Djmattsexton&#8217;s Blog

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June 24, 2011 Posted by djmattsexton | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Greetings from Port Columbus Airport-NOT where I was hoping to be at this time!

GREETINGS from Port Columbus Airport…where I have been since just after 1am, as I was notified my flight was cancelled at 11:30pm…due to “weather.” While I am very appreciative of the info (glad the e-mail alert woke me up), I was more than a little frustrated that the 800 number that I was told to call was “down for 3 hours,” and no questions were being answered.

I elected to be proactive and come to the airport since my flight was scheduled to leave at 6:20am. As I was sitting here, I called again and the 800 folks told me I had to talk to a representative at the counter…that was not open till 4am! So I wait and do some work (more work than just keeping my eyes open-which actually caused me to break out in a cold sweat because it was so difficult).

I wait and when a person showed up at 10 till (4am), I approached them and was told they couldn’t do anything till the systems were up and running. This was frustrating cause I was looking at all info FROM MY COMPUTER! But whatever they are the professionals and I don’t ask too many questions. When I did chat with the young lady, she was very nice and tried to be helpful. What did I find out? SHE TOLD ME TO CALL THE 800 number. I swallowed hard, took a deep breath and informed her what I was told. She explained all options and that was none, except to wait till Friday morning to fly out.

I left messages to with the guys I am working with to see what they wanted me to do…I also had not eaten since 5pm the day before so I blew my diet on an Oreo Bar and hot chocolate.

I decided that yes…the airline did not control the weather, however I was given the wrong info, and ya know what? I AM THE CUSTOMER!!! I went back asked for the manager spoke to him in a non-aggressive, yet firm demeanor (and no not the tone like when I worked at concerts). We came to 2 conclusions/agreements 1.) They don’t control the weather 2.) MATT IS RIGHT!

So I got my refund, and on a later flight. Who is this fine organization? It is AirTran, and they are now bought out by Southwest…guess we will see what happens. I am NOT real impressed right now!

BUT BIG PROPS (and I don’t mean prop plane props…) go United, for gettgin me out ahead of schedule.

Here we go…In route to The Show Me Fest in Springfield Mizz. First off Happy Father’s Day to everyone this applies to. Especially my Dad, and my hero my Grandfather. This weekend, I am missing my baby girl (I have not seen her in a few weeks). On this Father’s Day weekend, to the smart a**es out there, quit sending the Father’s Day cards to me, it is no longer funny!

It has been a VERY Busy week stemming from a few AWESOME Days in NashVegas watching others do what I love-while learning and admiring. Then into a RAIN SOAKED Park Street Festival on Friday (I actually found a pair of shoes still wet on Tuesday). To an AMAZING day on Saturday at Flying Horse Farms (awesome charity and BEAUTIFUL campus up in Mt. Gilead), and then back to Park Street for Night 2. Sunday caused me to do something I NEVER do…a 4 hour nap! Monday was with Robert Plant (phenomenal artist TRUE rock star), Hoggy’s Bike Night on Saturday, and Weds working with a client and picking up 2 new clients. I AM VERY THANKFUL AND HAPPY to have the opportunities I have…even this one in the airport!

This week I was asked by a friend what happened to me. I did not know what she meant and …immediately I was defensive (guilty conscious?) She reminded me how miserable I was at one time, and how the last year or so I seem a lot happier. We also swapped stories of a time she didn’t know I was on a “death bed” and still DJ’ed her son’s Bar Mitzvah. She didn’t even know I was sick and was happy with the job I did…before being rushed to the Hospital for an infected Limpf Node. ANYWAY, the important thing is, today I am alive and some great lessons have been learned.

Whatta ya mean?

“Matty what happened to you did you find God?” Hmmm…I didn’t know he was lost, but that is beside the point.

Yea I guess you could say that. I have re-evaluated my faith in all things including the Big Dude above, and I had a special person walk into my life. I may not be with her, but she brought a happiness to my spirit that cannot be described, only lived. I also found the small things to enjoy…those everyday moments that we all look past or take for granted. I also started to B.S. others into thinking I was happy, and somewhere along the way…I B.S.’ed myself, and in turn I realized I AM HAPPY!

I just started thinking happy, allowing my emotions to be what they are, and it all came along and allowed me to be happy. Even if it started as just TRYING to convince myself…it is now true! Now it may be from a person (who I think about everyday and smile), it could be faith in a higher power, it could be from a positive outlook on life, it could be just finding small pleasures in the day…they all add up to something and that is waking up everyday, and looking forward to finding something to be thankful for and enjoy! Life is way too short to not enjoy it, and LIVE IT!

Laugh when you can,
apologize when you should,
and let go of what you can’t change.
Life’s too short to be anything… but happy.

These thoughts also allow me to shrug off the everyday B.S. that is spun by some others, even in attempt to try and realize things are not ALWAYS personal. Sometimes someone is just having a bad day or their best does not mesh with your own worst. Like the song says “there ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy…there’s only you and me and we just disagree.”

This week I was jumped on when trying to help someone. It is kinda funny that this exact same thing happened late last summer as I was trying to help someone. Both instances I was attacked. In the past I would have said some mean things and tried to come out the better person. This is not a priority anymore. Actually I tried to learn from these things and I found an appreciation for both involved. PLUS there is only one common denominator…me. I need to re-evaluate my role in the interaction.

In both instances neither makes someone the bad person….it just means they are passionate about their causes, and that is respected. Even if I don’t agree or like how they approached me-there is admiration in their desires to succeed, and a learning experience for growth!

I stole this from one of the people mentioned above, very appropriate

In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining who we are. ~Max DePree

PLEASE JOIN ME:

EVERY TUESDAY-Hoggy’s Polaris Bike Nights

Great Food, and GREAT drink specials. What goes better than Hogs with Hog?

THIS FRIDAY June 17^th Help provide a vehicle and transportation for a friend of mine who is a missionary in Haiti.

In addition to a good dinner and a GREAT CAUSE, we have a chance for you to bid on some killer prizes including 2 Tickets to see Keith Urban July 19^th at Nationwide Arena (courtesy of Dream Seats-Your Total Ticket Source), and 3 hours of DJ service (limitations apply)

Friday, June 17 · 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Licking Valley High School

Texas Roadhouse Dinner (pizza for children) will be served from 6:00 – 7:30pm

Cost: $20.00 per ticket for steak dinner. Dinner includes Steak, salad, baked potato, rolls, drink and dessert.

Pizza ticket is $5.00 and includes pizza, drink, salad and dessert.

The proceeds will go towards the purchase of a vehicle for Ginny Andrews who is working in Haiti. She currently is using the Haitian public transportation system and is very limited in her mission work with no vehicle. Ginny works Angel Missions Haiti where she oversees getting medical visas for children who need life-saving surgery in the states.

Please see her blog for more information on her work in Haiti:

www.ginnyinhaiti.com

For questions regarding the Benefit Dinner and Silent action please email Summer Conley at summer_conley@hotmail.com.

Donations are being accepted for the Silent Auction. Contact Summer if interested.

RED, WHITE, & BOOM Friday July 1, 2011

Join me on the Long Street Stage with


Noon	Alex White
1pm	Maza laska
2pm	Misfit Toys
3pm	The Forties
4pm	She Bears
5pm	Alleyes Path
6pm	TheCompressis
7pm	Ghost Shirt
8pm	Phantods
9pm-945 10:25 – 11:20	The Queen Tribute Band-Mr Fahrenheit & The Lover Boys
MATT SEXTON MC/DJ ALL

Worthington Family Picnic Monday July 4^th

Thomas Worthington HS, Worthington, OH 43085

Mon July 4th: 4:00 pm-10:00 pm

4th of July before the Fireworks. Bring your family to Thomas Worthington High School

Good Guys Car Show July 8-10

14th PPG Goodguys Nationals (Jul 8-10, Columbus, OH)

At The Ohio Expo Center

The 14th annual Goodguys PPG Hot Rod & Custom Car Nationals returns to the Ohio Expo Center July 8-10. Huge Indoor & Outdoor Happenin’ at the Ohio Expo Center featuring over 6000 hot rods, customs, classics, muscle cars and trick trucks thru ’72. Shop at 100’s of vendor/exhibitor booths or take a trip to the Swap Meet for automotive related parts and Cars 4 Sale. Check out the Street Challenge AutoCross and the Hot Rod How-To Seminars. There’s fun for the whole family with a Goodgals Gallery, a Model Car Show and kids free model make and take plus live entertainment all weekend long!

ARE YOU READY for your Summer Vacation? I can help put you on point and in shape! Send an e-mail to mattsext@gmail.com for availability and specialized individual workout plans.

THOUGHT(s) FOR THE WEEK:

A nap every once in a while is not a waste of time. It’s an investment in dreams.

All that u need, to have all that u want, will be provided, as if by magic, once u know what u want and do something about it every day.-Jason Mraz

“Your life is yours and yours alone. Rise up and live it.” – Terry Goodkind

SONG(s) FOR THE WEEK:

“Born Free”

Fast, on a rough road riding

High, through the mountains climbing

Twisting, turning further from my home.

Young, like a new moon rising

Fierce, through the rain and lightning

Wandering out into this great unknown.

And I don’t want no one to cry,

But tell ’em if I don’t survive:

I was born free!

I was booooooorn free

I was born free, born free.

Free, like a river raging

Strong, if the wind I’m facing.

Chasing dreams and racing fathered time.

Deep like the grandest canyon,

Wild like an untamed stallion.

If you can’t see my heart you must be blind.

You can knock me down and watch me bleed

But you can’t keep no chains on me.

And I’m not good at long goodbyes,

But look down deep into my eyes,

I was born free!

Calm, facing danger,

Lost like an unknown stranger,

Grateful, for my time with no regrets.

Close to my destination,

Tired, frail and achin’,

Waitin’ patiently for the sun to set.

And when it’s done believe that I

Will yell it from that mountain highhh!

I will bow to shining seas

And celebrate God’s grace on me!

WOW!

Saw Robert Plant on Monday with my Buddies from Dream Seats, and our good friend S.B., it was an AMAZING SHOW with great friends!

for now I smell the rain, and with it, pain

and it’s headed my way

Aw, sometimes I grow so tired

but I know I’ve got one thing I got to do

A-ramble on, and now’s the time, the time is now

Sing my song, I’m goin’ ’round the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Xv4pQ9dMQ

Reminds me of growing up back in Nerk Ahia. Plus it is MY form of Country-True Hick Hop!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-iiB_DOySs

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

What won’t Meatloaf do for love???

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GNhdQRbXhc

…maybe he is onto something

HELP:

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them. – Dalai Lama

Anyone know any info on these two?

Sara Apple & 4-year-old son Max missing: Father’s plea, vigil Tuesday

While friends were organizing a candlelight vigil for Tuesday evening to show their support for the family of Sara Apple and her 4-year-old son Max who both vanished Thursday, Sara’s father was issuing a statement and plea for their safe return and thanking people for the overwhelming love and support they have already received.

Sara and Max Apple were last seen Thursday evening between 5:30 and 6 p.m. when Sara picked Max up from daycare. Sara had sent her husband a text saying she was planning to stay at her mother’s home that night. She never made it there and neither she nor her little boy have been heard from or seen since. Police are “looking carefully” at her husband and at all other possible scenarios of their disappearance.

Sara’s father, and Max’s grandfather, Mark Yohman issued the following statement:

“I just wanted to say that Trish [Mark’s wife] and I are overwhelmed by the love and support. We can’t tell you how much it is appreciated. No matter how many times we say thank you it will never be enough. Sara and Max are very loved.

“We spoke to the detectives today and they are leaving no stone unturned. As you may be aware, the FBI is assisting in the search. They are looking in Ohio as well as outside of Ohio. They said to spread the word to everywhere.

“One if the important keys is to find the car. Please share the flyers that are out there. Not only does it have their beautiful pictures, but it lists the make and model of the car.”

“With people like you,” Mark said, “we are going to find them. We cannot wait to Hug Sara and kiss Max’s face all over.”

Important details about Sara’s car

Sara’s car is a 2004 White Saturn Ion. It is missing a passenger side mirror.

There is a family-of-four stick figure sticker on the back window. The license plate is FCQ-5079.

LOCAL NEWS:

Upper Arlington approves new entertainment district

The Upper Arlington City Council opened the door for seven more liquor licenses when it approved a Lane Avenue entertainment district last night.

With all members present, the council voted unanimously in favor of the proposed 40-acre development area from Welsford Road to east of North Star Road.

“It is a good economic development tool and it is something that can enhance and protect one of our commercial corridors,” Mayor Frank Ciotola said this morning.

With passage of the ordinance, the area could add up to seven “D-5j” liquor permits, which allow the sale of beer, wine or liquor in the district. The city has 17 other permit holders, the maximum allowed by state law for its size.

More than a dozen residents voiced continued concerns last night about parking issues in the area, Ciotola said. Most opposed the ordinance.

Critics have said that development along the stretch of Lane Avenue would essentially turn their residential roads into commercial parking lots, and some have pushed for a precinct-wide alcohol ban.

Ciotola said the Council listened to residents’ concerns but that zoning laws already regulate parking issues.

To ban alcohol in the area now, residents would have to force a citywide vote to prohibit alcohol throughout the entertainment district. City officials said it would be difficult to gather wide support for such a ban because the parking issues don’t affect most residents.

Entertainment districts are intended to revitalize communities by promoting sporting, cultural and arts and entertainment establishments. In addition to Easton Town Center, which earned the designation in 1999, Grandview Yard, the Continent, the Arena and Brewery districts and Upper Arlington’s Kingsdale Shopping Center carry the designation.

For an area to qualify as an entertainment district, state law requires at least $50 million in future development for cities of 20,000 to 100,000 residents.

Now that the district has been created, business owners can apply for a liquor license through the state. Ciotola said that, to his knowledge, no applications had been filed yet.

GREAT STORY (of a text that should have been):

Girl : hey

Boy : hii =)

Girl : how are u ??

*Boy types : I’m miserable! I need u back! I miss u ! I LoVe U!

*Then erased it…

and typed,,

Boy : I’m fine

Question is…should the text have been erased?

PASSING:

James Arness, Marshal on ‘Gunsmoke,’ Dies at 88

James Arness portrayed Marshal Matt Dillon on “Gunsmoke” for 20 years after the series debuted in 1955.

James Arness, who burnished the legend of America’s epic West as Marshal Matt Dillon, the laconic peacemaker of Dodge City on “Gunsmoke,” one of the longest-running dramatic series in television history, died on Friday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88.

A family spokeswoman, Ginny Fazer, confirmed the death. Mr. Arness was terribly shy and had almost no training as an actor. A wartime leg wound made it painful for him to mount a horse. But he became the best-known tin star of his era, portraying the towering, weathered marshal for 20 years, from 1955 to 1975. He also made some 50 films and television movies, mostly westerns, in a career that stretched across five decades.

To a generation of television viewers, Mr. Arness and “Gunsmoke” embodied a new, more adult vision of the mythic Old West: a quiet, vulnerable lawman facing not stereotyped villains and clichéd situations but a chaotic frontier freighted with moral judgments and occasional failure. He might be too late to stop a killing. He could save a girl from kidnappers, but not from her father’s brutality.

Audiences had long been accustomed to western heroes who never were, having been sanitized by the trail songs of Gene Autry and Roy Rogers and the righteous gunplay of the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy . But Marshal Dillon never got the girl, did not love his horse, wore only one gun and fired it reluctantly, usually drawing last but shooting straightest in dusty street duels. Over the years, the marshal was shot 30 times.

Mr. Arness, a 6-foot-7 giant whose stoic personality was remarkably like his character’s, was ideal for the part. He had been reared in a family of Norwegian descent in Minnesota and became an outdoorsman who loved fishing and hunting. He came home from World War II a wounded, decorated and aimless veteran. He worked menial jobs, tried radio and was collecting veterans’ benefits when he drifted to Hollywood.

He developed slowly, appearing in 30 movies before his mentor, John Wayne, rejected the Dillon role and recommended him instead. “Gunsmoke,” which began in 1952 as a radio show with William Conrad, landed on the CBS television network as a half-hour black-and-white drama set in a raw Kansas town in 1873.

In the premiere, which established the tone for the series, Marshal Dillon faces a gunslinger who had killed an unarmed man. The outlaw insists on a showdown, and the marshal, always a moral touchstone, must accommodate him.

“He’s a gunman, Doc,” Dillon says to Doc Adams. “He has got to be eliminated.”

The supporting cast was a snug family, stock but multilayered characters who spent much time talking: the beer-drinking philosopher, Doc (Milburn Stone); the careworn Long Branch saloonkeeper, Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake), her love unrequited; and the lame sidekick, Chester Goode (Dennis Weaver). Characters and actors came and went in tales that often focused on travelers passing through on their way west.

“Gunsmoke” was not an instant success. But from 1957 to 1961, when it became a one-hour series, it was the top-rated show on television, seen every week by 40 million Americans and millions more in Britain, where it was called “Gun Law.” It bred dozens of copycats, including “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “Wagon Train,” “Rawhide,” “The Rifleman” and “Bonanza.”

The ratings declined until 1967, when color and a new time slot sent “Gunsmoke” back into the Top 10 until the 1973-74 season. The show was still in the Top 30 when it was canceled in 1975. In its 20-year run, there had been 635 episodes. Mr. Arness had been in the saddle for all of them, and would ride again through decades of reruns and sequels.

He was born James King Aurness in Minneapolis on May 26, 1923, one of two sons of Rolf Aurness, who sold medical supplies, and the former Ruth Duesler. (His parents divorced in the 1940s.)

Mr. Arness’s younger brother was the actor Peter Graves, who starred for years on television in “Mission: Impossible” and appeared in scores of movies, including “Airplane!” (1980) . He died in March 2010.

James attended public schools and graduated from West High School in Minneapolis in 1942.

In his first year at Beloit College in Wisconsin, Mr. Arness was drafted into the wartime Army as an infantryman. During the invasion of Anzio, Italy, in 1944, his right leg was shattered by machine-gun fire. Hospitalized for nearly a year, he underwent a series of operations but for many years suffered pain, especially when mounting a horse, and walked with a slight limp. He won the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart.

After the war he returned to Minnesota, took odd jobs and was a radio announcer before moving to Los Angeles in 1946. He began acting at an amateur theater and met the producer Dore Schary, who put him in a few movies in 1947. Unsure of his future, he drifted around Mexico, but returned to Hollywood determined to be an actor called James Arness.

In 1948 he married Virginia Chapman and adopted her son by a previous marriage, Craig. The couple had two children, Jenny and Rolf, and were divorced in 1963. In 1978 he married Janet Surtees; they lived in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. She and Rolf Arness survive him, along with a stepson, Jim Surtees. Survivors also include six grandchildren and a great-grandchild. Jenny Arness died in 1975, and Craig in 2004.

Critics praised Mr. Arness’s performance as an unjustly accused man in “The People Against O’Hara” (1951), and he was memorable if unrecognizable in the title role of the science-fiction thriller “The Thing From Another World,” better known as just “The Thing” (1951). In the next few years he was in dozens of films, including “Big Jim McLain” (1952) and “Hondo” (1953), which both starred John Wayne.

