OLD TIME FREAKOUT

The year is 1987 and I've just flunked out of high school. With not much going on in my life, I take to watching Letterman with religious zeal. Many people consider this to be Letterman's most productive era. He's no longer a cult figure on television, but there is still something slightly out-of-control with his programs. There really is a feeling that anything can happen.

Then one night, I see the best hour of television I've ever seen. Dave does his monologue (which was and has always been more than a little lame), then settles down at his desk. Usually the Top Ten List comes right after he sits down, but Dave says there's a problem with the list, and they move on. The show goes into break and Steve Martin is the first guest, he comes out and does two segments about Letterman's pencil tossing gag. When they enter the second segment, the entire set is covered in pencils. A very funny bit indeed.

They come back after Steve, announce that they still don't have a Top Ten List, and go to another commercial. When they come back, Crispin Glover is there. He's there to promote "The River's Edge," but Dave can't start much of a conversation with his guest. Dave asks him about his life in Hollywood and about some apartment he used to live in. Crispin keeps saying "no," and looking annoyed. Then this happened. (I haven't seen this clip in about 20 years, God bless You Tube.)


The next guest is a woman with a potato chip collection. There never was a Top Ten List on the show.

I taped that night's show and showed it to my sisters. We played it again and again, wondering just what Crispin was thinking. Some people thought he was on drugs. Others thought it was a performance piece that just spun out of control. Fans of "Ruben and Ed" will note that Crispin looks pretty much like the Ruben character in that movie.

Seven years after Crispin's Letterman freakout, I'm living in Salt Lake City and I get a call from a friend. She tells me Crispin Glover is in town and needs a little help building a set for a movie he's making. Do I want to help out? Yes. Yes I do.

Crispin seemed a little spacey while we were putting together a paper mache tree in an old warehouse on the west side of Salt Lake. But other than that, he seems pretty normal. He explains that the movie is about a girl with Down Syndrome who gets special powers, or something. I had a hard time figuring out what the film is about, but someone I know claims to have seen it on cable. Supposedly, I'm in the credits.

The evening ends with Crispin asking for a ride somewhere, his car, an old Checker cab, has broken down and he needs to get a part at a store. I drop him off, and never see him again. I never got up the nerve to ask about the Letterman appearance in 1987. I wish I did.

On the digital darkness front, there is still no light. They said they'd have my laptop back to me by Tuesday, no matter what. It's Thursday.