Love Reading Books

This is a book review of Dale Carnegie’s all time international classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. It is a fairly large review with the occasional diversion from the topic because I feel it is appropriate for this classic book.

The original version of this book was written in 1937 with just 5,000 copies in print. It didn’t take long for the word to spread around the globe about the value contained within the book for millions of copies to be printed at later dates. The book has spread like wildfire since 1937 with over 16 million copies in print. Business owners, salespersons, and generally people who are interested in better relating to their fellow human being, have constantly referred to How to Win Friends and Influence People over the years as the best book you can read on the subject.

If you’re not really familiar with self-help classics, you may be wondering how the heck can books written in the early-to-mid 1900s be useful today? Surely humanity has made many more great discoveries that are far superior than this old school material?

I use to think the exact same thing prior to reading such books. However, there is something to do with learning about a subject from the core, the nectar, the heart of its original pioneers that makes the information so powerful. I have literally heard hundreds of people praise How to Win Friends and Influence People. Originally, I thought it was because the book was most people’s introduction to communication skills. I thought, sure, the book is great because it’s your first experience in learning the amazing effect of good communication.

What I later found, which is what many people have experienced, is that by reading the book one time every year you experience a powerful new realization. Life-changing realizations are also frequently experienced by many people when reading Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. The awareness and experience you have at the present time isn’t enough to completely grasp the principles in these classic books.

After reading the 2008 edition of this book, I’ve come to realize that the book’s four parts which deal with techniques to handle people, ways to make people like you, winning people to your way of thinking, and being a successful leader, are the fundamental skills of all human relations. I constantly teach these principles without realizing it because they are so fundamental to relationships. The very important point I’d like to distinguish here is that fundamentals are not necessarily basic skills. Fundamentals in any area form a solid framework for further skill development.

An athlete cannot become good in his or her sport by not having correct fundamentals. Sport coaches will tell you that an athlete who does not have the right fundamentals is tough to coach because every skill builds off the foundation laid by fundamental skills. Professional athletes constantly fine tune their fundamental skills because they know the profound affect such skills have on their professional abilities. Advanced techniques are only useful when the person knows the fundamentals. also, having good fundamentals produces an exponential effect that puts you ahead of 95% of people, while advanced techniques in any area produces a slight improvement that gives you an edge of the 5% who also have sound fundamentals.

Tiger Woods can work on perfecting his 2 iron stinger where he hits the ball with a very low trajectory, while the average golfer is better off focusing on fundamentals like a better grip, stance, and pre-shot routines. However, Tiger still needs to monitor and work on these fundamentals as well. The skills taught in How to Win Friends and Influence People constantly need to be revisited and worked on regardless of how good you think you are at communicating.

At the start of each chapter, Carnegie discusses the chapter’s principle. he then provides an example of how someone, mostly students from his speaking course, have applied the principle in their business or family life. The stories themselves can be a revelation at times as you become aware of how and in what situations the principles can be applied.

The majority of the book discusses concepts instead of word-for-word techniques. one principle is making the other person feel important. Dale doesn’t tell you to say exactly this and that. he provides the what, which is the concept, with a little bit of the how.

The table of contents is below:

Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
1. ‘If you Want to Gather Honey, Don’t Kick Over the Beehive’
2. The big Secret of Dealing with People
3. ‘He Who can Do This has the whole World with him. he Who cannot Walks a Lonely Way’

Six Ways to Make People Like You
1. Do This and You’ll Be welcome Anywhere
2. a Simple way to Make a good First Impression
3. if you Don’t Do This, you Are Headed for Trouble
4. An Easy way to Become a good Conversationalist
5. how to interest People
6. how to Make People Like you Instantly

Win People to Your way of Thinking
1. you Can’t Win an Argument
2. a sure way of Making Enemies – and how to Avoid It
3. if You’re wrong, Admit It
4. a Drop of Honey
5. The Secret of Socrates
6. The Safety Valve in Handling Complaints
7. how to get Cooperation
8. a Formula that Will Work Wonders for You
9. what everybody Wants
10. An Appeal that everybody Likes
11. The Movies Do It. TV does It. why Don’t you Do It?
12. When Nothing else Works, try This

Be a Leader: how to Change People without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
1. if you Must find Fault, This is the way to Begin
2. how to Criticize – and Not Be hated for It
3. Talk About Your own Mistakes First
4. no one likes to Take Orders
5. let the other Person Save Face
6. how to Spur People on to Success
7. Give a Dog a good Name
8. Make the Fault Seem Easy to Correct
9. Making People Glad to Do what you Want

The principles of each part are nicely summarized at its end so you can easily review and memorize them. Overall, each principle may seem simple at times, but don’t let simple deceive you into its power. these are powerful principles that are still changing the lives of those who have read the book five or more times. if you don’t already have a copy of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, you need to go grab your copy now.

