Today is my dad's 81st birthday , I've sent him a card and present and a text and will phone him at a reasonable time. That's a pic of him as a boxer.
Really he can be a curmudgeon , but has always been there for me and always encouraged me to do what I want , I totally love him. He doesn't pressure me but does exasperate me at times. but can't all good parents be like that
Anyway we are nearly at the end of January , and nearly at the end of the week , and looking forward to lots of amazing stuff at the weekend and next week
Next week I have 3 nights out already penned in , so I cannot complain my life is boring, feel free to come with me , the ride is going to be immense and intense. As it's my Dad's birthday I am including two of my favourite boxing songs , "No Mercy" by Nils Lofgren and "Boom Boom Mancini by Warren Zevon.
Really I do. I go on about looking for the positives , and being positive , but I never really know whether you believe me or take what I'm saying seriously , after all I try not to be too serious. The main yhing I am serious about is being happy and I want you to be happy to.
This weekends started for me with the amazing BowieBall at Vamos and has been a wonderful time of relaxing , wandering , wondering , playing Bowie songs , remembering the riffs for Rebel Rebel and Ziggy Stardust, then listening to "Nothing Has Changed" while updating the website Song of The Salesman.
Music is a great thing for lifting you , making you feel good , and though I have been talking Bowie I am going to include Todd Rundgren's "Long Flowing Robe" as a song which I first heard on a Bearsville EP I bought and it still stays with me as a beautiful song love found and lost and found again that makes me happy and brings a smile to my face, but with a tinge of sadness.
So now go and find something or someone that makes you happy and makes you smile . do it and your day will be better and if it is a person , their day will be better too.
If you know me , you will know that I am not serious about the title. I am reading a book about Arvo Part - Out of Silence, and some parts about the various Christian / Biblical concepts irk me to say the least. God was amazing because he said Let There Be Fish or whatever and there were fish. It's hardly rocket science is it and if you could do that then it's hardly hard. The nearest equivalent we have is switching a light on or controlling something with a remote.
I was taught by Jesuits and for the most part they were practical and reasonable . In one Religious Education one guy said to the priest:
"What if you get to heaven's gates and St Peter says: We gave you wine , beer , women , gambling , and all you did was wasted it being celibate , you going down"
The priests reply was "You might be right, we do everything based on faith and belief, but we do drink wine"
I also got to thinking that the Bible is probably the reason for the terrible treatment of woment that is still going on today. All Eve did was effectively try something new. If we don;t do that we don't progress, so maybe Eve was the first scientist. . Yet for that act Eve (woman) takes the blame for everything that goes wrong and has done every since.. No doubt that concept was conjured up by a man , and men have been selecting snippets of the Bible to justify subjugating women ever since.
Anyway no sane God would have the world that we have today , maybe there is a God , maybe there isn't . It may be illogical but I'm hedging my bets.
I also believe that with evolution (which is scientifically proven Creationists) that out soul , being or whatever you call is preserved after the body expires , but that is another personal illogical belief that keeps me hopeful , although i have seen no real evidence for it whatsoever, but I am very positive in my outlook.
Ok what music do I choose for this , Spiegel Im Spiegel by Part I reckon , because his music is excellent, I just think that it's his talent that produces it , not God.
We are in mid January , experiencing the Christmas and New year comedown. However this is only problem if you have nothing to look forward to. I saw an internet meme saying that "Successful People Set Goals" among other things and they are grateful. Last night I watched an episode of The Last Kingdom and Utrid's wife said "God brought you home" , Utrid is not enamoured of the Christian God and said "My sword brought me home".
My goals are to be happy by planning events to share with my friends , and make sure I have things to look forward to with the special people in my life , do a decent job , and be grateful when things go well. It's very seldom that good things just happen to us , but by taking certain positive steps and not sitting at hope you can end up coming into contact with people who actually make your life far more excellent because they introduce you to new things and new people and bring a light into your life.
