late Show bear. Doing the honors tonight, Rupert Jee.

CBS likes to produce promotional announcements whenever they have a horn to toot, and they got some good news this week. The Late Show was nominated for 5 Emmy Awards. And that was not all. We look at the proud announcement:

"Congratulations to the Late Show on its five Emmy nominations and on Dave's acquittal on 12 counts of check fraud!"

A Late Show Look at the Heat: It's summer and hot in the city. But it's just not hot, it's incredibly humid hot. Luckily for Dave he had his camcorder with him this morning. We take a look at something he saw on his way to work this morning.
We see a guy out on the street of Manhattan. He is standing in front of a huge yellow puddle. 4 car tires lay along side. The man cries out, "My taxi cab melted!"

BIFF'D: We sent our friendly stage manager Biff Henderson out to the streets of our fine city to play pranks and goofs on unsuspecting New Yorkers and tourists. It's sort of like that Candid Camera show and "Punk'd" and "You've been X'd". Much of "Biff'd" could have been called "Fun with an Air Horn" but there was a lot more to it. I enjoyed it, but it left me hoping Biff had some "muscle" protecting him not too far away. Lots of laughs, and we'll probably be seeing more of "Biff'd", simply from Dave's introducing it as "the first installment."

TOP TEN - it's Dave's mom's 84th birthday. We visit via satellite to say hello. Dave wishes her mom a happy birthday and says, "Mom, tell the folks how long we've known each other." She says, "How old are you?" Dave's mom has known him for 58 years, but Dave has known her his whole life. Dave then asks, "And how many of those years did we get along?" She says, "All of them." Nice mom.
Who was visiting the house this weekend? Dave's mom says his sister Gretchen was over with her 11-year-old son Liam. Dave asks, "And how old is Gretchen?" Uh oh. Should she reveal her age? Of course. "She's 50 years old," says mom. Dave shakes his head in disbelief. "My little sister is 50 years old? That's crazy!"
EXACTLY! I'm the middle of 5 children. When my oldest brother turned 40 it was no real big deal to me since he was always older than me and of course he would be the first to 40. And when I turned 40 it was no big deal since that's what 39-year-olds do. But when my baby sister turned 40, the youngest in the house, the little baby, when she turned 40, oh my gosh, I really felt old. The youngest McIntee is 40?! That just ain't right.
So what did mom and Gretchen do with 11-year-old Liam this weekend? Mom mentions a couple museums they visited. Dave says, "Taking him to museums . . . oh, kids love going to the museum." Big laugh from me. That silly man on the TV always says things that make me laugh.

Let's get to the top ten. Topic: Things I Have Learned In My 84 Years. #10.
Seconds before mom is set to recite item #10, Dave puts a quick stop to it. "Did we open the thing?" (meaning the top ten animation). Paul says we haven't yet, so Dave says, "Let's open the thing!" The Late Show Top Ten animation comes up with music from Paul. We come back to Dave, who says that was a complete waste of time. Of course it would make no difference if we had opened the thing or not, but to ensure order in this disorderly world, it's a nice thing to do.
#10. "In a pinch, vanilla extract will give you a good buzz."
#9. "Think twice before getting a Robert Wagner tattoo."
#8. "You can kill a man with two fingers applied swiftly to the Adam's apple."
#7. "Male figure skaters are usually gay."
#6. "Kids don't listen to parents when it come to advice on hairpieces."
#5. "You're not fully clean unless you're zestfully clean."
#4. "With a color printer, you can easily make counterfeit Meineke gift certificates."
#3. "Never give a bookie your home phone number."
#2. "For sheer entertainment, you can't beat Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson in 'Wedding Crashers' in theaters now . . . . I just made $1,000 for saying that."
#1. "It's hard having a son who looks older than you."

Great job. Funny list. Happy birthday, Dave's mom.

I was reading the Letterman/Late Show newsgroup and someone was wondering if Mom's kitchen was really a kitchen or just a set. The reason the person wondered was because the window in the background is blackened out. For the record, it is in fact her kitchen, but I wondered the same thing about the kitchen window many years back. I asked the Late Show staffer who travels out to Indiana for these visits what's the deal. She says to cut down on the glare from the outside sunlight, they put something over the window. And that's why it is always black.

BILLY BOB THORNTON: Ever been to a rodeo? Billy Bob has and liked about 50% of it. He didn't like the stuff for the kid entertainment. Billy Bob looks like a cowboy and a horseman. B.Bob says he's not a cowboy at all but did do a bit of the horse. Much like riding a motorcycle, everyone who rides a horse eventually gets thrown. When B.Bob got up, he couldn't feel the right side of his body. Ouch. Says Dave, "That would take the cowboy right out of you."
Vacations? Where does Billy Bob go on vacation? Billy Bob isn't one much for vacations. In his down time, he likes to just hang around the house doing nothing. He lives in Los Angeles and the last vacation he went on was to Santa Monica. He figures if he didn't like it or got antsy, he could just drive home. Billy Bob says he's never been to Hawaii because "It's too vacationy." Dave says he's never been to Hawaii either. Dave says Paul went to Hawaii and had a very bad experience. Paul says he had a terrible accident his second day in Hawaii, adding "Luckily I saw Don Ho on the first night."
The talk turns to children, B.Bob's youngest now 10 months old. He's amazed at how much more aware she becomes by the day. Dave offers on a recent drive he looked in the backseat and Harry was eating M&Ms. Dave says, "I looked at him and said, 'You weren't even here two years ago and now you're eating my candy!"
Billy Bob stars in "Bad News Bears," which opens Friday. Much to my surprise, Billy Bob had a very brief career in pro ball as a member of the Kansas City Royals farm team. He was on the infield for about two minutes when he got hit by an errant thrown ball. Broke his collarbone. And that was his career.

