This weekend was a wonderful getaway….in my apartment!  Friday after work I took Brian Blades from ROCK 101 home since he was having car problems and he lives in the apartment complex next to me.  I dropped him off and went by Hollywood 20 to visit the ladies of Upstate Roller Girl Evolution (U.R.G.E.) who were recruiting and promoting outside the premiere of Whip It, the new film directed by Drew Barrymore that revolves around the unique sport of roller derby.  I worked with some of the girls before in their previous derby team as I served as an announcer.  Let’s just say I should stick to radio!  I did, however, manage to get Hex Kitten and Torch to agree to come in and be guests on Upstate Unsigned this week to promote their match on October 17th as they are looking to work with some local bands and have them play at some of their bouts.  Be sure to tune in Sunday night at 11!

When I got home Friday night, I locked my apartment door and did not unlock it until this morning as I made my way back into work!  No trip to the grocery store, video store or even the mailbox!  I had all I needed at home: TV, movies, food, couch, bed, pillows and blankets!  Now that’s a survival kit!

Well my first week back to work after my vacation to Savannah, GA and Tampa, FL and everywhere between came and went as I came back to work guns blazing!  Thursday after work I had my final anger management class where we presented our amends letters and received our course completion certificates.  It felt good to have completed the program although managing my anger is going to be a daily process as I learn to put into effect what I have learned in the class and overcome negative mindsets that act as triggers and contribute to my fairly bad temper.  I have no doubt that I will lose numerous battles yet still, but the key is to win the war which I know I have the capacity for accomplishing.

The weekend itself was rather uneventful as I usually prefer since I work rather late during the week so I like to catch up with some quality time on my couch!  Saturday I rented Observe and Report with Seth Rogen as a militant mall cop whose not playing with a full deck of cards.  It’s a fairly funny film although it’s not one of Rogen’s best films by a long shot.  A decent rental when there’s not a lot to choose from.

Observe and Report  \m/  \m/  \m

Nothing much else worth mentioning happened this weekend so I’ll file this one under a good and lazy weekend following a hard-hitting week back from vacation.

After what seemed liked endless months of nonstop work, I finally got to get away from it all and made trips to both Savannah, GA and Tampa, FL for a much needed vacation.  Since my finances have been less than satisfactory lately, I had a shoestring budget to go on but, lucky for me, I have friends in both places!

I went down to see Rebecca in Savannah first and just chilled with her for a few days before making my trek down to Tampa.  We went to see Inglourious Basterds since she had yet to see it at that point and we also hit River St. which is a must for any trip to Savannah!

On Tuesday morning, I gassed up and headed even farther south to visit my friend known as G Man and his wife Barrie.  We had tickets to see MOTORHEAD that night at the Ritz Ybor so we met up with his friend Ross and hit a couple of bars before getting to the show.  We got in just in time for REVEREND HORTON HEAT to promptly start the show at 8.  Admittedly, the REVEREND isn’t my bag (neither is MOTORHEAD for that matter, but any metalhead can appreciate the legendary Lemmy!) but he was actually quite impressive live!

MOTORHEAD took the stage next to ensue chaos in the crowd as G Man served as my mosh pit blocking wall during most of their set.  When they resumed the stage for their encore, G Man walked up to the front of the pit as it had subsided since the band was playing their acoustic number “Whorehouse Blues” which G was filming with his mobile phone.  As soon as they finished the acoustic tune, one of their roadies brought Lemmy his bass and I, being unguarded by G Man, made the wise decision to slip over to my right by a considerable distance as MOTORHEAD revved up their most notorious heavy metal anthem “Ace of Spades”.  The crowd went ballistic and apparently even G Man got thrown around the pit thus dropping his phone.

After the show was over, G Man was lucky enough to find his phone with the help of other concertgoers.  The phone had actually fallen apart into a few pieces but, miraculously, wasn’t broken.  As a matter of fact, it had taken some great footage of being thrown around in a MOTORHEAD mosh pit!

