Tag Archives: #gmgblog

Good Music is Good Music

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Good Music is Good Music

Every week Fandango over at This, That and the Other posts a provocative question. This week’s question has a musical theme…

“What is your favourite music genre? Why is it your favourite? If you have more than one genre that you prefer, what are they?“

I listen to just about any genre of music.

My playlists are mostly filled with alternative sounds dating from the 80s to the present. They say someone’s musical path is determined by the beats they listen to from the onset of their teenage years and into their early twenties. For me, that was the sounds of the 80s although there was influence from older cousins and friends who were rooted in the classic rock sounds of the 70s. Depeche Mode, The Smiths, New Order, The Cure, U2 and early REM are some of the seminal bands of my generation that found a place on my turntable, along with other influences like Love and Rockets, Roxy Music, Brian Johnson era AC/DC, and the Madchester sounds of the Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.

As I left college and embark on adult life SoundScan began to change the music scene. Where recorded sales of music were somewhat of a murky business the introduction of the point-of-sale inventory/sales system made it impossible for promoters and music labels to pay off retail outlets to fudge sales for whatever artists they were pushing. In the olden days, the music business could give Hollywood and possibly the mob a run for its money when it comes to being shady.

SoundScan levelled the playing field for Artists. Music sales that had been suppressed began to gain acceptance. Sales numbers could no longer be skewed as accurate barcodes and point-of-sale data collection took over the industry. Artists who were being ripped off now had data to prove it. Backwater sounds like Country and Western benefitted from the change. For years the industry had cannibalized sales from the genre to prop up other acts across other genres. Actual numbers showed that sales were stronger than anyone imagined and where there is money there is investment and marketing and new artists ready to cash in.

As such I found my taste expand through the 90s and artists like Garth Brooks, George Strait and Brooks & Dunn found their way into my 6-disc Pioneer CD player. I even donned cowboy boots and hats and headed out to the local bars to boot scoot and boogie. It wasn’t hard to go there considering the Grunge and Britpop sounds of the early and mid-90s, had run their course and the airways were filled with Top 40 shite from acts like the Spice Girls, Brittney Spears, Mariah Carey and the like. Most of that was an autotune assault on my good senses.

I have always enjoyed Jazz and the Blues and even R&B and early hip/hop. Even today I can listen to acts like Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC, The Beastie Boys and K-os. But Gangsta Rap is an assault on one’s ears. How in a society where we are so willing to cancel someone for an inappropriate comment or a differing opinion, we find it okay for racially charged, misogynistic and downright anti-social music to permeate our airwaves is mind-boggling. My oldest son would disagree with me as he spins the likes of Eminem, Snoop, Post Malone, Dre and other giants of the genre 24/7. I know “spin” is an antiquated term when it comes to music in the streaming era.

Today my alternative tastes have mellowed to a more folksy feel. Vance Joy, Of Monsters and Men, and Mumford and Sons fill my playlists but I still often find myself back at my musical roots. The stomping beats of Personal Jesus (Depeche Mode), the gyrating riff of How Soon Is Now? (The Smiths) or the dark overtones of Lullaby (The Cure) will always have a place in my soul.

Isn’t that the beauty of music though? There is something for everyone, a myriad of sounds to tickle the senses. Even my likes and dislikes are not absolute. Ihave dabbled in Big Bands, Rockabilly, Bluegrass, Industrial, Classical, Opera, Metal, Thrash, Punk, Disco, Trance, Ambient, and even thoughtfully written Hip/Hop. On the other side there are Alternative sounds that aren’t worth my ear. I guess the old adage of “good music is good music” rings true. Happy Listening!

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Four Line Fiction (2306)

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Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Thursday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.

The image for February 9th, 2023 is the black and white portrait of a woman in profile (looking left), taken from the shoulders up. The image has been digitally enhanced to create a bird’s nest-like pencil stroke effect.

Resource Database via Unsplash

Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

Just Another Day

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Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.

