New Year, Etc., So Forth Blah Blah

Don't know what to think of the "revelers" around my neighborhood as the clock struck midnight on Sunday morning.  I heard the fireworks going off starting around 11pm and continuing until about 12:05 when it began raining quite hard.  I'm sitting on the couch in the dark awaiting relief from my acid reflux and watched my next door neighbor dash out of his front door into the parking lot.  He bends over to light something in the lot and runs back in the house like a madman.  "pop"  Yeah, one of those "legal" lady-finger firecrackers.  What a thrill-seeker!

Had the time of my life at BATTLECADE X-SEVEN, especially the after-show tradition of dinner for the entire company.  A few familiar faces returned and it had a "home" feel to it, as if the "old crew" was reunited.  Folks outside of the rasslin' circle don't realize how much of a family we all become.  It was great to see Ray & Angela Kandrack again, it was good to see Jesse Ortega in the ring (AFTER THE SHOW) working out with the new RGL champion.  As always, the most under-appreciated person behind the scenes is the one that makes CWF Mid Atlantic a reality, Danny Wenkel.  He has an extended family that would be virtually non-existent without him and continued enthusiasm for the sport.  Wait until you get a load of what Danny has coming to the Sportatorium next!

Announced publicly on Facebook Sunday that I was not going to retire yet from the pro rasslin biz.  Still having fun, we're moving forward into a situation that could possibly lead to great exposure for our company and our wrestlers.  We will be hosting a joint venture between CWF Mid Atlantic, Omega Wrestling and Impact Wrestling on January 29th that will be taped for TNA Impact Wrestling.  Long time friend "Broken" Matt Hardy & "Brother Nero" Jeff Hardy are already booked to be in the ring for BATTLE BOWL!  Yeah, I'll drop the poster here!

Moving Forward With RoxX

Spent two days in studio this week with Tommy recording new vocals for new songs, including a totally different collaboration Tommy brought me in on.  We finished vocals on "Life Is Good" yesterday and all that's lacking on that tune is the guitar solo.  Today we re-visited one of our most recent unreleased tunes "Eleven Or Bust" and totally re-worked the vocals.  I sing this song in a gravelly voice and it's almost a call and answer song.  We removed the gravelly voices from the "call" portion and replaced them with sweeter sounding smooth voices and it's totally changed the entire sound of the song.

Tommy mapped out the background vocals and recorded them himself, today he broke them down to individual voices and had me re-record them in my voice.  Yeah, I was totally unaware of the structure of background vocals before today and I have a great new respect for everything he's done to teach me as we go along.  We're going to stick to this new method of recording vocals, meaning we will have to revisit most tunes after lead vocals are recorded to re-record backing vocals as needed.  And yeah, I'm jacked.  Hearing MY voice doubled in 3 voices in a 4 part harmony kind of made me sit up and wonder what IS possible in the future.

Tommy has already sent me two more new tunes to write lyrics for and he's shown me two more he's got in works today.  He's off of work next week too, hoping I can finish one of the two songs I have now so we can get ahead of the game before his work schedule picks up again.  He'll work "regular" from January-March with the madness hitting prior to the spring furniture market.  Yeah, Tommy's a studio photographer in the furniture industry by trade.

We're still having fun and using RoxX as therapy and a getaway from everyday stress and we're both quite humbled at the fact that we are in a position where we are writing and recording music much in the vein of our own favorite bands and artists.  As a matter of fact, the new song "Life Is Good" is another very Rush-sounding tune, yes it was intentional on my part, and Tommy challenged me to open up on the final verse.  His instructions were "Go full Geddy!"  I didn't think I could pull it off but surprisingly did it.  We took a break and began on the backing vocals.  Went even higher on them, unreal hearing myself singing those notes!

"Realize you must have the dream to begin to make it come true in your life my friend
The Golden Rule was so outdated just yesterday it seems
Be the light of day - Fight the dark of night - 'Cause life is good!"

"Life Is Good" - RoxX (unreleased)

Feeling Relieved, But Not Backing Down!

