Month: April 2014

How I Relate Fictional Characters to Myself

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

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*I do not own this image, credit(s) unknown. Show spoilers ahead!*

This blog is meant to be a peek into the inner workings of my highly nerdy brain. As such, this blog is not for the faint of imagination: you have been warned!

Cutting to the chase, I’ve been through a lot of emotional struggles in my life, and being somewhat reclusive I didn’t always want to be around people. So in my reclusive times I had a tendency of watching epic television shows and anime to forget about said problems. I’m happy that I picked the entertainment mediums I had since these television shows taught me awesome morals when I was younger, and continue to still do so today.

For instance, the lesson of the manga Naruto taught me that hard work will always overcome natural genius (which I relate too with my bass playing). Breaking Bad taught me how easily money, pride, and power can corrupt a person. Doctor Who showed me how Regeneration is a brilliant metaphor for a personal rebirth.

Now why am I listing these things? Because I like to imagine myself as these characters depending on what mood I’m in. In times of great consideration of my past and personal life I liken how I feel to this scene of Walter and Skyler White:

For those who don’t watch Breaking Bad, Walt always justified his selfish and murderous actions of cooking meth and killing people by saying “I did this for my family!” Here, Walt is coming clean and in my eyes earned a tiny bit of redemption. This feeling of redemption and honesty is how I feel when I come clean about something selfish I’ve done (though obviously in a less dramatic overtone).

Another character I imagine myself as is the War Doctor from the 50th Doctor Who Anniversary Special:

The War Doctor was tasked with ending the Time War and saving the galaxy by having to destroy his home world. I love when the Doctor declares “No more” and “What I did, I did without choice” because I sometimes relate myself to him when I have to make very difficult decisions (genocide not being one them, ahem).

At other times I imagine myself as Merle Dixon from the Walking Dead, who did anything to protect his baby brother in the zombie apocalypse.

I’m not saying I’m a white supremacist or anything like that (whom Merle’s character was). I just adore how complex Merle’s character was which is why I enjoyed Cosplaying as Merle and meeting Merle’s actor Michael Rooker last October. I like to think of Merle as the more sarcastic part of my personality, and I still can’t get over just how much of a complete bad-ass he was.

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I could go on, but I think you’ve got the gist of what I’ve been blogging about. If anyone has any favorite fictional characters they relate themselves too, then feel free to share them in the comments section!

-Tatteybye

One Year After College (Life So Far)

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

Hello again WordPress, I just wanted to chime in the reason that I was done writing about my personal and dating life because I don’t want to keep dwelling on the past, plus I don’t want to be *that guy* who writes about all of his dates and girlfriends. It was a conscious decision I made for and by myself, not just for certain readers.

On a separate note, I officially graduated in May 2013 and it was a great experience. While I was in college, I was expecting Alumni life to be difficult and abysmal compared to the good times I had in college. While the unemployment periods certainly filled such negative criteria, I’ve had a strong number of good times in alumni life. I think part of growing up is accepting that for every negative there’s also a positive.

For instance, I start a full-time permanent outbound calling sales job this coming Monday. I see this job as mixed blessing as I prefer customer service to sales, but it still pays well (hourly rather than commission) and will be a better step to success than just bouncing from temp job to temp job. Plus, I always have my band Hit The Deck to look forward too (who’s halfway thorough making our first EP!)

I’ve been very productive the past year as 2014 has been very good to me thus far, and I intend to not let things get me down the same way they did last year. Even if things get bad for me again, I will keep fighting “the good fight” and hold my head high rather than slouching my shoulders forward. I look forward to see what the rest of 2014 has in store for me, or what I have in store for it.

-Tatteybye

 

On Why I Blog

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

Hello again WordPress, I think I’m done writing about my personal life (past and present) because I feel it’s like I’m riding a dead horse and my last blog entry may have been written in somewhat poor taste by mentioning the marathon bombings (though I only meant to express how I had moved on from being dumped on the same day). With that said, I wanted to share why I like to blog.

