Education, and the Decline of American Civilization

Generally speaking, the wealth and success of a nation depends on its ability to outperform its competitors. To design and build better products. To solve technical and social problems. To find solutions to resource problems and constraints. To work smarter and more efficiently and more productively.

This means that the better educated that a country is, the better its chances are to thrive and survive in the increasingly competitive world of today. A few decades ago, the number of developed, industrialized nations was small. Now, that has changed significantly. As an example, Korea was pretty much a third world country 20 years ago. But now, they have the highest education level in the world, and their products rival those of any other nation in the world. J.D. Power says that Korean cars are now probably the highest quality cars made in the world – and they offer 10 year warrantees to prove it. (If they were of lesser quality, the manufacturers Kia and Hyundai would become bankrupt trying to maintain the cars through that many years) Korea has now become one of the three countries in the world that loans the US most of it’s capital. Korea, China, and Japan loan the US close to a trillion dollars per year.

And it’s not just Korea, of course. According to various articles I’ve read, roughly half the IT and help desk jobs in America from pre-Y2K have now been either eliminated by the recession or outsourced to India. With it’s population of over 1.1 billion people, and the high degree of education available, and the large pool of talented, educated workers at comparatively low prices, India has become a haven for employers seeking to lower their labor costs in order to remain competitive.

And China is the giant. No one knows how many people there are in China. Certainly FAR more than the 1.3 billion reported in the 10 year census which ended in 2000. Their economy has grown in leaps and bounds as most manufacturing and now the related design work as well, has been outsourced there. The most modern cities with the most modern buildings and technology all seem to be in that region now. Chungchai city has a population of 33,000,000 people. Roughly equal to the entire population of Canada.

Last year, China graduated over 3,000,000 engineers. India graduated over 1,500,000 engineers. By comparison, the US graduated only 70,000, and of those, half were foreign students and they will not be staying here to find work. So at this rate, over the past 10 years, we have accumulated approximately 350,000 new engineers compared to China’s 30,000,000, and India’s 15,000,000. Not to mention Korea’s, Indonesia’s, Malaysia’s, Singapore’s, etc.

The US, far from being the leader in technology and engineering anymore, now has less than 1% of the engineers being produced just among southeast Asian countries. And that doesn’t even count all of Europe, or the rest of the world. Where do you suppose that places us competitively?

Things have certainly changed. We used to lead the world in most things. Now we can’t even keep up to the main crowd anymore.

With this in mind, you’d think American educational institutions would be pulling out all the stops to bring us up to speed – to save our competitiveness, our standing in the world, to save the economy – even to help preserve our culture. Well, the scorecard doesn’t look so good.

According to international rankings, as reported in the New York Times last year, the US is 49th in the world for education despite the fact that we spend more on education that any other country. This means that virtually ALL other developed nations are ahead of us in education.

How bad is it? Well, let’s take a look at a recent test of college graduates. Many tests over the years have targeted high school students while in the midst of the education process. Their lack of progress was always disturbing, but it was always thought that that simply meant that they would have more ground to catch up when they got to college. Well, this national study targeted actual college graduates. These people are done with school. This is the final product. Let’s take a look:

The recent literacy study funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the first to target the skills of actual graduating students, found that students fail to learn key skills, regardless of their field of study.

Specifically, they found that more than half of all graduating 4-year degree graduates and more than 75% of 2-year degree graduates lacked the basic literacy and comprehension skills to allow them to be able to read and understand an average credit card application form. More than half of graduating college degree students lack the necessary basic arithmetic skills to perform even simple tasks such as calculating the distance one can drive their car on the gas remaining in the tank, and determining if that is far enough to get them to the next gas station. Many could not find a location on a map.
I had also read years ago that more than 40% of Americans think that New England is a state, and that New Mexico is part of Mexico.

My daughter is almost 16, and she is just now FINALLY taking one single class in world history. All through the education system, she has taken US and Texas history exclusively. These subjects are useless to most adults.

It’s not that young people are stupid – it’s just that we are training them to be hyper-consumers with short attention spans, and NOT training them to be educated, intelligent, knowledgeable people, prepared to take on the world.

