When Dreams Come True

Jimmy Carter in his homebase Nashville.

Jason Aldean gets to play several baseball stadiums this summer. He played two very famous ones last summer. There is a baseball player deep inside that cowboy hat wearing Country music singer. When you can make all the worlds collide with your life's work and your life's dreams; that's when things really are good. His personal life hasn't been as good as his professional life, but I don't know many who have not paid that price. Your work eats whatever you feed it. Life has a hard time ever being perfect. Jason is living the good and the great these days.

Kenny Chesney loves sports, too. He's a football player somewhere behind that ball cap and suntan. Kenny and football stadiums. They are more than just big concert halls to him. His dreams and his work join together when he gets to hang with the teams, owners and coaches. It doesn't get better than that.

Doing work that is close to what you would do for play is the dream situation. If you survive the first 10 years of "show business," you might get to really step up in the next 10 to 20. Takes 10 to know how to even halfway play the game. Years 10 to 20 are the good ones if you have what it takes. Then the next 10 are very tricky. You can coast or reinvent if there is anything left in the battery pack.

Right now ... 2014 "show business" couldn't get goofier! The rules are out the window. Technology is overtaking good sense. It will all settle out..

Forced network morning radio when there was no demand for it. Fragmentation of the audience ... People streaming music and not buying. The death of the newspapers. NASCAR shrinking their stadiums. The lack of Country roots in contemporary Country music. The '80s hair bands having more influence than George Strait or Garth Brooks.

These are times that politicians seem to run from decisions and stock prices are off the wall. We buy online more and more and shop at the mall less and less. One-sided documentaries cause musicians to cancel paying concert dates.

2014 may be one of the more unpredictable years to come along in some time. Our tastes and habits are changing. A generation just out of college is looking for leadership. Our manners are getting worse ... 506 F-bombs and a candle in the star's rear end does not make it NC-17. It's hard to fly a plane with no compass.

Our art reflects the culture. Drinking songs and escapists songs reflect uncertainty in real life. You just want to relax ... dream of simpler times.

That theme will be huge in 2014.

Remember the movie, "Wild in the Streets," where the kids didn't trust anyone older than 30? We are there again, the '60s revisited with rules, manners, hair styles, music all changing. Beatles 50 years ago video looks prehistoric!

The CES convention is going on right now ... Ultra HD ... wearable technology ... read up on that to see what's going on in that world the next few years.

The year has begun.. I think it's going to be better that 2013, but hard to bet the ranch on it. Big and Rich starting their own label. Making their own rules. That's the spirit ... I wish them well....

Enjoy the ride to the top, new superstars ... all the fun is that ride to the top ... the way back down is kind of tricky. I just know I want to see Billy Joel at the Bridgestone ... and one more George Strait before he pulls the plug.

Setting goals ... can't reach one unless you set one. Let's have a good year. Be nicer to people ... Stop photographing every moment of the concerts you attend. End Selfies, and stop taking transfats out of all the food ... it's making food taste like paper ...

Happy New Year!