Honey

Tonight was Trubes' birthday. We kept to our regular routine of TWR: Tuesdays with Rodney so Trubes, Sumo, MP, Rodney, Trubes' friend Andy & I all headed to Fiamma for dinner and drinks. I don't know when this started or who started it but this past year we've been occasionally ordering sushi from Shibuya, the restaurant across the way from Fiamma. It's kind of high maintenance and rude of us to sit at the bar in one restaurant and order food from another and have it delivered but Fiamma is really good to us. I'd go to Shibuya but it doesn't have a bar. Even though I'm not drinking alcohol for the next several months I still like sitting at a bar versus a table any day, and that includes a sushi bar.

We ordered an obscene amount of sashimi, peppers, cod, rolls & nigiri. It was so delish. I've loved sushi since my childhood best friend Terri introduced it to me in college. Of course I'd had it before but she is the one who took me to an authentic Japanese sushi restaurant called Origami in downtown Minneapolis in the warehouse district. This was WAY before sushi was trendy and in every strip mall in America. It's still there and one of my fave places back home. Terri and I went there last time I saw her when I was back in the Twin Cities. But lately, I've more than loved sushi. I've been craving it. This much sushi isn't good for me. I need to vary my diet a little more and get balanced. At least it's lean protein and healthy. 

Trubes' birthday desert surprise
courtesy of Jon from Fiamma

Since it was Trubes' birthday Fiamma couldn't let the night go by without a little goodie. Did I mention they're really good to us? Actually it's Jon the bartender who takes such great care of us. He, like Bill, Gretyl & Ali @ Seablue, has become a friend. Last Christmas Jon was so sweet he bought us all Christmas gifts. I got chocolate and candles. Simple and sweet. Perfect.

Everyone took off while Rodney and I stayed for another hour or so and caught up on gossip, our lives and weekend plans. He's got Kevin Hart @ Mandalay Bay on Saturday night. I'm gonna go and hang out in one of the suites but not sure if it will be solo or if I'm gonna ask M to go. He comes into town on Thursday for the ACMs. I haven't seen him since last year's show. He asked me out to dinner on Thursday night. At least I'm not drinking and won't blurt out something like, "Come on Honey, so what's the deal? Why did you send me roses on Valentine's Day last year and then proceed to talk about some girl you are 'kinda' dating back in LA." This should be interesting...

Does She Love That Man

Dinner at Seablue tonight. Started out with my friend Erick from ACMAs. Love that guy. LOVE him. I've had a great connection with him since the day we met. We went over both our lives for the past 4 months - post ACMAs. One of my strengths, I'd say my most powerful strength, is my ability to create and maintain relationships. Mine with Erick has been strong since we met. He's one of those men who I can tell anything, anywhere, anytime and he won't let me get away with anything. He walked me thru his view of my boy dramas. After an hour & a half he had to go and meet with another client. 

Later Counselor showed up at Seablue, sans sidekick. I know my friends at Seablue were wondering "Does She Love That Man." He warned me that his buddy was in the bathroom but that he was drunk. No surprise. I took full advantage of the time I had with Counselor to talk about normal stuff because once Boy Wonder arrived, he would occupy all the attention. We started to talk about our lives, what was happening with each of us, blah blah blah, and then comes Boy Wonder, stumbling in. I adore Boy Wonder. Under sober circumstances he's a good kid. But now days he's in pain having broken up with the love of his life. But I'm tiring of his drunken antics. I realize that's extremely hypocritical of me since I was him 5 years ago when I had my heart broken but it's still hard to handle & watch. Boy Wonder is hard to babysit. Counselor is at his wits end and I'm losing patience too. But I do get it. Heartache is hard. Everyone deals with it differently. It's never easy. The most we can hope for is to survive until another one steals our heart.

What A Girl Wants

The ACM stage in pieces

So much to tell but for now What A Girl Wants is bed. Tomorrow it's all about the official arrivals of Morales & Maidana @ the MGM Grand. Five days of boxing then off to Mexico for a little r & r. Can't wait...

Back at it around 10.30a. The arena floor looks like one big erector set. My favorite part is watching the strike. It's amazing that everyone knows exactly where each piece goes, bit by bit. It's a masterful dance, truly with the production manager, stage manager, executive producer, lighting designer, riggers & stagehands all working like a symphony. I love it. 