Yeah, with the legalities surrounding the 2016 election now finalized I am feeling somewhat relieved that the media hubub about electors flipping votes turned out to be ANOTHER loss for Hillary, as she had five electors choose other candidates.  For the record, that's the most of any candidate in 100 years, and before you blow a gasket, Mr. Trump lost two himself.  And the terminology calls these folks "faithless voters" and yes, I agree that there has been a MAJOR lack of faith across this nation the past decade or so.

I'm beginning to also feel good that the majority of America believes as I do as opposed to the more liberal agenda pushed by the media psychopaths.  Anybody else notice that since the election the name-calling and accusations from that side haven't slowed down a bit?  I've heard the most absurd suggestions SINCE the Electoral College vote was made official, such as attempting to have Trump declared "mentally unfit" to serve.  Same folks have no idea how high the President-elect's IQ actually is.

Nope, I don't think I'll be backing down any time soon, I shall continue to call things like I see them on the political front.  And I do wish the best to both Donald Trump and incoming NC Governor Roy Cooper, after all, what they do affects all of us.  I also applaud Governor Pat McCrory for initiating the repeal of HB2 the same day the City of Charlotte repealed the nondiscrimination bill that created the need for HB2.  I am somewhat surprised, but history will scratch it's head wondering how McCrory got beat in 2016 and continued to work for the people of North Carolina until his term expired.  I really thought HB2 would be a carrot that the GOP supermajorities in the NC General Assembly held above Roy's head for the next four years.

Now, everybody pay attention to all of those offended by a law who pulled their business out of our state and be wary of spending money with them again in the future.  The NBA and Bruce Springsteen come to mind first, along with the NCAA.  Perhaps North Carolina could create a special user fee for our state's publicly owned facilities and require pro basketball, rock concert promoters and college tournaments to pay a use tax which could be used toward public education or such.  If they complain of such donations, that doesn't help their public relations at all.  Just a thought...

Merry Christmas ya'll.  Be safe out there, aiight? 

My Personal Sanity

My personal sanity walks on all fours.  He's bi-racial, well actually he's black and white.  Kind of monochrome color scheme.  My sanity wakes me up several nights a week for a snack and has made himself at home both on my lap and on my desk.  He has already became the central figure of our household and makes demands on our time and attention.

Being someone's personal sanity is quite an undertaking but this individual seems up to the task and happy to be a part of our family.  We don't know his history before he showed up on my son's doorstep a few Christmases ago, but he's obviously traveled the world and is quite cosmopolitan in his attitude.  This street-educated fellow is quite fastidious and always looks sharp as a tack because he knows appearance is important.

The personal sanity business picked up earlier this year after my previous sanity became seriously ill and passed away.  I had already found new candidates for the job opening but the boss wasn't ready.  Out of the blue we get a message on Facebook from our adopted son Dave and he's offering to drive me a new personal sanity all the way from Maryland.  And the next day, he did.  

Pip, named from the Dickens classic, is easily the largest cat I've ever owned.  He's a sweetheart that loves to see someone make a move toward the kitchen because he knows that's where the kitty treats live.  He sleeps at my feet, often taking up half of the bed and wakes me up by patting my nose with his paw.  That normally results in me making a trip to the little boy's room and then following him to the kitchen downstairs for an early morning treat.  

Pip has been messing with the blinds in the kitchen lately so I cleared a spot for him on the table next to the window so he can see outside into the woods.  A couple of hours later I hear something hitting the glass and Pip making strange little sounds.  No wonder.  I walk to the window and there are squirrels outside hanging on trees and the privacy wall chattering at Mr. Cat.  I guess he told them.  He's inside in warm and cozy while they're outside looking for a nut.

Thanksgiving Thoughts

As per the last few years, this Thanksgiving Day was celebrated by breakfast at Biscuitville since Karen's job requires her to spend her holiday on the sales floor.  No turkey here, no stuffing or even sweet potatoes, but hey, we have football!  A long holiday weekend with no bookings means pro football, college football, more college football and more pro football between taxi driving Karen to and from retail hay-deez.  

Seeing a lot of lists of things folks are posting that they are thankful for today, quite a nice distraction actually.  Too bad most folks are only thankful one day a year (publicly anyways).  

