You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The CMA awards in Nashville, Tennessee.
Music City has a lot of big nights.
Honky Tonks never stop slinging beer.
There’s always a slide guitar, a cowboy hat, a belt buckle shimmering on lower broad.
But Country Music Awards is a monster night.
It’s limos and sequins and tuxedos on the red carpet.
It’s ABC Network and GMA morning personalities doing live shots on the same corners I do live shots.
It’s Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood playing 2nd fiddle to Steven Tyler who says he loves country music and then sings a classic Aerosmith song.
Love it.
So the whose who of country music is in town, all under one roof.
George Straight. Miranda Lambert. Luke Bryan. Keith Urban. Tim McGraw.
Taylor Swift is pop music now and she is noticeably missing like a ham sandwich at a bris.
And since we carry the show on our air, we are blowing it out.
I mean blowing it out.
If the Mayor got shot, we’d cover it like this.
Miranda Lambert CMA artist of the year. And in other news. The mayor is dead.
I mean there is no other news.
We will lead into the show with country music and we will blow out of the show with more news disguised as country music news.
This event is so big, the morning people are working nights. This event is so big the hierarchy of news decision-making has left the newsroom, dressed in country music garb.
They are somewhere inside the arena doing something that nobody can quite pin point.
The red carpet is an event, but it is hardly news.
If you tuned it at 6pm wanting to know about the abortion amendment or the wine in grocery store issues.
TOO FREAKING BAD.
Our big guns are on the red carpet asking B list country stars who they’re wearing.
Now that can get pretty complicated.
We’ve blown out our entire newscast to interview people who are sometimes hard to identify without a program.
“Whose that chick and that dude with the hat?”
Nobody knows.
That’s ok.
It’s once a year and it’s all about ratings, not news. We all know that.
I come to the news meeting with a slew of hard news stories. Theft of fish is the story I would have pitched, but tonight, the coi will have to keep.
I don’t pitch a single thing.
why?
Nobody is going to care at this table.
They want me to go downtown and do a story on people that captures the essence of people downtown.
That’s cool.
It ain’t brain surgery.
It’s almost a vacation to do a story where nobody did anything to anyone.
No crime tape. No affidavits. No mug shots.
So I go downtown and it’s spitting rain.
It’s cold, but so what?
I would be standing outside covering something somewhere anyway. Might as well do this.
I stare at the growing pulse as it fills the city.
The sounds of country music float down from the rafters of a nearby bar.
I can smell the sobriety decreasing.
Some people wear rain gear, some wear sequined dresses and high heels.
It’s a real hodge podge of countrified humanity.
My camera man and I set up a mic stand and I start chirping at passer bys.
“Hey you wanna be on the news?”
“Nope,” the 1st guy says.
“Me neither,” I retort, moving on to the next sidewalk denizen.
“You wanna be on the news?”
“Sure,” says the girl from Virginia.
“Who do you think will win entertainer of the year?,” I ask showing her laminated glossy photos of the nominees.
She chooses Luke Bryan.
“He can dance.”
And so it goes.
I ask each participant if they can sing a song.
Most don’t try.
“I get stage fright,” the Virginia girl squeals thumbing through her iphone.
“Someone drop me a bass,” The Luke Bryan fan says.
Suddenly she breaks into something that resembles cats fornicating and glass breaking.
It’s great sidewalk music that will its way on my facebook page.
One girl tells me Miranda Lambert is a rebel and then sings her song.
I have to admit, compared to the off key Virginia warble, it’s pretty good.
It’s hours later. I am outside the arena.
The show is over and thousands of cowboy hats and too tight skirts are wobbling toward me.
There is a drunk in the air.
People love a camera when they’re drunk.
We’re a windshield and they’re a bug.
Splatt! Splatt! Splatt!
Over and over and over they come to the lens and stick out their tongues or scream something.
I smell the overwhelming stench of bad breath and predigested booze.
I try and be nice.
Tick tock.
I don’t have an IFB, an earpiece, so I am waiting for my camera man to cue me.
It’s controlled chaos. So many people rushing at me like waves on the beach.
Cue!
It comes out of nowhere.
I start talking. There are 2 dozen people crammed behind me, shouting, touching me. It’s crazy uncomfortable.
It’s like turning your back on something big and carnivorous.
I stare at the light of the camera and put on a friendly face.
I try moving to the camera, away from the crowd, but like a tight flesh suit, it follows me, pushing me toward the curb.
I quickly toss to the story of people singing on the sidewalk.
I shot this earlier. Nobody was drunk. People were embarrassed.
Now everyone is drunk and slurring and loud.
“Are we on TV?” someone shouts in my ear.
My story on tape ends and the camera man points at me.
It is more chaotic. There are more bodies rubbing on me.
I have nothing prepared except “Help.”
Back to you I think I say twice.
I don’t know if we are clear. I just assume so.
“Are we on TV?” some idiot shouts.
The stench of whiskey and sweat is thick.
I want to cleanse.
“Yep, it’s all done,” I say.
The drunken blob of tight skirts and bad cowboy hats slowly dissipates.
I look at my cameraman who is wall to wall smile.
“It was good TV,” he says.
He’s right.
It felt like a flesh filled car wreck, but upon further review, it was energized TV. It was for the people, by the people, of the people.
If the people stink of Gin, then so be it.
“Country Girl Shake it for me,” blares out of a passing limo.
Luke Bryan is entertainer of the year.
Good for him. Virginia girl picked him to win. Then couldn’t remember a single song he sings.
Ha.
CMA’s.
Once a year. A lifetime of memories.
Life’s Crazy™