Nothing going as planned…minutes after my last blog, I sliced my finger open on the filing cabinet in the press trailer and didn't realize it until I headed out to see some music. I realized I was bleeding like stuck pig (respect to the creatures who permit us those amazing pulled pork sandwiches like Jack's on Broadway, sorry getting off point again) but Nicole walkie talkie'd a golf cart from the first aid tent about a half mile away and I was cleaned up in no time. "Just a flesh wound" in Python parlance. Shortly afterwards, the Metallica bus rolled in and set up camp behind the Main Stage adjacent to the media area and guest hospitality where peeps come and go all day grabbing grub and hanging out.
This is when my intention shifted from drifting about like a Brian Wilson leaf on a windy day into content gathering for the assignment mode. First things first...wandering over to the band's make shift village, first face I see is former RIP scribe and longtime So What? gatekeeper, Steffan Chirazi. You know, this is sounding lame so fuck it. Long blog short, I heard about the upcoming LP, ten songs, several over eight minutes in length, some kind of metal monster, old school Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets in feel with proper evolution from personal time and tide peppered into the mix. Really only chatted with Hetfield, who approached me with extended hand and kind words. He is not your average rocker, never has been. Artists of immense accomplishment often enter your space with an advanced aura of 'please stand clear, special person approaching.' Not James. He is a prince in a land of few gentlemen. We didn't talk a word about the new record of anything else of that nature. I'm getting the story from others, a different approach, which will be revealed when the piece is published in either the Sept. or October issue of Metal Edge.
The rain began to fall around dusk and Chris Rock entered the area, beaming a huge smile, shortly post Jack White's visit to bid his fond respects to the drummer Ulrich. Rock brought Metallica on stage after his hour long stand up. Two hours after that, it got wetter and my
summer wardrobe began to feel as ridiculous as it looked. Fortune shone upon me through the black wailing skies as attorney Peter Paterno and managers Peter Mensch and Cliff Burnstein offered me a lift back to 
Did not sleep well and finally gave up on the nocturnal ride, waking to an email from 70s music scribe legend and personal literary hero that lunch today or tomorrow was on. Google Chet Flippo so I don't have to compose a lame, quick Wikipedia paragraph that does little service to the amazing shit this man wrote about the icons of rock n' roll when rock n' roll was a toddler (His books on Amazon can be bought at this link). I will elaborate at a later date on Chet but because he doesn't deserve a half devoted blog post. He took me to Jack's BBQ on Broadway where he was welcomed like the local hero he is but the guy chopping the pork behind the counter. We ate, talked, and walked around the festive downtown streets, country music blaring through the open doors of businesses with taps flowing and gullets swallowing. And I mean LIVE music; two piece, three piece, any piece that serves the country muse, youngens and oldsters, singing through their Saturday, 
By midday, it's obvious I ain't getting my ass out to
Lisa's coming by in an hour, the local publicist who moved here 15 years ago. We gotta catch up. She brought Cobain and company to the RIP offices in '92 for that unforgettable lunch recounted in the chapter, "Nirvana at High Noon" in my memoir. I talked to her this morning, got quite a distinct Southern accent.
Back at the 'Roo for Father's Day.
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