Yep that's me... or at least that's the RIGHT SIDE of me! Now whenever you hear me on the radio, you can say "hey, I know what the right half of that guy looks like!"
Welcome to my space at 921thefrog.com! This is where I'll check in with things that I think you'll enjoy, laugh at, find interesting, or otherwise waste time at work with. Old cars, dogs, outrageous experiences with anything motorized, or tales of catastrophic personal failure, they'll all be right here. Think of this as the place where we can get to know each other better!
Even though Liz says she's "from Texas," she's really from Akron. Me? I'm actually from McComb. Interesting tidbit: My senior year would've been the 20th straight winning season for McComb High School football... if it wasn't for my junior year when we single handedly destroyed the winning tradition by losing 7 games. Hey, we only lost 6 my senior year. Catastrophic personal failure, remember?
You can catch me weekdays from 3-7pm on New Country 92.1 The Frog, and you can always shoot me an email just by clicking HERE.
Country Concert and more...
Country Concert 2009 was a whole lotta fun! Sugarland, Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley, Montgomery Gentry... I could go on and on about everyone that played. There's just nothing like this show. You'd think that after 4 (usually very hot) days that even the cheeriest of folks would get a little testy, but honestly, the folks that put Country Concert together are just the nicest group of people. Even when I did things that were a little stupid... like ride Cycle Sports Center's 4-wheeler in and out of the show area a few too many times, or try to move the 92.1 The Frog Jambulance out of the show area in between Rodney Atkins and Phil Vassar on Sunday, the security folks just kindly explained what I needed to do and there were no problems. You just don't see things like that outside of country music very often. I've been around music for quite awhile now, and with a lot of other kinds of music you get a lot of violence and whatnot at some concerts. I once got the daylights beat out of me at a Godsmack show... not so with country. Everyone's just there to have a good time and enjoy the atmosphere... nothing like it!
Of course, as with any adventure, there are STORIES! Here are a couple of fun things that happened:
BRAD PAISLEY'S UNINTENTIONAL STAGE DIVE
Now, I didn't see this first hand, but everyone was talking about it. Apparently Brad Paisley, guitar and all, had a misstep at the front of the stage and sort of vaulted into the arms of some security folks and fans. Security was concerned about Brad being literally IN the crowd for a bit... something tells me the ladies in the front row that helped catch him didn't mind so much.
SKEETER MEETS MONTGOMERY GENTRY
On Friday, I had been scrambling around lining up meet & greets all day (a recurring theme for the weekend), and when the time came to go backstage and meet Montgomery Gentry, I found just the guy to take with me. Skeeter has been a friend of ours since back in our 93.1 days, and he's just the fun-lovinest guy you'll ever meet. He reminds me of my dog, Killian... no inhibitions, no cares in the world, the guy just wants to have fun, and he wants YOU to have fun with him. I've known him for a couple of years as just "Skeeter" but one night someone called him Kevin. Apparently that's his real name, but I refuse to recognize it. I figured I would take Skeeter with me to meet Eddie and Troy because they definitely have a song about him. I always say that country music is about real life, and that chances are I could find a country song about anyone, including YOU. In Skeeter's case, that song is "One In Every Crowd" by Montgomery Gentry. Keep in mind, this meet & greet session was late in the evening, and Skeeter had been toting around his cooler, TIED TO HIS BELT all day... and I don't think he even brought a shirt with him to Country Concert. The only guy I've ever met that sticks a backstage pass to his bare chest, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, truly "One In Every Crowd"... SKEETER!
Have you EVER seen a happier guy than our boy Skeeter? Or a person more conent to be JUST a litlte too far away than Eddie?
THE FROG RUNS AMOK
While I cannot reveal his true identity THE FROG was out in full force at Country Concert this year. Some say he's still got the same posters on his wall that he had when he was a tadpole, and that he's sworn revenge on all high school biology teachers... all we know is, he's called THE FROG!
I can't decide if the bull was on or not...
Ummmm... only at Country Concert!
SUGARAND ROCKS! I'm telling you, I think Sugarland is getting better. They were already what I'd call an "A" act, but I really to feel that they're setting the bar a little higher lately. I saw them a couple months ago with Kenny Chesney over in Columbus and I thought they were really "ON" then, but Thursday night at Country Concert I think they upped the game even more.
Doesn't it kinda look like Jennifer is about to chow down on Mr. Bush's face?
PHIL VASSAR SIGNS HIMSELF I wish I had a good photo of this, but it just sort of happened at a moment's notice so I don't. There is a little video of it in the video gallery under Day 4 I believe. Here's the story: All through the week, we saw people carrying around cardboard cutouts of Phil Vassar. My wife is a HUGE Phil Vassar fan, so she made it her personal mission to obtain one, and she succeeded. However, it was nearly destroyed when the skies opened up on Saturday morning. See, we knew it was going to rain, so we slid the cutout under our trailer to keep it dry, and it worked, until we got 3+ inches of rain, which turned the area under our camper into sort of a raging river. At any rate, my wife's cardboard cutout was looking pretty rough. Soggy, wringled, dirty, just all around blown down.
I of couse, thought it would be fun to throw it off the stage.
We had it worked out so that I would get to introduce Phil, which made my plan pretty simple. I'd get on stage, talk about how Phil was looking pretty rough, kinda like most of us on day 4 of Country Concert, then chuck it off the stage and bring Phil out. What changed things a little was that I saw Phil backstage, pointed to the cutout, and shouted something like "hey you're looking a little wasted here Phil!" So we got to talking a little, and someone suggested that he should sign it, which he did. I slapped a 92.1 The Frog bumper sticker on it, and when I handed it off the stage to a lucky fan in the front row, I knew she would have it up on her wall for a long time.
Either that, or it got completely destroyed in the mayhem that is the front row at Country Concert. I like to think it's the first one.
A WEEK IN MEXICO
My wife, Angela, and I spent a week in on vacation Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in June and we discovered all kinds of fun.
Last time we were in Mexico (our honeymoon 4 years ago) Angela wanted to go snorkeling, so we did. It was fun, except that somehow in all my years, I’ve never learned to swim. So you can imagine my horror at jumping off a boat into the Pacific Ocean. This time however, we decided to do something that she had never done, which was cruise the desert on an ATV. We had a blast! Our guides took us on trails through valleys, up big hills, and even turned us loose for about a half hour in a big wide open valley with lots of high speed gallivanting to be had.
Raising Some Sand!
Mmmmmm Farmer's Tan
I'm pretty tall, but somehow I always end up standing on something that makes me taller. Apparently, judging by this photo, I'm confused as to how I got onto this rock.
The looks are a little deceiving. That sand actually drops off about an 8-foot cliff into the Angry Pacific!
Angela about to fall off the face of the earth.
4-wheelers make nice recliners too.
Down around the block from our hotel was the Cabo San Lucas Marina, which is a pretty busy place when cruise ships come in. This store in the mall at the marina had a sign that we thought would be perfect for the failblog. Which, by the way, if you haven’t ever seen, you should. www.failblog.org
About the only downside of Cabo is that most of the beaches aren't swimmable. The waves are HUGE and there are pretty intense riptides. That's okay with me, because even though you can't swim there (not my strong suit anyway) the beaches are still beautiful, and it's cool to watch the waves crash into the rocks.
I asked those boats to sail in at exactly the same
time as I was walking up the beach for the
"postcard" shot. At first they said no, but then,
noticing that I was sporting a first-run edition of the
new 92.1 The Frog t-shirts, they happliy obliged.
