How to start

Well, how to start a blog? I guess I could start by letting you know my process in wanting to start a blog.  It began as i was trying to organize my media room/studio so I could begin recording my songs again and in the process had to make some shifts and clean up the mess it had become.  I organized my DVD collection, my VHS collection, my CD collection, (all alphabetically), and then moved on to my Cassette tape collection.  I realized that over the years I have collected so much media and have never had the time to experience it.  I sat down and looked at my cassette tape collection, that I had acquired by going to the library and checking out records (yes the vinyl ones), other cassette tapes and finally Cd's, and looked at the dates of recording them and realized that I have tapes that are over thirty years old that I have never spent the time to listen to since I recorded them.

This last couple of weeks have been interesting since I have reached my sixtieth birthday and realized that the chances of retiring are limited and that I will probably keel over working.  One of my passions is music.  One of my employees told me recently that I know more about music than any person she knows.  I can pick out a song lyric and sing it whenever a certain phrase is uttered by somebody around me.  Recently I have found that my interest in music has turned backwards into music that was appreciated by my father and grandparents and not with the current vogue of music.  As a result of this interest I recently heard a song from a CD called Hello Children Everywhere called "Grandad" by a British actor Clive Dunn.  The CD is a collection of British recordings that were heard by me as I was growing up in Hyde, Cheshire, England.  The song affected me as I am now a grandad three times over and soon to be four.  The lyrics are particularly appropriate for the theme of this blog.

CLIVE DUNN

GRANDAD - 09/01/1971


3 weeks at #1 - 28 weeks on chart

I've been sitting here all day thinking


Same old dream ten years away thinking


Now my days are gone, memories linger on


Thoughts of when I was boy


Penny farthings on the street riding


Motorcars were funny things, frightening


Bow and hoops and spinning tops


Penny Dreadfuls, lollipops


Comic cuts, all different things


Aeroplanes tied up with string flying


Telephones and talking things sighing


A radio and phonograph, Charlie Chaplin made us laugh


Silently falling about


Familiar things I keep around, near me


Memories of my younger days, clearly


Come into my mind


Everyday I find, thoughts of when I was boy


Grandad, grandad you're lovely


That's what we all think of you


Grandad, grandad you're lovely


That's what we all think of you


Grandad, Grandad..

Another one of my influences has been a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. http://www.theartistsway.com/tools/the-basic-tools and I have recommended this book to many of my clients to help them deal with their issues through creativity.  On of the basic tools that I use from this book is the Artist Date which is "once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you."  

I also really liked the film Julie and Julia and was impressed that Julie Powell invited the world into her passion by blogging and that sounded like fun.So as all these things came to together I have decided that I need to begin to finally experience my collection and also explore the artists I have collected and instead of just listening to the music, (which really could be enough) but to try to understand them and their art and creativity and invite you the reader to join me on my prolonged Artist Date.