04.02.12 Lionel Richie and Friends @ MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, NV

View from the tip of the stage

Tonight is ACM Presents Lionel Richie and Friends @ the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Funny that I got more ticket requests for this than the ACM Awards show. I got in around 9.10a which for me is a miracle. I didn't have my guy Dave to come in early to babysit the kids and because I don't have an assistant, coordinator or any backup, it's just me so I hauled my ass out of bed and made it in. 

The day was remarkably quiet. Steve popped into my office for some housekeeping business on security deployment. He and Richie along with George head up the security for the ACMs. They're great guys. They totally 'get it' and aren't assholes. Calling some of the people we work with on shows assholes is an understatement so when you get good guys, you appreciate them even more. They fit right in with the entire ACM group. It's part of why I love this show so much.

Lionel's special seating

Once I made sure everyone was where they were supposed to be I headed back to my office to catch up on emails, budgets and schedules for upcoming shows. Although I loathe being in so early (especially knowing how late I'll be there) it does give me some undisturbed quiet time to work on stuff. Even though it's Monday it doesn't feel like it. My days are all screwed up having worked all weekend. 

My sups start trickling in around 2ish. They are totally self sufficient so other than stopping in to say hi and check on me (read: my mood) I don't see or hear too much from them. I'm actually in much better spirits today. Granted, it didn't take much but at least it's progress. 

Around 5.30p I'm sitting in Zippy's office, bored out of my mind. We're watching them rehearse Brick House for the show tonight on his TV. 5.45p rolls around and they're still on stage rehearsing. We're supposed to open doors @ 6.00p. Great. No biggie though. We can get the production tables, monitors, printers, trash, cables & coolers out of the way pretty quickly to reset chairs. 

Rehearsing Truly

All seems to be going well until the box office rep comes down to check on seating. Before every show they come down to count the rows and seats to be sure they're correct before doors. Every show is different and if we're off by a chair or a row, it can cause major problems after we open doors. Imagine trying to fix seating issues when people are already sitting in seats or trying to add rows or chairs with people around. Not pretty. So we try and catch it before doors. 

Resetting chairs

Good thing we did check because we were off by 4 rows in the front section. Major. It's a long story but we had fixed it with the Academy for the awards show the night before but no one caught it for the Lionel Richie show tonight. Luckily we had built a couple of extra rows in back so we just kind of shifted everything back. Not physically. We took 2 rows off the front of the side sections and relettered the rows so they matched up, did a little reconfiguring to the section we had the original problem in and voila. Problem solved. Unfortunately by now it's 6.30p and our line to get in is backed up pretty far. But our excellent ticket scanning staff did a stellar job getting everyone in. 

Entertainment outlets doing 1-on-1s

At 7.25p I meet the production manager down at the front of the stage. "Looks good" he says. I'm so afraid he's gonna tell me the producer is going to do the 'voice of god' asking people to move to open seats to dress the house for TV. This is nothing short of a nightmare for the venue. What happens is people make a mad dash for open seats and when people who actually have tickets for those seats show up, it's a mess. It's one big ripple effect. The production couldn't give a fuck, nor should they I suppose. All they care about is that the house looks good for TV. I get it. Me, well I get to deal with all the complaints, threats & grumblings from guests about their experience at the MGM. The venue has zero control over this and people don't understand this, nor do they care, nor should they. I'd be furious if I went to my seat that I paid for and someone else was sitting in it who refused to move. It's a part of my job I hate because I agree with the people and wish I could change their experience but there isn't anything I can do but listen to them & try to be understanding. 

Once again I didn't see any part of the show. Not a single bit, hence no show pics. I didn't really care to. Hell, it's going to be on tv next week on the 13th anyhow so if I really want to, I'll catch it then. Instead I spent some time with a guy I haven't seen or talked to in quite a while. Enter Motorcycle-guy...

04.01.12 Academy of Country Music Awards @ MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, NV

ACMs

Tonight we had the 47th Academy of Country Music Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. This is by far my favorite awards show that we do. It's not the actual show; I don't care for country music. It's the people. I've said it many times: I absolutely adore them. This year though I took a step back. I'm not gaga over M anymore, I'm bored to death of my job, I'm cranky as hell and don't really feel like being around people. Yeah, nice portrait, I know. So this year I asked my guys to just run the show. And they did. Not sure what's going on with me but I thought it best to stay away from as many people as I could given my disposition. 

