One of the best parts of my job, or any job, is when you do right.  Over the weekend was our 18th annual WQMX Pet Expo.  I work this event every year in conjunction with lots of amazing sponsors and it's one of my favorites.

HUGE Thanks to our amazing team at Rubber City Radio -  They made this event run great! Lots of work!

With a goal of adopting out as many animals as we can in a single day, it always feels good to give a voice to such a worthwhile day.

 AWWWW  - Dogs!

If you came out and were a part of this incredible event, thank you, and put it on your radar for next year.  And if you adopted a new family member   -  Thanks again!!!

I am very proud to say over the next few weeks I'll be telling you about all the incredible things that Habitat For Humanity Of Summit County does for us on the air on WQMX.

I have been associated with them for a number of years as the Honorary Chair for the Annual Golf Outing (that you can play in and/or sponsor if you want to register) and I am proud of that.  But when I was talking with Annie Boyer and others from Habitat a few weeks ago about ALL they do, it dawned on me that you never stop learning about all the incredible things they can do for you, and for us all. And it's all non-profit of course.

The time is right for Habitat. They, of course believe in doing well for those who need help, but they reuse, recycle, and redo and have been for years.  If you take a few minutes and click on their website, you can learn of many things that may benefit others, maybe even you.  They provide outstanding services I never knew before that can help you save money  -   and lots of it. And it's free.

See How You Can Donate Here

I am very proud to endorse, and be the voice of the great people there and all the fantastic work they do.  They are amazing people.

Let's Play Some Golf Too!

"Father time, is undefeated….”

Time, is it friend, or foe? This question does have a correct answer.  It is both. We never seem to have enough of it.  But at the same time, there are moments in our lives where it seems to drag on without any real redeeming regard.

Mercifully though, the scales seem to balance in end. Life is a lengthy journey, as it is the sum of all of our journeys. In a perfect world the road ahead is far brighter than the road we leave behind. It represents optimism, and reinvention. As where the road already navigated is tattooed with the permanence of reality. The moments that worked – and didn’t.

As time marches on we watch the new become the old, in our world, our friends and family, and ourselves. But I believe that no matter the circumstances, time in the end, is our friend. The only true path to reinvent ourselves is to look forward to times future. Searching for the sunrise spawns optimism, as where insisting on a sunset can lead the exactly the opposite.

Everyone and everything is walking along with us and at the same pace as time continues its relentless trek. In the end, Father Time is undefeated, where we are not. The even though the adventure does end the same for all of us, I choose to focus on the view ahead, and on those I am lucky enough to have along side me for the days on the horizon that time will graciously provide.

This week we celebrate National Hamburger Day.   Might be the best holiday ever!  I don't know if this is you, but it sure is me.  I could eat hamburgers every day.  EVERY day!  Breakfast, lunch, snack, dinner, wake me up at 3am and tell me the burgers are ready, I'd come downstairs and eat one - or two.

It's perfect.  Ground up steak, pressed together, grilled and bunned!  The beauty of the burger is there is no real wrong way to make it.  Or wrong way to eat it!  Cheese? OK!  And whatever you want me to throw on it, I'm good with it.

But if I had to choose a favorite way.  Big burger - grilled - Swiss cheese -  onion bun - tomato slice - Vidalia onion slice - Dukes Mayo.

Word is Akron is the birthplace of the burger, and I'm good with that too.  If it was  - great!  Or if it was invented in Bob McGee's kitchen in Boise, Idaho - I'm good with that too.  But whoever it is, he or she should be in some Hall Of Fame somewhere.

Oh wait,..... the Inventer's Hall Of Fame is also here in Akron.

Burgers EVERY day!

Over the weekend, The Beautiful Windy and I went to the Tribe game during the lat home stand. It was the 3 hour rain delay game where it never rained.  And as we were devouring hot dogs, and BBQ, we decided to go Tribe fan all the way, and participate all the rest of the off field fun.

