Two days prior to leaving for Nashville, just under ten years since my first trip, I'm going to work with the most powerful man in Nashville, Todd Rubenstein, CEO, Owner, King of TMR Records to record at least 9 hit songs, writen by people such as Buck Moore, Country music's #1 hit song writer and the greatest studio musicians of all time. Contrast this with my first trip out (chapter 2 taken out of the 'Greatest Success Story Ever Conciously Developed,' 'Legend of the Naked Cowboy,' available on nakedcowboy.com). Now contemplate this quote by Anthony Robbins, "most people overestimate what they can do in year, and underestimate what they can do in a decade." Now is the quote accurate, or did I create the 'reality' by having taken it in to my consciousness and willingly excepted it. I'm gonna say for now on, as I've done so for as long as I can actually remember now, that success is instantaeous, I have it now, nothing I want is not right before me now. Success like anything else is merely a feeling, a sense, a conviction of it's apparentness, to have it, is to attract it, is to be it, is to demonstrate it in one's totalilty.

Chapter 2
The First Time I Wore Underwear


It was cold and dark the night I first arrived in Nashville, October 28, 1997. I pulled off the interstate and took an exit that sounded like “mid-city.” First guy I saw I pulled over and asked if he knew where I could find a TGI Fridays. Five minutes later I was in my new work place talking with the general manager, Ali, and the following day I began work after spending two hours filling out all of their work manuals. I mingled and networked through the servers and after two days of sleeping in motels just outside of town I began staying at another server, Mark Donnelly’s, apartment. He was cool and lived only two or three miles outside of work. His apartment served as a haven for many of the servers who just sort of hung out over there smoking pot and drinking and doing what a lot of people I’ve met over the years do after work, nothing. I worked out each day at the Centennial Park Sports Complex and went out all through the day learning my way around and asking questions. I found out about the “singer/songwriting sessions” that went on somewhere in or around the city every night. Everyone I met knew someone who knew someone who could easily make me a “star” over night. This is just another way of saying they all knew I was obviously a “star” and that with their “limited” to “absolute no” experience, could get me to where I already was. I got grounded at Fridays and made certain that everyone I met knew me as what I sought to accomplish. Jogging through Centennial Park at the week’s culmination I ran across a man sitting on a park bench with his acoustic guitar. I stopped and asked him point blank, “how can I become a famous country singer?” He just looked at me seriously and said “to be a singer, you’ve got to have a real fire in your belly.” He mentioned that the average staying time in Nashville was “seven years” for success, and that was contingent upon finding a reputable songwriter who would give you his/her songs to perform. Hence the reason that Nashville is a “songwriting town.” It’s all about the songs and who’s lucky enough to sing them. Tenacity and networking and fitting into the clique. Everyone could sing. Oh, except me. Which left me with nothing but a preponderance of determination. I decided that the discussion meant that I needed to go home, write my own damn songs, learn to sing and perform them, and come back as what I would call a “complete package.” The only place I could see spending the next seven years was at home with my baby, Mindy.
The night before my departure from Nashville I went to a karaoke bar with Mark and some of his friends. Looking like a total star, as I usually do, I graced the room being continually approached by onlookers who asked, “are you going to sing?” No one could wait. When I was finally called up to sing, I was drunk and bombed like hell. The song wasn’t even in my range if I could sing. Everyone told me I did fine, but I can assure you, it was sympathy. I was excited as all hell though, and tried to sign up again but it was too late. I thought, I knew what I’d done wrong and could fix it all up. Anyway, I just wanted to sing for a crowd without nerves, and I did that. I couldn’t have given two shits, really, what it sounded like. I’d done what I’d sought to do. When we got back to the apartment that night I wrote and put music to my first song “Closed my Line.” It was about coming home to the one I loved and it only took about twenty minutes to put together, completely. Easiest thing I’d ever done. I knew I could write songs too.
I got home and went to Mindy’s apartment first thing. She lived in the same small town as me now and when arriving home from any sort of long separation, we’d live in perfect unity and love for at least a couple of days before “goal-oriented fever” would set in. At least that’s how I put it. Actually I was still, just being so damn determined to make some sort of amazing example for the world to emulate, that I ignored the one closest to my heart. I wrote twenty-five songs over the next thirty days and had them ready to be performed. I found that to be something at which I am a natural- performing. Most everyone I’d seen sing would close their eyes and go into their own world. I make up stories and then tell them to my audience. They might not sound good, but I’m thinking entertainment, and entertainment is really about communicating, and communicating is mostly visual. All along I was thinking, hey, if I got cool stories, and look cool telling them, people will like them. I guessed radio would be a problem I’d deal with later.
So I went out and bought a sound system to perform with. I made sure it was grand enough to perform at a major sports coliseum so that I wouldn’t have to come back and go through the shopping procedure again. I booked myself in every bar surrounding my hometown that would let me in. It was easy! Every club I visited said, “we’d love to have you.” They assigned me a date and I showed up. Sporadically family and friends came to see me, and Mindy came every time. Then the problem occurred. I showed up and I sucked. I performed at the “Wooden Horse,” “De Je Vu Lounge,” “Little Ditty’s,” “Back Door,” “Back Porch,” and “Bombay Bicycle Club,” once! At most of them I only got in one set before being asked to get out. The manager at the “Bombay” was really nice; the rest were like pissed off at me. I did get much better though through the process. I learned by going straight into battle how to fight, and, that again, was my objective.
I took my hard earned experience and flew to Venice Beach on December 23, 1998. I had made arrangements with a friend, Charles Worthington, to stay at his place in Hollywood. He took me to and from the airport and gave me rides to Venice Beach each day. He was the photographer who shot me in Playgirl Magazine, on a previous California trip. I wanted to get to Venice Beach because I knew I could perform for an audience each day without being told to leave, and I knew that I could experiment and determine what I could do to make people pay attention and like me for God sakes. I performed on December 24, 1998 for over six hours in jeans, boots, hat, and loosely fitting flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off. I made one dollar and two cents. The dollar was thrown in by an elderly lady who clearly felt sorry for me, and the two cents was thrown at me. When Charles picked me up after day one, he realized that I was a beaten man and told me not to give up. He suggested that I try something different like “hell, Robert, play in your underwear,” laughing, “that’ll make em’ stop.”
The next morning I took the bus to the Boardwalk. Charles said he would be down to get me by five, which would give me a total of about eight hours. I first went to the “pit” to work out, you know, “Muscle Beach,” then I went to perform. Charles had said when I left that he would bring his camera down and get some shots of me playing. Much to his surprise when he got there I had a guitar case full of dollar bills as I sang, danced and banged out tunes on the guitar in my cowboy boots, hat and underwear. He laughed and smiled like a satisfied old wise man and took a series of photos, as did hundreds of on-lookers. This had been going on for several hours. I got on the news and was a big hit. Charles was so pleased. I remember being driven back to his home, exhausted. He said, “Robert, you have passion, and that’s all it takes to be a singer.” He then laughed again and said, “my little naked cowboy". See, I knew I could sing.