Seat cards for rehearsals

I kept quiet from twitter on this show. A couple days earlier I tweeted a pic of the seat cards. About an hour later I get an email from the Academy asking to coordinate tweets with them because they want to be the 1st to put out any images. I get it. It's their show. So I got out of the tweeting business - at least for the show. I still took pics but only posted them to my personal FB page and saved them for the arena archive so when someone asks, "Hey, anyone remember what we did for barricades on the red carpet for ACMs in 2012?" we can look back. 

Great set!

My day was going pretty well until the programs. The dreaded programs. The ACMs give out this 3 pound program book to all attendees. It's like the fucking Restoration Hardware anthology that comes out yearly. There are 5 pallets of them. About 20 per box. Each box weighs about 50 pounds. It's my biggest pet peeve of this show. I hate the distribution, the set up, the concept. Put the goddamn thing on a CD or a swanky thumb drive and be done with it. So as usual I end up on the floor, dragging out 50# boxes from under the tables to refresh the ones already out, Leatherman in hand ready to slit my throat, or rather slice the tape to open the box bottoms, sweating and on my knees - and not in a sexy way. I fucking hate those things more than I hate people who talk in elevators. Next year I'm lining every single wall of the upper lobby with tables. And every single program will be preset on a table ahead of time so that no one will have to go thru what my staff and I did. Yeah, only took me 6 years to figure this out.

Remnants from the cake

The show went off fine. I had the truck show feed on my TV in my office but didn't really watch it. It was more so I could see where we were in the program. Sometime after doors I went with Trubes to Seablue to grab a bite to eat when my radio goes off. For Toby Keith's Red Solo Cup they did a gag to kind of reproduce a part of his video. So we had to clear 3 ADA sections. That was the plan from the beginning with the show producer. At some point during a run thru someone else told my guys we didn't need to clear them. It's kind of a big deal to ask 30 people that they have to leave their seats for part of the show so they didn't want to do it if we didn't have to. In the end I made it clear, "Look, I don't care who said we don't need to clear them. I'm telling you we do." I'm not normally that stern with my guys but I was tired of people getting involved with a decision that had been made days earlier. A plan was in place. Don't fuck with it. In the end it went well. I watched the gag from the floor and it looked great. Apparently there was a wedding that took place. I missed that too. I only knew about it because my friend the fire marshal showed up during rehearsals saying he had to sign off on the candles on a cake. Huh? I guess I should have read the show run a little more carefully. I've got the show on DVR too but haven't managed to watch it yet. Doubt I actually will. 

1st to the stage @ ASJ

Around 6.45ish I head over to the Marquee Ballroom. While the awards show is going on over at the Grand Garden we have to get ready for 7.30p doors to the All Star Jam. This is one of the most popular shows we do because so many high level country artists end up performing with each other in such an intimate setting. Everyone's in place, house band starts so we open doors. Only glitch was the ticket scanners didn't work. Our IT department disabled the wireless connection for some reason. We just faked it and checked tickets. 10 years ago no one had scanners so sometimes you gotta just go old school to get thru the night. 

Red Carpet

On my way back from the Marquee I take a look at the east lot where the red carpet was set earlier. Fork lifts, staging, carpet, banner truss all laying around. I look at my watch. 7.35p. Shit. The awards show breaks in 25 minutes. There's no way all this stuff will be cleared by show break. It should have been cleared by 7.00p so limos could stage there and I could let people from the arena exit out those side doors. But given the amount of material lying in the lot and on the sidewalk there was no way could I do that. So I call in the troops to let our staff now we won't be exiting on east or west sides of the building. Everyone exits out the main entrances and does the 'duck walk' out to the casino or across the street to the All Star Jam. It actually wasn't too bad. That's how good my team is. They know how to manage traffic flow better than any. Every event they make me proud. I'm so lucky to have such an amazing group of people. 