After the show, we hung around since we had after show passes but Lemmy stayed back in his dressing room with a few select fans of the female persuasion so G Man had a girl take Lemmy his ace of spades playing card to get it signed and we bolted since it was already well after midnight and G Man and Ross had to be up early.  We ran by Steak ‘n’ Shake for some late dinner since all of us were starving by that point and none of us had eaten before the show.

I slept in a little bit the next morning but not too late since I was heading for Busch Gardens.  I finally got up around 10, hit the shower then grabbed a quick lunch at Arby’s before hitting the Gardens.  I got to the park around noon and it was quite a slow day there which was great for me since I didn’t have to wait long before I was riding the first roller coaster of the day, Sheikra!  I have to say it was by far the best ride in the park with Montu being a distant second though it was a great coaster in its own right.  I took some video of Sheikra from below the ride because I did not want to risk dropping my phone on the ride!  I may have to see if I can get it posted!

I ended up leaving at five only to hit Tampa’s rush hour traffic so less than ten miles took a good half-hour as I made my way back to G Man’s apartment.  When I got back there, I went with him and his wife to a restaurant called Lee Roy Selmon’s which is named after the NFL Hall of Famer and former Tampa Bay Buccaneer who is also the owner.  G Man told me about their entree called Twisted Southern Chicken which perked my ears up for obvious reasons then further tantalized my taste buds as I read the description:  Grilled chicken breasts stacked on smashed potatoes, smothered in maple bacon creamed corn, melted cheddar cheese, cool sour cream and freshly diced tomatoes.  Holy crap!  I now have a new favorite dish!  Too bad all their locations are in Florida!  Needless to say I slept real good that night!

I slept in a little while again Thursday morning and then got up and packed my things and hit the road to make my way back to Savannah.  I stopped in Ocala, FL to meet up with my old college sweetheart Elena for some lunch and some catching up since we hadn’t seen each other in twelve years.  After lunch, I followed her to their Best Buy so I could get a car charger for my iPod which was dying from the long hours of my road trip over the past few days.  I also ended up picking up a copy of both Robot Chicken: Star Wars specials on DVD since I have the seasons already.

I got into Savannah around eight that night and Rebecca and I went out to dinner.  She retired early after a hard day and I stayed up to watch Conan and catch MEGADETH on Jimmy Fallon that night.  I’m not sure if it was the sound settings on Rebecca’s TV, but MEGADETH’s sound was horrible and I couldn’t even hear Chris Broderick’s guitar solo and I know it’s not a refelction of the band by any means!

As I was sitting up watching TV, I began to develop a sore throat which is how all my ailments start.  So, needless to say, I awoke the next morning beginning to feel a bit under the weather.  Rebecca and I went to grab some lunch and then went to go see the new animated flick Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs starring the voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Bruce Campbell and Mr. T.  It was a fun movie about an inventor whose inventions always backfired on him and created a rift between him and his father as well as others.  Accidentally, one of his inventions literally takes off and begins raining food on his hometown making him a huge hit and brings worldwide attention to the dried-up secluded town.  However, this newfound success has its own unique set of consequences!

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs  \m/  \m/  \m/  \n

Not long after returning to Rebecca’s apartment I started running a fever of 101.7 degrees!  I went and soaked a while in the tub and then we ran to grab some over-the-counter drugs to try and alleviate my symptoms.  It became clear to me that I was not going to be able to make it home that night so I could make it to my anger management meeting the next morning, so I decided to take some nighttime medicine and try to sleep off whatever I could.

I ended up waking up in the middle of the night feeling better but being unable to go back to sleep so I got up, packed my car and headed home at about 3:30 in the morning.  I made it back to my apartment and crawled into bed around eight and slept an hour before getting up, showering and heading to anger management.  After the class was over, I ran to Target to get Little Jay something for his first birthday since his party was that day.  I figured since I wasn’t running a fever I could risk a drop-in.

