New Year, New Me, [Not Really]

Hello Universe, 

How is it going out there in the free world? It's a new year, happy 2024! It's time for all those happy go lucky social media posts where people make their new years resolutions, like to get a better body and become more healthy and sexy and find their dream spouse, and get a lotta money, amiright? I'd like to jot down some thoughts on what's been happening with me, my personal activities, working in retail, and more. 

First, I moved into a new house recently. It was a hard move that was strenuous but now that it's done I can finally relax. At the end of the month I took time off from work just to get settled into the new place and unbox everything. The new house is in a better location to get around on foot or on the bus if needed. I've been waking up earlier, going out to lunches at nearby establishments, going to the library, and more. I'm still working at the grocery store and it's going well. Since the holidays are over, things have slowed down there, for now. Covid still lingers there from time to time, so I've still been wearing my facemask.  

I kept up playing piano and drums. Now, I'm finally making good progress on piano, at least trying to move from beginner to something like intermediate, although it will take a while. My dad decided to keep our late step-mom Maureen's Yamaha grand piano, so I've been playing that piano. Today, I recorded an eight minute grand piano solo, [which you can hear piano solo no. 1] With the piano, I'm trying to focus on playing jazz chords and improvising. I practice everyday, and actually have preferred practicing piano as of late, because my guitars and amp are all backed away and it's easier to just play the grand piano for now. 

Likewise, I've been keeping up with drums. I go to guitar center and just play the drums there. You can hear my most recent drum playing here.

Second, I'm still reading a lot and doing a lot of AI art. You can check out my Instagram page here. The picture featured at the top of this page is an AI art creation. At the end of last year I read a lot of science fiction novels by Iain M. Banks, who died early in his 50s. Terrific writer, but he writes terribly long science fiction space opera, albeit it's amazing writing and great space opera, but the some seven books I read of his were definitely time consuming and not easy reads. Space opera for the literati. Right now all my books are packed away so I just bought for a dollar, a paperbacks editions of Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. I'm keeping up with the western canon, now I've read about 300 works. But I feel like I've barely scraped the surface in terms of what can be learned within knowledge, within the realm of imagination, and the curiosity of man himself. 

At the end of last year, I kind of went into deep hibernation bear mode. The bear knows when to sleep but the bobcat knows when its time to hunt. I find getting up earlier and going out more has been better for me, being productive keeps me energetic, and I'm liking the atmosphere of the new house better and more easily able to adapt to this. Sometimes on Mondays I go to this open blues jam at the bar, and I sit in and play guitar. I go out to dinners with family on my days off work. 

Lastly, I've found that life is made up of thoughts, actions, and plans for the future. There's a lot to do. Work is still time consuming, but with a schedule for the day, the week, the month, the next three months, the next six months, the next year, things are much more manageable within a smaller timeline and with hard goals split and separated into smaller and more manageable goals.

I want to get better at piano and be able to play jazz standards on it, keep reading, write more short stories and perhaps a novel [I actually have written a novel, but nobody's seen it], keep blogging about everything, and keep up with my guitar and drums too. Work has been good, the hard work keeps me awake. 

That's it for now, see you later, space cats. 

In sylvan realms where twilight's whispers creep, The bear, a sagacious entity, seeks a somber keep. As autumnal regalia, the leaves cascade, He intuits the impending winter's serenade.

With fur of resplendent aureate hue, He embarks on a quest for a snug haven's view. A sanctuary, where crystalline brooks freeze, In dreams of honeyed combs and berries with ease.

Yet by the babbling stream, where moonbeams wink, The bobcat prowls, a phantom feline in sync. His eyes, aglint with nocturnal savoir-faire, In stealth, he traverses the tapestry of air.

For as the bear in dormant repose lies, The bobcat, vigilant, neath the celestial ties, Stalks in the silent hours of night's embrace, A sovereign of shadows, embodying grace.

In nature's ballet, a harmonious ballet, The bear succumbs to rest, the bobcat to ballet. One cradles dreams of vernal rebirth, The other, a custodian, prowls the moonlit earth. [AI generated]

111 Day 2023, Happy New Year!

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, 

Happy new year! Today is 111 day, it's January 11th, the first month of the year, on the 11th day, 111 day. What a nice number. I hope you have been well. Have you? Is everything alright?