For the past half a century, we have been 4.3% of the world’s population using up 26% of the world’s oil supply and over 40% of the world’s other resources. It was grossly unfair. For many years, much of the world lived in what we would consider poverty, while most Americans lived what most of the rest of the world would consider the lifestyle of near-royalty.
That could not continue forever. And logic suggests that anything which cannot continue forever will at some point come to an end. Welcome to the near-end.
We got comfortable. We got lazy and self-indulgent. And, like all empires before us throughout the history of the world, we are now in the inevitable decline that always comes from a world power that becomes complacant, and arrogant, and elitist.

Of course, the tragic irony of this is that if Americans were taught world history all along, then we would have known about this, recognized the patterns early, and we would have seen it coming.

My Little Guitar Collection...

This is a corner of my recording studio. It's a sort of Shrine to the Six String in a manner of speaking. I have been collecting these guitars for decades. I have owned many others before these and they got away one way or another, but these are my current guitars.
Many of them are extremely rare - some of them are one of a kind even. They are all unique and have their own character, and sound and feel.
I wanted a wall calendar for my office with guitars on it, but the only one I could find was an advertisement for First Act guitars. I wanted something that had real brand names, and classic models, and unique guitars, so I decided to take pictures of my own guitars, write the stories up and make this into a calendar. There are 19 guitars in total (including the mandolin and the basses), and I have created a post for each, and they are listed below.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Flame"

Flame:
This is a Diamond Series Schecter 5 String bass. This allows me to go very low and get the octave down to stretch the sound of the song into wider fidelity. It also really gives that nice danceable low end to some songs. Nice bass. The orange flame finish gave me the name.
This is impossibly good value for the money. Neck-through body construction, Flame-maple top, ebony fingerboard, EMG pickups, active electronics, high-end bridge and tuners, MOP inlay work and beautiful craftsmanship throughout. Plays great, sounds wonderful and looks like a work of art. And it was less than a third the cost of other similar-featured basses. These have to be the very best value in a bass on the market today. Impossible to beat. I love it, and use it on most of my songs.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Thunder"

Thunder:
This is the other half of the “Thunder and Lightning” twins team. "Lightning" appears below - scroll down a way). Thunder refers to the low, power tones I get out of it. But also it has a beautiful, emotional crying tone that sounds very organic. You can definitely hear the exotic tonewood in this guitar more than any other I've tried. Normally, you hear the wood more in a fretless because there is no metal fret - the strings is pressed against the wood of the fingerboard directly. In this guitar, it is a rosewood fingerboard bonded directly to a one-piece neck-through body, so that the vibration passes unhindered through the the entire neck and body. It feels as if the whole guitar "breathes". That is the best way I can explain it. I have had and played many other guitars and I've never felt anything quite like this before. It touches your soul to hear it.

Like the matching Eagle Supreme guitar, this is carefully crafted from solid (not veneer) Hawaiian Koa, which is no longer available in blocks, so it is not possible to build a new one like this anymore. It is masterfully rendered into probably the most beautiful design for a bass I've seen. Only the original Alembic basses from the same period are as attractive to me.

This is also handmade by Bernardo Richo in California. It is called a B.C. Rich Fretless Eagle Bass. Yes, although it doesn't look like it in the photo, this one is actually a fretless bass.
It originally had just the straight, unmarked fretboard, which was hard to know where to put your fingers. So I used a tuner and made marks up the edge on both sides, then took an ultrafine saw and made a very thin cut where frets would be, then filled it in with wood filler and then sanded it smooth. Now there are lines where the frets should be, but it still plays smooth and achingly beautiful. I use this a lot. I bought it probably around 1979 or so.
If there were a fire in the house, and I had to grab just a few things and run, this would have to be one of them. It's irreplaceable.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Cherry Blossom"

Cherry Blossom:
This is my main acoustic guitar now. I bought it a year ago now in Christmas week of 2004. It is an Ovation Custom Legend 1869. The top of the line of Ovation guitars. It has a shallow body so I can play it close to my body and so it’s pretty comfortable. It has a soft v-shaped neck that is reasonably thin so it fits my hand very nicely. I can play it easily without too much of the cramping I get with some other acoustics. This is a stunningly beautiful guitar with the deep cherry red sunburst colored top (hence the name) and the abalone perfling all around the edge and wild abalone inlay work all around the sound hole. It also has advanced sound pre-amp built in with a built-in tuner! This is the guitar I used on most of the acoustic tunes I wrote for the Natural Light album. I use a combination of the built-in pickup and miking it to get a nice sound when recording. A very impressive guitar.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Brazil"

