OK. So about 9 years ago, I was hired to mix a gig at the Fairmont in San Jose. This was in the middle of the .COM thing and I was easily makin' $500-$2500 a night mixing audio for corporate shindigs. (man I miuss those days) (If I hadn't been so foolish then I could have two Alembics a month back then). I digress.
Anyway, this gig was a fundraiser, and Jay Leno was the Celebrity Auctioneer and entertainment for the night.
Anyway after dinner, he comes out and does about an hour of his schtick and it was great. Absolutely hilarious. I'd never seen his standup live. So this was a real trat to not only be there, but also manning the console.
So after he does the stand up routine, they decide to start the auction. The had some really high dollar items for auction, including a nice Harley, autopgraphed by Leno of course.
All of the items that were auctioned were donated or purchased by the large .Coms that were hosting the event.
Anyway, the auction started. The first three items really did not go for much money at all. I don't remember what they were. But I do remember that they were items were worth a few thousand dollars and only went for a few hundred dollars. I think everyone was waiting to bid on the Harley.
The fourth item up for bid was a Tennis Racket that Pete Sampras (spelling?) used in the US Open or Wimbledon(I think it was the US Open). Also, with the the racket, four tennis lessons with Pete's coach.
No sooner had Jay finished anouncing what the fourth item was, a very sharply dressed woman jumped out of her seat and grabbed the Beta 87 microphone that Jay was using. (it should be noted here, that Jay insited upon using a wired microphone so that there was no possibility of RF interference or dropout during his show and the auction) What happened next is a story that most sound engineers only hope they can put in there archive so that they can tell it on rare occasions such as this.
This lady had just taken a microphone away from Jay Leno, of all people, was a big muckety-muck at Siebold and she was trashed. Just absolutely drunk off her ass. Jay started trying to get the microphone from her and she started walking away with it. She was a little miffed that the first few items had been sold really low and she was gonna be pissed if this tennis racket didn't sell for more. So this drunk lady starts talking in front of 1000 of her piers. She starts telling us how she has had this damn raket in her trunk for three weeks and some had had damn well bid a lot of money on it because of what she had to do to get the racket. Then she tells us, again, that she's had this damn racket in her trunk for weeks.
By this this time almost everyone is on the floor laughing their asses off because a multi-millionare CEO is making a fool of herself in front of everyone. But wait there's more. During this time that she is talking in fluent drunkanese, Jay Leno is trying to get the mic from back from her. Everytime he reached for the mic, she would walk away from him. At one point, he asks her for the mic back and she says No, you're not the boss of me. (at this point, tears are streaming down my face and I have to keep wiping my eyes just to clearly see the stage)
Here is where the wired microphone thing comes into play: After several attempts of getting the microphone back, Jay decides that he can turn this whole thing into something even funnier. There was a 100ft. XLR cable attached to the mic, so there was plenty of slack. This lady's ramblings were so damn funny that he decides to let her keep going. She continues to deride berate to other CEO's there for not bidding more money for this great charity. All the while, Jay is three feet behind her and he starts taking up the slack in the cable and fashions a noose out of it. This lady has no idea what's going on. (I think I was on floor holding my gut by this point.)
Jay starts to slip the noose over head. (Jay was going to make the best of this no matter what)She just keeps on spouting off and had no idea what was happening behind her. Now everyone is on the floor holding their guts, except for about 4 of her co-workers that decided to save her from further humiliating herself in public. They grabbed for her to get her out of there. But she just kept playfully running from them. They finally caught her and got her out of there.
It took about 5 minutes for everyone to regain their composure and continue with the auction.
But without a doubt, that is my most memorable show ever. Jay Leno was really good sport about the whole thing. He even acknowledged that the whole incident was probably one of the funniest shows he had ever done.
Unfortunately, there was no Audio or Video recording allowed per Jay's Contract. Only the memory remains and now this story has finally been written.
Thanks for letting me tell it.
Maybe we need to have a thread dedicated to Road Stories. I'd love to hear and tell more stories. I'd love to hear Susan or Ron tell a story.
