Aaron Riveroll | Photographer

Well, since I have some time, I thought I would share with you the events of our latest fact-finding mission …

We dragged our butts out of bed at about 5:00 a.m. And we were on the road at around 5:30 a.m. We made pretty good time too, considering the traffic we hit in Norwalk. NBC studios open at 8, and we got there at around 8:20 a.m. Unfortunately, it was a little too late and we got put on the stand-by list. But it was looking good, considering we were no. 2 on the list.

Now at this point, we had many hours to kill. And I should mention that this time around, we navigated through the city of angels like we were locals. Last time, we had a several maps and a plan and still managed to get lost and make several u-turns. But we did so much in one day; it was quite amazing.

After picking up our stand-by tickets, we drove out to academy road and visited the Los Angeles police academy. We perused the gift shop and the uniform store and picked up a few trinkets. We also checked out dodger stadium from afar and watched a transient sleeping in the adjacent park.

By this time, it was still really early; so we decided to drive into the city. We drove into downtown and looked at the huge buildings. It’s really interesting the way the streets are set up in downtown L.A. But we maneuvered through them like pros, cutting people off and giving them the stinkeye like we were one of them. Since we had already seen city hall the last time we were there, we thought we would check out police headquarters: parker center, named after police Chief William H. Parker. But when we drove by, we noticed a crowd of people mingling out in front. This piqued our interest, so we found some cheap parking and walked a few blocks to the police building. We were not sure what was going on nor did we know if we should just waltz in. But we did anyway. Upon our arrival, we noticed people hanging out and making merry; we saw children playing inside of an open police car and many officers milling about. Curious, we approached an officer in uniform and asked was going on. We told them we were visiting from San Diego and were curious. He informed us that they had just had a promotion ceremony and that some officers had been promoted to sergeant, lieutenant, detective, etc. And they were having little reception for them. He invited us to stay and have some coffee. We did, and had some orange juice and talked with some of the officers. They were showcasing a state of the art car with voice and image recognition built in. It was the most amazing car I have ever seen. There was an officer there who described to us the inner workings of this modern marvel of law-enforcement.

We continued our journey and decided to check out old Los Angeles. We visited el pueblo de Los Angeles historical monument and walked around for a bit enjoying the sights and sounds. While walking past an open door, we spied an old gentleman chipping away at a piece of stone. Intrigued, we approached him and asked him a few questions. With his “gift of gab,” Danny asked the man what he was doing. The man did not speak English very well, but he answered our questions and explained that the stone was used to make tortillas and grind the corn necessary for this task. A woman then called to him from inside the kitchen, and at that point he invited Danny and me in for a “behind the scenes” tour of the kitchen. After the brief tour, Danny and I continued to walk around el pueblo. We visited the visitor center, where I pulled a “Rachael ray” and asked a lady where we could get some good Mexican food. She suggested La Paseo, so that is where we went. Let me tell you folks, this was some of the best Mexican food I have ever eaten. And I have eaten a lot of Mexican food. After all, I am Mexican. After a hearty lunch and a tour of the no. 1 fire station across the way, we drove back up to Burbank.

Now, the plan was to take a tour of the WB studio. Upon our arrival, we met a gentleman by the name of Al Jacobs. Mr. Jacobs donned a big floppy hat and a big “a” sign that said, “I want a record deal.” again, Danny approached the man and proceeded to ask him some questions. We learned that Mr. Jacobs was interested in obtaining a record deal from Warner Brothers Records, but that the executives were not interested and asked him to leave on previous occasions. Danny attempted to get Mr. Jacobs to sing a few bars for us, as we documented our conversation on video. However, despite the fact that we were unable to entice any type of musical vocalization, Mr. Jacobs did provide us with his last demo CD, which we listened to in the car a little later.

But we had bigger plans right then; we wanted a studio tour. To our dismay, they would not allow us in the building since Danny was armed above, so we had to wait for a security guard to haul us across the studio in his van so we could lock up “Danny’s piece” in the security office for safekeeping. We were able to catch glimpses of certain areas including the front of ER’s county general and a vogue photo shoot. All this, mind you, was a waste time since the studio tour lasted about 2 1/2 hours and we needed to make it back to NBC for Jay Leno. After we learned that we were unable to take the tour, we summoned security again to drive us back to the security office to retrieve Danny’s “piece.”

With an hour to kill, we paid a visit to mike of Michael’s bar and grill on olive. We had a few drinks and some cheese sticks and schmoozed with a guy that was disappointed with his job. But that’s life. Sometimes, you meet those unfortunate souls that are down and out … And all you can do is lend them an ear.

After some chill time with mike and friends, we headed back to NBC. We noticed there was a long line, so I pushed Danny out of the car while I looked for a parking spot. When we regrouped, I learned that they would be calling us “overflow” people after the final counts came in. We worked our charm and flirted with some of the NBC girls working the crowd. Finally, we learned that we made the cut, and Danny was again escorted to the security office to lock up his piece. Aside from “Mr. Cut-in-line,” the experience wasn’t that bad. And after going through the security checkpoint, the usher at the door said he had great seats for us. That was an understatement; not only were the seats right in front, but we were in the group designated to shake hands with Jay at the opening of the show. With excitement in the air, we waited in anticipation.

Fifteen minutes before the show started, Jay himself came out to warm up the crowd. He asked for some people to say a little something and various people raised hands and went up on stage to meet Jay. A really hot air force girl in an outfit two sizes too small, and Opie look-alike, and two girls who looked legal but really weren’t were among those who got up on stage with Jay, were publicly embarrassed, and had photographs taken with the man. When Jay asked if there was anyone else, Danny stuck up his hand and Jay called him up. Danny pulled me up with him and embarrassed, we both answered Jay’s questions and told him we came up to see him last year but did not get in. We then had a photograph taken.

It was cool. It was amazing. It was a surreal to watch the taping and to be inches away from celebrities. We watched Don Rickles entertain; we watched Bobby Flay, the Iron Chef, cook some lamb. And after the show, they asked us to stick around to be extras in Lisa Kudrow’s new show. Lisa Kudrow. From Friends. I was inches away from her too.

After that, everything else didn’t matter. It was the perfect end to an amazing Fact-finding Mission.

Check out the photos.