The remnants 5 hours later

At the same time the ACMs are loading out, Golden Boy Promotions is moving in with Morales vs. Maidana. So far it's just a couple staffers in their production office. We ramp up to a full show by tomorrow. Arrivals for the fighters were today. I missed them. I was at a strategic lunch with the 2/3rds of the Brain Trust and by strategic lunch I mean we had to get the hell off property. We're all going a little stir crazy being trapped in here for 2 weeks. 

The rest of the day is uneventful. I'm not fan of boxing as a sport but the people are like family to me so it makes all the fire drills and drama ok. We just kind of yell at each other, get thru it and then kiss & make up after. It's a blast. 

Tomorrow are closed workouts for the press. Very uneventful. I could use an uneventful day, gladly.

It's Alright

Man my feet hurt. Granted I've been in 3' heels all week, but still.

All Star Jam pre-set

The ACMs wrapped up last night with their All Star Jam in the Marquee Ballroom. It rolled along until 1.00a with a barrage of stars like Toby Keith & others that I wouldn't recognize if they took a shit on my doorstep. Many people think it's better than the actual awards show. You get better access; it's a more intimate feel, like seeing a Chris Botti show @ the Blue Note vs. U2 at the O2. Both great shows, just different experiences.

It's Monday morning 9.30a. I'm sitting in my spot in the back corner of the arena floor listening to a little Big Head Todd & The Monsters, It's Alright. It's where I come to clear my head and jot down some notes about the show while they're still fresh in my head. Plus, everyone knows where my office is so there's no place to spend a quiet moment - instead I hide in plain sight. 

The night went well. Not too many surprises. Typical award show event day stuff. There are so many moving parts it's hard to get a handle on all of them. Over the years I've come close but there is always the occasional curve ball. That's what makes them fun.

The riggers and lighting designers are on the stage getting ready for the Girls' Night Out show tonight. I used to hate the second show - mostly because by now my body is so tired it's rebelling against me. But this year I feel great. Not sure if it's my physical body that's to credit or if things this week have been that tame. Either way I'm grateful.

Girls' Night Out Star Chairs

The arena is eerily quiet. Coming in this morning it didn't feel like we have a show today. Now in the arena around 10a things are starting to pick up. Stage hands are striking our green chairs for some fancy gold ones where the "Women of Country" will sit for Girls' Night Out. Couple of other tweaks to the set and floor for the show tonight but other than the content, nothing too much will change. That's the whole point behind doing this Monday show. It's almost a 2-fer-1. Cuts your production costs tremendously because you don't have to re-do a set. And this is the same set we'll be using for our upcoming Billboard Music Awards in May.

Rehearsals get rolling around noon and are in full swing until doors tonight. It's gonna be a long day in these 3' heels. 

Hard Habit To Break

MGM Grand Garden Arena
dressing room hallway

Today is going pretty well. Just your typical award show kind of drama. Credentials & wristbands are always a bit of a cluster. There are so many issued and every year when we think we have it down, there are always exceptions, changes, additions, subtractions. Some of it necessary, a great portion of it ridiculous, but all of it manageable.

Reba's dressing room

This year we had some oddities with who could and who couldn't eat in the Chipotle catered crew room. What should have taken 10 minutes to solve ended up taking 2 days. I blame the fact that the production manager who normally handles the full show went over to Mandalay to run the Sugarland & Rihanna portion. It was the right thing to do for the show but sucked for us, the house. He's just tremendously talented for handling things before they spiral out of control. By the time it got to me it was already a mess so I called him and he came over to fix it. You really never know how good someone is until he's gone. I think that's a lyric in the sappy Chicago love song Hard Habit To Break.

Is Blake Shelton in there?

I spent the majority of the day in my office working on Morales vs. Maidana stuff, the event we have immediately following the ACMs. I was also working on some high profile events that haven't been announced yet so I'll leave it a mystery. That's the cool thing about working for a major arena. There aren't many acts that we DON'T get simply because you don't pass up Vegas. There's too much money involved. About every hour I popped out to make the rounds, get some fresh air, a little exercise, stretch the legs. 

Door to rehearsals

Around 4ish I was up in catering checking out the catering fiasco and noticed a performance on the screen. I managed to catch Rihanna and Jennifer Nettles' rehearsal from Mandalay Bay. I'm not a fan of either but good God can those girls sing. 

8.30p Right now the team is getting ready for Taylor Swift's closed sound check. It means we have to sweep everyone out of the arena except non-essential crew. The good thing is I know all the hidden places in the arena where no one can see me so just because someone is telling me I can't, I'm probably going to watch it. It's childish, I know. But I'm pretty tired and need to entertain myself somehow. 