ACT 5: It's time for a Late Show Harry Potter Spoiler! The new Harry Potter book has been assigned the ISBN number 0439784549! Hope we didn't ruin the book for you! This has been a Late Show Harry Potter Spoiler!

JERMAINE DUPRI: The performer and music producer performed "Gonna Getcha" from the compilation CD, "Young, Fly, and Flashy, Volume 1."

And that was our show for Monday, July 18, 2005. Wahoo EXTRA!

We at the Wahoo Gazette are proud to announce the Late Show's 5 Emmy Award nominations:

- Directing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Program
- Lighting Direction for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Programming
- Technical Direction, Camerawork, Video for a Series
- Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Program
- Variety, Music, or Comedy Series

We were shutout in the Production Coordinator category.

I went to my college reunion this weekend in Cortland, New York with my college friend Buddy. I saw everybody I wanted to see in about 15 minutes. Not till I was up there did I realize what I really wanted to see were the old bars I used to go to. The biggest and most popular was the Dark Horse. It now has an upstairs. It was not how I remember the place. It has new booths. More TVs. It was different. I was a tad disappointed that they went and changed on me. Actually, by the time I was a senior in college, I was tired of the old haunts. I did most of my drinking at the secondary and tertiary bars. I looked for Larabee's. Closed. Now called something else. The Stadium? Doesn't exist. Noah Johns? Nope. Le Roue's Zoo? Gone. The Whiffletree? Nope. Shamrock? No. Thankfully, the Tavern was still there. And the Gable Inn was still there as well. I always liked the Gable Inn. It's a real town bar. I only spent Friday night to Saturday morning in Cortland as I had more plans for the weekend. My friend Buddy's friends have been going on a canoe trip every summer for the past 30 years. It was scheduled for the same weekend. On Saturday morning we left Cortland and headed for Skinner's Falls along the Delaware River. Before we even got out of town, Buddy stopped at a run down bar, dank, old, very neighborhoody. It was 11:00 AM. We pulled up a barstool and ordered a couple of Genesee's. It's what you would expect in a neighborhood dive bar. No name, industrial tile on the floor, lots of wood paneling. What I liked best about the place was a "for sale" sign. The owner had a car for sale. On a piece of paper was written in hand the word "Chevrowlet." Obviously the person realized he had misspelled "Chevrolet" and so crossed it out and wrote it correctly. The thing that amused me was that it was written on a regular loose-leaf piece of paper. Instead of crumbling it up and making a new sign, he decided to simply cross it out and re-write it. I looked at that for a good 5 minutes trying to imagine his thinking.
After one beer, we continued on our way. We knew we had missed the actual canoe trip but we would be there when they finished and spend the night camping. We drove south on Route 17 to exit 87. From there it was another half hour through small towns. A sign up ahead read "Bar." That's all it said. I said to myself, "Man, I hope Buddy stops there." Of course he wouldn't be a close friend if he didn't think a lot like me. His blinker was soon blinking. It was just after 1:00 PM. We ordered up another two Genesee's. The bar had lots of wood paneling, industrial-tiled floor, neon sign touting Pabst. The Yankee game was on. They were playing Boston. A 70-year-old woman was sitting at the bar. She was a big Yankee fan. Everyone was friendly. Everything was perfect. And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, someone put a quarter in the juke box and Creedence came on. Man, oh man, it was heaven. The old woman at the end of the bar told some Billy Martin stories. The bartender was a Cub fan and he told some Cub stories. Buddy and I bought a couple of big Slim Jims. It was a perfect early afternoon. We loved our time at "Bar" but we had someplace to get to. We made it the rest of the way to Skinner's Falls and waited in the river for the canoers to make it to camp. They came about an hour later and then the real damage took place. But that's for another day.

Did you see the big brawl in the Kansas City Royals/Detroit Tiger baseball game over the weekend? What set if off was the players suddenly realized they played for Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers.
Is there anything sillier in sports than watching relief pitchers running in from the bullpen to join in on a brawl?

Did you watch the Major League Baseball All-Star game? Once again the American League won when it didn't mean much to me. It's like 8 years in a row or something. Oh how I would have enjoyed this domination so much more in the 60s and 70s when it was the National League who won every game.
My laugh-out-loud All-Star moment was when they had legendary announcer Ernie Harwell on to say a few words. First there was a pre-taped piece. And then when they asked him a question, they left no time for an answer. Ernie began to answer and was immediately cut off by the host, who took us down to the "action" on the field, some "win a million dollars" contest. Poor Ernie wanted to share some things he's learned in his decades in baseball but it was not to be. We had bells and whistles and something to sell waiting for us down on the field.