Nice, but why so much?

Charles,

I have a question. Why so much for this guitar? I have played a few in my day and some have been wonderful. But that much for a used guitar. Wow. How much are they new? It's also black, cool but very different for an acoustic.

FP

Doggy Heaven

Lovely loves dogs. She loves all kinds of dogs. She has one here with us and one at her mother's house. So while Shamoopie was out of town. Lovely (who is 11) and I agreed to dog sit for some friends of ours. They have two very nice dogs that get along just fine with the two we have here. One of our dogs is Shamoopie's dog but that is a whole other story. She is not just a dog. She is the smartest dog I have ever seen and Shamoopie and she are Extremely codependent. The dog was more depressed that Shamoopie was gone that I was.

Lovely normally sleeps with her dog but since Shamoopie was out of town all the dogs got to sleep with her in her room. She asked for it. She got it. Lovely was in doggy heaven. She had all the dogs.

What she didn't realize was that no one gets to sleep in doggy heaven. Because dogs are always moving and every time Lovely would move one the dogs would whine to be petted. Or a dog would jump on or off the bed. One of the visiting dogs has the ability to take all the pets you can give her and then ask for more, even if it is three o'clock in the morning. The other dogs then wanted to check and see what the other dog is getting and well needless to say Lovely didn't get any sleep or at least not as much as she wanted. She had to move dogs all night and tell them to lie down. Chase them off her bed. I bet it was funny to watch. Too bad I was fast asleep in the other room. :)

The next night Lovely only wanted two dogs and the other two stayed with me. Things seemed to go much better with only two dogs and both of us slept well.

So much for doggy heaven.

She's back

Shamoopie is back. Hurray! She has informed me that Blogher was a success and that she had fun. Even if she did miss me, a little. I picked her up at the airport and could hardly lift the bag full of SWAG that she got. (I think I hurt my back!)

So far I don't think that I have heard all the stories or seen all the bills from this thing yet. But I will, I will. Apparently Amy Sedaris is crafty. Who knew. ;)

Well anyway I am glad that she is finally back. It seemed like forever that she was gone.

Kiss this

Paul Stanley of the band Kiss had to back out of a show because of heart problems. He probably just got a look at Ace Frehley without his makeup. :)

They left one out...

The Spice girls are getting back together. They have left one out of the group. They left out the Shamoopie Spice. She can sing and play the piano at the same time. In high heels! Dancing may be a problem. :)

Shamoopie...I miss you

Most of you may know that Shamoopie is not at home. You are probably with her at the conference. I miss her already. She apparently did not want me to feel so lonely since she has left me a little surprise like this....

It is a picture of Andy Summers from the band The Police. On the same Guitar Player cover that she followed me around the house with. This time it says "Thanks for coming to my concert. Sorry I was rude before. I'm a bitter little man."

I found it in the master bathroom on the mirror above my sink. I believe that it was left there so I wouldn't miss it. I am afraid to look anywhere else in the house. :)

I miss you Shamoopie. I love you. You all need to be nice to her at this conference.

20th Post

It is fitting that my 20th post is about what happened a year ago today. The sweetest woman in the world married me. For me it has been the best year of my life.

We did it on the spur of the moment because of all the turmoil going on around us and for me it was my best decision ever.

I love you Shamoopie! Happy Anniversary.

Good morning...

Quite a few years back I used to play guitar in many different bands. It was fun. I would get calls to play with the same musicians but in different configurations. This was at a time when PA systems were not small and very expensive for one individual to own so most groups would rent. Now a days you can go down to Guitar Center and buy something much better and much smaller for about $500. Back then it was more like $5000.

So I got a call to go play a Mental Health department (MHD) christmas party. The money was good even after the PA rental and the drive wasn't too bad. So I showed up for the gig and we setup all the equipment and as we were getting ready to start the director of the MHD came by to introduce herself. She was a little white headed lady who was about five feet nothing if she was that tall. A nice grandmotherly type. She informed us that there was a budgetary mix up and that they only had half the money that we were promised in the contract and that she would understand it if we left and didn't play. Well now the other guys wanted to play the gig anyway since we were already there and setup. I reluctantly agreed. But man I was pissed.

