David's autograph on the inside front cover of the Season 6 book

 

 

Yes, ladies -- he IS sque-e-e-e-ezably soft!!!

With David at the Howard Stern Show studio!

 

 

On the week of April 2, 2000, David came to New York City to promote his new movie Return To Me. Not being one to let opportunities go by, I took an extra day off from work and planned my itinerary -- I would hop on the train and stand on line outside the TV studios, hoping for standby tickets to one of the many talk shows he was doing here.

But on Wednesday morning, in a moment of sheer blinding inspiration, I went into my supervisor's office and grabbed his phone to call the Howard Stern radio show, where David would be doing an interview on Thursday morning.

"Stern Show," said the assistant who answered the phone. "What can we do for you?"

"Let me come right to the point," I said. "Like half the rest of the free world, I want something from you."

"Stone Temple Pilots tickets, right?"

"Heck no. I want to go on the air with David Duchovny tomorrow."

"Oh!" he said. "You want to go on the air with Duchovny? Why?"

"Because I have a great fan website," I answered, and added, for the piece de resistance, "and I'm a witch."

"You're a witch?" That did the trick. "Let me give you the number for Howard's direct line. Call back tomorrow morning between six and six-thirty and talk to Howard about it."

Teresa Bishop has called me, and not without reason, the "Great Goddess of Audacity"...

 

* * * * *

 

On Thursday morning I got up at an unmentionable, ungodly hour, and was on the 5:27 train. "Plan A" was to wrangle my way onto Howard's show, and if that didn't work, there would still be time for "Plan B" -- to go look for those tickets.

I was Prepared. I had my camera, extra film, three of the X-F episode guide books, and print copies of three of my fanfics -- "Clair de Lune," "Pretty Words," and "Carnival" -- in a little binder to give to David if I could. And I had worn a long black dress and some Wiccan-type jewelry, knowing I'd need it if I got on the radio show. (Those of you who live in New York, or who hear the show on its syndicated stations around the country, know about Howard's penchant for making nubile young female guests romp around naked in the studio. Kids, I was pushing forty and I'm a size fourteen, and I was not about to take off my clothes. I needed a different gig!)

The train arrived at Penn Station at 6:14. Armed with a prepaid phone card -- I still lived in the stone age, and didn't yet have a cell phone -- I went directly to the bank of pay phones and called Howard's studio. I was put on hold. When Howard picked up, we were on the air.

"Here is Hillary, who thinks I should let her come up here and meet David Duchovny," he said by way of introduction. "What makes you so special, that I should have you in here? What do you look like? Are you hot?"

"I have a great fan website," I began.

"Oh, so you're one of those psychos on the Internet, who has no life and nothing else to do with her time." Typical Howard -- I had expected as much.

"And I'm a witch."

That set him right off. "Oh, and now you're a witch. I know all about you wacky broads. You're single, aren't you?"

"Yes..." I heard everyone in the studio start snickering in the background.

"That's right. No husband, no kids; you crazy broads decide you have to be witches to make yourselves think you've got a life. Now if I let you in here to meet David Duchovny, you'll say it was because of your special witchy powers. What are you going to do, cast a love spell on him? Do you think he's gonna run off with you the minute he sees you?"

"No, of course not," I said. "I wouldn't cast a spell on -- "

"Oh, no, Howard, she wouldn't cast a spell on him," Howard's sidekick Robin Quivers interjected sarcastically. "She's a white witch."

"Now, on the other line, I have another chick who wants to meet him. I think I'll talk to her and decide which one of these crazy broads I'll let in here. Hello, Tara? Why should I let you in here to meet David Duchovny?"

"Hi, Howard," I heard her say. "Um -- because I really like him?"

"Well, how old are you? What do you look like? Are you hot? Will you get naked?"

"I'm cute," Tara said a little tentatively.

"Where are you?" Howard demanded.

"I'm downstairs. I'm in the lobby of the building. You have to let me in, Howard. I really want to meet him."

"You know," Howard said suddenly, "I think I'll have both of these broads come in here. I want to see what they look like. Stay on the line, broads!"

That was it. Yes! I was in!

