Irene Hoffman

once again to the letterman podcast once again my name is mike chisholm once again i am here to lead the discussion all things david letterman and company very excited to be here as always uh the show is brought to you by i still don't have a sponsor god damn we're like nine ten episodes into this thing we still don't have a sponsor but uh that might be changing something might be happening there might be something afoot going on with that and uh we'll keep you posted on that something pretty exciting especially if you like the world of david letterman and company which is the entire reason why this show exists we love talking about the content the antics the legacy of david letterman and company uh this episode of course is absolutely no exception to that um and i gotta tell you i'm very excited about the gal that we have on here tonight uh it's gonna be very very cool to talk to irene to not just tonight but every time she comes on because it ain't just gonna be today let me tell you this gal has stories upon stories her stories have stories when it comes to new york when it comes to the late show with david letterman and there's a whole bunch of reasons for that i'm going to kind of uh introduce uh some of those reasons right now now now she has seen the show 40 i think it's 49 times 48 times plus 48 times plus an episode of my next guest um and and it's been going on for years and years and years and she's collected us all sorts of uh things along the way stories and memories things like that but also somewhere along the way she also collected a guy by the name of rupert g this is actually rupert rupert g's girlfriend is is irene hoffman and i'm very very excited that she's gonna come on the uh on the show here uh the way irene and i met was um i don't know if you would have sat through the entire episode of the letter manifesto that's talking about that night uh the story that led up to that my experience with that but anyway i had written it out and i threw it out there to the universe just for people to read it irene read that the original incarnation of my latter manifesto and she reached out to me and it was very very clear that she and i had this kinship where we understood each other when it came to being enthusiasts of something and and we're both very enthusiastic about the things that we enjoy um and we have multiple things that we're enthusiastic about for example irene doesn't just have very cool memories around letterman she's got very cool uh memories and that she has made and experiences around the simpsons um we're gonna probably get into that whether it's not tonight or one of her future appearances we're gonna get into that stuff but either way um i have a saying that saying that a fisherman can always recognize another fisherman we recognize that both of us have the same level of enthusiasm for the things that we enjoy and um i i am so grateful that irene reached out to me the stories that she has told me uh uh about some of the things the inner workings sometimes behind the scenes but also just vantage points of experience uh her experiences with the late show and with david letterman and with new york uh and and rupert too for that matter uh i'm just really excited that i was able to convince her to no no irene you are a great guest for this show i can't wait i can't wait for you to come on here and tell some of these stories that's what she's going to do tonight uh irene thank you very much for letting me leverage our personal relationship for you to come on the letterman podcast tonight are you excited i'm excited and i'm thanking you you've been nothing but encouraging uh since this show started like before the show started we've been we've been going back and forth for a while now and then the show started you've been one of my biggest cheerleaders one of our biggest cheerleaders for this thing um i mean i don't know if dave's the most underappreciated broadcaster out there but this show uh as far as i'm concerned uh uh at long last and there should be dozens of them uh with the uh the impact that made that man made on on the planet earth don't you think yeah but i it was it was your little manifesto that definitely made because under the undercurrent of what you wrote had to do with outlook on life and attitude it had to do with reaching to possibly make something happen in a in a natural kind way and there were three things that i had spoken to you about that was just an undercurrent of the essay and you said absolutely and i said that's exactly how i feel so that's i i didn't know you i didn't know what you look like i didn't know where you lived i just knew that i gotta i gotta talk to this guy well kindness is one of my favorite things in the world um i'm a huge huge huge fan of kindness uh the guy who wrote the last days of letterman scott ryan he's about to we're about to drop his episode uh of of um well he's got he's got another episode come a very special episode coming up but we we're gonna drop his post-mortem here soon uh he talks about kindness is is his religion in all of his books that he's released he has a little blurb about kindness i love kindness i know you love kindness i have said this before uh the bow that you have uh who who who owns the hello deli out there on 53rd street it's like it's like god took the word kind and made it into a man rupert might be one of the kindest individuals i've ever met in my whole life he is he is he's just so he's quiet and he loves he's loves this pattern of life that he's gotten for himself and i i respect it and i also kind of develop my pattern as well but i i have never i'm not going to say he doesn't it gives me some sermons and and he doesn't uh you know try to guide me in my thinking and my whatever but in the end the sweetest kindest most generous man well and i mean i check this out now now this is at your uh you got a spot in greece too right you've got a uh it doesn't it doesn't show over very well but you can see that that is look at that oh my god i can see it you guys hanging out at your place that's 12 steps off your front door in greece yes right yeah yep 12 steps down man um okay now we're putting carts before horses here so so you got your rupert and and and all happy there and all that stuff but now you started seeing the show you said is 40 49 times uh 48 and then the tina fey was the 49th event you got a ticket for that right in front of you don't you i do let's see show us some of the the souvenirs you got i didn't realize and they did and there's a little perforation there but netflix wasn't quite in the groove quite yet they were just kind of starting up and then i got to to put this