Ah, us entertainment junkies sometimes get excited about Tuesdays.  Why?  Well, as any self-respecting music and movie lover knows, that's the day new movies on DVD and Blu-Ray  and music CDs are released.  The next TWO Tuesdays are exciting for me.  This Tuesday is not only The first of Sept (where the heck did summer go???) but it is the season finale of the best show on TV right now, Rescue Me.   I'm sad it's the season finale, but excited to see what kind of cliff hanger we get left with.  This season has been the best one since season one, and I hate to see it go, but it was GOOD.

Now, next Tuesday, Sept 9 is a HUGE day for any music lover.  That's the day the ENTIRE Beatles catalog will be re-released remastered on CD.  You will be able to buy on CD at a time, or the whole shebang in a box set.  The catalog was released once before in the early days of CD but most fans weren't happy with it because the sound was shrill and tinny.  But now, the technology is different and we a promised a set of CDs so lovingly remastered it will be the Beatles songs as the Beatles themselves heard then when they recorded them.   I'm reserving a parking spot for myself at Best Buy that day.  iTunes and Amazon won't have them in MP3 format.  They are only going to be on CD.  If you want to buy the CDs and rip them to your iPod on those lossy MP3 and ACC formats, well, that's on you.....I'm gonna be listening to them FIRST on my CD player....reviews will follow.

We lost mom in March of 1993, a year that will be my least favorite for the forseeable future.  Won't stop me from celebrating Mother's Day, though. I wanted to share a blog I wrote about her a couple years ago.  A couple of you have seen it before.  But, it's the best I got and I just want to honor my late mother on THIS Mother's Day by sharing a little bit of her with you:

So, this Sunday is Mother's Day.  I used to joke, a long time ago, when I was younger and even more weird than I am today, that every Friday was Mother's Day, because I had to pay this mother and that mother.....  Those are NOT the mothers I'm talking about.

Seems I remember, Mother's Day last, telling everyone who cared to read, how my mother died.  Young.  Of cancer.  I think, this year, considering the reflective mood I've been in of late, I'll just reminisce.  I was always very close to mom.  Not a momma's boy, by any stretch, but we were close.  That was quite possibly because of the divorce and me being the oldest kid.  Seems like she always confided in me, for reasons I never fully understood.  I just listened.  Yeah, my tribute this year will be to tell anyone who cares to read how my mother lived.

Now, I readily admit that I've killed many brain cells over the years with alcohol and Little Debbie Cakes, not to mention Moon Pies and ice cream.  So, my memories might be a tad shaky, but, everything I recount here, well,  I believe happened  just the way I'm telling it and that's good enough for me.

I remember mom as an opinionated, chain-smoking, coke drinking, pan-frying, Elvis loving, Hershey Kiss eating, piano pounding, canasta playing, scrabble winning, Englebert Humperdink watching,  Tom Jones lusting, proud, onery, laughing, straight shooting, children loving woman.  And that barely scratches the surface.

Born in 1939, she lived with adoptive parents, one of  whom I never met (her adoptive mother) and the other a gentle giant of a man, Ed.

When she was 16 she eloped with my dad.  That marriage lasted about 16 years, give or take a year, and produced 3 yard apes.  I remember being 15, laying in bed and hearing them talk of divorce.  They were in the kitchen with the door shut, unaware of my awakened state or that I could hear them.  She told my dad, a Baptist minister, she wanted a divorce and wanted him out.   She was a shrewed woman, having laid the groundwork for a year or more by getting a job and buying a car so she could be self-supporting.  This was in the early 70's and women were just starting to enter the work force in any kind of numbers.  Dad had not allowed her to work for years because, well, that's just not how good Baptists acted.   But, she had lined up her ducks and started shooting them down.

Mom's cooking, at least when I lived there, was of the "overly well-done" variety.  You know, burnt.  Dad wanted all his vegetables fried and his meat like shoe-leather.  So, that's how we ate them.  We had wonderful breakfasts, though.  Man, just the thought of  biscuits and sausage gravy, scrambled eggs and toast on a Saturday morning.   Oh, and apple butter!  We drank Mayfield milk, there was only one kind in those days, as we never heard of skim or 2% or Nutrish.  Nope, just milk.   Actually, when I was really young,  Mr. Wilson,  from Wilson Dairy just up the road, delivered our milk in glass bottles. Right to the door step on the car port of  our, believe it or not, maroon colored house.  Yep, the asbestoes shingles on the outside matched our last name.

So, she cooked our meals, sometimes even on Saturday morning.  I remember, if it was really cold outside, getting up, going into the kitchen to find mom had the oven door open, using the stove to heat the kitchen.  That was because if you were to look up "poor" in the dictionary, our picture was there.  No, wait...we were too poor to have our picture put in the dictionary.  There was just an emptry frame where our picture should have been.  Poor people liked to live near us because we made them look middle-class.

