And Now Live From New York It's Saturday Night

I'm sitting here at LAX waiting for the next leg of my journey to commence, the 14 hour flight to Sydney. Therefore the title of my post couldn't be more misleading. It's not live, I'm not in New York and it's not Saturday night. The reason for the title? Well it's the opening line of that most famous of American TV shows, Saturday Night Live. It's been running for more than 40 years.

This show has not been a regular feature of the Australian TV landscape, at least until the advent of pay TV. I stumbled across it after being mesmerised by its former stars in their movie roles. Think John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Steve Martin, Chevy Chase etc. In my awe of these guys I sort out their early stuff on VHS and consumed many hours of Saturday Night Live by way of specials and artist compilations. The names became known in every household, as they left the show they were replaced by a new generation of comedians.

It was a well done exhibition with it taking you on a week's schedule getting the show to air. You finally end up in the director's suite at the dress rehearsal and then at the main event with a mini show starring Tina Fey. Sadly they didn't focus on the early stuff nearly as much as I would have liked but there were still a multitude of household names represented. Think Chris Farley, Tracy Morgan, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Jon Lovitz and many many more.

It was a diverting way to spend a few hours but I couldn't totally ignore the fact that I would soon be trudging back to reality. I headed back to the hotel, grabbed my bags and hailed a yellow cab to take me to JFK. This cabbie was great, it was back streets and horns, talking to me about New York, sorting out my love life, showing me things I should have seen and then pretending to drop me at the Qatar boarding gate instead of Qantas. 

We fought our way through New York traffic, remember this was 2.30pm on a Saturday afternoon. They had cops doing point duty at many of the busy intersections, this happens everyday. It's not because the traffic lights don't work but because the New York drivers are so pushy they clog up the streets so no one can get through. I don't think we'll have that problem in Muswellbrook for a while.

So the next post will be from Australia and that will be a wrap. The Geek Wanderlost Caravan will be parked up until next time.  Who knows where it may lead.