on but the irony of this and the card that we received as vip it was 20 degrees out and the card said please wear cocktail attire now i i'm a floridian and we have to wear layers and layers of things but i went and got a cocktail dress and um pumps and i had to wear stockings because i was just i'm a florida girl and i had an oh i had a puffer coat it was it kept me warm for the duration that it hit below my knee after that it was all frozen um and i was the only person when they got us into the vip section i was standing next to people who were dressed exactly the way i would dress for a late show sure and i said by chance did you get on your card cocktail attire and they said yeah we're from l.a and this is our cocktail attire and i said i've i've been here since and it was like i was three hours early and i cannot tell i'm looking at everyone and no one but me is wearing cocktail attire and they go yeah no we just yeah we ignored that so i was wearing cocktail attire it's funny you know um i think he and conan talked about this uh when when conan was on one of his his appearances it might have even been the last one that i think about it where if you go back in the way back machine to watch audiences of the tonight show and and when i like they dressed they dressed it's almost like flying too like he used to dress up to go flying to go on an airplane yes yes and and then and then it got i think conan was talking about how now their people are wearing shorts and and yeah i love dressing up like when i when candy and i went and saw dave a few weeks ago in l.a um we dressed up for the night like we were we were ready to go it was it was uh it felt like an evening out we wanted to be dressed to the nines in the audience um i don't know what it is about shows like that but i just i love the classic dressing up for that kind of stuff you on all the times that you went did you dress up every time i did i was very um first of all i was 20 pounds lighter and i was always trendy but depending on the weather and rupert had told me years after when i was freezing and i was the designated driver in line he told me he said i do remember you came in for two lobster bisques i said i i loved it but i was also trying to escape the cold right um but he he said you had a great outfit on now in the summer time because we were so sweaty and my fairy godmother was uh going to do a kindness for me after the show as in sitting in dave's desk and going backstage i told her i'm in a 1960s um it's very marlo thomas that girl top with um a capri white pants so that she'd know how to find me yes and when you see the photographs um i was trendy but it was boiling hot outside so it was sleeveless but it was crisp i tried to be crisp all the time and yet casual now in the in the winter it was also 43 degrees in the studio and we'd always whisper to each other we need muffs for hand muffs you know we would take our coats and kind of put them over our hands because it'd be cold but even so i always i always did and i tried to be i was always fashionable so but you know and and not not big cocktail i was wearing pumps it was come on they had even they had some little they had some little glittery kind of i went and bought them that day because i said i don't know what to do i brought this dress it's not cocktail and you know i and i went and bought shoes and dress and stockings and i was frozen well i i the thing i love about it though is is i think that you and i are similar in the sense that we want to make an experience so if we're going to make it an experience let's have a new outfit on let's have something shiny on that's that that's meaningful that has something to it and again that's that thing where we just kind of think the same experience there was an additional thing there and that was this just looks like a ticket but the card and then eventually this but the card i did not want to do one thread out of place i wanted to follow the rules and cocktail and i never got cocktail attire in these um i never gotten instructions for that no but we but but we did like it was funny like even the way that uh when i when i got onto the to the list to get into what i didn't know though you know getting on kevin's gold list to get into the front row and you know what i'm talking about like because that you you've experienced that i experienced it one time um you knew by that point uh you had gone through the ringer so many times and had like you alluded to your fairy godmothers and stuff you had started making friends with people uh behind the scenes and then never mind rupert later on but but at the end of the day and you you still had that wherewithal to say no you know what i want to i want to dress up because of this i told i told kevin they listen i know what it takes to be a good audience member i'm gonna dress nicely i'm gonna be ready to laugh i'm very excited to be part of this and to make the show better because the audience had a huge part of the show we talked to mark malkov about that um you know you know a lot about that because of how many times you saw the show to the point where you had some regularity to it where you could kind of you knew kind of the ins and outs even before you started becoming friends with these people well the pep talk that they give you um didn't change significantly and i had it memorized um and but you know i was a very lively participant every single time and and in with that pep talk but under my breath i would be saying no one has to instruct me about being exuberant i just i'll clap and i'll and it'll be real i'll laugh and it'll be real i'll be excited and it will be real yes maybe you know because i do for the 48 times i went i didn't really pick up on a dead audience or uh i picked up on a very strict theater you know it's a very strict theater but i just was i guess focused on how i felt and i thought everybody around me most certainly must feel that way and i you know but they don't they don't that's the thing and and we don't necessarily know that i see i feel the exact same way my laugh my exuberance my excitement same thing but most people are many people around me don't they need that pep talk i want to ask you about that pep talk for a second because it's very interesting hey show the ticket the the the may 20th you were there on the you were there on the uh for the big show at the end they let me keep it yeah well and they didn't always do that oh sorry say something again so it goes back to you say it again show it up again one more time now um she's showing for the audio audience she's showing a ticket of the uh her they let her keep it of the very last show may 20th um uh 2015.