When we got up on stage I announced that the name of the band was "Peter and the Pedifiles" and that were were there for their dining and dancing pleasure. The drummer fell off his drum thrown with a crash. He was laughing so hard that he couldn't help but fall backwards. He gained some composer a little and got back on his thrown. I started playing the intro lick to a Sonny Boy Williamson song called "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl", the boys joined in after the first four measures and I started singing:

"Good morning little schoolgirl, can I come home with you
Tell your moma and your papa, I'm a little schoolboy too
Come on now pretty baby, I just can't help myself
You're so young and pretty, I don't need nobody else
Good morning little schoolgirl, can I come home with you
Don't you hear me crying"

The boys could hardly play because they were laughing so hard. But we made it through the song and onto the next and so on. All through the evening I did my best to torture those poor people. Singing wrong lyrics to the song and making up lyrics about people standing near the stage. The place was filed with young bohemian girls trying to save the world. At one point I was asked to announce that food had been served. (The band was not allowed to eat.) So in the PA I said "This one is for all you potato sack sandal wearing bitches in the back. The pulled pork is ready, fresh off the hog!" Knowing full well that most of them are vegan or vegetarian. I received ugly looks from the what was left of the crowd. Bummer.

During the breaks I would follow the director around ( you remember the nice little blue haired lady?) and made humping gestures when she wasn't looking so the boys in the band could see me. She caught me once and turned and shook her finger saying "your a very sick young man mister, a very sick young man. You need professional help." Thanks. That's when I informed her of her mistake of telling the band that you are cutting their pay in half BEFORE they play. Contracts are worthless anyway, you would only end up in small claims court and maybe win. They still don't have to pay you even if you do win. This seemed like more fun anyway.

I did other things that night, most of them I don't remember. There you have the sort of funny highlights.

We were never asked back. Well at least I wasn't. I know what I did was bad but I was young and man did they piss me off. If you were there in the audience, I am sorry. Sort of. :)

I will have to tell you about my experiences playing in a country band. Yee haw.

Walls are up...

The walls are up in the kitchen today and I am tired. We have been renovating our house to make it more livable. The kitchen has had no wall for three months. It has had nothing in it for about two months. Now the plumbing is done and the electrical. Hence being able to put the walls back.

The shamoopie is going out of town so maybe I cab get the cabinets up before she gets back? :) As soon as she gets back..It's business time.

Business Time....baby

Captain Frank and the van

Sailing...most people picture the open water and some kind of soothing music in the background. Not me.

A year ago some close friends of ours got married. Great. We were invited to the wedding and Shamoopie was invited to the brides shower and I was invited to the bachelor party. I like bachelor parties as much as I like cake. The "party" is going to be a sailing trip in a harbor. Myself, I have never been sailing. Avoided it really. Never saw the point. Why sail when you can ride in a speed boat? Or better yet, fly a plane!

But "Bob the Builder" (BTB) wants to sail. I do some research and find out that it's in a harbor that is only 15 feet deep at it's deepest point. Mostly it is ten to twelve feet and gets really shallow quickly as you approach shore. Sounds safe to me. We are only going to sail for three hours, then eat, and drive back. Sounds good to me.

BTB and I ride together and we get there at 9:30 am. The boat is a pretty good size about 30 feet. I meet the rest of our crew who are BTB's friends and then I meet Captain Frank. He's about three feet tall. No kidding. The first thing he does is shake my hand and then proceed to get himself another beer. An "Old Style", remember it's 9:30 am! This is not his first!

A bad sign already and we haven't even left port yet. Even though that voice in the back of my head is saying "don't go, don't go", I go and we all leave port. There is a nice spread of food in the cabin below and some refreshments other than beer. Things start off pretty good. The sun is shining and we have a nice breeze, so we are making good time. The food is good and I am drinking a Coke. Captain Frank is drinking beer and letting anyone who wants to steer the boat. BTB take his turn and he's doing pretty good. I am standing next to him and we are talking. (BTB is a former weatherman just for your information, this is important) We joking and looking around BTB and I notice that the water behind us is dark. About ten minutes later we notice that the sky is dark about ten miles behind us. BTB pulls out his phone and checks the weather. There is a thunder storm with hail about and hour behind us and heading our way.

BTB gives up the helm and asks Captain Frank if we should pull the sails in before it hits and finish the trip with the engine. Captain Frank yells back "No, we'll out run it. Steady as she goes!" BTB and I just look at each other and the weather and say "Shit" at about the same time. In the meantime the storm has picked up steam and is only a few minutes behind us. The water is dark because it's getting ready to be on top of us. The storm as it turns out is HUGE.

