lluunndd goes to Gary V
The following was ‘published’ as a chain of daily text messages in August 2019. Here is is presented in its entirety, broken up into the same chunks it was originally texted in.
Hello, this is writer Bryan Lund. I’m texting you from the Truth and Culture Hotline, where once a month I’ll be telling true stories one chapter a day via text message. No ads, no personal data collecting, just stories. The hotline kicks off tomorrow with a chronicle of the behind-the-scenes madness of last summer’s #GetMeGaryVee event. I follow a friend who, at great personal cost to himself, brought super-famous/ultra-influential celebrity entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk to speak in Rochester. If you don’t want to receive any stories via text, reply to this message with “NO” or something similarly negative, and you’ll be off the list. If you decide to stay on with me, thank you. For more, follow @bryanlundwrites on Instagram.
Welcome back to the Truth and Culture Hotline, which now functions properly. Stop texts by replying “NO” or something similarly negative. For more, follow @bryanlundwrites on Instagram. Now, the story:
1.
“I am a sacrificial lamb for my city.”
That’s what Nick McLaughlin, Stationary Astronaut, said in my basement two weeks before #GetMeGaryVee. He’d sunk $82,000 of he and his investors’ money into the event, made asks at almost every conference table in Rochester to cover the remaining $160,000, and was now lukewarm about his chances of turning a profit. His prior elation over booking a speaking engagement by Gary Vaynerchuk seemed to have blossomed into stress.
Noon, August 3 - the day of, humid and cloudy outside. Dick Cheney’s in town (we hear). So is a convention of religious types scheduled to share the Civic Center with #GetMeGaryVee. I maneuver through more of their convention than I would like on my way to the auditorium. The first familiar face I see is Dave Chiriani, once a driving force behind the Astronaut podcast. Today he is an usher.
Dave is standing in front of a pair of large, quasi-see-through cubes adorned with Stationary Astronaut logos. The boxes of light come to life when a switch is thrown, and seeing them frame either side of the stage gives the operation a whiff of stateliness.
At 1:35 p.m., Nick enters, carrying stress with him. Annoyance is obvious in every word as he details the ways in which the light guys have failed… to the light guys. When he leaves earshot, the stage hands are either quiet or mumbling whatever shit they have to talk.
Now that I’ve found him, it’s my job to stick by Nick’s side for the rest of the event. His videographer, Brandon, captain of @socialbutterflycompany, has a similar job. The three of us mob from spot to spot inside the arena and I get a taste of the frenetic mode of pacing that Nick has made part of his lifestyle. En route to an exit, as he rants about indexing expenses, I sense a touch of regret in his voice. We emerge onto sunlit Civic Center Drive and look for our ride to the airport. It has not arrived. We wait. An email is received: Gary might be getting off the plane alone, sans videographer. Brandon’s ambition perks up.
Giselle Ugarte, hostess for the evening and part of the Minneapolis media scene, appears in a hallway, looking for her dressing room. Thus begins the day’s first importance parade.
Our group swells from five people to nearly a dozen as we maneuver through the Civic Center’s concrete corridors. The cameras record, the hype grows, and eventually the parade deposits Giselle in her dressing room. Nick, Brandon, and I make our way back outside.
Then our gleaming black Chamberlain van pulls up. Inside, Nick gets the aux cord and cranks up a Prof song.
“What’s going on tonight?” asks our van driver.
That can’t feel good to Nick, who has spent the better part of however many weeks now reciting “Get Me Gary Vee, August 3 at the Mayo Civic Center,” over and over and over into his phone’s front-facing camera.
2.
An itinerary reaches Nick. Gary’s flight will arrive at 2:25 p.m. He has calls to make, so our instructions are to drop him off at the DoubleTree Hotel, then pick him up again at 4:40 p.m. Still no word on whether or not he is accompanied by his own videographer.
On the drive to Rochester International Airport, Nick rants at Brandon’s camera about what it means to bring Gary to Rochester. Nick’s wife, Ashley, in charge of hotel arrangements/calm in the storm, calls to check in.
“It’s all coming to a head,” says Nick, off the phone. He’s changed subjects and is now on to steady gains and recognition.
Comedian Theo Von calls about halfway to the airport. Nick tries to answer, “What’s up brah?” This question is lost in the signal. We reach the airport, and learn Gary’s flight is landing early.
We stand around at the airport for maybe five minutes. I slug green tea from the vending machine.
“Here he is,” Nick claps.
There he is: Gary Vaynerchuk, motivational speaker, celebrity entrepreneur, ‘songbird of his generation,’ appears around the corner of the arrivals hallway. He’s wearing a grey beanie, grey pants, his own K-Swiss shoes, and carrying a phone; just like you’d see him in one of his videos. He is a time compartmentalization-extraordinaire, capable of wringing every cent of value from a minute, and he is walking down the RST arrival tunnel swearing at someone through a Bluetooth headset that none of us see until we’ve walked forward to greet him. He gives us the “one minute” finger.
He hustles to a corner yelling stuff like, "I'm so pissed - the audacity -"
He's sure fired up about something, and people are noticing. Nick is stoked to see the man at work.
Meanwhile, his videographer emerges - a giant, ex-skater looking guy dressed in black. He's only been on the job for about a week.
Gary, still swearing up a storm, moves toward the doors and the second parade of the day begins as we fall in behind him. I see people's eyes travel from Gary to the pair of high-dollar camera rigs pointed at all his sweary intensity.
A family outside recognizes Gary and he stops for a photo with them. Nick hops out, hoping they're arrivals, and asks them if they're going to the show. He offers them tickets, but they're on their way back across the Atlantic.
Inside the van we make seating arrangements based on good angles for the videographers. Gary is still outside, pacing, fuming about something. Nick and the videographer are excited to see him "in the zone." Shit's constantly hitting the fan in a media-marketing CEO type environment, apparently. I half-wonder if he's really talking to anyone on the other end. Once Gary's off the phone, he sweeps into the van and we're off.
A little bit past Pure Pleasure, Gary looks him from his phone. "So what's happening? What are we doing here?"
