Cars, Guitars and Playing In Bars

I think the type of guitar you play says something about you. It’s not the absolute final word on the entirety of a musician's personality. But it’s a pretty good indicator. Guitars come in all shapes and sizes, and the one you choose might tell the audience that you’re a badass, a metal head, a bluesman, a blue eyed soul man, a redneck country chicken-picker or a jazz guy. Just one look at the stage and you’ll have a pretty good idea of who the guy is that’s strumming those six strings.

NOTE #1 for the non-guitar playing amongst us. Here’s what I’m saying in a way you can easily understand: The guy driving a sensible sedan is not trying to show off his money or sexual prowess. He’s just a dude driving a car.

The guy who pulls up on a motorcycle is and always will be cooler than you. Maybe he’s not, but that’s the message he’s trying to convey.

The guy who pulls up in a Hummer is compensating for something. I won’t say what. You can guess.

The guy driving the 1987 Chevy Sprint is saying he’s been so beat down by life he just doesn’t care about your opinion anymore. The world has taken his self-respect. You know this because a man with self-respect would never drive a three cylinder vehicle that runs on a gas/oil mixture and sounds like a weed-eater on a hot summer day.

What you choose tells a story. But sometimes, you don’t have a choice…

The issue about guitars came up on St. Patrick’s Day. SugarSmaX, my band, had a gig. I packed my car during my lunch break, returned to work, hit the road at 5 p.m. without stopping by the house, drove the hour and ten minutes to get to Monroe and arrived pretty much on time. I walked into the club, found the stage, looked at it and froze. Oh damn. I stepped forward carrying my acoustic guitar, my gig bag and nothing else. I had a problem. It didn’t look like everyone was setting up for an acoustic gig. They were setting up for an electric show. I thought this was an acoustic gig. Hence, my arrival, armed with only my acoustic guitar.

NOTE #2 for those non guitar players amongst us. The acoustic guitar is hollow, made of wood, and is great to have around a campfire. Think of James Taylor. An electric guitar (the one I didn’t have) is played through an amplifier (something else I didn’t have), is very loud and made rock and roll what it is today. Think of Slash, the guitar player for Guns and Roses.

I was “James Taylor” arriving at a gig when “Slash” was expected. Think of Axl Rose hitting a primal scream, followed by the opening guitar strains of “Fire and Rain.” They go together like chocolate and pickles, which is to say, not at all.

This was one of those really bad moments you have when you realize that you have screwed up, there’s no one else to blame and you’re going to have to live with the fact that you’re going to make everyone else’s life a little more difficult.

Which is what I did…

NOTE #3 for those non guitar players amongst us. Stick with me. I’m not going to get too technical here…

Our bass player Mick typically sets up an electric guitar on a stand, which is plugged into a piece of electronics that make it sound like a synthesizer, piano, horn section, etc. We pulled that guitar for my use, forgoing the syth/piano/horn sounds during the first set.

Mick has a very nice Strat that’s seen a lot of use. It’s still in good shape and sounds sweet. The club happened to have an amp (miracle of miracles) and I was set to go with an ad hoc rig.

We also called our regular soundman (who wasn’t working this gig), Butch, who is an incredibly nice guy. Proving it, he brought one of his guitars to the club so I could play it during the second and third sets, allowing Mick to use his guitar again (you know, since he actually brought it to the club and didn’t forget that this gig was electric like some other horse’s ass who we won’t mention. Oh yeah. That was me!)

Butch’s guitar worked great and allowed us to finish out the gig in fine fashion. My only issue was the paint job. His guitar is an Ibanez – a good guitar with a good sound. But the paint job is more suited for heavy metal/hair metal bands where the guitar player is wearing leather pants, lighting those pants on fire and receiving sexual favors from willing groupies in between sets (see pic…the pic of the guitar, not the groupies, you horn dog!)

But that wasn’t who was playing this guitar. It was me. The guy who’s married, has a day job and is lucky if he can get the attention of the bartender in between sets to get a refill of Diet Coke.

“Between set sexual favors” vs. “between set Diet Coke refills”. You get my point?

That guitar really wasn’t me. I couldn’t play it regularly, despite the fact that it sounded and felt good. Don’t get me started on how happy I was that Butch brought it and how much of a life-saver the thing turned out to be. But would I own it? Nah.

