The Toddler and Me

There’s no moment in the day right now that isn’t inflated with importance, so that something as benign as playing with the dogs fills me with guilt. Everything takes a back seat to working on the Austin Music Awards, hitting deadlines for South by Southwest, and anything the Texas Film Hall of Fame folks need me to do. That last job is a lot of fun and allowed me to spend an entire day picking scenes from Urban Cowboy and Mike Judge’s work. It also caused me to go around for an entire day with the neck of my shirt pulled over my head, confronting my family with, “I am Cornholio!”

The polling is done and ballots are counted and tallied into top 10s. When that happens, an entirely new level of organization occurs within the show. I write the winners and performing bands on index cards and lay them out in rows. Then I shuffle and move them around while muttering to myself and trying to keep the dogs off the bed. After a while, it feels right and I gather the cards up to enter the show order in a schedule.

At this point, the Music Awards show is like a toddler: I can’t take my eyes off it for a second or it gets in trouble. It wants more than it needs, makes a big fuss over nothing, and occasionally emits an unpleasant smell.

On March 12, however, it will have passed through its teenage phase. It's grown up and can present itself to the world with a well-groomed, generally polished appearance. It’s kind of like watching your only child get married, knowing once that step is taken, there’s no going back. I kiss the shows goodbye and it’s history.