Ted Nugent with Derek St. Holmes Photo by James & Maryln Brown

Notes from the music beat …Ted Nugent makes no apologies for being “a huge, unstoppable fan” of his own music.Heck, Nugent doesn’t apologize for much of anything, does he?but it’s that love for the songs, Nugent says, that has brought Derek St. Holmes, the singer on his first three studio albums, back into the fold for the current I still believe Tour.“Derek is in a great place in life,” says the 62-year-old Motor City Madman, who these days resides near Crawford, Texas. “His vocals are the best they’ve ever been. His spirit is the best it’s ever been. when you get him singing ‘Stranglehold’ and ‘Hey Baby,’ all of a sudden it has that original identity of the first (Nugent) record. They’re my lyrics, my baby, but I wrote them inspired by Derek being in the band at the time.“So that’s been the deciding factor. Instead of having him come up and jam like he does every year at a few shows, he’s with us full-time now. It really kicks it in the ass a notch.”The tour, meanwhile, draws its name from “I still believe,” Nugent’s first new release since 2007’s “love Grenade” album. he says the song, which is available for download at Nugent’s web site, was inspired by the charity work he does with children and injured military personnel — “people who are stronger than me,” he notes.A new album, meanwhile, is also in the offing, with a batch of song written that include “Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead” and “never Stop Dreamin’.”“It’s monster stuff,” promises Nugent, who’s also working on a “tell-all” memoir to be called “Stranglehold” and continues to host his popular Outdoor Channel show “Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild.” “The challenge is to find that one hour’s worth of 10, 12 songs that are the baddest … of all. We’re so on fire with this band that we keep coming up with another, then another, then another. …“at some point you gotta say, ‘Stop with the new ones! Let’s stick with what we’ve got here.’ but there’s such a growing fury in my music that it’s hard to stop, so I’ll keep going till they make me.”Ted Nugent with Derek St. Holmes, Brent James & the Contraband and Lisa Bouchelle perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, at the DTE Energy Music Theatre, Sashabaw Road east of I-75, Independence Township. Tickets are $20-$55 pavilion and $10 lawn. call 248-377-0200 or visit palacenet.com.Big & RichWhen Big & Rich went on hiatus in 2008, after three albums and four Top 20 country hits, there were rumblings that the split would be for good. but John Rich says that was never the country duo’s intent.“It was a break from Big & Rich, not an ending of Big & Rich,” explains Rich, 37. “I think a lot of people spun it into, ‘oh no, Big & Rich is over.’we didn’t say that. there wasn’t, like, a Brooks & Dunn farewell tour. there never was a concern about whether we would want to come back and do it; our concern was whether the fans would still be there. And sure enough they are.”both Rich and Big Kenny Alphin were busy during the interim. Rich released a solo album (which included the hit “Shutting Detroit Down”) and a pair of EPs and won “Celebrity Apprentice.” Big Kenny, meanwhile, also released a solo album, and both men appeared on TV talent reality shows.Big & Rich have been back together in May, and their first new recording in nearly three years is “fake I.D.,” which also features Gretchen Wilson and will be used in this fall’s remake of “Footloose.” Rich says the duo recorded the song, which is already climbing the country charts, “about the same time” as the “Footloose” team was looking for material, and the timing was fortuitous.“we had recorded this song but hadn’t decided to put it out yet,” Rich recalls. “The ‘Footloose’ people heard it and said, ‘we want this song in the movie. we want to play the whole song in the movie,” and it really is used that way, in this really cool bar scene.“So we said, ‘what the hell. Let’s put it out,’ and now we kick off our shows with ‘fake I.D.’ “Big & Rich headline the Xtreme Muzik Tour with Gretchen Wilson, Dwight Yoakam, Bradley Gaskin, Tommy Steele, Josh Thompson and Cowboy Troy at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, at the Pontiac Silverdome, 1200 Featherstone Road at Opdyke. Tickets are $25-$55. call 248-338-2500 or visit silverdometickets.com. Bret MichaelsWhen he comes to the Detroit area, Bret Michaels apparently has nothing but a good time — which is why he keeps coming back.Michaels has already been through town twice this year with his band, Poison, opening for Motley Crue and then headlining a Seats For Soldiers benefit a few weeks later, both at the DTE Energy Music Theatre. His headlining slot at Arts, Beats & Eats, then, completes a summer triple-play.“It was so awesome to be there not only with Poison and Motley, but then three weeks later where we could come back and (headline),” says Michaels, 48 (nee Sychak). And for them both to not only be fun but successful, it was great.