Reflections Of A New Year.

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Happy New Year Everybody!

I want to start the new Year by reflecting on the old one. For me, like many, it wasn’t a great one. I didn’t get a full-time teaching job, and remained underemployed. As a result, my finances and credit rating took a dump. I have a few collection agencies calling me. One of the resolutions for the year is to start the process of repairing my financial status. That means getting a full-time job. If a long term sub’ing position doesn’t crop up this month, I will either expand my business, Frog’s Pool and Spa, or get a job at one of the local pool and spa parts warehouses.

On the music front – I need to devote more time to developing my guitar and song writing skills. Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty pleased with the progress I’ve made on guitar so far, but I can do better. I’m not sure if I should pressure myself to write songs. When I’ve forced myself to write something, it has turned out disastrous. Lets just say that there is a lyric in my collection based on the Kurt Vonnegut book Galapagos. If you’ve read the book, you can imagine just how bad the lyric is.

As for recording my stuff, that must get done this year. I can a least play a few basic chords on the guitar, so there is no excuse not to do so. Sure, I’ll have to do my fare share of punching in bits where I screw up, but if you’ve ever been in a studio, that is not uncommon for the guitarist. The difference here is that my mistakes won’t be due to the imbibement of various drinks or chemicals; my excuse will be pure incompetence.

Now, for a criticism from last night. I was watching the New York New Years Eve celebration, and after the New Year came roaring in, NBC featured a couple of “live” music acts first up was Rihanna. The song she play droned on and on, and she didn’t even pretend to be enjoying herself. Her lip-syncing wasn’t; Millie, or Vanillie, whichever one is no longer with us, is certainly spinning in his grave. And then, after hyping the appearance of the band for the last thirty minutes, just as Green Day was finally being featured on the broadcast, NBC cut to a commercial. I didn’t mind that, as Green Day has long ago become irrelevant musically, but the poorly timed cut was sloppy TV production.

That wasn’t the “highlight” of the show. That has to be saved for the debut of the new Jay Z song and accompanying video for “On To The Next One”. WOW, when did what they call music become so monotone, monotonous, and repetitious. I’m struggling to describe just how bad it was, but I excuse myself as I think the song was bad beyond description. Oh well, I’ll provide the link to the song and let you watch for yourself.