neal and i went to nashville the other day, saw lots of beautiful guitars and women (some of which were also beautiful =), and fell in love, tho' she was $850 and i can't afford that and i already have one --- tho' my '89 strat is (i hope she can't read) not quite as marvellous as that curvy, naked (ie., laquer only, no paint), '79 fathead (the headstocks were larger in the 70's, and looked better) with the black pickguard. something about me and nakedness, i want it in my instruments, now, as well as other things (like the naked truth --- what were you thinking?).
the women are an interesting story as well... aside from the gorgeous working-girl pedestrian in the pale green minidress that we not-so-conspicuously followed down a block in the car (and we both rubbernecked shamelessly as we turned the corner... quoth neal: "i wish women still wore skirts that short to where i work!" (man, we both really need to get out more)), there were lots of fifteen and sixteen year-old guys with their similarly-aged girlfriends in the store. (i'm talking about gruhn guitars, one of the world's most famous guitar stores)
i have this little routine for trying out guitars --- to make sure it's set
up properly and feels good to play, i play a barre chord from the first to the
twentieth fret, then do a chromatic scale up the whole neck on every string
(looking for dead notes and the action setup), then play some cheesy blues
riffs to get a feel for the speed and comfort of the neck. there are some that
i'll play for twenty minutes and some that i play for twenty seconds, and
others i pick up, heft once, grimace, and put back without playing. i'm
really stupid about it. anyway, this whole test-drive thing appears to the
onlooker as unabashed wanking. well, at one point, when i was up to about five
minutes with this strat (the aforementioned '79 beauty), playing my fool heart
out, not noticing anything else in the entire world, just savoring the
acoustic sound of this strat, and how natural and worn and broken in it felt in
my hands, proof that beat-up guitars are the ones that sound great, because
they've been played to death, and how could someone have parted with this
masterpiece.... neal comes over to me, in front of me, turning his back to the
kids who have been milling around picking up instruments but not playing them,
and says to me quietly and matter-of-factly, "you know, these kids are afraid
to try out any of these guitars --- you're blowin' them away!" and then i
start paying attention and they're glancing my way every few seconds, and the
girls are talking to each other with their hands over their mouths, with their
eyes darting back and forth between the boys and the guitars, but actually
never to me, not while i was looking at least, but the boys were looking at me
every now and then. how marvelous, i have sex appeal to teenage boys. oh
well.
but
then, as neal is agonizing over The Perfect Telecaster which he has
found (i found for him -- i know better what he wants that he does, it's
sad... just a vintage Fender Telecaster like keith richards plays) but which
was overpriced by $400, i was still courting this strat. the kids left about
twenty minutes ago, but i'm back from the les pauls and sgs, back over to
strat alley, flirting with my naked femme. and as i'm playing i notice this
large man picking up a bass, and his probably sixteen year old
i-want-to-be-in-a-chic-band daughter, who's checking out all the sparkly- and
metal-flake-colored guitars. i'm looking at this girl, thinking, my god,
there's no way she's anything but jailbait... if only she didn't have that
boy-cut hairdo for which she really doesn't have the face, i'd be drooling at
her feet, uncontrollable, until her father (better than twice my size in all
repects) kicked me away like an annoying dog. but i got over this quickly ---
the funny part of the story is that when i was having my omigod moment i was
perfectly controlled, but when i was no longer interested, circumstance
made it seem as though i was. maybe i'm the only one who noticed, but it was
funny. neal's back at this point, looking at his tele again. he was pointing
the neck toward the floor, and eyeballing it. hmm, with it pointed to the
floor, you're not going to see much...
so i ask
him, "are you doing that because you're looking for something or just doing it
because you've seen other people doing it?"
"actually,"
he laughs, "i've just seen other people do it..."
so i set
about explaining to him that the eyeballing trick is to check the straightness
of the neck... you hold it up so that the light plays off the neck, then look
from the body toward the headshock. you can see the bow of the neck (too
much, too little, just right) any bad frets, and the string alignment. a
mini-course in guitar shopping. (the guy and his daughter are watching the
whole exchange.) neal tries out his new knowledge, and i go back to trying
out the rest of the strats. since the big guy has taken the chair, i must
stand while trying out the strats... and i'm holding it up with the neck
toward the lights, playing and looking about tenthousand miles into the
distance. when i refocus my eyes into the room, i realize i'd been staring
straight through the girl, who, by her facial expression, seemed to think i
was looking at her very intently, until i focused and she could see i was now
recognizing what i was looking at and there was that
look-away-quickly-as-tho'-nothing-happened-but-everyone-knows-it-did
moment.... which is funny because it seemed very differently interpreted on
either end.
anyway,
neal finally makes up his mind to talk to the sales guy about the Tele, and
goes to sit at the guy's desk. he pulls some stuff up on the computer, and i,
having never been there and being suspicious of guitar salesmen ever since my
scarring experiences at willcutt's, thought i'd slip around the back of the
desk and check out the screen (which was turned so that anyone sitting in The
Customer Seat couldn't read it) to make sure he wasn't bilking us. (i'm very
delighted to say that the people at gruhn's were the most honest and nice
guitar store people i've ever met, neither snobbish and condescending nor
sleazy and zealous.) so i play like i'm going over here to check out these
acoustics, which turned out to be mandolins, and in my infinite smoothness
must've looked like a complete moron. but of course, i look up and there's
the big guy trying out a mandolin, and his daughter is staring at me,
doubtless thinking i'm following her shamelessly around the store...
it seems that people always misinterpret my natural behaviour as shameless flirting, which sucks because when i'm actually flirting, nobody, especially the target, notices.
oh my.
Jun 28 1998 16:29