that was the night dave retired uh my question about the pep talk is was it different that night was there anything different that night in going in um you you do know because we talked about it prior to the show i was um i was there in those last days and i was there frequently yeah i noticed a very big change in the sternness and the strictness of the audience for i it says april 16th i was there in february i think i could have said that i started to see a relaxation in february but this whole week in april that i didn't realize i went every single day um right before me by the way you were there the week before i was there which is so cool yeah well it was relax the that that pep talk yeah had relaxed and i would say that last night i don't remember a hard push and the reason is that i was on a thread before i got the okay because it was and not a fairy godmother but a person who works for the fairy godmother um had said to me on the phone that show is only dedicated for friends and family and that made me kind of say well i think i might need to talk to my fairy godmother um but anyway um it was a very short window of maybe a week's notice maybe i had a week's notice yeah we have a ticket for you and i jumped you know and i had a lot more vigor then but i jumped to it and got ready and got you know yeah it was there but you did ask about the pep talk there was a relaxed atmosphere um i think i could say that february that i went i could start to see everyone kind of letting their shoulders down a little bit rather than that you know that very very you know but at the same time i will say that ridge rigidity caused electricity to happen in the theater oh for sure like dave dave once referred to it somebody was asking him about i forget what they were asking about i don't even remember who it was but they were asking about the audience and whatnot and dave commented and said well the indoctrination yeah use the word indoctrination that the audience goes through before they come in the doors and and fill the seats um and he did he had an entire ecosystem of worldwide pants that was dedicated to getting the right audience and directing the audience uh as to how they were to uh conduct themselves behave and through all your experiences and i mean we're going to get to this on your appearances that you come on this show uh you are a a card-carrying member of the letterman podcast community and we're so excited about that you know you've got lots of stories about about things that you've seen uh people who were not allowed to come in and and and and and things like that um but yeah dave used the word indoctrination and and i i understand where that i understand where that comes from and it makes sense you know it changes an entire show well and here's something else and and for the die hards because i was always there at 11 a.m and they they did start to really start to shoot people away and i wish you away for a little while and then i'd come back because i did want it to be known that you know i'll stand out the bank across the street says it's 99 degrees and you could look at it the time would flash and then the temperature and i was just just sopping uh or the other way around i was gonna i wanted to sh i wanted to represent but um i did whisper i don't know if i'm allowed to say this but um because we had my principal was a die hard and his diary you're principal so this isn't because you're a student you're all you're a teacher and we should note that thank you by the way for all your years of service because you're one of those teachers you're one of those teachers that really really cares about your students and you're a phenomenal teacher so so you would go with your prince with the principal of your school uh as as one of your your your running mates to the show yes and when i told her that um first i told her i slipped in when the audience left and it's so such a tiny theater and she said you're lying i said it is and she didn't believe me and then uh i don't know a couple months later i said to her um i have tickets to the show two of them if you want to take your sister and she just her she could she just was what and i and um so anyway she 38 of the visits she she accompanied me 38 of the 48 times because she was my travel buddy and we were we were just it was a great thing and she she kind of watched me do whatever i do and she just would say i can't believe it but i whispered to her because of the time that we got bumped i said and they put you through this whole thing there were 100 people in the lobby vying for 10 standby tickets and of course our hand was up just like a good student right away we knew them all and and they knew that we knew them all and so but at the very end um the ten of us were bumped and so i i whispered to her and i said it's castration that's what they do but then i started thinking about the military i don't know much about the military except that what i've heard is you go in you're this you know sloughing little kid they break you down and then they build you back up that was the process they had to you know you had to endure quite a bit and if you were a person who like i'm here and i'm good you went you you were tired you kind of got tuckered out then they would build you back up and then because you would already hear the music behind the doors and that that you know they were doing sound checks or whatever but you could hear some somebody practicing or whatever and oh gosh what's behind those doors and then it was time and then they you became the audience that they wanted you to be yeah and it was a strict it was a strict audience but i feel it had an absolute correlation to the electricity that was going to happen for that hour yeah i i would definitely agree with that there's a special feeling and and there are going to be people who uh either view or listen to this program and will be able to 100 identify with what we're talking about here when they're talking to you um you know it's it's got like almost sections like you start off outside the marquee and then you go into one part of the the the lobby then you go into another part and you go to another part and you go in and it might be another part on top of that or one part less but it's something like that well they separate the ambassadors okay the people who are going to fill in those front rows and i don't know if i were to hazard a guess they would like energetic handsome young lively and not necessarily young young but um you know just they kind of they would kind of look for a group that could fill those front seats because they were the ambassadors in the theater and to my eye it seemed like you know it was a very hearty group of of uh sharp people and they would tell those they would kind of separate those people out there was this feeling of hierarchy and um and those of us later who are the balcony folks you know but i was lucky we were actually christy and i were quite lucky maybe six seven times or more um as soon as we were identified even though i didn't talk to my fairy godmothers they would let us come out and let us go get seated okay so let's let's talk about that for a second because you talked about the balcony folk who were like and and by the way how awesome was it to see them release uh the uh um david letterman coming out and warming up the crowd for the very last show because you