“So now I’m just really excited to come back solo and play new Bret Michaels stuff and obviously Poison stuff and really make a party out of it. It says a lot about the relationship I have with” Detroit.If all goes according to plan, folks all over will be seeing much more of Michaels in the coming year. He’s working on a new solo album called “Get your Rock On,” which he hopes will feature guest performances by Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Phil Collen, Stevie Nicks, possibly members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and younger groups such as Pop Evil and my Darkest Days. Poison will also hit the road again next summer, he says, possibly with Def Leppard.The star of VH1’s “Rock of Love” series and past winner of “Celebrity Apprentice” has a pair of new reality shows in development, one for network TV and another for cable. And he promises that his long-awaited autobiography “Roses and Thorns: The Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy to my Reality” will finally be published in summer 2012.“It’s going to be about the roses and thorns of situations in my life — what was happening, the good, the bad, the ugly and the solution,” Michaels explains. “It won’t be one of those books that, ‘I was born here, I moved here, this happened here … ’ I wanted to give the book more of an identity.“And it’s been tough, because every time I think I’m finished, something new happens. Simon & Schuster finally said, ‘You can’t keep writing this book. It’s 16 books long!’ but now it’s closer to how I always wanted it to be, so it’s going to get out there.”Bret Michaels performs at 10:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, on the Michigan Lottery Main Stage at Arts, Beats & Eats in downtown Royal Oak. Admission is $3. Visit artsbeatseats.com. Vince GillFor country veteran Vince Gill, there’s no place like home — especially for his new album, “Guitar Slinger.”Gill recorded the set, his first new release in five years, at the studio he built in the Nashville home he shares with his wife, fellow artist Amy Grant, and their children. but, Gill says, home and studio became interchangeable terms during the sessions.“It was just a great environment,” says Gill, 54, who also guests on Alice Cooper’s upcoming “welcome 2 my Nightmare.”“when things come from home, they just feel different. I’m in there barefoot most of the time, maybe in a pair of gym shorts. I don’t have to doll up and leave town, so to speak. You walk down the hall and there’s the kitchen and Amy’s in there knockin’ up some brownie or making some cookies or whatever the heck. …“The musicians who played on this record loved the vibe that went on in the process of recording these songs and spending time in the house. It doesn’t feel like work, in a really neat kind of way. there were times where I didn’t know if we were really working or just screwing off.”“Guitar Slinger” isn’t due out until Oct. 24, and Gill is well aware of the time that’s passed since 2006’s four-CD set “These Days.” He’s already released the first single, “Threaten me With Heaven,” whose co-writers included Grant and Will Owsley — who tragically committed suicide in April of 2010.“(The song) has a totally different impact on me now that he’s gone,” Gill acknowledges. “I’ve never confronted something quite like that in my life, write a song with somebody and have them do that before it came to fruition and all that. So it’s already had a profound impact on me.“As bad as Will struggled in his personal life, I didn’t think he would ever do that. in my heart, I just wish he could’ve hung on and seen this (song) have an opportunity to have an impact on people’s lives. maybe it would’ve changed things for him.”Vince Gill performs at 10:15 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, on the Michigan Lottery Main Stage at Arts, Beats & Eats in downtown Royal Oak. Admission is $3. Visit artsbeatseats.com. Charlie WilsonMuch of the music world knows Charlie Wilson as Snoop Dogg’s uncle. Or at least they think that’s the case.The truth is that the former Gap Band singer is actually a close friend of the rapper’s, although he was certainly happy to play along with idea of being a blood relative.“It wasn’t that odd because I was always with Snoop and in his family business or whatever was happening in his home,” says the Oklahoma-born Wilson, 58, who’s still touring to promote 2010’s “just Charlie,” his fifth solo album. “my wife and I have played a very big role in his life, just trying to keep him steered in the right direction as a married man and a father.“And he was telling everybody, ‘That’s my Uncle Charlie. That’s my mama’s brother. he kept going on about it, but then everybody kept asking, ‘well, how are you related to Snoop?’ we finally said, ‘not by blood but by love.’ we had to finally start letting people know, because it was really getting too complicated to try to explain all that.”Wilson says he carries credibility with Snoop and other younger artists because of his own life experiences, which included being homeless and addicted to drugs for a time after he left the Gap Band in 1992.“He’s seen me in the streets and at the low point of my life — sleeping in some really weird places and roaming the streets at night and all of that,” Wilson recalls. “It was a crazy situation. but I just hung in there because I believed that I had something else to do other than just be a guy that was doing drugs and alcohol and had nowhere else to go. I knew there was something else after the Gap Band.