Sup pissies-

The month of October is gonna be a busy one.  Friday night, Nine and I will be throwing Fireman a bachelor party and you’re invited.  We’ll start at Croc’s in Spartanburg at around 9 and then make our way around the Upstate.  Saturday, well Saturday is the day Simpsonville will change forever.  The Planet’s Birthday Bash 14.  You know the drill-Five Finger Death Punch, Drowning Pool, Skillet, and Fuel.  God, it’s gonna be good!  Next Saturday, the wedding of the year-Miss Charlotte Paige WTPT and Mr. Chris Fireman become one.  Well technically, they’ve been living in sin for years.  Then fast forward to October 30th….The Rise Guys 8th (I think) Big Ass Hallow-Wing costume party at Wild Wing Cafe in downtown Greenville.

In the meantime enjoy me and my kid being dumb on the webcam-here’s the Berea News.

I was getting my hair done yesterday and Timmy asked me about our vows. Did you write your own marriage vows? I laughed and said no…… But, If I did, they would be realistic. I vow to wake you up ,because I fart and snore in my sleep. I vow to leave the cabinets open. I vow to leave the cap off the tooth paste. I vow to leave you with no toilet paper. I vow to leave the seat up. I vow to eat the last bit of something. I vow to complain about family, work, money etc. I vow to change the channel when you are watching your favorite show. I vow to make you cry. I vow to make you laugh. I vow to embarrass you. I vow to say the wrong the at the wrong time. I vow to have no sympathy for you when you are sick. I vow to fight with you over something stupid. I vow to fight with you during holidays. I vow to not listen to anything you say. I vow to ask for your and advice and opinion, and then ignore it. I will love you…. to death do we part.

This weekend I went up to NC to see Tessa since she had to work Friday night and then again Sunday morning.  On Saturday we went to her local Verizon store to cash in on the buy one, get any phone free with the purchase on the new Droid Fascinate.  She had just switched to Verizon just the day before and purchased the new phone by Samsung and wanted me to get one since I could get it free.  Granted I had to change my phone number but that’s a small price to pay for such a fascinating phone with killer apps!

Yesterday, Tessa came into town after working all night and we went out to grab a copy of Iron Man 2 on Blu-ray as well as pizza and other various munchies.  I was a little disappointed with the film the second time around partially because I saw it in IMAX the first time and also because I realized it actually did not quite live up to the original.  Still not a bad sequel by any means and it serves as a focal point for the build up for The Avengers.

Iron Man 2  \m/  \m/  \m/  \m/

Throughout history the debate continues. It sounds like a Gladiator fight. The Romans were entertained by carnage. The Rise Guys are debating this topic. Nine says that Grissly Bears will win. Matt believes that a Lion will kill the bear. Nine thinks that bears are bigger.
Matt thinks that Lions are more ferocious. What do you think?

Here are eight things you do every day that will lead you to a quicker demise …

Sit on the couch and not exercise.
Eat junk.
Drink too much.
Drive like an idiot.
Smoke.
Hang around people who smoke.
Go tanning.
Tick off a gun owner.

I’m excited for our golf tournament tomorrow. I’m excited, football is here, my son is finally old enough to learn about the pros and cons of a 3-4 defense. Or my favorite defense to run on Madden an all out Monster Blitz out of the Dime 3-3-5 package. Times are good around my household. If anything changes, you will be the first to know, lol. Go Tigers by the way, looked great against Auburn and will take Miami for sure, on the way to another ACC Championship Game. Bet.

With the surprising and senseless death of Kenny McKinley in Denver this week, a simmering debate has taken one more step toward raging out of control. Lately sports writers and retired athletes wearing bad suits on ESPN have been spending a lot of time talking about concussions, especially amongst football player. Athletes have gotten so big and fast and strong that violence on the field has far outpaced the evolution of football safety equipment along with the evolution of knee ligaments.
Already Sports Illustrated and all manner of bloggers have posed the question of McKinley’s concussion history. Odds are every football player has suffered through a few concussions, even if a few mild ones may have gone undiagnosed along the way. Odds are just about everyone has suffered through a concussion or two at some point. At least I hope I’m not the only one haphazardly banging my head off every available hard surface.
The new theory on concussions says a history of concussions possibly leads to an increased risk of suicide and general insane behavior. There’s a long list of cases to support this theory, which is gaining steam by the day.
Former Philadelphia Eagle Andre Waters committed suicide in 2006. A study on his brain revealed the tissue had degenerated to the point it became similar to that of a man in his 80s rather than a 43-year-old professional athlete.
It’s called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Owen Daniels, a University of Pennsylvania football player, committed suicide in April. He too showed signs of CTE due to a history of concussions.
The man who first asked the concussion question is a former Harvard football player named Chris Nowinski. He went on to be a WWE wrestler for a few years before ultimately retiring because of concussions. His history of concussions left him battling migraines and depression. He spearheaded the efforts to research this. He acquired Andre Waters’ brain for research by doctors at the University of Pittsburgh.
The Pitt doctors also did research on two former Steelers players. Mike Webster died homeless and crazy of heart failure. His brain also showed the effects of numerous concussions. Terry Long’s brain showed the signs, too. He committed suicide in 2005.
Sadly, there are several other confirmed cases and several dozen cases of suicide and bizarre behavior where the brains of those involved were unable to be examined.
The theory hit the mainstream hard with the death of Andre Waters and the Chris Benoit murder-suicide. Benoit’s brain was examined at the University of West Virginia and their report said it resembled the brain of an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient.
This all seems like a lot of hard evidence that a history of concussions leads to an increased suicide risk, among many other possible complications.

