Hearing It For the First Time...

It's come up in a few recent conversations how it's pretty much impossible to hear your own song for the first time, since by the time you've finished writing it, recorded the demo, tweaked it, and gone through the formal recording process, you've heard it hundreds of times over.  By the time it gets to a finished stage, you're almost kind of sick of hearing it.

Yesterday I came up with the chorus for a new song for the first time in awhile... I was inspired by a lyrical concept as I was heading out the door for about a twenty minute drive - and by the time I had arrived at my destination, I had the lyrics fleshed out along with a melody that I was able to sing into my phone recorder. 

Listening to it fresh today, it dawned on me that this is pretty much the only way that I can truly hear one of my own songs for the first time... when I first come up with the melody and work it out on the fly, I haven't memorized it yet.  So... when I listen to it a day or days later, it's brand new to me - and it's somewhat similar to that concept of buying an album and hearing a song for the first time.  It's the only way I can ever experience that feeling with one of my own songs.

Thankfully, this one's a keeper - and I'll look forward to it appearing as an actual release at some point over the next few years... lol.

Flying out in the morning for a west coast blackjack trip; first extended one since January... 

Shadows...

Listening to a random playlist and a great Gordon Lightfoot song came on.  Sending Canadiana emojis to my hockey text chain... what a great talent lost... maybe not too soon, but nevertheless... RIP, Gord.

Short Turnaround...

Travel day... Denver to SLC to SNA.  A combined 5 hours in Delta lounges makes the journey a bit easier; making my way through a comemmorative issue of Rolling Stone that was dedicated to the Floyd.

Witnessed the Mets at Coors Field last nite; it was quite by accident I was in Colorado at the same they were scheduled to play the Rockies... it was nice to catch a game, notwithstanding the loss and the fairly steady rain that fell in the later innings.

Only played two sessions on this trip, but won both handily, allowing me to exceed EV for my target hours on this 4-day turnaround... booked the win and relaxed with poker the rest of the way... back in OC in a few hours!

This Post Has No Title...

Shout out to the "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" record ;)

Waiting for a quick dinner at Hawaiian Gardens prior to starting my Friday night poker session.  Spent the last week transitioning from the Million Years release to Grey Wolf; both tracks are now out everywhere.  While Million Years was essentially a preliminary release in order to get the social media presence up and running, GW is being marketed more heavily to press/radio, and for playlisting... we'll see how that goes over the next month.

Finally got around to scheduling blackjack trips again... heading to Colorado next week for a quick 4-day turnaround, then will be hitting NorCal/Oregon, Minnesota and Iowa on a monthly basis through August.  It'll be nice getting back out there again since my last trip to the Big Easy region in January.

Vegas and Dallas currently tied going into the third period.  Wonder if there's a chance we'll get another 4OT thriller like last nite!

An Early Summer...

Well, the Islanders failed in their bid to beat the Canes.  I guess some small consolation is that the Canes are thus far making the Devils look a lot worse in the next round than they did the Isles, so... perhaps there's still more to this aging roster than the fans have collectively given them credit for.  Will be interesting to see how ownership approaches the offseason.

Spent this Friday evening studying in the "pokerlab" as opposed to playing live in the casino.  Some great training on this site - but wow, is it involved.  Most people don't realize how complex a game poker is when played properly.  Beating blackjack with card counting is is worlds easier...  I'm going to spend a few hours tomorrow getting some work done on the computer, and then it'll be off to one of the relatively local cardrooms to apply what I've picked up tonite.

There's apparently some blog/press coverage and reviews in the works for the forthcoming "Grey Wolf" single.  Should be interesting to hear how these songs are being perceived at an arms length.... not sure I want to read everything!  lol...

  

On the Brink...

Was looking forward to a good Islanders playoff run this spring, but that now seems a remote possibility - given that they are heading into tomorrow's game in Raleigh trailing 3-1 in the opening round.  There's a strong argument to be made that the Isles have actually been the better team at 5 on 5, and that a lack of discipline in game 4 (along will some fairly questionable officiating ) has put them in a bind they might not otherwise be in.  Just win one game in Carolina boys, and with game 6 on Long Island - you never know what can happen.

Released the video for "A Million Years" this past Friday; the standard audio release for download/streaming will be available at the end of this week.  Since this is just an introductory track for the purpose of establishing a social media profile, we're not marketing it so the same extent we'll be marketing the follow-up - but we have gotten some kind initial feedback on the track, which we greatly appreciate!  Always nice to hear ;) 

    

The stupidity of leaning into low limit...

Lost a fair amount this weekend in two different 2-3 sessions at two different poker rooms.  The first loss (on Saturday) was pretty large, owing to a series of poorly conceived plays based on advanced strategies that I'm realizing simply aren't conducive to winning play in low limit games.  You might recognize a button raise as light and three-bet with an appropriately wide range from the blinds - but when the button raise was preceded by a couple of limps and then everyone calls anyway for roughly 15BB with any two cards, you're pretty much playing bingo poker.  Leaning into that is just plain stupid.

On Sunday, I resolved to play primarily for value, eliminating the speculative end of pre-flop ranges and significantly reducing bluffing - resulting in a much more comfortable, low-event (boring) game that yielded about a breakeven result.  That might seem pointless - but in these games, you're going to make your money with nutted hands against a field that simply refuses to fold.  You don't always get nutted hands, and this was one of those sessions.  The key is strengthening resolve to make it through six hours of play while maintaining that level of discipline, and I don't mind resigning myself to that for awhile until it becomes second nature.

Just scheduled a new date for re-filming the EPK interview questions in late April.  Looking forward to finalizing that aspect of the promo materials...

Game 1 for Isles vs. Canes in T-minus about 20 minutes.  Followed by my game tonite, for which I'll have to leave prior to the end of that game 1 if it goes into OT.  Really hoping the Isles win it in regulation!