I have a love/hate relationship with AI technology. I know how helpful it can be in reducing time doing small tedious tasks for me like mockups for new tees and other merchandise, however, AI isn’t always as “I” as you would expect it to be which often leads to more headaches than you had anticipated.
But when you’re wearing as many hats as I am these days, a little help with time-consuming tasks, so I’m embracing it with limitations and with caution.
In 1976, the United States of America celebrated two hundred years since it declared its independence from Great Britain.
That summer, I was 11-years-old, and I remember it well. Being anti-American wasn’t really a widespread thing at the time, so the stars and stripes motif was everywhere and the national “malaise” of the late 70s hadn’t really kicked into high gear yet, so patriotism was proudly on display.
I started writing this back in March, but as is sometimes the case, other things take priority and something lower priority like this gets put on the back burner. It’s also not the kind of subject I usually tackle, since most things I write are about Dad at the core, although I have dabbled in some political/current events over the years, but not so much lately.
But a few months ago I did write about sharing Tennessee Titans football with Dad and a melancholy stroll around the soon to be empty stadium now known as Nissan Stadium on the last home game of the 2025 season, so we’ll call this a follow up.
Since the middle of February, rumors began to swirl about a new logo and look for the Tennessee Titans, which is the team I cheer for… not that there has been much to cheer for the past few years, starting with the team itself.
Almost 52 years ago, the CDB packed 2,000 fans into War Memorial Auditorium in Nashville, TN for what would prove to be a historical night, the very first Volunteer Jam.
Though it began as a live recording session to record two live tracks for the band’s upcoming ‘Fire on the Mountain’ album, it became something much more, an event in its own right, a ‘happening,’ so much so that it became a mostly annual event from 1974 off and on through 1996, and then revived in 2015.
By now you have probably heard the announcement or seen the press release on Thursday March 26th about The Legend of Charlie Daniels show this 4th of July at Ft. Campbell, and you’re probably wondering what the heck that’s all about.
Well, the idea – or rather ideas - go back to the week after Dad went home on July 6, 2020.
Y'all will have to excuse me, I just got punched in the gut today. 3 Doors Down co-founder and front man, Brad Arnold went home to be with the Lord today (2/7/2026) after being diagnosed with cancer early last year.
This is extremely hard for multiple reasons. For one, he was only 47 and still had a lot of life left in him, a life that was a gift, because ten years ago, he was headed down a road that could have taken him years ago.
In December of 2020, I wrote extensively about Dad’s absence around the holidays which now have the taint of melancholy to which I coined the phrase, “Sadiversary.” And it’s true, I ran the emotional gamut that year, and it was exhausting.
Not too long ago, I wrote about the trend that was going on Facebook – and I don’t mean viral trend – was dozens of AI generated final tour announcements for 2026.
Remember when Facebook and their parent company, Meta, used to try to shut down anything they deemed “fake” on their platform?
Apparently, that’s ancient history.
On September 20, 1964, Mom and Dad were joined together in the bonds of holy matrimony. For many years, I’ve posted pictures of Mom and Dad shortly after they were married and two things always stand out about the photos, “Wow, your Mom was pretty!” and “I never saw your Dad without a beard before
I come from a long line of people who made a living by the sweat of their brows and the labor of their hands. Hands that could handle a plow or a crosscut saw, break an ornery mule or hold an infant baby.
Simple men who stood on the streets of small town America on Saturday afternoons while the wife bought supplies for the week and talked about the weather, the price of corn or the latest exploit of their prize coonhound or how this year's high school football team didn't quite come up to last year's
This week I was looking through some various Facebook posts after checking Dad’s page for comments or trolls. I didn’t see anything that required my attention, so I was briefly checking out a few of the posts that Facebook had spoon fed to us.
The first one I noticed was the lovely and extremely talented Rhonda Vincent in which she was announcing her farewell tour, “One Last Ride • 2026.” Every entertainer eventually has to decide when it’s time to hang it up, but Rhonda seems way too young to be considering retirement, and we saw here a few weeks ago at the Opry 100 tribute to Dad and she never mentioned any need to retire.
Then I looked again and saw where Willie Nelson was also going to call it a career and take time off the road and he was announcing a tour, “One Last Ride • 2026.”
Interesting that two such prolific artists would both look at retiring at the same time, although Willie would seem to make more sense than Rhonda, not to mention, both of them launching tours with identical names. SO I decided to take take a deep dive and see if my ”Spidey Sense” was tingling for a reason.
It was.
In fact, I had seen one or two cases of this phenomenon in the past month or so, but I was always too busy to take a dive down the rabbit hole… Just for the record, I’m still too busy for this deep dive, but I feel that it’s important to speak up.
“One Last Ride” seems to currently be the most popular tour name, and this is across all genres, from Country, to Rock to Hip Hop.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CLASS OF 1996 - UNCW
I would like to clear up a few points about my addressing your class at commencement exercises, points which I feel have been distorted by a few overzealous, uninformed,pseudo-journalists.
I will not address the one-hit wonder,” “goober brained redneck” aspect of these pieces, and one letter published in The Seahawk I will not address at all except to say that the racial overtones it contained were totally unfounded and offensive beyond description.
"On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus." - Luke 24 1:1-3 New International Version of the Holy Bible
Since Jesus was crucified on a Friday and Shabbat - or the Sabbath - began at sundown, His followers had not been able to carry out the anointing of His body with the fragrant spices and ointments and it had to be delayed until Sunday morning, after the Jewish religious law forbidding working on the Sabbath was lifted.
April 1, 2025 marked the 11th anniversary of 'Off the Grid – Doin’ It Dylan,' the CDB’s tribute to Bob Dylan. An April Fool’s Day release? Sure. A joke? Not even close—at least not to those who knew how much Dylan meant to Dad’s musical journey.
Sometimes things just don’t go as planned. For example, nobody could have seen a pandemic taking Dad and the band off the road. It still seems like something out of The Twilight Zone sometimes.