Viktor Talashuk via Unsplash

Just Another Day

I was the reasonable one, Dave thought sitting in the lot. The one who ensured contracts were in order and deadlines were met. I quit the tennis club, cycling, stopped seeing friends, giving everything to the job and this company. Peter, my old boss knew I was the glue that held it together before he retired but the new punk was blind. Always with the chide remarks about my gray hair and bathroom breaks. Always nitpicking my work, complaining about how formal I wrote or whining to colleagues about me returning from lunch a couple minutes late. Of course, never to my face or ever once acknowledging that I arrived early and stayed late, other than to suggest that if I wasn’t such a dinosaur I wouldn’t need to be here.

Then there is Bob. How many times do I have to complain about his hygiene? The guy hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in months and the stains on the same pair of pants he’d worn for weeks could have passed as a god-damned biohazard. To compound the matter, Sally was compensating by wearing a bottle of perfume every fucking day and twat-boss was on her case, not the real problem! We all have to work in this shithole, but it was hard when the haze of rose-scented Bobshit was permeating your brain! Something had to change!

Unknown

Sally observed Dave as he exits his car. It wasn’t like him to be late. He was talking to himself as he fretted, appearing agitated as he paced back and forth several times before opening the trunk. She continued to watch as he donned a heavy-looking vest she’d never seen before. He fumbled about in the trunk and with his belt for several minutes, but she couldn’t make out what he was doing.

His intention becoming clearer as he pulled the mask from atop his grey-fringed dome and headed towards the side door. Gasping, her hand instinctually shot to her mouth when she could make out what he was carrying. Realizing a reckoning of sorts was upon them she ducked into the washroom and locked the door. She was careful not to move or even breathe too loudly as she waited for the commotion outside the door to stop.

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12. Revenge: Trinkets

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Banished-shadow via Deviant Art

12. Revenge: Trinkets

Lilith watched through the window as the woman rummaged through some old trinkets.

Charlton loved Inez. Plus, for a time she could bridle his deviant urges. Still, the demons slowly consumed him and they drifted apart.

Inez plucked the ring from its tiny box and a black cloud filled the room. Lilith grinned, her beastly servant becoming visibly agitated at its presence. She was right, Inez held the key to his soul.

The Revenge Series

<< 11. Revenge: The Bonding

13. Unexpected >>

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Five Word Weekly Challenge (2306)

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Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.

Here are your prompt words for the week of February 6th, 2023:

improper | sodden | vital | slate | colonial

Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.

Click here for full rules and guidelines

2305 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

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2305 – Sunday Digest: The Week in Review

Do you ever just need a moment to yourself. Of course I found a way to make it backfire on me. I’ve been back in the office for a couple of months now but working in my own office in isolation. The workload isn’t much different from when I was at home so I’m not sure why I was needed back so desperately. That decision was out of my hands but we make do as necessary.

Anyway, last Sunday I left a couple of hours early and stopped for some food at a local restaurant to take in the Leafs/Capital (hockey) and Chiefs/Bengals (football) games, simultaneously. I sat in the corner alone with my mask on except when eating. The bill was surprisingly reasonable, certainly on par with some fast food joints I may have stopped at and eaten while driving and the quality was way better. The problem is I may have forgotten to mention it to my partner who believed I was still at work. Of course, me being oblivious left the receipt in my work pants. Needless to say, she found it and rightly so, I’ve been relegated to the doghouse. Nothing foul was afoot and it seemed so insignificant at the time, but it was still a breach of her trust.

Truth is I just needed a moment to myself. If I’d told her, I’d have had to pick her and the kid up and bring them along or I’d have been asked to bring home an expensive takeout order, not that the cost was a concern, I just didn’t want to be saddled with a chore and expectations. I just needed a moment, lost in the noise and in my thoughts. I was wrong not to tell her but a part of me thinks it’s time we’d have been apart anyway.

It was nice to have a little more normal week on the blog, here are some of the highlights…

Five Word Weekly Challenge

Lots of great responses this week…

Linger With Me is a beautifully romantic poem written by ladysighs.

The Monster in the Back Room is a cheeky monster tale written by Joanne the Geek.

Life’s Real Purpose and Adulthood is a harrowing tale of monotony, life’s grind and taxes by Chel Owens.

Dishes a tale of newly realized freedom by Paula at Light Motifs II

Gossip Girls is a poem about not liking gossip unless of course, it’s about someone else by Sadje at Keep It Alive.

