Exactly seven years ago, today (8/23/2013), I sold my 1973 Dobro D-66 to Paul Mayasich for $1700. I wrote the following words the day after that guitar walked out of my life. I was incredibly depressed at the time. I had quit my teaching gig at MSCM after a 13+ year career there; probably the best job (at times) I had in my 55 year working life and when it ended almost all of the things I loved about that school were gone. My wife and I were leaving home for the winter and I wasn't looking forward to any part of traveling in a camper.
This piece sounds really self-pitying; and it was. I was whipped. Since then, a few things have changed. Due to the onset of arthritis in my hands, I went back to playing guitar after we moved to Red Wing in 2015. In fact, I'm playing more now than I have in the last 30 years. I still suck, but I'm enjoying myself. I have been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, which pretty much puts a terminal punctuation mark in my future. I'm not sure what the point in allowing this to post in 2020 would be, but I decided to let it stay on the queue to remind myself of . . . something.
I bought the Dobro (pictured at left) from one of the blues guys who used to play at the Howard Street Tavern, sometime around 1976. It was a well-used instrument when I bought it. Back in those good days, I ran sound occasionally at the Tavern, rented guitars, amps, and other gear to the bar when a traveling musician or band needed gear that wasn't available from the usual culprits, and bought and sold instruments, petals, and amps to pretty much anyone who called in the middle of the night strung-out, hung-over, in jail, or broke in Omaha or Lincoln. This great old guitar was the last holdover from that period of my life.
This piece sounds really self-pitying; and it was. I was whipped. Since then, a few things have changed. Due to the onset of arthritis in my hands, I went back to playing guitar after we moved to Red Wing in 2015. In fact, I'm playing more now than I have in the last 30 years. I still suck, but I'm enjoying myself. I have been diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, which pretty much puts a terminal punctuation mark in my future. I'm not sure what the point in allowing this to post in 2020 would be, but I decided to let it stay on the queue to remind myself of . . . something.
I bought the Dobro (pictured at left) from one of the blues guys who used to play at the Howard Street Tavern, sometime around 1976. It was a well-used instrument when I bought it. Back in those good days, I ran sound occasionally at the Tavern, rented guitars, amps, and other gear to the bar when a traveling musician or band needed gear that wasn't available from the usual culprits, and bought and sold instruments, petals, and amps to pretty much anyone who called in the middle of the night strung-out, hung-over, in jail, or broke in Omaha or Lincoln. This great old guitar was the last holdover from that period of my life.
I can not explain this, but I was almost infinitely sad about giving up this instrument. I know, "Why did you sell it if you were going to miss it that badly?" The reason was that I was dumping all of my old pipe-dreams, one at a time, until I either found something to care about or decided I was too old, too burned out, too disappointed to care about anything.
After the guitar walked out of my life, I took our dog for a walk. It took about a mile of walking before it sank in that I'd given up an instrument that had been so much of my life during some of the best moments of my life. The real reason I was selling all of my guitars and equipment also sank in; at 65 if I never played another note, sang another song, or even whistled a tune, nobody would care. Not a single person who has ever heard me play guitar or sing has been positively affected by my love of music. A few weeks back, the wife of a friend was bugging me to pick a song and sing for a small group of friends. I begged off, eventually leaving the party to get out of being asked to perform. The real reason was that I was convinced that once she heard me sing or play that would be the last time she'd ask for that torture. When you know how the movie ends, you don't need to stay for the credits.
If you need a definition of failure, this is it. A friend, Scott Jarrett, quoted a car mechanic as saying, "You haven't failed, if you haven't quit." I quit on music, more than once in the last 60 years. When I was a kid, I was one of the few guys I knew in bands who wasn't playing music "for the chicks." In fact, I had almost no interest at all in the girls who hung out around bands and bars. I was there for the music. Worse, I didn't want to be a rock star, I wanted to be a jazzman.
Growing up in western Kansas with shit for a musical environment--and the polar opposite of the parents who used to drag their bored adolescent douchebags into the Musictech/McNally Smith College open houses hoping their offspring would become famous musicians--was a lot more than an uphill battle. It would have required superhuman abilities and commitment. I was more like subhuman. I copped out and played pop music, including a fair number of original tunes, because I had no idea how to get from beginner to jazz player. There were no such animals in Dodge City, Kansas in 1963. When I left home in 1965, there were still no such animals in Dodge or western Kansas and I wouldn't meet any until a decade later.
Growing up in western Kansas with shit for a musical environment--and the polar opposite of the parents who used to drag their bored adolescent douchebags into the Musictech/McNally Smith College open houses hoping their offspring would become famous musicians--was a lot more than an uphill battle. It would have required superhuman abilities and commitment. I was more like subhuman. I copped out and played pop music, including a fair number of original tunes, because I had no idea how to get from beginner to jazz player. There were no such animals in Dodge City, Kansas in 1963. When I left home in 1965, there were still no such animals in Dodge or western Kansas and I wouldn't meet any until a decade later.
I got married when I was 19. Somehow, I thought my new wife liked my music and my playing. It turned out that she liked my "dependability" and the fact that I could manage to hold a job and support her. My music was rarely a significant part of me, as far as she was concerned. By the time we'd been married for six or seven years, she was close to hating the aspect of my playing that required practice. There wasn't a place in any of our homes that was far enough away from her to keep her from complaining about my playing. A real musician would have taken that as a sign that we were incompatible. I have never been a real musician or any kind of artist. Over the next two decades, I quit practicing and the less I practiced, the less I could tolerate my playing and less I wanted to play. Today, I can barely stand to touch a guitar because I suck so badly. So, seven years ago I sold my favorite guitar to a man who was a musician. I can't decide if I missed the guitar or the hope once had that I might become a musician.
