KISS In Fresno

On Saturday, JR and I saw KISS in concert in Fresno. (photo courtesy of JR Beckwith)

We got there just before 8:00 and the opening act, local band Shiver Fox was playing. Neither of us had ever heard of them. They were pretty good, but I can’t remember anything they performed. I just thought it was cool that a local band was playing as the opening act.

Just after 9:00, the lights went out and the crowd went crazy. The video screens on the sides of the stage showed Gene, Paul, Tommy and Eric walking backstage and then the obligatory “You wanted the best, you got the best. The hottest band in the world... KISS!”.

Needless to say, the place went nuts!

The set list:

Deuce - of course they opened with this one! Strutter Let Me Go (Rock and Roll) Hotter Than Hell Shock Me - sang by Tommy Thayer... awesome! Dr Love Modern Day Delilah - good choice from the new album Cold Gin - Paul asked the crowd not to drink and drive Tommy guitar solo Parasite Say Yeah - another selection from Sonic Boom 100,000 Years / Eric drum solo - I miss Eric Carr, but Eric Singer is awesome! Gene bass solo I Love It Loud Paul plays intro to Stairway To Heaven Black Diamond - sang by Eric Singer Rock And Roll All Night

The band exits.

A minute or so later, at 10:40, the band came back on the stage for their bow. As the fans scream for an encore, Paul says “it will be the longest encore you've ever heard”.

Shout It Out Loud Lick It Up Love Gun - Paul sang some of it from a platform in the middle of the floor. Detroit Rock City

At 11:00 the show was over for good. Awesome show!

Of course the show came with flames shooting from the stage, as well as from Gene’s mouth, fireworks, including those shot from Tommy’s guitar (one of which hit an overhead set of lights, causing one end to swing free from the rafters), Gene flying up to the top of the arena, not far from the ceiling, and huge platforms that must’ve been 3 or 4 stories tall.

I consider myself a die-hard KISS fan. The fact that the band is performing with “hired hands” playing the roles of Ace Frehley and Peter Criss has caused some controversy. Seems that some fans dislike Tommy Thayer and Eric Singer playing those “characters”. I think the band is much better with Tommy and Eric. Ace and Peter are due heaps of respect but their time has come and gone, and come and gone again. Let’s not forget that there were other awesome musicians in the band. Criss was replaced by the late Eric Carr, who lost his battle with cancer 11-24-1991 (side note: don’t get me started on the Freddie Mercury / Eric Carr bit). Eric Singer joined the band after Carr’s death and has been there through some great and some terrible music. Ace was replaced by Vinnie Vincent, Mark St. John (one of my favorites), Bruce Kulick and then, ultimately, by Tommy Thayer. On the latest release, Sonic Boom, Paul, Gene, Tommy and Eric, came up with a sound that is classic in every sense of the word. Their sound is timeless and clean. I have no doubt that Tommy and Eric “dumbed down” their playing to match the style of their original band member brethren. This line-up is, by far, the best one Gene and Paul have put together. Period.

The Fresno show, and many others, was not a sell-out. Does that mean that KISS has lost their touch? I wouldn’t say that. After 35 years, the fact that they can put on this type of spectacle 4-5 nights a week means they still have it!

Gene’s age showed but he looked a thousand times more of the rocker than he does on Family Jewels. Paul’s voice was not 100% the entire show but talked to the crowd more than I remember him doing in ’96 when I saw them in Sacramento. If they go back out on tour in another 13 years, the 2022 tour, I can only imagine that Gene and Paul will have replaced, or cloned, themselves.

Check out the pics here.

7th Son

J.C. Hutchins's first installment of the 7th Son trilogy, 7th Son: Descent, hit book stores recently.

I don't read much fiction. I prefer to get my fiction fix by watching movies. This book, however, is worth reading over and over again. J.C. Hutchins tried, unsucessfully, to get his story published before releasing it as a free podcast. I discovered his podcast just before his final book was released on audio. He took to the podosphere and used the power of the internet to spread the message about his book.

After amassing an enormous following to his podcast, publishers finally started to take notice. And now, 7th Son is in print!

The story starts with the brutal assisination of the President by a 4 year child. Readers quickly learn that there is an evil conspiracy consisting of clones and government officials with code phantom clearance.

J.C. is a masterful storyteller and 7th Son is the creepiest story I have ever read. The podcast version of the book is still available, check out the info here. You can also purchase a copy from your favorite bookstore, or from Amazon.

If you're in to sci-fi thrillers, this one will not dissapoint!

If you do pick up a copy, tell J.C. that Beta Clone #235 sent you.

