I warned you. Scanged from Reddit.
I checked my job card again and I don’t have to be at work today until one. Full report upon my return.
Paul called me up yesterday and we went for a walk on the Quay and then we sang and played for a while – like a couple of hours, so it was a singing kind of day yesterday. Also, balm to my wounded ego, he wanted to play along to a bunch of my tunes (he did the back up guitar for the recorded version of “Evening News” which I have always found quite tasty).
John’s six string Guild is a Man’s Freaking Guitar; the tips of my left hand fingers feel like I tried to stop a grinding wheel with them. And of course playing it without crying is hard to do sometimes; I’ll be messing with it and there will be a vertiginous sense of loss, and then it’s “Just keep playing, just keep playing.”
On the plus side I know how to play the rhythm mandolin for Two and Twenty Blues now, and the only solace as my fingers started to burn was that Paul was having a bear of a time with the guitar portion. We played just the guitar and mando parts through about four times; Paul said it was all he could do to play the guitar part let alone sing on top of it. The mando and the guitar sound sweet together – the final result will be worth it. We STILL don’t have a set list, but I suppose I shouldn’t whine, it’s all about the having fun, right? Except it doesn’t sound bad, and I enjoy performing, during the brief spells when I’m not wanting to cocoon against the rain and the O Rim Pics.
After weeks of being impossible to keep in tune, the mandolin is finally behaving. Turns out the problem is the hanger! When I hang the mandolin up on the wall it promptly goes out of tune and stays that way. However, when I put the mandolin in the case and hang THAT on the hanger, it behaves. The guitar doesn’t behave like that at all. I need new mando picks, all my old ones have wandered away, the little beggars.
After 8 months, Margot has finally figured out that when I pick her up I may just brush her, so she’s learned to scamper away at my approach. If this keeps up I’m going to have to take her to a groomer and get her taken down to about an inch.
She really enjoys getting right behind Eddie when he’s eating and enthusiastically licking his butthole. Eddie makes a series of loud and unhappy noises – mixed with eating sounds – but stands his ground. The visual is really quite striking. She never does that to Gizmo. I guess there’s something really irresistable about Eddie’s butt, and if I ever said I wanted to come back as a cat, I take it all back now. Really.
God, yes, that guitar is a fucking cheese grater for fingers. I’m not totally incompetent with guitar, though I’ve forgotten a lot since switching to banjo, but I could never make that thing make an agreeable noise. It needs the action lowered and a set of light strings (if it still has the mediums he used on it, ouch) for people without John’s giant bear paws and sausage fingers, I suspect.
===
Just thinking about the inlay on the fretboard makes me kind of weepy. I don’t think I could pick it up. But I’m glad someone is. A guitar wants playing.