Guitar hero?

I pulled into the parking lot, got my guitar out of the back seat, and started walking towards the door in the rain. It felt like a scene out of a movie, about some drifter, playing the honky-tonk scene, who ruins his relationship with the only girl who will ever love him by drinking too much.

And in that instant, I was a guitarist.

Of course, in reality, I'm not (yet) a guitarist, I've never played a honky-tonk, I'm not really much of a drifter, and I don't (yet) drink too much. But the rest is totally me.

Otherwise, there wasn't anything too scintillating about my first guitar lesson on Tuesday. So instead, I've decided to just make some stuff up. I mean, this could have happened, theoretically. And may have happened in an alternate universe. Who can really say? Scott Bakula, maybe.

Instructor: "Good afternoon, Bone."
Bone: "Good afternoon, sensei."
Instructor: "Have a seat."
Bone (takes seat, looks around): "Thanks. Uh, where are all the bonsai?"
Instructor: "The what?"
Bone: "You know, the tiny trees."
Instructor: "Tiny trees?"
Bone: "Never mind."
Instructor: "Shall we begin?"
Bone: "Let's turn this mutha out."
Instructor: "I want to start by asking, where do you hope to be when you're done with these lessons?"
Bone: "Do the words Back To The Future and Johnny B. Goode mean anything to you?"
Instructor: "Uhhh.."
Bone: "Or how about being able to play behind my head?"
Instructor: "How about let's just see what you can do."
(Bone plays a few licks.)
Instructor: "Are you left-handed?"
Bone: "I don't think so."
Instructor: "Then here, you might want to turn this around."
Bone: "Oh. Thanks."
Instructor: "You're a little obtuse, aren't you?"
Bone: "What? No... maybe a little. But I've lost three pounds since New Year's."
Instructor: "Do you play any instruments?"
Bone: "The kazoo, naturally. And at one time or another I've owned a harmonica, guitar, set of drums and a recorder."
Instructor: "Was there a picture of Mickey Mouse on any of these instruments?"
Bone: "No... OK, the recorder... and the drums."
Instructor: "Ever taken any music classes before?"
Bone: "Oh, yes! Third grade. We learned Wheels On The Bus and Magalena Pagalena."
Instructor: "Do you have any musical talent whatsoever?"
Bone: "You know, I really thought I would be the one asking the questions."
Instructor: "Alright, well we usually begin with a few simple chords."
Bone: "Groovy!"
Instructor: "Did you just say groovy?"
Bone: "I said groovy. I meant far out."

On the way out of the lesson, Bone encounters a girl. Using skills honed through years of encountering girls yet rarely speaking to them, he determines her to be a guitar shop groupie. Cute, but clingy. And if there's one thing this drifter doesn't need--.

"Are you a guitarist?" She giggles.
"Well... ideally," Bone replies. Girls love musicians. He had been warned of this, repeatedly.
"You know, you don't have to carry your guitar with both arms. There is a handle. It's right there on the case."
"Oh... far out."

Meanwhile, back over in this space-time continuum, here's how my first lesson really went...

Five minutes learning the strings.
Ten minutes listening to instructor yammer on and on about his glory days and teaching methods.
Fifteen minutes learning how to tune the guitar.

"Alright, we're done."
I give him a what-you-talkin'-bout-Willis look.
He gives me a you-know-that-show's-been-off-the-air-twenty-five-years-look.
"All we do the first day is learn to tune it."

Well, that's a little disappointing.

I guess learning to play behind my head will come next week.

"He never ever learned to read or write so well. But he could play a guitar just like ringin' a bell..."

Here comes the sun

(Congratulations to my friend, Pia, from Courting Destiny. She is now blogging for Psychology Today. And you can read her first post here. It makes me proud to see a former Roast-A-Bone host going on to bigger things.)

The sun came out Saturday. It was 72 degrees here. And just like that -- although the calendar wouldn't agree for three more days -- for me, January was over. Thus ending what in a hundred years will more than likely be referred to as my blue period, which basically amounted to two posts.

I don't know why I let the season come and conquer me. But it's all right now. There's not spring, but there's the promise of spring, and that's enough.

This weekend was my long-awaited-though-sometimes-uncertain return to the land of the living. I did things this weekend I thought I'd forgotten how to do, like shower on a Saturday.

Sister Bone, Nephew Bone and I went to the Bama basketball game Saturday night. Bama is not exactly known as a basketball school, but the team is having a pretty good season, so it was nice to see the game was sold out. They won the game comfortably, 70-46, over LSU. For me, any night's a good night in Tuscaloosa -- the atmosphere, the history, the Taco Casa! Just knowing that for one night you are in the same city as Nick Saban somehow makes everything right with the world.

I believe it was the wise King Solomon who wrote, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." At supper, Nephew Bone pointed to the "A" on the Taco Casa cup and said, "Bama." It's nice to know the hours I spent repeating "Roll Tide" and "Bama" to him while everyone else was trying to get him to say "mama" and "dada" paid off.

I golfed with the Darryls on Sunday afternoon. That was a dream come true. Literally. Except that we did get to finish the round. We golfed horribly, but who really cares. Balls and clubs can be replaced. Pride can be restored, theoretically. And as I like to say, 'tis better to have golfed and failed than to never have golfed at all.

In one final bit of big news, I start guitar lessons tomorrow! I'm kind of excited. Dad has been trying to get me to learn to play for, oh, the past twenty years or so. I figure I may as well give it a shot. Also, he said he would pay for the lessons. Not that you should think my parents still pay for everything, or give me a weekly allowance. Because they don't. And they haven't since I turned 35.

Beyond that, Wednesday is National Signing Day. I'm contemplating taking off of work for that. And of course Sunday, as most everyone aware I'm sure, is the highlight of the year for Roman Numerals.

Then comes the roughly six-week long period of time I like to refer to as sports purgatory. But we'll fall into that deep, yawning chasm when we come to it.

"And I'm looking to the sky to save me, looking for a sign of life..."