I grabbed some grub on my way home and sat and watched a movie as another feverish wave hit me.  I fought it on into the night rather unsuccessfully but ended up sleeping it off during the night as I slept nearly ten hours and so far, so good today.

Well another holiday weekend has come and gone but not without leaving its tale to be told.  Before the weekend officially started, I went to the Handlebar Thursday night right after work for a little local band action with TREND KILL OMEGA, KELEN HELLER, THRESHOLD and WAITING FOR AIR.  I got into the auditorium just after WAITING FOR AIR finished their set unfortunately because I was having to tend to some serious business: feeding my fat ass!

Tyler from promotions, aka Twisted Tyler, and his band THRESHOLD were up next and put on a great show.  I gotta say Tyler really is impressive on stage - can’t wait ’til I get in a band and play a show again!  I got to catch KELEN HELLER for the first time featuring Ricky and Mark formerly of HEADSNAP and their set was interesting to say the very least!  I managed to stay late enough to catch a handful of songs from TREND KILL OMEGA’s set as it was my first time seeing them with their new singer whom I went to high school with.  I gotta say, I was impressed “Opie” as we used to call him back in the day!

Friday after work I stayed in the office to finish up a few extra things and, when I went out to my car, lo and behold there was Rebecca parked next to me!  She came into town to visit family and surprise me with a visit so we went to Blockbuster to trade one of my online movies for Push on Blu-ray and then grabbed some dinner from Oriental House.

Push was an interesting spin on the ’superhero’ genre as it is a tale of people with extraordinary abilities running from a secret agency that seeks to research and exploit their abilities.  Fairly clever film for a decent movie rental night.

Push  \m/  \m/  \m/  \

Saturday I took it easy most of the day and then forced my lazy ass to get off the couch and head out to Gottrocks that night to catch LECHEROUS NOCTURNE, GIGAN and INSIDIOUS DEMISE with Rebecca.  We got there just as INSIDIOUS DEMISE was finishing their set which ended before we could step foot inside the door.  GIGAN was next with their unique style of death metal and I noticed a fellow lefty playing guitar and a hot chick kicking ass on bass!

LECHEROUS NOCTURNE dominated the stage next with Kreishloff’s ludicrously fast shredding and Hohenstein’s God of Thunder vocals and stage presence.  Filling in bass duties was the singer/guitarist from APOTHEOSIS who’s name escapes me because I always call him “Heavy Metal Kenny” because he looks like the death metal version of my best friend, Kenny!

Also over the weekend I managed to take in a showing of the new Rob Zombie flick Halloween II.  Granted I had already heard all the not so flattering reviews of the film, but I decided to give it a shot anyways.  After seeing it for myself, I can honestly see where some people would have complaints because the film does have weird moments that seem to be for the sake of just being weird (and when I say weird, I MEAN it: watch out for a very “Weird” cameo).  Don’t get me wrong, I love Rob Zombie’s morbid and often trippy style but this did go overboard in a few areas.  However, I enjoyed the film overall and liked it more than I remember liking the first Halloween remake he did a couple of years ago.

Halloween II  \m/  \m/  \m/

Sunday I managed to make myself go to church and even go to that night’s Single Adult’s ministry, The Point.  As usual, I stood out like a sore thumb as most people who are rockers/metalheads usually don’t go to church nor get involved in religious activities which makes it a bit difficult for me since I seem to represent two very different groups without really belonging to either.  I know it makes me unique and I even hope it even opens some people’s minds on the stereotypes related to the groups but, damn, it makes it really lonely and alienating sometimes.

The eighth season of Smallville hit stores last Tuesday and I, of course, wasted no time in picking it up on Blu-ray and I am currently 18 episodes deep with only 4 remaining.  Virtually every spare moment I have had at home has been spent glued to my couch watching one of my favorite television shows that I rarely actually get to catch when it originally airs.

Friday night I abandoned my Fortress of Solitude to make an appearance at the Rise Guys’ Big Ass Draft Night at PJ’s Bar and Grill in Spartanburg.  I got to meet and mingle with some P1s for a couple of hours before returning to my fortress for a quick fix before heading to bed since I had anger management AND an air shift the next morning.