 

* * * * *

 

An hour later Tara and I were shown into the air studio and went live on the radio. After the requisite pop-psychoanalysis and assorted offensive comments, Howard got down to business.

"Now," he said, coming out from behind the console, "since you two girls say you want to meet David Duchovny so much, you'll have to earn it. You have a choice. You can either let me spank your bare ass with this rubber chicken..."

I might be able to live with that, I thought.

"... or you can take off your top, let me spread mayonnaise all over your breasts, and then we'll throw slices of bologna at them, so they stick to you."

No way. The rubber chicken was sounding mighty good at that point!

"I don't care who does which, but I have to see 'em both." Howard pointed one long finger at Tara. "You pick first!"

I was doomed! Why, why, why, would anyone pick the mayo???

But Tara, Goddess bless her little heart, deliberated for a moment and then said, "Well, it's against my moral beliefs, because I'm a vegetarian, but I'll take the bologna."

"I knew she wouldn't drop trou," Jackie the Joke Man said from behind his console.

"You first, witch," Howard said, brandishing the rubber chicken.

I wasn't about to pull down those nice opaque black pantyhose unless they really pushed the point. I just said, "Bring it on!" and flipped up my skirt and bent over. A howl went up from every man in the studio.

"Are those pantyhose?" Howard yelled. "Those are pantyhose!"

"Yes, they're pantyhose!" I yelled right back. And I think that right about then, being a size fourteen was a good thing, because Howard seemed to decide he preferred my butt with the pantyhose on it!

Smack! Smack! Yes, there I was, live on a nationally syndicated radio show, being filmed for broadcast on the E! Cable Television Network... being spanked with a rubber chicken. Well, even before this, nobody who knows me would ever have said that dignity is my strongest suit...

Tara very matter-of-factly unfastened her halter top, and Howard really, truly brought out a jar of Hellman's and a rubber spatula. Tara didn't so much as flinch while she was being pelted with sliced bologna. When some of the slices missed and came past her toward me, I picked them up and flung them back at Howard.

"Well, girls, since both of you let me publicly humiliate you, I will keep my promise and let you meet David," Howard said magnanimously as he went back to his console. "Let's go to break while Tara cleans herself up, and when we come back, we'll talk to our guest, David Duchovny!"

 

* * * * *

 

Tara and I were given small portable headsets to wear so that we could hear the sound from the studio mixing board. We stood in the hallway just outside the air studio, listening to David and Howard, while we waited to be called in.

Finally we heard Howard say, "Let these two women meet you," and Howard's assistant K.C. ushered us into the studio and showed us where to stand. We were at the rear of the room, toward the left; Howard's console was in front of us, about ten feet away, and David was sitting on the couch to its right. Interestingly, he wasn't fidgety in the radio studio, as he is on the TV talk shows. He was just parked on the sofa, looking right at home.

Don't even ask me to explain why I wasn't nervous, but there you are: I wasn't. I was having the time of my life!

"These two women suffered humiliation..." Howard began.

"They are in love with you," Robin added helpfully.

"They are in love with you," Howard agreed.

David looked over at the two of us. "I would like to apologize for what you had to go through to do this," he said.

"Well, you had nothing to do with it," Howard pointed out.

David went on, "There's no way that I can actually live up to being hit by a rubber chicken."

"The rubber chicken was easy," I started to say, remembering the alternative, but Howard, the King of All Media, was holding court.

"Now, this woman is a witch," Howard began. "She wanted to meet you. I beat -- "

"Is that a Princeton yearbook?" David interrupted, seeing the book Tara was holding. "Oh, my God."

"Yes, it is," Tara laughed.

"I beat -- " Howard tried to go on; then he went with the flow. "Now, Tara, you are holding what, a Princeton yearbook?"

"Is that David's year?" Robin asked.

"Yeah, eighty-two," Tara answered.

"Eighteen-eighty-two," David said.

"And you wanted to meet him," Howard rolled on. "You went through having mayonnaise spread on your chest -- "

David cut him off. "What are their names?"

"Tara," Howard said, "and the witch."

"Hillary," I supplied.

"Hillary the witch," said Howard.

"Wicca," David corrected him.

