My dad would have turned 74 years old this week. That means it's been about 8 years without him to celebrate it. In honor of his birthday, Don Cheadle is releasing a movie based on one of Dad's favorite musicians.

But besides that, I've done a lame job on this particular New Years Resolution, writing more. But I've been extremely busy so that is okay. Great things have been happening my friends!

It's been over a year since my last radiation treatment. It's been over 7 months since my foot surgery. It's been almost 2 months at my new fantastic paralegal job. And the most exciting news for me is, after an extremely long dry spell which included a pretty nasty divorce from an exhausting marriage and going through cancer without a partner,  it's now been about 3 months since I started dating a really awesome man that so far has done everything right. Everything is really going well. I can't complain about anything.

Also, I bet I've listened to more music this year than I have listened to in the last ten years. That is an amazing thing too? What have I been listening too?  I started this year visiting a few record sales. You know, the kind where they have table after table stacked with records. Some are in really bad condition. Some are really bad records. Some are really great records in bad condition and those were really tempting. I did manage to find some decent records that were in the $1 stacks. Mostly, I have been trying to round out my collection with some of my favorites, like Neil Young, Bob Marley, The Cars, Prince, The Police, U2 and so on. I've also found some obscure deals like Yo La Tengo and Roxy Music. I have gone off the jazz journey, per se, but jazz is still in light rotation on my turntable.

I pulled out of the Pandora radio trap and landed in a Spotify guilt trip. With all of the controversy on how terrible Spotify is to artists, I have not let that stop me from making it my outlet to replace the music programming I used to love to do for a living. I basically just make myself playlists for my listening enjoyment. The great thing about Spotify is that, other than Taylor Swift (which doesn't bother me) and Prince (which most certainly bothers me), you can find any song and any artist that you want at any time you want. I've got 18 hours of music from "when I was cool" which I consider to be anything prior to 1999 that may have been played on my college radio station, 88.5 FM, WRAS in Atlanta. Yes gotta give cred; I'm sick at what has happened to my first love at the hands of the Georgia State University administration and Georgia Public Broadcasting.

http://savewras.com/the-latest-updates/

Needless to say, it pisses me off!

So back to the good news. I have a boyfriend and he has a most excellent collection of music including a ton of vinyl records that I would LOVE to own! However . . . no jazz! : (
Since punk music is his number one genre, I decided to approach him with Art Blakey as the Tre Cool of jazz. He liked it. I can't say he loved it, but I don't have to break up with him or anything because he seems open to it. We almost had an argument about the blues, in that he says he hates the blues. But there is some blues that I hate too. Well, hate is a strong word. Anyway, our best conversations are about music so this is going to be fun!

Gotta get to work on my Spotify jazz playlist!