Sans means "without". Which means comic sans font is actually appropriately titled. Because there's nothing funny about that font.

When people talk about crossing the street to avoid some psychopath who might attack them...that's what I do when I see the "hey bro" people with the clipboards.

I never really trust vaguely named business websites that only have stock photos of people with bright teeth smiling into laptops/people in suits smiling in a meeting/people in fields smiling into the distance/etc. They are just as creepy as the slow motion dystopian future people in pharmaceutical ads. I don't know what you're actually selling and I don't really think I want to know.

I'm going to start a band called the Tonedefs. It's going to be a Deftones cover band that does a terrible job.

Ever click on a video online and a :15 ad comes on first and you realize it's just not worth it and close down the entire site and never go back again?

Facebook law #2049322: Anytime you see a "read more" on a post, you must comment "well stated".

Pet peeve 29543: When a "news" site has more real estate dedicated to google ads and clickbait revshare blocks than original content and you have to revert back to Duck Hunt tactics to stop all the autoplay videos. Guess who's never coming back to your virus factory of a site?

Yesterday me and my colleague Jacob Dean scored a pair of tickets from work to night one of Pearl Jam's sold out Home Shows at Safeco Field in Seattle. Pearl Jam helped raise over $1M to fight homelessness in two nights of incredible shows. Here's some pictures and the set list from last night. Pearl Jam #thehomeshows #pearljam #seattle Safeco Field

Sad news out of Eugene this morning as one of the best professors I ever had - Tom Wheeler - passed away.

I took his Magazine Editor class as a senior in the journalism program at UO, and hit it off immediately, as he was a guitarist himself and was even the Editor-in-Chief for Guitar Player Magazine, which was seminal to my guitar playing.

He also freelanced for Rolling Stone, which I constantly nagged him to tell me stories about after class.

Over the years, I've often said that, along with a couple others, his class alone was worth the price of my massive school loans (which I'm still paying off). In that class, I wrote a business plan for a magazine, which I scored an A+ on. He asked if he could use my assignment for future classes, and I gladly said yes.

Tom Wheeler was one of my favorite professors and mentors as a journalist. He was a class act, a fascinating man who inspired me to pursue a career in magazines, which I did for about a decade (in addition to my broadcast career).

The lessons I learned from Tom still hold merit in the digital age, and who knows...one of these days maybe I'll make that business plan into a website.

If I do, it will be because of Tom Wheeler.

Rock in Paradise good sir.

Write. Listen to music every day. Read something not on a screen. Write. Go outside when you're stressed. Do pushups when you're angry.  Write.  Help someone without any expectations of payback.  Write.  Turn off the television.  Sleep enough to be better tomorrow. Laugh more. Make incredible meals. Write. Call your parents. Love your woman, your family, small children and animals. Respect everyone. Never swing first. Swing last. Write.

These are things I try to remember as the gray fades into my hairline and it takes more to shrink my waistline.

The two year anniversary of one of the worst days of my life is today.

I remember telling myself that it will be ok, which felt like a lie at the time. But it wasn't.

It was a goal to get back into serious journalism and I have done that. The rock game was getting tired. I needed a change. I stayed patient and it panned out. I used the Force, the Secret, the Law of Attraction to get what I wanted out of life.

Looking back, the wounds have healed and become battle scars. I am stronger and wiser and I am now in a very good place in Portland with my girlfriend by my side again and I've moved up the chain to Executive Producer for a nationally and regionally syndicated radio show that continues to grow and has taken me to Vegas, DC twice, and given me the honor of a fellowship at The Hoover Institution. I went from backstage passes to working with the White House, both sides of Congress, Washington Post, NYTimes, Fox News and some of the most interesting people from so many many walks of life.

I have the honor of calling some of the best journalists and thinkers on earth my friend these days. And I write this, again, to remind anyone in a dark place to never give up.

I went from being unemployed and almost homeless to the top of world. Don't give up on your dreams and stay focused and you will achieve whatever you set your goals on. Stay strong. Hold the line. Breathe.

And know you will achieve the glory you desire.

Yesterday I spoke to Travis Walton on the phone.

