Writings on medium

 Trying out Medium for my new writings. I have been working on my life story so far, and a smattering of other topics. https://medium.com/@guitarsean

Moving

My blog has been moved to Sean Gill - blog. This site will remain as an archive. Thanks!

Entire history so far

I've been lately thinking about the past. Hopefully not in a mopey, nostalgic way. It just seemed like a good time to look back and see where I've been. It's a personality flaw of mine to never stop and smell the roses. I'm always charging on to the next problem, often causing myself stress in thinking I'm not getting anything done. I have to remind myself sometimes that I have gotten a few things done.

The quick list and brief rundown of every band I've ever been in. There may be a few short lived entities I've forgotten. Like my first live performance ever. My freshman year of High School, some homecoming function. I remember playing a few Metallica covers. I can't recall what the name of that group was. Some of my dates are fuzzy, too. It's still kind of surprising to me how much I've done, how many bands are on this list. And if my count s right today today I've been involved in one way or other with 22 official album or ep releases.

Perpetual Motion - (c. 1991-1992?) mostly Metallica, Maiden and Primus covers, a few originals, played some shows, morphed into:
Three Blind Mice - (c. 1992-94) played shows, recorded: S/T, Red Beans and Mice
Fishboy - (c. 1993-1996) mostly a duo project, a couple acoustic shows, recorded: Elders, Driving Down This Road, Improv
Big Brown Newport - (c. 1994-1996, semi-active again as of 2010) I played bass, played a lot of shows, recorded: BBNII, Part Time, Mogwai, Appleton Session
Strange Land - (c. 1998-present) lots of shows, recorded: Foundation ep (1999), Anomaly (2001), ProgPower ep (2002), Blaming Season (2004), Catharsis (2008), Singles (2011-12), ∆v (2014)
Catherine Scholz (c. 1999-2000?), played shows, help record/engineer some songs for an ep.
ABS Blues Band (c. 2008-2010), played some shows, mostly covers, a few originals. No completed recordings
Soaker - (c. 2005) recorded some tracks, no shows
The Well - (c. 2008-2010) played shows, recorded some demo tracks
Trinity Demask (c. 2010-2011, still on call to sub) played a bunch of shows
Delusionist - (c. 2010-2012) played shows, recorded demos
Solo - (c. 1998-present) played a heap of shows, recorded: Book Of Ashes (1999), Driving Empty Miles (2001), October Dust (2004), This Is What It Sounds Like Inside My Head (2007), Anode (2014), Better Days (2015)
Stone Soup Soldiers - (c. 2010-present) studio project, recorded: Street Art (2012), various film work

Other notable groups:
Greater MKE Youth Jazz Ensemble
UWM Jazz Ensemble (recorded a cd)
Wisconsin Conservatory of Music Classical Quartet

I've been awarded an engineer of the year award from the progressive rock hall of fame (sadly mostly defunct). I've been teaching private music lessons since 1993. I've taught at many different locations, and even have a student online in New Zealand as of this writing.

I have a number of songs placed with song libraries, and the Stone Soup Soldiers project has had some success with independent films and the Outdoor Channel. In 2014 played occasional bass and guitar with The Most Ever Company, led by composer Dexter Ford. Mostly oddball prog influenced by Captain Beefheart, Zappa, Yes, and others, along with random covers (sometimes played straight, sometimes mutated).

Mass Effect

I've never written a video game review. I'm not a hardcore gamer by any means. But upon having completed one pass through the trilogy, I feel compelled to discuss Mass Effect. Perhaps that's just a sign of its quality. The story is over and I need to talk about it. And yeah, it's probably odd that I'm reviewing/defending a game several years after the big kerfuffle. I started this post a while ago, and as of now I'm on my 3rd time through. I don't want to leave the Mass Effect world.

Character continuity
Mass Effect allows you to import your character from the previous game. This means that decisions you make in Mass Effect 1 have impact on the rest of the series. If you can play all 3 on one system, do so. If you can't, try to get you hands on the interactive comic prequel add on. It summarizes the events of ME1 and 2 and allows you to step in and make most of the major choices that appear in ME 1 and 2. Offhand I'd say it covers 80% of the major choices, and there are only a couple of things that would have been different in my ME3 game otherwise. 


Emotional attachment
I'm a sensitive person, and I like getting lost in a story. Maybe it's just me, but the Memorial Wall on the Normandy made me catch my breath the first time I saw it in ME3. These were people I'd saved, who saved me. Friends, colleagues, romantic relations. And here, staring me in the face, a stark reminder that choices I made meant they ended up dead. At the end of ME3, just before the final mission, you get the opportunity to say goodbye to all your teammates and friends. About halfway through this the first time I realized "Holy shit, I'm never going to see these people again." I'm not ashamed to say there were several places throughout the games that made me cry. And kudos to the score composers to adding to the game so effectively.