turn and look because the camera's from behind as he's doing that and there's irene in the very front row of the balcony who was the balcony mostly um reserved for guests of cbs that's friends and families of the guests that's cbs that's uh all sorts of people whatever connection because they sometimes were uh like in the news division on 57th street under the cbs banner it could be people like that they were usually you know connected somehow there were parents of writers uh or parents of the warm-up uh gentleman that you interviewed um there his parents were sitting close to me at one time up there and so were the stink stingles uh parents there so they were guests of cbs um they didn't work that tricky magic of hoping to get that ticket they're from nebraska but they're hoping to get a ticket and they do everything that they're supposed to do and they're finally awarded the ticket so they're on the on the bottom level however that theater is can't the the balcony is cantilevered almost directly over that um stage yeah i mean uh that that that first floor there's not that many rows it's it's cantilevered so that it's right there and then the good news is once you learn where to sit zero obstruction okay i'm glad you brought that up because you've been so many times and i think uh mark malkov and i talked about this they've changed this apparently for colbert i haven't been back to the sullivan theater i don't know if i i'd have a hard time going back uh with you can't okay so you know what i'm talking about but christy has and she never she never talked to me about the uh the uh doing away with the obstructions okay but you knew what seats were good and what seats were not in the ed sullivan theater for for dave's run uh fairy godfathers folks on the crew who uh hey no no move over the one seat that way or two that way you learn that a lot and i kept and i kept looking and he would shake his head and i went and he kept pointing go over more and so we would move three seats and i'd look and he goes like go to the end and that's near the sound there's a sound board or something i don't know the difference between sound people or lighting people but it was this wonderful he left us now rupert said that he passed and he was he was great because every time after that i would say yeah yeah i'd go every time after that i'd go to him over there and i'd say thank you for the seat you know because it was the greatest see and then i don't know a couple weeks ago dave's last warm-up and the camera kind of because usually the camera kind of goes real fast and oh my god there i was no the camera goes kind of slowly yep i'm going oh there i am i was i was a little larger then oh heavens we get self-conscious when the camera hits us don't we uh but it was so exciting to see oh yeah i can't even tell you like i mean i don't know how many of those things that they recorded uh i at some point i'm gonna ask somebody who would know about this the question if if if they have the one and behind me here uh you know with me and dave uh my best friend dave by the way um if they have that if they have that one with our exchange i i mean i can't even imagine my conversation with him uh being recorded but if it ever was i mean what a dream come true for you to to have seen that um listen i i want to uh there's there's one particular story i want to get to because this is your inaugural appearance here on the show um i want to talk about this because the first time um i i don't know exactly how it happened you and i were talking on the phone and then rupert came in either on another call or something like that the three of us were talking and it was good and it was it was it was neat um and i love the rapport that he and i have and it just it's just it's just so beautiful to see this and i love listening to youtube banter back and forth it's just so much fun i i'd make the popcorn and just uh just enjoy that um but one of the things he said to me the first time one of the first times was hey mike you make sure you get irene to tell you the story of how we met now i alluded when i was doing the intro that uh you collected things along the way and and one of the things you collected along the way is your bow is rupert and and so so the story i i've asked you if you'd tell it if you'd be comfortable with it and and and you said yeah um so i really want you to talk about the story of when you guys met now i want to be very very clear the night you guys met is way before you guys ever you know when yeah long long long time a long time a long time because we became family friends rupert would i don't know how he worked it but rupert would break away and come to the hotel and babysit our children so that we could go to the show okay so yeah like you became family friends and stuff and then and then if a line was crossed or however you want to call that was way way later but the night you guys met has a really really kind of crazy story to it um would you mind regaling us with that right now yeah but yeah but it has to start at the in morning because we were there we had flown up to go to the show yeah and um to go to market and and market was you know jacob javits and you could uh uh find um accessories home accessories on goods and so we were on our way and uh there they had bus lines that would stop at certain blocks and so we walked a couple of blocks and my sister suggested well let's go get some coffee at uh at rupert's because i i at that point i had been and i went into rupert's the very first time i ever went to the show sure but i'd never ever seen any of his skits none my parents had seen them all because they were late show fans my parents but i hadn't so this is early on for dave's run at the ed sullivan theater though right this is like 1990 okay early on early on yes yes but i didn't know i i just knew that i saw a commercial sometimes or i'd heard his name but never saw any of the skits so we went in but on this particular morning 8 a.m we go in and um my sister and i had already talked about it like let's invite him to dinner and there were two other girls with me uh the the mother was a an employee of mine at the um accessories store four women coming into the hello deli four women okay how often do you think by the way that that's happened to him in the years how many times do you think people come into the deli and invite them places thousands right thousands like thousands and and i have been in the deli and i have seen some very pretty young girls younger than he is and he kind of seems to not he doesn't he goes i don't get guys who go for very young girls i don't i'm not understanding but anyway um i've seen them and i've seen them do more than what we were doing because we were just being friendly sure they were rupert gets lots of attention yes he gets out and he got a lot of girl invitations and such so anyway my sister had already talked to me about let's you know and so i i said rupert why don't you come to dinner with us and um i said we're staying at the plaza um but you could come after work and um and meet us oh that's so nice of you girls thank you so much um and he's doing whatever he's doing behind the griddle he said we'll we'll see and um my sister was delighted she goes he said we'll see i looked at her i said you shut up and then i looked at rupert and i said and you shut up too meet us at the hotel at 6 30.

