Had the privilege of attending a Black Tie (& Sneakers?) event this past weekend @ the AT&T Center. The event was Dinner/Auction known locally as “Silver & Black GiveBack”. A San Antonio Spurs community program that helps the city in numerous ways.
Despite my best efforts to arrive fashionably late, I managed to arrive before a number of my co-workers.
Registration was surprisingly painless and received word that I would be seating at “Table #2”. Greeters asked attendees to walk into the AT&T center court.
As you walk down into the stadium - Hundreds of ushers lined the bleacher stairs in Referee outfits… it kinda felt like you had died and were going into Foot Locker Heaven.
The place (the floor) was filled with people stiffs/minorcelebs/athletes/free-loaders like myself. It was practically impossible to find your table… so I found one of the open bars,tipped heavily on my first visit and asked the bar keep to remember my face and keep my double crowns and diet coke flowing. He smiled and took too good a care of methroughout the evening.
As luck would have it… the fine people at Ashley HomeStores did me a solid and got us a table right next to the wing of the stage and 25 or so steps from the open bar I just mentioned.
The table was situated in a nice place to quickly get photos w/athletes & minor celebs because it was on the right wing of the stage: so almost every person of note had to hangout right behind me. If was wasn’t rocked out of my skull, I would have gone out of my way to take a photo with Michelle Beadle (former ESPN/NBC sports chick) who stood around for like 20 minutes unbothered because no one knew who she was.
Want to quickly say that all the Spurs were very approachable and there wasn’t really any handlers around so you could easily walk up to them. With the exception of Manu/Parker/Duncan… lines were relatively short to get photos with the Spurs.
The Tony Parker diss…
So I may have pissed off Tony Parker. OK. The layout of the floor is pretty simple… imagine a basketball court filled with tables. Along the Away Court sideline was a table that stretched the entire court with THOUSANDS of signed items (Basket Balls/Jerseys/Photos/Artwork/Shoes/etc.) that you could place silent bids on thru Android tablets they provided everyone.
So in the middle of said item table : was a little space (mid court) where people were asked to climb 60 or so steps to hit up the restrooms.
If the climb up 60 steps didn’t suck enough… you had to push your way through throngs of attendees who were gawking at sports memorabila.
Tony Fucking Parker decided to make himself available at said space to go up to visit the bathroom. I didn’t know this as I made my way through the throngs and as soon as I got to opening an usher asked me to go behind 30 people to take a photo with Parker. I naturally said ”Fuck Tony Parker, I want to go to the bathroom” (well within his 6’2” earshot) and the user allowed me to go right by him up the stairs. A few people laughed pretty hard… not Tony Parker and the night went on.
The Food:
There were three courses of food… The first dish was a lobster salad served in a martini glass. Tasty, but it didn’t pair nicely to the 3rd double crown n’ diet coke I was having.
The Second Course was served in the dark, during the auction. I didn’t get a picture but it was a very tender stake of some kind with a Chili Relleno. A very strange pairing… I had a good portion of my steak because it went well with my drink.
The 3rd and final course : Chocolate Cake/Orange Sherbet/Hardened chocolate that was covered in Silver Flake edible glitter. It was plated in a way that it resembled sushi…
I tried to crack the silver chocolate with my spoon and it didn’t give. In my drunken state I decided to really give it a Thor like whack and the Silver Ball just laughed at me as it sat unfazed by my swing.
10:00 PM
- Bars turned to cash… I alerted the table that I would be having drinks at the OCHO till midnight before going to the Brooklynite. Had 2 coworkers actually meet me there. We talked and had a good time…
Had a friend take some footage of us at the Brooklynite:
Note:
I don’t know who the gal is in the video that Henry Captured. She thought Henry was taking a photo of her when he was just trying to get some footage of her. You can see me confused and on my phone…