Random/off topic posts

Learning to become a drum programmer so I can put drum tracks for my songs…

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For a long while now, I’ve been learning how to become a drum programmer so I can learn how to put drum tracks behind my songs. Sometime in the future, I’m going to start making full band rock n’ roll songs and I want to do it all myself. Create my own backing tracks for my original music.

In order to be good with drum programming and all that stuff, you gotta have a good sense of rhythm and timing. I’m still learning and practicing all that too. Being good with the metronome or a click track is very important. If you want to be looked at as a real “musician”, gotta have a good sense of timing if you want people to take you seriously and I’m working on that.

In software like Garageband and Mixcraft, they have a digital drum set on them and I’m just practicing drum programming by using those for now. Sometime in the future, though, I plan on buying “EZ Drummer Toon Track” software which will be about $150 and I’m planning on buying one of those MIDI Drum pad machines too. You know those MIDI Drum pad gadgets where you push these large buttons to make drum sounds with, I’m gonna get one of those someday. That’s why I got an audio interface with a MIDI input on it so I can do MIDI stuff with the DAW.

Yeah, I really want to make my own full band rock n’ roll music and I’m doing all I can to get there. Just taking my slow time, ya know?

I’m also planning on writing full band acoustic ballads too ’cause with the power of MIDI instruments, I can also add orchestration, strings and other types of instruments which is what I want. I love writing and singing slower ballads so I’m not always gonna write hard rock songs. I like mixing it up.

Yeah, I will be writing original music again pretty soon ’cause I’ve been messing with some stuff and coming up with ideas.

People always ask me, “We haven’t heard anything new from you in a long while? Why?”

Well, the truth is, I only write when inspiration hits me. When songs come, they come. If they don’t, they don’t. I just write whenever, ya know? A lot lately, I’ve been spending more time learning cover songs than writing originals so I’m always playing. I’m itching for new originals myself and want to get new songs out.

When I’m writing originals, I’m always looking for ways to improve and get better than my last batch of songs. So you can expect my upcoming songs to be way different than my older stuff.

Kev

Health and Fitness

If you want something in powerlifting, you go do it and don’t listen to negativity…

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When you have goals and dreams you want to achieve in powerlifting, bodybuilding or whatever you want to do… yeah… people are gonna doubt you, call you delusional and be jealous of you but you can’t be listening to them.

Yeah, I do want to become a great powerlifter someday. People may think that goal is crazy and people might say that I’m full of myself and arrogant but don’t listen to them. In powerlifting, if you want something, you go get it. Honestly, that’s the reason everybody gets into powerlifting ’cause they all hope to become the greatest powerlifter someday. That is definitely my goal and I’m gonna do all I can to make it come true. Just gotta ignore all the haters and doubters and keep reaching out for it.

There will always be people who will act like I’m doing no good in powerlifting but you don’t want to listen to them either. This is about you and no one else.

I got into powerlifting hoping to achieve great things ’cause you can only live once, ya know? I wasn’t able to play sports over the years of my life due to my scoliosis and since I do powerlifting, this is my chance to do great things in life.

A lot of people already are liking what I’m doing which is why I’m trying to post more videos of my lifting. Admittedly, my numbers in powerlifting could be better but I’m still pretty new to this and got a lot of work to do still. I’ve already been lifting weights for years but powerlifting is pretty new to me. I wish the powerlifting veterans would treat the newbies with more respect ’cause the “newbies” don’t get treated well. When you’re just starting out, gotta get ready for the know it alls and big shots to get all over you ’cause that will happen.

Just ignore negativity from people and you will make your dreams come true.

Kev

music

Dave Mustaine of Megadeth is now battling throat cancer, hope he gets speedy recovery…

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DaveMustaine.jpg

Dave Mustaine announced on his instagram page that he is now battling throat cancer. This really sucks ’cause Dave is one of my favorite musicians, guitarist and singer of all time. I freakin’ love Megadeth and they’re one of my favorite bands.

Some of you may ask is throat cancer curable? Is throat cancer a death sentence? No… throat cancer is not a death sentence and it can be curable. Doing a little reading on throat cancer; however, it can be curable only if the malignant cells doesn’t spread beyond the neck and the head of the body. If the bad cells spreads at other parts of the body then your life could be over pretty soon.

