Off To Holiday

I'm off to Club Tropicana, where the drinks are free. I won't be back for quite some time.

Listen To Stephen Pearcy's New Track 'Ten Miles Wide'

Ok so this song is freaking amazing. Stephen Pearcy is releasing Smash later this month. The newest song to hit the Internet is "Ten Miles Wide." Seriously listen to the guitar work and tell me this doesn't sound like late 80s era RATT? Smash comes out January 27 (via Frontiers) and I'll be a day one buyer. I haven't been this excited for a new record in a long time. This is good stuff.

The Intersectional Power Of Maya Angelou

Even though yesterday’s post was about a cool music festival in the UK, many of you wanted to talk about Maya Angelou and the video I shared from Friday. Did you know that 'Still I Rise' is from the collection And Still I Rise? It's a book of poetry in three parts, segmented by theme. Part III is called "Still I Rise" for the poem of the same name. "Still I Rise" represents Dr. Angelou's expression of strength for both her womanhood and community.

This is a work studied at the collegiate level among all "worthless" humanities degrees holders. It helps us contextualize how women perceive their own role in society.

Dr. Angelou is one of the most accomplished authors of all time. To dismiss her glorious words as "jive talk" proves exactly the point she was making during her many years fighting for civil rights. 

I understand my place of privilege here. Not everyone gets to go to college simply to study what they love and to try and learn more about the world around them and I had the ability to do that twice. During grad school, I switched my focus from literary analysis to the study of words: their power and how people use them. To say the last 18 months has been an interesting time to observe the way others use words, especially in the political arena, would be the understatement of a lifetime.

I often observe the way words are used in the comments section of this website too. Think about it: I have thousands of comments to ponder from 10 years worth of posts! It’s always interesting to watch the back and forth amongst readers. There’s also a tendency for the vocabulary level to decline and the insults fly when a poster feels slighted by someone else, either due to argument or direct attack. The person being slighted ends up feeling like a dog, either lashing out or cowering in a corner although in this post, the more perfect analogy would be to say that maybe they feel like a “caged bird,” right?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Maya Angelou’s work, I do encourage you to head to a library and check it out. For many people, it is life changing. This is a woman to be celebrated. When she died in 2014, it left a void in the American literary community, especially among female authors.

Speaking of women, the crowd science data is in. More then three times more people attended the Women's March in Washington yesterday than the inauguration on Friday. Sad!  

Crowd scientists (who knew there was such a thing?) say 3 times more people at women's march than Trump inaugurationhttps://t.co/vqSMueAM16

— Paul Begala (@PaulBegala) January 22, 2017

Ramblin' Man Fair Announced

For our European readers: here's another festival with a killer lineup. It goes down July 29 and 30th at Maidstone, Kent, UK.

'Still I Rise'

'Sign Of The Times'

Jack Russell's Great White has just released a video for their new song "Sign of the Times." The song is on the upcoming album He Saw It Comin.'The track is pretty good. It's not as good as the original Great White, but that's not surprising. I'm glad that Jack is well enough to make new music and hit the road.

Ozzy, KISS and More Confirmed For Chicago Open Air

The second annual Chicago Open Air will bring together an all-star lineup of rock’s top artists on Friday, July 14, Saturday, July 15 and Sunday, July 16 at Toyota Park in Bridgeview, IL, just outside Chicago.

The three-day music, craft beer and Gourmet Man Food festival will feature over 40 performances, including legendary rock artists Ozzy Osbourne, KISS, and Korn, along with Rob Zombie, Slayer, Godsmack, Stone Sour, Megadeth, Lamb Of God, Seether, Meshuggah, Anthrax, Clutch, Body Count, and many more.

The daily band lineup (subject to change) is as follows:

Friday, July 14: KISS, Rob Zombie, Megadeth, Anthrax, Meshuggah, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Falling In Reverse, Vimic, Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, Crobot, Code Orange, Hell or Highwater, Failure Anthem

Saturday, July 15: Korn, Godsmack, Seether, Clutch, Steel Panther, Body Count, Avatar, Mushroomhead, Metal Church, Pig Destroyer, Dragonforce, Cane Hill, Night Verses, Black Map

Sunday, July 16: Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, Stone Sour, Lamb Of God, Amon Amarth, Behemoth, Hellyeah, Demon Hunter, DevilDriver, KYNG, Norma Jean, Whores., DED

Tickets are priced as follows: 

3-day General Admission Field: starting at $209.50

3-day General Admission Bowl: starting at $119.50

3-day VIP: starting at $425.00