Kidd Kraddick Jingle Contest!

WOW. It has really been forEVER since I've written one of my wonderful blog entries. Almost 5 months to not be exact. As you know I am now mostly doing “Daily Briefings” (which btw is a huge misnomer since they usually come about once a week) at www.ruckitup.com and haven’t written here since December. But this week has truly been crazy enough for me to have reason to bring it on back.

If you already know part one of the Kidd Kraddick Jingle Contest story (how I found out I was a finalist) or don’t really care to know part one, go ahead and skip to the next paragraph. Last week I got a call that I was a finalist in the contest that I had sent in a CD recording of myself in for. The next day at around 8am, I got called by the people at Kidd Kraddick in the Morning for a radio interview. I ended up sounding kinda dumb but that was just because I was nervous and I had just eaten an old frozen Jimmy Dean Sausage Bisquit (you can hear the recording at www.ruckitup.com). But they definitely played my song on the radio which was very cool. I can check that off my list of 5 lifelong goals. (The other 4 being owning a Mexican restaurant, having a tortilla-making machine in my living room, cleaning my room, and living in Costa Rica). So anyway, I finished the interview and they told me that they would see me on Saturday for the rest of the competition.

So here came Saturday, the big day. The six of us finalists all waited quietly as the head honchos of the show, Kidd, Kellie, Big Al, and Psycho Shanon all arrived. I got to know many of the people there in the room. I must say Kim was the most interesting because she is from Mexia, Texas which we ALL know is the hometown of the beloved Anna Nicole Smith. I proceeded to ask Kim if she had ever encountered “Cousin Shelly,” to which she answered reluctantly, “Yes.” And if you don’t know who Cousin Shelly is, don’t ask. She’s Psycho. But she does an awfully good rendition of The First Noel when she’s got a karaoke machine on hand. (Kim is second from the left in this pic)

The day officially began when Scott (I forgot what his job title was) told us that “like with any good contest, there is a twist.” Oh lord. I hate those two words. Or, four words rather, “there is a twist.” It’s almost never a good thing. They might as well just say "we lied to you" or "we forgot to mention." The twist was that we each had 10 minutes to come up with a jingle to sing A Cappella and then they’d choose the best five out of us and the other person would be sent home. So ya, I freaked basically but ended up making it through that round. Thanks to the Red Bull-induced creative juices in my brain that quickly wore off.

After eating a small lunch of pizza and Smart Water, we were each put into individual rooms with a CD that had three tracks with just music on them and given one hour to come up with a full blown jingle. Once again, I freaked. Let me tell you how it went down. I sat there for a good 30 minutes and came up with absolutely NOTHING. Seriously, I had nothing. It was not good. All I could think of were the words “Kidd Kraddick in the Morning” which was A. not at all creative since that’s the title of the show, and B. annoying as heck when it’s the only thing you can think of. So after the 30 minutes, a songwriter and producer came in to "assist" and "guide" me in my writing (which I didn’t have any writings for them to assist me on) and it didn’t really help much at all. They were more concerned about my mental state because at the time I was really freaking out and probably looked like I was about to cry (although I did not. I promise).

Oh, I should also mention that while ALL of this is going on, there are cameras on us in an attempt to make this all more like a reality show which will be posted on their website at www.kiddlive.com. So I loved having to pretend like I had everything under control while the cameras were on me when really, my brain was frying to a crisp.

Long story short, my hour was up and I still had no lyrics for my jingle. I was out. Seriously, I felt like just taking the walk of shame and going home. So we had about 10 minutes before we had to go into the studio to record but we couldn’t listen to our track anymore. So in those 10 minutes I managed to come up with an entire jingle’s worth of words (verse, chorus, verse, chorus) but I still couldn’t sing them.

I was the forth to go into the studio and record, and this would be the first time for me to sing my lyrics with the jingle. I had NO idea if it would work or not. I figured if it sounded awful, I would just close my eyes and it would all go away. Which I ended up trying, and it totally didn't work.

Luckily it ended well and I managed to finish a jingle which will also be posted on the KiddLive.com website later this week.

I had a fun time but it was also probably one of the most stressful days of my life. Considering most of my days are spent eating chips and hot sauce and watching TiVo.

My favorite part of the day was meeting the infamous Psycho Shanon who REALLY is psycho. She’s a hoot though. Her job during the day was to take the audio recorder around and interview the finalists as things were happening. She would always interview us as someone was singing having us “judge” them. Always trying to start a fight, she was. I didn’t say anything seeing as I was sure it would get turned around on my somehow on the radio.

Above is Shanon and I both happy, and tough.

Hope your day is wonderful and enjoyable. And I will see you tomorrow. (Or based on past experience with this blog, about 5 months).