I?m testing out Mac Journal for use posting to this blog. Safari is not friendly to the formatting in wordpress, so I am hoping this will be better.
One of the problems with Safari is it won?t allow paragraph breaks.
And other formatting is also not an option.
This guitar reminds me of my experience looking for a Parker Fly. In both instances, my search started with dealers so that I could find, and perhaps purchase, the instrument. In the initial phases of an obsession, I tell myself how important it is to play the instrument before buying. In both instances, I visited the manufacturers website to identify local dealers. In both cases, I contacted theose dealers through the e-mails provided by the manufacturers. And in both cases, I heard nothing from the store(s).
The next step is to visit the surrounding large chain stores. Around here, that means Guitar Center and Sam Ash. When I did this looking for a Fly, none of them had any in stock. Although they both did have examples of the new Parker Strat-like guitar that has been reviewed well in magazines, but has a bolt on neck and other significant differences from the Fly I was after. So no sale.
I will shortly start to make the rounds of Guitar Center and Sam Ash. My daughters are on vacation this week, so running out to look at guitars is more problematic than usual. Still, it is the next step.
In both cases, it is about this time that I start wondering how important it is to play an instrument before buying it. I am an intermediate level player (on a good day) so some of the subtleties between individual examples of a particular model are often beyond me. But not always. But if I tell myself this, then I can start also looking on e-bay.
In the case of the Parker, I quickly concluded that almost all Parkers on e-bay, unless new, have a chip somewhere in the carbon fiber body coating. Some are pretty bad. And the new ones all cost the same. After several months of watching, I was able to find an example that had no chips, and had been rarely used. What’s more, I was able to get it for a fair, but not great, price. I’ve been very happy with the Parker.
But the Dean is a new guitar. It hasn’t been made long enough for gently used ones to start showing up on e-bay. As a new instrument, I also feel a greater need to play it before buying it. While I may not be able to notice certain subtleties, I also know there are some guitars that just don’t work for me. Surprisingly, a genuine Gibson Les Paul does nothing for me, but I have no such problems with Epiphone Les Pauls (go figure!).
And again, it is the difficulty I experience finding an example of this guitar to play that leads me top the conclusion that there is an untapped niche of guitar players in the Phialdelphia area that must be having the same difficulty as me. Surely others are interested in playing a Dean Soltero guitar. but are there enough? And if they find me, and play my Soltero hanging on the wall, will they go home and order it off the internet?
Wish I knew the answer…
I took my advice and reserved a domain name for AdultGuitar. And then, lo and behold, life intruded. First came the holidays and then came my wife’s health procedures. But now, I look back at the past several months and try to learn something.
What did I learn? I find it very difficult to work completely unstructured from November through January. In the past, this has manifested itself in a long period of not playing my guitars at all. By February, the pent-up music making bursts forth and reasserts itself as a priority, and IU return to playing. In many years, February is also the month I have purchased a guitar. This has happened enough that my two daughters asked me several times during February if I was going out to buy a new guitar. I have not bought a new guitar. But, for the record, I have been practicing since the beginning of February. Not just practicing, but practicing with concentration and purpose that I often lack. Using a metronome, focusing on learning some theory, not just looking to play another song at my current skill level.
But the acquisition bug is never far away. These days, my longing seems focused on two Dean guitars: the Leslie West Signature model, and the rest of the Soltero line. Unfortunately, my nearest dealer is the dealer I love to hate: Swarthmore Music. I’ve put in an e-mail, through the Dean Guitars website, but have not yet had a response after two days. And I’m not surprised.
On Tuesday I stopped by my hairdresser’s salon and picked up his items for sale: one Mexican Stratocaster, one 30W Crate all-tube Palomino amplifier, and one black Gretsch DuoJet. The DuoJet was the one main guitar he had been holding onto, and the one he kept saying he would never sell. When we last talked, I constantly tried to get him to sell the Gretsch, only to have him tell me he wasn’t selling it. I was quite surprised to find out he was letting me sell it.
