Tag Archives: yyj

Anyone can learn anything

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Wanted to kick off by saying happy father’s day since I don’t blog Sundays. I remember learning stuff from my dad from math to stuff to do with the car, but of course lots of what I learned is more about who I became.

I’m an ADHD person who has been told by some that he can’t learn fast. I had doctors suggest I had a special typewriter as a kid because of my handwriting.

And yet I spend most my time these days playing my guitar, keyboard and guitar, and when I’m not here, learning as much as I can through audiobooks.

Different people learn differently. An interesting one came from my study of First Nations in Standing on the Edge of Yesterday where the writer talks about how for Native children it is (to her mind) more effective to communicate orally and have the student work on something physical than use pen and paper. Why? Because it has only been a few hundred years (not even) since all information was transferred from Elder to young person by oral traditions and learning. In fact it’s a reason why there would be multiple nuances in spoken language because there was hardly a public school system back then, so language was learned quite literally “in house”.

For myself I had two interesting experiences, one at school and one with boy scouts.

At school I absolutely failed my first year of typing. It was like I just couldn’t bother and was bored of it. For some bizarre reason that I can’t remember (hey, this was 1990…kind of a while back!) I took the course again. I was not distracted by the usual people of my grade and low and beyold…I utterly aced it. I got so fast that people would stare annoyed when my typewriter (like I say, 1990) would sound like a machine gun compared to other kids who were still pecking along slowly.

The other was to do with knots. In scouts they wanted you to learn the different knots such as bowline, reef knot, and so on. Just like in school I was a picked on nerd, so I didn’t want to be there at all. And as the whole thing was already not fun and now I was being talked at about these knots, I couldn’t do one to save my life.

I think that’s the thing too. I’m not Native but I don’t think the school classic system and me ever worked. I get this funny feeling that for me it’s about self directed study because years later I decided I wanted to learn everything about boating. My dad had, and still has, a little sport boat in the garage. Well I thought this thing was amazing and so on my own I learned, and could repeat like Forrest Gump showing his firearm, every single knot in existence…no sweat.

I sucked at music education back then. On my ukelele I just liked strumming, because picking and learning to pick notes in class was boring to me.

Uh…

⬆️Not to brag but, same kid.⬆️

Listening to The Practicing Mind by Thomas M. Sterner last night reminded me of this when it talked about grades. The idea behind grades was to assess how the learning method was working on the child and not to identify the “wheat” and the “chaff”. He talked about the source of cheating where, because of this same all or nothing mentality, kids would cheat because it was the grade that was important and not the knowing of the material.

Now some kids do learn perfectly in the normal method. Some are more kinesthetic and others like myself are prone to self directed study. This latter gets more interesting when you apply the idea that ADHD tends to promote deep dives into singular subjects (which I experienced with knots, bike mechanics, and then after the age of nineteen, bass guitar)

Gonna wrap up as, ironically, I have to practice and I got up late. Hope this helps annnnnd…

Today’s music choice is another classic, especially with the upcoming Queen biopic which looks amazing. John Deacon is where my curiosity peaked about the bass, and even though he’s not in this, it’s just great.

Bijou – Queen

Enjoy!

Cheers 😎

Tom

Elvis and the Elephants

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“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African Proverb

Full disclosure, I heard about this last night on a recent Ted Talk on NPR on the subject of becoming wise and you couldn’t not love the story of Elvis, the Elephant.

Sorry, the man himself wasn’t there but couldn’t resist that picture. Anyways..

The great thing about this story of this animal who got it’s name due to a disability that caused her to walk with Elvis’s leg motion, was how the other elephants would help it along and walk at this animals speed to not leave her behind.

The metaphor can’t be missed. It’s not that a single person can’t have joy or fun alone but, just like the herd, we are social animals too. Imagine if we walked at the speed of our slowest member.

One of the challenges I think is right now before you, and is the reason that you can read this right now. You see hundreds of years ago you were either royalty or you weren’t. If you weren’t you worked for the kings, in the fields or what have you. You didn’t know a better life and didn’t need to. It was like living vicariously through the King. If everything was good at the castle we were doing great! Way to go us!

But now we all want to be king. From Tony Robbins to Top Gun we got hammered with you could be number one, live like a rock star, blah blah, and well, how can that work for everyone?

Sorry for those who were expecting my usual creativity blog thing, I will go back to that too and it’s still me, but this is one of my strongest beliefs, held when I’ve done well and not.

You can’t have joy over here while they are not allowed it over there and they know about it to it’s finest detail and expect nothing to go wrong. From across the planet between governments to between family members, making life the heaven that Freddie Mercury sang about isn’t just “nice” or “cute” or “utopian” it’s better business.

I genuinely believe that you do not get away with anything. It’s like starting your work week at the office by cursing your coworkers up and down in the first hour.