It hits us hard and fast and the boat is sent spinning. The boat is tipped on it's side. I am hanging on the side rail across the bow of the boat and my feat are dangling. Literally, I am dangling off the side of the boat. The boat rights itself. Apparently boats of a certain size do this on their own. When things settle out for a second a head count is taken and we see that we have not lost anyone. The boat then flips onto it's other side.

Again I am hanging onto the side of the boat trying to get my feet to stick to anything. They won't. When the boat rights itself again I head down below with a few other people. When we get down there the food that we had is splattered all over the place and I find Captain Frank. Yep, the Captain is down below. He has one of the bachelor party at the helm during a storm. He heads up on deck and starts giving orders. We are turning around to look for some of his things that fell off the deck when we went over. The ship flips two more times while I am down below. We are trying not to run into one another and also trying to dodge the nautical nick-knacks that the Captain didn't have nailed down. The place was a mess of broken pictures and salsa.

The storm clears and we get to our destination and 6pm. That's right I said 6pm. Just like Gilligan our three hour tour took seven hours. We are late for our reservations but they serve us anyway. Dinner was good. I sat next to our drunken midget captain and listened to stories about how that was nothing. I could hear other people telling perfect strangers about their near death experience. One guy from the group was bragging about how he never got wet. Then a waitress dumped a glass of wine down his back. I am not kidding.

We finished dinner and we were getting ready to leave. The van pulled up to drive us back to our cars. There were only two seats in the fifteen passenger an. So members of the restaurant put wooden chairs in the van to seat us all. The Captain Frank got in the drivers seat. I yelled out"wait one minute, why is the drunken midget driving! Haven't we had enough today?" I was told that it was his van and to get in if I wanted to go home. I did get in. The drive took us twenty minutes to get back to our cars. Twenty minutes. Seven hours of hell and we were only twenty minutes away by car.

That was the one and only time that I have gone sailing.

O Ugly O

Ohio, according to Wikipedia is a midwestern state and possibly the deciding factor in the 2004 presidental election. Both are debatable. One thing is for sure. This recent trip was my first to Ohio. Shamoopie was hungry as soon as we got off the plane. I mean growl in your face pregnant hungry. So as soon as we got to our rental car I found her some lunch. We found a Panera Bread at a mall near the airport.

It was your usual Panera Bread. Nothing special but it was clean and we know the menu. We got our food and sat down to eat. As we were eating I was looking around and I asked Shamoopie was it just me or were the people there really ugly? She informed me that it was not me and that yes in fact that the people in the Panera Bread were in fact some the the ugliest people in America. Purhaps the world. Most of them looked like Springer rejects. We chuckled about it, ate our food, and went on our merry way. During our trip I kept noticing that there were a disproportional amount of ugly people in Ohio. More so than in other states that I have visited. Maybe it was just the area we were in around Cleveland. Maybe but I don't think so.

Now our friends there are good looking people. Damize and his family should move. By Ohio standards they are super models. They are a good looking family.

I am proposing that Ohio stop false advertising and change it's name to Ouglyo. I am thinking that as immigrants got off the boat at Ellis Island they were divided into groups. One good looking that was sent all over the country and one of ugly people that were all sent to Ohio. I can see it now as they were in line. "You..Pennsylvania, you..New York, ewww you...Ohio. You look like an Ohio to me." It's the only explanation that I can come up with. It may not be true. But it's all I have to explain what I saw.

Things like this:

Everywhere we went.








I rest my case.

Sting stung

No sooner do we get back and Sting is in trouble for not being nice. Mean to a pregnant cook. Shame, shame Gordon. And it was such a nice show.

We're back and Happy Birthday...

Stewart Copeland had a birthday yesterday and Shamoopie and I went to help him celebrate it. I had forgotten what a great drummer he really is. The Police concert was good. I say good because it was not the highlight of the trip. It was nice to see them together as a unit. Neither Shamoopie nor I got to see them when they were together the first time.

Sting introduced Stewart and Andy Summers many times during the night but nobody introduced Sting. What's up with that? That tells me that this is not going to last. That and the fact that Andy Summers looks confused as he plays. When he was playing it sounded fine most of the time. There were a few solos that were just plain bad and a few that were not inspiring. But all in all he played well. They should not have done closeups on him when he was "supposed" to be singing. That's when he looked the most confused and it appeared that he didn't remember the words. I mean come on.."Da do do do, da dada da." How hard is that?