Wayne was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars then, and a television role did not seem the right move for him. But Mr. Arness, his protégé, turned out to be a masterly casting choice. Its 20-year tenure made “Gunsmoke” the longest-running scripted prime-time show in American television history, a record that stood until it was broken by “The Simpsons” in 2009. (“Law & Order” reached the 20-year mark in 2010, but was canceled before it could overtake “Gunsmoke.” No other show currently on the air comes close.) Besides reruns, it spun off books, board games, a trove of merchandise and endless nostalgia.

Mr. Arness was nominated for three Emmy Awards in the “Gunsmoke” years and later made dozens of television movies, including “The Alamo” (1987) and “Red River” (1988). He also starred in the mini-series “How the West Was Won” (1977) and the short-lived crime series “McCain’s Law” (1981). From 1987 to 1993 he also made five

“Gunsmoke” television-movie sequels. “James Arness: An Autobiography,” written with James E. Wise Jr., was published in 2001.

BIRTHDAY:

This week in 1775 and in 1777, two of the nation’s three most important events took place.

The creation of the Continental Army — in 1775 — and the design of the American flag — in 1777 — were done by resolutions passed by the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia.

Of course, sandwiched between those two events was the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

It seems strange that the Continental Congress first decided it had to have an Army, before independence was declared and before soldiers had a national flag under which to fight.

But, like any legislative body, past, present or future, that’s how things work.

In 1775 the resolution which was adopted called for a small military force totaling 810 men in 10 companies.

The decision stated: “Resolved that six companies of expert riflemen be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland and two in Virginia; that each Company consist of a captain, three lieutenants, four sergeants, four corporals, a drummer or trumpeter; and 68 privates.

“That each company, as soon as completed, will march and join the Army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry under the command of the Chief Officer of that Army.

“That the pay of the officers and private be as follows: a captain 20 dollars per month; a lieutenant at 131⁄2 dollars; a sergeant at 8 dollars; a corporal at 71⁄2 dollars; a drummer or (trumpeter) at 71⁄2 dollars; privates at 62⁄3 dollars; to find their own arms and clothes.

“That the form of enlistment be in the following words: ‘I have this day, voluntarily enlisted myself as a soldier in the American Continental Army, for one year, unless sooner discharged. And I do bind myself to conform in all instances to such rules and regulations as are, or will be, established for the government of said Army.’ ”

Hence started the nation’s land forces, which during the past 236 years have fought in many wars and other lesser engagements as the Army flag with its 183 battle streamers, attests.

There are 16 streamers issued for the Revolutionary War, six for the War of 1812, 10 for the war with Mexico, 25 for the Civil War, 14 for Indian campaigns from 1790 through 1891, three for the Spanish American War, three for the China Relief Expedition, 11 for the Philippine Insurrection, one for the Mexican Border Service, 13 for World War I, one for the World War II American Campaign, 21 for World War II Asiatic Pacific Campaign, 16 for the World War II European-African-Middle East Campaign, 10 for the Korean War, 17 for the Vietnam War, three for Armed Forces Expeditionary conflicts, three for Southwest Asia Service, one for the Kosovo Campaign, one for the Afghanistan Campaign, one for the Global War on Terrorism and one for the Iraq Campaign, as well as numerous presidential citations and other commendation streamers.

Whenever the Army flag is with all it’s streamers it is a reminder of the service’s 236 years, beginning with a little more than 800 soldiers.

As for the creation of the American flag, it was established by a resolution 234 years ago today.

The decision simply stated: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States, be 13 stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be 13 stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.”

Often the design of the Betsy Ross flag — with 13 stars in a circle in the blue union — has been touted as the first.

But, historically there is no such evidence, while there is some the design did not appear until the 1790s, and there is no connection the design was actually hers. However, she did make flags of various designs.

As each new state was admitted a new stripe and star was added until someone realized if it continued the size of the flag would become unwieldy, which led to a decision to limit the stripes to 13, one for each of the original states, and to add a star for each state, which now numbers 50.

Today is a day to honor two special parts of our history — the Stars and Stripes and the soldiers pledged to defend the national banner, and by doing so, the freedom and liberties of every American citizen.

ENTERTAINMENT:

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. —–. Ferris Bueller

“Life moves pretty fast,” as a famous teenage philosopher once said, and before you know it, a quarter-century has gone by. It’s hard to believe it’s been 25 years since the release of ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ (on June 11, 1986).

Though dated in some ways (there’s a lot that clearly marks it as a product of the ’80s), the movie feels as fresh as ever, thanks to the eternal exuberance of Matthew Broderick in the title role and the ability to accurately evoke timeless teenage concerns that was writer/director John Hughes’ trademark.

And time certainly hasn’t diminished the movie’s impact, which continues to be felt to this day. Here are some of the ways ‘Ferris Bueller’ has influenced pop culture — not just movies, but also TV, music and beyond.

Movies
‘Ferris Bueller’ earned $70.1 million, making it the 10th biggest hit of 1986. It cemented the reputations of teen star Broderick (famous since 1983’s ‘WarGames’) and teen-life comic auteur Hughes (who had already released ‘Sixteen Candles,’ ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Pretty in Pink’). It was actually the last teen movie Hughes would direct (he wrote one more, ‘Some Kind of Wonderful,’ which was essentially a rewrite of ‘Pretty in Pink’ with the sexes reversed); after ‘Ferris,’ he turned to writing comedies about clueless adults (‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles,’ which featured another memorable role for ‘Ferris’ co-star Edie McClurg) or very small children (‘Home Alone,’ ‘Baby’s Day Out,’ which were largely ‘Ferris’ rewrites with much younger protagonists).

Still, ‘Ferris’ made a big impression on young, aspiring filmmakers who saw it. Kevin Smith’s movies have numerous references to ‘Ferris,’ and his Jay and Silent Bob characters frequently break the fourth wall to address or wink at the audience, à la Ferris. Jason Reitman, who would grow up to make ‘Juno’ (featuring perhaps the smartest-talking screen teen since Ferris) and ‘Up in the Air,’ has said that seeing ‘Ferris’ changed his life.

‘Ferris’ made stars out of most of its cast. Mia Sara, who played Ferris’ girlfriend, Sloane, enjoyed a run, however brief, as a leading lady in movies and TV miniseries. Alan Ruck (glum pal Cameron), who cited it as the best movie role he’s ever had, went on to a successful run on TV’s ‘Spin City.’ Jeffrey Jonesand McClurg have enjoyed long careers as character actors, but both are best remembered for their roles as vengeful principal Rooney and his bubble-haired secretary, Grace.

Jennifer Grey parlayed her role as Ferris’ sulky sister Jeanie into a lead the following year in the movie that cemented her fame, ‘Dirty Dancing.’ Lyman Ward and Cindy Pickett, who played Ferris’s sweet, clueless parents, fell in love and married in real life; they also played parents again in the 1992 horror film ‘Sleepwalkers.’ And the film offered most moviegoers their first glimpse of Charlie Sheen, as the bad-boy drug offender who charms Jeanie. (Not a big stretch, perhaps, though he proved his versatility by playing a straight-arrow soldier later that year in ‘Platoon.’)

And Matthew Broderick? As he noted during his tribute to Hughes at the 2010 Oscars, “For the past 25 years, nearly every day someone comes up to me, taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Hey, Ferris, is this your day off?'” For all his career success in movies and on Broadway over the last 25 years, Ferris remains his signature role. He seems a little irritated by that notion, as if fans won’t let him move on, but he’s also used it to his advantage. Fans’ fondness for Ferris is what made Broderick’s shocking performance as an embittered high school teacher in 1999’s ‘Election’ work. To see a gone-to-seed Broderick scrambling to crush irrepressible student Reese Witherspoon’s perky ambitions is to realize with horror that Ferris Bueller has grown up to become Mr. Rooney.

Even Ben Stein, playing a droning economics teacher who didn’t even have a name, turned his brief ‘Ferris Bueller’ appearance into a career. His flat, dull voice and know-it-all manner made him an in-demand comic actor, commercial spokesman, even game show host (‘Win Ben Stein’s Money,’ in which he matched wits with contestants over trivia challenges). He’d been a speechwriter for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, but still, he owes his prominence as an economic pundit to the fact that he played one in a teen movie.

Television
Ben Stein’s career wasn’t the only incidence of ‘Ferris Bueller”s impact on the small screen. There were some direct attempts to duplicate the film’s success by converting it into a sitcom. One was NBC’s ‘Ferris Bueller,’ which starred Charlie Schlatter (later of ‘Diagnosis Murder’) as Ferris and an unknown namedJennifer Aniston as Jeanie; the other, a knockoff called ‘Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,’ aired on Fox and starred Corin Nemec. Both shows debuted in 1990. Curiously, the ‘Ferris’ show was canceled due to low ratings after 13 episodes, while the ersatz Ferris on Fox lasted three seasons.

The movie’s frequent breaking of the fourth wall wasn’t new to TV (George Burns had done it for years in his 1950s sitcom), but it became an increasingly popular device after Hughes and ‘Ferris’ popularized it. The smart-alecky teen leads on ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ and ‘Malcolm in the Middle’ frequently turned aside to address the viewers.

Music
The parade scene’s use of ‘Danke Schoen’ introduced a whole new generation to Wayne Newton, and it sent the Beatles’ 23-year-old recording of ‘Twist and Shout’ rocketing back up the singles chart. Years later, alt-rockers Save Ferris and Rooney would take their band names from the movie.

The film’s most lasting musical legacy, though, was popularizing Swiss band Yello’s song “Oh Yeah.” Played while the camera lingers lovingly over Cameron’s dad’s Ferrari, the song started popping up in othermovies and TV shows and turned into a sonic cliché, quick shorthand for the on-screen introduction of a drool-worthy hot car or hot babe.

And Beyond …
In 1990, First Lady Barbara Bush quoted Ferris’s “Life moves pretty fast” epigram during a college commencement speech. (Her husband’s vice president, Dan Quayle, cited ‘Ferris’ as his favorite movie.) Stein’s “Bueller … Bueller …” and “Anyone? … Anyone? …” became popular catchphrases.

Academics have debated what ‘Ferris Bueller”s ultimate meaning is. For some, it’s a relic of the Reagan ’80s, a celebration of wealth, privilege and selfishness set to a drum-machine beat. And it is that, though if it were just about snobbery and solipsism, moviegoers would resent Ferris as much as Jeanie does. Yet he remains popular among people of all backgrounds. (“The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads — they all adore him,” says Grace. “They think he’s a righteous dude.”)

Why does everyone want to be Ferris, or at least befriend him? It’s that urge to enjoy life’s pleasures and experience freedom, as Stein has noted in the DVD commentary. That’s why the film will live forever, he says. “We want to be free. We want to have a good time. We know we’re not going to be able to all our lives. We know we’re going to have to buckle down and work. We know we’re going to have to eventually become family men and women, and have responsibilities and pay our bills. But just give us a couple of good days that we can look back on.”

MUSIC:

Robert Plant’s new album nominated for all kinds o sh*t…BUT this aint’t yer daddys country, but maybe yer Grand Daddys!

On Monday Night I got to see Robert Plant….arguably the greatest rock star, AND HE SANG BACK UP while letting the other musicians onstage shine! Talent & Gentleman!

Singer reinvigorates Zeppelin material, blues

Robert Plant last night converted the merely surprising comeback of his two recent albums into a near-miraculous transformation during a thrilling 90 minute set in the Palace Theatre.

The Led Zeppelin singer who set the standards and limits for rock gods to follow, not only performed selections from his semi-acoustic 2007 outing with Alison Krauss and last year’s Band Of Joy, but revisited Zeppelin hits with a liberty that made Bob Dylan’s reinventions sound tame.

With a near-perfectly structured set, Plant also illuminated the folk influences of those old warhorses and showed his inspirations to be impressively constant over more than 40 years.

Merely hearing the lyrics from a handful of manically-delivered Zeppelin originals was alone a generous gift.

Ramble On finished the show proper with a gentle introduction built with acoustic guitar, standup bass and bouzouki. Tension was built by guitarist Buddy Miller on one of his many vintage guitars before Plant and singer Patty Griffin exploded on the chorus. An amazingly right recasting of What Is And What Should Never Be confounded expectations by retaining the bluesy swing of the original and, without ever exploding, its crescendo.

Black Country Woman drew new roots out of the previously-electrified country blues.

In The Mood from 1983 highlighted Plant’s longtime fascination with English folk by quoting Fairport Convention’s (Come All Ye) Rolling Minstrel; last night’s performance of Fairporter Richard Thompson’s House of Cards drew the connection again.

But it was Plant’s deep connection with blues and gospel that hit hardest. Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down was the show’s most profound moment not just because of the spooky delivery but because it nearly exploded with tension, borne of Plant’s career-long understanding that the blues depends on the implicit and dangerous appeal of evil.

The song also included Plant’s first of just a few shrieking passages.

North Mississippi All-stars opened with a short set that nonetheless set the stage as near perfect as could be imagined. The trio is now a duo of guitarist Luther Dickinson and drummer brother Cody. The two filled the stage with a mean bunch of boogie and gospel that stuck to the spiritual essence of the music even while it ranged to Bo Diddley beats, to Allman Brothers melodies and bent sound effects.

Convicted Killer Confesses to Shooting West Coast Rapper Tupac Shakur
According to a statement he gave to AllHipHop.com, Isaac says he was paid $2,500 by Richmond to shoot the West Coast rap icon.

“In 1994, James Rosemond hired me to rob 2Pac Shakur at the Quad Studio. He gave me $2,500, plus all the jewelry I took, except for one ring, which he wanted for himself. It was the biggest of the two diamond rings that we took. He said he wanted to put the stone in a new setting for his girlfriend at the time, Synthia Ried. I still have as proof the chain that we took that night in the robbery.”

Isaac even implies Sean “Puffy” Combs knew about the plan all along.

The Quad Studios robbery and shooting occurred less than two years before Tupac was murdered on Sept. 7, 1996.

Isaac is currently serving a life sentence for unrelated crimes at MDC Brooklyn.

Rosemond is CEO of Czar Entertainment who manages performer such as The Game and Sean Kingston.

According to the Smoking Gun, Rosemond is currently a fugitive from justice; he’s wanted by the DEA and federal marshals in connection with his alleged leadership of a cocaine trafficking ring.

Isaac’s full statement:

My name is Dexter Isaac. On Monday, May 23, 2011, James Rosemond released a statement in which he named myself and another individual, a Mr. Winston Harris (who I do not know), as government informants. I would like to clear the record on that statement: I have never been a rat for anybody and I do not have any deals nor was I made any promises by any government agency for information on Mr. Rosemond. Mr. Rosemond has crucified good reporters like Chuck Philips, at the LA Times, and Alison Gendar, at the Daily News, for telling the truth about him and his activities. He claims they had no proof that he was a rat for the government, which is an outright lie, because Mr. Rosemond, you signed a proffer agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York on 10-20-1998. Mr. Rosemond, I have copies of your presentence report fromNorth Carolina dated 1-13-1997 and other documents about you working with the government sending people you befriended to prison so you can maintain your own freedom. I have met with individuals on whom Mr. Rosemond has told.

Jimmy, I say to you: I have kept your secrets for years. You have never been arrested because of me, or anyone of our friends because of me. How dare you call me an informant! I have stayed silent in prison for the past 13 years, doing a life sentence like a real soldier should, when you and everybody have turned your backs on me. I have never gotten any help nor asked for any help from you or anyone since being locked up.

As a matter of fact, when I was first notified a couple years ago that the feds and Chuck Philips were investigating you, I wrote you and sent you everything they sent me. I kept it real with you because that’s what real G’s do. Anyway, that was before I found out that you were, in fact, already a turncoat rat for the government. Mr. Rosemond, if I was an informant like you, I would’ve been home years ago with my family, not doing life in prison.

Now I would like to clear up a few things, because the statute of limitations is over, and no one can be charged, and I’m just plain tired of listening to your lies.

In 1994, James Rosemond hired me to rob 2Pac Shakur at the Quad Studio. He gave me $2,500, plus all the jewelry I took, except for one ring, which he wanted for himself. It was the biggest of the two diamond rings that we took. He said he wanted to put the stone in a new setting for his girlfriend at the time, Cynthia Ried. I still have as proof the chain that we took that night in the robbery.

Now I’m not going to talk about my friend Biggie’s death or 2Pac’s death, but I would like to give their mothers some closure. It’s about time that some one did, and I will do so at a different time. Jimmy, you and Puffy like to come off all innocent-like, but as the saying goes: You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Mr. Rosemond, I ask you: Are you going to flip on Puffy when the feds get you? To save yourself like you have done in the past? Because that’s what a rat does. So in closing, we shall see who the rat is, in the near future.

BOOKS:

Anyone who knows me, knows my affection towards The “Peanuts” Gang. While I may have at one time related to the lovable loser Charlie Brown…while trying to act like “Joe Cool”-Snoopy on stage I think WE ALL have characteristics of all the characters wrapped up into our own personas.

‘Peanuts Guide To Life’-Charles M. Schulz

Essentially, this is the best of the best of 50 years of Peanuts, the comic strip by the late Charles Schulz featuring Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, and the rest of the beguiling little gang. Peanuts debuted in 1950 and became a global phenomenon, with book collections selling more than 300 million copies in 26 languages and television specials rerun year after year. To create this all-new Peanuts Guide to Life, we’ve combed through decades of comic strips to find those single panels which contain such pithy observations as “Babysitters are like used cars. You never know what you’re going to get,” and bits of wisdom like “Never lick ice cream off a hot sidewalk.” Each droll, stand-alone “speech bubble” or punchline appears with cartoon art. The panels are organized into short chapters, such as “Love” and “Life’s Little Quirks.” For the millions of faithful Peanuts fans, this is a collection of “greatest hits” to cherish and enjoy again and again.

POLITICS:

‘There are days when I say one term is enough’ -President Barack Obama

Here in O-H-I-O

Gov. Kasich on Ohio’s Budget and Making the Difficult Decisions

While recently speaking to the American Institute of Architects, Governor Kasich spoke about the difficult decisions that his team and the leadership in the Ohio Legislature have made to balance Ohio’s budget and create an environment for job growth. You can watch a highlight below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woe7KnvBs74&feature=player_embedded

MILITARY:

Watch this news story about the training and the bravery of some of the nation’s most interesting warriors. One of them went along with Seal Team 6 into the compound in Abbattabad, Pakistan to get Osama bin Laden. These warriors make the title “man’s best friend” mean something tangible. We thank these four-legged warriors for their unflinching dedication and loyalty. Pass this on to your friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh8XP7bTyb8&feature=player_embedded

YOU DA MAN :

Chiefs TE Pope saves 6-year-old boy from drowning

When Kansas City Chiefs tight end Leonard Pope(notes) recently went back home to Georgia, he probably didn’t expect that he’d be talked about as a hero, but that’s just what’s happening after he saved six-year-old Bryson Moore from drowning while he was at a pool party last weekend. Bryson’s mother Anne, who has known Pope since the two were children, told the Amercius Times-Reporter what happened.

“Bryson was in the water with the other kids. All of a sudden, I saw Bryson going down in the water and I started screaming. Leonard was inside, and he came out of nowhere and dove into the water without any hesitation, cell phone in his pocket and all. He saved my son’s life, and I am so thankful that he was there for me and my child.”

The boy is said to be understandably afraid of the water after the incident, but okay otherwise.