What’s that week gonna be like then? Not a great plan, huh?

Same in the rest of world. You can treat someone horribly and be a dick, but from that you set waves in motion that have an effect. As a member of the world, this effect effects you. It can’t not. Maybe in a small way.

Reminds me of working at coffee shops. I’d see some…er…”individual” get harsh with an employee while that employee was trying to finish their order.

What would happen every single time? The employee would be thrown off there game more than ever, drop coffees, screw up horribly and things would slow right down for that same individual. It’s like yelling at a down hill skier. *Smack!* *🌲*. If the person treated the other with respect, both people would have had a better transaction.

Then add this problem of disparity to the present social media obsession that makes tv-generation of the 80s look like nothing, and…well, I think it’s the reason some older guy like me wants to bring it up.

I don’t, for my meager part, want to eventually leave this world like this without at minimum saying something. It isn’t just ideal, cute or nice if we work together for everyone’s benefit.

It’s how we stay together. We can’t be divided like this.

And now with everyone saying there side is from above and there side is from below, it reminds me too much of a holy war. Those never end good.

Is all lost?

No. But it comes down to you and I, members of the herd. We don’t need a political figure in a suit to tell us to let Elvis catch up. We can just stop.

———

Todays musical special is an absolute classic favorite of mine

Lazy Calm by the Cocteau Twins

Kind of works with my idea of everyone chilling out lol. Maybe I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Aww, should have picked that. My bad. 😉

Cheers,

Tom

Don’t Poke Murphy

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I just had to.

Let me explain. No, there is no time…let me sum up. 😉

I had some pretty impressive success with the last post, especially outside of WordPress, talking about how things had gone with my weight and quitting smoking. I’m always looking for things to talk about and that is true. Things were so ridiculously bad back then, which was so annoying because at the time I had just finally become a full time writer and musician so I was like really?!? Lol! I read everything you could Google about chronic nausea, sought out doctors, ran, exercised, meditated, and even drank gross weird things. I do a stripped down version of that now as those grant funded days are a thing of the past unless something changes. Anyways I am very glad I did that and am frankly scared to let things slip back, which keeps me moving. I actually had the pay version of the Calm app which was great and I genuinely kind of miss that. Still got to figure out how to include that again. I’m a musician so I’m all about patterns.

Random point, I’m writing this on my smartphone as always and I love the fact that when I put down “I’m a” it suggested “graverobber”. Little badass for my new MotoZ phone which I haven’t been honesty that crazy about, though it does have fm radio.

Which brings me to the title, which would make a good album title. Murphy’s Law, which is said to be based on this quote by Augustus de Morgan

It is found that anything that can go wrong at sea generally does go wrong sooner or later, so it is not to be wondered that owners prefer the safe to the scientific …. Sufficient stress can hardly be laid on the advantages of simplicity. The human factor cannot be safely neglected in planning machinery. If attention is to be obtained, the engine must be such that the engineer will be disposed to attend to it.[2]

Mathematician Augustus De MorganJune 23, 1866

Through grapevines and Chinese whispers (the latter needing a new expression considering it’s etymology) it has become Murphy’s Law of “What Can Go Wrong Will”.

I poked the spirit of this thing.

Result. Crap sleep because my tummy acted up and lost the entire day of blogging, hence Friday off. Least I kept that simple.

Nevertheless I am very grateful for the level of support on here and abroad for this. I was hoping maybe someone had been struggling with the same thing because I know how crazy making chronic nausea can be, especially when doctors act baffled.

I reset my alarm and though tomorrow is a longer day, I might be able to get one there or at least Monday. Sunday is pretty much the social media quiet valley of the week so not posting on Sundays is kind of fair enough. I am hoping to reduce the Sunday impact of the additional work I took on. I need the money but you need actual down time as well or the machine wont run right.

And that’s an album cut on Don’t Poke Murphy.

Speaking of today’s writing music is another classic from over 10 years ago now. Well I did mention Abba, so…

Iron and Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days

I used to work as a Barista for just years and back then it was this, Coldplay, Jamie Cullam and Jack Johnson.

Speaking of I really appreciated what NPR Fresh Air did with their 2016 Anthony Boudain interview. Like with Freddy Mercury I’m sorry I only discovered him now because of how he talked about his life being opposite of “Normal People”. As a Barista, cleaner, musician and even a writer I don’t know how often you feel like life’s biggest observer.

I’m drinking coffee in a duck blind.

Cheers Anthony,

Thanks for reading everyone 🙂

Tom

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

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

🙂

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

The Room of Oog part 2

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So it’s been a while so I’ll do a quick recap…My name’s Cece, I’m Tom’s girlfriend and on the first floor of the building is something really crazy. It’s a room that actually says “Oog” on it’s door. Seriously. Look.