It seemed like a few people I follow are posting some of their blogging origin stories, so I figured why not chime in as well. I got my start with the dark ages of social media, none other than Myspace blogger (the digital teenage graveyard of my generation). It was fun back then, the blogging community on Myspace was very tightly knit, and I felt I had carved a respectable part of that community with my own anecdotes and thoughts on current events. I even fondly remember being put on the top 8 spots of some of my favorite web celebrities like Brooke Burgess (creator of Broken Saints) and Sam T (think Taco Man and Ebola World). My grammar wasn’t as refined back then, but my narrative was always a crowd favorite. I’ve been blogging about my life from the start, I only came into reviewing albums and music in my college days.

Before I officially became a Journalist, I ran a small blog on Blogger where I would review my favorite artists’s discographies track by track, then by more traditional means. When I reread these older entries, I feel a strong sense of pride in my earlier works. This blog also is what captured to be the first low point of my career; my review on Ke$ha’s record “Animal” pissed off a lot of my viewers. I expected a huge backlash, but what I got was much worse: a huge dip in my readership. I’ve learned time and again that words and opinions can be very powerful things. And with great power comes great responsibility (I was watching the 2002 Spider Man movie last night on Netflix! :P). The great responsibility of me learning to balance not caring about what trolls say, and knowing when I’ve done something I shouldn’t have.

So I feel that I want to go in two directions: I will interview local New England bands on my new blog Arts and Ethos of New England (which needs subscribers -hint hint, nudge nudge-), and I will continue to review songs and muse about the music industry on my personal blog. In the meanwhile, I would like to thank all of my followers new and old for continuing to read my stuff. The reason I blog is for the love we all feel in the blogging community!

-Tatteybye

 

On Why I Will Always Love Animals

Posted on by kevinthemusicguy

“Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” – Anatole France

I’ve heard stories from my friends about how their first true friend was either their dog or cat (or any other type of pet). Well, this was also the case for me.

I still have early memories of my cat Jack being a great companion and semi-father figure to me. He was my first true friend. I also remember spending time with my babysitters dogs and knowing how they would do anything to protect me. Animals when they are raised correctly will love their humans unconditionally.

I love cats more than anything (dogs can detect cancer and do awesome tricks, but cats are still my favorite) because they are great companions for a person with depression.

I can remember back in 2010 I had received a 20 paragraph message threatening me for “being a terrible friend who didn’t his fair share of chores while we were on vacation” by someone who was himself a terrible
person. I was paranoid this guy would come after me, but my cat Starlight jumped on the bed where my ex lover and I were and began licking my face and purring through her nose to comfort me. This cat could tell I was upset, and did everything in her power to make me feel better.

Starlight was a great companion cat that I loved like a daughter, and she saw me as her “daddy” because I spoiled her like a daughter. She would always curl up and sleep on me when ever I was napping, and she would let me carry her to the kitchen to feed her. She was the right cat to have after I lost my other cat Jack (whom I wrote a blog on a while back.) Unfortunately, in 2011 Starlight got out one time with out her collar on and a wretched woman kidnapped Starlight and took her to a shelter. Starlight was later put down for attacking other cats in the shelter.

To add insult to injury my cat Chloe passed away in 2012, and my ex-girlfriend took my cat Rosie from me after we broke up (my ex gave me Rosie on my 21st birthday). So, I have been without pets since last year. But, I can always look to the future for more pets.

Most likely another cat, but perhaps a Dog someday. I like dogs, I just don’t know how to take care of then as I’ve never owned one. I know that dogs are loyal companions and valued family members, and they make amazing friends.

My problem lies with Dog owners who mock cat people as I was called “gay” once for liking cats by someone who I believe to be a dog owner on Facebook. I didn’t stay friends long with that type of a narrow-minded bigot.

Speaking of the narrow-minded, to see the most evil and ignorant animal on the planet we need only look in the mirror. Sure, other animals can go mad, but that’s only because of people tampering with their breed and/or abusing them. Humans who abuse defenseless animals are the most evil of all (I despise sociopaths like that for good reason).

Things like Psychosis and the state of being a sociopath are born traits, not raised. The same type of traits that lead people to harm defenseless animals to just make them feel better about themselves.

That’s not to say I dislike all humans though, for all the abusers there are also activists looking to save the animals passing laws to protect the animals and to rightfully punish the abuser. I just hope the day comes where we won’t need to make as many laws, and that sensibility will make an appearance around the world sometime soon.

I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being. – Abraham Lincoln

-Tatteybye