Today was not as bad as I was braced for.
You see, usually by today I don’t have a voice. I’m not good at talking. I do it improperly, I’m told. Apparently I have what is known as a “hard glottal attack”. This sounds more dramatic that it is. But never the less, it is true and when I talk for extended periods I lose my voice. But I haven’t lost it yet this week and it is now quite late, as in, early morning Tuesday, like 1 am, and I’m still going strong. Awesome. I have turned over, what some call, a new leaf. I have no idea what that phrase means. It is mysterious, but appropriate.
Here’s what I’ve accomplished today: I filmed two new songs for “New Song Cafe”, which seems fitting. This is basically artists sitting on couch with fancy pillows telling you how they wrote the song that they about to play and then playing the song they talked about and then explaining how exactly they are playing this song they played and talked about. Filming these segments involves getting make-up put on my face. I don’t like having make-up put on my face. I’m told it is necessary for the filming and so I allow it. But I don’t like it.
So the best part is when they give me the Ponds wipes to clean my face after the filming. That’s what I’m thinking about the whole time things are being filmed, the Ponds wipe. The Ponds wipe is an amazing product and I thank the good people at the Ponds place for making such a magical thing as the wipe. There have been times I have practically bathed with them on tour due to sketchy shower situations, so to be redundant, I’ll state again, I’m a fan of the Ponds wipe. Also, there was a small delay in filming my portion as they couldn’t find a good place to pin the microphone on me because my beard kept making noises. I would be talking about something mind blowingly awesome and then I’d hear “cut, cut, cut! we’ve got beard noise,” and the moment would be lost. It was embarrassing. There was even the suggestion that I put the beard in a band like Charlie Hall (my friend and label mate) and I had to say no. They said, “hey, why don’t you put that thing in a rubber band like Charlie Hall,” and I said, “no, the beard cannot be contained. Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it. Seriously. Please, I beg you. Don’t make it angry.” But no one took me seriously.
Then I went to look for a white belt. I really, really need a white belt. So, I bought two. One is too small, which, for a skinny guy,made me feel awesome, but it has a fantastic buckle. The other one fits, but doesn’t have such a fantastic buckle. So, I’m going to remove the fantastic buckle from the belt that is too small and put it on the belt that fits but lacks the spicy buckle love. Then I will probably wear my shirt un-tucked and no one will know that I have displayed such ingenuity because the shirt will cover it, but I will know, and this is important.
Then I went to the Grand Ole Opry where the Dove Awards are to be broadcast from because we’re (my band and i) are to be playing during the award ceremony this year. We have had the brilliant idea to do something ridiculous during our portion of the evening and all of then material elements to be used were there, not yet assembled, and I was to have a first glimpse of things. This idea, the one for the performance, could be one of those things that winds up beautiful, or tragic. Tonight I overheard my wife Toni telling someone that we have a 90% chance that this will absolutely not work. Seems like steep odds, but I mean, it’s our first time to play on the Dove Awards and why not play such attractive odds? I should mention that woodland creatures may or may not be involved. I left really excited. We have a rehearsal tomorrow and I can’t wait to see it come together. It is to be broadcast on the Gospel Music Channel. If you have that channel, it might be worth tuning in to see whether we beat the spread. For sure it will be entertaining, regardless of how it plays out, I’m confident.
This evening we went to the ASCAP awards, which is my favorite thing that happens during the week. This is mostly due to a guy by the name of Dan Keen who is the host and who should totally have a game show on prime time television. The guy is a comedic wizard. The format is a dinner and the program, which includes an appropriate amount of irreverence, poignancy, historicity, and food that is way beyond what my palate has been trained to accommodate. i mean, what are you
intended to do with the following:
That plate remained intact and untouched exactly as it is seen above until removed by a very kind lady named “Rita”. The seating is assigned and this year i sat at Mercy Me’s table and it was all very festive. This is Bart, the lead singer of Mercy Me on the left, and that is me on the right:
The highlight of the night was an award honoring the legendary producer Brown Bannister. There was a moment with Tommy Sims, Gordon Kennedy and Wayne Kirkpatrick accompanying Russ Taff that was just ridiculously appropriate.
Russ was a trip. He snuck and sat by Bart and I because he was supposed to be a surprise. He had a cordless microphone and was supposed to start singing and then make his way to the stage, I would guess. Well, he started singing while still sitting in his seat and pretty much stayed right there for the duration of the song with Dan Keen motioning frantically to him to get up and come to the stage, but Russ never made it to the stage. Instead he walked over to Brown, who was sitting in the middle of things and Brown stood up with Russ and Russ is singing to/with him and it was just perfect. I think Russ
had medals on his jacket. Also perfect. This is Russ just after he finally stood up at Bart’s rather forceful prodding:
I think my favorite line of the night was delivered by Bart, lead singer for Mercy Me, shortly after I had returned to my table after happily receiving my ASCAP award for “Everything Glorious” and found this waiting where the previous work of food art had resided:
I looked over at Bart’s plate and it was completely clean and he looked at me with a glazed gleam in the eye and said, “that is the best desert I’ve ever eaten in my life.” We laughed really hard at this for some reason. But he was absolutely right. I cleaned my plate and Rita was really proud.