Southpaw Steve

Issue #102: I couldn't think of a better title this week

Happy Friday readers and welcome to a new month!

Why Southpaw Steve? Well, for one, as the subtitle suggests, I couldn’t think of anything clever for this week’s issue. Plus I’m left handed so I’m what is referred to as a southpaw. The term southpaw is mostly used for boxers and baseball pitchers. I am obviously not a boxer and I did actually play baseball for a while but that was a really long time ago. The term southpaw comes from when baseball parks were laid out in a manner where the pitcher looked toward the west when facing a batter and so a left handed pitcher’s arm was facing south. There’s some useless trivia for you.

Also, the main photo for this week’s issue is a photo of Murphy. He was our cat that we had to put down a few years ago. He was old and got really sick and there was nothing that the vets could do for him so we had to let him go. That happened in the month of August so you are probably going to be seeing him all month. I still miss him. He was a really good kitty. This photo that you are seeing of him now is actually my phone’s lock screen.

This week on Rebel Rock Radio, JD and I talked about the Ewoks. The tunes that we played on this week’s episode were from Vicious Dreams, Hauntu, and Lost in Society.

Also this week, JD and I were guests on the Salacious Rum podcast. It was a lot of fun hanging out with those guys. It was a blast.

I was also a guest on the Dingus Den this week where I talked to Spencer about all of the news coming out San Diego Comic Con.

Also in regards to podcasting, this week I merged my music podcast (Radio Unfriendly) with Rebel Rock Radio. Well, kind of merged. The Radio Unfriendly shows will still be titled as Radio Unfriendly. But all of the episodes can now be found on both the Rebel Rock Radio audio feeds (Apple, Spotify, etc…) as well as the Rebel Rock Radio YouTube channel. The Radio Unfriendly episodes will be on a separate playlist on the YouTube channel. I’m doing this in order to simplify things as far as management of the feeds and management of the various social media accounts. It might be confusing at first but I think this is a better move for me in the long run.

New Music Friday

Here are some new releases that came out today that I found interesting.

• Cowboy Boy - Lipstick on a Pig

• X - Smoke & Fiction

• Box Elder - Between Endings And Beginnings

• Brash Menagerie - Dollars to Donuts. This EP was actually released earlier this week on Monday the 29th instead of today but I’ll count it.

And since this is the first issue of August, here is where I list my favorite records that were released in the month of July. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot that was released in July that I was really digging. But here are a few:

• Down By Law - Crazy Days

• Carson McHone - Odes

• Teardrops - Something To Cry About

• Billy the Kid - I Have To Do This

• The Brash Menagerie - Dollars to Donuts (I can count it for both weekly releases and July releases since it came out on Monday)

I miss the concert venue The Conservatory. Those of you that do not live in Oklahoma (which is probably about 90% of you) will not know what I’m talking about). It was a good place to see bands and the owner was a great guy. He owned the venue and a little record store called Size Records that was right next door. I can’t remember when it closed down but he sold it and it is a different venue now. I go there sometimes but I don’t enjoy it nearly as much as I did the Conservatory. And it only has a little bit to do with the fact that I got married there while at a concert. The artist (Stephen Egerton) stopped the show and let us come up on stage and get married. It was a great venue that was infamous for its stinky male bathroom. I saw a lot of shows there. Here are some photos of it and Size.

I got 3 titles on my comic book pull list this week. They were:

• X-Force #1 - I had been looking forward to this one.

• Ultimate Spider-Man #7

• Darth Maul: Black, White & Red #4

As far as other comics goes, I read the 2 volumes of The High Republic Phase II series: Balance of the Force and Battle for the Force as well as Books of Doom.

I am still working on the audiobook of Thrawn Ascendancy: Chaos Rising.

I did a zero session for a couple of the folks that will be playing in my Star Wars RPG campaign. I recorded it and put it up on the Rebel Rock Radio Patreon page. Click on the image to go to that website.

This week in sports……..

So the summer Olympics started recently and they are being held in Paris.

That’s all I have to say about that.

I didn’t watch anything in the theater this week. Otherwise, I went back to watching episodes of Brooklyn Nine Nine.

This week’s track of the week comes the new X album Smoke & Fiction. It is the opening track on that album.

That’s it for this week kids. Thanks for joining and hope to hear from some of of you via the comments section. Have a great weekend!