Four Line Fiction Challenge

Belinda Fewings via Unsplash

They said if you build it they will come. Not so much for the inaugural Four Line Fiction challenge but if I’m anything it’s not a quitter. Perseverance is said to be the trait of champions. I provided the only entry this week…

Out Of The Cold, was my contribution to this new weekly challenge. Hopefully its more than me next week.

More highlights from Greg’s Blog…

The Nightbird | Written for Shay’s Word Garden.

My First Computer | Written for WordPress Daily Prompt

In Between | Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Stories.

Another Person’s Trash | Written for Carrot Ranch’s Story in 99 Words.

11. Revenge: The Bonding | The eleventh installment of the Revenge Series written for Sammi Scribbles Weekend Writing Prompt.

Around the Blogosphere…

Here are some other great clicks this week…

Follow 9 | Liz H. at Valley of the Trolls | Another installment in the Follow series. Liz always has compelling serials to follow.

Inside the Tree | Bridgette Tales | A story that draws you in and won’t let go until the very end.

Hollow Man | Fandango at This, That and the Other| A poignant piece about chasing material success at the cost of everything else.

Her Crime Murder | Diana Coombes aka Writer Ravenclaw | A tale of murder and daring escape!

Homo sapiens | Hobbo | Someone mentioned the late great Hobbo this week and I went back and read a bunch of his work. It seemed appropriate to add one here. If you haven’t read Hobbo’s works I highly recommend you have a gander.

Just keep clickin! There was so much other great stuff out there this week but not enough time or room to fit it all in here.

Next week…

One week until the Super Bowl for all you football fans. For me its just an excuse to eat chili and chicken wings! Chiefs and Eagles fans will be going crazy.

Look for another Five Word Weekly on Monday and the second installment of the newly minted Four Line Fiction on Thursday. Hopefully this weeks image gets the creative juices flowing. At some point during the week the next installment for the Revenge series will drop using the prompt word key.

Have a great week,

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Rory’s Morning Dawdler (2023-02-05)

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thesistercookblog

A pattern is beginning to emerge. Afternoon has become the new morning when replying to Rory’s Morning Dawdler. I mean I’m 3 for 3 so far! I do still have at London Fog and a slice of lemon loaf next to me though!

Have you learned anything new about your personality that you didn’t know beforehand whilst on your blogging journey?

Greg Glazebrook @ GMGPhotography

I always believed my creative side was better served in hands-on pursuits like woodworking or pottery. Even when I began writing the concept for the blog was as a social commentary site. Mostly rants and opinions but as one can see from eight years of almost nothing that was a colossal failure.

I didn’t see this venture as a creative outlet until I responded to a prompt that I happened upon. From there it has become more creative, less opinionated and a whole lot of fun! The jury is still out on success or failure though!

Check out Forgotten, the first creative endeavour posted at Greg’s Blog and a turning point in the evolution of the site.

What are your last thoughts of the night before you turn your lights off, ready to sleep? 

Usually, as I’m pulling on my Darth Vader breathing apparatus, I’m just hoping I wake up in the morning. So far I’m sporting a perfect record!

What is the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard anyone say, write, or blog about?

Where to begin…

As we become more polarized politically people on the fringes say the dumbest things. I am not a fan of our current Prime Minister. I prefer a more fiscally responsible government and my politics lie somewhere between the ideologies of the two major parties. That said we held and election and when the dust settled his party was able to broker coalition using the rules of governing we have agreed to since the forming of this great country in 1867. Just because the horse I backed didn’t win the race doesn’t mean I can demand my initial wager back. That’s not how it works. Maybe if we weren’t all so wrapped up in our own lives and took a moment to do our civic duty things would be different.

That said I find it ridiculous to hear people compare the young Trudeau to Putin, Kim, or Jinping. Yes, he cracked down on a bunch of foolish protesters paralyzing the Canadian capital over COVID-19 restrictions. It was not the government or Ottawa police’s finest moment but the protest had run its course and it was time to move on.

