*** The computer will be off all of Friday through Sunday, if you need me please call 512-395-5126. If you leave a message, kindly verbally leave your number and I’ll call you back ASAP. Emails and Facebook, I’ll access when the computer comes back on. Thanks! ***
Evidently the great Facebook scare of 2018 happened this past week. It was mostly a hoax, but just so you know - this is what I look like.
Go see if we’re friends – look in my pictures for this guy; if we are, I won’t be sending you another request. There WILL most likely be cars involved if you DO get one from me. If I get one from you, I look at your profile. If we’ve never spoken or never talked in a car or van group and there’s not a picture of you playing a guitar or bass, I probably won’t accept without a message. If you’re only showing a few pictures and no real content, I definitely won’t accept even if I know your name – that’s what fake profiles look like. If I see your name already IN my friends list or you’re the ubiquitous “hot single chick” in everybody’s friend request lists – also with few pictures and no content - you’re definitely a fake profile and I decline and report these as SPAM. And most of you know this, but whether on Facebook or YouTube, I’m the guitar guy – not the racecar driver, gamer, random family guys or the street preacher of the same name. If it’s a political post, it’s not me. I don’t make them, and I don’t comment on them publicly. All you get from me are inspirational Monday morning posts to help you get out there and kick its ass so the rest of the week falls in line (believe me, I’m helping me in the same way – I just figure I’ll share it with you too), guitar or bass related posts, or the occasional old car content. That’s it. That’s most of my life and that’s the part of the garden I share. And don’t take it personally if I don’t comment on your posts – there’s a bunch of you and only one me, I don’t actually see a lot of them, and – like any piece of post-1980s technology – despite how it may appear, I can barely work it.
So speaking of old cars and sharing inspiration, I get a lot of inspiration in life from the old machines around me. I don’t know what does it for you, but when I need to be something other than Scott The Music Guy, I get in one and go driving. Though I don’t drive every day, most machines here are daily driver worthy and the newest model year vehicle I have is a 1983. They’re what I drive. They’re what I love to look at. They’re what I understand and enjoy. Their hoods are what I love to look out over to view the highways and the back roads - my favorite view of the world. I’ve been a car guy even longer than a guitar guy – always having a Hot Wheels in my pocket as a kid. As a grown up, they just got a little bigger. Here’s “American Beauty” – a 1960 Pontiac Catalina. Newest to the fleet earlier this year, it has elements of boat & rocket in its curves and lines, with those sweeping wheel openings of this era I just love… this kind of curve is where my eyes became fascinated with curves and how they fit in with other elements, directly influencing the curves in the instruments I’d eventually design and build. Electric guitars & basses’ lines may be somewhat similar, but that’s because there are only so many places to put them so they functionally work – balance on a strap, sit on a leg, accommodate an arm, etc., then this goes out up here and in about this way and curves out over there. But the curves themselves? On a Birdsong, mostly inspired by the automotive world. Or the tops of grandfather clocks, maybe a detail here and there from the ends of fancy silverware… but a LOT of old car wheel opening sweep.
Beauty is resting for the moment, needing some little things I’m not going to get to for a bit. (Your stuff comes first – that’s part of our deal!) But there is nothing that rides or cruises like this car except another of the era – a hopeful era when thick steel was sculpted into things built to last, with style. I can’t believe someone could walk into a car dealership to buy a practical, conservative “4-door for the family” and drive off in THIS. This is what that looked like in 1960. Once Beauty’s ignition system is fully sorted (for you car folk, the 389 has been fitted with an HEI distributor) and the carburetor rebuilt, and a few other things tended to, this will be road trip ready. It’s one of my favorite cars I’ve ever driven and will see some highway time. It’s good to have hobbies on the side that – other than being inspiring – have nothing to do with “Who you are” most of the time. Being out of that context for a while, even for a cruise through the hills, is replenishing and lots of answers and perspectives come that don’t when you’re in the thick of playing your main character. On a long enough jaunt they even run out to where you simply “Be” by the moment and mile, a human being not a human doing. Thanks, as always, for letting me share my inspiration with you – whether it be in words & music, wheels & steel, or wood & wire. I hope it inspires YOU in ways YOU need – maybe go find something to do for YOU with what’s left after you serve and devote so much to others. If there’s nothing left? Maybe claim some. It’s healthy. You can’t carry everything and you won’t fix everything – part of doing your best is being your best and that might mean taking the time to fix yourself when needed. Have a great weekend!
Enjoy the scenery,
Listening to: Cream box set; Yabby You Dub It To The Top; tenor Mario Lanza; bluesman Jack Owens.