I’m sure Dave’s throat cancer will have a negative affect on Dave’s singing so I’m sure he won’t be able to sing for a little while which is why they had to cancel most Megadeth shows.

Anyway, the band are at work in the studio for their 16th album and from what I’m seeing, I don’t think Dave recorded vocals for the new album yet but I’m sure he will record the vocals if his doctors give him the permission. I’m sure they’ll finish the new album this year.

Like everyone else, I’m hoping Dave fights this cancer hard and gets a speedy recovery. This should be easily cured, hopefully.

I am looking forward to the new album. I love Megadeth… have loved them for a very long time and I’m trying to collect all of their albums too.

Best wishes go out to Dave. He’s got this!

Kev

Health and Fitness

People are catching on with my lifting on social media, there’s a bit of a buzz going around and it’s amazing…

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I don’t mean to brag but I feel the need to do this with this post and can’t help myself. Everywhere I go, some random person would come up to me and say they follow my lifting on instagram like with my bodybuilding and powerlifting stuff that I do. I get some family members that follow what I do and sometimes I even get complete strangers coming up to me telling they like what I do online when it comes to weightlifting. In the weightlifting world, you really can grow a fan following and get supporters which is amazing to me and I’m humbled.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe they like what I do is that they admire the fact that I’m a 40 something lifter who weighs about 147 lbs. and lifting kind of semi-heavy weights. This is kind of one of the reasons I got into powerlifting for is to hopefully win over respect by people and it is already starting to happen.

Just you wait, y’all. This is only the beginning of what I do. Wait until you start seeing me hitting the bigger weights sometime in the future. My goal in powerlifting is to be able to smash a 500 lb. or over deadlift and squat and to be able to smash a 300 lb. bench or over. It’ll take some more years to get up to the real big ones but I’ll get there, though. I’m just taking my time and not getting too ahead of myself in powerlifting.

I would love to do my first USAPL powerlifting meet but I’m not gonna rush for that one. I’m gonna wait to hit the big weights first and then maybe I’ll think about doing USAPL. For now, I’ll just stick with doing powerlifting meets at the local ones like Albany Strength and the YMCA.

When I talk to people in public, I always get compliments about my bodybuilding physique and they are always shocked how strong I am. When people give me hugs or wrap their arm around my shoulder, people always get shocked about my strength. I was told by someone last night that I’m solid as a rock. I can’t tell my own strength so I just let other people do the judging.

People talking about my weightlifting on social media is great though and that’s a part of what helps keep me motivated to keep going to the gym 4 days a week.

I don’t do all of this for myself, though… I’m hoping to inspire others and hoping to motivate people to hit the gym and get into fitness too. Some people have gone to the gym ’cause of me.

It’s all pretty mind-blowing really.

In the bodybuilding and powerlifting world, do I hope to become famous for it? I don’t know. Not really but I do hope to get recognized for it a little bit. I’m not afraid to say it. If I want to get recognized nationally in powerlifting, I got to start doing the national powerlifting meets in the USAPL and I will in the future.

I love powerlifting. It’s an incredible sport and I’m happy that I get to do a sport that I can do.

Kev

Random/off topic posts

“You don’t have to be positive all of the time, having feelings doesn’t make you a negative person”…

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Over the years of my life, people always complained of the way I am especially online. People often complained about my online ranting. When I have certain opinions on things and if I disagreed with others, people would be unhappy with that. I’ve always been accused of being a negative person… always having an attitude and being argumentative with people.

Maybe all that is true, admittedly but ya know what? There is nothing wrong with that. It’s all about being human and being true to yourself. That’s how I’ve always been really. I’m a human being with real feelings and I was never afraid to express it all.

People always expect me to be positive 24/7 and they want me to be positive all the time but they seem to get disappointed when I’m not positive all the time. That’s okay ’cause life would be boring as fuck if I was positive 24/7.

I’m allowed to have differences of opinion and I’m allowed to disagree with people. I’ve always been about being honest with myself but nope, I’ve always been the big bad Brock like how people treated me online.

I’ve been called an internet troll and people thought I was posting things for “shock factor” as a way to get a reaction out of things. Nope. It’s just me being real. If something’s on my mind, I’m gonna say it. I try to be positive most of the time but I speak for myself, ya know?

