Bart "J.B." Hopkins's Blog, page 2

Musical Interests Part 1

This was originally posted on February 5, 2023, on my original blog. Which I accidentally deleted. Yes, that's a real thing.
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Initially I wanted to write a quick post with Bart's favorite albums from each year of his life, 1975-2012.

But, that quick post turned in to three hours of me looking through albums, and track lists, and realizing that identifying just one album per year would be difficult.  Very difficult.

Then I started thinking of ways I could compartmentalize my musical selections in order to make my task easier.  There were a lot of options…too many options for the time I have:

Best xx albums of all time...

Best albums of 19xx or 20xx...

Best year in music...

Best band of all time...

Top (insert genre of music) bands...

Top 3 albums from each year of my life...

Indecisive as ever, I couldn't decide which of these would be most fun or challenging or whatever.  So, I'm going to periodically fire out random thoughts about bands, albums, or singles that have influenced me in some way.  Or maybe, more simply, just bands or songs that I like.  I'll go wherever the road takes me, whatever pops into my head.

Today I'm going to start with the only easy year in music from my initial search to find the best album from every year of my life.  The year was 1980.  The band: AC/DC.  They released Back in Black that year.  I was only five years old at the time, so I don't remember specifically whether I heard them that year or even knew who they were.  But I do know I've listened to the songs from that album hundreds of times over the past 25 years or so.  I did as recently as this week.

Favorite song from that album:  You Shook Me All Night Long.  Obvious, I know, but what a classic, eh?  It sounds great today, just as it has for years, and strangely, it is one of the few songs that I've heard which never sound dated to me.  I never hear it and think of it as a 33-year-old song.

And, so, a quick nod to AC/DC, walls that are shaking, earth that's quaking, and the year 1980.

Good night!

Punch to the Gut

Sometimes life catches you with a punch to the gut.

That's not out of the ordinary.

But when it comes from people who call themselves your friends, it might be time to reconsider the situation.

Industry Standard

Seems like the people that inhabit Facebook are never wrong. And can never accept those moments they are wrong. I'm not sure if they arei blind to it, or maybe it's anger driving it, or perhaps it's a product of this modern world.



Specifically there is a writing group I'm in, and while it's maybe 85% productive, I see one person in particular repeatedly "helping" other people, and if she gets questioned about her input - legit questions, nothing bad - for example, the layout of a copyright page - she says what she has told everyone is "industry standard."



But she's got no special credentials, hasn't written a bestseller, never actually worked in the industry, yet everything she says is the "industry standard." I have researched a few of these and found there wasn't a standard, and it just gets old. What's wrong with people? It is truly and sincerely okay to be wrong. And admitting when you are wrong is incredibly respectable. Pushing BS is not.

13

13 hours is how long it takes me to get ready for work, drive to work, work, and drive home from work.

I've had it worse, but that doesn't make it any more fun, ha.

Being Late

Sometimes it can't be helped, but in my opinion, being late is one of the very rudest and most selfish behaviors one person can extend to another person.

Time truly is priceless. Being late can destroy or alter a person's entire day (or more) and like dominos, hurt the plans of other people. Maybe they rush to get to the next thing and die in a car accident. That's the extreme, sure, but you cannot give someone back the time that you've taken from them.

Reviews

When receiving a bad review, the inclination of the writer is to either 1) reject those bad reviews because they obviously don't know what they are talking about, or 2) cower in the corner, lips quivering, tears streaming down the cheeks, praying for it all to be over.



Mining each review for nuggets of truth is tough on the soul. I think of it as a learned thing. You have to work at it. Many reviews will tell you just as much, or more, about the reviewer. Just grab your rifle and avoid the mines, soldier!

Rediscover

Today I was thinking a lot youth and how, when you're young, there's this core of good feelings that dominate your feelings and life.

As you get older, however, this core of well-being gets replaced. Sometimes it gets replaced, sometimes not. And you lose that ability to just be unequivocally happy. When you're middle-aged or older, or I guess even younger, how do you get back to that place? The one that might lead you to dance around the store with your loved ones without any care in the world. Honestly, what strikes me as the biggest barrier to finding that feeling again is politics. Or at least the kind of politics that flares like a nasty case of hemorrhoids through so many people right now.

Big Problem

The biggest problem I have at the moment is not having enough time. There are about 40 different things I would like to do or try that I think could improve various aspects of my life, but I don't have the time. Courses I would like to take. Training. Those types of things.

Time

It's going by too fast. Not today or this week, but the entirety of life.

I would give anything to do everything again the exact same way, both the good and bad.

what am i

It's crowded. Dark. Bursts of light punctuate the blackness, accompanied by a sadistic laughter that stops the heart and chills the soul. Light, laughter, dark. The constant jostling leaves me feeling sick. I hear someone (or something?) moaning nearby. There's a sense of things constantly moving. I imagine being on a subway piercing the tunnels of hell. Light, laughter, dark.
Minutes or hours later, I realize there's more room. Not much. Just more.
Suddenly the light! The white-bearded maniac's got me! I scream. I'm shoved without mercy into a cloth prison as crazed laughter fills the air:
"Ho, Ho, Ho!"