“So because (Snoop) saw me like that and saw me come through it and out of it, I can talk to him about anything, which makes our relationship really special.”Charlie Wilson and Loose Ends perform at 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4 at the Chene Park Amphitheatre, 2600 Atwater St. at Chene, Detroit. Tickets are $75 and $55 pavilion, $32 lawn. call 313-393-7128 or visit cheneparkdetroit.com. Tom Tom ClubWhen Chris Frantz and his wife, Tina Weymouth, formed Tom Tom Club 30 years ago as an adjunct to their “day job” with Talking Heads, they never would have guessed that it would still be going three decades later.Nor, Frantz adds, “that 30 years later Tom Tom Club would still be going and Talking Heads is not.”“It’s been a good run,” the drummer says of Tom Tom Club’s five albums and defining 1981 hits “Wordy Rappinghood” and “Genius of love.”“we still have very fond feelings and … fantastic memories about our humble beginnings and how much fun we had making those records. And we continue.”Frantz and Weymouth, both 60, are, in fact, working on new music for Tom Tom Club — including a remake of “love Tape” by the Spanish electronica group the Pinker Tones, which was recorded for a tribute album — which they expect to have out in late fall. but Frantz says a few tracks for an EP are more likely rather than a full album.“We’re not really thinking in terms of albums anymore,” he explains. “We’re thinking in terms of singles and EPs, and if we have enough EPs that sound good, then we’ll put them together for an album. It seems like most people are just interested in hearing a good song these days.”And, he adds, there are other songs that might surface under another name that he and Weymouth, “haven’t rally figured out, exactly, although we’re thinking of calling it Chris Und Tina. not everything we do is appropriate for Tom Tom Club. when people think of Tom Tom Club, they expect something dancey and bright, and some of our stuff is darker than that.”Tom Tom Club performs at 3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4, on the Michigan Lottery Main Stage at Arts, Beats & Eats in downtown Royal Oak. Admission is $3. Visit artsbeatseats.com. Peter GabrielPeter Gabriel isn’t releasing his “new Blood Live in London” DVD until Oct. 23, but fans can check it out — in 3-D — on Tuesday, Sept. 6, and on Sept. 12 at 125 theaters across the U.S.The film documents the former Genesis frontman’s performance at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo earlier this year, where he and an orchestra delivered specialized arrangements of Gabriel favorites such as “Solsbury Hill,” “in your Eyes,” “Don’t give Up,” “Mercy Street,” “San Jacinto” and more, as well as covers from his 2010 album “Scratch my Black.” Information on theaters and showtimes can be found at fathomevents.com.in addition to the home video — which will be available on DVD, Blu-ray and in home 3-D — Gabriel’s next album, “new Blood,” drops on Oct. 11, featuring fresh, orchestral versions of his songs with guests such as his daughter, Melanie Gabriel, and Ane Brun.Grace PotterGrace Potter and her band, the Nocturnals, haven’t had a platinum album or a big hit yet. but as far as the Vermont singer-songwriter is considered, her career since 2004 has been “perfect.”“everything has happened exactly as it should,” explains Potter, who’s promoting the Nocturnals’ third album, a self-titled set that came out last year and debuted at no. 19 on the Billboard 200 chart. “I’m glad the record didn’t pop straight to the top of the charts for a bunch of weeks. Things just climbed and gradually stuck in a really beautiful place.“So it wasn’t an uncomfortable sort of jolt of attention, and that’s the way we’ve been doing it for all this time we’ve been a band. It’s just continually gradual, and it’s good to see the record grow and evolve.”The album has taken Potter and company to the Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza festivals, as well as holding its own Grand Point North Festival last month in Vermont. The group will also play at new York’s Central Park later this month.And it’s not just the rock world that’s catching on to Potter. Country fans have become converts, too, thanks to “You and Tequila,” a duet with Kenny Chesney for his most recent album, which was a Top 10 country hit and even reached no. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.“It’s a real good fit, dude; you wouldn’t believe how comfortable I am out in front of the country crowd,” says Potter, who guested on a few shows with Chesney this summer. “That song I did with him is perfection, for me, in songwriting. And Kenny, he’s great. I’m not sure what it takes to bring that kind of light to the stage; he just makes so many people happy, and that’s all you can hope to do in life.“So for me that’s the joy of the job. And if the music somehow can align itself, it’s a beautiful fit, and that’s what happened with that song.”Grace Potter & the Nocturnals perform Thursday, Sept. 8, at Saint Andrews Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20. call 313-961-8137 or visit livenation.com. Gary Graff writes about music for the Oakland Press. His work can also be found at goanddomichigan.com, twitter.com/GraffonMusic and in the Facebook group Gary Graff on Music, while his Classic Rock Insider reports appear at wcsx.com. Graff appears Sunday, Sept. 4, on “Ann Delisi’s Essential Music” on WDET-FM (101.9); the show begins at 11 a.m.