okay and instinctively he wrote the the the delhi phone number and he wrote his home phone number two numbers the deli and the phone and on the little order sheet where he kind of clipped the order up and he handed it to me now we were excited because the bus was there to pick us up and we were on our way and we thought this might happen and my sister and i were going back and forth like what do you think i said i think he's gonna ditch i think he's gonna politely ditch sure he said he does everything politely there isn't anything that he doesn't do politely i don't right right and and he does what he wants he's can be very stubborn he can be very stubborn when his you know it's hard to hard shift him but um he does what he wants but i really did think that he was going to politely ditch and i did not have a cell phone at that time i this is well maybe no i did but i didn't give him the cell phone number but he knew that we were staying at the plaza um so i thought we would probably get a call that said thank you so much you know what i'm really tired i'm gonna have to i mean we'll have to try another time so two o'clock at market having a gut feeling that he was going to politely decline um i called and he said he was kind of cheerful about it you know four we were in i was i was i think i was 42 or 41 something like that we were we're still good we're still we're still cranking but anyway so anyway so um i he said um i told him i said we're going to be waiting for you 6 30 and he goes i re irene i really don't have anything to wear i said i don't care wear what you're wearing right now he goes well i've been working in in like work i know i've been working like who cares come like you are we're gonna i'm gonna take you to a really fancy um greek restaurant a couple streets away from our hotel you know and molivos and it was a very great greek restaurant and that and you have a high you have a high bar when it comes to that you are greek you're very greek you've got your house in greece like you're you have a high bar if you say this greek restaurant has some stuff you yeah okay and it was it was real trendy and it was real busy but at the same time under ordinary circumstances i probably wouldn't go to new york city to go to a greek restaurant because we have our whole world is greek restaurants okay probably i wouldn't sure but but i knew because we had talked and he was you know real intrigued about the greek thing so 6 30 at six o'clock i think it was six o'clock it was six o'clock that we had agreed because about a quarter of six we were all in the lobby i said i was gonna go up to the room to go to the bathroom freshen up you know put some lipstick on maybe spray some perfume and i'll be right back down okay viewers and listeners right now here's where the story goes in a direction that you don't think it's gonna go so i go and we had uh we didn't have room 629 at that at that particular time stop it honey yeah stop so anyway come to mommy yeah you like you like room 629 whenever you stay at the plaza what a thing to say by the way because it's an 850 square foot uh a room right on fifth avenue at the very best vantage point i've been on the third floor in that same uh uh it's just not sixth floor is the best and you can open the windows with the big ledges and if you wanted to kind of fall out of the window it was possible and so so that was one of the rules after years had gone and he'd become close to our family and he was babysitting our kids do not i don't care what they tell you or ask you or plead with you do not let them sit on the ledge of the window he did every single time he did every single time he was there he didn't open it wide too wide he was standing right there but the thrill of their being able because i said you don't follow instructions but anyway so i went up to the room and this was a uh an interior suite with two bedrooms two bathrooms and um i loved it i loved it had a a fireplace lovely yep and so um i walked in and the bathroom was right in front of me as i went in and a very handsome gentleman jumped out of the bathroom handsome tall blonde to your room in my room extremely well dressed um had a a very sharp navy dark dark navy jacket on i i mean i i took in his image right away but something wasn't right and he said we're with security we're we're checking out the rooms and and i i was going for it and then he pretended to lift his arm and talk as they sometimes do here and say we got to go in another room it's not this room as if he was talking to someone in the back bedroom yeah and then i saw a small leather briefcase and that right there i'm so gullible i am so you tell me something and i'll go really okay so i i'm that person who thinks everybody's grand and great but i saw that little leather briefcase and i just i couldn't i couldn't turn the door handle and i said please don't hurt me just don't hurt me because of that briefcase tiny small and he he tried to make commotion as if he was still playing a part of security but i i finally got the door open and the um elevators back elevators or front elevators i happen to be closer to the back l elevators no i was no sorry there was the front ones but they're notorious they at that time notoriously slow you could and of course people stupidly think that if you just click the button 18 times that's gonna make the elevator come faster it's just one time the light it lights up and the elevator will eventually come so even though even though you're gullible or you say you're gullible self-professed uh you had a sixth sense that even that something was something was wrong because of the leather briefcase and you got out of there i ran and and i tap tapped and the door opened immediately immediately was he coming after you or did you not look i thought but i heard a thumping on the rug sometimes could never stay at the plaza because there are so many stairwells so many stairwells too much to monitor right and i and so i heard that a door shut on the stairwell yep so i thought maybe and i went down and immediately and now it's five of six our engagement was six i go in immediately to vip and i've become friends because of our frequency three four five six times a year going there and so i know this man and he looks as if he could be a former chief of police of new york city which he had been or he could be the godfather because that's how intimidating this guy looks and he worked for the plaza yes he was retired he was retired and he worked for security for the plaza you didn't even go back to your friends by this point you just went right to this guy they they i did but they saw me kind of like beeline i told them i've got a problem i said to my sister there's i've got a problem and i started to feel haggard and when i see the photographs of us at dinner i i'm so kind of disappointed because you can see it in my eyes like oh my god i could have gotten killed oh my goodness something bad could have happened okay so so i go and i tell them there's something terrible there a man was i i he was tall blonde he was well dressed he had a a a small leather briefcase and he goes do you believe that you could identify him if we were to walk with you through the rooms the oak room uh the oak bar i said yeah as long as he doesn't hurt me i know exactly what he looked like and he said there were two to him and this young man named john who was a detective and um we started to to walk through the rooms and i said no he's not here and then we went to a bar and i said no i do not see him and as we circled three three more security guys all dressed kind of like the guy who was in my room not not too far off i mean they were very nicely dressed the guy in my room was impeccable and handsome so um as we're coming around again here comes the blue down jacket that i've recognized because he had he hung it