This is sad. Young Japanese pro wrestler, Hana Kimura kills herself after getting a lot of trolls and cyberbullies attacking her online. It was over a reality show she was in when she lived in a house in Tokyo with three men and three women (she was one of the women, of course).

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hana-kimura-dead-pro-wrestler-terrace-house-contestant-dies-at-22-1295776

I am someone who has dealt with a lot of cyberbullying and trolls getting at me for many years. I still do have that problem even to this day but you know what? I learned to stay strong, learned to stay above it all and ignore it all. I used to get upset with trolls and cyberbullies but I don’t anymore. When someone online attacks me, I just ignore it and let it slide by.

The internet and social media certainly does suck and cyberbullying definitely is a problem. The weird part about all of this is, I try to point out that trolls online attack constantly but no one believes me… most everyone says it’s all my fault ’cause they think I should watch what I say and I wouldn’t get that stuff which I always thought it was bullshit. I just get so many people bashing me, making fun of me and things like that, you know the deal?

I’ve been cyberbullied long before social media, though… I’ve gotten attacked through local music forums like Crumbs, glensfallsrock, etc… all because I just wanted to get my music out there like everyone else. I’ve also been attacked by this defunct music website called Rock and Roll Confidential (good riddance, btw).

Cyberbullying really is getting out of hand and it’s getting worse. Yes, blogs, social media and all that gives you all these options to take care of cyberbullying and trolls with “blocking”, “deleting”, etc. but that still doesn’t stop any of it even though that helps.

Over the years, though, I’ve noticed that cyberbullies only attack you anonymously, though. They don’t want their identities revealed ’cause they’re afraid their reputation might get destroyed or they’re scared you might report them to police… things like that, ya know?

Cyberbullying is a problem for sure. There’s nothing you can do about it but ignore them, I’ve gotten way better with that, though.

Yeah, the internet is one crazy messed up world for sure. You just gotta learn to toughen up, stay above it all and stay strong, ya know? That’s what I do. Just say fuck everyone, ya know? That’s all you can do.

RIP to Hana, though… she didn’t deserve that.

Kev

As promised, I will make my David Bowie live stream tribute show happen real soon. Just rehearsing the songs really hard still ’cause I want to take my time and do them good so I can make I do them justice. I don’t want to mess up lyrics and guitar parts while performing live-stream so that’s why I gotta give them some more time to practice my Bowie set.

I realized that I actually have 12 Bowie songs written on the setlist so it’s gonna be a 12 song set for the Bowie tribute. I already gave a few songs away of what I’m planning to do like “Blackstar” and “Starman” but that’s all I’ll name for now. I will be doing his greatest hits to some obscure Bowie songs no one knows about.

While I’m working on these songs and practicing, I’m really blown away at how much of a musical genius he really was. Remember, he was more than just a great singer. He was also a great guitar player and a great lyricist as well. I think Bowie’s lyrics were pretty awesome, though. As you listen to Bowie’s music, you can easily tell that he came up with all these songs directly from his head… he definitely knew what he wanted out of his songs. He definitely had a good ear. He made the type of music he wanted to make.

Bowie is one of those music artists that you never get tired of listening to. Yeah, Bowie may have been a liberal guy and he was probably a Democrat voter but who cares… his music was still beautiful stuff.

Working on these Bowie covers is inspiring me to get back into songwriting again myself.

Kev

So today, I was trying to figure out all this “live stream” stuff out since I never done it before. After a little investigation and playing around, I found that I couldn’t go on FB livestream ’cause I needed to install the Chrome Beta version of Chrome and so that’s what I did. I upgraded Google Chrome to Beta earlier today and Livestream there seems to be working fine.

I really want to use my hand held JVC Everio camera that I bought years ago but I need a camera connection converter box in order for me to use my Everio camera for live streaming, though. I’ll order one of those sometime in the future but for now, I’m just gonna use the built in webcam on this computer which seems to work fine.

Messing around with this live stream and preparing for it… I tested out my Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 audio interface so I can live stream the mic and guitar and that seems to work perfectly fine as well. You’re gonna really hear me really good with the microphone and guitar plugged in.

I’ve been rehearsing these ten David Bowie songs for my upcoming Bowie tribute that I’m dying to do and the songs are coming along really well. I think I’ll be able to nail them good enough and do ’em justice like I’ve been promising. If my David Bowie tribute show gets enough views, if it actually gets some views and enough people likes it… I’ll end up doing another Bowie tribute… do a part II and play 10 different songs in the set. For this tribute though, I got a good set planned and I think you’ll all really like it. I’ve been working on these songs ’cause I want to do ’em good and promise I won’t disappoint.

