Ray Manzarek died. This actually made major news, which is pretty impressive considering he was just the keyboard player for The Doors. I doubt the keyboardist from Jethro Tull will get as much love.

Anyways, a major loss - the dude made the doors "The Doors", without his organ and bass lines, they'd sound extremely bland. I think it was his endless promotion of The Doors that propelled them from "band with 3 or 4 hits" to rock legends.

Did everyone have a lovely weekend? Me too. Liam's friend had a birthday party in Lakewood over the weekend. It was cute cuz Liam and his girlfriend kept running off with each other to play. Such a stud. Like his old man (whom I hope he meets one day)! The party was at Lakewood park, which is such a cool place. It's like Cleveland's Edgewater, but less heroin needles.

Sunday we chilled at me mum's house. Poor Evie fell and scraped her knees pretty bad - her first really major boo-boo. Kids are hilarious when they hurt their knees because they walk like Frankenstein. She would freak out if she even looked at the cut! Poor baby. I had to put bandaids on my own knees to convince her that bandaids would help her heal.

So, that was that. Good times. Last night Prince was on the Billboard awards, again showing everyone what an actual musician does for a living. Of course there's no video online because Prince is still a dick. "I don't want anyone seeing me! Tee hee!" Meh.

April 19th, TheDude made the long, strange trip to Cleveland and he and I and TheStrak saw Mushroomhead at Peabody's.

The show was fantastic. The openers, and the sidebands at Pirate's Cove were hit and miss (mostly miss). There was a band called Sykosis that I thought was pretty cool. Though I was also very inebriated, so I thought everything was pretty cool.

Before the show we went to Tilted Kilt, but instead of ogling scantily-clad women, we had a man bartender. He was pretty handsome though. I think he was sweet on TheStrak, and who wouldn't be?

The show was awesome, very heavy, very long. For some reason I decided to go into the pit over and over. My left pinkie is still screwed up, and my wrist is killing me from being stepped on. TheDude and I had a number of bruises all over, it looked like we wrestled a bear (Who knows? We might have). I managed to weasel right up front and watch the scary skeleton guitar guy play right up in my face - that was equally awesome and unsettling. Their lead singer freaks me out because he sits mid-stage - literally sits (or kneels, it's weird looking) for the whole show and never moves. It's very very odd looking. Either that or he's 4 feet tall.

I'm not sure how we got home, some random cab drive got us to West Park somehow, and I think I gave him like $60.

Here's an (incomplete) playlist from the show.

This is awesome - the vocal track from Helter Skelter:

At school, Liam and his classmates had to draw what they were feeling. Liam drew this thing:

Which is sad and frightening, and instantly reminded me of the self-portraits serial killer John Wayne Gacy used to paint:

So, hopefully Liam doesn't grow up to be a serial killer. Or perhaps I've failed yet again.

Liam had his first soccer practice yesterday. It might not seem like a big deal, but it's his first organized sport, so it's a big deal in his life and ours! At first he was scared to death, but after a few minutes, he realized he was a natural at soccer and was awesome. The practices are out in Fairview Park, and I think I would like living there. It's a nice place, sort of like West Park but with less scary people hovering around.

Did y'all have a good Easter? We bounced around west side, east side, and in-between to get approximately 4 metric tons of chocolate, and 843 slices of ham. The Easter Bunny left some cool Power Rangers toys for Liam, and some princess toys for Evie. I got Malley's peanut butter eggs, aka Greatest Candy Ever.

Just realized that May brings us the tenth anniversary of the internet's most popular blog, billymeade.com! Not sure how to celebrate. Party? Yes, let's have a party. West Park Station, May 11, 2013. It's a Saturday. Let's do it! Every reader is invited. I'll buy your first round. We can relive the highs, lows, and ever-so-romantic misunderstandings of billymeade.com.

Along the way, let's relive some great memories.

5 years ago... Me and Becky were just buying a house. The mayor of Detroit was up to no good (he was just convicted last week!) You heard it FIRST on billymeade.com

10 years ago... nothing really. The site didn't exist yet. but NINE years ago, not only did I break my back, but Eldin from Murphy Brown died. We miss you, Eldin.

One of the advantages of having two small children is that Daylight Savings Time has no effect on you - you're still tired all day no matter what time it is. So, yay? I need more coffee.

This weekend was fun. The sun finally came out so the kids got to go out and play... until Evie started puking. So she's home sick today. Liam's doing okay so far, but my tummy hurts a bit. Could be the fact that I had 5 cups of coffee; Maybe not.

On Saturday afternoon I mosied on up to West Park Station to grab a bite to eat. I ordered a Great Lakes Conway's Irish Ale, and they gave me a free St Patrick's day pint glass! That maded my day. Walking home with a beer glass felt very odd though.

BAH - I wanted to post a picture of it, but Picasa's new web interface is making it impossible. GRRRRRR. Oh well, imagine a pint glass with a shamrock on it (difficult, I know).

Sunday we went to Church, and for the first time sat in the main area (instead of the kids room off to the side), and the kids did great! So their indoctrination can really begin. Unfortunately, our church has a sound system from 1895, so you can't hear a single word. Not very consubstantial. After that we got Liam some awesome new shoes, then played at the park all day. There was a dad smoking at the park, ON the jungle gym? Who does that? Cleveland people. The worst. I know I can't keep my kids from inhaling smoke, but it just bothers me that any human in 2013 would even think it was normal to sit on top of a slide puffing away. Terrible.

Paul Bearer, one of the most memorable pro-wrestling personalities of all time, died. He was 58! Paul holds a special place in my black heart as it was his management of the Undertaker which really kicked off my obsession with wrestling in 1990. Sure, I had always loved Hogan and Roddy Piper in the early 80s, but as an 11 year old, seeing a real-life zombie guy and his creepy manager - that was just tooooo cool. Wrestling was definitely a different world back then, but I loved how he was always in character. I remember going to house shows and seeing him behind the curtain, acting normally, but if he caught your eye, he'd "Paul Bearer"-it up.

Songs I've been diggin this month...