Shaking Hands With George

My post a while back about stalking Maureen Dowd was anti-climactic because I never actually met MoDo. At best I got a curious and/or nervous look from here as to why I was taking a pictures. The person I did manage to meet was George Stephanopoulos. Like any celebrity, he is smaller than he appears in television, which is mighty small indeed. Despite his bushy eyebrows, he has never lost that boyish whiz-kid look he had as one of Bill Clinton’s inner circle.

Producing his Sunday morning show requires a fair amount of physical energy. The show is recorded in the smaller of the third floor studios of the brand new Newseum right next to a large staircase the runs up and down the height of the building. Right after the Roundtable segment, while the panelists are moseying over to the green room for the web post-interview, George and an assistant race up the stairwell to get to sixth floor for the Weekly Funnies segment.

I had been standing outside watching all the guests go by when he came out for the next segment. As he went past, to break the awkwardness of me staring at him, I said, “I really love the show.” I felt like a groupie hanging around the back door of a Hannah Montana concert.

He stopped and said “thanks” and continued on up the stairs. Once he gets up to the roof terrace (and these are tall floors), he sets up overlooking the Mall of DC. From there he points out a landmark and introduces the late show comic clips. After that, he does the closing remarks and the show wraps.

But that doesn’t mean he is done. I wandered back through the museum looking at some of the exhibits and when I got back down to the third floor I noticed a group hanging outside the door to the studio. I glanced into the studio and saw George sitting at the desk talking to the camera.

I wandered over to see what the crowd was for. Before I could find out, the door opened and a guy wearing tons of badges ushered them in and I wagon-trained along. I don’t like looking like a tourist even when I am being one. Even though I had a camera case over my shoulder, I had dressed for the day in pleated khakis and a nice earth-tone button down shirt. I looked positively Al Gore-ish.

This group that was on a private tour was also dressed pretty nicely for a Sunday morning in Washington. They turned out to be a group of VIPs from a company that owned several network affiliates. Everybody tip-toed back into the electronics filled back of the studio with all the cables and cameras. In addition to Snuffleupagus (as cruel bloggers call him), there was the guest wrangler and three or four production people.

George was doing drop-in interviews with local stations. The producer was on the phone and would tell George who they were going to talk to next. George would then sit there repeating the name and city of the local anchor he was about to talk to. The camera man would count down the feed and then George would turn on the charm. He’d make news-show happy chat with the local newscaster and pimp the panelists and topic for the day’s show which obviously hadn’t aired yet in that market. While I was in there, he talked to LA, Atlanta, and Miami.

Between the drop-ins, he would walk out from behind the desk and schmooze with the big wigs. The topic of the day was (and still is) when will Hillary throw in the towel. He would just shrug and reply to the effect of “when she is good and ready.”

I tried to stay as inconspicuous as possible. As he came around shaking hands and being introduced to everyone, it became inevitable that he would reach me. I just stuck out my hand and introduced myself. He said, “That’s right, we met outside.” He had remembered me from the hallway.

Once all the on-air promotions were done, the tour continued on over to the master control room, but I ducked out the other direction before anyone could notice me and call security.

The whole time I was there, George was nothing but polite and professional to everyone. That included senators, news columnists, corporate guests, and me, a nosey blogger that had wandered in off the street. Say what you want, but I say George Stephanopolous is a class act.

BlatantCommentWhoring™: When have you wandered into someplace you didn’t belong and were you caught?

Stalking MoDo

The Newseum in Washington, DC is a newly reopened museum located right on Pennsylvania Avenue. The old location, which closed a few years ago, was across the river in Arlington where it got poor foot traffic being way off the beaten path. The new digs are in a huge new building it shares with a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and high-end condos. The museum itself has all sorts of high-tech gizmos and exhibits. It has two working television studios and one is now used every Sunday for the taping of “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, ABC’s Sunday morning political talk show.

I’ve been a regular watcher of “This Week” since its salad days with David Brinkley and the “classic” roundtable of George Will, Cokie Roberts, and Sam Donaldson. I got an e-mail alert that Maureen Dowd would be on the roundtable and I made plans to see if I could cross paths with her. Some may call it stalking; I call it celebrity fan worship.

The museum opens at 9 a.m. and I was part of a small scrum demanding entrance right at nine. “This Week” airs at 10 a.m. in the Washington area, but the actual taping takes place at nine. By the time I bought a membership, figured out where the studio was, and made my way up there, the first segment was already in progress.

The studio that “This Week” uses is the smaller one in the front of the museum on the third floor with the Capitol building in the backdrop. The Newseum broadcasts the feed on the enormous high definition screen in the lobby, but the sound was turned off. A couple of minutes before the end of the segment, out walked the full Roundtable Panel which included George Will, Donna Brazile, Maureen Dowd, and Matthew Dowd (no relation as far as I know).

Maureen was wearing a charcoal gray skirt with a red top that was flirting with coral or salmon. Her beige high heeled shoes were very simple without veering off into FMP territory. While I expected her to be short, she seemed just a little more full-figured than I expected, not that she was anywhere close to Donna Brazile territory. In the post-show webcast she did admit to eating more cheesesteaks than Obama. For a woman that splits the age difference between me and my mother, she came off professional but not matronly.

They all made small talk with each other on the atrium walkway until it was time to do their teaser. Dowd chatted with George Will and briefly leaned over the railing to admire the news helicopter hanging from the ceiling. For a brief instant the cameras went on and everybody smiled. Then they went into the studio.

There is only one small window into the studio that isn’t blacked out. I later learned that the fourth level of the museum has on overlook into the studio, but the view doesn’t seem to be much better. For the most part, I just watched the feed on the big screen waiting for brief glimpses of Dowd, who seemed a little nervous and didn't get as much screen time as the other guests.

After the segment was over, everybody unclipped their microphones and walked from the studio to the green room back in the staff-only part of the floor. Donna Brazile was still animatedly discussing Hillary Clinton’s campaign strategy. The two Dowds hung back and were talking to each other. Maureen gave me a quick look briefer than a glance and continued on.

My behavior for a smitten stalker was admirable. I stayed in the public spaces. I didn’t approach the guests (except for the senators, who were glad to have their picture taken), and I avoided any disruption of the show’s production. The only request they had was that I not use my flash, so most of my pictures were done with available light. You can see other pictures from my visit in the Flickr set, not all of which feature Maureen.

BlatantCommentWhoring®: On a scale from Mel on The Flight Of The Conchords to Rupert Pupkin, how big of a stalker am I?