Metallica World Domination

Metallica is just everywhere these days. Guitar Hero: Metallica was released this week, this weekend they'll be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they are in middle of European Tour for Death Magnetic and have announced another leg for the US this fall and winter.

I got my copy of Guitar Hero: Metallica yesterday and was amazed. Once their normal entrance music of "Ecstasy of Gold" started, I got chills just like I was at live show. The game play is fantastic and features all the stages and tours through Metall-istory. Even playing along with animated versions of James, Lars, Kirk and Robert I'm nervous and thrilled. This is first music game I could be playing guitar and singing at the same time from the first moment I start playing. The only thing I wish the game had was seeing Metallica as they were for each era - would love to see the long haired metal monsters of the 80's and 90's plus having Cliff be in the game would be fantastic. Maybe such things show up later as I play - who knows.

I'm seeing Metallica in Germany on May 9th. I'm beyond psyched for my first international show. US dates for the rest of 2009 have been announced, but don't include anything in New England - a big shock since they only played one date in Boston on the first leg. Normally they play Boston, Providence, Hartford and Worcester. That can only mean 2010 will be featuring many visits, I hope.

The R&R Hall induction goes down Saturday, April 4 and will be covered live by FUSE TV. In fact FUSE is doing a week long of Metallica specials. The ceremony will be live from Cleveland on Saturday, April 4 starting at 9:00 pm EDT. Don't have FUSE? No biggie - you can watch it online!
Check out www.fuse.tv/rockhall for more info. and the schedule for the week is also posted here.
Metallica is bringing EVERYONE to celebrate the induction - very cool.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090328/music_nm/us_metallica_1
Jason Newsted will even take over as bassist for the day!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090331/music_nm/us_metallica_1

Harmonic Wealth Weekend with James Ray

We got home Sunday afternoon from James Ray's Harmonic Wealth Weekend in New Jersey and are still trying to take it all in and put it to work. So much material was covered, day 2 was even longer than the first day. I won't attempt to explain it all. I'll just say it was powerful, emotional, exhilarating and fun. It is really about how to go beyond just positive thinking and watching The Secret over and over wishing for a better life. James teaches a cross section of quantum physics, eastern religions, meditation, and the laws of the universe to overcome any person's own limiting beliefs. Like so much of what I've gotten into the last couple of years, it all boils down to raising your own level of consciousness and getting off of auto pilot.

I'm already exchanging emails with eight people I met there. You tend to make friends fast when you're hugging, giving back rubs and even butt rubs to your neighbors over two very long days. And I know I will attend all of his various week long programs before long. This is all just adding to the amazing experience I had when I attended the Centerpointe Retreat in October. At some of James' events he does Holosync and more of the holotropic breathing that totally put me into another realm the one time I did it. I heartily recommend any book, DVD or live event of James' you might ever choose to explore. The Harmonic Wealth book is a great, practical read - but compared the to live event it is a comic book.

The New York Times sent a reporter to the event, but like most of the media they are just focused on how shitty the economy is. Check out the article.

Wow, what a day with James Ray

17 hours later, day one with James Ray comes to a close. A brief close as Saturday starts with a 6:30am meeting, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Today began with a 7:30am meeting for Board Holders which I volunteered for. This was a bit of training for 20 guys in how to properly hold a pine board for people to break later that night. Then we were put back out into the hallway with the group of 500 and we all entered the ballroom again to high-fives, cranking music and lots of energy and James Ray kept that energy up all day - until we broke at 12:30am. I'd swear I've been for at least 3 days already. Just a power packed day of highly interactive lectures, workshops, group exercises, writing, meditation, visualizations, laughs and tears. It was all about the Law of Attraction, limiting beliefs, getting your thoughts, feelings and actions in alignment.... and much more.

The day climaxed with everyone writing their main limiting belief on a pine board and on the other side a new positive belief. Then we smashed right through them with one mighty blow. It was such a thrill to be able to hold for people. People were flying right through the boards. I lost count at 25 for people I held for and everyone made it. A few people had to be coached through multiple attempts, I think 4 was the most. But lots of woman, including Lori, pulverized the board on their first try. I hugged and high-fived each of my breakers while the whole room cheered each other on. It was very cool. Then I finally got my shot as all the holders held for each other and I destroyed my "I Suck" board into 3 pieces - it was shockingly easy.