If that name isn't familiar to you, look up the movie "Fire in the Sky". It was about Travis and his shocking encounter of being abducted by aliens. To this day, his is one of the few experiences that is considered one of the legitimate encounters with an alien species. He and his friends have told the story the same way for decades, passing all lie detector tests and going on to many interviews in many media outlets to discuss what happened. If you google Travis Walton, you will be floored.

And if you're curious why I talked to him, its because my old band We Have Guns wrote a song about him called "The Tale of Travis Walton" which I wrote the lyrics to and sang. It was a fan favorite thanks to the wild odd-timed Primus-like bass line from James Smith and the invasion-like power chorus that Tobby Lugo whipped into it.

Apparently Travis' girlfriend found it and they loved the song! So we reached out to send a copy of the album to them. Issa Koberstein talked to him first on Friday night, then I talked to him last night. Soon, we will set up a conference call with him and the whole band. This is one of the most amazing things that has ever come my way and I look forward to more correspondence with Travis in the future.

Soundgarden was the first band I ever saw live.

They opened for Guns N Roses in Tampa, FL in 1991 on the Use Your Illusion Tour. I was 14 years old. They were loud, wild, young...and at the time I was too dumb to realize how great they were, but I quickly learned.

The second time I saw Soundgarden was on the Down on the Upside Tour in Salem, OR in 1996. It was their final tour before breaking up for a decade. It was a decent show, but you could tell they were exhausted. It didn't surprise me that they broke up after that.

I saw them for the third and final time at the Schnitzer in Portland on their reunion tour after they released King Animal. It was one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Total redemption.

I can't begin to explain how much that band meant to me. Their earlier work is incredible, but Badmotorfinger and Superunknown are easily two of my favorite albums ever. Ive listened to them more times than I can count and dive into one of them at least once a month. Both are absolute timeless rock albums front to back.

They were the soundtrack to my rebellious youth and helped make me the lifelong musician I'll always be. They changed how I listened to and understood music and taught me how to understand time signatures, meter and alternate tunings. They were one of the first bands to teach me to think outside the box.

Cornell's lyrics seem to come from another plane of existence and always mean something different every time I listen to them and evolve with my own growth. I was never a huge fan of the "supergroup" with Rage, Audioslave, but I may have been one of the first DJs to in Eugene to play them on the radio. I rocked the "Cochise" single the day it landed on my desk way back at the college station I worked at. That song is a mother!

Cornell's influence on my life is and forever will be profound. May his demons lose their scent on his beautiful, mysterious troubled soul.

Rest in Peace Chris Cornell. Say Hello to Heaven.

Yesterday I finalized a bit of research I've been doing as a hobby over the past few years starting with a trial membership to ancestry.com. I completed my family's lineage history and filled out some final details on my family tree. I've been curious to my genealogy for most of my life and only yesterday have I finally nailed down what I think is the most accurate assessment of who my sisters and I are and where we came from.

I have stuck to studying only our direct lineage (parents to grandparents to g-grandparents, etc, not cousins and aunts etc)...and I'm almost 100% sure of this final breakdown now. This is not to say new information won't change this, but given the information I've collected from lineage and name records and histories, the National Archives, New York passengers registries from Ellis Island and my original ancestry.com study, I've finally determined my bloodline by nationality, completely.

My father's side was easy. His grandparents trace straight to boats at Ellis Island in the late 1880s from Sweden and Italy, making him half Swedish and Italian and me and my sisters a quarter of each of those. The Swedish side has a deep recorded history starting in Gothenburg and goes back centuries, with many Navy men, businessmen and Karls (not even kidding) and I've heard a handful of stories of their struggles and successes as 1st generation immigrants. The Italian side is a bit of a mystery as my great grandfather was an orphan (but an Italian soldier, based on pictures I've seen) and I've not dug too deep on my great grandmother's side, although I know she's also from Italy. I know much of their American history as first generation immigrants, thanks to my grandma who told me all of the stories growing up on the massive farm in Jamestown, NY, with the 9 children...once, I even got a tour when I was younger and my grandma came with my family on a road trip to upstate NY and she showed us where everything was. It was a remarkable trip that I will always remember.

