June 25

Post 870, Day 1755 of 2013
- and 906 days since I started this blog -

Daily Comment

I just realized that there's a lot of music around that I don't like, don't want to listen to.

My taste in music relegates me to old-fogeydom, and makes me irrelevant to many, if not most, modern musicians.

I have been doing some thinking about it, and realize that pretty much any and all rock music that descends from Black Sabbath's Paranoid, which I liked, including the anti-pop punk derivatives of the Sex Pistols, who I didn't like, are uninteresting to me. 

The list of music that I couldn't get into extends to the corporate-rock bands, like Journey, Foreigner, Styx, et al, down to Van Halen, whose faux-emotional, big-arrangement posturing never evoked a positive response.

I never found a place in my heart for rap music, and sampled music, if I listened at all, only got me interested in any of the original music that went into it. 

Somewhere along the line, my musical taste solidified into an appreciation of music that reached me on an emotional level, music with beauty. Music that expressed violence, lyrically or (worse, to me) instrumentally, was just anathema to me.

I liked the Who a lot, and that might seem at odds with the previous statement, since they destroyed their instruments to end a performance, but until that point, I so enjoyed their songs and musicianship, that I ignored the end, dismissing it as just theatrics and a way to avoid playing an encore.

I found the 1970s to be a great time for soul music (Philadelphia International!), and I got heavily into reggae,  but it was a time of picking and choosing more carefully to find rock music I could relate to (Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson, the Eagles, Ricki Lee Jones, yes; the Clash, the Ramones (and all the stupid-rock posers who copied them), no).

For about fifteen years, from the early '80s to the mid '90s, I went through a period, during which I didn't play much music myself, and my listening went almost entirely away from any sort of pop music. I listened almost exclusively to classical and jazz music. 

When I returned to playing, I found that the things I liked playing most were now 'oldies'. I had missed out on the entire 80s rock stuff, head-banging, house- and rap-music. And I didn't have a taste for it. Most of the stuff on the radio then was similarly not geared to my taste. 

Of course, there were exceptions, all along the way. But not too many new artists got through to me. And those that did, embodied the musical values I had established growing up: They were good performances of good songs or melodies, presented with intelligence and my idea of musicality, which incorporated dissonance only rarely, and then as an effect, not a statement.

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 Food and Diet Section

2013 Daily Weight

Today's Weight:         212.6 lbs

Yesterday's Weight:     211.6 lbs

Day Net Loss/Gain:      + 1.0 lbs

Diet Comment

Ugh, part/day two. I have to stick to three meals a day. But I have such strong cravings late at night...

Food Log 

Breakfast
Cocoa-kale-hemp-chia protein shake: Almond milk, kale, cocoa, hemp seeds, chia seeds, a large egg, vanilla whey powder (24g protein), cinnamon, vanilla, psyllium and stevia-inulin blend.

Lunch

Smoked turkey, black beans, Spring Mix, cole slaw blend, and balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner
Buffalo chicken breast, broccoli with Dal Makhtani (lentil curry).

Snack
Two protein bars.

Liquid Intake   

   Coffee:  26 oz.   Water: 112+ oz.

Please leave a comment if you visit my blog. Thank you!