soul music Archives - Shirley's Mind Grapes

Dailies 12/11/13

Daily Doodle: Rook Castle

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Song of the Day: Do Right Woman, Do Right Man by Aretha Franklin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhdgFfNsst0

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Musical Pipe Dream: I’m playing the organ on the raised back part of a stage. I’m wearing a white button-down shirt and a reddish maroon vest with pea green and yellow undertones on the lining with matching pants.

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Blurb 1/365: I have this bad habit of picking at and peeling the skin around the tips of my fingers. I consider it a step up from my bad habit of scratching my eczema to shreds. Seriously, my hands were just big open wounds of moderate to severe levels over a span of 10 years. I’ve realized that some of my fingertips are smoothing out from the constant picking, almost like a callous, like Marge Simpsons’s quilting finger.

So now sometimes I feel like Kevin Spacey’s character in Seven because I’m losing my fingerprints. It’s kind of cool.

Dailies 12/06/13

Daily Doodle: Exhale

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Song of the Day: The Hole by The Soul of John Black

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMQwgngbhlk

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Musical Pipe Dream: I’m chillin in a quiet corner of a small venue, enjoying the music and remembering when I decided to change my life.

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Blurb 1/365: Today I felt like remembering back on the first day I started dailies. I made a commitment to at least draw one thing everyday for a year. Every other day before this, I’d wish that I would do something creative but end up sleeping or loafing instead, blame the fact that I worked too many long hours and didn’t have time, be angry that nobody wanted to pay me money for my good ideas.

The truth is that even if I had people to listen to my good ideas, all the time in the world, less stress, nobody would see what I wanted to share if I didn’t do something about it.

My first drawing shows that I have my certain style and quirky ideas, but I didn’t have any practice at all. Drawings took me 2 hours and the end product looked labored. I love those first drawings but I also love how much quicker I’ve gotten and also not obsessing over every line and its width and the exact girth of a chubby circle. The first big step was posting something that I wasn’t 100% proud of. If I waited for that, I probably still wouldn’t have posted anything.

I love music and picking songs of the day and imagining being part of them has opened my mind to touch instruments and just play around with sounds. I could invest in lessons, but I really don’t have the money or the time to commit to practicing. I realize now that doesn’t mean I can’t make music. Though I won’t profess to be a professional by any means, ha.

My first Daily Doodle & Blurb: Me at Chipotle.

My first Song of the Day & Musical Pipe Dream: The Hole by The Soul of John Black with me imagining I’m singing backup and playing the drums.

That song is really awesome and I can’t recall how I came upon it. Maybe a recommendation from a friend, or maybe I was looking up all of the intro songs from The Wire. I dunno, but I think it has significance.

I spent time in a dark place of my own and I think I needed to be there and avoid doing anything creative possibly for me to realize how good it feels to now share what’s inside of my head. Sometimes I go back to dark places, that’s my business and I don’t think it’s all that unhealthy. We can’t be in sunshine all the time. The good thing is that instead of choosing to be happy, I just am. And when things get tough, I can actually make the choice not to be angry.

It may be mellow dramatic to feel like this, but I think doing dailies has changed my life. I’m being myself more and more everyday.

On my journey to mid-March 2014, there’s a detour down Memory Lane:

http://auntiepesto.tumblr.com/post/45090895822/dailies-03-10-13