Things are spectacular right now. I'm on day 3 of my vacation week. This is a quiet vacation. I'm not going to travel anywhere or do anything too fancy. I just wanted time off from my busy retail gig. The store has been busy since the pandemic began in 2020. I requested this week long vacation every month since September 2022 and have been denied every month. That is, until now. 

The vacation has been fruitful and relaxing. I have been reading a lot, practicing drums everyday, creating a lot of AI art, and eating out at my favorite restaurants. But contrary to most vacationers I haven't been overeating, rather I feel like I've been eating less, which has been better for the body. Refreshing and rejuvenating.  

First, I spent the first two days reading The Age of Voltaire by the historian Will Durant. It's an analysis of England and France before and around the time of the French revolution. Amazing historical detail. And I've learned a lot more about Voltaire, who although was trained by the Jesuits, was a sore wound in the side of Christianity and he was often persecuted for his views against the Church and the nobles as well as other intellectuals. 

I nearly finished the book but decided to take a break because my dad recommended this new space opera that came out back in 2019. It's called A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. It's a homage to early Ursula K Leguin but it has a vibe very similar to Cecelia Holland's Floating Worlds, a 1970s space opera. It has all those space opera bells and whistles but it's also got a cultural and linguistics thing going for it as well. Some of the naming systems are middle eastern and the cultures within the book are Japanese and Chinese. It's quite good and I'd recommend it to any science fiction fans or anyone who's interested in reading a good space opera, a brand new one rather than the old classics. 

Second, I've also been practicing drums with my new hi-hat cymbal. Tomorrow I've got a jam session with my friend who plays a Selmer alto saxophone. So tomorrow I'll use my makeshift 4-piece drum set, which includes a kibaga practice snare pad, a pearl limited edition snare, a meinL cymbal, and a ziljin hi-hat. I would have a bass drum and a tom, but space is limited here at the moment so I have to play with what I have.

Third, I've been creating a lot of ai art. You can view my work here https://www.instagram.com/jazzerrocker779/. I've created a lot of my AI generated art using www.mage.space, a wonderful tool that recently came out with a payment model because so many people were using it and enjoying it. I've found that with AI I've been able to find out that I have an eye for art, the eye of an artist. 

Furthermore, I had no idea that I had an eye for art until I was recommended to read Vasari's Lives, The Illustrated Lives of the Italian Painters of the Renaissance, I was recommended the book by my friend's wife, Elizabeth. From there I looked at and studied all the Italian Renaissance art I could and then after that my dad saw that I seemed interested in art, so he recommended that I start using mage.space to create AI art. From two older people with more knowledge I was able to find these things out and the rest is history. Now I do AI art often and I have over 5,000 images [gasp!]. 

Lastly, what does life feel like now, and furthermore, going forward? Even though there are cyclones over Los Angeles and 90% of the state is in fear of flooding I feel great. I'm happy now because I'm on vacation and doing all the things I love with unlimited free time but in four days I'm back at work and it will be tough. How does one stay happy? 

"There is no definitive answer to what makes humans happy, as it can vary greatly from person to person. However, some things that are commonly associated with happiness include having strong and supportive relationships, feeling fulfilled by one's work or hobbies, having financial security, having good physical and mental health, and feeling a sense of purpose or meaning in one's life. Additionally, people can also experience pleasure and enjoyment through different types of activities, such as exercising, traveling, or listening to music.

It's important to note that there are also other factors that play into happiness, such as genetics, which can account for up to 50% of the variance in happiness levels among people, and daily activities and practices can also have a positive impact.

Therapy and meditation, positive thinking, and gratitude are also known to be beneficial for one's well-being and may help some people increase their happiness levels." [openchatGPT]

"Beneath cherry blossoms pink and white, I find happiness in simple sights. A gentle breeze, a babbling stream, The rustling leaves, a peaceful gleam.

With every step upon the path, I feel my spirit start to lift. And though the road may have its twists, I know that joy and peace exist.