When I got off the air, I went to hang out with my old friend and ex-bandmate Moon who was in town from Columbia and staying with his stepdad.  We hung out for a while both at and in the pool with his wife, stepdad and a few other family members and then ran to Woodruff for some Mexican food at a place called Bronco’s.  When we left we stopped and got some mixers and had some drinks by the pool and chilled out and talked on into the night.

I then retired to my Fortress of Solitude to stay for the remainder of the weekend.  I believe Jor-El is calling my name now….

This weekend I went to Hollywood 20 to see the new Quentin Tarantino flick Inglourious Basterds starring Brad Pitt as a mercenary sent into Germany-occupied France during World War II to hunt and kill Nazis.  The film was superb from the opening scene to it’s rather explosive climax to it’s terrific ending and was filled with great and occasionally humorous dialogue and rather tense moments.  I’m normally not a fan of war films but the story here is brilliant and is definitely the best film I have seen this year with only Watchmen and Pixar’s Up coming anywhere close.

Inglourious Basterds  \m/  \m/  \m/  \m/  \m/

The rest of my weekend was delightfully unproductive as I only ran to Blockbuster on Sunday to swap out a couple of my online movies, picked up a muffin pan and cooking spray from Wally World and grabbed some grub from Jack-in-the-Box and made some blueberry muffins and watched movies all day.

The first movie was Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li on Blu-ray which was basically a hi-def turd.  Chris Klein has to be one of the worst actors I have ever seen whose acting skills make Keanu Reeves look like an Oscar winner!  Although I am a big fan of Smallville (speaking of which, Season 8 comes out on Blu-ray tomorrow!), I have never been a big fan of Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang.  I’ve seen worse films including the first attempt at bringing the Street Fighter game to the big screen with the flop of a film of the same title starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and the second Mortal Kombat movie.  This is better than those but that’s about as far as it goes….

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li  \m/  \m/

After the disappointment of the first movie (not that I had high expectations in the first place), I popped on Race to Witch Mountain on Blu-ray starring Dwayne “will ALWAYS be ‘The Rock’ to me” Johnson.  This one wasn’t great by any means but was about what I had expected if not a bit more.  Nothing much else to say except it’s an update of Disney’s Witch Mountain series from the 70s with a lot of fun elements giving well due nods to the original films.

Race to Witch Mountain  \m/  \m/  \m/  \

That’s my weekend in a nutshell.  Yes, I’m that boring!

No, I didn’t go anywhere this weekend so I’ll explain the title momentarily.  Friday night Rebecca came into town from Savannah and we watched Coraline on Blu-ray which was directed by the director of Tim Burton’s animated classic The Nightmare Before Christmas.  It was a great dark film based on the children’s novel of the same name featuring the talented young Dakota Fanning as the voice of the title character.  Definitely worth checking out.

Coraline  \m/  \m/  \m/  \m

Saturday morning I got my swimming trunks on and wore them to the station so I could head straight over to my uncle’s after work for yet another pool party - the third yet this summer!  I think we’re going for a record but I’m not complaining because IT’S A POOL PARTY!!!  WITH FOOD!!!  This time we were celebrating mine and my uncle’s birthdays since they’re both in August and we’re still planning on one more on September 19th for my unofficial nephew, Little Jay’s first birthday!

After the party, my mom, brother, Aunt Pat, Rebecca and I all went to the Verizon store in Simpsonville so Aunt Pat and I could upgrade our phones and so Mom could take my old phone.  I landed the sweet new Blackberry Tour which has officially entered me into the 21st Century….just a decade late!  This phone is sooooo badass as I can now listen to the Planet on my phone by using the flycast application I downloaded for free right here at newrock933.com and I can even update my Facebook and Twitter accounts by using the Facebook app already on my phone and by downloading the TwitterBerry app!  Su-weeeeet!