up in the deli and he's coming up with his jacket on fifth avenue entrance and there's five men with irene and they all look and sell the head of security chief of police or don corleone i don't know so anyway and rupert's like what the hell did i just get myself rupert saw it and i'll never ever forget the the expression on his face i did not know at the time that his policy was to not fraternize with late show fans because he had his own business and his own life i didn't know that and he's coming up and he sees me with these men and the look on his face was what did i get into and who are these people and what designs would they have on me and i said rupert let go with my sister she'll show you around the the hotel the downstairs of the hotel i've got to go with these men and you know and he's going to maria my sister what happened now my sister doesn't know because i hadn't had a chance to be able to convey so i go in and they start asking me questions and i'm i'm kind of looking at the clock and i and i said um i gave the description i told him he had a leather uh briefcase um everything and i said but but here's what happened they walk out back with me because i said we just want to go to dinner with rupert and if any questions when you when i get back i said but they this guy if he is a robber he picked the wrong uh he he picked the wrong room i said i'm a school teacher i put a box of corn flakes in my suitcase for my snacks you know so i said he picked the wrong room so anyway they walk with me because they recognize met first but i had to do the little thing as soon as he was standing with the three other girls of my party two other girls and my sister um as soon as this group of men and and it was a group now now we had the whole corral of these men an entourage longer existed how you doing rupert it's very nice to meet you every single one i would drop me like a hot potato how you doing rupert i love what you do on the show because don't forget these security start at like like 5 30 and they go till 2 a.m you know so they're going to go in the office and turn on they know the guy they escort me and i am a non-entity how you doing rupert so we went to dinner and uh rupert went home because he's in he went home at 9 00 p.m but we had the funnest time it was just like with you like i knew him forever and and i just told him you need to try this and we just piled on the food and he was pretty familiar with greek food but he goes well i always was what i always wanted was like ah i said you got to order it i don't like it but yeah if people love it you've got to order so we just had we just had a lot and it was fun so he leaves goes home usually goes to sleep by 8 30 we go back to the hotel and john this detective greets me and opens his hand and says are these your items and i said they are a pair of ray-ban sunglasses a sterling bracelet i don't know two other things there are four items those are those are ours and they we go back to the room john and sal comes in for a little bit but john and another guy a detective uh come in and the entire room is gray with fingerprints dust wow and um we just kind of were like oh gosh i said i'm just so glad i just he wasn't violent or anything i said he was so handsome so um john says no they haven't not said anything i heard him say that no they haven't asked or said anything and he goes girls don't you want to move to another room and i said i really like this room it was grey dust everywhere with fingerprints and i said i really like this room but then all of a sudden because i'm not a quick thinker if you give me three days man i'll be i'll give you a shot sharp retort but um but all of a sudden i went what is room to 629 available ah there we go yep any and john goes let me see um room 629 is it open girls pack your bags you're going to room 629.

so we definitely got you know because that room they would give it to us i i don't even want to tell you what the price is because that's why we could go the plane ride was very affordable uh for us it was a bus ride a two-hour bus ride and it was affordable and also um uh we just created a history and we stayed there and we would go four five six times and yeah same thing i'm glad you mentioned that because you know you were school teacher and and it's not like you know uh you know you're well to do or any of that kind of stuff you didn't use your contacts to get in with the late show any of that stuff you you basically had a relationship with the plaza very similar to how some people have uh with relationships with hotels in las vegas if you just continue to go you get to know people and along the way people yeah you just build a rapport with them and then you go and a lot of them i'm sorry but my little doggy is kind of thinking that he's who do we got here what's uh what's the third member of this uh this podcast who do we have here oh he says this is rupert's dog because he uh he didn't want me to get him i had him two weeks three weeks before because that we would talk every night and he'd say irene you know a dog is a lot of responsibility i love dogs but i don't know and i i had him for three weeks while he's giving me that lecture every night and um i said rupert the dog is here he goes you got a dog i said for three weeks he goes let me see a picture of him and um he goes bring the beast to the airport when you come get me and then from now on when rupert comes i he knows i'm mommy but i'm gone he's rupert's dog and and and this one if you if you say rupert's name or if he calls and i always put on speakerphone this he's doing this position so he can be close to rupert's voice so anyway yeah yeah so that's we did build a report and and and if people stay you know long enough at a place and a lot of them have make that kind of a career because it was a 15-year stint with every time only once the first time we went to the late show we still stayed at the riga royal and a lot of celebrities who are going to rockefeller center to be on shows or to the late show the celebrities stay there we did it because it was just so close and convenient well you've got some stories around that that we'll tell in some future episodes too that are uh yeah yeah really good really really awesome stories um now there's a ps to this one though isn't there you you who who the gentleman was that uh that it ended up being um you found out about that what uh i i hate to say that we got to finish it up with this but don't worry everybody she's coming back a lot she is you want to talk about a founding member of the letterman podcast community irene is it she's coming back but but i do want to finish this story here because it's got a kind of a holy cow it's crazy your intuition when you saw that briefcase was right yes and and when we came back john and sal they took me into the vip office their office and um they said they found the jacket it was rolled up and stuffed in a maids cart they found the leather briefcase and it had 17 um premier hotels in the area of keys that would open people's doors and um and and then sal said we know this man he has been hitting and he eludes us but tonight when you went off to dinner we got him yeah and we accosted him at the subway and said sir sir and they knew he knew that there's these are official people are you a guest of the hotel and he turned and he said i am and he jumped the turnstile got on the train and eluded them but he they had known him from prior and couldn't get him and that's kind of a thing for sal who looks so oh he's so yes sir whatever you say sir you know he's so intimidating looking but he's a nice guy but okay but anyway he um he wrote me a letter with the plaza logo and everything on it about seven months later and it was a color photograph i had told them i had said look at your videotape i s i watched 60 minutes i watched 2020.