As petals fall and dance around, I'm filled with beauty that astounds. And in the sunshine and the rain, I find my heart is free again.

So let us all take life in stride, And let our hearts be open wide. For in the end, it's not the end, But the simple joys that make us blend.

With the world and all its wonder, Happiness will always be under our feet, a constant companion, guiding us to a brighter horizon." [openchatGPT]

image ai generated

2019 Motivation

Its two weeks into 2019 and like me, you've probably come to the sudden realization that life is tough, and that if you want to keep your new years resolution, and do more, and be better, and accomplish more in life its going to be a mother fucker. Life isn't easy, in fact its hard, and more often than not it sucks. "Life's a bitch and then you die," said the Chairman. This is my riff on Chairman Mao's "life is struggle and contradiction" quote, something my dad told me a few years ago.

I've been having these mini awakenings since 2019 started. 

I have to work out to lose weight. Daily.

I have to stop hanging out with my friends so often. Absence makes the heart fonder.

I have to spend more time by myself, and away from work to smell the roses. Money isn't everything. Money can't buy you love.

I have to work on music more, record more, learn how to use Ableton software to make better drum tracks for my music, and finish learning Sequenza by Berio for classical guitar.

I need to write more and become a better writer. Which I've been working on a lot!

I should learn a new skill, like how I've been doing programming tutorials, just to see if I even like it at first.  

I need to quit and lose any bad habits I have currently.

These are all very difficult things to do. In fact, just for me to realize that if I wanted to achieve my goals, that I had to do all these things, it was pretty damn difficult to accept. There is a cost to everything. Time is an important factor. Energy. Emotion. Drive. Etc. 

So the next time you think about taking time off and away from your 2019 goals remember that life's a bitch and then you die. You might as well make life your bitch and then die on your own terms. 

Go for it. 

New Year's Motivational Speel

Life has been pretty grand. Christmas is over and 2019 is two days away. Its that time of year for that classic social media status: New Year, New Me. Yeah, yeah, we get it, you're gonna push yourself hard, work out, and get everything you ever wanted done, or at least try your best. Its good to be motivated, but its also good to be practical about things. Time is the killing blow for most people. If you don't have enough time you won't get things done. 

I've been trying to stay motivated with my usual activities; reading, writing, and playing guitar. In fact if I had a New Year's resolution its this: to play more guitar, learn more songs, and record more on my own as well as with friends. I also plan on learning more about computers in my free time. I don't think I'll become a computer programmer (even being a bad one is hard), but I'd like to learn as much as I can about programming just for my own personal knowledge and such. I've just finished this 500 page computer book on how hardware and software work, and before that I read Hackers by Steven Levy, and that's kind of what caught my interest. Also, about a year and a half ago I signed up for Codeacademy, a free online programming tutorial app. I think I'll actually give that a second go this year. Its complex stuff but its also interesting enough to look into. 

I also want to work more on recording, my own recordings in particular. Add more music on my YouTube page. Reading is a must as well. And I want to write more short stories and start an actual novel, a short one, maybe like 150 pages, something like that. I have some ideas for it already, it would be a near distant future sci-fi story about everyday type of people and workers, more literary than spaceships and laser guns. Maybe more like speculative fiction than true science fiction.

However, its hard to stay motivated. Sometimes after an eight hour retail shift I don't feel like playing guitar, I just want to listen to music or play games. The reality is that if I don't practice guitar at night after work I probably wouldn't have played guitar at all that day. I've realized that in order to get the results I want in life I have to push myself, I have to be disciplined because nobody will be disciplined for me. My music mentor, Frank Abbinanti, a new music composer, lives in Chicago so when he says to learn Sequenza by Berio, I have to have the motivation on my own to actually work on it, otherwise I'll never learn it. Likewise, if I don't learn how to record better songs, and actually do it, I'll never have new songs to post on my YouTube channel. 

Its not going to be easy and I suspect some nights I won't play guitar, write, study, or read. But I won't let that stop me from achieving my goals. 2018 was a good year for me but in 2019 I want to get more done. Read more novels, write more short stories, begin a novel, record more music, play and record more guitar, and of course have fun with my friends and family. 