Me?  I'm thankful I can still get out of bed in the mornings, thankful Karen hasn't decided to kick me to the curb, thankful that Pip came into my life, thankful for Delilah, Alden, Imogen & Mason growing into beautiful little humans, thankful for friendships too numerous to even begin to tackle.  Danny Wenkel and his entire family have always bent over backwards to make sure I'm having fun when we do our little rasslin' thing, Jeff Rudd has smartening me up on the business aspects of the game and every wrestler standing in the squared circle looking at me like a madman due to me calling their match results wrong or mis-pronouncing their name...Sorry about that.  Want to know when I've fubared something at a live show?  Watch Grant.  He'll be screaming, grabbing his hat, stomping and rolling his eyes like a crap game.

I'm especially thankful to my life-long friend Tommy Smith for continuing to send me incredible songs to write lyrics for and to sing on as RoxX.  This has been the one single thing I can point towards as a reason to continue onward that I'm actually STILL excited about.  We have recorded and published ten songs on SoundCloud in the past 14 months and have several in the can awaiting release.  Also, we're still churning out new stuff, as I submitted lyrics for another new tune ("Life's Good") just yesterday afternoon.  Hope we get a chance to get back in studio soon.  As a matter of fact, Click Here to hear RoxX's latest release "Sanity And Darkness".

Aiight.  Detroit and Minnesota is close, gonna go veg in front of the television and see if I can coax Pip into joining me before I have to take Karen to work.

Somebody email me a deviled egg, aiight?

Donald Trump Has Broke The Interwebs Today

The barrage of insults, barbs, innuendo and snark has been nearly unbearable over the past few months.  Aimed at me, aimed at Karen and I, or aimed at the general "Trump voters", I saw them.  I may not always acknowledge them, but yeah, I saw them.  Today, those same individuals who were proclaiming a war on behalf of the common good and history are crying in their beer.  Today those same folks are asking that the victors be humble and forgiving of past trespasses.  

I seem to recall in 2008, a day or so after Barack Obama was first elected, responding to a reporter's question with "I won."  I recall Valeri Jarrett's threats that they were "watching" their opposition and would "deal with them" after the 2012 elections.  I also recall being labeled a "tea-bagger", a "standard redneck", a "deplorable" and other things to numerous to list here.  You realize that both "standard redneck" and "deplorable" both came out of the mouth of Hillary Rodham Clinton and the term "tea-bagger" was first coined as a nick-name for conservative Tea Party members by CNN's own homosexual anchor-person Anderson Cooper, who fully realized the implications when he used the slur.

So today, something closer to the values I believe in is coming into power and after 8 years of abuse, I need to be kinder and gentler to those who believe differently than I do?  Yeah, I need to bite my tongue and NOT inflict a little pain to the same folk that have tried to torment me with threats of "racism" and whatever the catchphrase of the week was at the time.  I need to remember that in most cases, I don't really know the persons who belittled me in the past, and I don't know the pain they've been through or are currently going through.

Sorry, that's not how I roll.

Do unto others as you want them to do unto you.  So simple.  So true.  So foreign to youth today.  Wonder why?

Politics & Religion

Totally enjoying the chaos that has just broadsided the DNC in the form of FBI Director Comey announcing he's reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails less than two weeks before the election.  On a Friday.  After 1pm.  She's not been able to distance herself from the emails since it was made public and now she's got the added bonus of having the emails connected with an underage sex story in the form of sleazy perv Anthony Weiner, the husband of Hillary's hand-maiden Huma Abedin.  Also, why don't they call her Huma Weiner?  Inquiring minds want to know!

What I'm going to ask now...involves 2 gallons of nitro glycerin, 3 pygmy fainting goats, an all-expense paid round-trip to the Quickie Mart for kerosene and coffee, around 4 dozen angry Hell's Angels, the Spanish Inquisition, the Lost Ark of the Covenant, Blackbeard's treasure and an angry sleep-deprived pregnant wife.  Are you with me?

