Back on Feb 16th of this year, I thought that it would be a good idea to take all of the thoughts and feelings and musings that were rattling around in my head an put them into blog form, in order to give voice to the many other Conan O'Brien fans whom I knew were feeling just as lost as I was. At that time, the wait for his return seemed interminable. Now, leaping forward through the time and space of all that has occurred since my first "Waiting for Coco" blog, the journey seems to have flown by in a blur of tour buses and Twitter accounts and soapy desks and squirrels and Taurus SHOs and one great big red pompadour. Like most long treks, it is both a relief to find our way to the finish, and shock to see how far we've come. There is joy intermingled with sadness, excitement laced with snippets of fear. This is it, for good or bad, for all it's worth, we are here. We've arrived. Nov 8th, 2010 (that's this year, folks.) The day the wait for Coco ends.
It is impossible to arrive at such a long-anticipated day and not reflect on the milestones we've passed along the way. Did we really stay up until all hours of the night, voting for Conan to be one of Time's most influential persons of the year, pausing only pop back on the I'm With Coco board to share amusing captchas? (My personal favorite was "ask McCann.") Could we possibly have found the guts and gumption to email folks at NBC to tell them what a mistake they made, or later Fox, to tell them what a catch our Mr. O'Brien would be? (And then TBS swooped in out of the blue for the win.....who had THAT on their radar??) Could I have actually witnessed entertainment history being made when his comedy tour sold out in hours with not one word of official promotion, and was I honestly lucky enough to have gotten tickets? (I was, and my husband and I were in a daze watching the tour come alive right before our eyes.)
There were so many other moments - the 60 minutes interview, the Live Coco Cam, the epic TBS promos, the crazy contests, the Bley, the music, the fun, the tears. If you want to relive them all in chronological order, feel free to pop back and peruse some of the past "Waiting for Coco" blogs. It's a trip, it really is, to see how "I'm With Coco" evolved from a grouping of outraged and lost fans into an army of rejoicing Coconuts, all of us preparing with glee for tonight's viewing. Once again, for the umpteenth time in nine months, we get to be ringside as entertainment history is made. I don't dare to even try and guess what kinds of things will be crossing my TV screen in a mere matter of hours.....If I have learned anything about Team Coco, it is that they can take the highest expectations and exceed them well beyond anything my little imagination can conjure. All I can say for absolute 100% certain is that tonight, Conan is going to have fun on television. And I am going watch. And I am going to love every laugh, and remember not to take a one of them for granted.
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That's awesome, Valerie. I cried and cried when he lost TTS & when that happened, I vowed to never take him for granted again. I had done that, because for a little over a year we we didn't have a tv & I would watch his show online, but not all the time, because I thought, "Well, he will always be here." How wrong I was and how much greater an appreciation do I have now for someone who brings me so much joy. Thanks for your blog & talk to you soon. -Jamie
ReplyDeleteI love how you used "the Bley", but more importantly, how you portrayed the feelings we all felt in the beginning. A lot of people ask "why make such a big deal about a celebrity?" But it's not just about who Conan is, but what he symbolizes that made his story so dramatic for me. Here was the hard-working, kind man losing his dream job for an unjustifiable reason. This is what a lot of us have gone through in the last year or so and watching such a similar experience unfold on someone else on screen added to the frustration of losing one of our major sources of entertainment. The "lost" feeling you described was correct!
ReplyDeleteEven though I haven't commented, I've enjoyed the blog and your Coco-art! As great as this premier is though, I hope this isn't signifying the end of an era! The IWC community has been such a support!