I’ll stick with my Epiphone Les Paul Black Beauty (see pic..stop looking for a damned horse, it’s a guitar!). It’s a classic design, created by the man who invented the solid body electric (RIP Les Paul). The paint job is jet black and calls attention to the notes coming from the guitar, not the long haired, leather pants wearing, groupie scoring guy who’s playing it.

That guitar is much more my style. And yes, I drive a Nissan Altima – a sensible sedan, thanks for asking.

And by the way...Thanks again, Butch!

Semantics

This is one of those blogs that breaks a cardinal rule – Have a point. The problem is, I don’t have a point. I have two. But they are linked by a common thread. Stick with me. It will all come together as you read.

Daylight Savings Time
I hate Daylight Savings Time. I don’t think it’s the fact that I lose an hour each Spring, gaining it back each Fall. Of course, when you lose something, only to gain it back later, you should be paid interest. And as valuable as sleep is for me, I should be gaining more interest than a teenage boy has in his dad’s Playboy collection.

Nope, it’s the way everyone refers to Daylight Savings Time. Ask someone who likes DST why they’re a fan. They’ll almost always answer, in a perky little voice: “Because you gain more daylight!”

My response: “No you don’t! There’s exactly the same amount of daylight. We just changed the clocks! Don’t you realize that we can’t change the sun! We can’t change the amount of daylight! Something far bigger than you, me, or Jimmy Carter is in charge of this little issue – the earth’s orbit around the sun!”


“I Taped It”
I hate it when Nicole says, “I taped it.” It irritates me beyond any reason. She used to tape things all the time. That was before we had DVR. Now, she doesn’t “tape” things. She “records” them. That’s because with DVR, there is no “tape”. There are 1’s and 0’s and computer hard drives and…and…well, I don’t know how it works, but it’s digital, not analog, and that means there is no tape!

There are lots of tapes in our house and we can still “tape” things – on the VCR is the bedroom. But she’s talking about the DVR and it irritates me.

And now that she knows how much this irritates me, she keeps doing it, just to dig in the needle every once in a while. I think she’s trying to irritate me half the time, and the rest of the time she just says “taped” out of habit. I’m still irritated, because she hasn’t changed what she says to reflect the fact that we have digital technology in our house.

The Reason This Irritates Me
I spent eight years as a radio show host. It was a talk radio station. In addition to the talk segments, I was also the news director. That means I was writing two 3 to 3 ½ minute newscasts each day. Using Microsoft Word, Times New Roman, 14 Point, that’s about three and a half pages each day. You would think that would have made me a Grammar Nazi. If I had been writing for print, it might have. I was writing for radio. Grammar wasn’t as much of an issue.

So end your sentences with a preposition, leave the “-ly” from adverbs and speak in run-on sentences all you want. I’ll notice, but I can keep that to myself.

The thing that irritates me is “semantics”. I admit it. I am a “Semantics Nazi.”

The Dictionary.com definition of semantics is, “the study of meaning.” Semantics refers to what words mean. I think our language should reflect our meaning. The correct words should be chosen. When incorrect words are used, it’s a problem.

So when people say there’s “more daylight,” I feel compelled to be the jerk that points out that daylight is a function of astronomy. Not of clocks.

It also bothers me that we’re now living longer on Daylight Savings Time than we live on regular time. Because we want “more daylight.” Grrrrrrrr. Just typing it pisses me of. We couldn’t have just gotten to work an hour earlier and left an hour earlier? That way, we would be enjoying more of the daylight that was already there. There have been arguments that DST doesn’t save the money or energy it’s supposed to save. That’s here. And there have been arguments made that DST has real life and death consequences. If you’re interested, those arguments are here.

And eventually, I’ll break Nicole down. I’ll keep making the point that there is no “tape” involved in the recording process until she changes. I’ll be successful, because I’m more irritated than she is committed to saying something incorrectly. As least I think so.

I just had another thought…

We really shouldn’t say “rewind” anymore when the DVR is being used, because there is no “winding” in the recording or playback process. It would be more proper to say “review,” which, by the way, is what my newest remote control says. Oh boy. I’m not sure that I’ve got enough fortitude to break the wife down on that one. Wish me luck…

February doesn't think much of us, and the feeling is mutual

Let’s just give February a kick in the ass on its way out the door.

