dale! why didn't we get you on tape?
Actually, you did. In the last-call video with Kahlen, I am the guy in TNG command red behind her pounding my fist and singing. I held down that barstool from open to close with the exception of half-a-dozen cigarette breaks.
As for why I wasn't interviewed, I couldn't say. It's possible, if 80s Jeff was there with you, he might have fingered me as trouble. I had a bit of a notorious reputation with Lydia and the bartenders after a couple of events of drinking myself stuporous.
My wife used to work and live away from home for up to six months at a time and during that period I would visit STTE alone, spending most of each day at the bar. In one instance I got a little too chatty and went around inserting myself into the conversations of others and annoying people at the tables. In another I drank myself nearly unconscious, fell off my stool, left my wallet on the bar and had to be physically carried off the property and then, in a relay handoff to LV Hilton security, to my room. This was back when Lydia still tended bar, before she was promoted.
I was never mean, angry or violent, but I was a problem there for a while. I changed my ways and cleaned up my act in the waning years but Lydia and Co. remained wary of me ever after. They were never anything but friendly and hospitable, but they kept an eye on me. In fact, I overheard Darren, as he came on shift that last day, asking Matt how much I'd had thus far. Fortunately I'd been drinking Frozen Hirogens all day in anticipation of the evening's blowout.
So Jeef might've known about that history and steered you away from me.
Anyway, your coverage and the way you cut it together was very moving, and I really appreciate your efforts. Damn I will miss that place.
I couldn't bring myself to watch the closing ceremony again, but the alien interviews and last call at Quark's bar were very good.