Keep working hard at the things that matter to you and you'll really get what you want out of life, that's what I've learned. 

Life is good! 

Closing thoughts on 2017

Any last thoughts on 2017? Yes, many. 2017 was quite a year for the world. A terrible year for rock and roll which left many musicians dead, of drugs, suicide, and unavoidable old age. California had the worst fires ever and the blazes were only about ten miles away from my house. Donald Trump was elected and has done a terrible job in office. Americans found out that the election was heavily influenced by Russian trolls, called hackers but I prefer to think of them as trolls. Unrest in the Middle East, especially surrounding Israel and Palestine, after Trump made a comment calling Jerusalem the capital of Israel. I started working in a different department at my work. In addition, I started to read a lot more, to increase my knowledge, improve my writing (for the blog), promote the blog on Twitter, play piano, start singing and playing guitar at the same time at the open jam and with my 'band' (a two man band right now), and really focusing on losing weight. Wow, that's a lot! I could probably go on and on, because this year was jam packed with tons of events, information, and there are probably things that happened that I either don't know about or simply forgot.

Its hard to say anything of real intrinsic value happened to me. One could say that reading has really opened up my world, increasing my knowledge and improving my creativity and involvement in writing. And then there's the different position at my job. Now, the latest I get off from work is nine pm whereas before I was working as late as one am pretty much every shift. I don't miss those days but I'm not totally against them either. Life has improved for me in many ways. I think I've become a better, smarter, and more evolved person. Not bad.

On that note I'd like to say that I'm hopeful about the future, mine, America's, and the world. Things may seem grim and bad things happen all the time but we should continue to work together to overcome these obstacles and improve the world in which we live.

Leave the place better than when you first entered.

Should I start busking?

So today I went to work an hour early and just jammed outside as people walked by. I made progress towards another one of my new years resolutions which was to start busking. This was a very good experience. I ended up making 8 bucks and I received a lot of compliments. One lady said thank you when I finished playing. Another guy said I could be famous. A third lady said here's a little something for you till you get big. Talk about a great experience!

I was playing my classical nylon string Granada guitar and using my Fender medium picks. I can still pick super fast as though I'm shredding on electric guitar with this setup. I was mostly playing jazz standards as I brought the mini real book that I own and worked through a couple standards. People recognized tunes because I got comments about it inside the store from that guy who said I could be famous. He mentioned that he didn't know the tunes by name but he knew I was playing tunes. Cool right? I played on all my breaks as well but those were more just improvised jams rather than songs.

The compliments and tips made me feel so good! I was thinking I could find good places to do this and make it a somewhat regular thing. If I can make money and make people happy then this is something I should continue to do. At the same time I'm getting myself out there and known in the community musically.

I'm already thinking about modding my Granada to make it better for busking. The main thing I want is those things that make it possible to wear a strap. I need a strap if I'm going to stand up and play. That would be amazing. Eventually down the road I could get a pickup for it so I could hook it up to my portable Roland Micro Cube amp. Then I'll have a good busking setup. 

Tomorrow I'll leave the house early before work and find a good place to sit down and just play. I'll have somewhat of an idea for a set list sometime soon. I was thinking I should memorize the jazz tunes I play because I don't want to look down at sheet music forever. I remember all the classic rock tunes pretty well. Who knows, maybe I can make more money?

Money and happiness, what a great combination! 

Time to pump iron ya string bean

So I finally got around to working on one of my New Years Resolutions. And that is exercising. I started last week with a friend doing a pretty hardcore workout. It was about a 2 mile run without stopping going at a pretty moderate pace. Honestly I was surprised I could even keep up with him without stopping the whole time because I haven't worked out in a super long time. Now is the time to change that!

My main plan at the moment is to work out every other day and keep things pretty moderately aggressive. Don't want to go all out like that day with my friend last week and be sore for two days. The workouts I'm doing by myself are enough to make me sweat hard even though its cold but give me enough room to work with that I'm not completely sore for two days afterwards. One thing I learned from starting last week is that you don't want to push yourself too hard on one day alone because this is something I want to do daily.