• Return to Paging Mode

Ted Nugent with Derek St. Holmes Photo by James & Maryln Brown

Notes from the music beat …Ted Nugent makes no apologies for being “a huge, unstoppable fan” of his own music.Heck, Nugent doesn’t apologize for much of anything, does he?but it’s that love for the songs, Nugent says, that has brought Derek St. Holmes, the singer on his first three studio albums, back into the fold for the current I still Believe Tour.“Derek is in a great place in life,” says the 62-year-old Motor City Madman, who these days resides near Crawford, Texas. “His vocals are the best they’ve ever been. His spirit is the best it’s ever been. When you get him singing ‘Stranglehold’ and ‘Hey Baby,’ all of a sudden it has that original identity of the first (Nugent) record. They’re my lyrics, my baby, but I wrote them inspired by Derek being in the band at the time.“so that’s been the deciding factor. instead of having him come up and jam like he does every year at a few shows, he’s with us full-time now. It really kicks it in the ass a notch.”The tour, meanwhile, draws its name from “I still Believe,” Nugent’s first new release since 2007’s “love Grenade” album. He says the song, which is available for download at Nugent’s web site, was inspired by the charity work he does with children and injured military personnel — “people who are stronger than me,” he notes.a new album, meanwhile, is also in the offing, with a batch of song written that include “Trample the Weak, Hurdle the Dead” and “Never Stop Dreamin’.”“It’s monster stuff,” promises Nugent, who’s also working on a “tell-all” memoir to be called “Stranglehold” and continues to host his popular Outdoor Channel show “Ted Nugent Spirit of the Wild.” “The challenge is to find that one hour’s worth of 10, 12 songs that are the baddest … of all. We’re so on fire with this band that we keep coming up with another, then another, then another. …“At some point you gotta say, ‘Stop with the new ones! Let’s stick with what we’ve got here.’ but there’s such a growing fury in my music that it’s hard to stop, so I’ll keep going till they make me.”Ted Nugent with Derek St. Holmes, Brent James & the Contraband and Lisa Bouchelle perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, at the DTE Energy Music Theatre, Sashabaw Road east of I-75, Independence Township. Tickets are $20-$55 pavilion and $10 lawn. Call 248-377-0200 or visit palacenet.com.big & RichWhen big & Rich went on hiatus in 2008, after three albums and four Top 20 country hits, there were rumblings that the split would be for good. but John Rich says that was never the country duo’s intent.“It was a break from big & Rich, not an ending of big & Rich,” explains Rich, 37. “I think a lot of people spun it into, ‘Oh no, big & Rich is over.’We didn’t say that. there wasn’t, like, a Brooks & Dunn farewell tour. there never was a concern about whether we would want to come back and do it; our concern was whether the fans would still be there. And sure enough they are.”Both Rich and big Kenny Alphin were busy during the interim. Rich released a solo album (which included the hit “Shutting Detroit Down”) and a pair of EPs and won “Celebrity Apprentice.” big Kenny, meanwhile, also released a solo album, and both men appeared on TV talent reality shows.big & Rich have been back together in may, and their first new recording in nearly three years is “fake I.D.,” which also features Gretchen Wilson and will be used in this fall’s remake of “Footloose.” Rich says the duo recorded the song, which is already climbing the country charts, “about the same time” as the “Footloose” team was looking for material, and the timing was fortuitous.“We had recorded this song but hadn’t decided to put it out yet,” Rich recalls. “The ‘Footloose’ people heard it and said, ‘We want this song in the movie. We want to play the whole song in the movie,” and it really is used that way, in this really cool bar scene.“so we said, ‘What the hell. Let’s put it out,’ and now we kick off our shows with ‘fake I.D.’ “Big & Rich headline the Xtreme Muzik Tour with Gretchen Wilson, Dwight Yoakam, Bradley Gaskin, Tommy Steele, Josh Thompson and Cowboy Troy at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, at the Pontiac Silverdome, 1200 Featherstone Road at Opdyke. Tickets are $25-$55. Call 248-338-2500 or visit silverdometickets.com. Bret MichaelsWhen he comes to the Detroit area, Bret Michaels apparently has nothing but a good time — which is why he keeps coming back.Michaels has already been through town twice this year with his band, Poison, opening for Motley Crue and then headlining a Seats for Soldiers benefit a few weeks later, both at the DTE Energy Music Theatre. His headlining slot at Arts, Beats & Eats, then, completes a summer triple-play.“It was so awesome to be there not only with Poison and Motley, but then three weeks later where we could come back and (headline),” says Michaels, 48 (nee Sychak). And for them both to not only be fun but successful, it was great.