Apparently, Pope was the only adult at the scene who knew how to swim, which — let’s go ahead and say it — speaks to some less-than-stellar planning when it comes to a pool party.

And as Mrs. Moore pointed out in the paper, it’s possible that the lockout saved her son’s life. “The fact that he is normally at camp and could have been in Kansas City just proved to me that he was placed here to save my son from drowning … I thank God that he was here. He truly lived up to his nickname “Champ” because he was truly a champion for me and my son this past weekend.”

“I didn’t think twice about it,” Pope said on the NFL Network’s Total Access show on Monday. “You know when you hear that motherly voice, and it’s something serious when they’re screaming. She was like, ‘He’s drowning!’ and I didn’t drop anything — I just dove into the water. I brought him back up and handed him to his mom. Patted him on the back and he coughed a couple of times, but he was pretty good for the rest of the day.”

Pope said that Bryson probably lost his footing and wound up in the deep end of the pool by accident, and that he didn’t see Bryson’s head above the water; just the young boy’s hands were visible.

Pope was then joined on the show by Mrs. Moore via phone, and she voiced her gratitude without reservation. It was a great moment.

Marcus Johnson(notes), Marketing & PR Director at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus, told the paper he wasn’t surprised that Pope went to save Bryson without hesitation. “He is always doing things for the community, and he truly loves the kids and they love him. He is truly a hometown hero and this is just another reason for us to be proud.”

Pope, who played in Super Bowl XLIII with the Arizona Cardinals, caught 10 passes for 76 yards and two touchdowns for Kansas City in 2010. The five-year veteran is a free agent under 2010 league rules.

SPORTS:

http://governor.ohio.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=lveQuvgwy7Q%3D&tabid=74

“70 years after WWII., LeBron James has America rooting for the German… Congratulations

Macy’s ad wrongfully congratulates Heat

The Dallas Mavericks’ win over the Heat is a huge upset for fans in Miami. Making matters worse, an ad in the local paper has mistakenly congratulated the Heat on winning.

A full-page ad that ran in Monday’s Miami Herald reads “Congratulations Miami” next to photos of Heat championship T-shirts and hats from Macy’s. One T-shirt reads “Heat 2011 NBA Finals Champions” and the ad shows the Heat’s logo on a hat with the words “NBA Champions.”

The ad ran under a story about the Heat’s loss.

The newspaper has issued a correction and apologized for any inconvenience. A Macy’s spokeswoman called it an unfortunate error and apologized to Heat fans.

The Mavericks beat the Heat 105-95 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Sunday in Miami.

BUCKEYES:

Speaker Boehner’s advice to Ohio State graduates today: “If you do the right things for the right reasons, good things will happen.” to OSU Summer Commencement Grads 2011

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2011/jun/12/dr-gee-on-graduation-day-04658-vi-29456/?referer=None&shorturl=http://bit.ly/iqLtom

RELIGION:

Isaiah 55:12
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Psalm 19:14

May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer.

BUISNESS:

BOOKING WEDDINGS for 2011! We have been in the entertainment and wedding industry for over 25 years. Our expertise will make you or your friend’s wedding, a moment to remember. Refer us and receive 15% of contracted rate.

HEALTH:

I work out daily, but we all don’t need to be in the gym to “lift.”

Be a LIFTER. Lift people up. You never know when you may need them to lift you.

SUCCESS:

Always have a smile, you never know who is watching.

INSPIRATION:

If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change ~Wayne Dyer

Life hurts those who try 2 do it all at once.. U must remove a mountain by carrying away small stones-Rev Run

QUOTES:

Happiness is being at peace, and being with loved ones being comfortable. But most of all it’s about having those loved ones-Johnny Cash
…2 out of 3 ain’t bad-Meatloaf

The person who is clearly filled with joy preaches without preaching-Rev Run

CLOSING:

You Will Be Mine By Takin’ Our Time-Robert Plant

Do all the good you can, …to all the souls you can, …with all the zeal you can, as long as ever you can.- John Wesley

TO DO:

THURSDAY:

Ohio Rockers from “Kent State,” Devo “Whip It” at The LC, The Lifestyle Communities Pavilion

Ray Fuller rock’s out with Frank Harrison at Hoggy’s on Polaris Parkway

FRIDAY:

Help provide a vehicle and transportation for a friend of mine who is a missionary in Haiti.

In addition to a good dinner and a GREAT CAUSE, we have a chance for you to bid on some killer prizes including 2 Tickets to see Keith Urban July 19th at Nationwide Arena (courtesy of Dream Seats-Your Total Ticket Source), and 3 hours of DJ service (limitations apply)

Licking Valley High School

Texas Roadhouse Dinner (pizza for children) will be served from 6:00 – 7:30pm

Cost: $20.00 per ticket for steak dinner. Dinner includes Steak, salad, baked potato, rolls, drink and dessert.

Pizza ticket is $5.00 and includes pizza, drink, salad and dessert.

Please see her blog for more information on her work in Haiti:

www.ginnyinhaiti.com

For questions regarding the Benefit Dinner and Silent action please email Summer Conley at summer_conley@hotmail.com.

SATURDAY:

“Danville-Howard Turkey Festival” at The Danville Village Park in Danville with Little Texas

In what appears to be the worst marketed event ever. The Newark Fire Department is having a Fundraiser at Licking Valley High School with McGuffey Lane. No clue on times or other info (only saw mentioned on a support artist page)

SUNDAY:

Father’s Day, Happy Fathers Day to all the dads including my Dad Rick and my Grandfather, My Hero Bob!

The originator of “Geek Rock,” Elvis Costello plays The LC, The Lifestyle Communities Pavilion

FUNNIES:

ALL WEEKEND:

Ralph Harris performs at The Funny Bone Comedy Club in Easton Town Center

MORE TO DO:

ALL WEEKEND:

Creekside Blues & Jazz Fest. At The Olde Gahanna and Creekside Park & Plaza, 123 Mill St., Gahanna

This music festival is the showcase for the best blues and jazz music in Ohio, if not the Midwest. Music isn’t all that this renowned event has to offer. Centered around Creekside Park and Olde Gahanna, the Creekside Blues & Jazz Festival promises something for everyone with more than 90 hours of entertainment (presented on five stages), Musical Discovery Zone, Jog for Jazz, Sunday Jazz Brunch at Mezzo Italian Kitchen & Wine, amusement rides, craft vendors, and of course, great food! General Admission: $3; Children under 12: FREE; Military (with ID): FREE Time: Friday, 5-11 p.m., Saturday, 11 a.m. – 11 p.m., Sunday, 12-N. – 6 p.m. Location: Olde Gahanna and Creekside Park & Plaza, 123 Mill St. For more information: (614) 418-9114 or http://www.creeksidebluesand jazz.com

Zeppelin Airship Passenger Excursions, at The Ohio State University Airport

One of only two Zeppelin Airships flying anywhere in the world, the Farmers Airship is truly big news, both literally and figuratively – not only is this the Zeppelin’s first-ever visit to the area, but at 246 feet long, the Farmers Airship is the largest in the world!

ZooFari 2011 at The Columbus Zoo & Aquarium

This annual, adults-only fundraiser features more than 100 central Ohio restaurants and bars serving appetizer portions of their signature dishes and specialty drinks. Guests “graze” their way through the Zoo enjoying live entertainment on stages scattered throughout Zoo grounds. Come with friends, wine and dine your business associates, entertain your out-of-town guests, or reward hard-working employees—don’t miss Columbus’ best summer party! It is bound to be one wild night as the Zoo’s adult only premier fundraising event takes place. It’s a whole new park after dark!

IN THEATERS:

The Box office will rack up “The Green” with ‘The Green Lantern,’ rated “PG-13,” starring Ryan Reynolds

Not a fan of Jim Carey, but am a fan of “penguins,” Jim Carrey stars in ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins,’ rated “PG.”

My pick of the week, ‘The Art of Getting By’ rated “PG-13.” For more info

http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&near=Columbus,+OH&dq=the+art+of+getting+by&sort=1&mid=d8c44261fe023490&sa=X&ei=RrH5TeTWPIv4gAe6pdifBQ&ved=0CCIQwAMoAg

A great story, and AMAZING scenery; ‘Buck’ (the story of horse trainer/whisperer Buck Brannaman) starring Robert Redford, rated “PG.” (JMI You HAVE to see this one!)

DVD:

Red Riding Hood rated “PG-13.”

A movie with a lot of potential but a let down, ‘Hall Pass’ rated “R.”

‘Battle: Los Angeles’ rated “PG-13.”

AMAZING MOVIE: Based on the True Events of 1976 in Cleveland Ohio,

‘Kill The Irishman,’ rated “R.”

ON THE MUSIC SHELVES:

All 3 films in the franchise have had GREAT Soundtracks, “Transformers: Dark Of The Moon”

COMING SOON PUBLIC EVENTS:

Weekly Tuesday Night Bike Nights at Hoggy’s Polaris

Columbus Commons Cocktail Event Friday June 24^th, and Commons Family Movie Night June 25^th (my crew covering I am at Chesney)

Red, White & Boom Long Street Stage Friday July 1^st

Worthington Family Picnic Monday July 4^th (Worthington High School)

Follow us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8nUna7ykXU&feature=player_embedded

June 16, 2011 Posted by djmattsexton | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Greetings from 10,000 feet above Music City USA, home of Goo Goo Clusters

GREETINGS from 10,000 feet up in the air, in route to Music City USA, Nashville Tennessee, home of (as I just found out Goo Goo Clusters). This is one of my favorite towns in America, and surprisingly, there is no water here for this “Pirate” born 200 years too late!

I have been blessed to have some great opportunities to travel this Great Country and see many different cities and meet many people. My favorite city is still Charlotte, followed by Nashville, then L.A. It is kinda funny since Nashville is Charlotte with music, and L.A. is Nashville…”with a tan.” (Reference to Shaun Mullins ‘Lullaby’). Don’t get me wrong, I still dig Vegas, and San Antonio (as well as my beloved Queen City ‘Nasti!). I would however still consider relocating to a town I have not been able to spend much time in, Denver. Some good people have lived there!

This trip is not really a vacation (oh he** who am I kidding, my life is a vacation- with a lot of hard work!). I am in NashVegas for FanFest and The Country Music Television Awards-here is a lil inside hint, for those watching on TV, the show is made for TV, the production in the arena is NOT very good. BUT you do get up close and personal with many of the stars of the night and industry (and NO I am not one of them…YET!!!)

My mic, computer, and turntables are down here with our good friends from Jive Records, and looking forward to doing an event with Bob, Hank, and Rob (for those not getting the name dropping, that is Kid Rock, Bocephus, and Vanilla Ice), for at least one night…I get to be one of the “Rowdy Friends” doing my thang!

Being here and there is a lot of fun! Hangin’ with some of the folks I look up to is even more fun, and for just a split second seeing what goes into what it takes to be one of the “Super Stars” is inspiring and at times, a party in itself.

But I gotta be honest. All the hard work, all the “vacation life,” all the concerts, all the whatever experience I am allowed to have from being on coat tails…don’t mean nutin’ without someone to share it with.

“And up until you came along-No one ever heard my song…” “The traveling, the singing, it don’t mean nothing without you. The fast cars, the guitars, they are all just second to this life this love…all as good as gone without you.”-Keith Urban

Maybe that is why I gravitated towards The Hick Hop Style of Rock & Roll…this unique Country Thang.

I like the down home life the outdoors with a pinch of bright lights and rock & roll. Kinda like the character “King George” played in the second greatest Country Music Movie (no not ‘Little Whore House in Texas’), Pure Country! Way back when, I was just a young punk who knew it all, and after seeing that movie (and leaving with a lump in my throat), I knew I wanted to be the guy in “The Hat” with the lights, the cute strawberry blond girl (who was feisty, and broke his heart), yet enjoying the outdoors, horses and just life off stage.

“When you hear twin fiddles and steel guitar, you’re listenin’ to the sound of the America Heart!”-George Straight

NOTE: I said second best Country Music Movie ‘cause the best Movie is now ‘Country Strong!’

If you have not seen ‘Pure Country’ or ‘Country Strong’ they are great rentals this weekend to escape the heat (even if not a Country Music fan!), after you stop by The Park Street Festival on Friday and Saturday Nights, and up at Flying Horse Farms for the Byers Auto Charity Car Show on Saturday Afternoon of course!

Anyway all this chasing a dream, rock & rollin, and GREAT life experiences cause me to wake up in hotel rooms, couches, and even my own condo holding onto a dream…the dream who’s face I see when I look at the sterol hotel pictures, and the same as the picture next to my bed at home. All the experiences are different, yet they all have the same thing, the memory that is becoming only a dream…

But it ain’t all bad…cause everyday is a new experience, a new day to grow, a new day to ROCK, and a new day to do something for someone else/say something to someone/or use one of my own examples of life to keep someone from messing up (or at very least offering guidance so when they do mess up, I can say-TOLD YOU SO). It is an exciting, lonely, and busy time…BUT I LOVE MY LIFE, and enjoy doing whatever the he** it is I do!

Never know where I am and guess I am living out Jimmy Buffett’s song “Volcano” (I don’t know where Imma gonna go when the Volcano blows)

I actually got to spend a few days at “The Home Office in Dublin Ohio” this week and I blew my diet again on Tuesday, but I had to! It was a National Holiday!?!?!

National Chocolate Ice Cream Day

It’s June and the summer heat and humidity is here. With the kids home from school, chances are pretty good you are looking for just the perfect summertime treat to cool off. Well, you’re in luck – today is National Chocolate Ice Cream Day! The delicious combination of chocolaty goodness with the delightful creaminess of cool ice cream is sure to hit the spot no matter how old or young you are!

Although the origins of this annual June 7th “holiday” are unknown, you’re probably checking out your kitchen freezer as we speak. Whether you prefer your sweet treat in a crispy cone, in a glass or scooped in a bowl, go ahead – have a dip. Indulge!

But better watch the weight cause I have some new stage gear!

I am going to have some new stage gear thanx to Brad at Rusted Custom Apparel. I am honored to have Brad and RCA in my camp. Check out some of his work-guess he has branded “Matt The Hat” as the “Cowboy from Hell”

Here we go…to do what I do in front of a few thousand, and a few million watching on TV. All these faces, yet I only see one who is not anywhere near (on the road or at home)

In the words of my buddy David Babner…time to “Giddy Up” and in the words of my Buddy (and as some say, a person my image resembles), Larry The Cable Guy-“Get ‘Er Done!”

Tires just touched down, and it is time for another town, a few more stages, and another chance to do what I love….experiencing life, and pursuing a dream. I may or may not make it…but I will have some GREAT STORIES to tell around a camp fire like the old farts that used to mesmerize me …but I am sure my stories will be true, I think. I am off to get a Goo Goo Cluster!

PLEASE JOIN ME:

PARK STREET FESTIVAL JUNE 10^th-11^th

Park Street Festival is back and better than ever this year! With activities and entertainment fit for any age, Park Street Festival is fun for the whole family.

This year’s activities include Bike Night, Autograph sessions with local athletes, Kids Fair, 9 live bands, and much more!

Benefiting the Second and Seven Foundation, The Park Street Festival merges food, entertainment, and family fun all in to one event. The festival is a joint effort among the bars on Park Street and runs the length of the street. Admission is free, so make sure to come out to Park Street Festival for a great weekend.

Music Schedule:

FRIDAY (opening at 5pm)

The 17th Floor

Travelers By Dawn

Johnny White

Six Panel Driver

Dot Dot Dot

DJ Nobody/Matt Sexton

SATURDAY (opening at 3pm)

Lovesick Radio

Kicking Dixie

Downplay

Union Rose

Of Human

DJ Matt Sexton/DJ Nobody

Visit www.parkstreetfest.com for more information!

NEXT TUESDAY AND EVERY TUESDAY-Hoggy’s Polaris Bike Nights

Great Food, and GREAT drink specials. What goes better than Hogs with Hog?

RED, WHITE, & BOOM Friday July 1, 2011

Join me on the Long Street Stage with


Noon	Alex White
1pm	Maza laska
2pm	Misfit Toys
3pm	The Forties
4pm	She Bears
5pm	Alleyes Path
6pm	The Compressis
7pm	Ghost Shirt
8pm	Phantods
9pm-945 10:25 – 11:20	The Queen Tribute Band-Mr Fahrenheit & The Lover Boys
MC/DJ ALL DAY		Matt Sexton

ALSO, It is perfect weather for the pool, let me help you get into your best shape (inside and out!) Send an e-mail to matsext@gmail.com for availability and specialized individual workout plans.

THOUGHT(s) FOR THE WEEK:

“The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created–created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating.”

We must remind ourselves we have what it takes and we are enough

“TODAY is a Great day to tell the people in your life that you love them!”

SONG(s) FOR THE WEEK:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79_jhgk__fo

I don’t ask for many things…just a small request

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIEI1t8GeY

Sometimes not giving up, is just part of everyday living, no matter how bust ya are

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb1DTsxBOfE

Some songs are powerful just from its message, this is one of those. I hold onto a love I have daily. No reason, no reward…just because it feels right. This may not build a bridge between me and someone…but it did build a bridge between myself and daily happiness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZgXCMFVCLs

Happy B-Day Purple One! “We are Gathered here today to celebrate…THIS THING CALLED LIFE!!!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij-jM8CcQIQ

Rockin and Boppin to some hits from a time of THE TRUE GREATEST GENERATION on this D-Day Anniversary! Instead of music-try listening to one of their stories, they are even more inspiring than any music, or book!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JU8dvQ4wvI

Everyday I wake up with the same picture and still…prayin for daylight

Prayin’ for daylight waiting for that morning sun

So I can act like my whole life ain’t going wrong

Baby come back to me, I swear I’ll make it right

Don’t make me spend another lonely night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8GucowJgV4

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

Have you had a bad day this week? Something bad happen to ya’?

You never know when an untied shoelace saves you from an onrushing car. On September 11th, one man was saved because he had to get donuts for his team; another because he developed a blister on his foot from wearing new shoes.

Don’t live in fear of the unknown or “what if’s” Live the questions. -Rainer Maria Rilke

HELP:

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them. – Dalai Lama

Help provide a vehicle and transportation for a friend of mine who is a missionary in Haiti.

Friday, June 17 · 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Licking Valley High School

Texas Roadhouse Dinner (pizza for children) will be served from 6:00 – 7:30pm

Cost: $20.00 per ticket for steak dinner. Dinner includes Steak, salad, baked potato, rolls, drink and dessert.

Pizza ticket is $5.00 and includes pizza, drink, salad and dessert.

Please see her blog for more information on her work in Haiti:

www.ginnyinhaiti.com

For questions regarding the Benefit Dinner and Silent action please email Summer Conley at summer_conley@hotmail.com.

Donations are being accepted for the Silent Auction. Contact Summer if interested.

GREAT STORY:

Forgiving Her Son’s Killer: ‘Not An Easy Thing’

It would be easy — expected, even — for Mary Johnson and Oshea Israel to be enemies. After all, he killed Johnson’s only son, in 1993. He went to prison for that — and toward the end of his sentence, he and Johnson made peace.

As a teenager in Minneapolis, Israel was involved with gangs and drugs. One night at a party, he got into a fight with Laramiun Byrd, 20, and shot and killed him. Oshea is now 34; he finished serving his prison sentence for murder about a year and a half ago.