"Wicca," Howard repeated. "Yeah." He looked at me and gestured toward David. "He goofs on that too, believe me."

"Hillary was a good sport," David said.

"Well, they were both good sports," Howard admitted. "Hillary, I spanked you with a rubber chicken; I know that had to be humiliating. I felt bad."

"Hillary has the fan site on the web, on the Internet," Robin pointed out.

Howard turned toward Tara and me. "Now, how in love with David -- Tell David Duchovny whatever you want; you went through humiliation to get in here..."

"Now wait a minute," David interrupted. "What do I have to do to get, you know -- do you want to hit me with anything?"

"No, you don't have to do a thing," Howard reassured him.

It was more than I could resist. "Can I hit you with the rubber chicken?" I asked David. Jackie guffawed at the far end of the studio.

"He'd do it, believe me," Howard said.

"Maybe later," David replied.

"Okay," I said. Wow! I could actually talk to him. This was already even more fun than I'd expected!

"What do you have, a website?" Howard asked me. "You sit on the Internet and you what? You have pictures of David Duchovny?"

"No, I don't really do the pictures and the video kind of thing," I explained. "I have fan fiction; I have images, wallpapers, postcards..."

"What is fan fiction?" Robin asked. "She keeps throwing out these terms."

"I don't know," David said.

I stared at him. "You don't know," I said teasingly, thinking he must be kidding. I had thought he would at least have heard of it, even if he'd never read any. It was impossible to tell from his poker face whether he meant it or not.

"I've never been on the Internet," he protested.

"Is that true?" Howard asked.

David shook his head. "Not one time."

Howard turned toward him. "Really. You're not curious?"

"No, I think, uh, you know... you're just going to run into something that's going to humiliate you."

Howard laughed. "Believe me. You will." He turned back toward me. "What is fan fiction, for David Duchovny?"

I felt like an ambassador of my tribe, explaining our native customs to the foreign explorers. These are the ways of our people, O strangers! "Fan fiction is short stories, novels, sometimes poetry, that's written using characters from television and movies."

"So it's not David Duchovny -- it's his character from X-Files," Howard said, understanding.

"Oh, yeah, I write Mulder and Scully," I answered, adding, maybe just a little disdainfully, "I don't write actorfic."

"Really," Howard drawled, patently amused. "Actor-fic." Fred, the special effects man, played the sound effect of a chiming cuckoo clock in the background.

"Oh, please," Robin exclaimed. "Be careful with your language!"

"So you're really in love with this guy, is that what you are here to say?" Howard asked me.

"No," David cut in, "it sounds like she's in love with Mulder to me."

How many times have I described myself as being more of a Mulderist rather than a Duchovnyist? He had me pegged. I was surprised enough to answer, "Thank you, that's exactly it!"

"Okay, well, you can have him," David quipped.

"Well, you find him attractive, don't you?" Howard scoffed. "There's a reason you're in love."

"Well, I mean -- he's Mulder, and Mulder's him, but not..." I gestured helplessly toward David. "He knows what I mean."

"She has a firm grasp on reality," David observed, but not unkindly.

"Let me ask you a question," Robin began. "Has she ever closed her eyes..."

"And?" I asked when she paused.

"And," she went on, her voice suggestive, "had Mulder visit?"

Howard had to get involved then. "Yeah. When you're rubbing yourself?" He phrases things so... delicately.

"Robin, have you?" David asked quickly -- and maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed to be trying to deflect the question away from me.

She laughed nervously. "Let's not talk about that!"

"Oh yeah, she has," Howard said gleefully. "You have, actually, haven't you?"

"I might have," she admitted.

"Robin, the fact that you like the show, and like me, has been a source of great comfort to me over the years," David deadpanned.

"Oh, I'm glad, I'm glad," she trilled.

"Hmm. Yeah," Howard muttered, leaning forward against the console toward David, chin in hand.

"Howard -- Howard," David said, "Can you look the other way while I'm trying to -- "

"Yeah, go ahead. I don't care." Chuckles went up all around the studio. "Do what you want."

"Just look the other way," David asked again.

"I'm looking the other way."

"You're cramping me," David complained.