“so now I’m just really excited to come back solo and play new Bret Michaels stuff and obviously Poison stuff and really make a party out of it. It says a lot about the relationship I have with” Detroit.if all goes according to plan, folks all over will be seeing much more of Michaels in the coming year. He’s working on a new solo album called “Get Your Rock On,” which he hopes will feature guest performances by Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and Phil Collen, Stevie Nicks, possibly members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and younger groups such as Pop Evil and My Darkest Days. Poison will also hit the road again next summer, he says, possibly with Def Leppard.The star of VH1’s “Rock of Love” series and past winner of “Celebrity Apprentice” has a pair of new reality shows in development, one for network TV and another for cable. And he promises that his long-awaited autobiography “Roses and Thorns: The Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy to My Reality” will finally be published in summer 2012.“It’s going to be about the roses and thorns of situations in my life — what was happening, the good, the bad, the ugly and the solution,” Michaels explains. “It won’t be one of those books that, ‘I was born here, I moved here, this happened here … ’ I wanted to give the book more of an identity.“And it’s been tough, because every time I think I’m finished, something new happens. Simon & Schuster finally said, ‘You can’t keep writing this book. It’s 16 books long!’ but now it’s closer to how I always wanted it to be, so it’s going to get out there.”Bret Michaels performs at 10:15 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 3, on the Michigan Lottery Main Stage at Arts, Beats & Eats in downtown Royal Oak. Admission is $3. Visit artsbeatseats.com. Vince GillFor country veteran Vince Gill, there’s no place like home — especially for his new album, “Guitar Slinger.”Gill recorded the set, his first new release in five years, at the studio he built in the Nashville home he shares with his wife, fellow artist Amy Grant, and their children. but, Gill says, home and studio became interchangeable terms during the sessions.“It was just a great environment,” says Gill, 54, who also guests on Alice Cooper’s upcoming “welcome 2 My Nightmare.”“When things come from home, they just feel different. I’m in there barefoot most of the time, maybe in a pair of gym shorts. I don’t have to doll up and leave town, so to speak. You walk down the hall and there’s the kitchen and Amy’s in there knockin’ up some brownie or making some cookies or whatever the heck. …“The musicians who played on this record loved the vibe that went on in the process of recording these songs and spending time in the house. It doesn’t feel like work, in a really neat kind of way. there were times where I didn’t know if we were really working or just screwing off.”“Guitar Slinger” isn’t due out until Oct. 24, and Gill is well aware of the time that’s passed since 2006’s four-CD set “These Days.” He’s already released the first single, “Threaten Me with Heaven,” whose co-writers included Grant and Will Owsley — who tragically committed suicide in April of 2010.“(The song) has a totally different impact on me now that he’s gone,” Gill acknowledges. “I’ve never confronted something quite like that in my life, write a song with somebody and have them do that before it came to fruition and all that. so it’s already had a profound impact on me.“as bad as Will struggled in his personal life, I didn’t think he would ever do that. in my heart, I just wish he could’ve hung on and seen this (song) have an opportunity to have an impact on people’s lives. maybe it would’ve changed things for him.”Vince Gill performs at 10:15 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4, on the Michigan Lottery Main Stage at Arts, Beats & Eats in downtown Royal Oak. Admission is $3. Visit artsbeatseats.com. Charlie WilsonMuch of the music world knows Charlie Wilson as Snoop Dogg’s uncle. Or at least they think that’s the case.The truth is that the former Gap Band singer is actually a close friend of the rapper’s, although he was certainly happy to play along with idea of being a blood relative.“It wasn’t that odd because I was always with Snoop and in his family business or whatever was happening in his home,” says the Oklahoma-born Wilson, 58, who’s still touring to promote 2010’s “Just Charlie,” his fifth solo album. “My wife and I have played a very big role in his life, just trying to keep him steered in the right direction as a married man and a father.“And he was telling everybody, ‘That’s my Uncle Charlie. That’s my mama’s brother. He kept going on about it, but then everybody kept asking, ‘well, how are you related to Snoop?’ We finally said, ‘Not by blood but by love.’ We had to finally start letting people know, because it was really getting too complicated to try to explain all that.”Wilson says he carries credibility with Snoop and other younger artists because of his own life experiences, which included being homeless and addicted to drugs for a time after he left the Gap Band in 1992.“He’s seen me in the streets and at the low point of my life — sleeping in some really weird places and roaming the streets at night and all of that,” Wilson recalls. “It was a crazy situation. but I just hung in there because I believed that I had something else to do other than just be a guy that was doing drugs and alcohol and had nowhere else to go. I knew there was something else after the Gap Band.