MACHINE HEAD vocalist/guitarist Robb Flynn has written the latest entry in his blog, The General Journals: Diary Of A Frontman... And Other Ramblings - Reminiscing.

An excerpt follows:

"My Grandfather was an asshole. He probably said 100 words to me my entire life. 'Hello Mijo, goodbye Mijo.' That was pretty much it.

We had had one semi-meaningful conversation at a birthday party for my Mom, Gloria. He was a little drunk and the word meaningful is a stretch, but it was awkwardly playful, like I was talking to someone I just met or an acquaintance I never really hit it off with.

He never truly accepted me being part of the family because I was adopted, and he let my family know as much. To make matters 'worse for him,' I was born with a lazy eye, meaning one eye went in towards my nose (basically cross-eyed, but only in one eye).

I had a corrective surgery soon after being adopted. But when my parents picked me up from the adoption agency at six months old, I had this lazy eye. When my Grandfather saw me and my eye he looked at my Mom and Dad and blurted, 'That's not my Grandson!'

Wow...

Up until that point I was supposed to be named Samuel, after my Grandfather. But my Mom changed my name in that instant, to her favorite actor of the time (and whom she had a major crush on) Robert Redford. Robert (after Robert Redford) Conrad (my dad's first name) Flynn.

Changed from Lawrence Matthew Carden, my birth name just six months earlier..."