Monthly Archives: June 2018

Lost 30 lbs, quit smoking and otherwise fought back

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I didn’t know if or how to go about this one, because lots of people do these things, but maybe someone might relate to how it started.

Nausea and other worries about my gut, like fear of not having a washroom nearby.

Just that. Somehow back in mid 2015 it got to the point that food would make me feel just gross the entire day and the absolute worst was when I tried anti-anxiety medication that “may cause nausea”, so therefore for me, laid me out so bad that I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to anything.

That’s really where I just got angry. No other way to describe it. Thank God by that point I was self employed so I didn’t have to specifically worry about rushing off to work (somehow). This isn’t an ad but I started using that calm app for meditation, which got me to focus on my breathing and this method actually helped me through gigs because of course I was still doing professional shows with the band (one show in October 2015 was probably the closest I came to walking off stage as I felt too gross).

Anyways, other than the smoking which I was worried I needed to combat sleep and constipation, I started on diet and exercise. First thing I did was I just walked straight out despite my body wanting me to not do that. I was over 220 lbs somewhere and was supposed to be creative and here I was finally doing things and being shut down by my own body. I wasn’t having that so I did the longest walk I could think of which was around the waterfront in Victoria.

I started with walking everyday, meditation and, from researching things, tried to eat more alkaline food. I’m not rich so going full Mediterranean Diet is nice but impossible. One thing I did add was my oatmeal thing which was steel cut oats, a healthy “breakfast topping” of cacao and other things in a mix, lightly over that and blueberries. Drank lots of water, drank Ginger Tea with fennel and listened to (I know he’s upopular now-I was annoyed too) all the Tony Robbins stuff I could find. There was a thing on “Body You Deserve” that mentioned a walking – running – walking 30 min pattern, which I got a heart rate monitor for, because on a doctor’s advice I was going to try and bring my weight down. I was never big, until my thirties where my metabolism cut out so much that in a band photo it looked like I was standing closest to the camera.

So everyday I was running after 10 minutes of walking, trying to stay in my target range. I was scared to let one day go. Eventually I got my first gym membership and started a Good Life Fit Fix program, which is essentially working on each machine to failure after a short treadmill warmup.

When I went back to work my walking went way up (work as a cleaner again) so I do the gym and running three times a week.

Things improved and my weight came down but it still wasn’t as good as I wanted and only one thing was left.

I quit smoking in November of 2017. I used the gum as I was scared I wouldn’t sleep and once I got past day three or so, I wouldn’t say it got easy, because that took a while, but it got more important to keep going…like I had never made it that far.

I’m still fighting my problems and everything but at last count I’m below 190 lbs and haven’t had a show as bad as back then. These days I’ve been doing running where it’s part cardio as well and over 35 minutes and I’m enjoying challenging myself with ones like running the entire inner harbour from Fisherman’s Wharf to the Esquimalt Westsong Trail entrance, which less than two years ago I couldn’t even walk.

Today’s music was Anastasis by Dead Can Dance, which I discovered while writing and, being a baritone, I like trying to sing to, lol! Not now of course, it’s early. 😂

Dead Can Dance

Cheers,

Tom

My morning pages aren’t neat

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Ok here we go. Well, yeah…it’s supposed to be stream of consciousness writing and this is a little different as it’s like stream of consciousness texting which might be a bit unfair as I have predictive text happening for me too. I don’t know. I’m listening to Harold Budd as it was available and I was trying to get going immediately since that’s the idea behind these in the first place. You’re not supposed to do anything else first…ok I looked for the image too..but that’s why the title happened. Every morning page looks like the person has their writing set up so neatly that they have a desk devoted just to morning pages. I’m sorry but not only is that bs but also shouldn’t it be more like you wake up and go…while in bed still. You’re supposed to be half asleep or something…like the magic of the whole thing blah blah…I had a sip of old Ice drink. Should be ok it’s still carbonated. I worry about everything going badly with food. Maybe that’s why I went grey early and balding. I’ve stressed about food safe since a poptart did it. Anyways let’s not go there. It’s just…no. eyes are still blurry…hard part about smartphone morning pages is you have to sort of do it by time…nothing is telling me right now how much into 3 pages I am. Oh, and you’re supposed to have them private. Oops. I’m not too worried. Anyways I’m just writing and not really about what I write that much. What’s hilarious is that this is a longer day and I woke up an hour and a half earlier. Yay. Had the pretzles line from Seinfeld which I was going to use as the first title…I don’t know what…maybe because I was going to get a drink. I like the morning page versus meditation question. I keep meaning to do meditation these days but never get the time or whatever to do that. Ok what now. I don’t know. Dylan Moran style there. I’m supposed to just to keep typing like it’s a run on sentence or a talktive person. I think beer. Where is that from. Then TwaDogs. They are a distillery that we the band are connected to. I like some of there craft beer but never been a whisky person. My mouth just cringes if a mouth can before I drink that stuff. Ok. I think I’m going to stop now.

