Work Day in Los Angeles

Up at 5am (yeah, like I wanna be…). I eventually head to the AEG Live offices on Wilshire around 11. In the middle of my first meeting (first of four), I get a call from the tour director who seems to have a player revolt on her hands. Either I rush back to the hotel and give her all the player's per diems this instant, or the players are refusing to leave the hotel for practice.

WTF?

The VP I'm meeting with graciously gives me a ride to the hotel. I wait 20 minutes for the TD to show up, then have her sign for the money. Grab Mark Wise, our venue security director, who wants to eat at the cool burrito place again. 30 minutes later, I'm heading to my room to check email, then I'll head back to the offices for the rest of my meetings. While I'm in the room, I get another phone call from Claire (the tour director), who says she left 3 people out of the count. I have to chase her down again and give her more money.

Ten minutes later, I'm in a cab heading back to AEG. This time, in the middle of the second meeting (again, of four), she calls and says that now that the players have received THEIR per diems, EVERYONE wants them. This, after telling me last night that all of her people could wait. I tell her that I’m NOT leaving again, that they will just have to wait until I return.

At the end of the day, around 6, it's decided that we'll need a 2-hour meeting of the minds tomorrow with 2 of the folks here, me, and the head honcho flying in from the St. Louis office. Due to his arrival time, looks like it'll be 3-5pm.

In the cab on the way back to the hotel, I get a call from the #2 person in St. Louis, who informs me that I have to make it to the venue early tomorrow, pick up tickets for our Sunday event and box office cash from the BOM (box office manager) there, and deliver them to Venice, where the sponsor (And 1) insists they be made available for sale during the press event there that the players are doing ("Crashing the Beach", where they take on members of the public on the beach courts). I'll have to stay through the event and afterwards retrieve the unsold tickets and the revenue and redeliver them to the (Sunday) venue first thing Saturday morning. Evidently, our Sunday event here in LA isn't selling well, so they need to promote it and sell whatever they can. The venue personnel won't take responsibility for the transport of the cash and the tickets, so I become the designated gopher. I start getting that ol' WTF feeling again.

The hotel's kinda quiet when I get back, as everyone else has gone to Graumman's Chinese Theatre for the premiere of the movie about the And 1 tour. This will be followed by a big party at White Lotus. Me, I'm in bed by 11…