Seeing as how I like to go against the grain, I’d like to raise another point. I’d like to point out a bunch of people who didn’t have the same concussion history as these various athletes, but people who did have one thing in common with the football players and rasslers.
Ray Combs was the host of Family Feud when I was a kid. After his time on the Feud was over, Ray Combs injured his spine rather than his head in a car crash and was left in constant pain for the rest of his life. From there proceeded to lose some businesses and most of his money along with his mind. In the end, he used his bedsheets to hang himself while being held in a hospital on a 72-hour suicide watch.
Dana Plato is another example. She was on Diff’rent Strokes and she was huge as a teenager. She had a long history of drug and alcohol problems and it finally caught up to her when she overdosed on Soma and Lortab at 34.
Hugh O’Connor was a stud on In The Heat of the Night. He was like a mini-Bubba. He survived Hodgkins Lymphoma as a teenager, but had long-lasting addiction problems after taking prescription pain pills and marijuana during his illness. He shot himself in 1995. He had cocaine in his blood at the time, but no history of concussions.
Those are three examples of people who didn’t have a concussion history, but did have some manner of notoriety and problems related to their own fame along with the same life struggles faced by millions of people everywhere.
Like the athletes, they were at least somewhat notable figures dealing with the pressure of that. Dana Plato took sleeping pills and pain pills and she died from it. Hugh O’Connor became addicted to prescription pain pills. Ray Combs suffered a severe spinal injury and relied on pain pills to make it through his daily life.
It stands to reason that maybe we should look into the fact that notable people kill themselves more often than us more anonymous masses.
On the other hand, it stands to reason that maybe pharmaceuticals have as much to do with it as concussions or fame. Think about your favorite musicians who killed themselves and all the actors I didn’t get to. Think about all the non-notable people who kill themselves. Think about people paying 10 dollars per pill to get their hands on Oxycontin. Think about all the football injuries and the surgeries…and the pain pills.
I’ll bring up Charles Rogers. The Lions drafted him #2 overall in the 2003 NFL draft. He got hurt, and he never made a successful comeback because he became addicted to the painkillers he took while recovering from his injuries.
Christopher Nowinski, the Harvard man who came up with this concussion theory, works in Boston…in pharmaceuticals.

Friday night was the second show for DETHRO TULL and the last one until we get a disc ready.  We played out on the loading dock of the local brewery RJ Rockers in downtown Spartanburg – hence the name “Rock on the Dock”.  We came out guns blazing and topped our debut show by a long shot!  I took advantage of the loading ramp as I was constantly running up and down the ramp while playing.

What was really awesome was that my Aunt Pat showed up wearing a DETHRO TULL shirt as was my brother and my mom managed to make the show as well as my biological father.  Insanity!  On Tessa’s side was her mom and her mom’s best friend Paula as well as Tessa’s best friend Krista and her boyfriend Chris.  Not to mention the ever-so-increasing number of DT fans and friends!  Killer show and a great turn-out!

After our set, HONEY WAGON put on a couple of great sets while we mingled and sold a good amount of merch!  Afterwards, I loaded my gear up and the four of us (Krista, Chris, Tessa and myself) hit up Denny’s for some late night chow.

We (the four of us since Krista and Chris stayed the night with me and Tessa at my apartment) had to get up early and head to Anderson where I was broadcasting live at Aarons Sales and Lease on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.  During the broadcast, Tessa, Krista and Chris ran over to grab some fun stuff from Toys ‘R’ Us and then we all later hit the Anderson Jockey Lot for some ‘redneck shoppin’.