Israel recently visited StoryCorps with Johnson, to discuss their relationship — and the forgiveness it is built upon. As Johnson recalls, their first face-to-face conversation took place at Stillwater Prison, when Israel agreed to her repeated requests to see him.

“I wanted to know if you were in the same mindset of what I remembered from court, where I wanted to go over and hurt you,” Johnson tells Israel. “But you were not that 16-year-old. You were a grown man. I shared with you about my son.”

“And he became human to me,” Israel says.

At the end of their meeting at the prison, Johnson was overcome by emotion.

“The initial thing to do was just try and hold you up as best I can,” Israel says, “just hug you like I would my own mother.”

Johnson says, “After you left the room, I began to say, ‘I just hugged the man that murdered my son.’

“And I instantly knew that all that anger and the animosity, all the stuff I had in my heart for 12 years for you — I knew it was over, that I had totally forgiven you.”

Johnson founded From Death To Life: Two Mothers Coming Together for Healing, a support group for mothers who have lost their children to violence.

And for Israel, Johnson’s forgiveness has brought both changes and challenges to his life.

“Sometimes I still don’t know how to take it,” he says, “because I haven’t totally forgiven myself yet. It’s something that I’m learning from you. I won’t say that I have learned yet, because it’s still a process that I’m going through.”

“I treat you as I would treat my son,” Johnson says. “And our relationship is beyond belief.”

In fact, the two live right next door to one another in Minneapolis.

“So you can see what I’m doing — you know firsthand,” Israel says.

And if he falls out of touch, Israel is sure to hear about it from Johnson — who calls out to him, he says, “‘Boy, how come you ain’t called over here to check on me in a couple of days? You ain’t even asked me if I need my garbage to go out!’ ”

“Uh-huh,” Johnson says with a laugh.

“I find those things funny, because it’s a relationship with a mother for real,” Israel says.

“Well, my natural son is no longer here. I didn’t see him graduate. Now you’re going to college. I’ll have the opportunity to see you graduate,” Johnson says. “I didn’t see him getting married. Hopefully one day, I’ll be able to experience that with you.”

Hearing her say those things, Israel says, gives him a reason to reach his goals.

“It motivates me to make sure that I stay on the right path,” he says. “You still believe in me. And the fact that you can do it, despite how much pain I caused you — it’s amazing.”

But Israel is not the only one who’s impressed.

“I know it’s not an easy thing, you know, to be able to share our story together,” Johnson says. “Even with us sitting here looking at each other right now, I know it’s not an easy thing. So I admire that you can do this.”

“I love you, lady.”

“I love you too, son.”

BIRTHDAY:

All the GREATS are gone!

Happy Birthday, Dean Martin!

Dean Martin would have turned 94 on Tuesday, June 7.

Born Dino Paul Crocetti to a poor Italian immigrant family in the hardscrabble industrial town of Steubenville, Ohio, Dean Martin was arguably the most successful and popular entertainer in 20th century America.

When Dean died on Christmas day in 1995, he could look back on a spectacular five-decade career in which he excelled as a singer, comedian, nightclub performer, movie actor and TV star.

While other entertainers might have mastered one or two of those idioms, almost no one had the universal success and popularity of Dino – and certainly no one was as cool and charming as him.

Dean reportedly only spoke Italian as a small child, and never fully mastered the English language. As such, he had an Old World modesty and reticence, despite the global fame, and incredible wealth and glamour he eventually amassed.

As a teenager, he dropped out of school, knocked around in various jobs, including delivering bootleg liquor, steel mill worker, casino croupier, and even boxer.

But it was singing that was his forte, and ultimately allowed him to escape the work-a-day world of Steubenville. He was heavily influenced by the vocal mannerisms of both Bing Crosby and The Mills Brothers.

Still, finding a successful career as a singer was difficult. Dean bounced around, first singing for theErnie McKay Orchestra and various other bands in the early 1940s.

In 1946, Dean’s life and career arc changed forever when he met Jerry Lewis, a struggling comic in New York.

This unlikely pairing of a goofy Jewish comic and a handsome Italian crooner eventually became the hottest act in show business and lasted for ten wildly successful and remunerative years, including nightclub shows, radio performances, television appearances and hugely profitable movies.

In 1956, the Martin and Lewis team broke up, and it remains a mystery to this day why they did so. Allegedly, Martin was tired of playing the straight man in the act and he as reportedly jealous of the critics’ favoring Lewis as the real talent in the partnership.

While some worried that Martin’s career would not survive without Lewis, he proved everyone wrong by moving seamlessly into films (including even dramas and westerns), while resurrecting his singing career.

By the early 1960, Dean became closer to Frank Sinatra and the so-called “Rat Pack” which included Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and (for a brief while) Peter Lawford. They took over Las Vegas and became yet another successful chapter for Dean.

There would be more movies and TV shows to follow.

Although Dean is widely associated with Sinatra, the two could not have been more different. Whereas Sinatra was intense, overly-emotional, tightly wound and prone to violent outbursts, Dean was quiet, cool and imperturbable.
Sinatra was also insecure about his looks (he was of slight build, wore a toupee and dentures even as a youngish man. In stark contrast, Dean was tall, broad-shouldered and blessed with spectacular good looks that lasted well into old age.

More importantly, while Sinatra desperately craved the approval of the critics and wanted to be hailed as an “artist,” Dino disdained such pretensions and did not care what critics thought.

Dean reportedly did not drink nor womanize to the extent that his “image” had suggested. Rather, as he settled into middle age, he was homebody close to his family and obsessed with golf and watching westerns on TV.
By the mid-1980s, Dean largely withdrew from show business and the public spotlight.

He suffered a horrendous loss in 1987 when his son Dean Paul was killed in an airplane accident. He reportedly never overcame his sorrow over his lost son and went deeper into his private world in Beverly Hills.

Dean Martin died at his home on Christmas morning 1995 at the age of 78.

STILL one of the best shows I have seen:

Happy Birthday, Prince! The Purple One Turns 53

Prince is celebrating his 53rd birthday Tuesday, and at this point it’s a safe bet he can look down from his royal throne and enjoy the fact that he’s as popular today as he was two decades ago. The Purple One recently put on a series of 21 sold-out shows in Los Angeles, sending fans and critics into a frenzy with his stellar performances of songs from his ever-growing catalog. Prince Rogers Nelson is truly an icon. And at 53, for a musician to be at the top of his game is a rarity.

How will Prince actually celebrate his birthday? That’s not clear, but given his work ethic, the Minneapolis phenom will probably get in the studio and record something that will send women swooning and crowds cheering for more. Critics who’ve caught recent Prince concerts gush about his infectious energy and his ability, even well into his 50s, to move as well as any performer half his age. And truly, few can rival his musical skills, particularly on guitar.

Happy birthday to an ultimate showman: Prince! Can you believe he’s 53? When did you first see him in concert? If you’ve seen any recent shows, how do you think they compare to shows from 10 or even 20 years ago?

Pink Gives Birth to Baby Girl!
Pink and hubby Carey Hart welcomed a baby girl on Thursday.

“We are ecstatic to welcome our new beautiful healthy happy baby girl, Willow Sage Hart,” the singer, 31, tweeted. “She’s gorgeous, just like her daddy.”

Pink (real name: Alecia Beth Moore) met Hart, 35, in 2001 at the X-Games. Following a brief separation in 2003, Pink proposed to her motocross beau in June 2005.

The two married in January 2006 and then separated in February 2008. But after marriage counseling and working through their issues, Pink confirmed in February 2010 that she and Hart were back together and expecting their first child.

In November, Pink told Access Hollywood about the unusual name she and Hart were considering at the time. “My dad’s name is James, and my brother’s name is Jason… Carey’s middle name is Jason, [and] Jameson–we like whiskey. That’s a no brainer.”

In November, she released her Greatest Hits…So Far!!! album, which included a new song dedicated to herunborn child. She wrote on her blog the significance behind the track, “F***ing Perfect,” saying: “I have a life inside of me, and I want her or him to know that I will accept him or her with open and loving and welcoming arms. And though I will prepare this little munchkin for a sometimes cruel world, I will also equip this kid to see all the beauty in it as well.”

FUNNY:

Dad plays best prank ever on teenage son

Dale Price waving at his son’s bus on the last day of the school year. (courtesy ofwaveatthebus.blogspot.com) Rain Price will never forget the first day of his sophomore year of high school. On the bus, packed with classmates from his suburban Utah school, Rain peered out the window, mortified.

“The school bus for the first time ever came down our street this year,” explains Rain’s dad, Dale, to Utah’s Daily Herald. “This was [my son’s] first year on the bus. My wife came running in the room and suggested we go wave at him to embarrass him.”

And so began Dale’s hazing ritual that continued every day for the rest of his son’s school year. The first day may have been the most shocking for Rain, but in the days to follow, the surprises kept coming.

Since the fall, Dale has waved at his son in 180 different outlandish costumes. The second day of school he wore a football helmet and jersey, and in the months that followed he opened the front door dressed as a blushing bride, a superhero, a Star Trek fan, Michael Jackson, and a giant chicken. One day he even lugged an old toilet bowl onto the street and sat on it reading a newspaper, stopping to wave as the bus rolled by.

Over time, Rain’s most humbling moment became his most anticipated. “The first day of high school…it was really embarrassing,” Rain tells the Herald. “But the last couple of months it has turned into more entertainment.”

The father of three, a stay-at-home dad, raided the family’s Halloween costume collection, borrowed outfits from neighbors, and managed to spend under $50 over the year to make his son’s bus ride the highlight of the day. To preserve the memories, his wife, Rochelle, photographed each day’s outfit and posted it on their blog called waveatthebus.blogspot.com.

Soon Rain’s friends weren’t the only ones anticipating Dale’s morning ritual. He’s become a local celebrity in their Utah suburb of American Fork and an international phenomenon in the blogosphere.

With expectations high, Dale developed a system. When his son leaves to catch the bus at 7:10 A.M., he is dressed in the bare bones of his costume to keep his outfit a surprise. Then he’s got 4 minutes to transform, with accessories and props, into a renegade paintball player, a Star Wars character or Terry Potter (Harry’s distant relative). Sometimes his son, Riot, a second grader, joins in the fun. On day 26, he played Batman to his dad’s Robin.

On the last day of school, Dale gave Rain a final send-off dressed as a “peg-leg” pirate, an alter-ego he’s reinvented throughout the year, as a nod to his own prosthetic leg. It will likely be the end of the routine that made the Price family famous.

Through it all, Rain, an honors student and a member of his high school marching band, has come to appreciate his dad’s efforts. “He is genetically predisposed to having a good sense of humor,” writes Rain’s mom, Rochelle, on their blog. “And yes, he did laugh at the waves. If you look closely at some of the pictures, you’ll see that he and his friends were waving back.”

ENTERTAINMENT:

This is a neat feel good piece

U2 dedicates “Beautiful Day” to Giffords at concert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pqu1uG7e7gI&feature=player_embedded#at=109

U2’s Bono dedicated his performance of “Beautiful Day” at a concert in Seattle Saturday to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, and her husband, Commander Mark Kelly delivered a message to the crowd from theInternational Space Station.

In the YouTube video, Bono dedicates one of injured Rep. Giffords’ favorite songs to her, then says to the crowd: “Imagine a man looking down on us from 200 miles up. Looking down at our beautiful crowded planet… What would he say to us…? What is on your mind, Commander Kelly?”

Commander Kelly then appears on the video screen, speaking from the international Space Station. He holds up a serious of words that read “7 Billion – One Nation – Imagi Nation – It’s a Beautiful Day.”

The words remain suspended in zero-gravity as he paraphrases a line from David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”: “I’m looking forward to coming home. Tell my wife I love her very much… she knows.”

MUSIC:

Eminem Audi A6 Avant Video Is Not An Advertisement, Audi Spokesperson Says

A U.S. spokesperson for Audi has responded to the lawsuit filed in Hamburg Regional Court in Germany this week by Eight Mile Style LLC, Eminem’s publishing company. The German automobile manufacturer is being sued for using an unauthorized sample of Eminem’s Academy Award-winning song “Lose Yourself” from his film “8 Mile.”

The Audi spokesperson told Yahoo! Music that the video that has sparked the debate is not a commercial. “The video referred to is not an advertisement,” he said via email. “Also, this does not involve Audi of America. The video was not shown here in the U.S.” The spokesperson added that due to the legal nature of the matter, he could not comment further.

In the European spot for the 2012 Audi A6 Avant, a professionally-dressed man drives the luxury vehiclethrough a city as the memorable guitar rift and snare taps from “Lose Yourself” play in the background.

The song choice and the video concept have also drawn comparisons to a 2011 Super Bowl advertisement Eminem made for Chrysler.

“We believe Audi not only used ‘Lose Yourself’ to sell their product without permission, but their spot actually feels inspired by elements of Chrysler’s commercial campaign,” a spokesperson for Eight Mile Style told Billboard.

In Eminem’s advertisement for the Chrysler 200, a faceless driver tours Detroit, showing both the rundown and flourishing parts of the city. The marquee on the town’s landmark Fox Theater reads, “Keep Detroit Beautiful,” a reference to Eminem’s 2009 song “Beautiful.” The rapper is revealed as the driver of the car.

The 2012 Audi A6 clip is a more pristine version of the Chrysler 200 spot.

According to Billboard, Chrysler had not announced any plans to also file a suit against Audi.

BOOKS:

Laugh till you cry at Jimmy Fallon’s thank you notes

Jimmy Fallon, host of NBC’s “Late Night,” has turned his popular thank you notes segment into a new book, “Thank You Notes.”

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43132858/ns/today-books/

Thank you post-Thanksgiving Dinner relaxation rituals, for being the one time when Uncle Gary can unbuckle his pants in front of the whole family and not get sent to jail.

Thank you people who give me homemade jam as a gift. What are we, Quakers? Exactly how much jam do you think I use? You know this is going to sit in my fridge for three years until I throw it out to make room for beer, right? Just checking.

Thank you horseradish, for being neither a radish nor a horse. What you are is a liar food. (I’m looking at you, too, Grape Nuts.)

Thank you people who say “Wow, you’re really photogenic,” for not saying what you really mean: “Wow, you’re really ugly in person.”

POLITICS:

Summer is a time for grilling “Hot Dogs” or “Weiners”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNRXpDIX0uQ&feature=player_embedded#at=32

White House Insider: Democrats Join with Republicans Against Obama

In a brief but informative update, our longtime D.C. insider tells of Democratic Party operatives joining with their Republican counterparts to ensure Barack Obama is a one-term president.

Sorry for delay in getting back to you. So much now underway. Do you recall when I told you of a meeting by Democratic Party operatives shortly after the Midterm Election? The meeting that had people within the party questioning Obama’s viability as a candidate for 2012 and the future of the party after the defeat of 2010? Another such meeting took place recently. What was once an in-house dialogue though has now transformed into something far more formidable against the Obama White House, involving both Democrats and Republicans. The primary focus is defeat of Obama in 2012. Watch for an uptick in Democrats openly speaking out against Obama. You have likely noted the most recent bi-partisan votes in Congress against Obama. To have those kinds of votes against a sitting president who is now fully engaged in a re-election campaign is stunning. It is also indisputable evidence of the divide I have been telling you of for some time. The party is now so deeply divided between the Chicago Democrats and the more mainstream Democrats that the rift cannot be repaired so long as Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett occupy the White House.

The Republicans now have a plan underway to trap those Democrats attempting to utilize the Ryan Medicare plan to their political advantage. This is a plan that I fully approve of and frankly, must tip my hat in its creation as both a political weapon as well as sound and much needed legislation. A number of Congressional Democrats have been made aware of the plan and are also supportive of it. This represents a powerful break from the DNC operatives who are so closely linked to Obama’s own OFA group. The OFA is a direct extension of Valerie Jarrett’s office and a tool she continues to fully utilize to further protect her role as the primary power broker inside the West Wing. Daley continues to counter that to great effect though. Bill Daley is an ally. History will prove this out down the road. You have expressed doubts regarding this. Trust me. Daley is doing this country a far greater service than anyone outside of the immediate situation
can realize.
You indicated to me the much stronger stance Congressman Issa has publicly taken against Eric Holder and the Obama DOJ. While I continue to remain suspicious of Issa’s ultimate willingness to take on Eric Holder to a conclusion that results in Holder’s resignation, my suspicions may soon be proven unjustified. I hope that is the case. A significant development is to be revealed regarding the DOJ very soon now. That is the information I have been given most recently.

Where we are at in all of this is now a fully integrated operation against Barack Obama’s re-election bid that includes both Democrats and Republicans. We will continue to work to further develop the political scandal, as well as limit as much as possible, the funding and organizational machine that allowed Barack Obama to be elected in 2008. If the scandal is successfully buried prior to the 2012 election, we must ensure that Obama faces political defeat at the ballot box. The powers now aligning against Obama are significant. They are motivated. And they are very-very serious about defeating Barack Obama.

MILITARY:

For those with the t-shirts, bumper stickers, and hatefull speech (and assuming no jobs)-think your anti war reteric stating war does not solve anything? Take a look at a calender, or history book-The world could be a very different different place had 156,000 brave allied soldiers not landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944. (thanx B.A.S. for the stats)

Vets wonder how they survived D-Day

Don Jakeway recalls that, as he fought in World War II, “I said to myself, ‘If I do get home, I’m going to try to pay back somehow.'”

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my days in the Army,” said Herman Zerger, a World War II veteran.
The thought has often gone through the minds of the two Ohio veterans in the past 67 years.

Why did they live through World War II when so many of their buddies died?

Jakeway, 88, of Johnstown, and Zerger, 87, of Woodsfield, in Monroe County, will be the first to admit they don’t know the answer. But both believe they survived because God had things for them to do back home in the Buckeye State.

“I said to myself, ‘If I do get home, I’m going to try to pay back somehow,'” Jakeway said.

“I thought of that hundreds of times,” Zerger said. “You have men falling on either side of you. I think it was the grace of God.”

Today, Jakeway and Zerger will join former Sen. Max Cleland, secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission; other current and former members of Congress, including Rep Marcy Kaptur, D-Toledo; and other American and French officials at the 67th observance of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, France. Two other Ohioans, James H. “Pee Wee” Martin, 90, a decorated paratrooper from the Dayton area, and John Marshall of Columbus, a veteran and special assistant to Cleland, also will be part of the entourage.

The event will mark the re-dedication of a monument at Pointe du Hoc, the fortified cliffs where the Germans rained fire down on American forces charging ashore on Omaha and Utah beaches. On June 6, 1944, Americans scaled the steep cliffs at Pointe du Hoc and, despite suffering huge losses, eventually silenced the German guns.

The site has been closed for eight years because of deterioration, but the commission spent more than $1 million to stabilize the cliffs.

President Ronald Reagan was the last U.S. official to observe D-Day at Pointe du Hoc, in 1984.

Jakeway, who was born on a farm outside Johnstown, signed up in 1942 when he was 18 years old, to become a paratrooper (admitting, later, that he didn’t know what that was). He parachuted into Normandy as a human bomb, with half-pound blocks of TNT and plastic explosives attached to his body and small landmines in his pockets, all to be used later to destroy bridges and other German targets.

“The anti-aircraft fire coming up was just unbelievable,” he said. “I could hear the bullets going through my chute. How I didn’t get hit, I don’t know.”

