Column: I'm with Coco 2

Down in Haiti, there’s tragedy like we can hardly imagine, like images on the news can’t communicate. At home, there is everything from the abstract — a health care debate, say, or economic stimulus — to the real and local homelessness and joblessness. This world doesn’t turn without struggle.

So a rally this past Monday, on Martin Luther King Day no less, for a millionaire seems a bit trite if not totally unnecessary in the face of all these other issues. But I think it wasn’t for a lack of awareness that and four hundred or so other people and I stood out in the rain for hours at the gates of NBC Universal in LA, but for a lack of justice.

See, this is the stuff that’s supposed to work out. When the reality gets tough, the tough get going to televisions, books, the movies. It’s where things work out and the good guy wins, and when he does, it makes us feel as if we’ve got a shot at all the stuff that was so tough to begin with. So whether it’s escapism or idealism, if you tell the working man in 1920 he can’t have his beer no more, or if you tell generation-whatever-we-are that we can’t watch Conan anymore, then you’re probably gonna have people p.o.’ed. Even the President still goes to the movies, still watches ESPN.

So is all this important? No, not really. Not like real things. Definitely not like earthquakes. But entertainment has its place, to inspire or deliver, and it sure did deliver a crowd on Monday.

When I arrived at Lankershim Boulevard, the rain was falling as hard as it has on record here in LA, and the winds were gusting. Pieces of palm trees were strewn out on the streets, but there were honking horns and screaming crowds. Still, I wondered if I’d stay. But once I was in it, I kind of had to. It was like being at a high school or college football game again. It doesn’t matter whether you’re blowing out the other team or not, or, in the case of myself and the rest of “Team Coco,” if all your team spirit is ultimately fruitless, you stay there and support — support because it’s not just a millionaire’s problem but the problem of his whole staff, down to interns (who mingled in the crowd) who have relocated to another coast, bought cars and apartments, and are now being told simply “meh” by corporate dunderheads. Conan — I’m positive he’s pretty torn about the whole thing, but I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I was one of those fresh twenty-somethings on the lower rungs starting at student loan debt and a sudden lost dream-job. So yeah, injustice.

The rally wasn’t so much to make NBC change a mistake as to make sure they knew darn well they made one. I think eventually they caught on, or Leno probably wouldn’t have tried to make amends on his show Monday night (sorry, Jay, if it walks like a lame duck and talks like a lame duck, it’s probably Jay Leno).

So there we stood, dancing and whooping and hollering across the street when the crosswalk light would allow us, chanting, mugging for cameras, drawing honks, wondering if someone from inside the gates would really notice we were there. It took some patience and some determination, especially against the grisly weather, but then a truck rolled around the corner with long-time Conan trombone player LaBamba in its bed encased in glass, waving away at us. The crowd went wild. The home team was putting points on the board.

Then the masturbating bear. Okay, for a second, let’s forget the highfalutin’ arguments why entertainment serves a purpose; forget about reaching words like “justice” and let us reflect these just previous words instead. Masturbating bear. Let that simmer. It’s ridiculous! Yeah. A man in a bear suit stood on top of some marble structure outside the metro lot in the middle of a rally who went fondle-crazy. This is why we love Conan — for the abusrd, the ridiculous, the unlikely. The farce. But the bear’s appearance was brief.

The crowd was beginning to lull when a rumor spread that pizza was on the way. A hum. And then the rumor grew — pizza and Conan. A buzz. Standing next to an intern, some other people and myself tried to get confirmation. “Is he coming?” “I can’t really say.” “Dude, you’re not gonna have a job next week — just tell us.” “He’s coming. A few minutes.”

A few was a bit longer, but then the unlikely — maybe even the unsafe for Conan — happened. He came on down from behind the gates and into the crowd, out from NBC and to his fans. Earlier, a cop had instructed us all by megaphone to “stay on the sidewalks,” to which we all chanted, “Stay on the sidewalks! Stay on the sidewalks!” Then we sort of patted ourselves on the back for being such a goofy, reasonable, and fair-minded bunch. Hey! Come to think of it, that’s probably why Leno and Zucker didn’t show up! Rimshot. Thank you, thank you.

But when Conan came out? Forget it. I ran up to the guy like Timmy does to Lassie after some great adventure. I bear-hugged him…but not at all in the context of Conan’s bear character that greeted us before. My arm around him, I ran down the block with him a bit, as cameras rolled and other fans approached. For a second, I was starring in The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” with Lennon himself. The crowd burst out onto the three lanes of Lankershim and took over, running down to block the gate right outside Conan’s studio.

From the other side of the gate, those staff members I worry about passed out pizza atop pizza to us. We were giddy. We chanted, “Up with the hair, down with the chin!” “Monorail! Monorail! Monorail!” (referencing a popular O’Brien-written Simpsons episode — kind of impressive to get a crowd united on that reference), and…well, other maybe less printable things.

One sign acknowledged how kind of silly what we were doing was. “First 9/11, Now This?!” Again, don’t worry. It was highly ironical. A conversation I had with a black dude next to me: “Dr. King would be proud today.” I said, “Yes.” He responded, “Yes, he would.”

What we were doing, no matter how futile or foolish, was still right. We were out there supporting a wronged friend — a guy who’d been there for us for years and years — for some in the crowd as long as they’d been alive — and now we were showing him a thanks hopefully more tangible than a report from Nielsen.

Conan took to the top of his building and waved and strangely dance. Richter spoke and thanked us and said we’re making this whole bad thing better (a kind of returning-the-favor for years of that end-of-the-day 12:30 a.m. stop on the dial), and LaBamba played. Writers and other staff were spotted from the roof and the windows. They were surprised and they were touched.

And there was pizza. Oh yeah, I already mentioned the pizza. Still, this day was so goofy, so wet, so bittersweet. I’m still a little shell-shocked that I met the guy — that my face popped up in a passing camera pan on The Tonight Show that night. But I’m still more surprised that, after this Friday, Conan won’t show up on the programming list and won’t reappear until when and how, nobody knows.

There are other things that matter a whole lot more in this world, but the way things have gone for Conan, does he wonder if what he and his staff have done for years has mattered at all?

From the streets in the rain, we chanted “yes.”

Godspeed, Conan O’Brien. Show ‘em that the weird dude with the red hair can still win against the suits, chins, broken promises and unexpected disasters of the world. We’ll be waiting.