I’ve been trying to figure out ways to livestream on multiple social media platforms at once… be able to livestream on FB, Instagram and youtube but it’s all a real hassle and a pain in the ass so I’m not gonna do it. So what I’m gonna do is play my livestream tribute to Bowie on FB first and then bring the tribute show to Instagram and Youtube after. I’ll upload separate songs to IG and youtube.

Can’t wait to do this and I may go live for this first time this weekend. We’ll see.

Kev

Some of you may wonder what TV show I am watching during this country lockdown… well I’m currently watching “The Sopranos” on Hulu. HBO just unlocked some of their stuff for free, a bunch of their shows and some movies… not all of them just some of them. So since the Sopranos is for free on Hulu for now, I figure I would watch this one.

I’ve already seen the first 5 seasons in the past when I used to subscribe to HBO NOW for a little while but then I stopped subscribing and only watched the first 5 seasons. Now that the show is for free on HULU and also HBO NOW, I thought I would re-start the show from the beginning as a refresher and I still remember every single episode. That’s okay ’cause this is one show that is worth watching repeatedly ’cause it’s that damn good.

I think HBO Unlocked is gonna be gone sometime this week so I probably won’t get to finish the whole show in time. I’ve never seen the 6th season yet which is the final season of the show which I need to get to.

I’ll probably watch season 4 this week and if Hulu locks HBO back up, I’ll find other ways to watch seasons 5 & 6. I’m probably gonna end up buying the Sopranos BluRay box set as pictured above which is gonna be $90 on amazon and I would like to own that for my BluRay collection. It’s definitely the best show on television… entertaining as hell and funny too ’cause it’s a comedy as well, it’s not just a crime drama.

What show will I watch after this? I’m thinking of giving “Tiger King” a shot since everyone’s talking about it and I’ll check it out for myself. I was meaning to get to that show too as it’s on my watchlist on Netflix.

Kev

When you’re learning cover songs, you don’t always have to play them or sing them the same way on the album. When I watch people play cover songs on youtube/facebook, most of them don’t play cover songs the same way on the album. A lot of times musicians would change the arrangements around so that the song can fit their voice. Can’t sing the really high notes??? Don’t be afraid to transpose and go lower in key.

That’s what a lot of music artists do with their own songs really. There are a lot of national bands and artists that never play the song the same way twice. Go listen to any band and artists and you’ll hear that they play so many different versions of their hits especially David Bowie. There are a lot of times when Bowie sung his hits live he transposed to lower keys ’cause he couldn’t sing high anymore. Plus, many bands and artists came up with different versions of their songs live to make things interesting.

Back to doing cover songs, I think musicians playing the songs note for note and doing it the same way on the album is overrated. You don’t have to do cover songs like that. Make the cover songs sound like “you”. That’s what I try to do anyway.

People wonder why I do so many cover songs well it’s ’cause I love doing them for starters. They’re fun to do and I want to show people that I can be a real musician too. There’s something about doing covers. I just want to learn all the songs that I’ve loved over the years. They don’t have to be just big hits that everyone knows although, I do like playing big radio hits. I just do cover songs for fun and that’s all, though.

Don’t take yourself serious as a musician. Just play and enjoy.

Kev

Just a little preview of my upcoming Bowie tribute live stream show that I’m working on. Just to show you a little preview that way I can show you that I’m really working on it and planning on it.

Me doing “Starman”. It’s a work=in progress so it’s not perfect. It’s a hard one to sing ’cause David sings really high in the chorus but I’m getting it, though.

Enjoy.

Kev

So here is the list of albums I got from Itunes this month… enjoy…

• David Bowie “David/Live” – I have most of Bowie’s studio albums but don’t have much of his live albums. He’s got a lot of live albums so I thought, why not start now? I’ve heard that “David/Live” is his best live album so I went for that one. It’s a double live album that was released in 1974, a classic album and gonna listen to it this week.
• David Bowie “Young Americans” – Bowie has 25 studio albums in his entire discography and I just about got them all so I added another album of his “Young Americans” an older album that I don’t have yet.
• ZZ Top “ZZ Top’s First Album” – Been getting into ZZ Top a lot lately and they’re getting addicting so I grabbed another album of theirs. Their very first record.
• The Violent Femmes (1983 self titled debut) – Used to have this album on CD years ago so I decided to get it again. Love this record. It’s a classic album and had to get it. Listened to it yesterday during my walk and still love the album.
• Dire Straits (1978 self titled debut) – I have most Dire Straits albums and trying to get them all too so I grabbed their first album. Love Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler is a talented guy.
• Ac/Dc “Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap” – Grabbed another old Ac/Dc album and also been trying to collect their whole album catalog, almost there too.