In extensive duty in France, Holland and the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, Jakeway was injured twice; he still has pieces of shrapnel in his body nearly seven decades later. He also collected other metal: fourBronze Stars, two Purple Hearts and the Knight of the Legion of Honor, the highest award given by the French government.

When he returned home after the war, Jakeway made good on his promise to “pay back somehow.” He is a legend in Johnstown, working on a range of projects with schools, sports teams, elected officials and civic organizations.

Zerger joined the infantry and shipped out to Italy as part of the 36th Texas Infantry Division and participated in the invasion of France. He was captured by the Germans on Feb. 3, 1945, and was a prisoner of war for 95 days in five different camps.

Because of his German heritage, Zerger said he was subjected to particularly brutal treatment. Somehow, he survived and managed to hide the Lord Elgin wristwatch his parents had given him as a graduation present. He has it to this day – and it still works, Zerger said.

He won a Bronze Star, Purple Heart, Knight of the Legion of Honor and Combat Infantry Badge.

Returning to Ohio, Zerger got involved in politics, first as a township trustee and later as Monroe County Democratic Party chairman, a position he’s held for 48 years. He’s the longest-serving county chairman in the state.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about my days in the Army,” he said. “That’s what gets me by – politics and my veterans groups.”

BUISNESS/PRODUCT OF WEEK:

NATO-Finally doing what the world needs, ousting roug dictators!

Gadhafi: ‘We will not surrender, we will not give up’

Gadhafi speaks as his compound is bombarded by NATO airstrikes

“Dead, alive, victorious, it doesn’t matter,” he says in vowing to stay until the end

At least 35 loud explosions are heard around midday in Tripoli

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi vowed Tuesday that “we will not surrender,” even as NATO airstrikes bombarded his compound in Tripoli.

“I am now speaking as planes and bombs fall around me,” Gadhafi said in a live audio broadcast on state television. “But my soul is in God’s hand. We will not think about death or life. We will think about the call of duty.”

At least three explosions rocked Tripoli late Tuesday night; it was not immediately clear what they hit.

Earlier in the day, NATO targeted a military base and Gadhafi’s compound, state television reported. A spokesman for the Libyan government said that at least 31 people were killed, including a number of civilians, and dozens more were wounded after 60 missiles struck the capital city.

The compound was under “intensive continuous bombardment,” according to state TV, which reported buildings and infrastructure were destroyed.

“We will not surrender, we will not give up,” Gadhafi said. “We have one option — our country. We will remain in it ’til the end. Dead, alive, victorious, it doesn’t matter.”

The blasts Tuesday, and others Monday that Libyan officials said hit state television buildings, elicited heated responses from the government spokesman.

“We believe NATO understands that its military campaign is failing miserably,” said spokesman Musa Ibrahim. “No one has the right to shape Libya’s future except for Libyans.”

Ibrahim said Tuesday’s morning blasts hit the popular guard compound and revolution compound, which are military barracks near Gadhafi’s Bab al-Aziziya compound.

The spokesman said the attack on the television network killed two people and wounded 16.

NATO disputed the account.

“We did not target or hit the Libyan broadcast facilities. What we did target was the military intelligence headquarters in downtown Tripoli,” the alliance said. “The story coming from Libyan officials that we targeted and hit the state broadcaster’s building is bogus.”

The back and forth between Libyan officials and NATO continues a public relations war between the two sides.

Libyan officials have continually charged that NATO airstrikes have damaged civilian facilities and killed hundreds of civilians.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said recently that his forces have made “significant progress” in its U.N. Security Council mandate to protect Libyan civilians.

This week, the Libyan government said it had evidence that alliance airstrikes were harming civilians.

Officials took journalists to Tajura, a city east of Tripoli, to show them a small crater that held what appeared to be the remains of a rocket.

The reporters were also taken to nearby homes that the government said had been damaged by airstrikes.

NATO said it had been active in the area hitting military sites but could not say whether the attacks had caused the damage in the residential area.

Reporters were also taken to a nearby hospital to see Nasib, a comatose baby who was a victim of the airstrikes, the government said.

A woman, who the government said was Nasib’s mother, cried over the child’s listless body.

Journalists were not allowed to talk to the woman or to the doctors. But one doctor quietly slipped a note to one of the journalists that said the girl was injured in a car accident, not a bomb attack.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, speaking Tuesday to British lawmakers, said the European Union has added six additional ports controlled by pro-Gadhafi forces to its sanctions list in an effort to starve Gadhafi’s troops of military supplies.

He said the United Kingdom intends to push for additional sanctions against Gadhafi’s regime.

“Any political settlement in Libya requires an end to violence and Gadhafi’s departure,” Hague said.

YOU DA MAN (actually woman):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dgA0WasFus&feature=share

SPORTS:

Shaquille O’Neal’s girlfriend schools him on sleep apnea

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkiWvWn2aU&feature=player_embedded

Apparently Shaquille O’Neal(notes) snores. We probably could have guessed that. But who knew that snoring would be a danger to the big man’s health?

Anyone who’s ever been hit (or, as they call it, “lightly nudged”) by their better half in the middle of the night knows that snoring can be pretty frustrating for the person who isn’t the actual snorer. And anyone who’s ever done the hitting (I don’t “lightly nudge,” dangit, because I’ve got sleep to catch on) can tell you that it is about as high on the annoyance list as annoyances get.

But most tend to get over it, as their pretty little bird tweets away deep into dreamland. That said, not everyone has to share chambers with Shaquille O’Neal, all 7-1 and 300-pound whatever of him. If your better half sounds like a hummingbird, then this guy has to come off like a full blown diesel semi-engine.

That’s why his girlfriend, TV’s (they tell me) Nikki “Hoopz” Alexander, asked him to take part in a sleep apnea study sponsored by Harvard University. Because, jokes aside, it must be more than a little scary when those snores briefly turn into outright silence, which apparently has happened to Shaq a few times recently.
Watch:

Provided he’s in a good mood, and isn’t being petty, is Shaq ever not funny?
The consequences of sleep apnea, as described by the litany of doctors early in this video, is pretty frightening. So if the little bird next to you sounds like he or she is suffering from the same condition, get them hooked up to a “poly-what?” (as Shaq puts it) as soon as you can.

BUCKEYES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYZ7jlb6Exs&feature=player_embedded

Knight: Rule Ohio St players broke was ‘idiotic’

Bob Knight criticized the NCAA and called the rule Ohio State football players broke when they sold and traded their personal memorabilia “idiotic.”

The former Indiana and Texas Tech basketball coach, and an Ohio State alum, spoke to reporters Monday night before the Henry P. Iba Citizen Athlete Awards ceremony, where he was scheduled to deliver the keynote address.

“I understand what’s happened and there was a rule that was violated,” Knight said. “But it was an idiotic rule.”

Five Ohio State players, including star quarterback Terrelle Pryor, were suspended for the first five games of the upcoming season after it was revealed they traded jerseys, rings, trophies and other items for tattoos.

“I think this NCAA that we’re currently involved with is so far out of touch with the integrity of the sport that it’s just amazing,” Knight said.

Jim Tressel recently resigned as Ohio State coach after he admitted to withholding information from his bosses and the NCAA about his players receiving improper extra benefits.

The Iba Awards, named in honor of the Oklahoma State’s Hall of Fame basketball coach, recognize positive role models in sports. NFL star Jason Taylor and former women’s international soccer star Kristine Lillyreceived the awards Monday night.

Knight, who now works as an analyst for ESPN, said he was glad his days of roaming the bench are over.

“The microphone, to me, is like the whistle is to an official,” Knight said. “Now I just simply say ‘now that is one of the worst calls I’ve seen in basketball.’ I love the microphone.”

RELIGION:

I think every other attribute is laced in mystery. Can we know God? Yes. Can we know Him fully? Not on this side of eternity.

William Jennings Bryan, famous for his role in the Scopes Monkey Trial in the 1925, once likened themystery of God to a watermelon seed. “I have observed the power of the watermelon seed. It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight. When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art, and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds, each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight–when you can explain to me the mystery of the watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.”

If we cannot understand the mystery of the watermelon seed, how can we even begin to understand the mystery God.-Mark Batterson

BUISNESS:

HEALTH:

I am in the process of getting back into things, and shape. I have put together a program for myself that can be used for anyone…novice or body building pro. The key is to go lighter that normal and increase sets/reps and shortened down time..

There are 5 excercises in each flight for 4 sets of 20. In between each flight 1 set of abs and offset 20 calves, and 20 forearms each day.

I call this program the “20” workout. It increases heart rate, works strength, and works endurance-all helping physic. Also adding hour long cardio sessions on Mon & Fri, Sprint Sessions Tues & Thursday, and long runs Weds & Sat…with some type of cardio on Sunday.

MONDAY: Chest

Incline (Smith Machine)-90x20x4

Decline (Smith Machine)-140x20x4

Flat Bench Dumbells-30x2x20x4

Cable Cross Overs-20x2x20x4

Stable Ball push up-20×4

TUESDAY: Back

Assisted pull ups to warm up 20, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8

Squating high lat pulls-27.5x20x4

Standing straight arm push downs-30x20x4

Standing bent over pulls-90x20x4

Back extensions-20×4

Pull Ups (non assisted)-10×4

WEDNESDAY: Legs/Heavy Chest work

(I am doing rehab work)

Warm up treadmill incline up to 15′ and 3.5 for up to 20mins

Laying Side Leg Rise x3 (hold for 1min each),

50’decline squats 20 both legs x3

Standing Barefoot walking foot raise 1min, x3

Standing barefoot big toe raise 10×3,

Elevated calve raise 10×3 (double foot raise, using single to lower),

single leg big/little toe heel crunch stable (hold 60secs) ALL TIMES 3.

Add 10 sets of 2 flat bench press 45-50% of max (currently doing 275)

THURSDAY: Shoulders

Lat/delt alternating dumbbell raise-20x2x20x4

Shrugs 80x2x20x4

Rear delt fly 12.5x2x20x4

Shoulder Press 25x2x20x4

Laying single arm side dumbbell raise/standing rear single arm raise(rehab work)-10x2x20x4

FRIDAY: ARMS (this is longer workout due to 2 body parts. Do Bi/Tri work as one set, with no rest)

Single Arm concentration curls 15x2x20x4

Double Dumbell overhead press 15x2x20x4

Sitting incline dumbbell curls 15x2x20x4

Standing bent over dumbbell tricept kick backs 10x2x20x4

Standing dumbbell single arm cross body hammer curls 20x2x20x4

Standing cable tricept rope pulls 60x20x4

Sitting preacher curls 45x20x4

French curls 45x20x4

Standing cable hurcules curls 20x2x20x4

Single arm tricept cable push downs 15x2x20x4

SATURDAY: Leg rehab and Heavy Chest (I am doing rehab work)

Warm up treadmill incline up to 15′ and 3.5 for up to 20mins

Laying Side Leg Rise x3 (hold for 1min each),

50’decline squats 20 both legs x3

Standing Barefoot walking foot raise 1min, x3

Standing barefoot big toe raise 10×3,

Elevated calve raise 10×3 (double foot raise, using single to lower),

Single leg big/little toe heel crunch stable (hold 60secs) ALL TIMES 3.

Add 10 sets of 2 flat bench press 45-50% of max (currently doing 275)

SUNDAY: Power Cleans

Pyrimid up weight with reps of 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and back up while lowering weight

This is a program than not only WORKS, but can also be catered to your needs. Shoot an e-mail to mattsext@gmail.com to have us help you with your goals or to show this program first hand.

SUCCESS:

If you have lived, take thankfully the past. ~ John Dryden

INSPIRATION:

This little guy just learned to ride his bike, and this is GREAT!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a38jdtcatfQ

Your story may not have a happy beginning but it’s the rest of your story, who you choose to become, that is the most important now. – Keith Cameron Smith

QUOTES:

“Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, ‘I’ve never seen anyone run like that before.’ It’s more than just a race, it’s a style. It’s doing something better than anyone else. It’s being creative.”-Steve Prefontane

CLOSING:

“Used to say Oh God it’s Morning, now I say Good Morning Oh God”-Wynonna

‎”Give love and unconditional acceptance to those you encounter, and notice what happens.”

Strangers only have a few seconds to decide if we are truly who we say we are when it comes to being faithful, trustworthy and reliable. Are you being a good example of these things in your first encounters with others? Watch how you act, sometimes you only have a few seconds to make or miss out on a friendship.- Wayne Dyer

“The past can hurt – you can either run from it or learn from it.”

TO DO:

THURSDAY:

Panic! At The Disco plays The LC, The Lifestyle Communities Pavilion

Thursday I am playing multiple events with The Country Music Television Awards follow us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DJMattySexton

SUNDAY:

Deana Martin, the daughter of Dino, plays the Historic Midland Theatre. For more info, http://www.midlandtheatre.org/

FUNNIES:

FRIDAY:

Paula Poundstone plays the Capitol Theatre, Riffe Center. For more info, www.ticketmaster.com

ALL WEEKEND:

One of my favorites, John Witherspoon (From Boomerang and The “Friday” series) performs at The Funny Bone Comedy Club in Easton Town Center

MORE TO DO:

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY:

Park Street Festival

For complete details, www.parkstreetfest.com

SATURDAY:

Join me at The Flying Horse Rendezvous, Presented by Byers Imports at Flying Horse Farms (5260 State Route 95 Mount Gilead, OH 43035)

Love to show off your sports car and raise money for a good cause? This event is open to all sports cars and sports car enthusiasts. The Flying Horse Rendezvous will be held at the camp and will include a cruise-in, poker runs, entertainment. Registration is $25 per car.

IN THEATERS:

The suspenseful ‘Super 8’ rated “PG-13”

Heather Graham stars in the “Tween Flick” ‘Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer,’ rated “PG.” IT ALSO IS THE COME BACK FOR URKEL!!!

DVD:

A true “throw back Western” True Grit staring Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, and Matt Damon. This re-make does the original justice!

This is not a feel good piece, but a GREAT movie with real themes. Hitting true to the current state of the economy, ‘The Company Men’ staring Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Maria Bello, Rosemarie DeWitt, Kevin Costner, and Craig T. Nelson

The stay at home date movie, ‘Just Go With It’ staring Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston, and Nicole Kidman

COMING SOON PUBLIC EVENTS:

Show Me Fest, Springfield Mizz. June 17^th-19^th http://www.showmemusicfest.com/

Weekly Tuesday Night Bike Nights at Hoggy’s Polaris

Red, White & Boom Long Street Stage Friday July 1^st

Worthington Family Picnic Monday July 4^th (Worthington High School)

Follow us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcsvL_oyRHE

June 8, 2011 Posted by djmattsexton | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sometimes…a “Warrior” is just a person watching the pictures on hotel walls as time tick away

GREETINGS FROM SIDE STAGE OF THE COLUMBUS COMMONS! As I am setting up Production for an event for Mike Vrabel and his ‘Second and Seven’ group-In Route to Warrior Dash!

What are you doing this weekend? Partying? Sitting On The Couch? Resting? My Crew and I will be rockin’ 2.91 miles of INSANITY down in Logan Ohio. Fire, Mud, Barbwire, Hurricane tunnels, ropes…and a lot of booze await all who dare!

http://www.warriordash.com/

This week the weather here in Central Ohio has been amazing, but while enjoying, sending prayers to our friends in Springfield Massachusetts.

Wednesday was an amazing day beautiful sun, light breeze, and it was National Running Day. To capitalize on both I ran outside for the first time since last September. I only did 2 miles, and gassed a lil at the end but averaged a 9:20 pace, and knees held up-and felt ok.

On Thursday my knees felt ok, so after doing my time in the gym, I decided to go for another “knee test” light jog. I also needed some things from the store, so I went for a jog over to Kroger’s. What did I need? Aleve for my sore knees (ironic huh?), and light bulbs. One was dumb to RUN to get and the other? Well glass banging around is not a good idea.

The problem is both did not make it back home…I the bag opened and I lost my Aleve and one bulb fell out, so I guess someone else running on the path will be able to take some Aleve for their own pain, and well…be able to light their way with the light bulb…combination for a perfect night run?

In addition to being on the paths runnin’ I also have had a VERY BUSY WEEK, especially with it being shortened with last Monday, a day for picnics and remembering and CELEBRATING the BRAVE MEN & WOMEN WHO HAVE SERVED!!!

Speaking of celebrating and working hard what better way than one of the greatest donuts of all time? While Wednesday was National Running Day…Friday is Nation Donut Day. Krispy Kreme is CELEBRATING!!!

GET A FREE DOUGHNUT FROM KRISPY KREME ON NATIONAL DOUGHNUT DAY

On Friday, June 3, Krispy Kreme will give back to its guests by offering one FREE Krispy Kreme Doughnut on National Doughnut Day at participating retail locations.

National Doughnut Day was established in 1938 by The Salvation Army to raise funds to help people in need. In honor of the 73-year-old holiday, Krispy Kreme is once again giving each guest who visits a participating U.S. Krispy Kreme shop on June 3 one FREE doughnut of any variety. No purchase is necessary to redeem the offer.

“In honor of National Doughnut Day, we’re inviting doughnut fans to stop by a local Krispy Kreme shop for a complimentary doughnut,” says Ron Rupocinski, corporate chef of Krispy Kreme. “With several delicious, one-of-a-kind doughnuts to select from, including our signature Original Glazed®, you can pick your favorite or discover a new preferred sweet treat for FREE.”

The free doughnut offer is good for one doughnut of any variety per customer at participating U.S. Krispy Kreme retail shops. Visit our store locator page at http://www.krispykreme.com to find a participating Krispy Kreme location near you.

For updates on special promotions, exclusive offers and local events, join “Friends of Krispy Kreme” by visiting

www.KrispyKreme.com

http://www.facebook.com/KrispyKreme

http://www.twitter.com/krispy_kreme.

But again to be able to eat those things I have to make sure I workout, take my Visalus shakes, and it DOES help to finally have good weather, with my knees are feeling better!

I realized most of the Spring I was laying in bed and moping-kinda down and just letting the rain, cold, and blah get to me.

I just let the hands of the clock tic tock and I was not doing anything to keep up. Last weekend in the midst of all my gigs I had a hard time keeping up with…well, time!

At one point I looked down and saw the time change. This is not that big of a deal, but wondered how long it had been since I had seen a minute turn to another or even onto an hour. I stood there and wondered how many minutes have I missed in this lifetime, OR better yet how many moments missed?

Far too often I (and let’s face it all of us) either get stuck in a rut and don’t appreciate the time we have, or we get too caught up in the mundane and let the smallest moments get away from us.

I had the chance to enjoy something that at one time I would have hated. Last week I did a JR. High Dance. For some they may be above this (and at one time I may have felt the same way). BUT an old friend asked me to and I went back, back to when my future was all ahead if me.

Going back to how it began, a JR. High dance! It was kinda funny 1.) Just like when I was in JR. High; all the kids were taller than me that night. 2.) The same bad taste in music was prominent. I wonder if these kids will look back at this time like many of my friends and I do and laugh at our Vanilla Ice and New Kids stuff-this was until both the New Kids and Rob Van Winkle (Vanilla Ice) were retro cool! But I played, one of those songs…ya know the Bieber kid, the kids all screamed, and for one minute I felt cool, or at the very least felt Canadian…but he has better hair

Last week was not all fun and games. I have lost a lot of weight purposely, but with not having a lot of motivation, I have lost some “size.” Being smaller in stature is good for me, and more healthy than trying to be the biggest baddest mutha in a venue, but it has at times been hard to adjust on the inside. Even though I am just a strong as I once was-actually even stronger, I struggle with (what I consider) a lack of neck and arms-but at least I am down to 2 chins!?!?!?