Right now, a half-dozen people in the world are laughing at the paragraph above.  Those are people that have been employed or associated with one John Kuzmier over the years.  I could write a book on this one joker, 100% honest and true, and not one reader would believe the words on the pages.  Kuzmier came across to me as a little shady on our first meeting, but he offered me a job, so I had to set that aside.  Started on Monday, on Friday he writes me a paycheck for Monday through Wednesday my first week.  He sends me to HIS bank with other employees to cash our checks.  No problem on the first two, but when my turn came the teller shook her head and said "there's not enough in the account to cash your check, sorry!"  Yeah.  His wife bought that check from me that evening at their home for cash.  His wife.

Sorry.  I'm just not excited at all about either Halloween or the upcoming 40th anniversary high school reunion.  Haven't had a single visitor the last two Halloweens here, and never considered going to the reunion in the first place.  High school was an awkward situation I was glad to be done with and I was on the road within a few years travelling with a show band playing a six-state area 28 days out of the month.  When I came off of the road and ready to take roots again, I was a different animal in many ways from the kid that graduated high school and drove across town to college...

Nuts and Bolts

Had a wonderful 'guest' here today, a gentleman who I didn't even get his name.  He was born in Mexico and worked 15 years as a cook on a ship, he's seen the world and had GREAT stories.  He laughed when I commented that my cat, Pip, is a "yankee" cat (he's from MD, so technically not a 'yankee') and the word "gringo" came out of his mouth.  The two other Mexican folks with him froze until they realized the conversation we were having.

Classic TV was playing in the background, a black and white episode of Gunsmoke showing as he asked if I knew who Pancho Villa was.  Knowing him, he explains that the president of the US ordered the army to capture him.  At that point in time our army was wearing green uniforms, earlier versions of todays.  Villa instructed his people to form a line of sentries to be on the lookout for the green-clad army.  When you spot them, you rush to the next sentry station and report you've seen the 'green' and you need to 'go' to the next sentry station and so on.  So the phrase used by the exhausted sentries was actually "Green!  Go!"

So I'm told that's where the term "gringo" comes from, and it's not said to be any sort of slur or insult.  I guess if he wasn't such a likable guy, I could have whipped out my photos from CMLL in 2006 and tell him that me and Canek are besties, but I didn't.  Great guy, great worker, he leaves me with an apartment looking 100% better than it did when he arrived.  Pleasant surprise of the day, CHECK!

And yes, I AM getting evil with a CNN Don Lemon graphic, which I have altered to allow me to add photos and a CNN caption to.  I've made a handful already and I'm sure there will be more!

For the old schoolers, I did a half-baked series of photos of both Otto Schwanz and Playboy Tripp.  Found one that was never published.  Enjoy, ya'll!

Upside Down, Inside Out

Been a few since I 'remembered' to update this puppy, which is still mostly unknown of, so let me drop a few random thoughts here:

How "old school" do you have to be to actually get excited about buying a new flip-phone?  I'm there.  Battery in my Acutel TracFone started getting weird and I picked up a new LG today at Wallace World.  Still haven't bought minutes in 3 or 4 months, currently have 100 minutes in the account.  Yeah, I paid a whopping $15 for the new phone!  BTW, TracFone is the way to go if you don't want to pay for service you don't use.

I've personally had enough of these "athletes" using the National Anthem as a way to draw attention to themselves in "protest" of this injustice or that.  Professional athletes are VERY well paid for what they do and they can afford to make their point on numerous platforms without insulting those who died in service and defense of our country.  ECU's band actually had members kneeling and not playing the Anthem?  They'd be on their way home, each and every one of them.  The white kids raising their fists during the Anthem at the Carolina football game?  Remember, there are video cameras EVERYWHERE these days kids.  Keep it up.  When the blowback hits, you're going to want to pretend you're surprised, otherwise the whole victim act is a waste of time.

Notice I didn't mention the falling NFL ratings in the above paragraph?