I love music and love supporting bands & artists regardless of their political views. It’s the music that matters most.

Kev

Over the weekend I ordered some stuff from amazon… I ordered 4 films on Blu Ray and 3 Batman graphic novels.

While I was browsing through amazon over the weekend, I was looking at the BluRay movie section and was trying to decide what movies I wanted. There were plenty that I wanted. There were plenty of new releases that I wanted to see but I was amazed that most of the new releases were out of stock. Even a lot of older films and bluray box sets that I wanted were out of stock.

Crazy. It’s understandable though ’cause you can’t go shopping at stores like Best Buy, FYE, and Barnes & Noble. Those 3 major retail stores all sell BluRay movies and you can’t go out and buy that stuff at the store for the time being… so people are hoarding BluRay movies on amazon.

This is also why you see those amazon cards being sold out at stores too. You can’t go shopping anywhere, can’t go to the malls so people do all their shopping on amazon. So if you’re shopping at amazon, you’ll have to expect to see a lot of things “out of stock”.

So yeah, I ended up picking 4 BluRay movies and 3 Batman graphic novels. The 3 Batman graphic novels that I got were in a triple box set. I’ll show you all what I got when I get these things dropped off here which they should get dropped off sometime this week. I’ll post a picture of these things on my Instagram.

I also purchased 6 more albums for my Itunes.

Why am I doing all this digital shopping lately? Well, with this country lockdown and shit, might as well ’cause what are you gonna do? Can’t do anything out there so I gotta find ways to entertain myself too. Gotta do something with yourself. I’m doing my best to defeat boredom too.

Kev

Yesterday, I went out for a long walk throughout my small hometown of Middle Falls since the weather was so nice out… weather is so nice out that you can finally go outside without a coat on. I went walking without a coat on yesterday and it’s that type of weather again today.

Today is a lot warmer and I’ll probably go out for another long walk today. Why not, ya know? There is no gym and each time the weather is decent, I’ll go out for a walk just to get my cardio in and try my best to keep my muscle. Also, to stay in shape and lose bodyfat too.

As I went out for my walk yesterday, I’m noticing that pretty much every house I went by, you see people outdoors. Ya know, people just sitting outside in their lawns enjoying the fresh air, also you see people doing yard work, doing projects outside, kids outside playing and all that stuff. I’m sure you’ll be seeing more of that.

Why is that, you ask? Well, most families and people are so used to working all the time and since they are out of work… they’re bored just like the rest of us. Just fucking bored sitting in their homes all day during rainy and cold weather during Spring. Now that it finally feels like fucking Spring, everybody is outside… doing their best to try and defeat boredom by doing stuff outside.

The news and Democrats successfully pushed Social distancing and facemask wearing, they got away with that garbage and now those phonies are trying to push “stay indoors” which they are failing, though.

I thought it was amazing to see almost every home I went by and with people outside… all over the street. You hardly ever see that since people are working week after week so they can keep their homes.

I hear them, though. I’m the same way, I’m bored sitting indoors myself so whenever the weather’s nice… I’ll go for my long walks or take a bike ride or just do yardwork some.

The news are now trying to freak us out by going outside, just their sneaky way of trying to get us to stay indoors but it’s not gonna work. Can see you now how the news and the government can easily control every aspect of our lives? Hope you’re all enjoying your first taste of that. People get in trouble for going outdoors and get frowned upon which is insane, in my opinion but fuck ’em.

You can’t tell people what to do and control them. I don’t agree with social distancing and face-mask wearing but I do it anyways just keep the panic-pushers and Doomsdayers happy. I’m not afraid of this virus at all ’cause the numbers are inaccurate and this virus can easily be recovered from. Nobody wants to talk about the high recovery numbers… they all want to talk about the high death numbers which are all lies.

I see all this as a social experiment by the government… you don’t think they have that power to get rid of our social freedoms? Of course they do. Those days of meeting new people in public places could be over for good.

We gotta fight back for our rights which all them protests is a good thing. It’s time to open the country back up. I’m fed up with it myself. The country lockdown was pointless, unnecessary and it was nothing but abuses of power by the government.

Kev