Crazy Guitar Uncle

Mrs. Schmootzie and I chose not to reproduce. Our ambitious career aspirations and selfish 18-hour workdays are intese and barely condusive to animal or plant husbandry, so taking on a human critter is not a wise idea. However, both of us maintain talents and notable information that should be passed to future generations.

We have friends that have a pair of kids and they are geniuses. They speak many languages and display proficiency on multiple musical instruments. They freak out when they don't get 100% on school assignments.

On the outset, these seem like the dorks I'd be holding over a toilet administering a swirlie. However, they are amazingly aware of news, reality and life. If I had reproduced I would have liked offspring like them, so I decided that they would adopt me as an information and tool conduit.

Tanya plays guitar, she's 15 or so and pretty good. Her guitar teacher gives her grief for "being too creative" and "playing outside the box". Ugh. I grew up one of the most unique (yet unsoughtafter) guitar players because I could make a guitar sound like it is vomiting musical fury. It is my gift. Stifling Tanya's musical development was the goal of her stinky, birkenstock-wearing, guitar teacher. I decided that I should make an intervention.

I brandished an axe from my collection of 1978 Ibanez Concert Series guitars. The CN100, CN200 and the CN250 were manufactured for only a year. They have solid mahogony bodies and maple tops, coupled to proprietary "Super 80" pickups. They were made for about a year and discontinued, primarily because they were too angry and chunky for the pussified disco era.

I've played hundreds of guitars. Les Paul, all Fender, many customs. You can't beat the searing hot evil and crunchy angst harnessed within the spurned one-year production CN series guitars. They scream out of the case, play like a dream and a plink of a string hits you with a wall of sound like a sledge hammer in the chest.

I told Tanya that she could use my guitar as long as she liked to. Now her 2004 Indonesian-made Fender knockoff sits dusty in an appropriate undisturbed place while she exploits the inherent thickness of an solid guitar conceived 12 years before she was. While her peers in a wealthy town play Blink182 on new shiny Gibsons and Fenders, the guitar I loaned her will always sound better and augment her developing, original talents and style. Angus would be proud.

Her mom says that she plays all the time and thinks it is the best guitar ever. I look on Ebay because I want to buy her one to keep. Maybe I'll just give her mine. It is rare to find a kid that looks at something old and can see the value past 28 years of scratches and booze stains, and I am touched by the fact that a 15 year old is wise enough to appreciate something that most do not. She doesn't give a shit about Nintendo, designer sneakers or Beyonce, she wants to be the smartest kid in the class and then make their goddamn ears bleed.

Just like me.

How cool it is to be the crazy guitar uncle, the guy that has permanently raised the bar on what she considers acceptable instrumentation. I also bought her a copy of NOFX, "War on Errorism" and she thinks that's great too. Mission accomplished.

I finally have some hope for the future.