Forget Lennon, RIP Dimebag Darrell

December 8...

Many people on Facebook seem to be remembering today as the day John Lennon died.

For me and those into rock and metal, we all know it as the date "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott was murdered.

Who is "Dimebag" Darrell?

Well, he's probably most famous for being the guitarist for Pantera and a huge influence when it came to the world of rock and metal. After Pantera broke up, "Dimebag" and his brother Vinnie Paul continued to rock with their band Damageplan who had a stop in my hometown just months prior to his death.

From Wiki:

On December 8, 2004, Abbott was shot onstage while performing with Damageplan at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio.

The gunman was Nathan Gale, who shot Abbott six times, including four times in the head, killing him instantly. Gale then continued shooting, killing four others and wounding a further seven. Gale fired a total of fifteen shots, stopping to reload once and remaining silent throughout the shooting.

Jeff "Mayhem" Thompson, the band's head of security, was killed tackling Gale, as was Alrosa Villa employee Erin Halk. Audience member Nathan Bray was killed while trying to perform CPR on Dimebag and Mayhem. It was rumored that one crowd member leaped in front of the gunman, saving the lives of several band members. Damageplan drum technician, John "Kat" Brooks, was shot three times as he attempted to get the gun away from Gale, but was overpowered and taken hostage in a headlock position. Tour manager Chris Paluska was also injured.

Seven police officers came in the front entrance, led by Officer Rick Crum, and moved toward the stage. Officer James D. Niggemeyer came in through the back door, behind the stage. Gale only saw the officers in front of the stage; he never saw Officer Niggemeyer, who was armed with a 12 gauge Remington 870 shotgun. He approached Gale from the opposite side of the stage to avoid hitting the hostage and fired a single shot, striking Gale in the face with eight of the nine buckshot pellets. Gale was found to have had 35 rounds of ammunition remaining.

Can you imagine being at a show and having something like this happen? And poor Vinnie - he was just feet away from his brother when he was murdered - can you imagine the horror?

From what I know, I believe this is the only time a musican has been murdered like this by a crazed fan onstage during a show. While there are theories as to why Gale went on his shooting spree, no one knows for sure why he did it.

Dimebag's death was a huge loss to the metal and rock world, as well as the music world as he was quite the guitarist and a huge influence. He was only 38.

I was in college at the time, however I remember I was at my ex's parents house that weekend, sleeping in his sister's room and falling asleep to the TV in there. The early morning news came on and I remember them reporting on this, as it had just happened hours prior.

RIP "Dimebag" Darrell - you won't be forgotten!

In memory of my grandma

The other day I was browsing Netflix's Instant Watch selections and saw they had some "newer" movies on there that I had missed as hubby wasn't interested seeing them in theaters let alone watch them with on DVD, such as "Julie and Julia" and "The Proposal" so I added them to my Instant Watch queue (as I'm the only one that ever uses it) and last night I watched "Julie and Julia."

I'm not going to do a full on movie review of it here, as I'm saving that for my movie review blog - Movie Bits, but I did enjoy the movie a lot more than I thought I would! I've always been a bit of a picky eater and not really that much of a cook, but I do enjoy trying food that has things I like in it, and some of these sauces and dishes they make in the movie looked *really* good - I'm half tempted to get the recipe for that beef stew they made! I also LOVE movies that include French phrases and dialogue, as I took basic French classes in high school and college so it's fun for me to hear the language and figure out what's being said (also one of the many reasons why I love the movie Inglourious Basterds).

Watching this movie though reminded of my grandma on my mom's side who passed away the night before my wedding.

I'm sure if she were around and able when this movie was in theaters she would have insisted me, mom, my sis and aunt that lives out here all go see it.

I have many memories of my grandma, as she lived in our town with us for years before she started moving back and forth between her house here and her house back in Pennsylvania (where both my parents and their families are from). Many memories were good ones, however some of the last ones weren't so good.

Before my grandma lived near us, she used to write me letters and include stories and drawings. She also used to always share and give me Hersey Kisses - those were our thing.

Something always seemed a bit off with my grandma though - she talked a lot and was always sure that someone was ripping her off or scamming her. She became more and more paranoid the older she got and even started claiming her children where stealing from her anytime she couldn't find something in her house. Eventually my mom and her siblings were able to get her evaluated and sure enough, like we had always speculated, she was bipolar, which explained why she could seem perfectly fine and normal some days and then go completely off the handle on others. She had gone without treatment for so long though (most of her life) that during her last few years, the bipolar had turned into a paranoid schizophrenia.

At the time she died, I hadn't seen her in years, as I had been off at college and she had moved back to her house in Pennsylvania and then been in and out of assisted living homes back there before they moved her back out here. I heard she was a lot different in the months before her death - very skinny and fragile, barely able to lift her head. My mom wanted me to go see her one last time, but I just couldn't bring myself to do so. They figured I was still upset over some of the stuff that occurred the last times I had been around her, but it wasn't that. I had gotten over what had happened years earlier, but I was afraid to see her in her current physical state as I didn't want to remember her looking the way she did then.

The way I remember her, well, she looked similar to Julia Child - they both had bright red curly hair, pale complexions, definitely not petite, but LOVED cooking! I remember my grandma was always cooking or baking something. In a lot of ways, they seemed a like. They also both lived in Pennsylvania at some point and enjoyed hats too - my grandma had some pretty interesting ones, including one made of faux bird feathers that I remember my friends always commenting on (it was easy to find her in a crowd, just look for the crazy hat with feathers!). They were both teachers too - in the movie, we see that Julia taught cooking, whereas my grandma taught high school students and one of the subjects she taught was home economics.

I remember as a little kid I would watch a lot of PBS, however I usually turned it off in the afternoon, as cooking shows like The Frugal Gourmet with Jeff Smith and Julia Child's The French Chef would come on, but when my grandma was around, she'd have me leave these shows on, as she'd love to watch them, sometimes explaining to me what they were doing (although it went in one ear and out the other, as I would rather flip the channel to Nickelodeon than watch some boring cooking shows).

So in a way, this movie reminded me of my grandma and her love of cooking.

It rained the majority of the day on my wedding, but they say that rain on your wedding day is good luck; we'd like to think it was my grandma, showering down blessings on us from Heaven. She may not have been there in person, but she was in spirit and memory.

Billy Mays, RIP

Here's a video clip of Billy Mays & Anthony Sullivan on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien just last week.



I had been watching the show Pitchmen on the Discovery Channel the last few months and it was interesting to see all the behind the scenes of the commercials and infomercials Billy and Sully have done, how they work together, etc. It's a shame he died at only 50!

Love him or hate him, you and your loud booming voice will be missed!

RIP Billy Mays!