Sometimes life's choices really are all crap. 
When Mass Effect 3 was released there was apparently an uproar by longtime fans over the ending. Bioware quickly released new content for the games that was meant to give a more proper ending to the series. Like I said, I'm not a hardcore gamer, so I don't buy games new. I wait until they are cheap, so I was able to play all 3 back to back, no waiting, so I guess I avoided some anticipation let down others may have felt. Depending on how you play the game, there can be 8 or 9 outcomes in the final act (I think... essentially 4 choices with varied details). Upon its release many complained that there wasn't enough control, that all the previous decisions they had made meant nothing. I read these criticisms, and when I got to the end I thought "Sometimes when life presents you with choices, they all suck. You have to pick the one you feel like you can live with." Throughout the game there are choices you have to make that determine whether major characters, even whole races, survive. It's a Kobayashi Maru, but unlike Kirk, you can't cheat. I didn't feel let down by the ending, and the extended cuts tie up enough loose ends. There is no Hollywood ending to this game, and frankly, if there had been, I would have felt cheated by that.

A little bit of everything
At one point in the game the pilot, Joker, makes a crack about not getting caught unless people start singing the Russian National Anthem. This is a little joke reference to the movie Hunt For Red October, but apparently some people either didn't get it or felt like being pedantic and bitched about how it wouldn't happen because there's no air in space. Lighten up people. And speaking of humor, ME has it's moments, especially if you get the ME2 Shadow Broker and ME3 Citadel add-ons. There were many laugh out loud moments and that just makes the immersion all the more complete. "What kind of weapons does this thing have!" "It's a TAXI. It has a fare meter!"

Once more around the sun
Movies, though iconic, are short. Simplified. ME borrows more from literature and thus is more expansive and deep. I found myself thinking Mass Effect had many a nod to great Sci Fi literature like Rendevous With Rama, Ender's Game, Ringworld, and others. Mass effect is so large in scope and so immersive, it's no wonder video games like this and others are so popular. A story with a Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings level scope, and you get to participate in it every step of the way. And because ME has such variety, you can play through several times with radically different results. Well worth every moment.

(http://io9.com/5886178/why-mass-effect-is-the-most-important-science-fiction-universe-of-our-generation)

Approaching 40

I'm coming up on 38. Not all that old by most standards. At this point in my life I can't say things are bad. They aren't what I'd hope them to be, but I have enough to do more than just survive. Last year around my birthday I spent a lot of time contemplating my life. I really questioned whether I'd been doing it right. I chose a life that wasn't normal, and in doing so I have no real guides to judge by. I don't have kids and never will. I don't have a "normal" career where I move up some ladder to eventual retirement. I lack all those signposts of life most people seem to have.

This year I've thought what being in my 30's has meant. Not too long ago people started saying the 40 is the new 30, or 50 is the new 40. I don't know whether this is just a pithy saying or a genuine reflection of improving medicine and technology helping us live longer. But I wonder if I can extend that thought. Have my experiences in my 30's been more like what someone used to go through in their 20's? Where once one would have graduated college, gotten married, and started a family by 30, those things took me much longer. College took me 5 years. I lived with my parents until I was 26. I didn't get married until I was 28. I didn't start a good job until I was 24, I didn't start something you could call a career until I was 30. My marriage ended when I was almost 33. Looking back, there were a lot of things I postponed for myself during that time. Now at 38 I feel like I'm doing things I should have done 10 years ago. But would it have been possible then? Probably not. Is this just me, or do many people have this experience?

I've been reading the Stoics. It's a philosophy that suits me well. I think my introversion is a natural fit to being a Stoic. Stoicism is misunderstood. The most important aspect is the idea of training yourself to experience joy in what you have, and to not worry about what you don't have. Stoicism has a lot in common with Zen Buddhism, but with more emphasis on civic involvement than on isolated contemplation. While this philosophy makes a lot of sense to me, it's always a battle to implement.

Setting aside the details, the general thing/wish/want I have at this point in my life is growth. Mostly of the educational sort. Unfortunately a master's degree or beyond is out of my financial reach, as is any kind of formal training. I have been teaching myself some new skills, including some advanced guitar repair. But, trading time on these activities against paying work isn't always easy. Is this something that should have happened in my 20's? Maybe at a time I could have stayed up until 2am everyday and not felt horrible the next day? I must be missing some of that "30 is the new 20" health technology.

I am where I am because of choices I have made. Some choices were wrong, some were right. Some were right at the time but turned out bad in the long run. I can't change any of that. I can only continue to make choices in this moment. That's another tenet of Stoicism. The past cannot be changed. The future is unknown. And right now, there are things I can control, and things I cannot. I need to focus down only on the things I can control right in this present moment. Again, never easy. But no one ever said life was easy.