Andy did not play as well as Stewart or Sting. Stewart was on. Except the time he almost didn't make it back to his drum kit during a song. Oops. Other than that he played really well. He was like a machine.

The crowd in Cleveland was loud. Almost deafening at times. We were in the middle near the front. It was wild looking around the arena and seeing ll the people there.

Sting was a little flat singing at times but no one seemed to care except Shamoopie and I. Sting was playing great and was looking buff for an old guy. The people in front of us kept dancing the same drunken dance no matter what some was played or what tempo it was. One of them even spilled a drink on Shamoopie's foot. So she wiped it on his chair. I love her.

My friend Damize got us the tickets. He and his wife Dasu took us to the concert. They were nice enough to pick us up at the hotel and drives to the show. Earlier in the day Damize took us to see a baby tiger that had just been born. She was cute. I mean really cute. She was still on the bottle and we could not touch her but she was really cute. Then we met her daddy. He was not as cute and looked at me like I was lunch. I mean like I was a little afternoon snack. That was a bit scary. We left there quickly after that.

The highlight of the trip was the unexpected find we had down near the Rock and Roll hall of fame. We got to tour the USS Cod. A WWII submarine that is docked in Cleveland. Yes, I typed the word Cleveland. As in Cleveland Ohio. Who knew. I recommend the tour to anyone who likes cool WWII stuff. The kids that were on it seemed to really like the tour and it made sense out of a significant part of the wolfpack and other submarine tactics that were used in WWII.

We also went to the Rock and Roll hall of fame but it was not that interesting to me or the Shamoopie. A few guitars and some clothes mostly. I won't go back but I am glad that I went this time. The contracts and the letters were the most interesting part of the hall, to me.

Our trip is over and we flew back so I could get back to work.

Happy birthday Stewart Copeland!

Lute boy

In the middle ages there were minstrels who roam from village to village and played string instruments. Some of these were called lutes. These people are back again. I have a name for this one. I give you lute boy. This thing is not a guitar. I don't care what he says about it. If it has that many strings tuned to different notes, it a lute. Lute boy, lute boy. There I said it again. I don't even want to hear it or try to pick it up. It just looks heavy.
My back hurts just thinking about it.

You can thank my nephew for this post. He sent us a fund raiser for his school and the only magazines I could use were guitar magazines because they were not selling porn. It was a school fund raiser after all. So now I read these things and just get confused or mad. Don't get me wrong . I am having fun with the mags. The acoustic guitar mag is my favorite and actually has useful articles.

I shall sign off like by brother in law.

Peace out, girl scout.... or lute boy which ever you may be.

When Chewbacca's attack

I don't know why I find this story funny. It just seems ridiculous to me that people will stand around all day in costumes on a street corner trying to make money. Having been laid of for a few months I should have donned a Chewbacca suit and stood on the corner to try and make a few bucks instead of working on the house.

You could have read about me on the internet bitch slappin' some Marilyn Monroe look alike as told to E online by the Elmo character. Maybe Elmo and Chewbacca could have have had it out for street corner domination!

Everybody likes cake

I like cake. Most people like cake. These cupcakes are ginormous. But they are not as big as Shamoopies' cupcakes. These are in a trailer park. I thought that was somehow appropriate and since there are three of them.

What she doesn't say in her blog is that she was able to hide them for quite a while when we were dating. How on earth can anyone hide cupcakes as big as these? She must be the illegitimate daughter of David Copperfield. He can make boats, cars, buses, and buildings disappear right? Why not cupcakes?

Shamoopie I applaud all the things that you are able to accomplish. You are amazing and you are able to put up with me to boot.

Los Straitjackets

Shamoopie went to the doctor today. She got a new picture of the little one. Seems cute except for the fact that he kind of looks like her brother or sort of like this guy.


I can't decide which. I hope it turns out to be a guitar player like these guys. Looking at the ultrasound reminds me of them.

At least it would be easy to teach the little guy guitar especially if I play the little one some Villa-Lobos.

Speaking of Villa-Lobos I have a new guitar instructor. He is a four time Segovia competition winner. Thank you Shamoopie. She is so sweet at encouraging me to get better and helping me pick a new teacher. Love you Shamoop.