The spring before I started first grade, she got me up and we looked out the window, the same window we used to hide under when the bill collectors came to the door,  as that bright yellow school bus pulled up in front of the neighbor's driveway so she could point out my mode of transportation to Westview Elementary School. Bus #15.  That was my bus.  She made sure, that first Monday after Labor Day, 1964, I was properly dressed, had my books and 15 cents for lunch and got to the bus stop on time.

As I would get ready for school in the mornings, she always had the radio in her room on so we could hear it.  Luther Massengill in the morning.  He gave us our news and sent us packing with a song in our heads to start the day.  The song that comes to mind as I type this is "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by Joan Baez.  I would stand in my room between my bed and the door with the poster of "Desiderata" , getting dressed, listening to the radio blaring and mom yelling at us to hurry or we would miss the bus.

Once the neighbors were treated to some early Saturday morning entertainment of me walking down the road, bawling my eyes out because mom was right behind me, whacking the back of my legs with a belt with every step I took.   You social liberals who are thinking, "That's child abuse!" need to just shut up.  I had it coming.  Besides, in those days we didn't have you bleeding hearts around to make sure we didn't get the comeupance we deserved because it was "too cruel".  I just flat had it coming.  I had crawled out the bedroom window at 6 am and went 3 houses up to get my friend Greg so we could play.  It never occured to my little adolesent mind that the only person who would come to the door I knocked on would be Greg's mother OR that she would be none too pleased to see me,  awakened by my banging on her door at 6 am on a Saturday.  I had TWO angry mothers on my hands.  Never stood a chance.....

One of the reasons I had so much respect for my mother was she was NEVER afraid to discipline us.  On the other hand, she was never afraid to love us, either.

When my Jr High School principle didn't want me to switch from  Mr Potts' Crafts class to work in the Library, he unwisely thought making me bring a note from my mother saying switching from a class I was getting an easy "A" in to a non-graded period would nip that in the bud.  Mr. Principle didn't count on my mother actually discussing it with me and, after seeing that's what I really wanted and understanding why I wanted it, sending the note.  Furious, as he read the note, Mr Idgit said, "Fine!  But you get an F in that class you are leaving!!".  A phone call from my mother, who could be a very, very difficult character to deal with if you made her mad by messing with her kids, changed that F back to an A about as fast as you can say, "Idiot Principles should not mess with Virginia Maroon's kids."

Let's not talk about the times she had to break up fist fights between my brother and I.

Yes, my mother, Virginia Ann Massey Maroon Evett was truely one-of-a-kind. To walk into her kitchen was to see a short brown haired woman with a sizable mole on one side of her face holding a cigarette in one hand, a glass of Coke in the other (when she wasn't holding the phone, talking to her buddy up the street or my Aunt "Insert "Pog", "Thelma" or "Rose" here"), with  TV Guide and a handful of Hershey Kisses in front of her on the oak table that now sits in my dining room.

My mother, who was terrified of thunderstorms to the point of incapacitation, who smoked a cigarette like it was the last one she would ever get to have, who sat up with us half the night playing Rook or Scrabble as we all sat around the table eating her homemade fudge or a sack full of Krystals.  My mom, who took my family in while I was in military basic training, who took her kids in when they couldn't do for themselves, who would cook for family and friends and didn't eat herself so they could have. Mother, who invented her own cuss words, like "Sh#$%y AssH#$%",  who listened with empathy and spoke with wisdom as I told her of my unhappy marriage.  Mom, who refused to feel sorry for herself when she found out she was dying of cancer, saying to me in the car on the way home from the doctor's office, "I'm sorry Mike, I haven't made you any fudge since you've been here.",   Whose very last words to me were, "I love you, too, son.".  Mom, who I miss like hell.

She wasn't perfect, but she taught us it's ok to not be perfect. She had her rough edges and sometimes she was wrong.  She would be the first to tell you she made mistakes. But she was my mother and don't you ever dare say anything bad about her.  I'll punch you right in the mouth.  Then I'll tell my brother and sister where you live so they can come over and punch you in the mouth, too.

I'll try and get by to see her on Mother's Day, maybe tell her I miss her and how glad I will be to see her when I get where I'm going.  If you are smart, you'll call yours or go see her if you are able.  Forget any grievances you might have.  She's your Mother for goodness sake.....

Happy Mother's Day.

Well, I'm a year older now, but not necessarily wiser.  I am fatter, couldn't get any more bald, and more and more I think of alcohol as something to rub on my sore muscles as opposed to being something to drink.  Although, I still like me a little Mike's Hard Lemonade from time to time.  That's right.  It's MIKE'S....so leave it alone.  I will take care of the whole six pack for you.  No need for you to bear the guilty conscience.

