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Surgery On My Baby before/after Yesterday...ahhh, yesterday. I have a lot of passion and strong impulses. Sometimes I take them and ride. For some reason, it became imperative to wire my steel body, nickle plated resonator guitar for sound. I have played in a few bars with it, and playing into a microphone is just bust when you're playing with a band, or any real accompanyment at all. So I've been toying with the idea for awhile. The nickle plated sterling is "my baby" as I call it. I polish it, and sometimes even talk to it. (there have even been instances, when doing the girl thing, inviting them to where the guitar sleeps, saying, "Do you want to see my baby?" to hear them stutter, "You have a baby?"...why yes...come to my bedroom and see..) But for whatever reason, yesterday was the day. I made some phone calls, and despite being able to have it shipped, I drove one hundred miles or so to buy the required pick up, in the city where I went to college. Or rather, the first time I went to college, as apparently I am going to college again right now. The guitar store was amazing, as it always is. The vibe is friendly, non-confrontational and easy going as a musical womb. Sharp contrast to most places where the salesmen work on comisson, play some poor form of heavy metal, and are way more arrogant than they should be of someone of such meager musical skill. No, hear there are thousands and thousands of dollars worth of guitars. Every stringed instrument imaginable. And if you play well, and decide to take whatever the hell off the wall and play it, they let you. (once, in school, I used to haunt there regularly, and had the singular experience of whipping a five thousand dollar six string off the wall, and start playing the blues. Guys all standing around in the same room also grabbed guitars and accompanied me spontaneously. A vibe went through the room, and as the song tailed off, I lifted my head up, as if coming out from under a deep sleep, and saw they were all with me. The song ended, they put their instruments back, and we went our separate ways without a word spoken to each other.) Plus, I've spent a couple thousand in the place over the years. If anyone would bitch, I would throw that in their face at the drop of a hat, but they never do. Never do. I bought the necessary pick-up, talked to a guy in the repair department who gave me bad advice about intalling it, and then browsed the merchandise. Specifically, I did not know I needed a new twelve string. But I do. I played for a little bit. People stopped and listened. After awhile, I got the sense that I was showing off, and I quit. In the meantime, people walked by with really bad rhythm. I don't understand it, but some people just don't have it. A guy sat down and tried to play banjo, but he had really poor rhythm. I tried to play with him, but it got to be painful. (I've always had a real good sense of rhythm, even as a young boy. Standing in church, listening to the hymns, I realized that, if I started tapping my hand on my thigh when the singing started, it would miraculously end with me tapping on my thigh at the precise time my hand hit my thigh. It was magic.) So I left, and drove to campus, past the copious number of houses in which I partied. Pretty much every house within a certain range of blocks from campus. (well, at least three a night, up to six at times about three times a week, and sometimes much more...couple that with rapacious drinking and big brass balls...passed this one house, where I wandered into the party next door, drank with the people there, went back next door, drank with them, collected my friends and left. As I left, I spied a Parking Patrol SUV parked out front, whacked the front quarter panel real hard and set off its car alarm to the delight of the surrounding drunks. Strangely, there was a SUV parked in front of it this time as well.) Things changed there, but not really. Some roads were changed, closed off, others expanded in some idiots game of "we have money to spend, but not on upgrading the faculty". I went to my dorm, and stood in the spot behind the hall where I used to while many a hour away kicking the hacky sack around with a circle of friends. We routinely wore the grass away. The grass had all grown back. Of course, of course, of course. I went to the rapids of the river, where I spent many, many an hour in peaceful contemplation. Found my "thinking rock" where I would inevitably go with a headfull of acid and time to kill. Saw some guys sizing up my car, like they were going to break into it. I moved back to it, and they sauntered off towards the stadium with large bags of gear. Probably football players. And I wandered away from campus, in my black monte carlo, as the ghosts of memories past drifted by through my mind. I drove the hundred miles home. I got home, to the mess that I left, all my tasks unfinished until installed the pickup, something for which I had no experience. I ended up drilling a hole into the nickle plated sterling, and this drove me a bit silly. Like doing surgery on your child. I did it precise, I did it right. And now I am wired for sound with the nickle plated sterling. Took most of today to catch up with the rest of life's bullshit. It was just a strange mix. A ride of impulse, desire, and nostalgia. I can't do justice to what it means to me. Maybe 'cause I don't even really know right now.
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