“so because (Snoop) saw me like that and saw me come through it and out of it, I can talk to him about anything, which makes our relationship really special.”Charlie Wilson and Loose Ends perform at 8 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 4 at the Chene Park Amphitheatre, 2600 Atwater St. at Chene, Detroit. Tickets are $75 and $55 pavilion, $32 lawn. Call 313-393-7128 or visit cheneparkdetroit.com. Tom Tom ClubWhen Chris Frantz and his wife, Tina Weymouth, formed Tom Tom Club 30 years ago as an adjunct to their “day job” with Talking Heads, they never would have guessed that it would still be going three decades later.nor, Frantz adds, “that 30 years later Tom Tom Club would still be going and Talking Heads is not.”“It’s been a good run,” the drummer says of Tom Tom Club’s five albums and defining 1981 hits “Wordy Rappinghood” and “Genius of love.”“We still have very fond feelings and … fantastic memories about our humble beginnings and how much fun we had making those records. And we continue.”Frantz and Weymouth, both 60, are, in fact, working on new music for Tom Tom Club — including a remake of “love Tape” by the Spanish electronica group the Pinker Tones, which was recorded for a tribute album — which they expect to have out in late fall. but Frantz says a few tracks for an EP are more likely rather than a full album.“We’re not really thinking in terms of albums anymore,” he explains. “We’re thinking in terms of singles and EPs, and if we have enough EPs that sound good, then we’ll put them together for an album. It seems like most people are just interested in hearing a good song these days.”And, he adds, there are other songs that might surface under another name that he and Weymouth, “haven’t rally figured out, exactly, although we’re thinking of calling it Chris Und Tina. Not everything we do is appropriate for Tom Tom Club. When people think of Tom Tom Club, they expect something dancey and bright, and some of our stuff is darker than that.”Tom Tom Club performs at 3 p.m. Monday, Sept. 4, on the Michigan Lottery Main Stage at Arts, Beats & Eats in downtown Royal Oak. Admission is $3. Visit artsbeatseats.com. Peter GabrielPeter Gabriel isn’t releasing his “new Blood Live in London” DVD until Oct. 23, but fans can check it out — in 3-D — on Tuesday, Sept. 6, and on Sept. 12 at 125 theaters across the U.S.The film documents the former Genesis frontman’s performance at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo earlier this year, where he and an orchestra delivered specialized arrangements of Gabriel favorites such as “Solsbury Hill,” “in Your Eyes,” “Don’t give up,” “Mercy Street,” “San Jacinto” and more, as well as covers from his 2010 album “Scratch My Black.” Information on theaters and showtimes can be found at fathomevents.com.in addition to the home video — which will be available on DVD, Blu-ray and in home 3-D — Gabriel’s next album, “new Blood,” drops on Oct. 11, featuring fresh, orchestral versions of his songs with guests such as his daughter, Melanie Gabriel, and Ane Brun.Grace PotterGrace Potter and her band, the Nocturnals, haven’t had a platinum album or a big hit yet. but as far as the Vermont singer-songwriter is considered, her career since 2004 has been “perfect.”“Everything has happened exactly as it should,” explains Potter, who’s promoting the Nocturnals’ third album, a self-titled set that came out last year and debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 chart. “I’m glad the record didn’t pop straight to the top of the charts for a bunch of weeks. Things just climbed and gradually stuck in a really beautiful place.“so it wasn’t an uncomfortable sort of jolt of attention, and that’s the way we’ve been doing it for all this time we’ve been a band. It’s just continually gradual, and it’s good to see the record grow and evolve.”The album has taken Potter and company to the Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza festivals, as well as holding its own Grand Point North Festival last month in Vermont. The group will also play at new York’s Central Park later this month.And it’s not just the rock world that’s catching on to Potter. Country fans have become converts, too, thanks to “You and Tequila,” a duet with Kenny Chesney for his most recent album, which was a Top 10 country hit and even reached No. 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.“It’s a real good fit, dude; you wouldn’t believe how comfortable I am out in front of the country crowd,” says Potter, who guested on a few shows with Chesney this summer. “that song I did with him is perfection, for me, in songwriting. And Kenny, he’s great. I’m not sure what it takes to bring that kind of light to the stage; he just makes so many people happy, and that’s all you can hope to do in life.“so for me that’s the joy of the job. And if the music somehow can align itself, it’s a beautiful fit, and that’s what happened with that song.”Grace Potter & the Nocturnals perform Thursday, Sept. 8, at Saint Andrews Hall, 431 E. Congress St., Detroit. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets are $20. Call 313-961-8137 or visit livenation.com. Gary Graff writes about music for the Oakland Press. His work can also be found at goanddomichigan.com, twitter.com/GraffonMusic and in the Facebook group Gary Graff on Music, while his Classic Rock Insider reports appear at wcsx.com. Graff appears Sunday, Sept. 4, on “Ann Delisi’s Essential Music” on WDET-FM (101.9); the show begins at 11 a.m.