Anyway, some situations cause me to become self conscious even more. I know I can still handle myself; the problem is…many don’t feel the same way. At an event last week I saw some dude in the front making a slashing sigh across his throat and yelling at us from the crowd as we were spinning (waiting on the band to get through some sound issues). I couldn’t take it anymore and went to find out if he was screaming at us, or of he was having a seizure-either way I would have had no problem sticking my wallet in his mouth (and maybe a boot up his a**).

I approached him with my normal “what up sparky?” He responded back “Hey Hamster.” He stated he came to see the band and didn’t want to hear us. I informed him we were saving the bands a** and keeping stage while they worked through some tech issues. He then stuck out his hand and apologized.

3 things came from this, I was reminded of times I had been the jack a** in a crowd yelling when I did not like something. I also was reminded when I am in the wrong…apologize. But mainly it was a moment of growth. In the past someone would have made that hamster comment, and I would have taken them on the ground, bloodied them…and while making them look like an a**, I too would have been an A**, and probably lost the gig. I am glad he said this it made me realize how far I have grown, and how far still need to go-cause the comment still bothered me. I am glad this guy was a jerk…I needed it, and learned from it!

So yet another moment in time to learn and another stone on my path to whatever. This weekend also had me physically all over this GREAT STATE of Ohio!

My travels took me up to Cleveland and yes, while it was a short drive I did realize I am on a “Ride of life”

All of these experiences I am having (all the good and the bad/all the ups and downs/all the love and heartache) allow me to grow in the areas of Business, physical, maturing, and spiritual…and all things that make up life.

I wouldn’t trade this journey for any fast track rise to wherever I may end up!

It is all great but…there is one thing missing, and I wrote another song while on the way to Cleveland on Saturday…yes I did it on my Droid.

One verse, I already reached out and shared some of it with someone…kinda wanted to share some more.

Another night ‘Nother gig full of 1000s of smiling faces all lovin’ me and wantin’ to be my friend….another town full of nice folks but not (the) ONE GREAT person.

Another plush Hotel room with a huge bed, but not as comfortable of my simple home.

The same picture in every room not, on wall not on nightstand…but in my heart.

It is the same in every city, and of the same person I wake up with from my dreams as I continue to picture her in my thoughts.

…It is always same, including the feeling of loneliness

As I was driving, and texting (by the way don’t do that kids it is very dangerous), this song came on and it was appropriate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOg_4VGslCk

I got rice cooking in the microwave
Got a three day beard I don’t plan to shave
And it’s a goofy thing but I just gotta say
Hey I’m doing alright

Yeah I think I’ll make me some homemade soup
Feelin pretty good and that’s the truth
It’s neither drink nor drug induced
No I’m just doin alright

And it’s a great day to be alive
I know the sun’s still shinin when I close my eyes
There’s some hard times in the neigborhood
But why can’t every day be just this good?

It’s been fifteen years since I left home
Said good luck to every seed I’d sown
Give it my best and then I left it alone
Oh…I hope their doin alright

Now I look in the mirror and what do I see?
A lone wolf there starin back at me
Long in the tooth but harmless as can be
Lord I guess he’s doin alright

Sometimes it’s lonely
Sometimes it’s only me
And the shadows that fill this room
Sometimes I’m fallin
Desperately callin
Howlin at the moon…
Ahwoo!
Ahwoo!

Well I might go get me a new tattoo
Or take my old Harley for a three day cruise
Might even grow me a Fu Man Chu…
Oh Aww!

And it’s a great day to be alive
I know the sun’s still shinin when I close my eyes
There’s some hard times in the neigborhood
But why can’t every day be just this good?

And it’s a great day to be alive
I know the sun’s still shinin when I close my eyes
There’s some hard times in the neigborhood
But why can’t every day be just this good?

But even as good as my life (and let’s face all of our lives really are)…it is kinda rough being a Buckeye right now

For all those Buckeye Fans who made fun of USC, and their violations…I guess we found out that while Ann Arbor is a Whore, her seester Karma is a Bi*ch!

But regardless…”Time and Change will Surely Show How Firm Thy Friendship O-HI-O!”

I am off to hit the Warrior Dash Course to (as my dad used to say when he stole a French fry) “Test It to make sure…”

Have a great weekend and enjoy the minutes…but also the moments!

PLEASE JOIN ME:

Tallan Noble Latz

June 2^nd from 7-10 PM with Terry Davidson and The Gears at Hoggy’s Live! Delaware. This family-friendly show is also free to the public and all media are welcome to all three events.

PARK STREET FESTIVAL JUNE 10^th-11^th

Park Street Festival is back and better than ever this year! With activities and entertainment fit for any age, Park Street Festival is fun for the whole family.

This year’s activities include Bike Night, Autograph sessions with local athletes, Kids Fair, 9 live bands, and much more!

Music Schedule:

FRIDAY (opening at 5pm)

The 17th Floor

Travelers By Dawn

Johnny White

Six Panel Driver

Dot Dot Dot

DJ Nobody/Matt Sexton

SATURDAY (opening at 3pm)

Relive the Thriller (Michael Jackson Tribute Show starring Corey Melton)

Lovesick Radio

Kicking Dixie

Downplay

Union Rose

Of Human

DJ Matt Sexton/DJ Nobody

Visit www.parkstreetfest.com for more information!

RED, WHITE, & BOOM Friday July 1, 2011

Join me on the Long Street Stage with


Noon	Alex White
1pm	Maza laska
2pm	Misfit Toys
3pm	The Forties
4pm	She Bears
5pm	Alleyes Path
6pm	The Compressis
7pm	Ghost Shirt
8pm	Phantods
9pm-945 10:25 – 11:20	The Queen Tribute Band-Mr Fahrenheit & The Lover Boys
MC/DJ ALL DAY		Matt Sexton

ALSO, THE SUMMER TEMPS HAVE FINALLY HIT…let me help you get into your best shape (inside and out!) Send an e-mail to matsext@gmail.com for availability and specialized individual workout plans.

THOUGHT(s) FOR THE WEEK:

‎A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort-Rev Run

“To dare is to lose ones footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself” -Kierkegaard

To love what you do and feel that it matters, how on earth could anything be more fun. Katherine Graham

If ya wanna earn livin ya gotta put on a show

SONG(s) FOR THE WEEK:

Opening lines just hit way too close to home

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHx4BlF6V2o&feature=fvst

This has been a theme for me for a few years

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_TeWKJjqmI

YEP!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4VpE-0zitU

GREAT ADVICE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJtf7R_oVaw

QUESTION OF THE WEEK:

What is the cost of living? The only thing you must pay is attention. Focus and confront what is important. You cannot conquer or change what you are not willing to confront! Things change when you change them. What will you confront today?

HELP:

The gift of sharing your joy with the world has no expiry date. ~ pj johnson

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them. – Dalai Lama

Help provide a vehicle and transportation for a friend of mine who is a missionary in Haiti.

Friday, June 17 · 6:00pm – 7:30pm

Licking Valley High School

Texas Roadhouse Dinner (pizza for children) will be served from 6:00 – 7:30pm

Cost: $20.00 per ticket for steak dinner. Dinner includes Steak, salad, baked potato, rolls, drink and dessert.

Pizza ticket is $5.00 and includes pizza, drink, salad and dessert.

Please see her blog for more information on her work in Haiti:

http://www.ginnyinhaiti.com

For questions regarding the Benefit Dinner and Silent action please email Summer Conley at summer_conley@hotmail.com.

Donations are being accepted for the Silent Auction. Contact Summer if interested.

FUNNY:

Went in for a colonoscopy. A can-cam. Dr asked if I wanted to watch the screen. No, thanks. I know my sh*t is up to no good.-Ron White

HMMM:

Few things capture the public’s curiosity like Area 51. The top-secret military base (which doesn’t officially exist) has been the subject of conspiracy theories for decades. What actually went on there? Something tells us we’ll never know for sure.

However, a recently revealed series of photographs provides some tantalizing new clues. The photos, which were published by National Geographic show a titanium A-12 spy plane. In one image, the satisfyingly sci-fi-looking plane hangs upside down while it is prepared for radar testing. In another shot, a group of officials with heavy equipment “remove all traces of the A-12 spy plane” after it went down in the Utah desert in 1963.

PASSING:

Franklin County Sheriff Jim Karnes died Thursday after fighting pancreatic cancer.

Karnes died at about 12:30 p.m. at The Ohio State University Medical Center, surrounded by family and friends.

Karnes began his law enforcement career in 1963 as a deputy in the corrections division. He retired as a lieutenant and was first elected sheriff in 1992.

Flags are flying at half staff at Franklin County Sheriff’s headquarters.

Karnes, known as ‘Big Jim’ to his friends, became the longest serving sheriff in Franklin County history in Aug. 2007.

“He was a good guy, one of the guys, started in 1967, been a deputy for 48 years,” said Special Deputy Dave McMannis.

Karnes spoke to NBC4’s Mindy Drayer in 2010 about the importance of serving as long as he has, and being married to the same woman.

“I begin my 47th year at the sheriff’s office in June,” he said. “In that 47 years on the same job, I’ve had the same wife. I’m what’s known as a rarity.”

Karnes made the announcement of his cancer diagnosis in April, saying he would undergo aggressive chemotherapy.

Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman issued the following statement Thursday:

“I am saddened today by the loss of a good friend, Jim Karnes, who served the people of this community for almost half a century. Sherriff Karnes was both tough and compassionate, and he will be missed by all the people of Franklin County. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family.”

In May, county officials renamed one of the county buildings on South High Street that housed many of the sheriff’s offices after Karnes.

Karnes was in his final term in office. He said he wanted to serve as sheriff until the new Franklin County Courthouse was in place because he wanted to make sure the building was secure and safe for the public and his deputies.

The Franklin County Board of Commissioners convened an emergency meeting Thursday afternoon to appoint Franklin County Deputy Chief Stephan L. Martin as acting sheriff of Franklin County.

Martin said funeral arrangements haven’t been made at this time, but he will update the community when they are.

Acting Sheriff Martin will assume all of the rights and responsibilities of Sheriff until the Franklin County Democratic Party Central Committee makes a new appointment within the next 45 days.

Karnes leaves behind his wife, Sandy, three daughters, Paige, Brooke and Shannon, and three grandchildren. He was 71 years old.

BIRTHDAY:

‎Happy Birthday Clint Eastwood: Hollywood legend has fans remembering his movies

Clint Eastwood has appeared in countless movies, directed dozens of scripts and is still going strong. The Hollywood legend celebrates his birthday on Tuesday, May 31. Born in 1930, he will be 81 years young. Celebrating the contribution he has made to the movie business isn’t hard as his career spans over a vast amount of time with great classics.

Entering the world of entertainment in 1955, Clintwood has been in the business for over 50 years and he has projects lined up to continue for years to come. However, he wasn’t always the producer and director we see today, he career started with some legendary movies including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly andDirty Harry. His career of acting includes Play Misty for Me, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, In the Line of Fire, The Bridges of Madison County, and Gran Torino. Taking on directing, his films have received national acclaim with titles like Invictus, Hereafter, and Million Dollar Baby.

“Everybody wonders why I continue working at this stage. I keep working because there’s always new stories…. And as long as people want me to tell them, I’ll be there doing them,” said Clint Eastwood in the DVD The Eastwood Factor in 2010.

So to that there is only one thing to say: Happy Birthday Mr. Eastwood. Have a great day of celebration, cake and delight. And the fans will be celebrating right along with you by watching their favorite Eastwood flick.

ENTERTAINMENT:

….shocker?

TV Executives Admit in Taped Interviews That Hollywood Pushes a Liberal Agenda

When Shapiro tells Fred Pierce, the president of ABC in the 1980s who was instrumental in Disney’s acquisition of ESPN, that “It’s very difficult for people who are politically conservative to break in” to television, he responds: “I can’t argue that point.” Those who don’t lean left, he says, “don’t promote it. It stays underground.”

Another video rolling out soon has ” House ” creator David Shore acknowledging that “there is an assumption in this town that everybody is on the left side of the spectrum, and that the few people on the right side, I think people look at them somewhat aghast, and I’m sure it doesn’t help them.”

In the book, subtitled “The true Hollywood story of how the left took over your TV,” Shapiro also tells anecdotes of bias against conservatives. One example is Dwight Schultz, best known for his roles as Murdock in ” The A-Team ” and Barclay in ” Star Trek: The Next Generation .”

The late Bruce Paltrow knew that Schultz was a fan of President Ronald Reagan. When Schultz showed up to audition for ” St. Elsewhere ,” a show Paltrow produced, to read for the part of Fiscus, Paltrow told him: “There’s not going to be a Reagan [expletive] on this show!” The part went to Howie Mandel.

“Most nepotism in Hollywood isn’t familial, it’s ideological,” Shapiro writes in the book. “Friends hire friends. And those friends just happen to share their politics.”

Another video Shapiro will release shortly has producer-director Nicholas Meyer being asked point-blank whether conservatives are discriminated against in Hollywood. “Well, I hope so,” he answers. Meyer also admits his political agenda for “The Day After,” a TV movie he directed for ABC that was seen by 100 million people when it aired in 1983.

“My private, grandiose notion was that this movie would unseat Ronald Reagan when he ran for re-election,” Meyer says.

Even seemingly harmless shows like ” Happy Days ” and ” Sesame Street ” have been used to advance a progressive agenda, according to Shapiro.

For example, William Bickley, a writer on ” The Partridge Family ” and a producer on “Happy Days,” says he infused Vietnam War protest messages into the latter. “I was into all that,” he says in a soon-to-be-released video.

“Television has been perhaps the most impressive weapon in the left’s political arsenal,” Shapiro argues in the book.

Other upcoming videos include: ” Family Ties ” creator Gary David Goldberg explaining how he tried to make Republican character Alex Keaton the bad guy but that actor Michael J. Fox was too darn lovable; and president of MTV Networks Entertainment Group Doug Herzog talking about his network having “superpowers” when it comes to its influence over young people.

The advancement of a gay and lesbian political agenda is mentioned by multiple executives, including Marcy Carsey, a producer of “Soap” and ” Roseanne ,” and ” Desperate Housewives ” producer Marc Cherry, who is a rarity in Hollywood: a gay Republican.

In her video, Carsey also says she insisted on portraying characters smoking marijuana in ” That ’70s Show .” “If this is a problem for you, we certainly understand, and we just won’t do the show,” she told executives at Fox.

Shapiro released two videos Tuesday, one featuring ” COPS ” creator John Langley saying he’s partial to segments where white people are the criminals, and the other has Fred Silverman, the former head of ABC and later NBC, saying

“there’s only one perspective, and it’s a very progressive perspective” in TV comedy today.

Shapiro said the executives felt comfortable talking about politics with him because they assumed, incorrectly, that he is on the left.

“Most of them didn’t Google me. If they had, they would have realized where I am politically,” he said. “I played on their stereotypes. When I showed up for the interviews, I wore my Harvard Law baseball cap — my name is Ben Shapiro and I attended Harvard, so there’s a 98.7 percent chance I’m a liberal. Except I happen not to be.”

Shapiro said he’ll time the debut of certain videos for maximum effect. One that slams Sean Hannity, for example, is reserved for his scheduled appearance on Hannity’s show on the Fox News Channel.

And conservative pundit Ann Coulter has a new book out June 7. “I have two people ripping her by name, so I’ll release those the day Ann’s book is released,” Shapiro said.

One of those slamming Coulter is George Schlatter, who directed and produced ” Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In ” in the 1970s, using the show to knock Republicans and the Vietnam War. “The fact we [ticked] the Pentagon off, that pleased me enormously,” he says before calling Coulter a vulgar word.

In his video, Schlatter also goes off on right-wing radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham.

Shapiro says he didn’t disclose that he’d be releasing the tapes, but that his subjects have no reason to complain.

“I asked them for permission to tape, and there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy when you’re being interviewed for a book,” he said.

“If they’re going to be shocked at something, it should be themselves, not me,” Shapiro said. “They should be shocked that opinion is so one-sided in Hollywood that it’s OK to say, ‘I’m fine with discrimination.'”

“My whole book is a plea for openness in the industry,” he added. “Hire people from the other side of the aisle once in a while, or at least stop mocking them.

MUSIC:

Jay-Z on What Makes Classic Track. The rapper’s introduction to Rolling Stone’s top 500 songs

A great song doesn’t attempt to be anything — it just is.

When you hear a great song, you can think of where you were when you first heard it, the sounds, the smells. It takes the emotions of a moment and holds it for years to come. It transcends time. A great song has all the key elements — melody; emotion; a strong statement that becomes part of the lexicon; and great production. Think of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” by Queen. That song had everything — different melodies, opera, R&B, rock — and it explored all of those different genres in an authentic way, where it felt natural.

When I’m writing a song that I know is going to work, it’s a feeling of euphoria. It’s how a basketball player must feel when he starts hitting every shot, when you’re in that zone. As soon as you start, you get that magic feeling, an extra feeling. Songs like that come out in five minutes; if I work on them more than, say, 20 minutes, they’re probably not going to work.

When I was starting out, I was just trying to tell stories. I wasn’t thinking about melodies. Then I started to marry storytelling with everything I was learning from all these other great records: the great writers like Babyface and Lionel Richie; Rakim’s technique and syncopation; Dre’s whole package on the Chronic albums; Quincy Jones, the greatest producer of all time; Rick Rubin, who’s not too far behind because of all his genre-jumping.

Technology has caused the songwriting process to lose some of the magic. A lot of times now, people working on a song aren’t in the same room. Imagine if Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones hadn’t been in the same room! Those records would have been totally different. I’ve had times when I changed one word because of something that somebody said in the studio, and it changed the whole song. It’s so important to have other people in the room, vibing, saying, “No, this part is good, put that there.”

I spend a lot of time fighting myself to stay out of the way of a great song. It’s hard for me to leave a song alone, in its natural state. I want it to have that mass appeal, but once I start trying to push it too far, you can feel that something isn’t right. When you can hear what a writer is trying to do, it’s like watching a dancer and seeing him counting his steps. Music is emotional — if you’re singing that you’re in love with somebody but it doesn’t really feel like you are, people can tell.

Some of my best songs aren’t the biggest ones. A song like “Can I Live” is so full of emotion to me — it was better than “Hard Knock Life” or “Empire State of Mind,” but it lacked that accessibility. Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall album may not have been bigger than Thriller, but the songs had better melodies.

But when a phrase gets stuck in your head like a great melody and becomes part of everyday culture, that’s when it can become something great. When your music signifies a time in the culture or continues on in everyday life, like “Say It Loud — I’m Black and I’m Proud” or “A Change Is Gonna Come.” Or when something like “Bling Bling” even makes it into the dictionary. Then you know you’ve done your job.

BOOKS:

I saw this movie and it WAS AWESOME, not a feel good piece, but really good!