The real mystery has always been Mom's side. With rumors of having Cherokee blood in me and my sisters' veins, I really want to find out if that was true. Alas, I found zero evidence of native lineage. Not directly anyway. This is not to say it's not there, but based on the records I've actually found and studying last name origins and history, there is just no evidence of native American blood in our lineage. So unless there's some actual data that would suggest anything different, what I've concluded is it just isn't there. I have no information to support the rumors.

That being said, this is the most accurate study and breakdown of my national origin that anyone in my family has ever done. And while Mom's side was the hardest, it was also very fascinating with so much to explore and traces back through the history of America to the founders...all the way back on Grandma's side to the 1600s with Dutch settlers from Netherlands and the English arrival to the shores of what would eventually become America shortly after the Mayflower arrived. My grandfather, also mostly English, actually has his roots in Ireland.

I traced one family line - the VanPelts -all the way back to New Netherlands in 1668 (what is now New York) The Dutch landed there first, from what I understand, and the English took it from them later naming it New York, after the Duke of York.

As I studied the great-great grandparent bracket (if you will), there were 8 total families, from three countries with 6 of the 8 from England, the other 2 families coming from Ireland and Netherlands. And most surprising, my mother's maiden name, Larisey, actually stems from Irish immigrants. I am part Irish...which no one in my family knew about. (Interestingly enough one of my sister's names is Irish, and I graduated from Sheldon high school, home of the Fighting Irish...go figure!)

While I never knew about the Irish history on my mom's side, it makes sense. Thanks to the vast majority of British heritage on mom's side, the Irish was bred out as much as the Dutch was, to the point where it barely registered in the percentages in my own breakdown. I have much to comment on this fact as well as others, but it might dip into the political realm of our history, and I'd rather not have that argument here.

There is so much more to research and study on this front, but ultimately, this has become a pretty exciting hobby/past time of mine. I plan to continue my research and with every door I open, there's more to explore. And I'd love to go back to each of the countries of my lineage and see them all first hand. And hopefully this inspires you to look into your own family history. You never know what you'll find. I have been completely blown away at what I learned myself. Questions answered and gained, rumors dismissed and gems found along the way.

Ultimately, what I'm reminded of is that we are indeed a nation of immigrants. The vast majority of us come from somewhere else. Unless you are of significant native blood, you come from immigrants. Never forget that.

Before I close, now that I've talked it up...here's the breakdown of my family heritage. I am:

37.5% English, 25% Swedish, 25% Italian, 6.25% Irish, 6.25% Dutch

Trent Reznor Blames Social Media for today's "Formulaic Vegan Restaurant Patron-Type Shit” Music in an epic brand new interview in Stereogum:

"What has crept in is that everyone’s a commentator now. The internet is giving voice to everybody thinking that someone gives a shit what they have to say and they have the right. I think, in general, that has created a toxic environment for artists and led to some very safe music. Artists are trying to make music to please the tastemakers that tell the sheep what to like. It’s a vicious cycle and I think it’s unhealthy. I don’t see any Princes emerging on the scene today. I see a lot of people making formulaic, made to please, vegan restaurant patron-type shit. And I think it creates an environment where people are too fuckin’ worried about what other people have to say. And people who have never made anything think it’s OK to talk shit about stuff they have no right to talk about. You got a Facebook account? Nobody gives a fuck. You haven’t achieved anything."

A great piece out of The Nation...

"We parents tell our children that when you know you’ve lost an argument or a race, the right thing to do is to be a good sport and to “get ’em next time.” But if there is no next time, or you know that every next time you are going to be in the loser’s lane again, what’s the use of being a good sport? It would make you look even more ignorant, and more like a loser, to pretend like you think you have a chance. The game has been rigged against you. Why not piss on the field before you storm off? Why not stick up your finger at the whole goddamned game?

Therein lies the ethic of total retaliation. The Angels, rather than gracefully accepting their place as losers in an increasingly technical, intellectual, global, inclusive, progressive American society, stuck up their fingers at the whole enterprise. If you can’t win, you can at least scare the bejeesus out of the guy wearing the medal. You might not beat him, but you can make him pay attention to you. You can haunt him, make him worry that you’re going to steal into his daughter’s bedroom in the darkest night and have your way with her—and that she might actually like it.