Right now I've got a short simple regiment where I'm running from my house to the gas station about a mile away. I run back up the hill and its about shy of two miles with a steep grade of the hill. The hill gives you that extra bit of hard work that you wouldn't get running on flat ground. I'm going to keep doing this and adding other stuff to it afterwards once I get used to it.

For example, after running that regiment I'll go inside and do situps and pushups. My friend thinks running alone doesn't remove belly fat so I'm going to add this other stuff to it as well.

Another friend of mine wants to work out but no running for him. He wants to do weightlifting instead. If I do that it will be even more hard work than running because I'll have to keep doing it otherwise the muscle will turn to bodyfat.

My main reason for going try hard into getting into shape is many reasons. I mostly want to be healthy and stay healthy for the future. I also want to be more slim and in shape to have more confidence with the ladies. But in the end it's mostly for my health. I want to live a long fulfilling life and this is one way to ensure that. My goal is to get to my pre-California weight. So if I can get to around 180-200 I will be pretty happy. 

Goku is my main inspiration! Every workout is going to be like training in the hyperbolic time chamber!

Plans for 2017

So I already did a post where I talked about my new year's resolutions and stuff. All I said was that I wanted to get smarter and learn more about the things I like. Specifically learn more about these things on a technical level. Here I'd like to outline some more plans and goals for 2017 that are more general terms and ideas.

• Buy a better laptop for late night gaming sessions
• Start playing Hearthstone
• Learn 10 jazz standards by heart, this includes both melody and chord changes
• Start busking
• Buy a cheap acoustic guitar
• Start a band
• Start gigging
• Losing weight by eating less at work
• Get a better rank in competitive Overwatch 

Learning jazz tunes and chord changes by heart will take a lot of practice but I can definitely do it. Busking will take a lot of work and I will use a cheap steel string acoustic for that as electric doesn't really lend itself well to busking due to the lack of electricity.

I'm in the process of starting a band but to honest with you I'm not too sure if its going to work out so I might continue working with my newbie musician friends in our pseudo band at the moment. Hopefully those two friends (guitar and bass players) can get good enough this year. Who knows, perhaps we could even play a short gig or set somewhere?

Another thing I've been working on is losing weight by eating less at work. I've been eating smaller lunches and watching what I eat during the day as well. I eat three meals a day-breakfast, lunch, and dinner and no meal is that much bigger than any of the others. I've been keeping the weight steady, even losing a few pounds here and there. Just gotta keep it up and I'll lose even more.

Lastly, I wanna get a better competitive ranking in Overwatch. Right now its pretty difficult but I've become so good at the game now that I feel like I deserve to at least be in the platinum-diamond level skill cap. My ultimate end goal for the game will be to hit masters but that will take a lot of competitive game grinding for probably the rest of the year. 

That's all. Sounds easy? Well, it ain't. I'm gonna work my ass off.

A thirst for knowledge

This post is going to be a short irl sort of rant. Somewhere around Christmas I realized I wanted to learn more about the things I do and use, to a more advanced technical level. Perhaps go to school by sometime next year and learn a lot of stuff.

I'm mostly interested in computers at the moment but I'm also interested in learning more about music, rhythm, and harmony. In addition, I'm interested in the science of sound at a technical, scientific, nonmusical level.

So far I've been doing a good job reading up on things online and taking it slow. Friends have suggested that I should learn computers and try to get a job fixing them in the long run. I have tried learning coding but I didn't get very far in that pursuit. Its not that I gave up its just that I took a long break from it and forgot a lot of what I had learned. Its definitely not easy and I don't think just anyone can do it.

I'm not sure if I can learn all this stuff but even if I don't end up going back to school or getting a better job I'm going to learn and read more anyways just for myself. If anything, I want to become a smarter individual and understand the things I care about and use.

I should also learn how to fix guitars. This would be the easiest thing to do because I can just watch YouTube videos and practice on an old axe I have. For example, I want to learn how to replace pickups, setup a guitar, and how to setup a Floyd rose. That way I can just do it all for myself.

All important stuff. To me at least.

That's the end of this rant. My goal for 2017? Get smart.