um donald trump has cameras everywhere sure it was in the early 90s though so you weren't sure exactly how much like surveillance now uh has has evolved back then though i mean it was there but it wasn't what it is now no no what happened was donald trump when he had it because it was just transitioning to i think an arab and bought it it was transitioning to this arabs ownership but there was legal issues um i don't know who i don't know how but i don't even know if it went into litigation but there was a claim that privacy was invaded with so many so many cameras so sal said we only have them in the elevators now and at the entrances the main entrances he said we took them out so this photograph was him on the fifth avenue there you go thank you he was coming out again beautifully dressed and a very clear snapshot of him and i i i came after school checked my mails opened it up and called and he was there and i said sell the photograph that you sent me is the man and he said would you be willing to come up you know we would compensate your trip and here's me oh i get another trip to the work yeah yeah i'll go see dave sure not thinking wait a minute am i gonna be the only one testifying again and then this guy's gonna find me and then the next thing i know it's not a briefcase but uh a razor blade so anyway but but then i did say yes but then afterward not even a week later he said we've got him we've got him because he they had that photograph about a week later i guess he was hitting it hitting again and um they got another photograph on the elevator but they accosted him at the elevator asked him if he was a guest he said yes he pulled out a gun he shot the pant leg of one of the detectives and he ran out the fifth avenue exit with a gun to a cabbie's head he had gotten into the cab and and ordered the cabbie to to go cabbie was smart i always think about this it's daring but it's smart the cabbie opened his car door and rolled kind of did this tumble to the back of the car and by that time they had him and they said he sal said we're so glad he goes this man has been my nemesis you know and he said um uh he has aids didn't look it wow and my all my sister could fixate on is whether he used her toothbrush or not um you know because this is you're still we're still uneducated and i get it and so um and he um he had been caught before and done some time but this time sal said no he's he's he's going to be in we got him so it was a happily ever after but i will tell you to wrap it all up when we left that week yep i we did i do in my suitcase i don't bring corn flakes but i bring a lot of snacks you know i've got we've got the dollar tree i can get my mounds bar and i can get and we and we back then we would even bring you know a few cans of soda everything's expensive so it's like we can hold it let's bring it and they didn't care back then and so i asked rupert to come before we left because we have all these snacks and then we'd pick some up at the you know fruit stand or whatever it was and i said i said do you have anybody a niece a nephew a you know somebody around the house and because i didn't know him and uh he came and he said we put him in a shopping bag like a bergdorf goodman i'll bring my own snacks but i'll i'll i'll check out the shoes at bergdorf okay okay so i mean you know you gotta kind of balance things out but anyway it was a fancy shopping bag and it was it was spilled fiddle faddle the popcorn that has the caramel on it and um he said i wouldn't mind if you walked me to the exit because i don't want them to accost me at the door and say that i raided the snack bar the you know we had all those little doodads that were available he's so proper i love how proper he is like i love that it's it's so endearing it just can't be accosted by taking things from this hotel roofer they're from dollar tree and they're from around here we didn't touch the mini bar okay so anyway i walked him down and he had that bag and then um but what was funny is that the day that that we went to that greek restaurant we had such a fun time the next day we went to market and it was blizzarding it we had to delay our our trip a day but cookie and her daughter flew out they flew out i think a day ah before us we had such a fun time i called rupert at the deli and i said rupert not tonight because it's blizzarding outside i said but tomorrow night let's go to dinner again he goes okay and we i he took us to a really great place i can't remember but i do remember going in he knew that nowhere to go but i said there is not an unhandsome unbeautiful person in here the whole place was nothing but beautiful people and i he went because he heard about the food sure the fruit the food was phenomenal and then as we were coming talking i said come to tarpon when you got and he said to my sister he said um your sister's drunk and my sister said she's drinking ginger ale and and um cherry juice she's got a girl scout i didn't i was drinking because and i said get your calendar out because i don't have a calendar i said okay think of time things yeah and but that's when it was we'll see but i didn't give up i'd call the deli and i'd say okay it's time to come down it's nice weather in february i think he did it he came down in february and um went fishing he goes is there fishing down there i said no i'll get you hooked up with fishing is there and he's so funny we were talking about somebody about pot and and um he's so sweet and innocent and naive he goes does he take pot i said first of all rupert usually people say does he smoke pot they don't usually say does he take pot i like when people put the in front do they do the pot yeah i like that he might as well talk he he does such weird things with the phrasing and i said you live in the most exciting city in the world and when i found out where he lived which is two two uh two blocks from the uh central park and one block from the dakota house and so i said we used to go to a coffee shop right here called la fortuna he said we would go to flufferton all the time it's right near my house and he goes i wonder if i ever saw you there i said i don't know but we loved it and i said we love the back patio because i went there too small world a small world well i love i i hate that we gotta end it here but we're gonna we're gonna end it but um i just appreciate i think our audience will also be able to appreciate holy cow we've got some really cool anecdotes that are that are that are coming down the pipe at the letterman podcast here and that's really at the end of the day well you know because i've been talking to you about it a little bit we've got some killer guests coming up that uh worked for the show or or were around the show and some cool things but at the end of the day the other component to this show