The Musics, September 2022

Below is what I’ve been tracking, listening to, and reading the last month. I have an email capture at the bottom if you want me to email when I post–usually once a month.

Legal blog:

In addition to this art blog, I day-job as a personal injury trial lawyer at Casey Gerry with a focus on brain injury cases. My recent CG blogs are:

Can you add conditions when accepting a CCP 998 offer?

Do schools owe a duty to protect students from 3rd parties?

Court considerations of a dangerous condition in Premises Liability. Interesting thoughts you may think of next time you enter the property of a business or another person. This can be read along with:

Considerations when a property owner owes a duty of care to warn against an “open and obvious risk.”

Shows:

New shows are in bold.
  • 9/3/22, Rock Out Karaoke at House of Blues San Diego, upstairs restaurant. 7pm – 10pm, no cover. I’m drumming this gig.
  • 9/6/22, Kendrick Lamar, SDSU Viejas Arena
  • 9/9/22, Alicia Keys at SDSU Cal Coast Open Air Theatre
  • 9/16/22, Weird Al at Pechanga Temecula
  • 9/18/22, CeeLo Green, doing tribute to James Brown. Rady’s Shell. Special Guest Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe.
  • 9/17/22, Wilco at SDSU Cal Coast Open Air Theatre
  • 9/25/22, Weird Al at Balboa Theater
  • 9/26/22, Weird Al at Balboa Theater

New music:

Avishai Cohen’s Two Roses. Basically, I’ll listen to anything drummer Mark Guiliana is on.

This Tea for Two album is a nice listen of conversation. It reminds me of having great one-on-one time with my buddy Nick a few weeks back, where two people can just hang out, be themselves in their fullest expression, and enjoy the moment(s).

Tank and the Bangas Red Balloon (the embed code is not working right now). See Tank and her group last month with the Trombone Shorty show was an event, not just a concert. Her band was well-produced (organically produced, like watching an intense musical), and her players were amazing. This band is one group I’ll mark to see every time they are close.

Currently listening to:

Books:

Wow, I ingested a lot of books last month.

I’ll start with Tony Buzan’s The Speed Reading Book: Read More, Learn More, Achieve More. This is the 3rd book on speed reading I read over the last months. And by far the best IMO. The other books gave good concepts, many of which are in Buzan’s book (not claiming which chicken and egg were first…).

Buzan’s book also gave good information about how our minds/brains/souls intake information in general. It got me think to my listening speed with books. I usually listened to books and podcasts at 2x speed. This is a learned skill…and it can raise your stress level a good amount if you jump into this instead of working the “muscles” to work into it. Well, if my brain can do 2x…maybe it could do 3x. So I worked that over the last month and it took hold. I practiced with some books that required less focus (not saying that in a bad way). But over the last month, my brain became used to intaking the info at a faster speed. Hence, más libros.

Good thing our San Diego County Library is amazing. Otherwise my Audible bill would be through the roof.

Ok, so the books…what books?!

A World Without Email: Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload, Cal Newport. A huge thanks to my buddy Matt who bought me Newport’s Deep Work years ago. That book 180’d my professional and personal life to focus me to focus on things that matter first. My take-aways were:

-Set the out-of-office to say “I am out of office not checking email. Your email is being deleted automatically, please resend when I return.” Brilliant.
-The “Hive Mind”…and how that can create a challenge, where everyone is connected about everything all the time. It leaves less time for being away and quiet, focused solo time.
-Using focus boards to plan and track work. I was doing a form of this, but have toyed with Microsoft Teams how to better approach this.

To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, Henry Petroski. This struck me, given my work as a Plaintiff lawyer who sues persons for negligence. This book discusses when a mistake is made, and how important it is to understand from where and how the mistake came, how to fix it, and how to track the data so the mistakes never happen again. In my work, many times I deal with insurance companies who want to pass blame or avoid acceptance of causing an incident, crash, event that hurt someone else. Petroski’s book gives so many great examples, many about hospitals and airlines, about horrific events. And how these agencies were super open and honest about what happened to track the data and create new policies to protect against those same mistakes going forward.

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, Ed Catmull (Pixar co-founder). First, I love Pixar, so I loved this book. Next, Catmull gives lots of examples how to create and foster cultures which create and foster creativity.

Finding Me, Viola Davis. Davis tells her story of poverty and abuse growing up, to then overcome so much to create a positive world for herself. Davis reading her book gave me strength many times during this last month.

Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, and the Secret of Games, Ian Bogost. Shout out to Dave from my office for recommending this book. This book tracked a lot for me with Petroski’s book on engineering, to discuss how to try, play, and fail…and create methods and spaces which are safe and productive to do so.

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work, Shawn Anchor. Made me smile. Thanks Ken for recommending this.

The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek. Many good concepts and research about agencies who take approaches (some which seem against…at least initially…what the agency should do business- or profitability-wise), but who succeed. Inspiring.

Make Time: How to Focus on What Matters Every Day, Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky. Very accessible and immediate suggestions. The writing was also lighthearted and fun to be around. The authors give a great list of reading recs at the end of the book.

Find Your Why: A Practical Guide to Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team, Simon Sinek. This was a good pause in the month to refocus on inspiration for what I do with my law and music. This was written more as a how-to to do this with your group/self.

Polarizing the Case: Exposing and Defeating the Malingering Myth, Rick Friedman. Ooo, got so many juices flowing within ye olde legal mind. Great resource for lawyers.

 

Currently listening to:  Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, Adam Grant.

This month’s pic:

A cool mural in Lake Tahoe.

 

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    Eric Ganci, Esq.
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