Anyway it's the middle of the week, and this week I will see people , talk to people who will make
me smile and tell me new things and that will make my life better. Work is scary at the moment because I am dealing with a landslide of paperwork , but it's just a challenge and I will use this to put things in place so that next time I will be able to deal with it. The first time can sometimes be daunting.
But I am already planning things for this year, visiting different parts of the country and just having a brilliant time , and it is going to start today.
I thought I would include a TED talk on smiling , smile more it will make you feel better.
There are lots of bad things in this world , make sure you are one of the good things. and most of all be happy.
As I write this I am being hit by a severe Denial of Service Attack . I would have thought that my ISP , Virgin would protect me from that , but maybe not.
So today is Blue Monday , the Monday before the January payday , when the money has run out and consumers cant buy stuff not even the tat in this week's sale. It's just one of those things the media throws at us , they want us to be miserable , to butter us up for the next scare story.
It's funny how once you start talking music how the ills of the world can be , at least temporarily washed away. Music is wonderful , listening and playing just makes you feel good , get's rid of pent up aggression can make you happy , make you fall in love , make want to hug someone , make you want to kiss someone , make you want to dance.
I am now starting to think of lots of favourite songs that teach us lessons, show us new roads , and lead us to better places.
This Monday may be a shade of blue , but it's a nice shade of blue.
This is a short , middle of the night post. I should really be in bed. I would love to be in bed. This week has been totally brilliant for various reasons. One of them was last Sunday I went into town, part of the quest was to get flowers , in a last ditch effort I got some from Tesco. I walked out and walked into my brilliant friend Mike O' Brien who was going to Reflex to get some music but remembered he needed milk and Tesco was across the road . So we ran into each other.
We talked and said we had to have a catch up , I mentioned the Gramps featuring Lux Inferior on vocals were playing the Cluny on Feb 4th and I had a spare ticket. He forced money on me for the ticket then said we should catch up and suggested Mog On The Tyne , the Cat Cafe , which he is joint proprietor I think.
Loads of my friends are cat lovers and many have expressed a desire to go there , so I will be visiting soon.
But this is how amazing coincidence can be , you take a different turn and a whole lot of unexpected doors can open.
I was chatting to a facebook friend Denise who sells collectable diecast models at various fairs in the south of the country and was amazed to see so many images from my childhood. The Brittain's stuff here on her site brought back loads of memories here at DJB Collectables.
This week has been exhausting and incredible .
I got to see the new Star Wars film , and we lost David Bowie and Alan Rickman, so I will bookend this blog post with Bowie and Rickman , two amazing artists who will live forever in our collective memories. The Bowie song was cowritten and produced by Giorgio Moroder which I didn't know til I wrote this post
Yesterday David Bowie released Blackstar. I am not going to critique the album , but the fact that an artist can still command such awe and respect and continually turn the three chord trick on it's head often outdoing his perceived influences at their own game is still jaw dropping.
When The Next Day came out completely unexpectedly the mainstream media wrote it off , because it was music that they actually had to take notice of . "Where Are We Now" still amazes me , but when it was the lead single it was written of by mainstream media.
And now again Blackstar will have the same effect , it will polarise opinion , but isn't that what Bowie does? The thing is if you have any modicum intelligence you will appreciate his work or build a coherent argument against it.
I was speaking to a guy in Bar Loco who said he's just got into Bowie , but he couldn't get past
Earthling , because it was the best thing he had ever heard. Not your normal starting point in the Bowie canon , but this shows the amazing kaleidoscopic effect of the Bowie enigma , you could start anywhere and work in either direction remembering to be wary before Space Oddity , though everything since has had much merit.
Even the maligned Tin Machine , "Under The God" is still a metal masterpiece , and "Little Drummer Boy" with Bing Crosby , well he's David Bowie , he can do that , and yo will enjoy it.
So go and buy Blackstar . My own favourite is still Station to Station , but put any Bowie album on the the turntable and I will listen until the needle lifts.