Kind of short on reflection.

Want to find more stuff by the poet Red Lane. Just discovered him recently, as well as Mary Oliver.

I mentioned Harold Budd whose music is perfect for any writing and also he worked with the Cocteau Twins.

Harold Budd – The Pearl

Cheers,

Tom

🙂

Rock’n Rule #3. Show Disasters

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Imagine starting a show that made everyone leave the room, or playing along to a classic song that you never actually learned, or starting a show with a guy holding (no kidding) a pumpkin (wasn’t near October) and saying to you that he’s sure you can’t play.

You guessed it. These are but a handful of mine. Now I’m not gonna say that I sell out stadiums like Sting and the boys up there, but I can almost bet you they had those early disasters too. Sting, Andy and Stewy were in sooo many bands before they ever met so you can bet there was the occasional weird amp problem.

On continuing yesterday’s Rock’n Rules on how to make great music, or be a success, I found another little clue. I will drop more if I find more, but it came from the fact that I am on a bit of an ABBA kick right now, and on doing some reading their first time(s) playing as a four piece actually totally flopped. Like nobody liked it. At all.

ABBA had every reason to go and quit and say “It didn’t work, why bother.”. But they just kept at it anyways. Music is what the four did so it was back to the drawing board (or the cabin).

Same goes for the boys from Depeche Mode…

Don’t be nervous 😊

The first two shows by these fresh young faces, which they spend time setting up were a complete disaster. Two shows in a row! On one of them all the keyboard stuff when crazy and one guy just kicked something and all the electrics went out on the whole stage.

They kept going. They even make weird mistakes to this day. You can look that up, but it’s only rock and roll.

The trick is to keep going. You get used to it. On the musical side you learn to “recover” if you played it wrong and 9 times out of 10 you notice it more than anyone else around. Nobody is going “hey, what’s with that Bm7 chord!”. It’s about connection to the people in front of you. In fact disasters can be funny and get them on your side if you stay chill and just go “wow, that was neat!” or something and just try again.

Screw up.

Screw up huge.

You’re in world-class company.

😉

(And yeah, this works off stage as well 😎)

Today’s music I blogged to was a classic instrumental CD called Black Sands by Bonobo

Black Sands – Bonobo

Cheers,

Tom

🙂

How to be a rock star or anything else you’d like.

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ABBA had to start somewhere. You can too!

There are so many versions I have read over the years of the same story. I don’t care if it’s pre or post internet, the story still works.

If you’re a Swedish quartet, a guy by himself in Iceland(Low Roar), some beach guy trying to learn the bass in Florida (Jaco) or a bunch of guys hanging out in an abandoned church (Pink Floyd) it’s the same thing.

Works for writers too.

“The Office? You sure that name works?”

…Painters as well… People who struggled with everything. People who were wealthy upperclass. Older people. Kids their dad lugged around to entertain people. Yeah, that last one’s blatantly Mozart.

It all comes down to two primary things. People are right behind me up until the moment when I reveal that part. Hence why it doesn’t happen. Knowing the truth means nothing unless it’s applied.

This came to me after watching a special on ABBA, which is why I kicked off with it. Since back in the day I’ve wanted to find what made that switch from a local gang of music guys to global superstars. I’ve held to the belief that Success leaves clues and that even though, things may not seemed planned there is things that are repeated.

Mentioned before, but worth rementioning…

The Talent Code and some of Coyle’s work also got me wondering why it works in the Mozart cases specifically, and more importantly scientifically. Sure a person might have physical advantages like the shovel-like hands of Glenn Gould, but every guy with huge hands isn’t a huge pianist.

Aaanyways..

So what is it? Is it some sophisticated thing or something really exotic like when you 1st got into Tumeric Ginger Tea?

No, like I say. This is the bit that makes people understandably walk, or dial it down when it must be dialed up.

Rule 1

You have to treat it like your work that takes hours per day, each day of the week.

Rule 2

You or your team need to work in isolation in a crucible away from the distractions of the world

Now, I am just learning and fine tuning this process myself, before you ask the obvious, but I have been applying this as much as possible for the last few months, especially because to me you should be investing in yourself, or your project just as much or more that you invest in anything. As one person said you are only as good a performer as your material you can play for someone right now, no excuses. You might use effects and so on but you should develop the root of your art so that what you do has the strongest center possible so that everything else is icing on the cake.

That’s what Benny and Bjorn did all those years ago in that little cabin, day in day out in a Scandinavian archipelago. As they said of inspiration…

It’s like gaurding a cave because a dragon may come out. You go home and nap and it might fly away.

Each day you show to the page.

Each day.

Start here.

Show up.

(Today’s music had to be an ABBA tune, so here’s one to bookend it that was near the end of their journey.

The Day Before You Came

Cheers,

Tom

Read the World

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What is really happening around you? The truth is that there are numerous things that we don’t know about and couldn’t know, because we all have our own personal stories.