Brazil:
This is made by Giannini. The name comes from the fact that this guitar is made in Brazil, and because the sides and back are made of Brazilian rosewood – which is now illegal to use. It is a nylon-stringed classical and I use it for my Latin-styled pieces. This is my oldest guitar. I’ve had it since I was 15 yrs old in 1972. I traded another guitar player my Fender classical for this one. He wanted a traditional-shaped guitar, but I wanted this wild-shaped one.

I had no idea it was so rare, but in all these years of playing guitar, and looking at guitar magazines, and watching other guitar players from around the world, I have never seen another one.

To me this guitar is all about Brazil. The sound, the look, the feel. There is a decoration around the D-shaped soundhole where some craftsman has made an incredibly detailed, ornate mosaic pattern using the tiniest little pieces of colored woods, inlaid. Each piece is about the size of the tip of a toothpick. I imagine that Brazilian craftsman sitting there with a magnifying glass gluing and placing each tiny sliver of colored wood into place with a needle-point tool. There are literally hundreds of them in the mosaic.

I wonder if the craftsman who made this guitar ever wondered who would play it. And if someone would still own it and love it and play it 40 years later. Guitar tones of acoustics typically mellow with age as the wood cures. The tone of this guitar is soft and romantic, and I have used it on many tunes.

Every time I pull this out to play, I feel a touch of Brazil. One day I would like to go there and see and feel and experience the place where this was born.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Monterrey"

Monterrey:
This is a Washburn 12 string. Called Monterrey because the model name is actually Monterrey-12. It is hard to tell from this picture, but it is a very elegant guitar. Up close, it is beautifully rendered in a tobacco sunburst, and with an arched back (rare!) This was fairly expensive, actually. In the price range range of medium-price Martins and Taylors - about $1500 as I recall. I use this one for all my 12 string needs. It has a built-in pickup, but I prefer the mic it to get that natural acoustic tone. It has a nice even sound, and is a little difficult to play because it is a 12-string (that is unavoidable with 12 strings), but as 12-strings go it is not too tough to play. I bought this one in the early 80’s.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Ivory and Ebony"

Ivory and Ebony:
These two are a set of Hohner acoustic guitars. The name simply reflects the fact that one is blonde all around front sides and back, and the other is black all around.
They are German-made and quite well-made in terms of quality. Both are one-piece figured hard maple. Excellent craftsmanship. But I rarely ever play them. They hurt my hands. I used to play Ivory as my main six string acoustic until I bought the Ovation last Christmas time. Sometimes I can barely get through playing rhythm for a single 3 minute song before the cramps in my fretting hand are so bad it feels like a spike being driven through the back of my hand.
Ebony is a 12-string guitar. 12-string guitars are tough to play as is, but these with thick necks are even tougher than usual. I detuned Ebony to let the tension off the strings and keep the neck from warping, and I have not played this one in literally years. I do occasionally still pick up Ivory. I may just keep it tuned to a specific tuning and use it just for that since I do write acoustic tunes in different tunings and it takes time to re-tune a single guitar. They are just tough guitars. Strong, well-built like most German things, but hard to play, I find. I bought these from my father-in-law back in 1987.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Songbird"

Songbird:
I asked my daughter to name this one. It is actually very handy for writing songs. That plus the birdseye maple top gave the name.

This is an Epiphone Chet Atkins model. It’s like an acoustic guitar, but made with a solid body. The back, sides, and neck are all solid mahogany, the front (top) is highly-figured birdseye maple. It’s actually quite beautiful close-up. This plays and feels like an electric guitar, but it has acoustic guitar tones.

Acoustic guitars usually have a lot of feedback because of the hollow body, so Gibson designed this one for Chet Atkins so he could play on stage without the squealing and booming feedback you normally get. The pickup is under the bridge.