Mac and PC

I am going to catch hell for this but I just can't take it any more. Ok, ok, the "cool" guy is the mac. The fat guy is the pc because he is bloated with cheese burgers or software or something. I get it. I get it. Everyone wants to be the mac guy not the pc guy in the bad suit. But people pay attention.

The mac guy is wearing a sweater. Grandpas wear sweaters don't they?

I repeat. The mac guy is wearing a sweater! I bet it even smells of moth balls and he drives a 1999 VW or a Subaru that blows smoke out the exhaust. PC guy drives a 2007 Navigator or Benz with spinners because he saved a bunch of money buying the PC and running a free copy of Linux because he knows how to install it and modify it himself. He doesn't need a balding tech from BestBuy with a black and white bug to show him how it works.

Sorry. I needed to get that off my chest.

Special People

There are some special people in your life. We all have them at one time or another if we are lucky. One of mine was a neighbor. We shared a property line and on part of our property was a brier patch. I don't like brier patches. Most people don't, except maybe Br'er Rabbit. But that was in a Disney movie that is not shown anymore. Lovely was only two at the time and the patch was near her play area. So I asked my neighbor if I could pay to have it removed. I offered to remove both his and mine, since removing only mine would only allow them to grow back on my lot.

He agreed that it would be not only ok but he offered to pay for his portion of the removal which would have been about $100 since the part on his yard was only one third of mine. So the guy came and removed all the brier patch and I was happy. I paid him for the whole job and he went on his merry way.

I saw my neighbor in his yard the next day and asked him how he liked the work. He told me that he didn't and that he was upset with me for removing the brier patch. WHAT? Now I was confused. I said " So I guess this means that you won't be paying me for your part of the removal?" He said he would not be paying me the $100. Which told me that he did remember our conversation. We talked some more and I was able to get out of him that his wife (the "little boy next door", but that is another story) didn't like me destroying the bunny's home. Apparently, she believed the Br'er rabbit when he wanted to be thrown into the brier patch.

From that point on Lovely was told to call our neighbor "Special Ed". She would wave as she would say it and she was really cute doing so. It was difficult for my neighbor to yell at a two year old but he sure could give me dirty looks. :)

Life....

Lately there seems to be a wave a bad news coming from friends and family. People are getting cancer. Starting treatments and praying that they work. My bad news happened when I had lost my job. Tonight I found out that a friend of mine who was scheduled to get married this month did not. His girl backed out on the wedding at the last minute.

You see these things in movies and on TV but you usually don't have them happen to people that you know. Since the wedding was for close family only Shamoopie and I were not invited. I could see this since she and I eloped with just another couple to be our witnesses. Our wedding was fantastic. The Shamoop planned it all and I for one loved it.

Back to my friend. I called him tonight to pick on him for being an old married man only to find out that his wench ( I will use the term wench in case they get back together) backed out at the last minute. Shamoopie and I had stopped by to see them before the wedding and everything was going great. They had plans and seemed to be on the same page. He is now heart broken. I have never heard him or anyone sound so sad. Yes, guys do get heart broken!

Shamoopie asked me after I got off the phone with him "would you cry if I left you"? I said "Maybe". Shamoopie looked at me and said "MAYBE". And I answered "yep, maybe I might cry in prison if I got arrested for killing you." :)

She laughed her Shamoopie laugh. Ain't love grand? I love my Shamoopie.

Watch what you call it...

This looks like and ordinary remote control but when Lovely (my daughter) was younger than she is now I used to call it my "Manhood". Lovely was not allowed to touch daddy's manhood. Since Daddy was the "King" of his castle there was not going to be to any Barney on TV as long as he could help it.

So the rule was put into place and it wasn't broken. Until one night when daddy let Lovely watch one of her shows and use the remote. All was right with the world. Lovely went to her daycare the next day and told the daycare worker about hat had happened to her last night. Lovely said she got to touch daddy's manhood last night. The day care worker asked what it looked like? She told her it was big. The worker was intrigued. How big is it?

Since Lovely doesn't like to lie she showed her. The worker was impressed and concerned at the same time. Then She asked Lovely what color is was and she told her "It's BLACK.... silly". That's when the worker was able to figure out that the"Manhood" was not what she first thought it was. My being Caucasian relieved almost all her worries about my "Manhood".

I went to go get Lovely from the daycare and I got an ear full about what I should and should not call things. You live and you learn.