Are You Kamphey Approved?

Final Show Day

Today’s show is scheduled from 9am to 4pm.  Two hours shorter but all the more painful.  Another day on my feet but another day to meet Darren and Nastia again.  Another day to eat my fill of free samples.  I keep going back to the Cheerios and Nut Clusters.  Orbitz and Wrigley’s girls come by regularly to dump gum into our pockets. I gladly accept.

There was no line outside when we arrived today.  Not a single wal mart shareholder in sight before 9:30am.  Just around 10am a line forms at the AT&T booth in great anticipation of Darren McFadden’s 2nd appearance.   About midway through his appearance one of the girls working the booth with me asks if i can go get a photo for  her.  I say he would much prefer a blonde college girl than a facially hairy male.   She insists she is too shy.  Great.  I walk over and stand in line for 10 minutes plotting her demise.  Let’s have a little fun.  I approach Darren cautiously still, he might remember I was a gator fan and had time to think about gutting me of my heart.  Instead he smiles.  I inch closer to him and say “I’m really here for that cute blonde at the booth over there” pointing in the direction of my booth. “Can you write a fake phone number down?” He laughs.  I continue, “They usually start with 555.” I look down and he’s writing it… but he continues writing 5’s. So now it says “Call  Me 555-5555″  oh god I think this is terrible. this won’t work.  But I don’t say anything. I say thank you and then some douchebag handler laughs and says “If she comes over here herself he might give her his real phone number.”  I giggle over my own joke and think to myself that this guy doesn’t understand the joke.

I walk back to my booth with a shit eating grin. Everyone from Darren’s booth stares as I go and hand it over to her.  I say “he gave you his phone number.”  She is surprised and embarrassed.  Thankfully she looks back at Darren before she can look at the photo.  She sees everyone staring and is now even more surprised and embarrassed. The other girl comes running over and looks at the photo but just glances.  There is but a moment of believing before they read the number, but how glorious that moment was.  The excitement subsides and we continue with our work.  the punchline is that when Darren leaves the building he walks deliberately past our booth and waves at Blondie.  I get word later that one of the handlers asked her for her phone number.   I like to imagine that he got it for himself and not Darren but I’m pretty sure no real phone numbers were exchanged, which is a shame.

For the whole two days I was in charge of Djing.  And if you know me you know I’m no DJ.  In fact I probably listen to a very select group of music and don’t know anything about the poppiest current music until it has gone the way of the Dodo or Toto.  But I do get some stuff.  Like I have enjoyed Lady Gaga’s music.. not just her music but also her theatrics and costumes.  Honestly she has an amazing voice. check out her youtube videos of her just singing and playing the piano.  But why do I mention her? because a huge hit is Poker Face and I actually do enjoy the song.  I played it a few times over the course of the two days but today was the topper.  I played it and walking in front of the booth was a short, fat, two toothed woman.  She’s singing along and dancing to the whole thing.  She stops puts one foot forward lip synchs some lines, nods her head to the beat, takes another step on another beat.  her hips don’t move through the whole performance. It’s merely walking forward to 1/2 time and bobbing and lip synching. I love it. If I had a vaudeville theater I’d put her on as the closer.

After two days of hawking our free goods the lovely ladies the marketing guy hired from the school decided enough was enough and left.  But before that they recruited two of their friends to fill in the final 2 hours for them.  In reality they didn’t just leave aghast, terrified, distraught… they actually had a wedding to go to that night 5 hours away and had to leave before the event was over.  So two new girls to tell the same lame jokes to.  I tormented them for missing Darren McFadden and regaled them over Nastia Liukin’s cold shoulder. yes Nasty Nastia has the inimitable cold russian heart.

After we finish up this show of shows, we headed over to local favorite Charlie’s Chicken for some good eats.  To my surprise the parking lot was full. We got the last available spot in the back and walked in…. to an empty restaurant.  I have to go back and mention that the parking lot was about 5 cars deep and there were 4 people working in the kitchen plus a Charlie’s Chicken van was parked on the grass.  So this is the famed Charlies Chicken.  As the door opens I smell Grandy’s.  The infamous southern fried fast food chain that slowly but surely left most of Florida when I was 12 years old.  It had been my favorite place to go to because of the southern buffett with gizzards and what not.   I of course have to order gizzards here at Charlie’s Chicken, Grandy’s Cousin. The gizzards are exactly like they are at Grandy’s, crappy at best.  I didn’t mention that the food was particularly bad at Grandy’s did I?  Even though it was my favorite… at 12 I had the matured palate one might expect from a fat kid. (Eat Anything, mmmmmm)  Recently I did go back to Grandy’s and was deeply troubled. That same feeling of dissappointment washed over me as I grappled with the hard crusty breading surrounding the over chewy, tough to lock my incisors onto, gizzards.  At least the Dr. Pepper washed everything down easily.