When I bought this guitar in 2001, it looked beautiful, and played very nicely, but it sounded terrible. I took out the old pickup and plastic bridge and replaced them both. I bought a high-end Fishman pickup/preamp system, and then resolved to MAKE a new bridge from bone because that transfers the vibrations of the strings much more accurately and with resonance. I bought 3 flat pieces of bone. I superglued them together to make a solid block. Then, slowly, I grinded and sanded them into the exact 3-d shape I needed to make a bridge that exactly fits the hole and also gives the right intonation for the guitar. It worked, and now the guitar looks, plays, AND sounds terrific.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Little Donny"

Little Donny:
I wanted a mandolin to add that texture into my music. It adds a high, ringing tone that adds a texture reminiscent of classic folk tunes, and seems like a natural subliminal incentive for singing along to songs.
I've found that the most successful tunes are ones that people can sing along with in the car. That engages them, and allows them to immerse themselves in the music without dancing or without the more cerebral types of immersion reserved for very complex pieces. The mandolin is a casual invitation to sing along.

The Eagles often use that to good effect on a lot of their pop songs, and it’s usually Don Felder who plays it on a lot of their songs. I always thought he was one of the most underrated guitar players in the business. This mandolin is named in honor of him.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Midnight Storm"

Midnight Storm:
This is a 2000 Fender Stratocaster, but I have replaced a number of items on it and rebuilt it. I replaced the all metal parts with gold-plated parts, locking tuners, upgraded tremolo system, etc. I also upgraded the pickguard and tremguard to tortoiseshell.

It’s actually quite a nice-looking guitar now. It has deep, rich colors with the dark plum body and tortoiseshell pickguard, etc. The darkness of it, combined with the energy of playing it, gave me the idea of the name for this one.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "EJ Frankenstrat"

EJ Frankenstrat:
This guitar originally started out as a 1982 Korean-made Fender Strat. However, I have changed everything and completely rebuilt it from other American parts… many times. I rebuilt it and gave it life so many times I called it "Frankenstrat". And then, when I took Eric Johnson out for dinner for his 50th birthday last year, I had him sign the pickguard. Eric is known as EJ, hence the name EJ Frankenstrat.

I have replaced the tuners with locking sperzels, the nut with a Floyd-Rose locking nut, then a Fender roller bearing nut, the entire neck(twice), the pickups with Fender lace sensors(red label), the electronics, the bridge-system with a Floyd-Rose, even the strap buttons with straploks, etc. etc. etc. Everything except the actual wooden shell body. And I am considering changing THAT too for something with a nice grain…..

I use this guitar primarily for slide work now. The lace sensor pickups have a nice tone for that.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Quicksilver"

Quicksilver:
This is an original 1979 25th Silver Anniversary Fender Stratocaster. A vintage guitar that I bought from Guitar Center around 2002. I went in there looking at the vintage guitars and spied some 70’s strats. I’ve always been partial to the large, curvy headstocks on the 70’s model strats. Also, their thicker, more solid heavier bodies had more sustain.
Well, I saw a couple priced at $5,000 and $8,000, and then this new one that had not been in there for a day yet, an official ‘79 Silver Anniversary model was only $1299. I wondered why. I took it down and played it. It played fine. I played it through an amp and it sounded good. Nothing wrong with this. Normal wear and tear for a guitar of 25 year vintage. I couldn’t understand why it was so cheap for what it is. (keeping in mind that a brand new custom shop strat is that same price, but vintage guitars are usually worth more). I went to tell the young guy at the sales desk that I would take it and he was immediately unhappy. I sent him into the back to get the case and he came back and gave me a new case. I said no – it has to be the ORIGINAL case. (Vintage guitars are worth less without the original case) He went back looking again.
While I was waiting, another young sales guy came walking by and saw me standing waiting with the guitar in my hands and said, “You’re not buying that one are you?” He looked worried. I said, “Yes, why?” He said, “Awwww man! There is going to be a lot of guys pissed off at that!” and he walked away.

I found out later that the employees can only buy a guitar from the store after it has been sitting in stock at least 30 days. That keeps them from raiding all the good inventory and leaving the store with nothing to sell. It looks like one of the guys took this trade-in and wanted it for himself, so he priced it really low, so he could afford, it but high enough that not just anybody would immediately pick it up, and then he stuck it on the rack in a hard-to-see place under a staircase hoping no one would walk around under the stairs to see it and buy it. But I did. And I bought it. So I got a pretty good deal.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Lady In Red"

Lady In Red:
Do you remember the song by that name?
Well, when I first met my wife, on our first date I took her to a comedy club, and then later we went dancing. She wore a green dress, but we danced our first dance to the song Lady in Red. We made jokes about that and it became ‘our song’.

