Everyone at Gawker.TV is incredibly excited for Conan O'Brien's upcoming live comedy tour, so we thought: "What better way to thank his writers than sending them pizza from across the country?" Here's a first-hand account of how it went down.

When we saw on Facebook that Conan's writers were going to get together for a night of Standup at Melrose Improv in California, we enlisted Josh Rachford, former Gawker Video Intern and current all-around funny-guy, to deliver the pizzas to the writers. Here's his story:

On March 30, Conan O'Brien's unemployed writing staff performed stand-up at the Hollywood Improv. My mission was to deliver a New York care package, but Los Angeles would have none of it.

The bouncer I talked to seemed sympathetic to my cause until I mentioned I was hoping to photograph the writers with the pizza. "That seems creepy," he said. For the rest of the mission, nothing I could say could shake me out of that messaging frame. He was the Karl Rove of bouncers.

Then I was granted access to the venue manager, who also seemed to think my mission was completely insane. "Please, I must do this," I said, "I've already paid for the pizza."

She dove off into a hole to ask the writers' manager. "Absolutely not, it's creepy and they didn't know about it," she returned. "Exactly. That's why it is a surprise," I said.

"No photos - they don't know what they're endorsing." Who doesn't want to endorse pizza?

In the end I had to leave the pies and note there and hope the writers did receive it. Los Angeles has sequestered its greatest prize and will not let New York even attempt to persuade them to return.

As it turns out they DID receive our pizza! We got an email from Dan Cronin and two tweets from other writers. We think it's safe to say, "Mission Accomplished."

Josh Rachford is a writer, comedian, and internet person in Los Angeles. A former employee of Tumblr, he's also contributed to Urlesque. He's a regular performer at Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles, currently with sketch team Hot Mess. He likes cheeseburgers and brunch, but never at the same time. He blogs at crassanxiety.com.


Follow the Writers on Twitter: