"We're Goin' Hoppin'....." 
 
And in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...... 
 
We now return to our regularly scheduled program..... 
 
'And then Dick Clark said, "And the winner is.....Carbon. Leaf!".............' 
 
Now, I've heard Dick Clark say alot of things in my life. I've heard him banter with a cocky young TV star named John Travolta on American Bandstand, I've heard him announce a hot new dance single called 'Radio Free Europe' by an unknown band called R.E.M., I've heard him count down most of my teenage New Years' Eve, and I've watched him deliver blooper after blooper and practical joke with unwavering enthusiasm. 
 
But I'd never heard him utter the name 'Carbon Leaf'. 
 
And yet, this was indeed what we heard come out of his mouth on Monday, January 7th at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, CA. Those words were our magic key, our invitation to be a new part of a big history that he created 29 years ago - The American Music Awards. It would dawn on us two days later while etched in the 5th row of The Shrine Auditorium with the likes of Britney Spears, Sheryl Crow, Snoop Dogg, In Sync, Tim McGraw, Garth Brooks, Brooks and Dunn, uhh Nikki Taylor - basically if you sneezed, you hit a star - that we would be getting that pointy triangular glass award with our name on it for the First Annual Coca-Cola New Music Award for 2001. 
 
Monday evening's competition and subsequent victory was a welcome relief after 8 months (not to mention 8 years) of risk, hard work, stress and uncertainty. It was worth giving Dick Clark a big bear hug, a firm handshake and a solid look in the eye. It was worth that historical connection. Dick Clark is the Pope of American Pop Culture. He has been there from it's very beginning and has virtually created it, all the while commenting on it - not passing judgement on it - but chronicling it, affording it a warm welcome, giving it it's breathing room....and ushering it in, like every New Year. 
 
How to make sense of it all? That we were chosen from 800 bands? Through 50, then 10, then 5 then 3 (more countdowns.....). How to make sense that Dick Clark actually sifted through tapes and listened to the shrinking list of bands (and he DID listen, by the way.....). If anyone thinks Mr. Clark is just a figurehead running a successful company that will always be riding the trends in American Culture, think again. Talk to anyone with Dick Clark Communications - and they are amazing, warm-hearted, real people - and you get the feeling that their 'boss' is simply one of them. He is on the frontline WITH them. THEY come up with the contest together, THEY listen to the tapes, THEY pick the finalists. Then, from behind the scenes, he moves forward, coming to the show, meeting and greeting, judging the finals, announcing the finals, congratulating the winner, and endorsing the winner. Why take such unchartered risks? Why risk getting mud on your face with an unproven band? Why be so hands-on and risk public and professional humiliation? This will always invite a certain amount of risk... 
 
Maybe you will yield something, maybe you won't. Maybe that's part of the success that has made Dick Clark so enduring: He must tend to what he has cultivated, win or lose. You do not choose to keep your hands in the soil unless you love what you do. Period. 
 
His hands remain firmly planted. During the commercial breaks for the AMAs, viewers at home didn't hear that the person announcing over the PA system "OK, find your seats everyone, we have 30 seconds til we're back on the air..." was Dick Clark himself. What? Was that Dick Clark I heard giving cues? Was that pre-recorded? No. Why not just have someone else do it? After 29 years of AMA's you'd think he could afford to take the night off! 
 
However, when you think about it, why WOULDN'T you want to stand midstream in your own creation? This is the model that will be followed as long as there is a Carbon Leaf.