Robin was laughing. Howard was looking the other way, all right -- right back at me. He pointed at me and went in for the kill. "Now, what do you do? Do you rub yourself to David Duchovny's image?"

"Wow," David said.

Howard was relentless. "Seriously, have you ever thought about making love with him?"

"Tell the truth!" cried Robin, who'd started this whole mess.

"Jeez," Fred muttered in the background.

I hesitated. Someone at the back of the studio said, "That's a yes!" And honestly, the answer was 'no,' but only on a technicality -- and David had only moments ago grasped the concept of fanfic; it was a cinch the poor man wasn't ready to learn about MulderClones.

David must have seen the little wheels turning in my head. "Wow," he said wonderingly, his expression akin to Mulder's 'panic face.' "She's really going to tell..."

I took the plunge. "Not David," I said, before he could finish. "Mulder."

"I said Mulder," Robin fairly crowed.

"To Mulder. Ah. You have," Howard repeated.

What the hell, I thought. "Yeah. Mulder. I have."

Howard nodded knowingly. "Really."

"Yeah."

"That is so sad," Howard pronounced. Robin laughed aloud again, and so did I -- at this point, what else was there left to do?

Fred played the buzzing sound effect meant to be a vibrator. David looked around. "Is that her shaving?" he asked.

"Yeah. All right," Howard said, mercifully finished with me. "And you are such a fan, Tara, that you have his yearbook?"

"Yeah," she answered, "it was a Christmas-slash-Hanukkah present from one of my friends."

"Can I ask you a question?" David said. "Is that bought from somebody who actually was at Princeton, or can you actually purchase those -- like, from Ebay?"

"I don't know," Tara replied. "I think he got it off of Ebay. He wouldn't tell me how he got it."

"I think Ebay should just be thrown in jail," David opined. "The whole thing. I mean..."

"Me too," Howard agreed.

Robin seemed surprised. "But why?"

"Selling... yearbooks?" David went on. "It's like selling somebody else's Heisman trophy."

"Yeah, but it was probably somebody from your class who sold it," Robin pointed out.

Howard turned back to Tara. "Now, wait. You are such a fan of David Duchovny's -- I mean, you would like to make love to him. Right?"

Finding herself in the hot seat, Tara shrugged and half-chuckled.

"No, be honest," Howard continued. "I mean, nobody has mayonnaise spread on their boobs -- "

"You have to know somebody before you make love to them," Tara said emphatically. "I'm not going to -- "

"Oh, right," Howard groaned disgustedly. "Oh, that's right. I forgot! I'm not a girl!"

David leaned forward. "You know what I'm -- " he started to say, but couldn't break in.

"This is the guy she fantasizes about," Robin explained. "And when she fantasizes, she makes up a whole personality."

"You know -- " David began again, but this time Howard cut him off.

"Do you realize that I don't have to know anybody to make love to them?" Howard exclaimed. "I prefer not to know them!"

David kept trying. "I'm proud that these two women are intelligent," he finally said, "and are answering the questions. Really. I am so proud of that."

"Please." Howard waved a hand dismissively. "They'd go in the bathroom right now and give you oral sex, I believe." He turned back to Tara. "So wait a second. So you bought the yearbook why? Because you're a David Duchovny fan, or a Mulder fan?"

"I'm a David Duchovny fan. This was a gift, though."

"I think that they should wrestle,then," David said. "The Mulder fan against the Duchovny fan."

"I want to know how big a fan she is," Robin said. "What else has David done?"

Tara smiled and began reeling off the list of titles. "He's done Kalifornia, The Rapture..."

"That's enough. I love this woman," David said.

"Julia Has Two Lovers, Red Shoe Diaries, Twin Peaks..."

"Yeah!" David enthused. "She's right."

"Wow. You're in love with him. He's your kind of man," Howard said.

"Yes," Tara agreed.

"He's the look you like," Robin added.

"Yes," she said again, grinning.

"Go out and find someone who looks like that," Howard scoffed.

"Yeah, good luck," Robin chimed in.

"You better go to Hollywood," Howard went on. "You don't find anybody that looks like that."

