What I've been up to lately

    

     Aw, man. What have I been up to lately? Lots of things. For one thing there's work. Other than that there's all the good stuff. For one thing I've been scouring and discovering new jazz music. Recently this has been in form of free-jazz. Right now I'm really into this sax player David S. Ware, who died in 2012. Read all about David S. Ware here. His work is very solid and reminds me of John Coltrane's free-jazz period. Also, his claim to fame is that he used to work with experimental jazz pianist Cecil Taylor. In addition, Ware used to work with the same consistent line-up for something like twenty years, pretty extraordinary.
     Also, I've been working on my own jazz playing on the guitar quite a bit. But I am losing faith in playing music in general. The fact that I'm not in a real band means I have no incentive to really dig in and practice for hours on end. There is this old clarinet player that I'm currently working with but I find the project to be kind of difficult because all we have is clarinet and guitar. You can't really do too much with that format. It would be better if I played bass, because at least there would be something with more of a constant rhythmic pulse, rather than just guitar chords. I'm actually thinking of buying a cheap Fender bass and using that to play with him instead of guitar. I'm not really sure about our project because the kind of jazz that this guy likes is way old. I'm more of a jazz modernist, I like everything from the Charlie Parker 50s bebop era to today with free-jazz. I don't mind dixieland and the jazz of the 1920s but that's really not my thing. This guy comes from the dixieland school of jazz, and is even in a dixieland jazz band. So were really coming from different backgrounds. Anyways, we'll see how things go with it. I'll keep practicing guitar everyday but I am generally becoming disillusioned with playing music lately because I feel like I'm going nowhere with it. It really sucks! I'm thinking about attending a community college just for the fact that I can play in the school jazz band there and actually find a use for my playing, maybe find other musicians, and start a group. That's the goal because so far just relying on trying to find people online hasn't worked for me.
     In other news, there's gaming. I've been playing a ton of Heroes of the Storm. That's been my main game for months now. I even stream it on twitch.tv when I have time during the day. The cool thing about it is that the actual game is being released in June, just five more days! Its been in beta for about six long months, and its been the best beta that I've ever been apart of. Also, I've started playing Call of Duty Advanced Warfare on the pc again just because I like to do the ten minute team deathmatch rounds. In other gaming news, I'm really looking forward to this Blizzard Game Overwatch, a first person shooter game that's suppose to come out in the future, maybe next year. The picture above is from Overwatch. And then, there's the new Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void, the last of the Starcraft real time strategy series. That one's suppose to come out next year as well I believe. A lot of stuff from Blizzard when it comes to pc gaming. In addition, I've been playing a lot of Xenoblade Chronicles on the 3DS. And also I've kind of become a leader in organizing times for when me and two of my other buddies from work play Super Smash Brothers for the 3DS online together.
     Lastly, I've been watching this anime called Steingate. Right now I'm about halfway through it. It's about a mad scientist who is discovering time travel. It's unlike any anime I've ever seen. Also, I've been keeping up on the new Chicago PD episodes, I'm really into that show. But the main thing I would have to say that is going on, is the music. It's always the music, isn't it?