It’s not hard to see in the demographics, the words, and the behavior of Trump supporters an ethic of total retaliation at work. These are men and women who defend their vote by saying things like: “I just wanted people to know that I’m here, that I count.” These are men and women whose scorn of “political correctness” translates into: “You can’t make me talk the way that you want me to talk, even if that way of talking is nicer and smarter and better.” These are men and women whose denials of climate change are gleeful denials of scientific expertise in a world where scientific experts have unquestioned intellectual respect and social status. These are men and women who seemed to applaud the incompetence of Trump’s campaign because competence itself is associated with membership in the elite."

-Susan McWilliams

"In the face of this singular passion for conformity, this dread of novelty and originality, it is obvious that the man of vigorous mind and stout convictions is gradually shouldered out of public life.

Such tests arise inevitably out of democracy — the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob emotions. In private life no man of sense would think of applying them. We do not estimate the integrity and ability of an acquaintance by his flabby willingness to accept our ideas; we estimate him by the honesty and effectiveness with which he maintains his own… But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand…

The larger the mob, the harder the test.

As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

-H.L. Mencken

It used to be a great show.

I mean season one was incredible, across the board. And that's how they got me. I hung on thinking we would get that kind of quality again, but we didn't. Ever.

From season 2 until last weeks hideous episode, I've slugged it out through every poorly-written episode, every mundanely boring season and every painfully ugly death of a major character.

But I'm done now.

Tonight I will no longer watch Walking Dead. It hit me that so many of us, including me, sat down eagerly waiting to see....who dies!

I mean, what kind of sick fucking mind set is that? And then how it all played out last week. Fuck it. I don't need that abuse in my life. It finally sank in, after sitting through the grueling dialogue from yet another hideous character that has no redeeming quality whatsoever, as he slowly plowed over 2 great characters (yeah we all knew Glen would get it, but Jesus Christ) AND Abraham, just to toy with and punish us as we are led to believe everyone died too? Nope. I'm over it. It's finally pushed me over the edge.

The show is tasteless now. It's not even the deaths that bother me so much as the agonizing pace of the story, the terrible writing, the poor storytelling, the fractured plots and the full scale hopelessness of everyone in the story.

I've put up with so much ugliness from this show, always leaving a bad taste in my mouth every Sunday night going into the work week. It's like I've been a victim of Stockholm Syndrome, eagerly anticipating the next nasty abuse of my psyche from my tormentor, holding me hostage. I mean they have a fucking support group show following it! For god sake, its enough.

You've lost this committed fan once and for all.

There's plenty of shows I can watch on a Sunday night that won't destroy and disappoint me every week, and I can't believe it's taken me this long to come to this decision. But its time to move on.

There's enough hopelessness in real life, I don't need it when I try to escape for an hour. It's time to take my fall Sundays back and do something that fills me with joy and happiness, not abject horror and hopelessness.

RIP Walking Dead.

I shall not miss you.

Good morning friends. I just want to let you know one thing: at this point, I really don't care who you vote for in the rigged WWE puppet show extravaganza...Mob boss A or B, either way it's gonna be ugly.

But I won't berate you on social media for your choice. I won't attack your friends in comment sections. I won't name call anyone for their viewpoints so long as you kindly apply that tactic with me.

If a discussion is what you want, we can go grab a beer and hammer out the fine points in actual life like humans used to do back in the good ol days. I love those kind of nights. Barstool philosophizing is a favorite past time of mine... But I won't participate in the 4 year fever that takes hold of social media and wipes clean the kindness and compassion out of people I care about.

This election shouldn't cause you to hate friends and dismiss families.

And if voting for prez matters so much to you, then I expect to see that same fiery passion on local issues, ballots and measures too, where it does indeed matter. Do you even know who your senator/congressman/governor/mayor/city council is? If you don't, perhaps start there. Get fired up on that level first. I'll take your critiques for president far more seriously. Or not.

Either way...be cool.

You'll feel a whole lot better when the smoke clears.