I’ve always been honest and real but unfortunately, that’s not gonna make everybody happy. People don’t get it yet that I’m a human being with real feelings but that’s okay. I’m not changing for anyone and you shouldn’t either. Nothing wrong with being yourself. If you’re pissing people off then you must be doing something right.

Kev

Politics/war

Happy 73rd birthday, President Trump…

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So President Trump turns 73 today. I was one of those millions of Americans who helped voted him in. It wasn’t the Russians that interfered with the elections to help him. The election was fair and square. Trump won by the American people voting him in even though it was a rigged election by the Democrats.

I don’t regret my Trump vote at all as I will proudly vote for him again in 2020.

Trump is not gonna get impeached. He’s not going to prison and he’s not going to lose 2020 either. An easy re-election is coming. The Trump base is getting bigger and bigger and we’ll prove it once again in 2020.

Yes, the Trump haters are getting aggressive and getting even more childish which is amazing to see really, but I’m never going to abandon Trump just because they want me to. I’m gonna stick to my guns and support him no matter what the haters say.

It is funny, though… that each time lefties bash Trump in social media like FB/twitter… all they do is call him nasty names but they can never come up with examples of what makes him a bad guy. It’s like… all I see lefties is calling him all kinds of different names like racist, xenophobic, sexist, traitor, sexual predator, homophobic and they even went as far as calling him a pedophile. Lefties never cease to amaze me. They call him all that garbage and they can’t come up with examples or even proof like I said. It’s pathetic.

When it comes to me hating on Obama, I always come up with examples and specifics. It’s easy to explain why we hate Obama but lefties can never think of a single reason to hate Trump.

Lefties think everyone in Trump’s administration is a bad person… and that’s even crazier. The thing is that lefties despises people who are conservative and Republican… that’s why they do what they do, ya know? They live in this delusional world that “the right” are evil people.

The world of politics is pretty crazy right now and it’s getting even crazier as 2020 elections approaches. I’m so glad I don’t see myself as a liberal. People don’t like me being “conservative” but that’s tough. I would rather be a conservative than be a liberal who’s always angry and seems unhappy all of the time. I see myself as a happy and positive person and lefties aren’t that at all.

I am proud to be a die-hard Trump supporter ’cause we really needed him. I don’t agree with everything Trump says and does but I’m not gonna hate on him like a child. He really was the best thing for the country and anybody who doesn’t think so is brainwashed by the liberal media or better known as “Fake News”. There was no way I was gonna vote for Hillary. Couldn’t do it. I won’t vote for Biden or Bernie either. Trump’s the best president we’ve had since Reagan. I’m really impressed by Trump and can’t wait to hit the voting booth again in 2020.

Happy birthday, President Trump and thanks for all you do!

Kev

Health and Fitness

“Ironman” powerlifting meet confirmed for Albany Strength on Aug. 30th… I’m definitely competing for this…

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So another powerlifting meet at Albany Strength has been confirmed for Friday evening, August 30th. I can’t wait and pretty stoked. I’m definitely competing for this one no matter what.

My goals for this meet is that I want to smash a 300 lb. deadlift or over and I hope to smash a 200 lb. bench for this one. I have plenty of time for me to reach both goals and I believe I can achieve ’em. Just gotta stay consistent with my strength training for bench and deadlift week after week and I will.

This time I won’t stop the heavy lifting too early before a powerlifting meet. It’s more appropriate to stop the heavy lifting 1 week out before a meet.

If I don’t make it to a 200 lb. bench in time before this meet and I could only get 170 – 190 lbs., I’ll take it. I’m hoping to get 200 lb. bench in time. I’m doing all I can to get there. So far, my best bench as my 1 rep max is 160 lbs. so I’m almost there to the big 200 lbs. Since I just did a 150 lb. bench for a triple last week, I would think my estimated pr. could be about 165 or 170 lb.

I’m planning to max out again in a few weeks so I can see what my best deadlift and bench are for this meet. That way I can decide what my openers and 2nd attempts will be.

Once again, I want to keep getting better and better at every powerlifting meet I do. I want my numbers to keep going up and up and up and up. That’s how you want to do powerlifting, ya know? You don’t want your numbers staying the same or going down ’cause that’s bad. You want to keep getting better every time so you got to be careful and train smart. I am trying and I’m going to kill it at this next meet, trust me. Hoping to make it to 2nd or 1st place in my weight class if I’m lucky enough and I’m gonna do all I can.

