Went for a walk up the beach today and stopped in for a couple of beers at The Parrot. Three beers and one hamburger later back down the beach I rambled. Kind of defeats the purpose, if you know what I mean. A nice walk is good for the heart and the gut, but stopping off and gorging on beers and burgers kind of nullifies the concept. Hotter than hell today too. On top of that some Jamaican guy at the bar just wanted to talk my head off. I tried to avoid him as long as I could, but he just wouldn’t give up. So after a while I returned the yack. But every time he’d ask me something, as soon as I’d respond, he’s interrupt. For God’s sake, the guy would have been better off just talking to himself. He was quite capable of carrying on the entire conversation himself. I’ll bet he’s still talking.

Here’s a few shots from the walk back. I had had a couple of brews so they we’re really random and not well thought out.

Sometimes you can just pick up the guitar and everything just works… other times it’s like swimming upstream in a sea of nacho sauce. Today was one of those days. About a half an hour after I woke up I decided to change the strings on my Taylor guitar that has been sitting in the case for a few months. (If the truth be told, I have quite a few guitars. And sometimes they sit in cases for quite a while.) I go through the phases of playing different guitars for a while and then moving on to another one. I’m actually convinced that they sound different at different times and that there is some etherial and magical thing that controls how they sound and how I can relate (and therefore play) them. Boy am I full of shit.

New strings on the Taylor and I start to noodle, but it’s just a fight. Forget about the problems I have with my hands, I just can’t get my brain, or whatever it is you use to get the rhythm going, to make any sense. On top of that my singing sounds like a dead dog baying at the moon. Thankfully my daughter sleeps through the exercise in futility. I’m going to go take a shower. I doubt that it will improve my playing, but it’s better than just sitting here stinking bodily. After the shower I’ll only stink on the guitar.

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