All Star Jam

Arena is clear so I head back to the All Star Jam. My mood is about 10x worse than it was earlier and I've had it, mentally. I know I need to be back @ 9.00a because my guy who normally comes in for the early shift has a M-F 9-5 job so I'm the lucky one who gets to come in and babysit the troops. I see my supervisors near the front of the Marquee and tell them that I'm headed home. It's only 10.00p. The ASJ won't be clear until at least 1.30a so I should stay until then but I'm so done if I don't leave now I'm not sure I'll actually ever return to work. They could all sense my frustration. It's not like I hide it well. "Go home. Get some sleep. We'll see you tomorrow," they say. Thank you God for my guys. They save my life every event. 

I hate everyone and everything right now. I can barely even stand to be around those close to me. I hate my job, I hate this city, I hate the crowds, I hate the people. I 

Giving Up

I'm completely frustrated and utterly disappointed in people I had respect for. It all stems from shit flowing downhill and I'm so low on the totem pole that there isn't much I can do about it except give up. There comes a time when you realize that if you are being used or taken advantage of, it's your own fault. This proves true both personally & professionally. Giving Up isn't failure. Sometimes it's the best option for a new start. 

What I Don't Want

I went to dinner with M the other night. He was about an hour late. So irritating but I cut him some slack because I know how busy he was. We met at Seablue (shocker) and spent about 4 hours there. Somewhere around hour number 2 I literally caught myself not listening to a word that was coming out of his mouth and thinking, "Jesus, Amy. What were you thinking?" There was a time not too long ago when I really liked him. Really liked him. Like, like-liked him. He's got a special quality. A warmth and real-ness that I connected with. A year ago I would have shoved a little old lady in front of a bus to date him. And it's funny because he's the opposite of my type. But that night at dinner I looked at him and thought wow, someone was looking out for me because at that very moment I couldn't imagine being with him or understand what drew me to him in any romantic fashion. Don't get me wrong, he's an amazing guy, a guy I have a tremendous amount of respect for and a person who will probably be one of my friends for a very long time. I just wonder what happened in a year that turned me off? He didn't do anything; I haven't seen or spoken to him in a year. It's clearly me. I'm the one who changed. Is it because of Counselor? Or because of Tequila-guy? If I had to guess I'd say it's probably a combination of both. After the closeness & affection of Counselor and the magnificence & manhood of Tequila-guy, my standards are a tad bit high. That may a problem because they were high to begin with.

I guess it took a year for me to figure out What I Don't Want and I already know what I do want - so what's stopping me from getting it? That's the million dollar question... 

Makes Me Want To Cry

Who's that hot piece of tail over there?

Church was interesting today. In lieu of a sermon they had a a small orchestral ensemble and the choir do a requiem. I normally love music in this genre but the requiem was like a fugue, and very depressing. Lots of minor notes. Not my cup of tea. I appreciate the music but found myself daydreaming, and not about productive things. I bailed at the start of the final hymn. Prob not the most mature thing to do but I didn't have the patience to sit there thru another song.

On the way home I hit the bagel joint for a bagel & lox. It's become my new Sunday routine. Today I had the misfortune to drop it on my passenger-side floor. Luckily it was still in the box so it was still edible. "Goddamn it," were the words first out of my mouth. Yeah, not the best choice of words given where I had just come from. 

I love the feel of grass in my
paws & the wind in my snout.

Home, I shared some of the smoked salmon with George Bennett and then headed to the park to take advantage of the beautiful (but windy) March weather. The park actually wasn't that crowded. We did a couple of laps. After the second lap GB and I took a spot in the sun and rubbed our toes in the soft grass. I love watching him just lay in the grass and watch things. It's stupid but sometimes it Makes Me Want To Cry. He's so happy just playing at the park.

I was going to get my toes painted but my little shop was busy so I hit the dreaded grocery store instead. I hate going there. I have no business being there. I walked out with a bill of $117 and got some pasta, vegis, cheese, Pellegrino & bread. Granted, I bought some good stuff but I'm willing to bet 90% of all the vegis go bad by Thursday and the cheese will be moldy in a week. They didn't even have any tulips.

And what did I have for dinner? Ramen. What a colossal waste.

After Tonight

Kevin Hart @ Mandalay

I went to see Kevin Hart tonight @ Mandalay. Rodney hooked a bunch of us up in a suite. Sounds fancy but it's pretty standard stuff. It's more like just a space to throw friends in with booze and sometimes grub. 

