The DJ Rollie D Story

On Saturday we'll celebrate the first official day of Fall, but that doesn't mean some of the leaves have already changed color.  They're so beautiful, each displaying what seems to be a different shade of red, yellow. or green.  The grass gets a little browner and slowly starts to die out for the winter season, and you can see pumpkins and haybales almost everywhere you turn your head.  The air gets a little crisper as we finally lose the dead heat of July and August, and you start becoming a little more public with your warm beverage consumption. It all sounds so beautiful to me, and I hope that's the picture I'm painting for you, as Fall is one of my favorite seasons.  It's when you can drive down the road and truly enjoy the changing of the seasons, and even maybe spot (or hunt) some deer.  It's a pretty cool time in more ways than one. I'm not quite sure where my love for the Fall season started, but it was probably when I was a littl...

College is something that doesn't come easy.  You learn that the Summer between Graduation and the start of Freshman Year if you haven't already.  There's forms to fill out, housing and dining to apply for, classes to register for, and at the end of the day, you still owe your college money if you're an out of state student. This blog post isn't about college though.  Well, maybe in a sense it is, but it's not the main focus.  Instead, I'd like to draw a line between two parts of the college population, and they're rather distinct. It's the difference between your run of the mill still-immature young adult who ends up in the hospital for alcohol poisoning the first night away from home, and the long since mature young adult who is punching the clock multiple times a week in order to make ends meet for their basic living expenses.  Or you could say the difference between the college student taking a selfie every week at the football game and t...

Today, I'd like to talk about a life value I choose to continue despite battling anxiety and depression.  I feel this is a very good value to have, and one to continue for as long as I am alive.  It's something I've held true to myself since I started managing basketball teams at the young age of 11, and have since carried over into both my workplaces and throughout most of my high school and college careers. When we have emotional struggles, sometimes the first instinct can be that we should spend the day in bed and never leave.  I don't know anyone like that personally, but there are people out there who haven't left their homes in months, even years sometimes, because they feel too scared and/or sad to interact with the world around them. Agoraphobia is a very real thing, and it can also involve the fear of not being able to escape from situations that we may perceive as dangerous or threatening.  I really feel for people that have this fear, because they...

This year, I was lucky enough to go visit my Grandparents in Washington State.  It was the first time I'd seen my Grandmother since 2008, and the first time seeing my Grandfather since around 2002 or 2003.  It seems weird that I'm saying that, as generally you see your grandparents more often than once every ten to fifteen years, but distance and time has prevented things for the most part.  The train ride there and back wasn't quite the best (33 hours on the way there and about 35 on the way back), but pretty much every thing in between was absolutely amazing, right on down to the basic things such as the food and views.  There are plenty of pictures on Facebook to check out, and I couldn't quite share all my favorites. However, while I was out on this neat little road trip, there was a place I had hoped to be that I wasn't able to make.  It's a place I've been going for the last ten years, and even though I'm doing my best to get there the week af...

Israeli indie pop band Lola Marsh is relatively new to the music scene, having just released one album and an EP thus far.  Formed in Tel Aviv, their album released last year, Remember Roses has been spotted by me in several of the stations I've volunteered for.  The band has a nice sound to them, led by amazing vocals from lead vocalist Yael Shoshana Cohen and a warm diverse instrumentation to back her up.  They're really good at what they do, and I'm hoping they'll put out another album or two in the years to come. There's a song on the back end of Remember Roses that really speaks to me, enough that I recognized it as #4 on my Top 10 Songs of 2017 list last December.  In the song, Shoshana Cohen sings about an island in Southern Italy that "Looks like Louisana", where "A gentle breeze moves the white sheets on the terrace so tenderly", and it "Feels like the south, where time lasts forever".  These dreamy lyrics are put again...

As some of you may know, drumming is one of my favorite hobbies.  From the time I got my first drum set back at the young age of 7, to now when I'm busy tapping away on an app on my phone to tracks on Spotify, and including my time playing with the Cherry School Sr. High and Jazz bands from 2015-16, grabbing a set of sticks and playing the drums has always been one of my favorite things to do. I don't think I could play any different instruments.  I mean, I have learned how to keep a beat with some of the auxiliary percussion instruments such as the tambourine and the shakers, and I would absolutely LOVE to learn how to play the banjo and the bass guitar (but not the regular guitar because too many people play it already), but the drums are still by and large my favorite instrument to play. There are lots of drummers out there too, some of whom I am lucky enough to know and will forever appreciate.  Musically, nothing beats hearing the drums played live in ...

So, there comes a time in life where we feel like we need to share things that we've been keeping to ourselves for the longest time.  Perhaps it's something we've told just one friend about, but other than that it's unknown to the general world. My friend Lindsey and I first decided to do a collaborative blog post early last month.  We tossed around multiple ideas for prompts to follow, some hers and some mine.  Eventually, she decided to challenge me to confess some unpopular opinions, and I challenged her back.  You can check out her blog post about unpopular opinions  right here These opinions are solely my own, and do not represent KAXE/KBXE, KRFF, Walmart, or Holiday in any way shape or form.  They are also not meant to offend, rather it's just me sharing some things I hold true.  We may not agree, but please no attacking each other in the comments section if you choose to comment. For starters, I have a strong dislike of doing something the...