is the love of the audience because when dave broke the fourth wall and made us all part of of of of what he and his his company had have done um a very important part of what it is that we do here is the fact that so many of us have these amazing stories that wrap around it and and and we all felt like we were part of it and and when you talk about rupert like that and all of the uh i i think part of the reason that we love him so much is because he phrases like that and because you know it's just he's got this he's got this beautiful uh innocent charisma i don't know how else to say it let me tell you something he's a straight arrow i did i did force him to take me to three different venues to see jackson brown front row that was that was mandatory and he enjoyed himself but on the he told me irene jackson's playing for one more he put he he booked the beacon for one more day and uh they're selling tickets for 35 dollars and i said let's get him and we took his brother and we sat up high and there was this big square uh not front front because we'd already done the front row of the beacon and i'm sorry it's very disappointing because the stage is really high rather than the intimate like this but anyway this area and it was empty so i said rupert those seats are empty and i'm gonna run you down and take a look and this was one third into the concert it's a little late for a late comer yep already that far in this section was sublime had i known i wouldn't have fussed to get those dadgum front row tickets because it was just perfect that perfect sensation and no obstruction because there's rose a big rectangle i run back up in excitement i said rupert they're wonderful seats come down come and come down and let's sit in them oh no no no i can't i i mean i can't be seen not sitting in the seat i'm assigned i said nobody's coming i i jumped and if they do i will say i did it i did it i encouraged it but we were very sorry i told him i said uh i'll it's my fault no i said i have to go down there for a few minutes and so i did a couple songs felt bad so i'd go back into the 35 seats way up there i said rupert there's nobody in the seats no um you're going to greece you're going to the greece greece for the summer soon right um just a few days a few days okay so we just we just got you okay um we're we're gonna do this again i know you're gonna probably do a post-mortem um but we're we're gonna figure something out where can you tell me where to post more i know what post-mortem means in real life but what is more to mean so so the the post-mortem is uh our clever way of of doing review episodes of uh content dave puts out okay so we did the one with uh we've got one uh with rusty that went up already rusty who hosts the uh wake the neighbor hey shout out to rusty mike at the wake the neighbors now i'm doing it oh my god jay now i'm doing it the uh wake the kids thank you kids for the neighborhood god wait wait what happened with because i like he forgot when he was with jay and he was in the car and it says irene hello uh and he forgot me and and he goes oh i didn't know that was you because we correspond a lot oh yeah yeah totally so what happened wait what's what happened with him so no no so we had him on an episode of the postmortem already where we went over the kevin durant episode of my next guest so that's what the post mortem is it's going to be uh special guests uh talking with with me about certain episodes of new letterman content that come out so you and i are going to do that um on on one of them and and we've got so many stories for you to come back and tell um i want to get one with the uh with with the bay with either the sunrise or the sunset in the background let's do that while you're in greece okay let's do another one oh i i am i'm asking please if we can chat while i'm on my veranda yeah um to make you all entice to want to come because it's a great little island oh candy and i are coming don't worry about that candy and i are coming well i you know i just want i want people to know it's it's a great place and my brother is um he was 50 by the time i finally told him please don't be dumb come to greece why and that's it he's coming with me this trip too he loves it it's just it's paradise and if you ask rupert you i don't know yeah you didn't speak to rupert about this right no no not yet not yet he would if he had an option he wouldn't want he would not want to come home yeah well it's i can see just looking at the picture that we showed earlier i mean we'll talk in greece but that means that means i have to be caught up on the episode because you know how i am i get kind of i see a lot of them but if we're gonna do any talk about that an episode i gotta make sure i see it yeah absolutely oh yeah no no we're gonna have some fun with it um thank you very much for uh you know what i'm gonna give i'm gonna do the same line that dave did to uh to peter lasalli the night that um the night they did the carson tribute uh dave said to peter sally uh who was the guest that night and they talked about johnny carson he said to him he said thank you very much for i hope i didn't uh take advantage of our friendship and i i want to say the same thing to you i i thank you very much for letting me take advantage of our friendship and you coming on here and doing this thank you for the encouragement that you have given us here um lots more good stuff to come can't wait to talk about some of the other stories that you have in that in that head of yours and and and and relive some of those experiences again you've got so many of them and uh i can't wait to go through and to hear them uh and have them documented and almost all of them are just magically good yeah yeah yeah i was i was lucky and blessed and i had fairy godmothers well you sure did and shout out to the fairy godmothers uh and shout out to all of our fairy godmothers that we have here um that is it that is another episode of the letterman podcast irene hoffman has uh given us of her time we thankful we are very thankful to her thankful for all of the amazing response that we've gotten i can't believe this thing is only six seven weeks old uh with with the response that we're getting the momentum that's happening and a lot of cool things coming down the pipe uh please like share subscribe in whatever order you want please tell more people about this thing the letterman podcast is going places um and we want to bring this community all together we got a facebook growing on a facebook we've got a community group growing on facebook uh it's the letterman podcast just look for the group uh please come in and join it uh positive happy love magical just like all the things irene was talking about that is another episode of the letterman podcast my name is mike chisholm thank you and good