We started off the night @ Stripsteak. I passed Rodney on the way there. He was headed to the casino cage with the production manager to get some cash. "They're holding 4 seats for us @ the bar," Big Rod informs me. I get to Strip and Monica the bartender greets me with a big smile, "Welcome back." I look behind me and there's Pete Rose with a really thin, young Asian girl. Monica tells me that she shoo'd him away from the seats at the bar because she was saving them for us. I rarely shy away from anyone and he was only about 3' away from me so I looked at him and said, "Hi Mr. Rose." He just smiled from underneath his cowboy hat and said hi back. 

Ohio State was only a couple shots back from Syracuse as we both watched the game. He'd talk to the tv like we all do. "They haven't hit a 3…" he scoffed. For a while his companion was away, first in the bathroom, then I have no idea where so he was sitting alone at the table for a while. It's spring break time so there are lots of 20-30 somethings around Vegas, and Stripsteak was no exception. There's only 1 tv in Strip and it's right in the corner near the wine closet where I was sitting - so naturally that's where the boys gathered. I watched the 5 of them slowly tell each other, "Hey, that's Pete Rose." It was kind of comical. I literally counted to 10 and made a bet with myself. "I bet they ask for a pic with him before I can count to 10." I got to 8. "Miss, would you mind?" one of the 20-somethings asked me. I was amused by their enthusiasm… it didn't hurt that they were all tall and cute too AND he called me Miss instead of Ma'am. One of the guys handed me his iPhone. I looked at Pete and asked, "Is this ok Mr. Rose?" He nodded & smiled. I snapped the pic and the boys said thanks. Pete winked at me and the festivity was over. 

Rodney and his girlfriend finally show up with the new guy Justin. For reasons I'm still unsure of we end up leaving and head to Border Grill. Possibly one of the worst dinners I've had lately. Decor was fab but the service was mediocre and the food was not tasty. Granted, I'm not a Mexican food fan so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. In general it was just not very good. I got the ceviche octopus special. To me ceviche means raw but cooked from the acid in lime juice. But @ Border it's fried like calamari. To the waiter's credit he did tell me, "If you like calamari, you're gonna love this." I just didn't catch the fact that it was fried. I also ordered the ahi tuna. Dry. I realize I'm being a spoiled brat. If I tried to make ahi or octopus at home, well, yeah, first of all that would never happen but I'm sure it would be crap. The guac there was delish! As a whole though not a reco from me on this one.

Warning at the entrance

After dinner we meet up with more of Rodney's pals and make our way to the suite at the Events Center. There's a bar in the suite so everyone belly's up. I go with Jamie to a couple9 of seats and we wait for the show to start. 

The 1st couple of comics were pretty funny. On the way in there were signs on every pillar warning against taking pics, video, tweeting or talking on a cel phone. Inside the events center the voice of god kept reminding the audience. The 1st comic reiterated the same prohibitions, ad nauseam. Christ. We get it. 

…on every pillar. Really?

The sound was pretty bad from where we were. It was hard to hear because the suites are located high and on the sides. The speaker clusters are not positioned for us so you can really only make out some of what the comics were saying. If they got really loud or spoke really fast you really couldn't understand them. It was easier when the camera did a close up of their faces on the side screens because you could read their lips and figure it out. 

Kevin Hart comes out around 9.15p-ish. He's a funny guy. Good story teller. I stayed until about 10.00p. I wanted to get out of there before show break. Not a fan of sitting in the garage for 30 minutes trying to get out of that place. I also know that he's probably going to do a show in our building later this year so I wasn't too broken up for missing the last 20 minutes. 

I hopped in my car and on the drive home thought about the night. It was a great time by all accounts but I felt really alone. Not lonely, but alone. Everyone there was paired up except for me. Normally I don't mind but After Tonight I felt kind of icky. I hope this feeling passes... and soon. It probably doesn't help that I'm watching that ridiculous movie The Notebook as I write this either. Lately Nicholas Sparks has been ruining my life. I really need to stop watching this garbage. 

Chapter 3

Jill woke up the next day a little out of sorts. In an hour and a half she'd be at the hospital with Henry's ex looking over his lifeless body. 

