CRS and the Queen of the Name Droppers

For those who are not country music fans, this blog will mean nothing more to you than it should.

In the last three days I have seen the following people within a 3 foot proximity to myself:

Jamie O'Neal
Julianne Hough
Darryl Worley
Trent Tomlinson
Jason Michael Carrol
Jack Ingram

This week is CRS, which is a huge country radio shindig (my interpretation of the abbreviation), where everyone gathers to get or give interviews, be seen by anyone and everyone, look like they should be seen by anyone and everyone, and make big deals out of the deals they don't have. Hey, I'm not knocking it, I am one of those "big deals with no deal" , and let me just say it is exhausting, pretending to be way cooler than I really am.

Do not get me wrong, I like interviews and talking to people in the music industry and seeing Julianne Hough in a pair of white jeans...I hope they are making a comeback because I still have a pair of bedazzled ones in the back of the closet. However, something tells me I couldn't make them look as good as she did.

But perhaps the most exciting thing for me is seeing how much these "names" that we all like to drop, are just like us, except with better clothes, better make up and better jeweled jeans- and don't get me started on the women!

They had dreams just like mine, but theirs are coming true. They probably worked really, really hard and now are making the rounds and working the rooms, much better than I ever could.

For CRS I have been running down to the convention center on my lunch breaks and even after work to smuggle in a radio or TV interview. While I am waiting in the star-studded lobby I spend my time reading a book with a highlighter in the corner instead of jumping in the Kool-aid and swapping business cards and head shots with the so-and-so's. I am a very bad self-promoter, always have been.

Perhaps I should be getting in on the action, right? Only the squeaky mouse gets the cheese.

I assume that anyone smart and driven, would try and take advantage of such a rich, ripe room full of industry folks, radio DJ's, journalists and rising stars....but truth be told I am content to observe. I am content to do my interviews, make my appointments on time, and then walk back up 4th street in my heels and sit at my desk in my office with this little smile on my face, because I feel so Clark Kent-ish with my double life.

Maybe someday I will be one of those names that people drop, but to be honest what would that change about me?

To become a name worthy of being dropped there are quite a few sacrifices you have to make, it takes a lot of time and effort. People need your face time to remember you. The bittersweet thing for me is I have to say, I am questioning the worth of the exchange rate. I am fully aware that I made only a pithy fraction of the sacrifices that the "names" have had to made this week and in their lives- but here they are:

My pithy sacrifices:

I skipped on some morning devotions while preparing for online scripts, liners, and "shout outs". When I did finally get home after working full time and inserting interviews and tapings, I had to run straight to the computer to work on my free-lance writing gig (20 pages in two days), ignoring my husband to the point where I think he made himself Top Ramen for dinner every night, so sad. I have not been able to go on one run this week...not one! Do you know what that means for me....gosh, I can't even really believe it. I haven't been able to read one word of the two books that I have been dying to start, let alone write one lyric.

And so I wonder...for me, is it a healthy exchange?

There are those people here in Nashville who are trying to break into the business that would say, "You are such spoiled brat, you are complaining that you are getting traction with your record and you aren't even taking advantage of the media coverage and the opportunity? Don't you know there are people in this town that would give anything to gain a single inch in the direction of their dreams???"

Yes, I do know that. And I am very grateful for all of the great things that have happened for me in 2009 so far, that is why I moved my entire life 2000 miles away from home. But the truth is, if it came down to it I wouldn't give anything to be successful in music. There are things in my life that are far superior to becoming a "name". Maybe that makes me a fake, a media-attention tease, maybe that makes me less committed to my craft.

In Ecclesiastes it says that life is but a vapor so drink, eat and be merry for the days are few. you know what? There is always work to be done, clients to clinch, songs to sing, charts to climb, people to leverage, lies to tell, sugar to coat, smiles to fake...but there is also real life to live.

No, my life isn't glamorous, but when I find myself truly content it happens to be those moments of simplicity that ground me. I feel rooted in peace, when I have time to create a culinary masterpiece and drink wine with my husband (ok, maybe not masterpiece), curl up with a good book and learn more about God. Clean my house, while sipping on coffee and hearing the rumble of the dryer hypnotize me into a "I love my home" coma.

I am not going to lie, I get a buzz from doing the press stuff. I like putting the tool that I have honed for the last 10 years to use, it makes it feel like less of a waste. But like any buzz, if you are always looking for the next one you will find yourself unhappy, listless and hungover for life.

I am still learning it all, but I have been to the circus (not big tent circus, but you know small peanuts circus, BUT circus nonetheless) enough times to know that when the make up comes off, and the lights go down, and the crowds go home...there has to be a sober moment when the "names" ask themselves, "What am I doing this for?", and those that don't ask that are doing it for only one reason, themselves.

I am not saying that I am Mother Theresa, the selfless wanna be country singer who de-worms orphans in Somalia, I would never pontificate such humbleness, but I do know that my biggest reservations attached to pursuing music are directly bound to the motivation that progresses me forward.

I am called to create. Art is my gift, and unless it is used to bring into focus the beauty of other people's art and encourage them to continuing responding to the call of that type of worship, I am nothing but noise.

A German journalist asked me during this CRS week, "Why should people listen to you what makes you different than everybody else?"

I didn't have a good enough answer for him, and he basically told me that I was not that worth listening to if I didn't have one sentence in which I could sum that answer up. The thing is that I am not one of those people that can promote those kinds of "me-istic" answers like, "My music is so uber-amazing, that if throngs of people all over the globe don't go out and buy it they will be missing a cultural timestamp in the passport of their lives."

Not a chance, I am not that important.

Does anyone else find the question, "what makes you unique?" a little off-putting?

Maybe it makes me feel that way, because I don't think I am as unique as I am the same. Since I have started blogging I have noticed that I am not unique in my struggles or my joys. Which is a good thing! There are a lot of people who feel the same way I do, have the same dreams, have the same excitements and breakthroughs.

Community is developed through our similarities.

Having different backgrounds, interests, passions, cultures, and families does make us interesting, but not unique. We all have different lives, but we all feel the same emotions. Which is the bulk of what I write my music for, to promote community with strangers. Stories bring people together.

Let me sum it up by saying this, I love making music and I love being a little whisper in the shouting game of self-promotion and publicity.

But I am still searching for what God has for me to do, and the more I learn about him the less and less I realize it is never, nor ever will be, about me.

I am grateful to:
Steve Martin- Lex Broadcast
Dan Steber- Navy PSA Director
Lee Richey- WCJW Radio
Cyndi Bock- Give a Living Rose
Barry Shaheen- AFB Radio
Brett Dennen- KLMJ Radio

All of you made my CRS week fun, and I have to say I am still a little buzzed. : )