And, being another year older makes me realize I should keep my promises.  So, since  a promise is a promise, I refer you to this review, Taylor Swift-Fearless, and the first three sentences.  1. This album has sold around 3 million copies and is the best selling album of the past year.  2. Taylor Swift?  She's freakin' everywhere.  Last week on the Academy of Country Music Awards, Reba  presented her a milestone award for selling more albums in the past year than ANYONE, this despite new releases by U2, Bruce Springsteen and Kanye West. Plus she turns up on every awards show, tours to sold out audiences and even gets talked about on Inside Edition. 3. I told you so.  ;P

Seriously folks, birthdays these years tend to make me reflective and I just want you all to know how glad and grateful I am to be a part of this great Viewpoints Community.  I've made some good friends and read some wonderful reviews, blogs and discussion board posts.  It's all great fun and  you've all been very kind to me and my writing.   So, see, now you've gone and done it.  You'll never be rid of me.  Don't say I didn't warn you.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.  For we Christians, it's the most celebrated day of the year, more so than Christmas!  Why?  Because we celebrate Easter Sunday to commemorate Jesus Christ's victory over death, His being risen from the grave.  I realize not everyone reading this believes that and I get that.  But for those of us who do, well, Christianity is not possible without this event.

However you chose to celebrate, be it getting up and going to a sunrise service at your favorite church,  or, like me getting up at the crack of dawn to go sell Easter hams to last minute grocery shoppers (jokes on them, we ran out tonight!).  Or, you might celebrate by sleeping off a hard drinking Saturday night, or going to relatives houses to eat THEIR cooking (Yay! No cooking for you!).   You might hide real or plastic Easter eggs for the kiddies to find (Mine NEVER found all the ones I'd hide).  What ever you do, how ever  you enjoy your Easter Sunday, I hope it is a great one filled with love, happiness and most of all...Cadbury Creme Eggs.

I believe Jesus rose from the dead for us.  That's better than a Cadbury Creme Egg, but, I'll have one of those, too...

 

It's 2:35 am and I'm sitting up watching some TV.  It's a show I've seen three times already and I'm still loving it.  I LOVE music, especially concerts.  I'm watching the latest installment of CMT Crossroads.  Def Leppard is singing their 80's megahit, Hysteria, but with a twist.  Lead vocals are by, are you ready for this, Taylor Swift. 

If you aren't familiar with it CMT Crossroads is an intermittent series featuring seemingly diverse acts mashing their music together for what is often a fascinating and entertaining hour of television.  Well, I won't get detailed, you can just see my review here CMT Crossroads and Cross Country.  Making Music Really Sing.  There have been some really good ones, but this particular episode with Def Leppard and Taylor Swift is one of my favorites.  It's fun to watch her get into these old classic rock and roll songs and them get carried away with her newer teenage country-pop.  On paper it seems less than an ideal match, but on stage they freaking rock.  You should check it out.  You can catch it in repeats on CMT and in high def repeats on Padillia TV. 

Well, it's exactly one week until Christmas.  So, why isn't everyone happier?  While Andy Williams once sang this is the "hap, happiest season of all", I see a lot drudgery and stress.  Is it just me or have people abandoned the true spirit of Christmas for the crass commercialism of it?  I see a lot of decidedly middle class folks measure the success of their holiday season by the size of their new gaming system and whether or not they were able to score a copy of Call To Duty 5 for themselves or their kids.

I see a bunch of Scrooges plastering "Happy Holidays" graphics on their MySpace pages right after they've wrestled with a fellow human over a parking space at Target or for a spot in a 12 deep line of people waiting to check out at the Wal Mart.  Have we forgotten what Christmas is really all about?

 I saw a woman on Dr. Phil yesterday who refuses to celebrate the holiday because of the crass glorification of capitalism it has become.  You think it's not true?  Go ahead, tell your family they won't be getting gifts this year because  you've decided to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas.  See what that gets you.  Let's not even talk about the kids who won't get presents because there is actually no money.

Watching the version of A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart last night I was struck by something I think many miss.  Yes, Scrooge becomes a better man, one who learns the true meaning of life and love.  That's the part everyone takes away from watching this classic life-affirming tale.  But, does anyone pay attention to all the folks Mr. Scrooge treats like a Sarah Palin pinata at an Obama birthday party?

Notice all those people who received nothing from Scrooge for Christmas but his undying contempt and loathing in the past.  How do they treat him when he comes around, a changed man?   Naturally, at first, they are a little surprised and maybe wondering if he's up to something.  But, after the initial shock of having this once loathsome man requesting their forgiveness, they give it to him.  That forgiveness.  They welcome him with open arms, take him in, feed him.  And, their attitude is ultimately rewarded, as Mr Ebenezer Scrooge "became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world."

