Nashville Day 3 - Drinking from a Jelly Jar
Yesterday I spent most of my time in Downtown Franklin. The downtown strip reminds me a lot of Los Gatos or Saratoga (where I’m from). Here, there are lots of refurbished historic buildings servicing boutiques and eateries. I took a picture of one of the first places I ever ate in the South. The restaurant is called, “Pucketts” and the menu has things like “meat and 1” (alien language for a Californian). The floor is exposed planks and you feel sort of like you’ve stepped back in time or something.
They ended up being packed out so I went to a different spot: The Franklin Mercantile. It reminded me a lot of Pucketts. I sat in a corner with my laptop and my mason jar full of “pop.”
I spent a lot of time syncing up with appointments I had made prior to coming out. I also read quite a bit. It was a chance for me to really pause and collect my thoughts regarding my trip out.
Eventually, I decided to hit up one more spot that is pretty famous around here: Merridees. Its another country-style bakery and coffee shop. They have all these baskets that hang from exposed wood rafters. I’m still not really sure what’s up with that.
I got a coffee, sat on the leather couch (next to the yellow colored, retro dining table) and took a few hours to really focus in on vision. I read and re-read two web posts about vision. One is by Michael Hyatt and the other by John Maxwell. I also read the book of Nehemiah and journaled. I felt by the end that God had really helped me clarify some things regarding my music and professional life. Good times.
Today I had a few awesome appointments. First however, I fought traffic and ended up lost a few times. Getting lost is pretty normal on these trips. I think it reveals either how small my brain capacity is or (hopefully) how much stuff I’m trying to keep “in there” while traveling/networking.
I was able to meet with an industry legend over lunch. He’s worked with - and continues to works with - several internationally known artists. Suffice it to say, he’s a good guy to have in your corner. We ended up talking about my live performance and my new disc. He asked for a CD (which I hadn’t brought). Talk about stupid. Then he asked for a business card (which I also hadn’t brought). Talk about really stupid. Thankfully I was able to show my disc via my music page and my live performance via my youtube music channel. (Thank goodness Al Gore invented the internet!) We had several encouraging words regarding my music that I hope come to fruition over the next several months.
Directly following, I had a writing session with Brett Rutledge. Brett is an “Artist in Residence” with Fellowship Church. He’s an incredibly good singer/songwriter/worship leader. More recently one of his songs was picked up and recorded by artist Aron Shust.
First he showed me around his place and then we sat down and tried to really crank on a tune together. The song isn’t finished yet but is already pretty dang amazing!