After I got it home, I needed to make sure it played well enough for me to sell on e-bay without damaging my feedback ratings. By playing it personally, I can learn about and disclose any shortcomings in the description. Its also the fun part of doing this for my hairdresser. What I immediately noticed was that it was light, and had a great variety of tones. But the low E string buzzed loudly. When my daughters came home from school, they both mentioned how loud the buzzing was.
So this morning I decided to call my hairdresser and ask him about the buzzing. He claims to be good about tweaking guitars, and I wanted to let him have an opportunity to do that to this one. I felt that selling it as is, with me mentioning the string buzz in my description, would certainly net him a much lower price on e-bay than he otherwise would receive. When I called him, he was glad to hear from me. His wife is out of town, and he had told her the prior night that I was selling the Gretsch. Based on her reaction, he needed to get it back and not sell it.
So I have the amplifier listing ready to start on Thursday night, and I still have the Mexican Strat to sell, but neither item will earn as much for him, or me, as that Gretsch. So since I have some more time, I went ahead and registered my fictitious name with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and registered for what I think will be my state tax receipt number. Which is all I think I need to start selling guitars as Media Music.
In 2004, Dean Guitars released a limited edition of 200 guitars signed by Michael Schenker. Michael was the lead guitar in Scorpions and UFO, two heavy-metal bands that were popular while I was in college. When the guitar was announced, I wanted one badly. But at $4000 list price, I wasn’t willing to buy one without first seeing and playing one.
This was one of the first times I had an unsatisfactory interaction with the folks at Swarthmore Music, which I have referenced in earlier posts. After inquiring about the guitar, and told its price, I indicated my interest in seeing it. They mentioned it might be hard to get one, since there were only 100 signed copies, but they would talk to their sales rep. The rep was scheduled to be at the store that week, and perhaps they could get him to bring one with him for me to evaluate. They would let me know.
And they never did. No call, no card. Nothing to let me know the guitar was unavailable through them, or any steps I could take to get one. I put a mental black mark in the Swarthmore Music column, and moved on.
Less than a month ago, I saw one of these guitars for sale on e-bay. Thinking perhaps I could score a good deal, now that the release “excitement” had diminished, I put in a bid for $2000. To my surprise and delight, I won the auction at $1900. The guitar arrived well packaged and, aside from some small nicks in the black and white case, was in great shape.
I hooked it up to my rarely used Carvin tube amp and loved the crunchy rock and roll sounds it generated. But I quickly noticed some buzzing from the low E string. So today I took it to one of my favorite music stores: George’s Music Store.
The diagnosis wasn’t very good. The neck is too straight, meaning that it lacks the normal curvature/angling away from the player that allows for low playing action without buzzing.We loosened the truss rod completely, and raised the bridge, and much of the buzzing went away. But not all of it.
Still, we all agreed that it is one cool looking guitar.
Sometimes I have a hard time remembering how long I’ve been staying at home raising my daughters. Unlike an out-of-the-home job, there are no anniversary office parties. No little plaques for making it 5 or 10 years (or longer). The job has its seasons, in sync with the school year and summer vacation. But nobody sends me an interoffice memo announcing that I’ve completed 5 years and now get an extra week of vacation (am I dating myself?).
So it was with some curiosity that I opened my recent statement from the Social Security Administration to view my estimated benefits. And then it hit me:
I’ve been doing this for 10 years. Its the longest I’ve held a job (the other two lasting 9 and 7 years, respectively). Its important for me to remember that number, as I consider working outside my home again. Its one of the first questions likely to come up in interviews. And it is a long time out of the workforce that I need to be able to address.
And one other thing. What happened to my 10-year anniversary celebration?
I’m a 47-year-old at-home Dad. I’ve been at home raising my two daughters for eight years. Now that my youngest is going off to middle school, I’m starting to look for flexible work opportunities.
This is my journal of re-entering the workforce.