I've met lots of Holosyncers and even a few people from neighboring towns back home. Last year I made a pledge to myself that money wasn't ever going to be the reason I didn't do something (which is partially why we are headed to Germany and Africa this year) - that got put to the test today as there was a great offer for two more James Ray events later this year. I said screw it, let's stimulate that economy and now we are going to James Ray 3 day events in San Diego this July and Las Vegas in November. The energy and consciousness raising at these events is just too damn cool to pass up.
All for now

2009 Kicking into High Gear

Lori and I are in Jersey City, New Jersey tonight (finding myself in Jersey a lot lately, what's up with that?) with a great view if another plane has to land on the Hudson. We're at the month-old Westin Hotel for James Ray's Harmonic Wealth Weekend. James Ray is one of the people featured in The Secret and we've got a couple 15+ hour days ahead of us doing... I'm not sure what yet, but there's 500 of us here and I'll let you know what goes down after the fact. James is who introduced me to Holosync, which I've been using for over a year and a half now. I had such an amazing experience at the Centerpointe Retreat back in October, and a few people there raved about James' events. So I decided it was time to see James live.
This year is shaping up to be a big travel year for us. We've booked a trip to Germany for May - will even be seeing Metallica in Stuttgart - to visit friends who are there for a few months. Then in June I'm headed out to LA for a week and in September, the big one. We are going back to Africa, this time to visit Uganda and Rwanda for some gorilla trekking and then on to Tanzania for a few days at the Ngorongoro Crater. This is who the trip is with, Volcanoes Safaris, and it looks totally sick.
Our first big trip together was visiting Kenya ten years ago and I'm so psyched to be returning to Africa.

Metallica Rocks Newark

We made the 4 hour drive down to Newark to see Metallica last night. This was my 25th show and 7th state for seeing the mighty Metallica. They only played one show in New England on this tour, that was just unacceptable. I am so glad we made the trip. Even though I was very pleased with the Boston show, this one blew it away. The energy level, the interplay and fun in the band, our seats and view... all just made for an amazing show. In my Boston review I remarked on the fact of much less pyro than prior years, well that was true just for that show. For some reason Boston didn't allow all the flames that were flying high, often and in one case a little longer than they were supposed to in Newark. Also unlike Boston, the floor was general admission last night and having some pits break out makes such a difference in the overall energy level of the building. Got a couple songs different from two weeks ago; Ride The Lightening, the very rare cover Bliztgreig plus a tease of the instrumental Suicide and Redemption.

Our seats were about the same distance from the stage as in Boston, but we weren't on the floor so could actually see the whole band and stage show this time; all the lasers, pryo and lights. What a difference. Just a great show, great crowd... I was just going off so much... sweat was flying from bald head from the first song and splattering on the girl in front of me. Deal with it baby! My neck and voice are way more shot today than after the Boston gig. Some of the new songs sounded just fantastic last night, with the whole crowd screaming out every word - especially on All Nightmare Long and Cyanide. One lucky 10 year old got plucked out of the crowd and joined Lars on drums to start of Seek and Destroy. It is in that final song that dozens of black Metallica beach balls get dumped from the rafters, and last night while James was running along kicking a bunch of balls into the crowd he fell down. He bounced up quick, laughing at himself. Then he and Robert did some seal tricks bouncing balls off each others' heads.
Before Metallica started we were talking with everyone around us. People were trading stories about how many times they'd seen the band. There were a ton of Metalli-virgins. I just said "I saw them with Cliff" and that conversation ended with a hush of admiration. Newark was the last stop on the US tour and band heads off to Europe after a short break. I'm hoping to score tickets to see them in Germany this May.

Set List
That Was Just Your Life
The End Of The Line
Ride The Lightning
For Whom the Bell Tolls
One
Broken, Beat And Scarred
Cyanide
Sad But True
...And Justice For All
All Nightmare Long
The Day That Never Comes
Master Of Puppets
Battery
Nothing Else Matters
Enter Sandman
- - - - - - - -
partial jam of Suicide and Redemption
Blitzkrieg
Hit The Lights
Seek and Destroy