And yes, I will film plenty of video footage and will make another videoblog for “My Story – Part 3”. Now I have a new Ipod Touch with an HD camera on it, there will be much improved video footage coming.

I’m gonna work real hard for this meet all summer. As always, last thing I want to do is disappoint the spectators and the judges. I’m gonna try to get 3 white lights on everything this time. At the last powerlifting meet there, I only missed one lift and won’t do that again. If I want to smash a 300 lb. deadlift or over successfully, I need to make my first two attempts much lighter to help save some in the tank. That’s the trick.

Kev

Politics/war

Here we go, New York State is trying to normalize prostitution…

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Scary shit. Since douchebag Cuomo is our governor, I wouldn’t be surprised that he’ll be all for this and he signs this to law if the bill gets to his desk. The two female senators who introduced this bill are both you guess it ***cough*** Democrats ***cough***. Prostitutes belong in jail, not out on the streets selling their bodies. We don’t need this in New York.

If this becomes legal in New York State, I can see other states following suit and will try to do the same thing… legalize prostitution all over America.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-york-prostitution-legalization-sex-work-decriminalization/?fbclid=IwAR3o-CWyCSoV93jN9hEePFWw5sCzlY7B-SF7u63oxr_rG58qFgfjAOBFcbk

Ya see, first lefties rammed homosexuality and gay marriage down our throats. Now they were successful at legalizing gay marriage in America that will lead to crazy things such as legalizing prostitution and things like that.

Why do those two NY Democratic female senators wanna legalize prostitution in NY? They want these hookers to be protected from street violence and stop them from getting arrested. These nutjobs actually think “sex work is like a normal job”. Really?

Um, no you dingbats. “Sex work” isn’t a job… it’s a crime. They should be thrown in jail and not out in the streets selling their bodies. I see men in social media getting excited for this and that’s even scarier. Why is prostitution illegal in America? Well, for a lot of reasons… diseases for starters, drugs is another reason, could lead to underage sex, could lead to domestic violence, it helps pimps, less protection for women, etc. I can go on and on.

If these NY Senators think legalizing prostitution will help “protect” these women, they are delusional. I think they want to legalize “prostitution” ’cause I think they were prostitutes at some point in their life… that wouldn’t surprise me at all.

What I’m seeing in liberal New York is getting scarier and scarier. New York is still a “left-wing” state and it’s pissing me off. I can’t blame more people for moving out of this state.  Good for them, really.

Kev

 

Health and Fitness

Bad gym etiquette… totally out of control and getting much worse???

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Yeah, commercial gyms are all over America now. Chances are, you probably have a public gym in your local town. Commercial gyms are very popular and mainstream in America. Yeah, a lot of people go to them but at the same time, I’m noticing that local gyms all over the place are slowing down. Gyms have a lot of members. There are some members of gyms that work out week after week and there are those who go to a gym for a while and then give it up later.

I’ve been going to the gym for over 10 years now so I’ve seen all that goes on. When you go to a public gym where there will be other people around, you’ll have to realize that you’re going to see a lot of weirdos and also see a lot of careless people about a public place.

Every time I go to my local gym, it’s amazing to me how many people don’t care to re-rack their weights when they’re done with a piece of equipment. Happens all of the fucking time. Each time I go to a gym and it still happens, I’ll see people just leave weights on a bench press, a leg press machine and people leave weights on a squat rack too. I’ve seen people leave dumbbells at the other side of the gym and didn’t bring it back to the rack and I’ve seen people put number of dumbbell racks way out of order of the way they’re supposed to be in. Also, people leave trash behind all the time.

When I see this stuff, I have no problem putting the weights back and picking up trash even though I didn’t leave them there just to show respect to a public gym. Yeah, there are staff members that work at the gym but they don’t go around picking up trash and putting the weights back after people leave ’em. When the place is slow, the staff just sits at the front desk being a lazy bum and there is no gym director (the boss/supervisor). There is a gym director but this person is hardly ever around.

