hi i'm barbara gaines this is mary barkley and of course this is dave letterman hi thank you very
much uh barbara mary nice to see you hi you know i was talking to uh thank you for having me on
the show and i'll be brief because i know you have other guests but i was talking to a staffer before
i came out here and they said and i had no idea that i have been on your show more than any other
guest i think that's great thank you very much and i just got back from california i was there
two weekends in a row and uh the weekend before i was out there for the big uh comedy festival uh
netflix comedy festival and uh what a lot of fun a lot of laughs comedy and so forth and um but
this thing about the comedians uh i'm not funny enough to be attacked on stage is what i learned
you have to be really good to get somebody to come up on stage because i tried it and it didn't work
and i would discourage and i don't think it's the way to go and um do we have time for this we have
time for everything uh this weekend i was at a wedding at a friend's wedding and uh they asked
me to sing which i have done periodically for weddings yes it did and uh lady in red is still
give us a little now no no anyway but here i am back from california now here's a story do you
have time for a story i do uh when i was a child when i was 16 against all advice to the contrary
i looked at a solar eclipse and because when you're 16 and there's a solar eclipse it doesn't
make any difference what anybody tells you you're going to take a look and i thought i'll just look
for a second or two and anyway i damaged my retinas i scarred both of my retinas and to
this day i have little jagged lines on any any straight line i perceive because of the looking
at the solar eclipse okay so a lesson learned what's the matter true yeah it's true oh okay
so um now i have a family of my own and a few years ago there was another solar
eclipse that everybody was going to be able to see and the the special solar eclipse
glasses business went through the roof through the sky everybody couldn't get enough protective
eyewear well now all i can remember is when i was a child looking at the solar eclipse and and then
for like six weeks my eyes were just blinking and i thought i'm going blind i'm going blind and it
was like i say a valuable lesson learned and i and and by the way uh ps parenthetically as an aside i
do everything the hard way and this is an example of that i think that's definitely true yes thank
you and um so anyway so now the big solar eclipse and everybody's in on it and it's going to happen
in the summer so there's no right in the middle of the day and you can go out in your yard you
can look right at the solar eclipse so uh i get scared and i feel like i have to protect my family
so i get everybody inside and and i pull the blinds and close the curtains and i won't let
anybody go outside to look at the solar eclipse in spite of the fact that we had the protective
glasses right so i made everybody in the come into the bedroom and watch the solar eclipse on tv
like from a bunker exactly bunker-esque yeah and and my family resented me for that and for
many other things so last night there was a lunar eclipse which you could uh look at all day long
right you can sit and stare at it as much as you want so in order to make it up to my family i said
let's go up to the roof of the building and we'll look at the lunar eclipse and you know
there was a great deal of protest well thanks but not not a solar eclipse and i said yes i know but
it wouldn't hammer your eyes so the only one who signed up was my son harry so he and i went up to
the roof of the building last night for the uh uh lunar eclipse and uh i said there you go son
an eclipse enjoy so i had to be late yeah yeah it was uh like 11 o'clock all right yeah yeah so now
here it now is the picture that my son harry took of the uh yeah harry took that picture yes thank
you very much it's a lovely photo thank you well i heard that were you nominated for a daytime emmy
no we we're not eligible for an emmy that's too bad an internet emmy yeah maybe didn't
we win a webby or something didn't didn't we once win a webby and someone stole it oh
um no i think we still have the webby somewhere you have a website you know you use the microphone
first time first time i see why you're not nominated for that daytime emmy
sure yeah but did you show them the photo yes of course you have any stories
uh oh also you know the term red state blue state you're welcome that's what my son simon said that
dave invented it coined it coined it part part of the culture thank you you're welcome america
america thanks you yeah thank you anything from uh it seems like if i weren't here this show would be
more than dull oh yeah that's right i don't i don't get a chance to see it much
it takes two of you for this yeah well you know what i'm gonna say goodbye
okay all right thank you thank you mary thank you barbara happy to be here it wasn't until the 2000
election that the political concept or term red state versus blue state took hold on that
election night the network anchors and pundits relied heavily on the colored maps to explain
how close the race was between george w bush and al gore very soon those red states and blue states
that the country saw over and over again on tv became rooted in american culture david letterman
was one of the earliest cultural figures to pick up on this just a few days after the 2000 election
candidates work out a compromise and thank god not a minute too soon here's how it's going to go
george w bush will be president for the red states al w gore will be president for the blue states
those same television maps would also help make red state and blue
state a popular term among political pundits and newspaper headline writers