When not playing with my phone, I managed to make it to Blockbuster to swap out one of my online flicks for the new comedy I Love You, Man with Paul Rudd and Jason Segel.  This ‘bromantic comedy’ is decent but proves to be another of the new crude, rude dude movies diluted by chick flick elements for a new ‘date movie’ hybrid.  Not bad and includes a nice RUSH performance.

I Love You, Man  \m/  \m/  \m/

Sunday I did next to nothing except go to church, run my mom my case and charger to my old phone, have lunch with Rebecca before she left to go back to Savannah and play with my new Blackberry Tour which, in case you didn’t figure it out already, is the reason for the title of this blog!  Fun times!

I was distraught at the news of the passing of John Hughes this past Thursday.  Hughes was one of the greatest filmmakers from the 80s whose films still resonate with moviegoers today.  So, over the course of my weekend in seclusion, I spent a little time watching a couple of his films.

Before I continue with my reflection of Hughes’ films, I’ll give my usual rundown of my weekend.  Most of the weekend, for the most part, was fairly unproductive as I had intended.  I went to my anger management class Saturday morning and then went home and took a nap….yeah!

Sunday morning I got off my lazy ass and actually made it to church and then paid my mom and Aunt Pat a visit.  We decided to order Obsessed with Beyonce Knowles and Ali Larter on pay-per-view.  The film is everything you would expect from the previews and maybe even a little more.  I, like most men (and even women, for that matter), was waiting on the catfight between Beyonce and Ali at the end of the film and I was not disappointed.  Nice ass shot of Ali in her skivvies!

Obsessed  \m/  \m/  \m/  \n

When I got home I decided to revisit a couple of John Hughes’ classic films starting with my personal favorite The Breakfast Club which is a brilliant look into the social structure of high school and how it parallels that of the ‘real world’.  It made me realize how much I enjoy studying people and the social circles they belong to and their personality dysfunctions.  I also noted that I tend to be like Ally Sheedy’s ‘basket case’ character but with the outspoken sarcasm and defiant nature of Judd Nelson’s ‘criminal’ character.

I see this film as being a great look at ourselves as a society and how we treat one another based on social status and how superficial those statuses really are when we step out of our own ‘comfort zones’ and cross social boundaries and interact with other human beings whom we find to have a lot more in common with than we had preconceived.

One can’t help but wonder a couple of things when we finish watching this film and one is rather obvious:  Did they really treat each other as friends or even ‘equals’ when they returned to school on Monday?  The other question is what if everyone watched this film with an open mind, would we, as a society, at least attempt to look beyond our own social boundaries and try to discover the meaning of humanity?

After pondering these things a little too deeply, I traded DVDs out and popped in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.  Great comedy that’s not quite as deep!  As a matter of fact, I need to go finish that now as our hero has just broken his girlfriend out of school and they were just hitting the city with his best friend Cameron!  Indeed, John Hughes’ films will live on!

Two days ago marked the 33rd anniversary of my entering into this world which I will surely someday conquer.  It has been an insane week which is why I am just now getting to reflect upon it as I just got back from my live broadcast at City Tavern in downtown Greenville which was fun but tiring after an exhaustively long day and week.

The weekend before my birthday was interesting to say the very least.  After getting off the air Friday night I went out to the Channel on Orchard Park to see chick-fronted Christian rockers THIS MACHINE IS ME.  Once I got there and the show started I discovered that the band I came to see had cancelled but I stayed and caught DAYS OFF SCREEN play their set since I’d never seen them though I’ve played them on Upstate Unsigned.

I left shortly thereafter and got me some dinner and dropped by Blockbuster to swap one of my online movies for the Disney sci-fi classic Tron since the buzz is on for the upcoming sequel currently in the works.  I watched about half an hour of the film then passed out since I had to be on the air at ten the next morning.