This NFL season's first quarter came to an end with everything upside down and standings are turned inside out.  It's early in this marathon season and I'm not in a panic over the Carolina Panther's 1-3 start despite Cam being concussed and likely out on Monday night.  I laughed out loud on Sunday watching the Cowboys and 49ers.  Early in the 2nd quarter with the 49ers in front, Troy Aikman starts lamenting about "when will Tony Romo return?"  If Jerry Jones would quit getting facelifts long enough to use his brain, he'd send Romo packing for whatever he can get in return for him and use all of that freed up salary cap to build a monster around Dak Prescott.  And yeah, I am NOT a Cowboy fan.

Folks who have inadequate or even no insurance for their belongings and home are living a lie.  If you can't afford to protect what you have, you can't afford it.

Still having a blast with the Pip Rocket.  Fun, crazy cat that plays fetch and sleeps on my feet.  Most mornings around 5:30 he crawls up the bed to my elbow wanting to be petted.  He's went from silent kitty to very vocal kitty in the past few weeks and he's began selectively attacking rolls of paper towels, bananas, apples and assorted potatoes.  Yup, we have to hide the bananas.

Pip says "hi, ya'll."  Until next time, happy trails, partners!

When You Thought You'd Seen It All

Rest assured you'll either see something unexpected or something you've seen before.  What other choices are there?

Our band released our political opus on SoundCloud yesterday, our take on politics in 2016, "Electile Dysfunction".  Here's the link to the RoxX tune:

RoxX: ELECTILE DYSFUNCTION

Lyrics and credits are contained on the link above ya'll.

So tell me, how does it feel to be described as a "basketful of deplorables"?  I rather like it.  Has an old school feel to it.  The only name I like better is "deadbeats and ne'er-do-wells", but who's to complain?

BABY TIME!

Grand-daughter Imogen breaking hearts.

Short but sweet, thanks to the baby pic!  Take care kids, act like ya'll got some sense, aiight?

The Handbag is FULL

I don't know what to think about the news stories I read every day about retail employees refusing to wait on uniformed police officers.  The one that grabbed my attention today happened at a Walmart store in St. Cloud Florida, where a uniformed police officer was refused service because of "skin color" according to both the local TV news AND Walmart.  Walmart refuses to comment, as they refer to this as a "personnel issue".  Walmart admits that not one, but TWO employees refused to wait on the officer and indicated the reason why they would not wait on him was the officer's skin color.

I'm sorry.  Actually, I'm NOT sorry,  I'm sick of this.  When Walmart gets ripped off they have no qualms with calling their local police and expecting professional service.  Sorry, but that whole "service" thing goes both ways.  Service and professionalism are both two-way streets.  Same for the fast-food places that are refusing service or tampering with officer's orders.

It's not a personnel issue as Walmart contends, it's a total breakdown of respect in the United States by an entire generation of snot-noses who have no work ethic, no common sense, no pride and VERY limited intelligence.  It's a generation being raised by a previous generation that has had everything handed to them, and has finally seized the idea that not only do they not have to work for a living, but they also now want to control the incomes of those who DO work.

You can't blame this phenomenon on Black Lives Matter, or even that walking turd Obama, but you can certainly blame it on a lack of home training.  If your child proves himself to be a classless, base, ignorant and rude individual, it is a reflection on their home life and the parents.  Yeah.  It's YOUR fault if you've allowed your kid to become a self-centered criminal with no home training.  It's ALL YOU.

LBJ told the world that they'd keep the plantation open and running for fifty years, and he was correct.  It's much easier to pretend to be a victim that requires special treatment, support and safe spaces than it is to be an adult that understands responsibilities and takes care of his own family.  Leather bootstraps, which one used to pull himself up by have been replaced with plastic Crocs and initiative has been kidnapped and held ransom by the social media hive mind.  Common sense is a trait you only read about today, especially in the media and in politics.  

Everyone that my generation was taught to give the highest respect, like our military heroes, our law enforcement officers and rescue personnel have been relegated to the back pages by a generation that demands a higher minimum wage to flip burgers than our emergency medical responders earn today.  Who decided that "protesting" was the way to get more free stuff?  What happened to that initiative that used to burn like a wildfire across America?

You all know the answers to those questions.  And I'm gonna tell ya, this country has gone to hell in a handbag...