Various ponderings and ruminations:

1. Is guitar greed/lust a bad thing?
2. Can anyone really hear the difference between Brazilian and Indian Rosewood?
3. How much time in jail should the inventor of Ovation guitars receive?
4. Does a volute on a guitar neck have any effect on tonal qualities?
5. Why is Mark Knopfler so much better than anyone else on electric guitar?
6. Is a 6 string banjo tuned like a guitar still subject to being a victim of banjo jokes?
7. How in the world can anyone use those metal fingerpicks?
8. Who invented the sunburst finish for guitars?
9. Whats the best cheap guitar you ever had?
10. Name 1 decent girl guitar player who would still be famous if she wasn't a girl.

be good.

Ditto. I am just filling e-white space with tripe and ramblings until someone else (anyone else) gets a hankerin' to blog. I, too, was skeered at first. But, as time went on, I became terrified and now, I am downright petrified to publish anything. And the sun is going to come up in the west tomorrow. The good thing about this here blog, as compared to other venues of creative expression we, the members hereof, might be familiar with, is that, here, you can't hear anyone boo, you can't get hit by a long neck projectile, and you really can't get fired or otherwise asked not to come back cuz the crowd didn't like what you were doin'. And, if you care to take a look back at some of the previous submissions by yours truly, you can see that the content don't' necessarily have to be of any value whatsoever. Or it can be. Or not. Whichever. Whatever. To quote from the gospel according to St. Steve (Martin) in the parable of the Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, "It is more blessed to give, than to not." Meaning of course, that contributing is a good thing, for you, the group, and maybe even mankind. I shall now pass the plate...............

Be happy and careful

I was having a brief conversation recently with a troubled RGNC'er who shall remain nameless (it was Joe), and he was explaining how he hasn't been contributing to the blog as of late. He said the main reason for not having done so was because he didn't feel as though he had anything interesting to write. After I cuffed his ears and gave him a real bad indian burn on his arm, he started to change his perspective a little, but I can tell he could use some more encouragment. Well, I wish to make it known that almost anything is fair game for subject matter around here, so young Joseph and the rest who feel as he does need not worry. I happen to know that Joe has an incredibly interesting life. If you don't believe me, just ask the folks who work with him down at the peanut butter development lab.

So, again, the offer is extended to all semi-interested RGNC'ers to give it one more try. You don't have to be John Flippin' Grisham to drop in and write a few lines from time to time, all right?

be good: online!

Rumor has it that if an 8 foot long string of al-u-min-e-um foil is hung from the bottom of one these, it will be picked up on radar. In this day and age, though, I don't think I would want to invite any members of the Homeland Security gang to my backyard by way of a practical joke.

Be happy and careful and cautious

One time, me and my dad filled a big trash bag with helium. Then we duct taped the end shut; obviously not airtight. But when we let it go it went so high that we eventually lost sight of it.
Also, my nephew sent up a balloon with a message tied to it from school one day where they live in Butler, Mo., and a few weeks later he got a letter from someone in Illinois who found the balloon and replied to him.
This also reminds me of the guy who tied a bunch of large helium filled balloons to a lawn chair, strapped himself in and took off. He reached upwards of 12,ooo feet elevation, and actually caused the air trafic controllers at LAX to divert planes because he was in their flight path. He eventually returned to earth and lived to be arrested.

be good.

OK, on third thought, and with just a little research, I find that this closely guarded secret ain't that closely guarded after all. Please see our new Mystery Link (#14) to the right for more detail than I could have provided. Time to look for a new claim to fame.......

Be happy and careful

On second thought, let me just say that the afore mentioned "UFO" is for viewing pleasure only, and could scarcely lift the weight of a paper doll, let alone the heft of a "full growed" musician type person. I suspect the previous publish failure happened for a reason, most likely so I didn't inadvertently pass along the specifics of this art form to the masses. All the more reason to have a face-to-face with my brethren.

Don't it always happen that way? Just spent 40 minutes providing detailed instructions, only to have the publish fail. I'll give her another go later. Sheesh!

Be happy and careful

Budrick, Please elucidate further upon these "ufo's" and hot air balloons. Did people get hurt with these displays? Whats the best one you ever did? And were you flying the balloons or what? I have always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon... a very safe hot air balloon...that I would not be able to accidentally fall out of.
Re: the editorial column, it don't have to be political, can be, but whatever you want to write about. The offer is open to all RGNC'ers. Both of us.

I'm in. I'll take a stab at next weeks edition. Gwine be quite busy, but I'll work it in somehow. Doing the Silver Dollar City thing again. Regards the Marionville thing, I thought, perhaps, it was the Grand Finale of the JR Jam, which had a run of some 8 or 9 years back in the 70's and early 80's. Began as a, well, jam, with a few friends of Jim "JR" Rollins pickin' on the porch of his parents lake cabin one summer. I guess they must have had fun, because he decided to have a second annual, which, if what's left of my memory serves me, was held on Buzzard's Farm, twixt Reed's Spring and Branson West, formerly known as Lakeview. This "fest" expanded as the years went on, with the hog roast becoming the centerpiece of the consumables. The circle of pickers gave way to a stage and sound system, and by the time it was all said and done, the "Jam" had become incorporated and the final installment, as I recall, lasted a little over two days, cooked up 3 full hogs, presented just over a dozen bands, and hosted somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 folks. I could be mistaken, but I believe the Undgergrass Boys might have taken the stage that last go-round. And, as mentioned above, the JR Jam bowed out at a farm just outside Marionville. Early on, I was designated as the pyrotechnician for these gatherings, which basically meant that I was expected to launch one of my trademark UFO's, or hot air ballons. Details will follow.

Be happy and careful

Newspapers got 'em every Sunday. So, why can't RGNC have one too? I'm talking about your basic Sunday editorial column. Here's the plan; we all take turns writing a genu-whine editorial about the topic of our choosing, and we publish it on Sunday. What do you think? And in case you're wondering, yes, this counts as the very first one. So here I go. I will now blog forth, yes, I will blog like the wind!

It seems that the political season in which we find ourselves once again, is a major temptation to become very, um...what's the word...oh yeah, very zealous. I can speak from personal experience that this has been the case with me on several occassions. I start off a campaign season barely having any appetite for the news or the "issues", but then I slowly begin to increase the amount of attention I pay to the process as the frequency and intensity of the campaign coverage picks up. Before I know it, I'm listening to candidates A and B have at it, and I find myself reacting to certain statements by certain candidates with remarks such as, "This guy's so full of it that the whites of his eyes are starting to turn brown!", or the like. Then I start surfing the web sites, you know, the blogs that have up to the minute updates on Dan Rather, etc. And then, well, then I start up again with the dirty tricks, you know, kid stuff like slitting the tires of cars in the mall parking lot who have the other guy's bumper sticker on them, harmeless stuff, basically, right?
This year, however, I'm calling it quits early. Sort of. I am going to drastically curtail (attempt) my participation in the in the whole contentious, insulting, character assasinating slugfest that we have set before us. I already know who I'm going to vote for. After all, I'm not one of those room temperature IQ "undecided" voters who can't think their way out of a wet paper sack. Nope, I know where I stand. And by the way, even though it happened many-a-year ago, who in their right mind would ever have called their political party the "Whigs" ? What were they thinking? Or the "Tories"? What's that all about, huh? You want a good name for a political party, how about something like those dumb sports team names they come up with now, i.e. The Predators, The Wild, etc., maybe something like...well, I don't know, but you get the idea.
Anyway, that's my distinct editorial take for this week's RGNC Sunday Editorial column.

be good.