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Curse of the Acoustic Guitar

This is a picture from the The Casual Historian Blog
I love the acoustic guitar but it is a curse. I have worked harder at playing it than anything else in my life but I only get worse.

Golf was a curse. I tried to play that, too. I spent time on the driving range and time on the putting green but when it came time for a match, I was cursed.

My golf playing partner was Larry Mixon. We enrolled in golf classes at Gulf Coast Community College and thought since we were being trained at an institute of higher learning, we must be pretty good. Not true.

Larry was a military dependent so we would occasionally play at Tyndall. Once, two officers came up behind us and asked to play with us. We tried to talk them out of it but they insisted. Two holes later, after Larry and I emerged from the palmettos where we had been looking for our golf balls, we discovered the two officers had decided to play on without us. It was humiliating but even gentlemen have their limits.

So, I quit golf. I gave away my clubs, walked away cold turkey, and never looked back. The guitar addiction is different. I cannot seem to put it down. Like golf, the more I learn, the more I realize all the things I don’t know.

I have guitars scattered all over my house. I even have one in my office at work. When stress mounts to unsustainable levels, I reach for my guitar and strum a few notes and instantly remind myself that things could be worse.

My friend Mike is responsible. He lived next door to me at College Plaza. It was a motel-like apartment building that rented to young college students in the 70’s. It has long since been torn down to provide more parking for Gulf Coast College but back then it was a great place to live. Mike and I became friends and he taught me to play the guitar on an old Silvertone his mother had bought him with S&H green stamps.

I loved that guitar. I lived alone on Panama City Beach for a while and had no radio or decent TV. The guitar was my primary companion and my only source of entertainment. I picked up the basic chords quickly and began writing songs. In my mind, I was as good as Hank Williams. Here is an example of my early writings.

“I killed three crickets this week
After losing three nights of sleep.
I want to tell you mister
Their back legs don’t blister
After three nights of rubbing
They’ve just reached their peak.

There are more stanzas but I’m sure you get the picture. And that was some of my good stuff!  After writing thirty or forty similar songs, I decided it was time I shared my talent with the rest of the world.

So, I loaded my truck with an arm full of songs and set out for Nashville, Tennessee thinking that I could waltz into town and sell a few, make a million dollars, and drive back home to Panama City without missing much work. My friend Larry went with me

I was in Nashville for less than a day and already had several doors figuratively slammed in my face. I wish I had known there were so many songwriters in Nashville. They are as common as scratch off tickets; each waiting to hit it big.

Somewhere along the way, someone told me about a songwriter’s workshop at Vanderbilt University sponsored by the Nashville Songwriters Association. I had to go. Larry refused but after a lot of begging, finally relented and reluctantly went along.

We joined about two dozen other people in a small classroom at the University and sat in a square facing each other. There were people from all walks of life: young and old, rich and poor.

Larry is a mechanical engineer and not exactly left lobed in his thinking. So, I could tell he was going into shock when the instructor told us to take out a sheet of paper and write a song about love. I looked over at Larry and his eyes were big as saucers and his hands were trembling.

“C’mon dude, let’s go!” Larry had a panicked look on his face when he leaned over to make his plea.

“Just write something, anything. It won’t matter. We don’t know these people anyway.” It was a logical argument. Larry loved logic.

He scribbled a few lines then put down his pencil. I continued to write. All songwriters, even bad ones like me, have a least a dozen or two love songs stored in their head. I had a good one and thought for sure I would impress the group.

Next, the instructor had each of us read the songs out loud. I could feel Larry glaring at me and knew better than to make eye contact. I pretended it was no big deal.

Each person proudly read the lyrics to their love song. Some were sweet, some were angry, some loved their Mama’s and some loved their dogs. Then it was Larry’s turn.

He paused for confidence then in a matter of fact tone said, “Love is my wife letting me come to Nashville with my best friend.”

There was silence, then laughter, followed by a round of applause. It didn’t rhyme, had no rhythm, and it sure as hell wasn’t a song but they loved it. It was hardly a sentence! What was that all about? Had he somehow captured the essence of our assignment with such an assortment of silly sounding syllables? He was grinning from ear to ear.

Next, all eyes were on me, the best friend. I am sure they were expecting powerful prose and large lyricism. This was real pressure.

I gave it everything I had. Something about colors on the trees changing a thousand times and I would always be there no matter and so on and so on. It was so pathetically cookie cutter mushy; I get sick thinking about it.

I am positive I heard someone yawn. Otherwise, the silence was deafening. The person to my left seemed to wait forever before reading his song as if to highlight my failure, to underline my incompetence. I don’t remember what he read. I was too self absorbed in my own failure. I was convinced everyone was thinking Larry squandered his wife’s blessings just to tag along with a terrible and talentless troubadour of a friend.

I couldn’t wait to get out of there and soon enough, we were done with songwriting and headed downtown for dinner. We found a crowded parking lot behind a big neon sign of a cowboy, in fact the place was called “Cowboy’s.” We thought we had found the mother of all steak houses. Turned out it was a line dancing club. We were both so happy to be out of the songwriting nightmare that I don’t remember too much about the rest of the night. I am sure I didn’t line dance, though.

I vowed to never be humiliated again. I spent the next 18 or so years writing as many songs as possible and playing my cursed guitar every night. I think I am worse today than I was back then but I don’t know how to stop. It’s as if I made God mad and I am destined to painfully pursue something that I can never attain.

I do have one loyal listener, though.

Friday nights after arriving home from work, I change clothes, grab my guitar and head to our swing. Dixie, our golden retriever, upon hearing me warm up, will jump in the swing to sit with me the entire time I play. And on most nights, listen as I play her favorite ill-written song:

“Me and my dog
That ole pal of mine
Nothing could be better
Nothing could be so fine
She loves me so much
That she’ll lick my sore knee
And she always looks forward
To visits with me.”

In her most non-judgmental way, she convinces me that I have at least one fan. And that’s enough to feed my addiction and convince me to pick up the guitar one more time. 

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Posted on Aug 12, 2008 - 11:27 AM by Larche Hardy
Page 2 of 30 pages  <  1 2 3 4 >  Last »

 

About Me

The life of any News Director is stressful most days... so, when the weekend rolls around I find myself on the back roads of our bountiful and beautiful part of the state looking for bluegrass music, interesting things to do, and, of course, fried chicken. I will try to share some of these "finds" with you. There are a thousand stories left to be told or simply remembered. Don't expect to find them all here; maybe just a little stroll down memory lane or maybe a little skewed insight into topical issues.
Larche Hardy,
News Director

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