Guitar - גיטרה‎

I'm beginning to get my callouses back. That's a good sign. When I first began to humanize from the worst of the Crohn's flareup they were all but gone. The enthusiasm took longer. It just seemed as if the amount of effort needed to actually sit down and play was used up in more mundane tasks. Things like walking and eating and showering and breathing. I looked at tall of them, the guitars, and tried to remember what the point was. I excavated my psyche to determine where that joy had come from and after sifting the debris I wasn't initially able to find an artifact that gave proof of anything. Slowly it has returned. A new acquaintence (perhaps a friend eventually) came over to look at the 35+ guitars. What fascinated him in particular was a G J Gould Guitar with a solid spruce top and rosewood back and sides made in Israel. Handmade because in the 1970's (when it was made) I assume that the level of computerized or even mass production of guitars was non-existent. It is beautiful and it sounds magnificent. There is no way to calculate the value of it because there are next to none left on the planet. When it was new, according to my research, it was about $400 which, inflated out, is about $1800 to $1900 bucks. For me having a guitar this exquisite; that sounds this good and is made in Israel is a miracle. It is my reward for doing something right at sometime. 

I have started collecting and buying and selling again. I have four guitars up on Ebay and some that will go there soon. I have some that need some love and care. Lowering an action or just changing the strings to a lighter gauge. It is not work but it is work but it isn't work. It is a meditation of sorts. It is a joy.

Hi. I guess I'm healing.

(I'll post a picture (s) soon.

Back

So...I've been sick and I think I'm a little less sick now. At its worst it was stumble out of bed and heading to the bathroom and then waking up vividly when the pain from both blood clots in my left leg would erupt with a vindictive burst. Then I would put myself together purposefully. Fighting through the nausea and pain and other pains by focusing on any singular action. Focusing and actually saying to myself silently things like, "I am now going to close the door" or "I am now going to heat the water for the tea." and then "I am heating the water for the tea." I would await the calming of my interior and then risk the drive to work. I worked for the allotted eight hours and then prayed the drive home would be uneventful.; Then once arriving I fed me. I fed Ian (14) I gave the animals some treats and limped into bed hoping to sleep as quickly as possible. I would pop a commercial sleep pill and a melatonin or two and wait to drop off. Then the night was intermittent awakenings till, for some reason, I was able to sleep the last four hours or so uninterrupted. Day after day. Every morning and night I would pass by the "guitar room" and wonder what the point was. My callouses began to wear away. I had no desire to play or repair or sell or buy. I could have cared less.I even contemplated selling each and every one. Not much of a contemplation. I had other distractions.Now I am slowly, slowly healing and I have picked up a few and strummed and picked a we bit. I never thought that I could lose my love of the instruments but I did. At my worst I could have burned them for warmth. So, I'm getting a little better but at its worst it was at its worst. I think I'm back from that place. I hope I stay for awhile. 

A Brief Visit From Me To Me

I need to write this quickly. I am in the midst of a battle against a disease (Crohn's....SEVERE Crohns's). It isn't fatal. But it narrows life. It drains color from it and replaces what used to be just living with unexpected and expected pain. With discomfort which is not quite pain. With a new distrust for my body. We are at odds. The reason I write this here is that I haven't played a guitar in weeks. Maybe a month. I don't work on them. I don't think about them. I don't delight in the feel of one in my hands. My life, as I said, has narrowed. Flattened. Washed out. There are cures and I not ashamed to try them even though, in research, it seems they are similar to doing away with your moth problem by burning down your house with you in it. No Moths. There. I need to stop before I want to stop writing. One thing...right before this became awful I got a Gould (sic) guitar that was handmade (it had to be) in Israel. It is quite the thing. Okay. Let me get off before I am someone else.

Vintage Olympia OM C1 CE

Isn't this just so prettty?
Soon it will be in my hands.
I am such an addict!

Guitar work seems to be distracting enough from my distractions that I get distracted.