A collection of random thoughts, lessons, observations and things that make me smile...

You know you're out of shape when air drumming at a stop light winds you and you almost black out by the chorus.

Never trust someone whose favorite drink is 151. You're either in for a night of fights, crying or throwup. Either way, walk away. Now.

What you project, you manifest. What has defeated you will do it again when you give it the strength to. Smash negativity before it has time to rise again.

You will never learn anything, especially compassion and tolerance, if you only seek to confirm what you have already learned.

Dear phone autocorrect. There is no such word as "habe". This idiocy needs to stop.

I don't have enough gray hair to accept hearing Enter Sandman on the classic rock station.

If you see the "left wing-right wing" concept in a spherical three dimensional spectrum, rather than the 2D linear version we are sold, you realize at some point, the left and right connect again at the fringes. Let that one digest for a half second.

Calling people sheep doesn't make you a shepherd.

Some people seethe with negativity. No matter how you address them, no matter what you say, they see the shitty side to everything. If it's sunny, they complain about the heat. If you love a band, they tell how much they hate them. If you talk about anything in a positive light around these people they just want to shit on it. They are full of complaints and excuses, never dreams and solutions. Limit your contact with these people. You do not need them in your life.

You always know when a Pink Floyd song is over when you hear the wind.

I will never tire of watching people stand up unprepared on the bus just as the driver hits the brakes.

Nothing worth anything is easy.

To the lady in front of me at the redbox...you're picking a movie, not a college. Get a little more decisive.

Other people's thoughts that I like:

"All religions are true but none of them are literal." - Joseph Campbell

"We are living in a horror movie written by comedians and performed by maniacs using megaphones." - Patton Oswalt

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.” - Bruce Lee

I've lived in Eugene since I was 15.

Moved across the country from Florida with my parents, 2 sisters, our cat and Uncle Kevin (RIP)...so much has happened here...

Today is my final day in hippy town, just finishing the last of packing the truck to head to Portland.

Kea asked me last night if I will miss anything about this place. I told her it was easy living here. And I will miss my friends and the memories.

But I'm excited for the next adventure, the new horizon. I'm excited to be around the constantly growing list of friends who live in PTown and I'm excited to see my career expand into where its headed.

Full details coming. Break time is over. Time to fill that truck and get outta here.

He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life. -Muhammad Ali, RIP

One year ago I covered Rock on the Range for the first time. For KFLY. This year, I headed back to Columbus, OH for their tenth anniversary to cover it again. This time for RadioContraband. Great to see Chili Peppers (for the 1st time), Deftones, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, Lamb of God, Ghost, Clutch, At the Drive In, Pennywise, The Sword...and so many more. Here's a brief assortment of pictures from the weekend...

I've been hinting at this for about a week now and I think it's time to spill the beans.

I'm moving to Portland, June 13th.

I was approached a few weeks ago for an "opportunity" which I could simply not refuse. Last week, I accepted a full-time position at Alpha Broadcasting. I can't say much more here, but I am pretty excited.

What I will say is that it gets me back into a newsroom and will challenge, grow and push my journalism career into a whole new direction. This is the next level activity that I have been looking forward to for some time now.

Even more exciting, I can maintain my role at RadioContraband (which was actually encouraged by my future employer). And in case you're wondering, no, my lady and I are not breaking up over this. She is going to stay back, finish grad school at UO this year and join me hopefully sooner than later.

To the ones who knew already, thank you for all the encouragement and support. And your silence. Big shout out to Bill Lundun, Kellen Brent Pierce, Tobby Lugo, Shannon Sundberg and my parents. And of course, my super sexy, super rad girlfriend Kea Cannon.

It's Serious Now.

Some nights I really wish Jimi Hendrix was still alive.

He would be kicking it with Clapton, Berry and Richards and the rest of the elders, still laughing and smoking, guitar always nearby...always ready to just...jam. I imagine he would still be dropping albums. All the way to the bitter end. Like Prince or Lemmy or Bowie. Just this massive spiraling discography.....fuck. It boggles the mind at the radiant possibilities that could have happened if he had simply....lived.

Never take this ride for granted. Never.