I love my Greenwich gym but the place is a mess and gym etiquette is horrible in this place. People are real dumb for sure. Not only people not re-racking weights and leaving trash behind is a real problem… it gets worse here. Equipment hogging is a real problem here… people taking forever to use something when I need to use that thing… people taking forever on a piece of equipment pisses me the fuck off. Your sets should only take like 20 or 30 minutes… not an hour or over. People talking on their cell phones during their workouts gets annoying. That real chatty person trying to chat me up while I’m working out also pisses me off and it’s happening more and more. Look, I enjoy talking to people at the gym but not during my workouts, y’all. I’m fine socializing with people before or after my workouts but during is a no no.

Another thing that gets on my nerves is people super-setting. You see people super-setting at gyms all the time. You know what super-setting is that’s when people do a workout after another without rests in between… they switch back and forth. You need to use a piece of equipment and you think that person is done with it and nope. This person says he/she is still using it due to “super-setting”. So dumb. I’m probably one of the very few who don’t “super-set” ’cause I think it’s dumb and useless. “Super-setting” is just a way for ego-lifters to piss off others in the gym. I don’t super-set. I do my 4 sets of 12 reps on a workout, finish that and move on to the next workout.

Also dropping dumbbells to the floor continues to be a problem. Guys doing dumbbell chest presses or shoulder presses on a bench and they just drop heavy dumbbells to the floor. They don’t realize that it’s disrespectful to the dumbbells. Those things are expensive and when you break ’em, you could be paying them for the gym. Also, you could hurt someone dropping dumbbells to the floor.

While people at gyms are dumb and wacky, I just go to the gym and do my own thing. I don’t worry about everyone else and what’s going on. People just don’t care about public places and they are not smart at all when it comes to the gym.

I would love to make my own home gym but I can’t as of this moment which is why I go to a public gym but if I ever did make my own home gym…. say goodbye to gym memberships. Having my own home gym is a dream of mine, though. You don’t really need much for a home gym. All you need is a power rack, a bench, barbells, weights, dumbbells and that’s pretty much it. You can get all that stuff cheap on craigslist or even yard sales. I would love to get a home gym so I no longer have to deal with people’s shit at a public gym.

Bad gym etiquette is getting much worse. It’s crazy.

Kev

 

Celebrity news, movies

Thoughts on Justin Bieber vs. Tom Cruise fight, who do I think will win???

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Well, I think Tom Cruise will win, of course. As you all should know by now Justin Bieber challenged iconic actor Tom Cruise to an MMA fight in the Octagon and requested Dana White to do it for them. I know Biebs is probably joking but who knows, maybe he’s actually pretty serious and this fight could end up happening for real. It’s gonna be interesting to see how Tom is gonna respond to this.

Some of you may ask, why would Biebs challenge Tom to a fight? Does he hate him? No. Not at all. I don’t think Biebs hate Tom at all as I think he’s probably a huge fan of Tom’s movies. Justin probably watched the “Jack Reacher” and “Mission Impossible” movies and thought it would be funny to challenge Tom to a fight.

Some of you may say, “Well, movies aren’t real and Tom really doesn’t know how to fight.” Oh yes he does! While Tom didn’t have any martial arts and MMA experience, he was a wrestler back in his high school years so he does know some “fighting” skills before Hollywood.

Look at the response in this post in Quora:

https://www.quora.com/Did-Tom-Cruise-have-martial-arts-training-early-before-filming-his-first-Mission-Impossible-film-1996

Movies maybe fake but since Tom wanted to do all of his own stunts, including all of the fighting… yes, all the fighting scenes he has done over the years in movies were all him. I’m sure he was trained by martial arts professionals and MMA coaches to learn how to fight for film so Tom definitely does have plenty of fighting experience in film.

I think everybody knows that. Maybe Biebs doesn’t really want to fight Tom at all, he’s just joking and stuff, ya know? I think this is just Biebs way of showing Tom respect for doing his own fighting in action films. People are finally starting to catch on about Tom doing his own stunts and people are finally starting to give him respect for it.

I’m pretty sure Tom will respond to this challenge. I’m sure he already heard about it. Will Tom accept and could it actually happen??? Who knows. I doubt it will ’cause Tom is a pretty busy guy and I’m sure he has better things to do like making movies. He’s still working on “Top Gun 2” right now, I believe. I’m sure Tom heard about that tweet Justin posted and I’m sure Tom had a good laugh about it. Hopefully Tom responds this week.

Kev

The Official Music Website of Kevin Brock – Brocking N' Rolling