Academy of Country Music Awards

Academy of Country Music Awards

Here's a link to my FB page of photos of silly behind-the-scenes footage from the Academy of Country Music Awards load in & rehearsals. A full recap of the ACMs, All Star Jam and Girls' Night Out to follow after the live ACM broadcast on CBS this Sunday & Girls' Night Out live taping on Monday. 

If you're coming out to the MGM Grand Garden Arena for any ACM related event, Tweet me @AmyZopfi. I'll give you a behind-the-scenes tour! 

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is Monday. I don't normally go to work on Mondays because I'm usually working Saturdays but Gaga was on a Friday and no one really cares that I drove to Riverside, CA to see Chris Botti on Saturday. Technically that wasn't really work so it's back to the grindstone. 

I don't mind though. Coming up on Sunday, April 3 is the Academy of Country Music Awards (ACMs) at the Grand Garden. ACMs come with some of the greatest people I've ever worked with. I'm not a fan of country music - at all - but they make this event so fun. Yes, it gets nuts and occasionally we butt heads but then have a good laugh at the end of the day. My friend Erick has the 2nd best laugh on the planet. (1st goes to Adam: you know you deserve it!) It kinda sounds like Barry White suffocating while moaning and inhaling, "AH, OH." Deliciously absurd. I love it. Nothing better than a laugh that makes you laugh.

I love this show for other reasons too. This was my first awards show I help construct operationally from the ground up. It's kind of like my baby, my legacy for when I leave the Grand Garden. I'm extremely proud of the relationships I've built with them and even more proud of the sustained friendships. That's what makes this job great, tolerable even. You can put up with douchebags in house for 24 hours or ridiculous clueless convention clients for shows like this. At the end of the year you just hope the good ones outweighed the bad ones. If they did you smile to yourself thinking of the memories. If they didn't you pat yourself on the back for not telling anyone to go fuck themselves... at least to their face.

And on that note, I think I'll call it a night. 

I Miss You So

I worked late tonight, until around 11.30p. I love working in the office when no one is there. I blast Botti (& Cullum tonight) and sing my face off. Occasionally the cleaning crew catches me but I don't really care. I get the most done then. I come up with my best ideas after dark. 

Tonight when I was working on the ACMA estimate I was thinking about back to the days when I worked for IMG. My office was in a trailer on a golf course. When I got stressed, bored, tired or just for the hell of it I'd go hit balls on the range or put in my earbuds and listen to music while I putted for a hour. I miss those days. Or going back even further when I lived in the Twin Cities - I used to head to the University of Minnesota course and hit buckets of balls for hours at a time, sometimes even in the rain. I loved doing that. It was very calming, a great distraction. It's funny, now I live in Vegas where golf is everywhere and I haven't hardly picked up a stick in 8 years. Actually that's not true. My 7 iron is in my living room. I use it to hit George Bennett's toys around the house. It drives him nuts. 

I had some great times on the course. Once of the best guys I ever knew was there, Joe Genovese. He worked with IMG & Arnold Palmer Golf and handled course setup. Classic old school smoking curmudgeon, raspy voice, skin like tanned leather, calluses & cuts on his hands from putting up bunting, signs & stakes. He took me under his wing and taught me a lot. I proved to him I wasn't afraid of manual labor or getting dirty. He liked me because I worked my ass off for him. I loved that I earned his respect. Not many people, girls especially, did. Joe had a sidekick, Baldy. Baldy was my age and smart as a whip. Great guy. Warm laugh. Irritatingly patient. I had a crush on him. Shocking, I know. Best memories I have of that time in my life were hanging out with them working on the course.

I remember one day it was stormy but we still had work to do. We were all in our rain gear but soaked to the bone. It was a cold day too. It started lightening so we all stopped working on the fairways, pulled up our golf carts to the range and hung out under the awning at Rush Creek. We drank coffee and laughed for and hour and a half waiting for the weather to pass. I don't remember what we talked about or whose story cracked who up. I just remember the feeling, the spirit of that afternoon. One of those rare moments that stick with you.

Joe's gone now. He died about 10 years ago of cancer. He was only in my life for a short time. Not even a chapter, maybe just a page or 2 but he had more of an impact than people who are still with me, people I see on a daily basis even now. I have a pic of me, Joe, Baldy and a couple other pals from my golf days in a frame. I look at it sometimes to remind me of the good ol' days. I Miss You So Joe.