Provinces of Night: A Novel
William Gay (Author)

In his second novel, Provinces of Night, William Gay re-creates the oppressive, evocative atmosphere of the American Deep South that he first explored in his debut novel, The Long Home. Against the backdrop of rural Tennessee in the 1950s, our teenage protagonist, Fleming Bloodworth, finds himself alone in the family home after his father, Boyd, abandons him to hunt down and kill his wife’s lover. At the same time, Fleming’s grandfather decides to return to his family after 20 years of self-imposed exile. He returns to discover that his remaining two sons, Warren and Brady, are in turn an alcoholic womanizer and a Bible-quoting fantasist who enjoys putting curses on his enemies.

This is a self-consciously big novel in the Southern tradition that could easily have buckled under the weight of its own ambition. Instead, Gay pulls it off with ease, presenting us with a stream of unforgettable characters. While the central themes of love, loyalty, and forgiveness are explored seriously and sensitively, the finely wrought prose is also sprinkled with moments of genuine humor as Gay proves that he’s not afraid to gently mock his gang of Southern eccentrics. This is a wonderful novel and a worthy successor to the tradition it so obviously admires. –Jane Morris, Amazon.co.uk –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Like one of Wallace Stevens’s best-known poems, Gay’s (The Long Home) second novel begins with a jar on a hill in TennesseeDonly this one appears to contain tiny human bones. That’s a suitably ominous prelude to the dark saga of the Bloodworth clan, which revolves mostly around 17-year-old Fleming, an aspiring writer trying to evade the family legacy of violence and self-destruction. It is 1952 and his father, Boyd, has left their decrepit mountain home “seventy miles back of Nashville” for Detroit, not to work in an automobile factory like the other “hillbillies” but to search forDand killDthe peddler who has run off with his wife. Meanwhile, Fleming’s grandfather, E.F. Bloodworth, a blues musician, is on his way home after having suffered a “stroke of paralysis” 20 years earlier. His handsome Uncle Warren, a former war hero now at loose ends, is a dissipated womanizer with an even more dissolute and unstable son, and his Uncle Brady “witches” for water, tells fortunes and casts hexes on those who do him wrong. Even as the Tennessee Valley Authority is moving in to clear and flood their valley and bring in “the electricity,” Fleming’s relatives and neighbors live by the backwoods code of violence exemplified by E.F., a man whose exploits are legendary among the locals. Only Raven Lee Halfacre, the 16-year-old daughter of a promiscuous alcoholic and the “prettiest girl in a three county area,” offers the boy a glimpse of another way of life. Fleming’s name echoes that of one of Faulkner’s most memorable characters, and Gay’s prose resembles that of Faulkner at his most florid. His stylistic quirksDespecially his refusal to set off dialogue with quotation marksDtake some getting used to, but the pitch-perfect rendition of the cadences of Southern speech and deeply poetic descriptions of the landscape more than compensate.

POLITICS:

Romney: ‘Barack Obama has failed America’

Mitt Romney is opening his first formal day as a 2012 Republican presidential candidate by pitching himself as the one to heal the economy and issuing a direct challenge to the man he wants to replace: “Barack Obama has failed America,” he says.

In excerpts released ahead of his formal kick-off speech Thursday, Romney homes in on the economic woes that are frustrating voters: a lack of jobs, persistent foreclosures and runaway spending in Washington.

It’s a pitch tailored to the conservatives who hold great sway in picking the GOP’s presidential nominee in Iowa and South Carolina — and the independents who are the largest politic bloc in New Hampshire. And it is as much a thesis on his viability as it is an indictment of Obama’s leadership.

“A few years ago, Americans did something that was, actually, very much the sort of thing Americans like to do: We gave someone new a chance to lead, someone we hadn’t known for very long, who didn’t have much of a record but promised to lead us to a better place,” Romney says, describing the man he hopes to meet head-to-head in November 2012.

“At the time, we didn’t know what sort of a president he would make. … Now, in the third year of his four-year term, we have more than promises and slogans to go by. Barack Obama has failed America.”

In the speech, the former Massachusetts governor launches into a scathing critique of Washington, a place where he has never served. Decrying federal spending, the one-term governor promises, “My generation will pass the torch to the next generation, not a bill.”

Romney comes to a presidential contest that lacks a front-runner. In the past week, the still-jelling field became less certain with hints that Texas Gov. Rick Perry was considering a bid. Tea party darling Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is inching toward a run, perhaps giving the anti-tax, libertarian-leaning grassroots movement a candidate to rally around.

Romney sought to claim a slice of that constituency when describing families struggling to get by.

“It doesn’t matter if they are Republican or Democrat, independent or libertarian,” Romney says in remarks he planned to deliver at a farm in Stratham. “They’re just Americans. An American family.”

Meanwhile, Sarah Palin, her party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee, continued a bus tour that not only highlighted her potential to upend the race but also served as a contrast to the lackluster enthusiasm for those already running for president. She was set to appear in New Hampshire at a clambake Thursday, although her aides and advisers were not providing schedules and her supporters in the state were left looking for guidance.

Romney has built an experienced political team, collected serious campaign cash and crafted a campaign that is ready to go full-bore. While his likely opponents have jostled for the spotlight, Romney largely has worked in private to fine-tune his political machine. He has chosen to weigh in through statements and editorial pages instead of interviews with journalists or town hall-style meetings with voters.

On Friday, Romney starts to shift that strategy. He has scheduled his first town hall meeting for Manchester and later planned to speak at a Faith and Freedom forum in Washington.

Party leaders have yet to rally around him. Romney hopes his tough talk will inspire support.

“We are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy,” he says, decrying Obama’s health care overhaul — a federal version of the one Romney signed into law for Massachusetts.

“From my first day in office my No. 1 job will be to see that America once again is No. 1 in job creation,” he says.

MILITARY:

Six Seconds to Live
“Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. They saved us all.”

BY LT. GEN. JOHN KELLY – May 1, 2011
This article from the May issue of The American Legion Magazine is an excerpt of a speech Lt. Gen. John Kelly gave to the Semper Fi Society of St.

Our country today is in a life-and-death struggle against an evil enemy, but America as a whole is certainly not at war. Not as a country. Not as a people. Today, only a tiny fraction of American families – less than 1 percent – shoulder the burden of fear and sacrifice, and they shoulder it for the entire nation. Their sons and daughters who serve are men and women of character who continue to believe in this country enough to put life and limb on the line without qualification, and without thought of personal gain, so the sons and daughters of the other 99 percent don’t have to. No big deal, though. Marines have always been first to fight, paying in full the bill that comes with being free for everyone else.

The comforting news for every American is that our men and women in uniform are as good today as any in our history. As good as their heroic, underappreciated and largely abandoned fathers and uncles were inVietnam, and their grandfathers were in Korea and World War II, they have the same steel in their backs and have made their own mark, etching forever places like Ramadi, Fallujah and Baghdad in Iraq, and Helmand and Sangin, Afghanistan, that are now part of U.S. military legend and stand just as proudly alongside Iwo Jima, Normandy, Inchon, Hue City, Khe Sanh and A Shau Valley, Vietnam.

While some might think we have produced yet another generation of materialistic and self-absorbed young people, those who serve today have broken the mold and stepped out as real men, and real women, who are already making their own way in life while protecting ours. They have learned, at the same time they have served and fought for us, that the real strength of a platoon, a battalion or a country is not based on worshipping at the altar of diversity or separateness. On the contrary, they know that our immigrant and castoff ancestors, many of whom came here in chains, forged a nation that was a melting pot stitched together by a shared sense of history, values, customs, hopes and dreams, all of which unified an earlier America into a whole, as opposed to an unruly gaggle of hyphenated names or multicultural individuals.

Our servicemen and women also come to understand that it’s not about color, but about character. That it’s not about where in the world you came from, but all about why you came. That it’s not about the God you worship, but that you will respect and even fight for the right of your neighbor to venerate any God he or she ***** well pleases. That it’s not about individual achievement, but all about achieving together as a people for the common good. That there is an exceptionalism about America, and that we should cherish who we are and why we are extraordinary. Those of us who serve or have served in America’s armed forces have a profound understanding of these truths. Unfortunately, many in our great country today seldom fully appreciate them, or even hear of them beyond rhetoric every couple of years.

And what are they like in combat in this war? Like Marines have been throughout our history. These young people demonstrate their commitment to us not in words, but in action. In my three tours in combat as an infantry officer and commanding general, I never saw one of them hesitate, or do anything other than lean into the fire and, with no apparent fear of death or injury, take the fight to our enemies.

As anyone who has ever experienced combat knows, when it starts, when the explosions and tracers are everywhere, and the calls for the corpsman or medic are screamed from the throats of men who know they are dying – when seconds seem like hours and it all becomes slow motion and fast forward at the same time, and the only rational act is to stop, get down, save yourself – they don’t. When no one would call them a coward for cowering behind a wall or in a hole, slave to the most basic of all human instincts – survival – none of them do. It doesn’t matter if it’s an IED, a suicide bomber, mortar attack, sniper, fighting in the upstairs room of a house, or all of it at once – they talk, swagger and, most importantly, fight today in the same way America’s Marines have since Tun Tavern. They also know whose shoulders they stand on, and they will never shame any veteran of any service, living or dead.

We can also take comfort in the fact that these young Americans are not born killers but are good and decent young men and women who, for going on 10 years, have performed remarkable acts of bravery and selflessness to a cause they have decided is bigger and more important than themselves. Only a few months ago, they were delivering your paper, stocking shelves in the local grocery store, serving Mass on Sunday, or playing hockey on local ice.

Like my own two sons – who are Marines and have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan – they are also the same kids that drove their cars too fast for your liking, and played the god-awful music of their generation too loud, but have no doubt they are the finest of their generation. Like those who went before them in uniform, we owe them everything. We owe them our safety. We owe them our prosperity. We owe them our freedom. We owe them our lives.

Any one of them could have done something more self-serving with their lives, as the vast majority of their age group elected to do after high school and college. But no, they chose to serve, knowing full well a brutal war was in their future. They did not avoid the most basic and cherished responsibility of a citizen: the defense of country. They welcomed it. They are the very best this country produces, and have put every one of us ahead of themselves. All are heroes for simply stepping forward, and we as a people owe a debt we can never fully pay.

Just yesterday, two were lost, and a knock on the door late last night brought their families to their knees in a grief that will never go away. Thousands more have suffered terrible wounds since it all started, but like anyone who loses life or limb while serving others – including our firefighters and law-enforcement personnel, who on 9/11 were the first casualties of this war – they are not victims; they knew what they were about, and were doing what they wanted to do.

Indeed, they were in exactly the place they wanted to be: among the best men and women America produces. The chattering class and all those who doubt America’s intentions and resolve, endeavor to make them and their families out to be victims, but they are wrong. We who have served, and are serving, refuse their sympathy.
I have a story I wish to relate about the kind of people they are, about the steel in their backs, and the kind of dedication they bring to our country.

When I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, on April 22, 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 “The Walking Dead,” and 2/8, were switching out in Ramadi. One battalion was in the closing days of its deployment, the other just starting its seven-month combat tour.

Two Marines, Cpl. Jonathan Yale and Lance Cpl. Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines. The same ramshackle building was also home to 100 Iraqi police, our allies in the fight against terrorists in Ramadi – known at the time as the most dangerous city on earth, and owned by al-Qaeda.

Yale was a dirt-poor mixed-race kid from Virginia, with a wife, a mother and a sister, who all lived with him and he supported. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds. Had they not joined the Marines, they would never have met each other, or understood that multiple Americas exist simultaneously, depending on one’s race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, education level, economic status, or where you might have been born. But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible, and because of this bond they were brothers as close – or closer – than if they were born of the same woman.

The mission orders they received from their sergeant squad leader, I’m sure, went something like this: “OK, take charge of this post and let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass. You clear?” I’m also sure Yale and Haerter rolled their eyes and said, in unison, something like, “Yes, sergeant,” with just enough attitude that made the point, without saying the words, “No kidding, sweetheart. We know what we’re doing.” They then relieved two other Marines on watch and took up their post at the entry-control point of Joint Security Station Nasser, in the Sophia section of Ramadi, al Anbar, Iraq.

A few minutes later, a large blue truck turned down the alleyway – perhaps 60 to 70 yards in length – and sped its way through the serpentine concrete Jersey walls. The truck stopped just short of where the two were posted and detonated, killing them both. Twenty-four brick masonry houses were damaged or destroyed. A mosque 100 yards away collapsed. The truck’s engine came to rest 200 yards away, knocking down most of a house down before it stopped. Our explosive experts reckoned the blast was caused by 2,000 pounds of explosive. Because these two young infantrymen didn’t have it in their DNA to run from danger, they saved 150 of their Iraqi and American brothers in arms.

When I read the situation report a few hours after it happened, I called the regimental commander for details. Something about this struck me as different. We expect Marines, regardless of rank or MOS, to stand their ground and do their duty, and even die in the process, if that is what the mission takes. But this just seemed different. The regimental commander had just returned from the site, and he agreed, but reported that there were no American witnesses to the event – just Iraqi police. If there was any chance of finding out what actually happened, and then to decorate the two Marines to acknowledge their bravery, I’d have to do it, because a combat award requires two eyewitnesses, and we figured the bureaucrats back in Washington would never buy Iraqi statements. If it had any chance at all, it had to come under the signature of a general officer.

I traveled to Ramadi the next day and spoke individually to a half-dozen Iraqi police, all of whom told the same story. They all said, “We knew immediately what was going on as soon as the two Marines began firing.”

The Iraqi police related that some of them also fired, and then, to a man, ran for safety just prior to the explosion. All survived. Many were injured, some seriously. One of the Iraqis elaborated, and with tears welling up, said, “They’d run like any normal man would to save his life.”

What he didn’t know until then, and what he learned that very instant, was that Marines are not normal. Choking past the emotion, he said, “Sir, in the name of God, no sane man would have stood there and done what they did. They saved us all.”
What we didn’t know at the time, and only learned after I submitted both Yale and Haerter for posthumous Navy Crosses, was that one of our security cameras recorded some of the attack. It happened exactly as the Iraqis described it. It took exactly six seconds from when the truck entered the alley until it detonated. You can watch the last six seconds of their young lives.

I suppose it took about a second for the two Marines to separately come to the same conclusion about what was going on once the truck came into their view at the far end of the alley. No time to talk it over, or call the sergeant to ask what they should do. Only enough time to take half an instant and think about what the sergeant told them to do only a few minutes before: “Let no unauthorized personnel or vehicles pass.”

It took maybe another two seconds for them to present their weapons, take aim, and open up. By this time, the truck was halfway through the barriers and gaining speed. Here the recording shows a number of Iraqi police, some of whom had fired their AKs, now scattering like the normal and rational men they were, some running right past the Marines, who had three seconds left to live.

For about two seconds more, the recording shows the Marines firing their weapons nonstop. The truck’s windshield explodes into shards of glass as their rounds take it apart and tear into the body of the son of a ***** trying to get past them to kill their brothers – American and Iraqi – bedded down in the barracks, totally unaware that their lives at that moment depended entirely on two Marines standing their ground.

Yale and Haerter never hesitated. By all reports and by the recording, they never stepped back. They never even shifted their weight. With their feet spread shoulder-width apart, they leaned into the danger, firing as fast as they could. They had only one second left to live, and I think they knew.

The truck explodes. The camera goes blank. Two young men go to their God. Six seconds. Not enough time to think about their families, their country, their flag, or about their lives or their deaths, but more than enough time for two very brave young men to do their duty. Those are the kind of people who are on watch all over the world tonight for you, and as amazing as this selfless act of sacrifice may seem, it is the norm.

In all the years I have been both enlisted and an officer of Marines, I have praised them and have chewed them out. I have promoted them and unceremoniously disciplined them. I have hung decorations on them and court-martialed them. I have visited them mangled and broken in military hospitals around the country, in lonely defensive positions across Iraq, and in brigs. I have known thousands of them over nearly 40 years, and I can tell you without hesitation or qualification that I never met one who would have run from his post that morning – who would have done anything other than to have stood there and died.

I have the name of the most recent hero, killed in Afghanistan a few hours ago, but I cannot share with you his name because a Marine officer and Navy chaplain have not yet executed their honored duty of notifying the next of kin. That family, right now, somewhere in America, is in the final minutes of blissful ignorance before their entire lives change forever. I know God will help them bear this inconceivable burden – a burden I am told by those who know that never goes away or even gets lighter – and help them find comfort in the fact that their son was doing exactly what he wanted to do, was doing it with the finest men on this earth, and for a cause that meant more to him than his life. The reality, however, is that it doesn’t matter if we are comforted, or if we accept it or not. It only matters that he did.

We Marines believe that God gave America the greatest gift he could bestow on man while he lives on this earth: freedom. We also believe he gave us another gift nearly as precious – our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Coast Guardsmen and Marines – to safeguard that gift and guarantee no force on this earth can ever steal it away.

Rest assured that our America, this experiment in democracy begun over two centuries ago, will forever remain the land of the free and home of the brave so long as we never run out of tough young Americans who are willing to look beyond their own self-interest and comfortable lives, and go into the darkest and most dangerous places on earth to hunt down and kill those who would do us harm. God bless America, and semper fidelis.

Lt. Gen. John Kelly is senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Kelly delivered this speech to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on Nov. 13, 2010, four days after his son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Kelly, was killed in action in Afghanistan.

BUISNESS/PRODUCT OF WEEK:

My Buddies from Dream Seats-Your Total Ticket Source, or as I will call them this weekend, my house guests. Wanna go to The Memorial? How about Reds? Indians? Your favorite onstage artists (NO, not talking about me on stage)…these guys can put you anywhere you want to be in any city on the country. Call 614-340-8989

YOU DA MAN:

I saw this story on the Today Show-really inspiring

Ray Lewis Helps NY Boy Who Lost Mother, Siblings

Ravens star Ray Lewis reached out to help the young survivor of a tragic accident.

On April 12, 10-year-old La’Shaun Armstrong’s mother drove her family’s minivan into the Hudson River in New York, killing herself and three of La’Shaun’s younger siblings.

The story of his escape and survival touched many, including the Ravens All-Pro, who tracked the boy down and offered to become his mentor.

“He grabbed me from afar. The first words out of my mouth were, ‘I need him,'” Lewis said.

“When I first met Ray Lewis, I was shocked,” La’Shaun said. “It was, like, so cool. He’s like a brother to me.”

In April, Lewis and other current and retired NFL players held a black tie event to help raise money for counseling, tutoring and a college fund for La’Shaun.

WHAT THE HE**?:

Man Bites Off wife’s Eyelid
A 32-year-old Clinton Township man could spend up to 10 years in jail if convicted of biting off his wife’s eyelid during an argument.

Rahsaan Lavonte Thedford is being held in the Macomb County Jail on $100,000 bond. St. Clair Shores 40thDistrict Court Judge Mark A. Fratarcangeli on Tuesday ordered Thedford’s case bound over to Macomb County Circuit Court.

He’s scheduled to be arraigned on one felony count of assault with intent to maim on June 13.

“I find this crime absolutely heinous,” St. Clair Shores Police Detective Margaret Eidt said today. “In 18 years of being a police officer and detective, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a case like this.”

Eidt said Thedford’s wife called police from her car outside her St. Clair Shores home at 4 a.m. on May 8,Mother’s Day.

The argument began when the woman told Thedford to leave her home, according to Eidt. The couple had been estranged after the woman’s 17-year-old daughter was assaulted in February. Thedford has been charged with misdemeanor assault in that incident and the case is pending in 40th District Court.