Stockton Marina Ribbon Cutting

David Harzoff, the Director of Revitalization opened up the ceremony and introduced Mayor Ann Johnston who came to the podium wearing a commodore's hat. After some words from Dennis Smallie, Douglass Wilhoit and others, the mayor spoke about the late former mayor, Joan Darrah. James Darrah, Mrs. Darrah's widower, and their grown children were in attendance. Mr. Darrah told the story of when his wife was told that the promenade would bear her name. It was a touching story.

More dignitaries, and official representatives of other dignitaries that were not in attendence, spoke briefly before the ribbon was cut by the mayor, with the Darrahs, councilmembers and others at her side.

It was a beautiful event packed with tons of civic pride. We don't own a boat and don't spend much time on the delta but I'm still excited that our new marina has finally opened. Naming the promenade after the late Joan Darrah was a nice touch.

Check out the rest of the pictures here.

Pumpkin Pie, Anyone?

Today, I got a chance to be a judge, along with Chris Kotsoglou, David Siders and David from downtown's Blackwater Cafe at the Farmers Market homemade pie contest. Thanks to the Downtown Stockton Alliance for letting me join in the fun.

Check out the rest of the pictures here.

Happy Birthday Emily

Happy 16th birthday Emily!

Check out the rest of the pictures here.

Stir Up Stockon

Andy continues to fan the fire he started last week. And it appears that his plan to #stir things up is gaining momentum. Local blogger, SlickDiaz, wrote a well thought out piece on his blog, Reclaiming the Title. Rod has not been silent on the matter, either. On Friday,Ian added his voice to the mix. What we have here is a handful of passionate Stocktonians, wanting to increase communication throughout our communities. How cool is that? Seriously. That is cool!

The What We have an opportunity to increase communication between city departments, elected officials and the people of Stockton. I don’t know if we’ve been at this point before. I don’t know if we are here now because of technology or because people are just becoming more energized. It is likely both. The web, with current services like Twitter and Facebook, give us the ability to interact with friends and family. It can also give us the ability to interact with our local government.

While I agree that most people don’t trust their elected officials, I do not believe that you need to trust someone to interact with them online. We need an easier way for citizens to get up-to-date information from local government and for these citizens to have tools with which to communicate with the city. Not everyone can (or wants to) attend city council meetings. Writing a letter, and even sending an e-mail, can be arduous. Using Facebook and Twitter is a simpler way.

The Who As it relates to social media consumption, I see three populations in Stockton. Andy, Slick, Rod, Ian and I are in one group - the “veterans”, for lack of a better term. In another group are those that have no access to a computer and may not own a cell phone. The third group is the one I will refer to as the “fringe”. This is the population that may already use the web to get news and may have even visited our city’s website (provided that they remember what the URL is). They may have delved into social media but only to have fun with their friends or keep tabs on their favorite American Idol contestant/judge/host.

The size of the fringe is not insignificant. I would argue that it is the biggest of the three groups. This is the group on which we should be focusing our energy.

We mustn’t forget about that second part of the population: those on the other side of the digital divide. We still need traditional communication channels for this group. We need the smart people in our community to come up with better ways to get this population engaged.

The How We need to reach the fringe. Not to sell them on Twitter or Facebook. Rather, we need to have an open dialog about new ways to communicate with the City. It is our job, as members of the veteran group, to help spread the word to the fringe.

We need to hold social-media town halls. Although I am very much a fan of meet-ups (can’t wait for our first Tweetup!), getting a bunch of veterans together won’t do much to get new participants involved. We can hold how-to sessions at local libraries. We can also do what we’re doing now, talk to our friends, family and neighbors. We can keep stirring it up.

In order to realize any success in this regard, the City of Stocktonmust officially jump into the mix. They need to start small and identify what departments are best suited for this new medium. The city cannot wait for “enough people” to be in the channel before ramping up their efforts.

To help the city along, the Record must dedicate some space to educating the community about social media. The Record’s managing editor, Dan Blount blogged a simple post recently. Writing about social networking sites, Mr. Blount added, “As the world expands, it continues to contract through the use of these media.” We need more than a quick blog entry. The Record has the power to get in front of a lot eyeballs. This cause could benefit from that power.

The Question What else can we do to increase and improve communication amongst the city and its citizens? What ideas do you have? Leave a comment or send an e-mail to matt-at-mattbeckwith.com.

At the end of the day, Twitter and Facebook are awesome tools to start a conversation. We need more conversations in this city and we need more people in the conversation.

One Year Later

One year ago today, the company I worked for went out of business. I think that’s a nicer way of saying we “collapsed” or “failed”. Over the nine years I spent there (over the course of 14 years), four different names hung above our door but it still just always felt like Providian.

I am proud of my accomplishments and even more proud of my team’s accomplishments. I worked for some great leaders that pushed me to succeed and taught me a great deal. I had the privilege of working with some very talented and hard working people and have many, many awesome memories.

More than 1,000 of my colleagues and friends lost their jobs in the months after the collapse. For those that are still looking for that next great gig, hold your head high; keep up the fight.