So we Tweeted to the Tribe as they ask you to and send a pic in hopes of getting on the huge scoreboard.  And we did. Almost. As we #Tribefan, our pic made it up there, sans half my face, and virtually all of Windy's head.

As we howled every time it came back up on the screen, we resigned ourselves that true stardom would have to wait for another day.  

Almost as much as we laughed at Windy's hashtag later  #wheresmyhead

BIG win for the Tribe last night, coming from behind and beating Boston 7-5!

GO TRIBE!

I have lived in my house for about 18 years now, and I have these bushes here that have been there way longer than that.  I have no real idea what these are, and for the most part they are nice and green.

They do bloom once a year though, and are very pretty.  For about 15 minutes.  Or so it seems.  And today was the day!  The bloom is very short, but nice.  But would it be too much to ask for a longer bloom. 

And who the made the decision all those decades ago.  "Hey honey, let's plant something that's a major focal point of the house that blooms about 15 minutes a year?"   "OK, sounds great..." 

I guess I should be thankful for the pretty bloom and enjoy the colors....for about 10 more minutes.  Good thing I was home. 

We do tons of charity shows here at WQMX, many of them annual events, like tonight's Ones To Watch Concert, at the historic Tangier in Akron.  And should be noted, this concert raised over $7200 for NEOPAT - helping veterans.  Well done!

Getting Ready For The Big Night - Tangier, Akron!

Jimmy Allen, Hardy, and Matt Stell starred on stage, bringing their newfound fame to the intimate stage and setting in front of a sold out crowd.  Each have songs on the charts and each is very different from the other, making this a nice microcosm of today's country.

Allen, an easy to listen to voice and style, reminiscent of some to the strong balladiers in our format. He has a #1 already with Best Shot.  When you first hear him, you get what you get, but you also get the feeling that there is more in reserve, and that you better be ready for real versatility, and that's what you get.  There is also real star power here. 

Hardy, has a remarkably popular song out, Rednecker, that core WQMX listeners just love.  It's what I call a "list" song.  It lists off the reasons why he is more redneck than you.  It's a playful, fun tonge-in-cheek number of course that comes from a guy and a voice that makes it totally believeable.  I asked him where this song came from, and he said it was written by him and some friends in a few hours in Colorado, as kind of a poem or sorts. After words, they said hey this could be a fun song.  And here we are. 

Matt Stell has a hit single, Pray For You, a powerful, honest ballad that gives thanks to the new found love in his life. As I talked with him it's a song he wrote and is autobiographical.  Highly relatable, and to the point.  Listeners love it, and even though it's early this has the potential to be a big hit.

These charity shows are a rare chance for listeners to get close to those that are the new blood in our format.   And all of our stars were amazingly engaging both on stage and back stage with those lucky enough to meet them.




Overall this was a terrific show!  Seems the ones we watched, are the ones to watch.

Godzilla, Rocketman and Ma are here!

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters  (Preview)

No single character has appeared in more movies in history than Godzilla, and he's back again fighting off tons of monsters here.  This appears to be loosely inspired from an old movie called Monster Zero from many years ago where a three headed monster comes to earth to cause a bunch of problems and Godzilla is summoned to save the day.  But here Godzilla will take on all comers!

His cinematic staying power is incredible as they have been making Godzilla movies since the early 1950's.  Here, our hero battles a number of monsters to keep order and balance in the world, and my guess is that he will be victorious.  It's his world!

Rocketman  (Preview)

The Elton John bio-pic has been promoted to death and had tons of screenings, and there is word there is room to be concerned over its quality.  I am a big Elton fan and I would like to see them get this right.

Many more music based movies coming in 2019.

Ma (Preview)

This looks creepy and I can't decide if this is going to be really good or really bad.  Octavia Spencer stars in a very different role for her, as she wreaks terror over a small town's kids.  This does look a bit creepy, I'm looking forward to seeing it.

We will see.

Aladdin  (Review) 

The list of live action Disney movies continues to grow, and this is the latest installment. This caused a ton of buzz, and it delivers quite well.  And to answer your first question, Will Smith is good in the role that Robin Williams made iconic. For Smith, it's a thankless job, as Williams performance may have been the best of his career as he was made for the character. 