It would have been easy for them to reject him, to give him a bit of his own medicine, as we humans are want to do.  Pride demanded it, after all.  How many of us have treated someone badly because they treated us badly first?  But, the spirit of Christmas, which really should live in us 365 days every year, demands better of us.  As Jesus said, "love your enemies.  Pray for those who spitefully use you." 

Everyone was Scrooge's enemy.  He made it so.  But, in the end, they embraced him, without rebuke.  Without demanding an explanation for his actions or an apology, even though he offered one.  See, his nephew, Fred, he knew something about the true spirit of Christmas.  He knew that true joy is found in love and that nothing unlocks a stone cold heart like a little persistent caring.

If you want to find your joy in this holiday season, remember that loving others is the greatest gift you can give.  Loving that grouchy old man who shovels his snow into your yard, that's more priceless than any Mastercard.  My prayer for each of us is that we be more like the Scrooge's nephew and his family.  Yes, and let's not forget Scrooge himself.  For who could ask for a better epitaph than, " it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge"   God bless us.  Every one.

Merry Christmas from my house to yours.

Happy Thanksgiving to a great bunch of folks have have made my stay here at Viewpoints a mucho pleasure!  We all have so much to be thankful for.  No matter how bad you think your little world is, someone, somewhere is much, much worse off. I'm grateful for my friends, my family, my Viewpoints family, and everything God has blessed me with.  Yes, I'm even thankful for my ratty pick up truck!  And my bald head!  And that there on no criminal complaints pending against me.  Anywhere! That I know of!

 Life here in these United States is better for the poorest of us than for the wealthiest in some countries.  Never forget that.  Americans tend to take their privilege for granted, shoot, even thinking they are entitled to it!   None of us are entitled to ANYTHING.  Nothing.  So, for everything we have. Let's say a little prayer and give thanks before we slam our faces into those turkey drumsticks.  Somewhere, some little kid is hoping for a hand full  of flour and some clean water.  Give thanks people.  Give thanks.  God bless you all, I love all ya.

Barack Obama was not my choice for President.  However, the rest of America has made him theirs.  The thing to do now is pull together both camps and get behind our new President and support President Obama as he seeks a way to lead out country back to greatness and prosperity.

The next 4 years will be a challenge.  Unless he proves himself unworthy at some point, we, the American people need to rise up with him and move back toward the greatness that once was and will be again the United States of America.

Two Things: 

1. Tomorrow Please. Please. Please get out and vote, no matter which candidate you are for.  JUST.  VOTE.

2. I just saw the trailer for the new season of "24", which begins in Jan.  It is here
 http://www.comcast.net/tv/seenontv/16087/24returndateisset/
  Three words:  OH.  HECK. YEAH.

My 4 year old had her first Trick or Treat last night.  She was dressed as a chicken, but she sure was no chicken when it came to asking for treats!  She would go up to the door, and, after some prodding from me, would announce "trick or treat"!.  Then, after the person gave her a handful of candy, she had no problem say, "I want a little bit more."......Needless to say, we combined the trick-or-treating with a lesson in manners!  The neighbor would say, "Oh, that's ok!!! she's so cute!", but, I can't in good conscience allow my kid to be greedy! We all had fun, though.  Had to drag her off the street almost kicking and screaming.  Took her to IHOP where she devoured 5 little pancakes and some scrambled eggs.  A very memorable Halloween night.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.-Groucho Marx

I want to take a minute or three to thank everyone who stopped by to congratulate me for FINALLY making Writer 2.  At this rate, I'll make Publisher's Circle about the time I draw my first Social Security check.  Oh, wait, there might not be any.  Sure hope McDonald's is till hiring by then! Anyway, thank you all for caring enough to leave a comment.  The first and foremost reason I like being a cog in the wheels that are Viewpoints is all the great people here.  You folks rule.

We lost a great one today, folks.  Levi Stubbs, lead singer of the legendary Four Tops died at age 72.  He was one of the great Motown singers, no, one of the great singers, period.  Who hasn't sang along with "Baby I Need Your Loving", "I Can't Help Myself(Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) and/or "Ain't No Woman(Like the One I Got)"?
Liar.....

Ok, they are locking me up.  The folks from the Muscular Dystrophy Association are coming to my place of work on Oct 30th and taking me to "lock-up".  How do I get out? Bail, of course.  You can go to this website

https://www.joinmda.org/2008hixson/batmanone3

and help bail me out while giving to a great cause.  Tell, me, does THIS look like the face of a man who should be in jail??? :)  Any help is greatly appreciated by me and Jerry's kids....

"Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die". Check out the new home page! I'm lovin' it! I'm sure it will be tweaked a bit but it's really cool, like the people here! This place is just brimmin' with folks and I'm lovin' it! I'm excited about all the new people getting involved and the new reviewers. It's a sickness you know, and the cure is writing. Don't say I didn't warn ya......