The Show

We awake earlier than ever at the unseemly time of 6:30am.  We want to be at the building by 7:30am to set up the lights and projector for when the building opens to shareholders at 8am.  It’s a glorious morning filled with free coffee and donuts from the Comfort Inn Sensational Summer Breakfast.  I don’t think they used so many words but I like to.  I try my hand at the Northwest Arkansas Daily Newspaper crossword, get about 5 words written, 2 of the wrong, switch to Sudoku.  I finish off the Sudoku with ease after the 3rd cup of coffee and 2nd donut.  I reward myself with a 4th cup of coffee and a 3rd donut.

It’s drizzling as we walk the 1/4 mile from where we have to park the van to the building.  Thank goodness for the umbrellas.  It looks like we’ll be swamped because we are inside, out of the cold rain of Northwest Arkansas while four fifths of the event is outside in tents.  A line is formed halfway alongside the building when we arrive.  Standing in line for about 2 minutes I notice mostly walmart badges. Asking someone, I come to find out that this is the line for the shareholders and us Vendors can just walk right in, as we have to still set up.  Must be some good stuff inside for almost 100 people to stand in the rain for more than 1/2 an hour.  The check in goes smoothly as it’s the same people who have seen us the past two days.  Instead of sifting through a box of 500 name tags they make us write our own names on blank badges.  I feel so welcomed.  But later I go back and get our printed names.

We get inside and power up the set.  Bunch of theater lights and a projector seems to be a dinosaur in this Electronic world.  Every other booth is a green screen photo of whatever product they are hawking.  Next to us is Kodak where you can take your picture in front of a photo of Walton’s 5-10 the original Wal-Mart location.  Across the way is Olympus Cameras where you can test a camera by dropping it 4 feet, crushing it, throwing it into an aquarium, and then putting it on ice.  Next to them is an ESPN photozone where you can get your picture in front of a blurred photo of a stadium,  They give you a bat or football to pose with, I would have loved to use a Hula Hoop for my own ESPN highlight photo.

Around the corner is Captain Care Plan, some sort of healthcare super hero.  He’s an average man in a bulky muscle costume the colors of blue and green of Earth.  I take a few photos of him posing with a few women and I just happen to snap when one poses for their picture of him saving her from danger but in my picture it looks like the Captain is giving the large breasted woman a motorboat.  A video stall sits a group of people in front of a green screen then puts green sheets on them and video tapes them singing.  Their heads are superimposed on bodies daancing to popular songs such as Love Shack and I Will Survive.  This computer program is called PopNoggins, while a booth about 100 yards away is the exact same set up, but called DanceHeads.  Along a fourth row are three green screen photo booths along side each other, one places you in bed with Snow white and the Seven Dwarfs.  In a large circular area aplty named Beauty Circle are four hairdressers giving free haircuts all day.  In Pet Lane taking up 1/4 of the room has an Iams game show called Win Lose or Bark with tree trunk player podiums, two tvs set into a tree set.  and close by is a dog poop throwing game where you use a pooper scooper to throw brown bean bags into buckets or mailboxes of varying points.  My favorite booth is a mini mini golf course setup with some nine nifty holes.  Each hole advertising a different product from duct tape to viva paper towels.  it has a blimp flying overhead, a rollarcoast type loop of a ball path, twists, turns, and of course a Windmill.

At about 10am I get a little weak kneed as I glance to my left and notice a crowd forming. My eyesight doesn’t betray me, amont the fat white people stands a large blackman that can only be the one and only Darren McFadden.  Did I say large? I thought he would be bigger.  I mean he looks tougher and fitter than 99.9% of the people I’ve seen in the past 6 months but still, he’s a little skinnier than I thought, oh and much less intimidating.  I get 5 minutes to run over and stand in line for a photo they are giving away.  I approach with caution after waiting patiently and I say, “I’m a gator but I’ve watched a bunch of Arkansas games.”  Darren doesn’t react first, some douchy AT&T guy goes “ooooooh…”  I threw him a dirty look like “don’t get in the way of me and Darren, we are meant to be together.”  I’m not sure if he decoded the glance.  I asked Darren, unbeknownst to him we are on a first name basis, if he could write “Gators Suck” on the photo. He responds with great charisma and genuine charm “I don’t want to start a war.”  I didn’t ask, I could just sense he was intimidated by Tebow’s aura.  He turned out much nicer and warmer than I could ever imagine a football player being.  This of course after the only other college football player I met was Brandon Siler in passing in a place he didn’t want to be in.  I’ll just go back with a silver sharpie and write something myself to preserve the false memory forever.