In the Mother’s Day incident, Thedford is accused of punching his wife in the face when: “He was on top of her, leaned over and bit her eyelid off,” Eidt said.

Police caught him about a block away, trying to climb under a chain-link fence to hide in a yard, Eidt added.

Thedford’s attorney, Robert Vandenbroucke, was not immediately available for comment this morning.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:

Doomsday believer donates entire inheritance to Family Radio

When the world didn’t end on May 21, many people who had given up their earthly possessions were left with nothing.

But one believer never lived to see the day. She left nearly her entire estate — around $300,000 — to the group behind the failed prediction, leaving some family members out in the cold.

Eileen Heuwetter was shocked to find out that her aunt left the majority of her estate to Family Radio, the group responsible for the doomsday warnings that the world would end on May 21. She and her sister were each left $25,000 from their aunt’s estate. The rest is going to Family Radio.

The network of Christian radio stations based in Oakland, Ca., is almost entirely funded by donations. According to IRS filings, the group brought in $18 million in contributions in 2009 alone.

Heuwetter, the executor of the will, knew how much her aunt loved the radio station and admired its leader, Harold Camping, who is viewed as a prophet by many of his followers.

While other family members insisted it was crazy to let her aunt give all that money to a radio station, Heuwetter didn’t initially contest the conditions of the will. She knew little about the Christian radio station, but knew her aunt, Doris Schmitt, found comfort in it.

Schmitt had lived a tough life, struggling with alcoholism and losing her two children to drug addictions before dying alone at 78 on May 2, 2010 in her small home in Queens, New York.

“This was not a woman who had anything. She literally had Family Radio on day and night — she went to bed with it and woke up to it,” said Heuwetter. “That was all she had.”

It wasn’t until recently that Heuwetter learned who was really getting her aunt’s bequest. She said she first realized this was the same group when she saw buses driving around New York City the weekend before the supposed end of the world, spreading the doomsday message. “I’m looking at these brand new buses drive around with Family Radio’s name on them, saying ‘Doomsday is May 21’, and I said, ‘Oh my god, this is who my aunt gave all of her money to,” Heuwetter said. “I didn’t know he was so crazy, and at this point I was incensed that this man was going to get everything my aunt had left.”

While Heuwetter says she didn’t necessarily need the extra cash, other family members were struggling and could have used a little help, she said.

Even worse, Heuwetter said, was that Camping’s prediction never came to fruition. Heuwetter’s family members were just as angry when they learned about Family Radio’s failed prophecy, so they brought the case to several lawyers, who sympathized with the family, but agreed they had no case. Family Radio did not respond to requests for comment.

The estate is within weeks of closing, and Heuwetter knows it’s a lost cause.

“It’s just so frustrating because I know there’s nothing I can do about it — this man is going to get hundreds of thousands of dollars from my aunt,” she said. “And she wasn’t a rich woman.”

Though Camping later clarified that his prediction actually extends until October, many followers were disappointed when the rapture didn’t happen on May 21. Heuwetter said there is no way her aunt would have given the money to Family Radio, had she lived to see Camping’s doomsday-gone-wrong.

“She would have been devastated,” Heuwetter said. “Listening to him say things would be better in paradise made her feel better — she totally believed she would leave this world on May 21, and she needed to believe that.”

If she were here to watch the world continue after May 21, she would have likely given her money to other family members, said Heuwetter.

“It was a good amount of money that would have helped a lot of people live better today — but now it’s not helping anyone.”

JUST AIN’T RIGHT:

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2011/jun/01/im-your-new-mommy-28825-vi-29044/?referer=None&shorturl=http://bit.ly/klnhjH

SPORTS:

Since the memorial is in town

Richie Ramsay teaches us all to never leave early from a qualifier
There have been instances of PGA Tour stars leaving golf courses before the leaders finish because they know they have no chance of making a playoff. Vijay Singh has done it. Tiger Woods is in the club. And so far, none of that has ever come back to bite someone in the rear.

Until now. Richie Ramsay, the 27-year-old professional out of Scotland, was playing his U.S. Open qualifier at Walton Heath in Surrey, England, and after rounds of 71-69, he figured he had no shot of making it in the top 11 that was needed to get a spot at Congressional.

So Ramsay left, headed to Heathrow Airport to catch a flight to Belfast for a wedding only to get a call to tell him that 4-under was in a playoff, and he needed to get back to Walton Heath immediately. That was bad news for Ramsay, who was so far away he was driving when it was pitch dark, missing out on being in a three-man playoff for a spot to get into the U.S. Open, and the Scot isn’t so happy about it, according to the Herald Scotland.

“I feel suicidal,” he said. “I got a call from Stevie to say four under was in and to get back here. To miss out on the chance to play the US Open makes me feel sick.
“I’ve been to Heathrow, missed my flight because of the traffic, come back, and I’ll probably get a couple of speeding tickets, only to be told I’ve missed out. Even when I was driving back it was pitch black but the play-off goes ahead. But I’ve only got myself to blame. It’s my own fault as I should have played better, and if it wasn’t for my putting today, I might be heading to the US Open.”

It’s good to see Ramsay blaming himself, because really, why would you ever leave something like that if you felt there was a snowball’s chance at a playoff? I’ve finished qualifiers and seen guys waiting a shot away from missing out with half the field still on the golf course, just because they’d never want to be that guy kicking himself for being careless.
One thing’s for sure — I bet Ramsay took full advantage of the open bar at his friend’s wedding if he would have made that flight and the reception.

BUCKEYES:

Terrelle is a jerk…nuff said!!!

RELIGION:

WHAT?!?!?

What would Jesus not do? Chew tobacco, religious leaders say

A coalition of 25 religious denominations, including Christians and Muslims and Jews, is throwing some heat toward Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the players, saying the time has come to ban smokeless tobacco in the upcoming contract negotiations.

Leaders from the Southern Baptist Convention and the United Methodist Church (the two largest Protestant denominations in the country) and many others are pushing MLB to adopt the ban that has already been imposed on the minors and in college sports and the National Hockey League.

Their release today notes:

Tobacco use was banned in the minors in 1993. The NCAA and the National Hockey League have instituted prohibitions on tobacco use. Major League

Baseball lags behind. The God side of this, the

They wrote to Michael Weiner, the executive director of the MLBPA that:

In our calling, we see the impact that tobacco use has on families and communities. This is a product that maims and kills those who use it.

Their release draws heavily on a New York Times op-ed this weekend from former New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine, an analyst for ESPN. Valentine said

… Smokeless tobacco use among high school boys has climbed 36 percent since 2003. The tobacco industry is spending record sums to market smokeless products, and is promoting them as a substitute for cigarettes. Major League players who chew tobacco on the field are, in effect, providing free advertising for these efforts.

And he cited tragic results that many link to the habit:

Last fall, Tony Gwynn, a Hall of Famer who is now the coach at San Diego State University, announced he had parotid cancer, which he suspects was caused by years of chewing tobacco. Bruce Bochy, who managed the San Francisco Giants to a World Series title, has talked extensively about his own difficulty in quitting.

So has Stephen Strasburg, the phenomenal young pitcher for the Washington Nationals who played for Gwynn in college and is now trying to quit tobacco, a struggle even though he is recovering from surgery and thus away from the familiar rhythms of baseball that make it so easy for players to start chewing.

So far, 10 major medical and public health groups have for this ban, the release says, and Selig announced it as a priority on opening day of the season. Now, it appears up to the players and Richard Land, of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, spelled out:

The players must recognize that they are harming their own health and jeopardizing our children’s futures by continuing to make it look as though smokeless tobacco is integral to the major league mystique.

BUISNESS:

You don’t need 10,000 tweets to get 20,000 followers. You need 200 quality, relevant, valuable messages that are retweetable.

BOOKING WEDDINGS for 2011! Due to a cancelation, I now have 3 dates open between now and September, if you or someone you know is getting married, please feel free to refer our services to them. We have been in the entertainment and wedding industry for over 25 years. Our expertise will make you or your friend’s wedding, a moment to remember. Refer us and receive 15% of contracted rate.

HEALTH:

An end to AIDS?

For his doctors, Timothy Ray Brown was a shot in the dark. An HIV-positive American who was cured by a unique type of bone marrow transplant, the man known as “the Berlin patient” has become an icon of what scientists hope could be the next phase of the AIDS pandemic: its end.

Dramatic scientific advances since HIV was first discovered 30 years ago this week mean the virus is no longer a death sentence. Thanks to tests that detect HIV early, new antiretroviral AIDS drugs that can control the virus for decades, and a range of ways to stop it being spread, 33.3 million people around the world are learning to live with HIV.

People like Vuyiseka Dubula, an HIV-positive AIDS activist and mother in Cape Town, South Africa, can expect relatively normal, full lives. “I’m not thinking about death at all,” she says. “I’m taking my treatment and I’m living my life.”
Nonetheless, on the 30th birthday of HIV, the global scientific community is setting out with renewed vigor to try to kill it. The drive is partly about science, and partly about money. Treating HIV patients with lifelong courses of sophisticated drugs is becoming unaffordable.

Caring for HIV patients in developing countries alone already costs around $13 billion a year and that could treble over the next 20 years.

In tough economic times, the need to find a cure has become even more urgent, says Francoise Barre Sinoussi, who won a Nobel prize for her work in identifying Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). “We have to think about the long term, including a strategy to find a cure,” she says. “We have to keep on searching until we find one.”

The Berlin patient is proof they could. His case has injected new energy into a field where people for years believed talk of a cure was irresponsible.

THE CURE THAT WORKED
Timothy Ray Brown was living in Berlin when besides being HIV-positive, he had a relapse of leukemia. He was dying. In 2007, his doctor, Gero Huetter, made a radical suggestion: a bone marrow transplant using cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation, known as CCR5 delta 32. Scientists had known for a few years that people with this gene mutation had proved resistant to HIV.

“We really didn’t know when we started this project what would happen,” Huetter, an oncologist and haematologist who now works at the University of Heidelberg in southern Germany, told Reuters. The treatment could well have finished Brown off. Instead he remains the only human ever to be cured of AIDS. “He has no replicating virus and he isn’t taking any medication. And he will now probably never have any problems with HIV,” says Huetter. Brown has since moved to San Francisco.

Most experts say it is inconceivable Brown’s treatment could be a way of curing all patients. The procedure was expensive, complex and risky. To do this in others, exact match donors would have to be found in the tiny proportion of people — most of them of northern European descent — who have the mutation that makes them resistant to the virus.

Dr Robert Gallo, of the Institute of Virology at the University of Maryland, puts it bluntly. “It’s not practical and it can kill people,” he said last year.
Sinoussi is more expansive. “It’s clearly unrealistic to think that this medically heavy, extremely costly, barely reproducible approach could be replicated and scaled-up … but from a scientist’s point of view, it has shown at least that a cure is possible,” she says.

The International AIDS Society will this month formally add the aim of finding a cure to its HIV strategy of prevention, treatment and care.

A group of scientist-activists is also launching a global working group to draw up a scientific plan of attack and persuade governments and research institutions to commit more funds. Money is starting to flow. The U.S. National Institutes of Health is asking for proposals for an $8.5 million collaborative research grant to search for a cure, and the Foundation for AIDS Research, or amfAR, has just announced its first round of four grants to research groups “to develop strategies for eradicating HIV infection.”

THE COST OF TREATMENT
Until recently, people in HIV and AIDS circles feared that to direct funds toward the search for a cure risked detracting from the fight to get HIV-positive people treated. Even today, only just over five million of the 12 million or so people who need the drugs actually get them.

HIV first surfaced in 1981, when scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered it was the cause of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). An article in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of that June referred to “five young men, all active homosexuals” from Los Angeles as the first documented cases. “That was the summer of ’81. For the world it was the beginning of the era of HIV/AIDS, even though we didn’t know it was HIV then,” says Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has made AIDS research his life’s work.
In the subsequent three decades, the disease ignorantly branded “the gay plague” has become one of the most vicious pandemics in human history. Transmitted in semen, blood and breast milk, HIV has devastated poorer regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, where the vast majority of HIV-positive people live. As more tests and treatment have become available, the number of new infections has been falling. But for every two with HIV who get a chance to start on AIDS drugs, five more join the “newly infected” list. United Nations data show that despite an array of potential prevention measures — from male circumcision to sophisticated vaginal or anal microbicide gels — more than 7,100 new people catch the virus every day.

Treatment costs per patient can range from around $150 a year in poor countries, where drugs are available as cheap generics, to more than $20,000 a year in the United States.

The overall sums are huge. A recent study as part of a non-governmental campaign called AIDS2031 suggests that low and middle-income countries will need $35 billion a year to properly address the pandemic by 2031. That’s almost three times the current level of around $13 billion a year. Add in the costs of treatment in rich countries and experts estimate the costs of HIV 20 years from now will reach $50 to $60 billion a year.

“It’s clear that we have to look at another possible way of managing of the epidemic beyond just treating everyone forever,” says Sharon Lewin, a leading HIV doctor and researcher from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
In some ways, we have been here before. Early AIDS drugs such as AZT came to market in the late 1980s, but within a decade they were overtaken by powerful cocktail treatments known as HAART, or highly active antiretroviral treatment. HAART had a dramatic effect — rapidly driving the virus out of patients’ blood and prompting some to say a cure was just around the corner.

But then scientists discovered HIV could lie low in pools or reservoirs of latent infection that even powerful drugs could not reach. Talk of a cure all but died out.
“Scientifically we had no means to say we were on the way to finding a cure,” says Bertrand Audoin, executive director of the Geneva-based International AIDS Society. “Scientists … don’t want to make any more false promises. They didn’t want to talk about a cure again because it really wasn’t anywhere on the horizon.”

GENE THERAPY
The ultimate goal would allow patients to stop taking AIDS drugs, knocking a hole in a $12 billion-a-year market dominated by Californian drugmaker Gilead and the likes of Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline and Merck.

It’s unlikely to happen anytime soon, but Brown’s case has opened the door to new ideas. “What it proved was that if you make someone’s cells resistant to HIV…then all the last bits of HIV, that hang around for a long time in patients on treatment, did in fact decay and disappear,” says Lewin.

Now scientists working on mimicking the effect of the Berlin patient’s transplant have had some success. One experimental technique uses gene therapy to take out certain cells, make them resistant to HIV and then put them back into patients in the hope they will survive and spread.

At an HIV conference in Boston earlier this year, American researchers presented data on six patients who had large numbers of white blood cells known as CD4 cells removed, manipulated to knock out the existing CCR5 gene, and then replaced.

“It works like scissors and cuts a piece of genetic information out of the DNA, and then closes the gap,” says Huetter. “Then every cell arising from this mother cell has this same mutation.”

Early results showed the mutated cells managed to survive inside the bodies of the patients at low levels, remaining present for more than three months in five. “This was a proof of concept,” says Lewin. Another potential avenue is a small group of patients known as “elite controllers”, who despite being infected with HIV are able to keep it under control simply with their own immune systems. Researchers hope these patients could one day be the clue to developing a successful HIV/AIDS vaccine or functional cure.

Scientists are also exploring ways to “wake up” HIV cells and kill them. As discovered in the late 1990s, HIV has a way of getting deep into the immune system itself — into what are known as resting memory T-cells — and going to sleep there. Hidden away, it effectively avoids drugs and the body’s own immune response.

“Once it goes to sleep in a cell it can stay there forever, which is really the main reason why we can’t cure HIV with current drugs,” says Lewin. Her team in Melbourne and another group in the United States are about to start the first human trials using a drug called SAHA or vorinostat, made by Merck and currently used in cancer treatment, which has shown promise in being able to wake up dormant HIV.

WHAT ABOUT PREVENTION?
As scientists begin to talk up a cure, the old question of whether that’s the right goal has re-emerged. Seth Berkley, a medical epidemiologist and head of the U.S.-based International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) is concerned.

“From a science point of view, it’s a fabulous thing to do. It’s a great target and a lot of science will be learned. But from a public health point of view, the primary thing you need to do is stop the flow of new infections,” says Berkley. “We need a prevention revolution. That is absolutely critical.”

Vuyiseka Dubula agrees. The South African activist finds talk of a cure for HIV distracting, almost disconcerting. “This research might not yield results soon, and even when it does, access to that cure is still going to be a big issue,” she says. “So in the meantime, while we don’t have the answer on whether HIV can be cured or not, we need to save lives.”

SUCCESS:

The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.—Voltaire

INSPIRATION:

Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about. – Unknown

QUOTES:

You can’t be sure of how ppl will treat u.. But ur character & kindness is a quality u CAN control-Rev Run

CLOSING:

… that everything that irritates you about others, is your key to understanding yourself. What angers you in another person is an unhealed aspect of yourself. If you had already resolved that particular issue, you would not be irritated by its reflection back to you.

TO DO:

THURSDAY:

Blues Prodegy, Tallan Noble Latz, plays Hoggy’s on Williams Street in Delaware

FRIDAY:

The Original King Of Bling, ‘The Rhinestone Cowboy’ himself, Glen Cambell plays The Palace Theater. For more info http://www.ticketmaster.com

Thompson Square plays Doughboyz Pizza. For more info sdewey27@hotmail.com

SATURDAY:

Sully Erna (lead singer of Godsmack) plays the LC-The Lifestyle Communities Pavilion. For more info www.promowestproductions.com

SUNDAY:

Robyn plays a make-up show at The LC-The Lifestyle Communities Pavilion. For more info www.promowestproductions.com

FUNNIES:

ALL WEEKEND:

Dan Cummins performs at The Funny Bone Comedy Club in Easton Town Center

MORE TO DO:

ALL WEEKEND:

We will be down in Logan for the Ohio Warrior Dash. This 2.91 Mile course takes you to THE EXTREAM and more. For more info on the insanity http://www.warriordash.com/register2011_ohio.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcsvL_oyRHE

Someone must have given “Leather Lips” enough whisky cause the weather is PERFECT for The Memorial Golf Tournament all weekend in Dublin at Muirfield Village Golf Club. For more info www.thememorialtournament.com or for day passes www.dreamseats.com

The annual Newark Strawberries of the Square Festival returns to the Licking County Courthouse Square this weekend, with a record 140 vendors — including arts, crafts, informational booths and food vendors — will be on hand, along with amusement rides, a petting zoo, pony rides and, of course, a strawberry booth by Newark Kiwanis Club, which sponsors the event.

ENTERTAINMENT: Inner City Blues Band; Mojo Theory; Christina Barth and Ohio Youth Entertainers; Shawna Corder and The Rising Stars; and Simba Jordan, a country singer from Columbus.

Columbus Arts Festival in The Discovery District for more info http://www.gcac.org/fest/

IN THEATERS:

Class is in session; ‘X-Men: First Class’ rated “PG-13.”

DVD:

Another Nick Cage Movie about cars and whatever…’Drive Angry’ rated “R.”

ON THE MUSIC SHELVES:

Dave Matthews releases ‘Live at Wrigley Field’

The Irish Lads…Flogging Molly have ‘Speed Of Darkness’

COMING SOON PUBLIC EVENTS:

Park Street Festival June 9-10

http://www.parkstreetfest.com/
Byers Auto Car Show June 11^th

^StartingJune 7^th Weekly Bike Nights at Hoggy’s Polaris

Show Me Fest, Springfield Mizz. June 17^th-19^th http://www.showmemusicfest.com/

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