So....I'm sick. Not I'm gonna kick off tomorrow so gather round and let me share my final wishes sick. But sick enough that the sickness distracts me from any activity that needs concerted concentration over a long period of time. Leaving an activity and then returning after a bout of what I'm bouting is exhausting and requires putting the head in the same place. This is not always easy. But guitar work seems to be distracting enough from my distractions that I get distracted. The changing of strings, The oiling of a fretboard. The examination of the saddle and the nut. The repairs I am capable of. Contemplating the repairs I would like to be capable of. The choosing of the tool and then the re-choosing of a tool. The playing. Ah the playing. I'm improving. It has taken a few decades and the passage through many events both personal and universal. Playing around with a chord or a note. Hearing how that sounds on a variety of guitars. They are all different in how they sing. My ears have become more discerning. I now hear the precision of a high note in the midst of a muddled low note. How each guitar plays the same progression differently. How I play each guitar differently.  How the same string of notes played on a different guitar can either grow or just wither. The difference in the gauge of the strings and how they feel under the callouses of the tips of my left hand. The differences in the brands of the strings and the component metals and coatings.  I order my tools and then reorder them. I love the smell of the wood and the oil and the polish. I smell each guitar like a rose and inhale the differences in age and wood. Mahogany does not smell the same as rosewood. The feel and texture. A satin finished cedar top is so markedly different from a gloss finish of spruce. In the midst of the slow rearranging of my bodies priorities I have been given....shit....I have given myself a continuing low intensity joy. When I told my son Oren that I was ill but that I probably wouldn't kick off for a while I got to joking about the funeral. I said he should try to do it as cheaply as possible. He asked me if he could use a guitar case for the casket. I love that kid!

They come and go..........

 The above painting is

Abstract Guitar by Trisha Lamoreaux

I've been off of this for quite some time and it was not from any desire to ignore the thing. It came from confronting various not quite serious diseases that, in truth, are serious. Really. Mostly just annoying but cumulatively exhausting. I have begun to develop a new relationship with my interior and exterior. It pisses me off. I've fed it for years. Washed it almost every day and done my best to provide it with its various animal oriented pleasures. What do I get in return? An array of stuff that has resulted in my ingesting, every day, so many pills that I can make little pill men or pill faces every morning.. The palette of colors and variety of sizes has a certain degree of  interest but it is very fleeting. But, enough about me....let's talk about guitars.

They are coming and going with great rapidity these days. Having had  my income reduced.....REDUCED!!! I have started to buy and sell guitars. Some mean little. I have an ARIA upstairs that has a severe case of Martin envy. Not that it sounds awful or that it looks dreadful. It doesn't sound dreadful. It is just a little soulless.

There are others that have come my way that are seriously difficult to consign to the sale sign. There was another Aria. Oh twas a magnificent thing McGee. Looked real and solid and sounded like bells with cinnamon over ice. There's a Yamaha that is a known quantity. Been around. Reproduced and multiplied. Inhabits whole sub continents. It has had labels of all hues. From the coveted red to the respected tan and a few stops in the black region. But it is solid and light and plays like someone who has rediscovered tap dancing on bronze strings. My fingers have such an easy time moving up and down the neck. There is no effort to a chord. Certainly it ain't no slide guitar.

So, eventually, I do sell them. They are brief but passionate affairs of short lived intense devotion. I carry pictures of them in my wallet and sigh when I show them around the bar.

Electronic Amber: Melissa Hechtman, Melissa Delaguna

I am writing this for a particular reason. The reason is that if anyone does a search on the web with Google, Bing or any of them and they want to know about my late wife (that is just so polite isn't it?) Melissa Hechtman before marriage Melissa Ann Lopez deLeo deLaguna they will end up with a woman, who is nice I suppose, who works at some University in Florida. They would not find any mention of my wife. So...here is the mention. Now she will show up in a search and she will not be lost to the internet. It is a method of preservation. A sort of electronic amber.