Consider how many stories that is, around the world, every single day.

Now I am not a voracious reader, no way as much as I’d like to be, so I tend towards piling on the audiobooks. These days, one of the benefits to smartphones is the ability to get audiobooks and books on demand. Between Hoopla (free library) and Audible (Not free but expanded) you can easy learn about every corner of the world.

Here is a direct screenshot from my device, no b.s. of the book that got me fascinated about the subject of North Korea back in December of 2016…

Later on I actually took out the following hardcover book from the Greater Victoria Public Library which may be available in your area as well.

On the same subject this book is amazing, written by an author still residing in North Korea who goes under the pen name “Bandi” which means firefly in Korean. Suffice to say he had the book smuggled out miraculously and cannot dare reveal his name.

When it came to my study of the broad subject of First Nations, well the first thing I learned straight away that can’t be one subject as it’s a bit like “ok, learn everything there is to know about the history of Europe”, so I narrowed my focus to then Coast Salish (and even that is far too vast, so I tried to focus on this area).

Of the many I read, this one stood out with it’s honest accounts of local history.

There is also an amazing dissertation by Allis Pakki Chipps-Sawyer called “Standing on the Edge of Yesterday” which you can pull down from Google as a PDF that explains so much about what is misunderstood about Coast Salish culture.

My mom got me reading a book ages ago from a middle eastern writer, who’s name sadly escapes me (gotta ask her on Monday) but here’s one that is totally worth getting however you can..

Set around the period of the Iraq war the protagonist is an American Iraqi woman who is trying to help her family and community, falling into questions of loyalty when things are seen from their perspective.

Now it is no coincidence that I picked three groups of people who have been seen as “other”. From my own experience with studying Native culture (and more) for writing, and just learning in life, when you are brought into a conversation things suddenly become clear.

The idea for this was me and a friend on Facebook talking about violence, both agreeing that noone should hit anyone. From my love of true to life things like the BBC’s The Office or NBC’s Parks and Recreation the idea of violence is uncool, pathetic and even just embarrassing.

As a human species is was not our ability to physically fight that kept us alive, it was our ability to plan and create cooperation.

A lot of violence, and the worst tends to come from faith reasons, which is how it becomes so deep set. As someone raised Catholic but a woman who would have been a nun if it wasn’t for his Dad (no kidding, mom was head of the British Columbia Secular Franciscans for years) I utterly disagree with the idea that God or any deity needs our help in enforcement.

100000000 Arnold Schwarzeneggers would be nothing compared to your supreme beings ability to snap his/her feelings and instantly fell your foe, so why does he need your help for that?

He does need your help to spread his love.

Ooh and in researching this I can a blog by a lady who has read way more than me (not hard to find)

Here’s the cover for it with the link below…

World Tale-Away challenge

Oh yeah and the music for reading, blogging and totally chilling comes from this favorite. Now I have listened to Tycho – Dive before but here’s their album from two years later called awake. Sort of reminds me of Groove Armada and Air so if you want great working ambient sound you’re good to go.

Tycho – Awake

Cheers,

Tom

🍻

P.S. checked with Mom and it was called Bread of Angels by Stephanie Saldana

Happy June / Keep Listening Always

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Trying a different set up so that the music idea works. Happy Friday as well!

Now I will admit my concentration isn’t flawless as I’m trying to find some new music, which is what brings me to today’s idea.

One of the best things for creativity, and I swear just feeling vital in life in and outside of the arts is to keep introducing music that’s new to you. It can be the latest thing which is always fun because there is this community excitement about a new thing that just happened, like being on a good movie’s opening night and going “Wonder if it’s going to win such and such. This is going to make waves!”

But it can also be old, back to extremely old, like if you just discovered the music of John Dowland from the 1500s…but then it can also be Invasion of Privacy by Cardi B.

They’d totally gel…

Presently the music of today’s blog is Craft Spell’s album Idle Labour which not only looks like a New Order album but has a definite 80s vibe with almost Smith’s like vocals. So yeah, ironically, not a huge departure for me but it’s still really nice.

I was listening last night to some music and an interview with the guys from Thou and they were saying how they would listen to new music to cleanse the palette and I totally got that.

Especially as you get older it is really easy to start getting set in your ways as to what good music is, and sticking to a specific collection for what you will hear. I have a music home base as well, primarily set in the UK in the 80s, and for writing it was always loads of Cocteau Twins, but new music always feels like your mind is getting an exercise, like getting out on the highway and blowing the dust out. It puts you in a new land and is amazing for seeing everything fresh.

Try this as a challenge… (no commitments, no salesperson will visit…cancel anytime!)…once per day listen to a minimum of one piece of music, or one track, that you have never heard. If you can venture into a style that is not yours that’s ideal but not critical (I’m obviously not doing it presently *blush* 🤣)

Anyways, if you want you can start with this album of 2011…

Craft Spells – Idle Labour

Cheers,

Tom