Stay positive. Keep looking. Never stop looking.

Ride For A Reason

Today, I rode in the Ride For A Reason with a group of other cyclists from work.

This was the first time I have done this ride and wasn’t sure what to expect. All I heard was that it was a great way to spend a half day on a bike while supporting some very worthwhile charities. With the focus on improving the lives of those fighting Parkinson’s disease and cancer, the RFAR benefits the Davis Phinney Foundation,Livestrong, UC Davis Cancer Center and Triumph Fitness Program.

As bike rides go, I wouldn’t normally have done this one. Driving almost 60 miles to do a ride less than that has always been an unofficial no-no in my book. I enjoy riding centuries out on the open road. The ride, however, was absolutely worth it.

This ride was a party from the start. The start line was at Nimbus Flat at Lake Natoma. There was great food and drinks and tons of raffle prizes. They were giving away bikes to the top fundraisers and had other great prizes. The cool things was that you could buy raffle tickets for $1 and put them into whatever drawings you wanted to. The general raffle had some of the best giveaways, including 4 pairs of Oakley Livestrong Jawbone sunglasses. The ride started at 8 AM and the ride was a 12-mile loop along the beautiful American River bike trail.

Along the route were great themed rest stops with more food, drinks and prizes. At the Beale Point rest stop I took my chance at horseshoes and won a couple of small prizes. With each stop I also got more tickets to enter in the raffle. The volunteers (there must have been hundreds) were arguably the most energetic and friendly group of volunteers I have ever seen at a ride!

After the first loop, including Beale Point, I went around the circuit two more times. Lunch at the end was better than at any other ride I’ve done: bar-b-qued steak and chicken, caesar salad and rice from The Outback Steakhouse. Of course, I was hungry, but I wasn’t there to eat. I wanted to win something. Before the raffle winners were announced, John Crews, the owner of Bicycles Plus in Folsom, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, gave a very touching speech. He got choked up a little and it was then I realized the power of this ride. My eyes welled up as he thanked the organizers, volunteers and riders. I didn’t win anything in the raffle but it was still a lot of fun to see everyone else win great prizes.

In the end, I logged 44.4 miles and had an awesome time. The big difference with this ride was the fact that none of it was on the open road. That was nice because of lack of car traffic. It was challenging at times because of the amount of other bikes and joggers out on the trail. On the other hand, it was so cool seeing families out on the ride and everyone was cautious and careful. I will definitely be doing this ride again next year!

I did take a few pictures. Check them out here.

Stockton Blogger Meet-up

Tonight, The Record hosted a blogger meet-up at Valley Brew, right off the beautiful Miracle Mile. With “We’re bloggers. You’re bloggers. Isn’t it about time we meet face to face?” as the only introduction to the event, I signed up to attend.

For a first-time event there was a good turnout: Tara Cuslidge, Kirk Barron, Ian Hill, Sean Polay, David Siders, Bill Ries-Knight, Wes Rhea, Patrick Giblin, Hilary Shepherd, John Sterni, Record Publisher Roger Coover, and others. Some I had already met while with others, it was an awesome chance to put a face and voice to the blogs and tweets. We had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Coover and Mr. Polay, Product Manager of Distributed Media at Dow Jones, the parent company of The Record, about the future of blogging and social media at The Record. It was refreshing to hear that the paper is taking the local blogger community seriously. We heard about some new things the team at The Record are considering to tap into the draw of local bloggers. Above all, it was a wonderful opportunity to geek out with fellow bloggers and tweeters.

I’m definitely looking forward to the next meet-up! It’s also pretty apparent that we have more than enough of an appetite for a Tweetup... which I’m sure is coming soon.

National Beep Ball World Series Comes To Stockton

Thanks to the Community Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Stockton Sports Commission headed by Don Miller, the Beep Ball World Series in being played in Stockton! This is great news for our city and we are very proud to share Stockton with the other 13 teams that have travelled from all over the US and Taiwan.

Tonight, we went to the opening ceremony at the Hilton Hotel. After an address by David Smolka, the NBBA President and Don Miller, Mayor Ann Johnston took the stage. She welcomed all of the players and thanked the Commission, CCBVI and the volunteers for helping to bring this event to Stockton. Mrs. Johnston encouraged everyone to spend some time throughout the city taking in local entertainment.

After a few more remarks by Mr. Smolka, each of the teams were introduced. Most of the teams had their own cheer but the Taiwanese team had the coolest!

To learn more about the NBBA, visit them online athttp://www.nbba.org. For more information on the Community Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired and the Stockton Stingrays, check out http://www.communitycenterfortheblind.org/ and read the recent article on The Record. To watch live coverage, visit The Valley Sports Network at http://valleysportsnetwork.com/

Best of luck to all the teams!