CONTENTS

Sound checks raged throughout the afternoon - loud, needless thumping of bass and the drum set echoed through your soul.  The speeches were given dry runs by all the speakers, and impromptu complaints about the lighting from the previous night (NOT done by us) rained down from a couple of the higher ups being featured that night. 

Putting chair covers on 850 chairs sucked horribly, by the end of the evening, just minutes before the show was starting, it felt like my back and knees were about to collapse at a moment's notice. There was one small wrinkle (written about below) that held up the crew's departure for dinner until 9 o'clock.  And of course, that meant we'd only have a three hour break before having to tear everything down and get things packed back onto the truck - a job that would last until 5:30am.
 

Earl Graves was the featured guest of the night, and for the conference goers, he was a deity.  His name was always mentioned in hushed tones filled with reverence, and he started the magazine that was hosting the event.  The final holdup on our job was to ensure the safe unveiling of a life sized wax statue of the man onstage during the speeches.  As the minutes clicked away and the dinner was set to begin, wild confusion ran rampant and it seemed everyone on stage had a better plan for the unveiling.  I stepped offstage and hung out with the sculpture's handler, a wise beyond his years artist from Baltimore.  He was in charge of moving the sculpture and making sure it was looking great.  Throughout the setup, I heard Earl Graves deliver his speech about the making of the sculpture, an ad-libbed bit about how they used his 14EE shows and $4000 purple Polo suit, put twenty five pounds of silicone on his face and the liberal use spreading of warm jokes throughout.  By the time of the unveiling, tempers were short and his words kept ringing in my ears.  I met the man backstage, and he expressed his disapproval the sculpture wasn't ready yet.  In actuality, everything was fine except the hotheads on stage who didn't realize it.  The unveiling went off without a hitch, the crowd delighted at the work, warm family pictures of four generations of his family were snapped in an avalanche of flashbulbs.