![](\"https:\/\/thegreatsouthernbrainfart.files.wordpress.com\/2017\/06\/18767845_10104625075483478_1928039763717240416_n.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve never been one to care much about paying my respects to the dead.\u00a0 Before you get all up in arms about this, let me explain.\u00a0 Death is something that I deal with in a much different way than many.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why that is.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s because of my New Orleans heritage where they celebrate death as a positive thing.\u00a0 Back in the days of slavery, if a fellow slave died, they were free.\u00a0 They were free from slavery, from illness, from persecution, and anything else that came with the torment of that horrid life.\u00a0 In New Orleans they would (and still have) Jazz Funerals to celebrate the passing on to a better place.\u00a0 With that being said, I never saw the point of paying respects to a grave.<\/p>\n
Recently I was in California to see Dead and Company and being so close I couldn\u2019t pass up the opportunity to go visit the grave of Ronnie James Dio.\u00a0 It was a typically gorgeous Los Angeles day.\u00a0 No humidity, sun out, and the grounds of Forest Lawn Cemetery were gorgeously serene.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a religious person by any means but walking through Forest Lawn, well, I don\u2019t know what it is exactly but it\u2019s almost as if all of the people buried there seem to exude this kind of energy that I can only describe as peaceful.<\/p>\n
Ronnie\u2019s gravesite wasn\u2019t hard to find (thanks internet and my wife) but when I walked up towards it I felt the hair on my arms stand a full attention.\u00a0 It was huge with his autographed scrawled out on the front of it larger than life with the title \u201cThe Man on the Silver Mountain.\u201d\u00a0 Not being good at shit like this I just kind of looked at his tomb and smiled.\u00a0 Silently I thanked him for making the music that got me through a very rough childhood.\u00a0 I thanked him for being a beacon of light for the lost and for being and adult role that let me know that someone out there understood me.<\/p>\n
I never had the opportunity to meet Ronnie James Dio which is one of my biggest regrets.\u00a0 I would have loved nothing more than to have told him in person and in life just how important he was to me.\u00a0 I also feel that he already knew even without hearing from me because he saw so many others like me tell him so.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe in heaven and I don\u2019t believe hell but what I do believe is that a person\u2019s spirit lives on long after they\u2019re gone in their music.\u00a0 Standing in front of Dio\u2019s grave I knew he wouldn\u2019t hear me.\u00a0 I knew that he was merely bone and ash but for some reason, I felt this closure.\u00a0 I felt like I finally did get my opportunity to tell him by being there and to me, that was a timeless and memorable moment for me.<\/p>\n
RIP Ronnie James!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve never been one to care much about paying my respects to the dead.\u00a0 Before you get all up in arms about this, let me explain.\u00a0 Death is something that I deal with in a much different way than many.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure why that is.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s because of my New Orleans heritage where they celebrate death as a positive thing.\u00a0 Back in the days of slavery, if a fellow slave died, they were free.\u00a0 They were free from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[276],"tags":[1816,359],"class_list":["post-17126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-editorial","tag-forest-lawn-cemetery","tag-ronnie-james-dio"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t