After the jockey lot, we returned to Greenville and caught the new horror flick written by M. Night Shyamalan, Devil.  Undoubtedly you have seen the trailer for this one about five strangers trapped in an elevator with one of them being the Devil in the flesh.  Very good thriller with lots of suspense!

Devil  \m/  \m/  \m/  \n

After the movie we all rode to the Haywood Mall to do some ‘non-redneck shoppin’ and made a stop at Build-A-Bear so the girls could go crazy and craft themselves a new stuffed critter to love!  Tessa wanted me to pick out her animal which I did but only with a large amount of guidance!  She ended up with a cute little doggie with a scrub outfit since she’s a nurse.  I kept trying to come up with names like ‘Barkley’ and ‘Begley’ and then Tessa suggested ‘Bob’ which I had too considered and then it dawned on me: Bob Barker!  Oh yeah, we’re geigh!

When we got back to my apartment, Krista and Chris left to head back to NC while Tessa and I got ready to head to the House in Simpsonville to see SIX AND TWENTY, DOGFIGHT and PSYCHO SPOON.  PSYCHO SPOON features former NILE drummer, Pete Hammoura and they even played with his former bandmate, Karl Sanders as special guest guitarist for the show!

Afterwards, DOGFIGHT took the stage and slayed killer covers of “Redneck” by LAMB OF GOD, “Leper Messiah” by METALLICA and even “Holy Wars…The Punishment Due” by MEGADETH!  I’m STILL grinning!

I had to take off shortly into SIX AND TWENTY’s set since it was after 1 am and I am getting old!  However I did manage to wish their frontman and fellow co-worker Tyler a happy birthday!

Sunday Tessa and I joined my mom, brother and Aunt Pat for Sunday dinner which featured meatloaf (my favorite), mashed potatoes, sweet peas, corn and homemade mac ‘n’ cheese!  NOM NOM NOM!

Afterwards Tessa and I retired early and watched my Tampa Bay Bucs take down the Carolina Panthers – pretty much the ONLY time I will root AGAINST the Panthers!  It was all day football, Simpsons and Family Guy followed by a night showing of Pixar’s Up!  Ah, a good weekend indeed!

Well, my vacation is now over so it’s back to business as usual but it’s okay because I feel refreshed after getting away from it all for a while. When I last blogged, I was concerned about Hurricane Earl causing problems since Tessa and I were getting ready to head to Richmond, VA the next day. However, we didn’t see a drop of rain or hardly even a cloud for the duration of the trip!

We took our time getting to Richmond on Thursday and took it easy since we were heading to Kings Dominion the next morning. And boy what a day at Kings Dominion! We rode as much as we could for eight hours hitting Volcano twice and then hit the hotel pool and hot tub before retiring.

The next day we checked out and made our way down the road to Williamsburg, VA so we could hit Busch Gardens the following day. We stopped and visited the Science Museum of Virginia to check out their exhibits and their IMAX Dome and Planetarium. Busch Gardens was a cluster fornication being it was Sunday on Labor Day weekend so we didn’t get to ride as much as we had at Kings Dominion but it was okay because, honestly, there wasn’t as many rides we really wanted to ride but the ones we did were AWESOME especially Griffon!

When the day was over, Tessa and I just went through a Taco Bell drive-thru and got the Grande Meal to take back to our room! I think I remember that meal the most out of ALL of our great dining experiences on our trip because it was good, simple, cheap and we got to enjoy it in the comfort of our room! Ah, the simple pleasures of life!

The next day we checked out and made our way back down to North Carolina and checked into a last minute hotel room in Charlotte so we could extend our trip and hit Discovery Place the next day. After hitting Discovery Place, Tessa and I made our way home and I even managed to make it to band rehearsal that night! The next two days we stayed in town and took in the new horror film The Last Exorcism, a creepy little flick in the vein of The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby and shot in first person ala The Blair Witch Project.  Full of jumps and twists and quite eerie!

The Last Exorcism  \m/  \m/  \m/  \

Now, as of Friday, I am back at work and BACK IN BUSINESS!!!!

I can’t remember if it was the first or the second Birthday Bash? We had someone build a guitar. The 933 guitar was made for the station. I remember we also gave away a custom guitar. It means a lot to me when I see some of the things people have made for us. It is amazing to look out into the audience and see all of your faces. The P1 Family has definantly grown. We love to see banners with 933 on it. So, at Birthday Bash show your p1 pride!!! Create your own style with t-shirt and signs. I can’t wait to see your artistic talent.
. I can’t wait to see your work on Oct 2.