Remotes From Hell
Listening to someone talking about an upcoming remote today reminded me of some of the more grim experiences I’ve had “on location.”
I arrived to do a 4-hour remote at a struggling waterbed store and was greeted by the 3 co-owners, one of whom was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “Where are the coffee mugs?”, he asked, almost before saying hello. “WHERE ARE THE COFFEE MUGS??????” I didn’t have any. They weren’t part of the dog and pony show but apparently the owners were promised I’d be resplendent with giveaway mugs and they were pinning their hopes for the remote on them. Sad, huh? But that was the bill of goods sold to them by the shady salesman. (And they wonder why jocks are suspicious of them! All it takes is a bad experience or two, and the prejudice sets in.)
Two of the owners seemed to take my mugless state in stride but the third promptly burst into tears and began wailing! I mean WAILING! “He promised me you’d have mugs to give away! What the f*** are we going to do now? Oh man! Oh MAN!”
You can imagine how much fun the next four hours were. Between attempts to contact the salesman, who was MIA, and ravings from the mentally unstable owner, I was on edge, to say the least. Still, the remote went well and they made a few sales. Imagine if I had actually had the coveted mugs with me! What a job I could have done then!
God only knows, especially in the smaller markets, what you’re walking into when you do a remote. The salesperson could have promised anything to make the sale and then hung you out to dry. It happened to me on a few occasions.
On another remote at a furniture store, the owner decided I was his personal jukebox and he was some sort of undiscovered creative genius. He wanted to “direct” every live hit. One time, he told me to be all dreamy about the furniture and to fantasize aloud about my ideal room setting!! I can still see his nods of approval and wide dopey grin before he closed his eyes and allowed his head to loll back, as I did what he asked, feeling like a mindless puppet. For the next break, he wanted a rapid fire, auctioneer-style delivery. And he stood there to make sure I did it. It was humiliating. And on it went, from style to style, speed to speed, with my own personal orchestra leader an arms-length away. Such is the life of a small-market jock on the learning curve.