This is fun, looks great, moves along nicely and may be a bit too long, but who cares?  It's Aladdin, it's Disney and it's just fine. Well done.

John Wick 3  (Review)

This is one of the most successful franchises that came out of nowhere, and has found an audience.  This is totally an acquired taste as these movies are rampant with tons of violence and long action sequences that are spectacular, but not for everyone.  Our favorite, aging retired hit-man is back at it again. 

This is everything you would hope it would be.  HIGHLY entertaining -  but CLEARLY not for everyone.  Halle Berry joins the already great cast too.  Highly violent, but fun at the same time.  This is maybe the best one yet, rivaling the first film.  And the success was so great opening weekend, JW4 was announced fo 2021.  This is loaded with long and extremely well done action sequences that are very imaginative.  This franchise continues to find new ways to do the same thing, and that is a skill in itself. 

This is rich with parody of course, and is almost a cartoon of itself, but for many, me included, these are so absurd they are highly entertaining.  Seeing this, it is paramount you have seen the first two. Keanu Reeves found a diamond in the rough, and has turned out to be a huge hit.

I enjoyed every frame of this.   BUT  - Leave Nana at home. 

I was so fortunate to be able to load up with the beautiful Windy, and take a short road trip this weekend to see the sold out Garth Brooks concert at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.  Been a long time since I had been to a stadium show, and it felt good.

As Americans we like things that are enormous.  Whether it be our favorite burger, beer size, pickup truck, or concerts.  We like things that are bigger than life sometimes, or at least bigger than they usually are.  That was this show.

 Great moment in the show -  Tens of thousands of phone lights

It was about the biggest thing Pittsburgh has ever seen.  Think about it, with all those Superbowl titles, and the large appetite that Pittsburghers have for anything black and gold, a country singer from Yukon, Oklahoma checked in there and broke attendance records. 

But Garth is much more than that.  His worldwide popularity is so enormous, and all of us were reminded of that this weekend.  As someone who is Garth's age, and been in the format longer than he has, it still astounds me that he, after the incredible radio run, the long semi-retirement and now the touring, his popularity is as big as ever.  Maybe more.  I am proud to say I have played every Garth Brooks song ever released.

 The stage as big as you'll ever see!

Everything about this show was enormous. The stage, the sound, the performance, the gratitude he showed to the fans, and the humility to share his gigantic spotlight of success with his band mates on stage publicly.  In short, our affection for Garth Brooks is enormous.  The only thing not enormous is Garth's ego, and I love that about him. That is among the reasons we ALL love him as much as we do!   Always have - always will.  He's authentic, and I, and we, love that too.    Garth also makes you feel so welcome, it's like we are all backstage with him.

In short, there may never be a singing star as loved as Garth Brooks, I am proud he is in our format.  Well, well done.

It's Memorial Day Weekend this week!  This is a HUGE month for BBQ, as May is National BBQ Month.  I have rediscovered grilling and BBQing this Spring, and I am glad of it.  I kinda took a year off - life is better now. 

Seems I am on the grill a few times a week as Windy and I both enjoy it.  But I do have a few grill rituals that I follow. My favorite is, no matter what you are grilling, there must be sausage on it first!  No matter what else goes on, sausage, keilbasa, brats or some delicious pork product goes on first. I learned this incredible techniqe from my friends, Tim, Ray and Beef, as this is the practice on our Florida golf trips. We eat sausage before we - eat!  The Beautiful Windy was puzzled about it at first, but now she is on board.

Sausage - Even before ribs! 

We call them "testers." You "test" the grill to make sure all is well, and of course you snack on them as the main course goes on. Plus the dog gets some too. Should be noted, Beef informed me that he and his dog Jack, ate an entire pack of brats last week by themselves! Perfect!   

Its kind of a pre-meal snack, and it's outstanding. I mean you can't just eat a huge steak without having an brat or two first!

Happy Gilling -  Give it a try, it's a good habit to get into!