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i can't stand my sister's bf anymore he drives me insane i hate him my sister is 21 and his 35 or something they're been dating for a year now when my puppy poops in the restroom he would act all princess and tell me or her to clean it up and made my sister promise him she would never kiss or hug the doggy again because he thinks the dog would give my sister germs and when she hugs him she would give him the germ i mean who the heck would think that he is such an idiot oh and he goes off drinks beer with his friends yes the same bottle isnt that even nastier and he is a completely pervert he slapped my *** more then twice and sometimes try to give me a "family hug" then grabbed my *** and he always checks me out and always stares at my boobs one time he tried to randomly pick me up then he grabbed my boobs then said oh yeah then i got mad i said get your hands off me u $%@#% (lol) then he's like eww you dirty mind i cant take it anymore i already told my sister and she said omg then the next day she wouldnt even care i dont want to tell my mom cause my mom would make a big deal then would starts to hit me my dad would do the same thing as my mom what should i do i hate him so much my mom always hits me and my sister about him my sister is madly in love with him and today she was texting him and said something about me so i asked her what he say she didnt answer me so i said can you give me the phone she said yeah so i read the messages she then got all mad at me and said that i was jealose and she said that he doesnt like me and stuff then i got mad and said so ur yelling at me over him? then she yelled at me so i got up and went to the bathroom
(sorry about the grammer its really late here and i have long nails its really hard to put commas and stuff lol)

please help me i can't take it anymore and is there any ways to solve this without telling my parents