"Eleventh Street and Second Avenue," David corrected him. "That's what they all look like down there."

Howard, apparently having had enough now of Tara and me, turned back to David. "Is it true you were once JFK Jr.'s roommate or something on a class trip?"

"Oh yeah, on a class trip..."

Tara and I watched the rest of the interview, only being called upon again for a comment or two while Howard was taking phone calls from listeners -- including one guy who swore up and down he'd seen David smoking a joint in the limo on the way over to Howard's show.

Apparently our 'fifteen minutes of fame' were over... or then again, maybe not. Howard asked David about his daughter, and then asked him, "Will you let her see your penis?"

"Huh?" David asked, apparently startled.

"Will you let your one-year-old daughter see your penis?"

"Um... what do you mean, 'let her'?"

"It's gonna be an issue. The kids will ask to see your penis."

David looked puzzled. "They will?"

"Yeah. Will you show them your penis?" Howard demanded.

David stalled for a minute, bantering with Howard and Robin to the accompaniment of Fred's sound effects -- rattlesnakes and zippers, this time. Eventually Howard asked, "So you haven't thought that through yet?"

"Uh, no, I, uh -- it's the first time I've ever heard..."

"You could let it --" I began.

"What is it, girls?" Howard asked, turning to us again. "Do you want to say anything to David?"

"I was just going to say," I replied, "you can let it talk to her in that little falsetto voice..."

David grinned. Howard looked from me to him and back again. "Oh, she's referring to something I did on Leno last week," David explained as Robin laughed. Howard mustn't have seen it, because he didn't seem to get the joke!

"Is that right. Well, girls, anything you want to say to David? You want to profess your love for him? This is it, because -- "

"This is your chance!" Robin sang out from her little booth off to our right.

"This is your chance," Howard repeated. "Go ahead, Tara."

"Yeah," David added, " 'Cause I've got a limo waiting, and another blunt!"

"Right!" Howard said as Robin and Jackie laughed loudly. "He's got to go get high. Any of you want to offer him fellatio? Whatever you want to do, go ahead."

"No, I don't want to do that," I said. I turned toward David. "I just want to say I've enjoyed your work all these years on The X-Files, and thanks."

"Thank you," David nodded.

"Hmmm," Howard mused. "Tara?"

"Are you all broken up that it might be ending?" Robin asked me.

"Yes and no," I replied, truthfully. "I'm a little -- "

"Yeah, you don't look like you can handle it," Howard said, laughing.

I grinned. "No, I can handle it," I assured him. "I'll just write my own episodes!"

"You look a little unstable, like you might go off the deep end," Howard laughingly persisted.

"No, really," I went on, explaining. "The way they've been wrapping up the mytharc this year, I don't really see where they can take it after this. They've done the Samantha thing, they've..."

I looked over at David, whose eyebrows were distinctly approaching his hairline at this point. "All right, all right," Howard said, uninterested in the finer points of Philedom. "Tara, do you want to say something to David?"

"Just the same," she replied, and addressed David. "I love your work acting and directing, with the episodes..."

"Did you want me to sign that for you?" David asked, indicating the Princeton yearbook.

"Yeah, if you could," Tara nodded, smiling.

"Sure," he said.

"All right, in a minute," Howard said, and added conversationally, "Would you like to see his penis? ... Would you girls like to?"

( I thought of the pictures from a certain early David film that are out here on the 'net, but decided I'd better not say I already had seen it... )

"I'd like a hug, if I could," Tara offered instead.

"A hug," Howard said, sounding disappointed. "In place of a..."

"He's not going to touch you!" Robin exclaimed in mock outrage. "He's a big star!"

"You can have a hug," David said. He looked over at Robin. "I'll hug her!"

"Oh yeah," said Howard. "He'll do what he did to Minnie Driver. He'll take you to the movies."

"All right," Tara said agreeably.

"All right!" Howard said. More banter ensued then, this time centering around the fact that Robin hadn't seen The Unnatural, and about how she'd been 'spooked' by an encounter with Chris Carter while she was in California once. There was one last, incredibly rude phone caller, and Howard joked, "That was Chris Carter, by the way!"