Woke up bright and early at 6:30 am Central time. Remember, just over 48 hours ago I was in the Eastern time zone, between then and now, before jetlag has settled, I flew 3 hours, drove 656 miles and worked for 1/2 a day.  Today is a full day of setting up. Building a single truss in the U shape and then two truss towers.  Hung 6 par lights, and four LED moving lights, teched the game show, of which I had seen for the very first time. It’s a basic matching/concentration type game where 9 tiles are shown and there are two that match.  Since this booth we are setting up is to promote Net10 and Tracfone the tiles are either their advertising slogons or Phone Cards with different amount of time on each one, except for the matching ones.  We would run through the game about 15 times or more an hour over two days.  It was less than 3 minute game total from introduction of player to describing the game to showing them the board to finally the end game of them choosing the matching tiles.

Arriving to the Dill Tennis Center we passed by a huge amount of tents.  Outside were the concessions.  Nothing for sale, everything free.  From burgers to brats, from snapple to Fuze, from Dove ice cream to Skittles.  About midday now through the 2nd day we were in town, two Freight trucks blasted with Candy and Gum logos were parked outside.  That afternoon as we exited the building we found out they were a Rock Wall, and a series of Carnival games and also a hang out place with a DJ, a bar to sit at to watch about 20 huge TVs and on top of the truck were four massage chairs.

It finally looked exciting. The best part was that 30 feet from my booth was AT&T with merealy a single table and three white chairs.  It looked small until I noticed about 15 advert boards set up to be placed around the building and along the road.  From 10am to 2pm for the next two days I could meet Darren McFadden and from 2pm to 4pm those same two days I could meet Nastia Liukin.  I just got a little giddy.  This event was turning into a spectacle.  What body part should I get them to sign? Do I have to bring my own 8×10’s? I don’t mean my own as in pictures of myself but of them.  And actually funny idea right. Don’t get them to sign pictures of themselves get them to sign pictures of ME!  Won’t work, I imagine getting into it with a 6 foot footballer who is offended by my glossy smug face.

I learned early this morning that we crossed the Mississippi River with absolutely no fanfare yesterday.  It was towards the last two hours of a marathon stretch of traveling but still I would have liked to had a little song and dance number to coincide with the crossing of a grand institution to this American nation.  I can’t even remember a sign. The only thing that happened was  Jeff said “I think that was the Mississippi River.”  to which I replied “that thing?”  The conversation derails from there onto a topic of either my weird taste in music or his odd compulsion to not listen to any music created after December 31st 1989 unless it’s a major hit and he needs it to dj at a Bar mitzvah full of kids who weren’t born before 1990.

Today is the 3rd leg of my travels where in I go from Florida to Illinois to Arkansas and then back the way I came.  Today we get to the Wal Mart Center of the World.  Brain of the Chain of Mega Chains.  The Heart of America, the Pinnacle of Price, the Olympus of Bargins.  We drive past Bentonville which is actually where the WalMart Headquarters are housed. Before that we make a long turn from heading west down I-44 to heading South on 540.  We travel through mountains.  I mean through, not over, not around, not under, through. The top pieces of these hills as maybe some mountain folk might say, were dynamited through to make room for a four lane highway.

Immediately getting off at exit 62 brings us right into the parking lot of the Comfort Inn we are staying at.  After checking in we head right to the Dill Tennis center, our home for the next four days.  It’s about a 5 minute ride, with a trusty map taken from the hotel we make it there without any hiccups.  If he had had only directions and no map I can almost guarantee that we would have gotten lost even though there were only two left turns in the entire trip.

We unloaded the van and trailer and got right to work. Built three truss towers and built two logo walls.  The place seemed quieter than it should. I mean we were setting up a whole 24 hours before we really had to but I would have figured with booths this big and so many, that we would run into at least a dozen other vendors but in fact we had ran into maybe half a dozen.

Tomorrow we take a whole 8 hours to finish up building the booth, from hanging lights to doing a tech run of the game we are playing.  I think there will be more people here than today. At least I hope so.  Most of the booths are either just a single wall or filled with tons of sealed crates.