l i f e
art is choice
contributions
christopher@30seconds.org
Tonight I wasted more time by 8:00 than I have in days. Going 'round and 'round looking for this piece of freeware, that plugin, another damn demo that does everything but what I want it to.
So in the true spirit of being me I rebelled. Really, I just up and quit, but I'll call it rebellion.
Instead I picked up the guitar. An old beat up instrument. My first. I started looking at this guitar closely and noticed things I'd failed to appreciate for quite sometime. The scratches, some I remember, most not. The stickers. One photograph.
It's a picture of a young woman in Sweden. She looks beautiful and very happy, sitting with her legs to oneside at the edge of an orchard.The woman is my grandmother. She gave me the photograph to put on my guitar just before she died. She always made me play for her when I visited her. Especially toward the end after the stroke and she could no longer speak. We communicated by primative sign, and when she brought me the photograph and motioned to the guitar I knew what she meant. I guess she wanted to be with it always...
Just below her is the bridge. It's pulling off the guitar and has one ivory pin I remember trading with a street musician in New Orleans. The other five are black. Around the tourtoise shell pickguard the finish is worn away, because I always play so hard. On both sides of the soundhole it's gone. Rubbed right off and down into the solid piece of mahogony that makes up this instrument. There's an old sticker I made from a Love & Rockets comic and one from another comic that simply reads Day 26. I remember playing under that name for awhile, but I really can't remember why. The caption reads, "Today I made a hat. Wow."
Must have been in the doldrums then...
Moving to the other side of the neck is a phrase I carved in the wood in 1988 and I have been made fun of for it ever since. It merely says, "Art Is Choice". Oh well. Maybe it's not profound, but I don't think it's really anything to laugh about. I remember denying I ever did it saying it was there when I got the guitar. Here I took the time to carve words into my first guitar and I wouldn't even own up to them. It's the closest thing I have to a tatoo, but I don't mind telling you I'm glad it's on my guitar instead of my backside...
First thing I notice about the strings is they are rusty. My fingers are very oily. Bad for photography and guitar. Sometimes after I've played for a couple hours in the summer the ends of my fingers are a blue-green, an oxidized color like acid on a penny, or like the color of my eyes.
Moving down the neck the frets become more and more worn. The strings almost buzz around the first and second frets...almost. Unclipped string ends poke and wag back and forth. The four track picks them up. I don't really mind. Tucked under the E, over the A, and through the D string is half a dollar bill a girl gave me and a friend once when we were playing on the street. Obviously we split it.
The original tuning pegs are gone and I put on pegs from an old flying-V. Now this is strange because everytime I tune I have to turn the bottom three strings backwards (or the same as the top).
The neck has been broken three times just below the nut and I remember everytime. It was stepped on, dropped, and knocked over. I used to carry this guitar everywhere I went. It was like a trademark. Folks knew it was me a block away. The kid with no shoes, dress slacks, and a concert size Guild. Now that isn't a big guitar, very small. Half the size most folks play. Gives it a very high sound, unusual and people always wanted my guitar.
Believe it or not she's one solid piece of wood. Also very unusual for a guitar. Serial number 21076.
Now you maybe wondering why I've bothered telling you all this, well, it's simple. Goes right back to the reason I rebelled tonight. Because I've got a Strat 12 string, a Tele, a Studio Alverez 12 string, a Guild dreadnought, and sometimes they don't have a voice. Sometimes they do everything but what I want them to do. I've been playing the 12 string Alverez a lot lately and looking at the old forgotten Guild concert in the corner. I picked it up a couple weeks ago for the first time in probably a year. I did it because someone out there said two words. Play clean.
I forgot how, but the Guild didn't. We've been working on it together...
goodnight 3.16.98