Viva Las Vegas

I've been in Vegas for over 12 years. Times I love it; times I hate it. Right now I'm as comfortable here as I'll ever be. I still call the Twin Cities home though. I'll always be a Minnesota girl at heart. 

But you take the good with the bad. One of the most irritating things about living in Vegas is the sheer volume of people I know who come to visit. Don't get me wrong. 80% of them I love and can't wait to hook up with. Especially those peeps that are fun & I haven't seen in a long time. But it's irks me that they expect me to drop everything and come out to see them. Believe it or not, I do have a life, oh, and a job that keeps me working weekends and evenings. When I'm in Fresno (yeah right) I don't Facebook my friend Joe Schmo who I haven't seen in a decade and say, "Hey Joe. I'm in town for the weekend. Wanna cancel your current plans & have dinner?" I know people come to Vegas to have a good time and I'm all for supporting tourism. It's because you blow your wad here that I don't have to pay state income taxes. So thanks for that. But Christ. Get some perspective. You play here. I play here AND live here. There's a difference.

Or worse yet is when I get the "what's fun to do in Vegas" or "what restaurants are good" or "what show should I go see" questions. Ever heard of google, Yelp, Twitter or god-forbid vegas.com? Or just view my tweets. Any restaurant, club or show I like usually gets tweeted, a lot. I'm not a fucking travel agent or a concierge or your mother. Wanna know the easiest route from the airport to your hotel? Get in a goddamn cab. Where should you stay? Well, are you a cheap-ass or can you afford a $500 room night? Wonder how much rooms are at the MGM? Go to mgmgrand.com. How much is it to hike at Red Rock? Fuck if I know. I don't hike. Can you walk across the Hoover Dam? Who cares but if you keep asking me stupid questions, I'm pretty sure I can throw you off it. So frustrating. It's to the point now I literally have a standard 2 paragraph schpeel saved that I cut and paste into emails to my friends asking questions like this. 

Yeah, I realize I'm being a total bitch by admitting this but anyone who's not smart enough to google "things to do in Vegas" isn't smart enough to get to this blog so I'm not worried. I loathe helpless people. 

Like I said, you take the good with the bad. And most of it is good. So come on down to Sin City & Viva Las Vegas. Just don't fucking as me what you should do when you get here or ask me for any shit.

(Note: if you're reading this and I do know you and you have visited me in Vegas, of course this blog wasn't directed at you. You're the exception.)

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...

Douchebag

God grant me serenity to accept Douchebags who can't change; courage to call them on their douchebagginess when I can; & wisdom to know the difference.

Rollercoaster

It was unseasonably cold in Vegas today - in the 40s. I was tempted to stay in my warm bed but instead got up and went to church. I had been looking forward to it all week. I walked in and it wasn't crowded. I took a seat in my spot and sat back for a little spiritual recharge. 

About half way thru the sermon I shifted in my seat and 2 pews ahead I could see a familiar blue dress shirt, one that I had grabbed off the floor and threw on in the morning on a couple of occasions. It was Counselor. I hadn't seen him before partly because I didn't expect him to be there early, partly because I didn't expect him to be on this side of the sanctuary and partly because he was almost completely obstructed by the woman sitting in front of me. I mentioned before, I used to be able to sense when he was around. I can't do that anymore. It's funny too because he was so close I could almost touch him. 

After the service ended I don't think he even saw me. He almost walked by. Or maybe he did and just didn't want to talk to me. I reached out and squeezed his arm. "Happy St. Patrick's Day," I said. The woman sitting next to me was gabbing about something so he said, "I'll wait for you outside."

Small talk in the courtyard was as chilly as the temperature. He mentioned that Bryce @ DW Bistro was expanding his other business and asked me if I'd gone out last night. I told him I was on the wagon. He scoffed. "What are you up to today? he asked. I didn't say much. I wasn't trying to be mysterious or coy. I just didn't know what to say because "nothing" seemed either too empty or too desperate. He's distant and I'm so guarded now. I sensed a lot of disdain and irritation from him. Like he did not want to see me. "Well, have a nice Sunday," he said as he turned to leave.

Our chapter is almost over. Sometimes you can feel when something is about to come to an end. It's like the end of a Rollercoaster when the car jerks to a slower pace, the tracks straighten out and you can see the platform ahead. You know you have to get off.