Later, in 1989 when we were getting married, I mentioned to her how much I missed my old Gibson ES-335 jazz guitar. I wanted this Washburn ES-335 style guitar to replace it and it was a beautiful deep, rich red mahogany color and it actually played much nicer than the Gibson ever did. She decided to buy me that for a wedding present, and I loved it. It was a deep red color, and it has a feminine charm to it, and Lady in Red was our song, so I called it Lady In Red. It was a wonderful present and I love that guitar and play it to this day. It has a wonderful neck and great bluesy jazzy sound.

This one also was the victim of an accident. I was sleeping in my bed and was awakened in the middle of the night by a loud crash. I jumped up and ran into my studio and saw that the shelves that covered one wall entirely had been too heavy with all the books etc. and they had crashed down and some things had fallen on Lady In Red and left a scratch on the upper side on the front – where my arm goes. That is still there, and you can see it in the picture.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Flash Gordon"

Flash Gordon:
This is the world-famous, instantly recognizable Gibson Flying V model. This one has the famous faded cherry finish and ebony fingerboard with moon inlays. Like a rocketship to the moon.

This was one of two guitar models in the 1958 Moderne series from Gibson. Obviously very futuristic and ultra-modern for the time. It later became a blues legend, then a rock legend. A highly stylized unforgettable shape, it just reminds me of the Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers type of movies. Simple, stylized rocket ships and SF heros saving the Earth from Ming The Merciless. So I call this one Flash Gordon because of that and because it is a pretty flashy style. Everyone notices when you pull this one out to play.

Surprisingly, despite the dramatic styling, this guitar is not just about the looks or the shape. It is an extremely playable and great-sounding guitar. In fact, the lack of an upper or lower bout, means you have very easy, unobstructed access to the upper frets. Also, the guitar is a lot lighter than I expected. I always saw these big Flying V bodies and thought they must be very heavy, but in fact, it is quite light. "Tossable", even.

There are many copies of this guitar by other makes from Jackson to Dean to Ibanez, and of course there is a less expensive Epiphone model of this from Gibson, but this is the original Gibson. I bought both the Explorer and the Flying V with the full honest intention of reselling them for a profit on eBay. But once I got them, and once I played them and heard them, I just COULDN’T bring myself to part with them. They are both in perfect condition, play great and sound great. Excellent examples of Gibson classic models. I acquired this one in spring of 2005.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "The Jetsons"

The Jetson’s:
This is a Gibson Explorer. Back in 1957, Gibson had some beautifully made, but very traditional-looking guitars, and they wanted to compete with Fender’s more modern-styled Stratocaster, so, for 1958 they came up with the “Moderne” collection. Two wild ultra-modern futuristic styles. The "Flying V" and the "Explorer". These were a completely radical departure from conventional guitar design up to that point, and seemed to be something right out of the future.

Back then, in America, the whole nation was looking forward to a bright future. In 1958, there was never any doubt in anyone's mind that things would just keep getting better every year. Each year would be better than the last one. The space-race, satellites, and one day a trip to the moon. Cars of 1958 had big fins like rocket ships and tail lights that looked like afterburners. Everything was about modern space-age styles, and it reflected the unlimited hope and optimism of that age.

These two guitars were a symbol of that clean, hopeful, innocent, bright-eyed "holy gosh!” optimism. That’s what those two guitars represent to me. This one is called “The Jetson’s” because in the cartoon series of that name, there was a rock star called “Jet Screamer”. He played a wild-looking super-futuristic guitar with lots of angular fins. This guitar has fins like that. In fact, it also reminds me of the Cadillac cars of that time, so I also considered calling this guitar, “Cadillac”.

The original models of these guitars were too far ahead of their time in 1958, and so they didn’t sell, really. They only even made 82 original Flying V’s and 18 original Explorers. Then they discontinued them in 1958. They, of course, then later became quite valuable collector’s pieces since they were so rare. They became quite coveted after a while, and so Gibson re-issued the Explorer in 1976 but with better hardware and electronics than were possible in 1958. And this is a re-issue of that 1976 one.

