The Daily Show: Reminds Me of My Mom…but then, what doesn’t?

Watching Jon Stewart’s sign off from The Daily Show, I’m wondering how I’m going to cope without the funny, incisive, sometimes slightly self-righteous pieces of outrage and analysis he directs at the pompous media and at our nation’s bought and sold democracy. [I still miss Colbert’s super PAC.] Not sure I could have survived the Dubya years without Jon Stewart and his retinue. And among the flood of memories as I watch Colbert laud and embarrass Stewart and hear Springsteen serenade him, one hits me sudden and hard, and it has nothing to do with politics or culture. It’s a sad and sweet thought of heading to Hell’s Kitchen to see The Daily Show with my Mom. [As I write this piece, she’s been dead a long twenty two months.]

December 2003. Manhattan. I luckily scored tickets on the day of the show [to say I’m an ardent fan is an understatement], and we calculated that if Jon didn’t run long, we could do the late afternoon/early evening taping of The Daily Show, quickly grab grub, and then make the 7:00 p.m. curtain of the Broadway play for which we had tickets – Anna and the Tropics with Jimmy Smits. Jon did run a little long. (Blame a pontificating Zell Miller.) The rain didn’t help, especially with Mom making the trek in high heels. Neither did turning the wrong way on 5th Avenue, but we found our way. With not more than a few minutes to spare, we ducked into a packed restaurant in the theatre district and flagged down a slightly amused but benevolent barkeep who pitied these semi-starving (and at least semi-stressed) tourists and majorly rushed our take-out order. Food in hand, we snuck into the lower level lobby of a nearby hotel – where we clearly were not supposed to be – finding refuge from the rain as well as a beautiful old table for use as our dinner perch. (Not to worry, we were very careful not to harm the antique.) Then we dashed to the Royale and, as you might surmise, made it to our seats in the nick of time….Shew. Harried but unbowed.

The really good part of those good happenings: My Mom, that day and evening. Taking it all in. Clapping enthusiastically, gamely (as ever) but just slightly out of sync (as ever) to The Daily Show’s timed opening. Getting the jokes (because she was a good liberal and also because she was wry and smart and super quick on the uptake, always). Worrying about getting the hotel doorman in trouble, but not worrying so much as to stop our sandwich subterfuge, at turns pretending not to see him (as he was pretending not to see us) and offering him the occasional quick half-nod/half-sly smile in appreciation. Dozing off just ever so briefly in our second row center seats (which she did at maybe 50% of the 100+ plays I attended with her). [She had trouble sleeping in her bed (gee, thanks Mom, I’d rather have inherited your looks), but put her in a playhouse or a movie theatre, and a tiny bit of rest might come.] Especially, I remember this: Her running chatter as we made our way from place to place, a mix of anxiety, hope and determination. “Are we going the right way, Suz? I’m not sure we’re going the right way.” (She was right. We weren’t.) “This sandwich is delicious, Suz, but I can’t eat it all. Will we get the doorman in trouble if we leave the rest of our food down here?” “Oh, these are good seats, babe. We made it, Suz.”

She loved talking about that day, about our improvisational rushing around, about our making it all work. As she and I, together, usually managed to do.

Oh, yeah, Jon Stewart. I’ll miss him, too.