Finally Howard wrapped it up, plugged Return To Me one last time, thanked Tara and me, and went to break.

 

* * * * *

 

Tara and I were led back into the hallway while David did the meet-and-greet thing with everyone in the studio during the break. The two interns with the hand-held cameras who'd shadowed us almost since the moment we'd walked into the radio station followed us again, and we found ourselves doing the little post-interview that they always use on the E! show.

"Was it worth it, girls? Was it everything you expected?"

And then some, I thought, remembering the question about the "m-word." Oh, well -- it was no scarier than what David himself had said about it in that Playboy interview a few years back. "It was great. It was wonderful," I said cheerfully.

"It was definitely worth it," Tara agreed.

"And would you like to take this opportunity to thank Howard?" one of the young men suggested.

"Oh, sure," I said. "He's the man. I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- Howard is the man!"

We were shown into the smaller engineering room, a few doors down from the main studio, where we'd left our things. I got out my camera and my books and my little binder of fic, and Tara and I swapped e-mail addresses.

Through the glass panel in the door I could see David doing his own post-interview with the two cameramen. When they seemed to be done I opened the door and stuck my head out. "Hey, David," I said, and he turned toward me.

"There you are," he said, smiling, and walked into the room. He held out his hand to me and I laid my own into it. As he shook my hand, he met my eyes and said, "You were really smart to wear pantyhose here today."

Hello? I am standing here, my hand clasped in David Duchovny's, and we are discussing... my underwear. What's wrong with this picture? It was deliciously absurd. I laughed a little. "It was cold outside this morning when I went out," I shrugged.

He was taller, and broader across the shoulders, than I'd really realized; I was looking further up at him than I'd expected to have to. He has an effortless, imposing physical presence; he seemed to fill up the room just by standing in it. And it isn't the makeup, or the lighting, or any trick of the X-Files camera crew -- he is truly just as handsome in 'real life.'

David turned to Tara and shook her hand. "He was hard on you girls," he said. "I wouldn't have done that to meet me."

He signed Tara's yearbook 'Thank you for humiliating yourself for me.'

He signed my book with my name and his signature. His people were peering into the room, glancing pointedly at their watches. I was holding the other two books, and I said, "I don't know if you have time to get into all this..."

"No, of course," he said, reaching for them. "What are the other names?"

When he finished and handed them back to me, I held out the binder with my three stories in it. "These are a few of my stories I brought for you," I explained.

"Thank you," he said, plainly surprised. "That was so nice of you."

He posed for a picture with each of us. Then, "David," a man said from the doorway, "it's nine o'clock..."

"Gotta go, girls," David said. "Let me give you your hugs." A quick squeeze for each of us, and then he said, "Thanks for coming up. Take care!"

"Thank you! You too!" we both said, and watched him walk away.

 

* * * * *

 

I had said all along that I would be completely calm throughout, and that when I got back into my car would be when I started to scream. But I really didn't do anything like that till six-thirty that evening when I saw the pictures at my friend Alison's camera store. Somehow, it had been like taking some kind of a trip into another world. Seeing the picture made it real. Then, I did jump up and down and squeal!

I got home at half past seven, and it literally took me three hours to answer all the e-mail that had come in. It turned out my cyber-friend Dawn, 'Sister Moon,' had been wearing her Walkman while on line to get standby tickets for Conan O'Brien, and that she'd been doing the play-by-play of the broadcast as it happened! My fifteen minutes of fame turned out to be more like half an hour.

Well, folks, I can tell you with confidence: David knows now that we're out here, writing fic, and he has some that he can read for himself! (And he has my site addy, so he can come back for more if he likes what he sees... heh, heh!) I have been truly moved at the great number of messages I've received from people who said that they were fans of mine and were glad that I had been the one to give him fanfic to read. It's made my sense of belonging to a family out here that much stronger, and that's just as nice a feeling as having met David was.

Yeah. I'd have to say it was definitely worth the rubber chicken.

 

Read the complete transcript of David's interview at Haven for the FBI's Most Unwanted

Listen to the interview on RealAudio at DuchovnyNet

See Tara's picture with David at her home page

 

{Home} _ _ _ _ _ __ {E-Mail}