When I got off the air Saturday I had to make the haul to Beech Island, SC for the Fried Green Tomato Festival as I was doing some ‘mandatory volunteer work’ (another story for another day) for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.  I arrived at about 5:30 and stayed for only two hours since the festival was over at 7.  My main duty was to stay overnight in town and help clean up the next morning but I was told by the owners of the Iron Horse Bar who hosted the festival that they had enough help the next morning so I was cleared of my obligations so I drove through Aiken and got some dinner at the Variety.  I have to say it was a very interesting and scenic road trip.

I left Aiken at 9 and made it home by 11:30.  I think I made an attempt to watch more of Tron, but I was so exhausted I just passed out.

I slept in Sunday morning and then met my mom out for an early birthday dinner at The Coach House in Simpsonville.  After dinner I came home while Mom went to pick up my brother Anthony and came over to my apartment to watch Watchmen.  She picked up a few snacks and picked me up an awesome Star Trek cupcake birthday cake.  When the movie was over, I met up with a few friends at Steak ‘n’ Shake for a late night bite before packing in for another work week.

After work Monday, those same friends wanted me to go out with them for my birthday so I met them at Hooters in Greenville and then headed out to Platinum Plus which is where the train derailed but not in a good way.  Suffice it to say I’ll never kick off another birthday on Baker St - and that’s not the address of either place we went to but rather refers to the company I was keeping that night!

The next day, being my actual birthday, I brought what was left of the cupcake birthday cake to share with my fellow Entercom employees which, admittedly, was nice of me since there exists a high school-like clique downstairs where only their birthdays matter.  However, Ayse was nice enough to take me out to lunch.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect anyone to take me out or do something for me on my birthday, but it would be nice if some of  my coworkers at least treated the rest of us with the same courtesy instead of as if we didn’t matter.

Before going out to lunch, Mom and Aunt Pat dropped by with a fresh coconut cake my aunt had baked me for my birthday which was AWESOME!  I LOVE her homemade coconut cake!  I ended up working over until I realized I wasn’t accomplishing anything so I decided to go home and watch another half-hour of Tron before passing out yet again from sheer exhaustion.

Yesterday was business as usual and then I had my second anger management class after I got off the air.  Earlier that afternoon, Rebecca called me to let me know that my package had arrived at my apartment as she had been tracking it on UPS’ website.  Unfortunately, the office at my apartment complex closes before I get off work so I couldn’t pick it up that day.  So, after I got home from class, I fixed myself a quick bite for dinner and finally finished watching the last half-hour of Tron!  Now I’ve got to watch the special features!

On my way to work this morning, I stopped by the office and got the package Rebecca had sent me for my birthday.  To my delight, it was the pair of Ride the Lightning METALLICA Chucks I had been wanting soooo bad!  Needless to say, they are on my feet as I am writing this!  Thanks, Rebecca!  You’re awesome!

Now I think it’s time to relax and watch the special features on the Tron DVD so I can actually return it someday!

Saturday morning marked the official beginning of my anger management classes.  I can’t go into any details due to the confidentiality of the sessions and those involved in them.  What I will say is that I really hope this works in taking the edge off of me in the sense that I am so high-strung.  I am at least making the best of it by making fun of myself and the situation by having weekly Anger Management Moments on the air every Monday during the course of my sessions.

When I got out of my first session, I met up with Rebecca who was in town for the weekend and we caught a double feature at Hollywood 20.  The first film was the new Harry Potter flick.  What can I say except it’s another Harry Potter movie?  I admit they’ve been getting progressively more interesting now that Voldemort has actually manifested in physical form even though he does appear in this film and the film doesn’t get really interesting until towards the end.  I’m ready for the final battle in the upcoming last chapter which is being split into two films.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince  \m/  \m/  \m/  \n

After the wizardry was over, we saw the new thriller Orphan.  Ok, I know the whole evil child theme is nothing new by any stretch of the imagination, but I gotta say that this child’s secret was original to say the very least.  I can’t really say any more than that.

Orphan  \m/  \m/  \m/

Sunday my cousin Ray and I drove out to Roebuck to jam with Tommy and Corey from OF GOOD & EVIL.  It was great to get to jam again and we will meet up again in a few weeks!