Ottawa Trucker Convoy ≠ Tiananmen Square Protest

Still, The nutters would have you believe the restrictions were a grab at totalitarian power and the end of democracy as we know it. Truth is, as our understanding of the virus has expanded and as we move beyond the initial threat that the anti-vaxxers/anti-maskers movements refuse to acknowledge even existed the restrictions have been lifted and daily life has returned to a semblance of normalcy. Sometimes the greater good has to come before individual rights.

His record has not come close to the atrocities of the monsters these fringe fools group him with. He hasn’t invaded another country to restore some former illusion of glory while butchering men, women and children along the way. He hasn’t rolled tanks over protesting dissidents or jailed them indefinitely for opposing real government brutality and civil liberty violations. He hasn’t committed human rights atrocities against any number of ethnic minorities or anyone who may be a threat to his power. I would love to have seen how Moscow, Pyongyang, or Beijing would have responded to the trucker convoy protests. I can assure you it would have ended much quicker and more brutally than it did here.

What can you do today that you were not capable of a year ago?

More than one and a half pushups, longer than ten painful seconds planking, and certain death after 3 minutes on the Airdyne torture stationary bike. That may have been a bit of an exaggeration but as I continue exercising to counteract my sloth I can feel the changes that are beginning to take effect.

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The Nightbird

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The Nightbird

It is absurd in a dubious kind of way,
the need to fit in with simulated norms.
I don’t care anymore if the jukebox plays
a re-mix of this fucked up excuse for a life.

The nightbird does not bend beneath such sorrow,
soaring high above the smoke-filled bordellos,
She knows no fear of being crushed beneath
the one-eyed monster’s armadillo-skinned boot.

I lay here all but empty – shamefully waiting
for the scent of homemade soap, and
the primal thrust of a hot starched pistol,
Though I’ve not a pound of flesh left to give.

I’m swept high upon a ribbon that swirls
in the turbulent eddies she leaves behind,
Catching glimpses of freedom in the pull of her wake.
Below my battered shell awaits, unsure if I’ll return.

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WDP – My First Computer

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WDP – My First Computer

My first computer was the Commodore 64 (C-64) built and sold by Commodore Business Machines. It was the successor to the Commodore Vic-20 and the Commodore PET that I used in the computer science lab at my High School. I remember having to punch cards to write our first program on the PET. A ball that dropped from left, bounced three or four times before rolling off the right side of the screen. Once that was done we got to program using the keyboard although most of us just snuck in copies of the adventure word game Miser. I also had a friend who owned a Vic-20 and based on his experience I convinced my parents that I needed one of these new and improved 8-bit machines for Christmas.

I remember the big breakthrough in graphics that the Commodore 64 brought to the computing arena. The term used to describe the programming marvel was sprites. Essentially it was the first time that objects, characters, etc could move past each other fluidly in a computer video game. before the C-64 it was one character against a static background only. I know what a stunning breakthrough for the time considering the open 3D worlds we play in today.

For all that computing power all I ever did was play an Olympic Sports game and Tank Battle. Tank Battle was literally two tanks on opposing hills with randomly generated terrain between them and a wind strength and direction indicator across the top of the screen Each player took turns setting the angle of the turret pitch and the firing strength in an effort to blow your opponent’s tank up first.

Every now and then someone tries to resurrect these things and I am sure they stoke some sort of nostalgia in the people who buy them. My friend who I mentioned earlier who owned the Vic-20, C-64 and the last of the Commodores, the Amiga now seeks these antiques out and restores them as his hobby. Me, I just write flash fiction on WordPress using a modern computer or smartphone!

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In Between

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Viktor Forgacs via Unsplash

In Between

Serena could feel her heart pounding and muscles tightening in the moments before the sedative took effect. Terrified to find herself in the one situation she had dreaded her entire life, where the lines begin to blur in between actuality and perception.

She struggled to push the harrowing shadow that hovered in the haze above her away but her lifeless limbs lay like dead weights at her sides. Not wholly unconscious but just beyond reality’s grasp, and left retreating into the darkest horrors churning in the recesses of her mind.

As consciousness crept back in and blinding light filtered through her eyelids signalling that she was somewhere else – was this the end?

She flung away warm blankets and struggled to lift herself against the push of the nurse’s thrust, “Everything is ok Serena, you are in recovery and the Doctor will be around to see you later but for the time being you need to rest.”

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