That’s right, as we close out this first day of March, I’m still focused on the second month of the year. There are a lot of articles about why February sucks (Google: “February is the cruelest month”), but I’ll throw my two cents into the public domain anyway.

This was the most miserable month of weather we’ve had in a while. It’s been the coldest in this region in 30-some years. There were three hits of snow in three weeks. Well, the first actually happened during the last days of January, but we were still dealing with it Monday, Feb. 1st.

Here’s some irony. We brought my daughter home from the hospital right before it snowed—just over a week before Christmas. Shelby has now seen four snow events in her two and a half months of life. Four! It took something like six years of my childhood before I snow four separate snow events. And she’s not even big enough to make a snowman, have a snowball fight, or even make snow angels. But I was big enough! And I didn’t get any snow.

Not that I’m bitter.

Skies seemed to be overcast for most of the month. My daughter, the poor girl, will be shocked when she realizes the sun typically comes out every day, rather than making one measly appearance each week.

I typically like to see some snow in North Carolina during the winter. But one really good wintry event each year is enough for me. Having four hits of icy weather in is enough to make you wonder if they moved the Mason-Dixon line. It’s a damned Yankee conspiracy, some will say. Then they’ll spit tobacco and crank up the Skynard.

I had a special reason this year to be pissed about the weather. I had three gigs called off due to weather. Only one of them, in the end, was rescheduled. The lesson: Don’t count on gig money until “last call” has been called, staff is putting the chairs on the tables, and kicking the last pitiful drunk out of the bar.

And then the holidays:
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I have no problem with this one. As a state employee, I had the day off. Cool.

Valentine’s Day: It’s a reason to spend money. It’s also a day when passion is the expectation, rather than just a hope. This year, Nicole and I were both sick. So, I got to spend the money and had no pay off. Excellent!

President’s Day: This is the most useless holiday we have. Okay, Arbor Day might be even weaker, but banks and federal offices are actually closed on President’s Day. I had to work. Most people had to work. But we couldn’t get our money into or out of the bank, which just makes work that much more frustrating.

You know what the main purpose of President’s Day has become? It’s an excuse to put cars on sale. I heard a commercial several times that called to mind the freedoms provided by Washington and Lincoln, and then urged us to take advantage of those freedoms by buying a Jeep.

LINCOLN FREED THE SLAVES!!! (History buffs, please don’t parse that statement, just work with me.) Does Jeep really want to put buying a car on the same level as freeing a race of people from the bonds of slavery? Really? It shocks me that no one in Jeep’s Advertising Department said, “Hey, uh, boss…maybe that claim is a little over the line. Maybe we ought to pull that back just a bit?”

And this year, just to throw something else into the mix, the Olympics mangled my television schedule. It wouldn’t have been so bad if my wife wasn’t such a huge fan of the Olympics. But she is. So now we’re backed up on a number of television shows and we have to close our eyes every time a promo comes on the TV. We also talk loudly so we won’t hear any plot points that are patiently waiting in the DVR.

You know, as I look back on this writing, it really doesn’t seem like there was anything monumentally bad about the month. I realize I’m a blessed individual if I’ve got time to bitch about car commercials and weather and my prime time TV schedule.

I have a friend who lives in Philly and the snow she got would make a southern boy weep.

I have another friend with Seasonal Affective Disorder, and she’s been more miserable than I can fathom this month.

So it looks like maybe I should keep my complaints to myself.

But that’s the trick February plays on you. It doesn’t bring it all at once. It operates in stealth. It nibbles away at you, piece by piece. It pisses you off just a little at a time. Then a big, fat snowstorm comes along and kicks you in the knee.

We’ve endured our 28 days of bleakness, though. February is over. March is here and warmer weather is on the way.

Well…not yet.

We’re all watching the forecast for this next winter storm. Yep, it’s the fifth such storm in the region this winter. If it actually turns out to be a significant event, it will hit North Carolina March 2nd.

But the damned system formed out west in the waning days of February.

It’s February’s middle finger, extended for all, as we get one final reminder of the bleak existence granted to us during the second month each year.