Life, Today, Now

Hello, ladies and gents. Back at it with another update on what's been going on in the wonderful world of Figuero. Things have become a little hectic as of late but it's all a-okay for now.

For one thing, I've been switched up from late night 1am closing shifts at work to morning showings. Sometimes I start as early as 9am which is pretty insane for me, considering I've been working 430pm-1am for six years straight. It was tough closing at a retail gig all those nights but here's the kicker, I actually enjoyed it.

Most of the people I work with are fighting hard to get early morning/midday shifts, whereas me, I tried to fight back against the whole morning switch up. But alas, it seems my fate is sealed. I'm a morning guy now. 

That being said, I've officially become a normal member of society.  

Wham, bam, thank you, mam. 

As a night person you never actually get used to morning shifts.  

I'm usually pretty tired but I'll get used to the whole thing.

In other news, I've been reading a lot. I haven't been writing as much as I should be but that's mostly because I've been so tired from work, and as a result, been feeling less inspired. I am still going to finish a much better version of my memoir, as well as write more short stories, in the end, have a short story collection.

I've been reading a lot of philosophy and science fiction as of late. I just finished reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Also, I just finished John Crowley's Engine Summer, a terrific 1979 science fiction novel, a coming of age story. It's unlike any other science fiction novel I've ever read. It's not so much a story as it is a metamorphosis of character, quite brilliant really.

Right now I'm reading Kant's Critique of Judgement, his writings on art, beauty, criticism. It's quite a wonderful read. I've learned a lot from Kant. I plan on reading more German Idealism at some point soon. I'm very much interested in reading Hegel. Kant has taught me that to truly understand anything, you have to break it down into simple, easy to understand concepts, define and learn everything from that, then look at the whole as one sort of dialectic. In short, you have to be interested in everything. That's the key to being a great dinner party host, as Kant was.

Also, I've been obsessed with the Beatles for a long time now. Even though I've still been doing the once a week jazz saxophone/guitar duo I've actually been listening to more 60s rock and roll than jazz. Mostly Hendrix, Zappa, and the Beatles. You really can't go wrong with that.

I joined a band but nothing happened with the group so that's done with. It was worth a shot. At some point soon I'll get back to my book review blogs, and I'll be posting my fiction writing on my other blog, ofigueroastories.blogspot.com. That page really needs some new content. Coming soon.

Musical Explorations

Howdy, yall. I thought I'd write a post about music and projects I've been working on.

I'm in a band right now. However, the band has just barely formed with me as the guitar player, and they have only two songs. The band is called Modern Tongues. It's an alternative pop-rock band with a female vocalist. I met the drummer at my work. They're all pretty young kids, like 18-20, but I think this is a good band for me to work with because it seems like there's no rush, the singer knows how to do music production, and the drummer can pick me up and bring me to practices. 

The only downsides I can think of are twofold. For starters, they practice about an hour away from my area. That's pretty far. The other is that although the singer is talented with her vocals, it isn't clear that her songwriting is especially creative and/or noteworthy. But that's okay because that's where the guitar, bass, and drums come in to add their color to the tracks.

I like the fact that I'm basically something of a hired [but without pay] gun in a sense. There are no gigs as of yet so the whole thing is in its embryonic state. It's fun and it's a good experience for me to work in a band again after six years of retail, two years straight of open mics, and a failed death metal band. Boy, am I glad this isn't death metal. 

So yeah, things are moving along in the musical realm. 

In addition, I've been keeping my weekly jazz duo band going. We've been playing together for a whole year straight. We have really improved as a duo, especially my jazz improvisational skills. I've been watching this YouTube channel called Things I Learned From Barry Harris, this guitarist goes into jazz music theory and all these different ways on how to improvise, much of it not taught at Berklee. I've been using what I've learned from that and found that my improvisational skills over jazz changes have improved. I'm starting to get into Coltrane-Esque sheets of sound sort of thing.

I'm still taking my sweet time on learning Sequenza. Technically I can play the whole thing but I can't play it up to speed and I can't play it perfectly. But I'm still working on it. I need to work more on my piano playing, which always needs more work.    

I have a friend that I've been singing simple classic rock songs with as well. Acoustic guitars.

There's a lot of brewing. Hopefully, something comes out of the band this year. Shows, recordings, that's all I really want. I've spent too many years of my adulthood not playing in a band. It's hard to believe ten years ago that was one of my main things. 

Keep on groovin'.

2020 First Post

2020 is here finally. I took a long break away from writing or blogging and only just now decided to write with only a wee bit amount of time before work. 

The retail gig is going alright but somehow I'm finding myself more and more willing to quit and do something else. It's interesting because my friends in the office job world don't seem to be faring too well either. "You want a real career. You need to go back to college or trade school." This is the kind of advice I get from my superiors and peers. The thing is that most of them are in the same boat as I am...yadda yadda. 

I've been chilling with a lot of friends. The power of friendship as they say in the Yugioh! hit anime. I've also been reading a lot. I just finished reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, where he goes into many different concepts, ideas, logic, including metaphysics and the existence and/or nonexistence of God. It took me about three weeks to read. Even longer to grasp the concepts, some of which I'm still digesting through lectures on YouTube and philosophy forums. 

The power of philosophy never ceases to amaze me. Kant's categorical imperative, something as the Catholic, do others as you would unto yourself, really puts intellectual curiosity in the best light. This is that no matter no smart we are, no matter how much we know, we are to use that knowledge to make ourselves and the world better. Make the world a better place, and be a better person. 

I've been getting interested in other countries' philosophers, like the French, but for the moment I've been focusing on German Idealism, which primarily concerns Kant, Schelling, Fichte, and Hegel. 

On another note, Christmas was good and my dad got me a really great science fiction novel called Engine Summer by British writer John Crowley. From 1979, the book isn't your typical science fiction fanfare, meaning its a much more serious, artful, delicate sort of reading. Some of it seems quite pretty and childlike but I have to finish it to find out more. Although the book is an average length I'm taking my time with it because it is something that you want to enjoy. The writing has more of a laid back yet still elliptical sort of style. Not elliptical like William Gibson but still elliptical. Some of the concepts remind me of American science fiction but yet this is fundamentally different. 

I have a lot of library books checked out at all times. I have a very strong focus on reading. I only read one book at a time and I usually finish them. After Engine Summer I'll probably get to Kant's Critique of Judgement, his philosophy on art and beauty. Which, ironically, I found that many philosophy YouTubers focused more on Kant's Critique of Pure Judgement than his Critique of Pure Reason, when talking about his general concepts a general introduction to him. I found that interesting, considering that I thought Critique of Pure Reason was the more serious discourse. As you can see I've become very interested in philosophy. In a way, I've gone from a more typical reading background based on science fiction to a more classical aesthetic. I'm very proud of that and hope to learn and understand more. 

The first post in 2020. Glad to have made it to 2020. There's still struggle and contradiction but at least there's great literature to keep me going. More posts incoming. My break on writing is over.