I saw it for ages and then one day, while doing laundry (right next door) I found a key behind a machine that said “Oog”, put two and two together and ended up on the other side of the door. It went from boring as it was a storage thing to very interesting as it lead to another unlocked door, a hallway and this suite that’s actually under the building. The suite looks like somewhere Austin Powers would have lived with a slight purple tinge, lava lamps and autographed photos on every wall.

Seriously, it’s like a thrift floor exploded in here. Where I left last time, I was sitting on a white leather sofa and Bengal tiger rug, near the old TV and a floating white crystal ball.

The TV looks like it was from 1963 but on the table, no kidding was a big and even a little heavy remote control. I aimed it at the TV and hit power. On it’s antique TV stand I watched it spring to life on what looked like a program guide.

Some were in English but lots weren’t with a little flag next to the number, and there were just hundreds of them. I flipped through them, down and down and down until I just gave up and hit one, admittedly that wasn’t English but I didn’t recognize any shows anyways. I just wanted to see if it worked I guess. I still felt like the owner was gonna interrupt me, but seriously, besides the power being on and the weird crystal ball in the coffee table spinning slowly and undulating white steam, it looked empty for years. Oh yeah and the place was spotless for what it was. Only clued into that recently.

What I saw looked like a sitcom. It was three mid twenties girls and three mid twenties boys who were getting ready for an evening. The language from the tv was strange, but then from the crystal ball I heard it.

“Come on Petro, you should pick one too,” said a tall fellow to his two friends as they walked around what looked like a video store and corner store rolled into one.

“I don’t watch videos. Who rents videos? Do we even have a DVD player?”

“I can use my laptop and a cable-thing. Seriously, this is like the most popular vintage store in Odessa and Nadiya wanted to do this.”

“Oh…so this is about Nadiya,” chimed in the third curly haired guy.

There was a ripple of laughter on a laugh track.

“Vanda…what?”

“You know. Nadiya… Videos,. I’m with you Anton ” Vanda smiled.

“That’s great Vanda. Guys it’s my first dateish thing. And I need a video that is cool, but doesn’t lead to no conversation. So…ok, here…Eat Pray Love.”

“No, too obvious, how about…the shades of grey thing” said Petro.

“Obvious and possibly awkward,” Vanda.

“That’s his style,” Petro quipped.

“Hey!”

Then it was over to girls, where they were getting food and back at the apartment…

“Wonder how the boys are doing?” Said who I learned was Liliya.

“I told them maybe 7 pm here. So it should be a while yet,” said Nadiya.

This went on for sometime, like a show does and it got pretty good until finally we got to a scene where Nadiya and Anton were on the balcony and it was just driving me crazy. Anton was sure that Nadiya actually like someone totally different, not even at the party and Nadiya thought he was trying to let her down easy but neither was sure because they knew that the other was a nice person and it’s so easy to mistake that for thinking the other was cute.

And after years of Ross and Rachel I just couldn’t take it…

“Oh, you like each other! Just kiss you weirdos!”

I hadn’t even noticed that when I began with the “Oh” the white smoke from the ball had filled the room. I was no longer sitting on a white leather couch with a Bengal tiger rug. No I was on a porch in Odessa, Ukraine. Not even a sound stage like I was in their filming the show. Nope, this chick was in the logic of the show “Forth Floor”, standing in front of Anton and Nadiya, who both looked at me stunned.

“Hello? Are you a friend of Alina’s?” asked Nadiya.

“No, you must be Vanda’s girlfriend. He said you were from…well…where are you from?”

“I’m Native, but…not to here…anyways…it doesn’t matter..” I gave up on asking them how I got there. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t know either “You guys do like each other. And you should totally kiss. I just realized I’m probably speaking Ukrainian right now. That’s so crazy. I’m gonna leave you both to it. But definitely kiss, definitely…”. I walked off the porch, past four other stunned people who I just smiled and waved to and then out the door.

I went down the hall and turned the corner and that’s when things went Misty.

I was staring at the vintage TV again, white smoke dissapating into the coffee table around the crystal ball. I looked up to see that Anton and Nadiya had just kissed.

I sat there with my mouth open.

Well that was interesting.

To be continued.

Hometown

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72 northbound is

Mixed blue skies, luggage tags, deep

Accents of distance, like my

Dad’s blue measuring tape, now

stepping lightly through boyhood and

straddling

The world climbing bright with

Soft flickering sun

And left

The mountains down

From the remaining ghosts of trains

And ravens over Lochside.

Was just talking to a neighbour about this…The Pogson family first moved to Saanichton in 1987, so even though I wasn’t technically born in Victoria General this is home. Added bonus, my mom was and that’s where she met dad who was a Hydro man like his father. I think that’s a bit of why. He didn’t want people to think they were getting special treatment and some new work came up in Cranbrook, BC. Also they had a baby named Tom there.

😉

Cheers,

That Aforementioned baby.

😁