When we came back from the break, we caught up with Synergy (a.k.a. Sean's group) at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. This wasn't what I'd call a totally fascinating segment. We watched the team meet, talk with execs, and ponder all the moving parts. Great. Over at Gold Rush, the team was meeting with a large woman named Liz, who worked at Dennis Leary's company. She was in charge of dealing with the charity, and off the getgo, we could tell she'd be a difficult ballbuster. She was very unimpressed with Lee's big ideas for the fundraiser, which pretty much centered around auctions. Lee tried to improvise some spectacular prizes like a yacht ride around Manhattan, but yeah, Liz was not that impressed. Look, all he needed to do was offer up an all-you-can-eat buffet, and Liz would have been happy. Oh, I KID! I KID!

"IIII'm LIZ!"

Eventually, Liz said, "If you want to throw together a keg of beer, nobody's really interested in doing that."

"Really. Okay. Wow," Lee replied. Wait, was he seriously considering that? A keg of beer for the event? I sure hope that wasn't one of Pepi's ideas.

Liz then said, "You've been to the website, right?" To which everyone said "Oh yes." Translation: "No. We've never been."

Lee then told us in an interview, "You know what? If I don't know every detail going into these meetings, I'm fine with that as long as I learn." Yeah, who needs details? I'm sure Lee will be just fine...

Ultimately, Gold Rush left the meeting with Liz, but not before she said, "Good luck. You're going to need it." Shut up, LIZ. You're the one who decided to leave your event in the hands of reality stars (who'd only have one day to plan it out anyway).

Enchanting.

We then headed over to Chelsea Piers which is where the hockey event would be taking place. Roxanne was all atwitter about the celebrity roster. Showing up would be Jason Priestley, Michael J. Fox, and luminous actress of stage and screen, Jaime Pressly. Wonderful. We then saw Lee meeting with the Pontiac execs, and after taking them around the rink and whatnot, he then tried see what they could contribute to the fundraiser. Lee and Pepi mentioned something about matching funds, but then they got sidetracked when Lee asked if Pontiac would allow Dennis Leary to auction off two cars in between periods.

"Two cars?" the execs said. They so didn't want to do it, but with the cameras trained on them and the presence of Liz and her charity lurking in the air, they begrudgingly said yes.

"Don't screw it up!" the bald exec said. Seriously, he was NOT happy about this. Shut up, stingy executive! Afterwards, the other Pontiac rep told the camera that they might have entertained the idea of matching funds, but Lee became so preoccupied with the car auction that it was all sort of lost. As a result, he missed out on what could have been an important angle. Oops! Liz will be furious.

Ah, rampant enthusiasm from Pontiac!

Over at Synergy, we found Sean gushing over "Tam's" ideas, which weren't particularly special. He decided that he and "Tam" would go meet with the head of catering for the hotel, and while they did that, Tarek and Andrea met with a Pontiac exec. The program suddenly ground to a halt as we sat through thirty seconds of blatant Pontiac shilling (oooh! Look at all those features! A hardtop convertible! Thrilling!). Finally, we cut back to Sean and Tammy overseeing the menu, and wouldn't you know it? Sean was still smitten with Tammy! "I'd be in there like swimwear if I had the opportunity," he said, producing one of the more labored sexual comments of the evening.

Meanwhile, Tarek and Andrea finally shut up about the damn Pontiacs and got down to business. Like Synergy, they too managed to squeeze out two free cars, but this time for a raffle. I have to say, this exec was much cooler than the ones that visited Synergy. Then again, it's much easier handing over two free cars to Tarek and Andrea, who at least give off a vague appearance of professionalism as opposed to Lee and Pepi, who come off as an overeager kid with his goofy sidekick. Kind of like Spongebob and Patrick.

Anyway, I assumed that everything was going just dandy on Synergy, but then Tarek spoke up that it was sort of poor form that Sean had opted to choose menu items instead of meet with a major executive/sponsor. Oops! Tarek was kind of right about that! Then again, he may have just been bitter than he didn't get to spend his afternoon amongst crème brûlées and light apértifs.

We then went to commercial, and holy reversal! America now thought that Sean had the better team. 69% to 31%. It's about time people caught on.

Back at Gold Rush, Carolyn stopped by to quietly pass judgment and instill fear into the hearts of all the workers. Lee noted how surprised he was that the celebrities would require so much attention, causing Carolyn to say that she was surprised that Lee was surprised. She then told us, "Lee is definitely taking a laid back approach to this entire task. I don't think he's really displaying good leadership abilities. He just thinks the event is going to run itself." Uh oh. The Ice Queen strikes again!

Posted by B-side on May 31, 2006 12:36 AM