Tucson Coincidence

Ihad never been to New York City until last week, when I visited the city with my boyfriend, Garrett.

One of the trip's many highlights came Thursday afternoon, when we attended a taping of the Late Show With David Letterman. I've long been a fan of the gap-toothed one, and put in for tickets to see that day's show almost two months ago.

Tickets, while free, are hard to come by. That's why I was delighted when I got the call last Wednesday from a Late Show staffer: We were going to the Thursday show.

We had amazing seats--four rows back on the left (from the stage) side of the Ed Sullivan Theater. We were looking directly at Letterman's desk.

There were only two guests on the show that day: Melanie Griffith and, to my surprise, Pam Reed.

Reed, of course, is the Tucsonan who recently won her second-consecutive Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile trek from Death Valley to part-way up Mount Whitney, Calif. It's an amazing human feat to finish such a race, let alone win the thing--beating all comers, men included.

Of the two guests, Reed was--by far--the more entertaining and personable. Griffith, on to tout her starring role in the play Chicago on Broadway, was uninteresting and ditzy. Reed, on the other hand, came off as serious and intelligent, yet willing to laugh at herself when Letterman poked fun at her prize for winning the race: a belt buckle.

It was a funny coincidence: My first time in New York, I go to a taping of one of my favorite shows, where one of the two guests is a fellow Tucsonan--and an amazing one at that.

jimmyb@tucsonweekly.com