It is beautifully made, and mine is in perfect condition. It is a deep mahogany body and neck with a high-gloss finish with rosewood fingerboard. It has a great overall sound, but especially sounds very good for a rockish and blues type sound. And it feels great to play – other than the big Cadillac fin sticking out behind me. I have to be careful where I walk around when playing this one.

I bought this one along with "Flash" the Flying V in spring of 2005. My original plan was to buy this and resell it for a profit on eBay, but once I saw it, and held it and played it, there was just no giving it away. It was just too nice.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Excalibur"

Excalibur:
This is a 1993 chrome-finish Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster. It's the best Strat I've ever played, and I've played a few over the past few decades. In fact I own 4 Strats at the moment, and I've owned others in past years which I have since sold. But this one is very very special. One of a kind.
This is my main guitar today. I play this on almost every single song I record.

One day in May 2004, I was at the Guitar Show in Dallas, and looking closely at a strat copy made of 20,000 year old wood, when suddenly my friend Brent said from behind me, “Hey, look at that!” I turned and across the aisle was a strat-specialty place from Tokyo that sold only vintage strats. As a crowd-gathering attraction he had on a stand on a table, a special chrome strat with a big sign that said “Absolutely! Do NOT Touch!!!!”

We had never seen a strat with a chrome finish before. “Wow!" I said, "I wonder how they got a chrome finish to bond to wood like that! It must be super heavy!”

We noticed the large Fender Custom Shop logo on the pickguard. This one was something very very special. I couldn’t touch it but I was mesmerized like I hadn’t been since I saw Lightning in that store back in 1978. I finally pulled myself away from it to continue looking around the rest of the thousands of guitars at the guitar show, but at the end in the last few minutes before closing the show I came back to this shop to see the chrome custom shop strat again.

I talked to the owner, a Japanese man, and asked him if I could try playing it. He stopped, looked me up and down a few times, sizing me up to see if I could afford it, then he nodded. He turned and picked up the strat very carefully, and turned to me with the strat laying across both his hands like you would a precious sword.

In fact, it struck me that he handed it to me with the care and reverence as if it were Excalibur – the storied legendary sword of King Arthur. That is why I named the guitar that. As he handed it to me, he said, “This guitar from 1993. I go to Fender Custom Shop Factory. Buy this guitar. Only one like it. I don’t play it. I put in case, take home, put under bed. It staying there since then. 11 years. No one ever play it. I bring here to show to put on display. Attract customers. They buy other guitars. Never been played." And with that, he handed it to me.

I took it and was immediately amazed at how light it was. It is not wood at all, but actually it is a hollow aluminum body – that is how they could chrome it. It was perfectly balanced, and the neck played like a dream. I had never played a strat with a neck like that. An actual ebony fingerboard with rolled edges – it’s amazing for a Fender.

I couldn’t hear it through an amp, but I made him an offer anyway, just based on the way it played, the way it looked, and the uniqueness of it. We dickered back and forth a bit then agreed. I offered him my visa card. He shook his head in disgust and said, “No Visa. No check. Cash only.” I said “Cash!? But it’s thousands of dollars! No one carries that much cash around with them!” He shrugged and walked away, starting to tear down his booth since it was the end of the show. I put the guitar back on the stand and turned and walked away, disappointed. On the way out, Brent and I passed a cash machine. I eyed it as I walked by. Stopped. And thought. Nope – it has a limit of $500, I couldn’t get enough. So we left and went to dinner and talked about it.

Later that night, I sent a message out to the EJ list about the ‘One That Got Away’. And someone sent back a note with a link saying “Is this the guitar you played?” And there it was. It was the webste for that guy’s guitar store back in Tokyo, and he had taken a picture of the guitar in his store. Well I called him in Tokyo and asked if he remembered me and the deal we had agreed to. He said yes he did and would honor that price (even though it was far less than what he was asking for it.)

I wired him the money and he shipped me the guitar.

I remember the day, the moment, the UPS truck pulled up out front. I had been anxiously waiting for hours. It finally came, and I was almost dancing with excitement. I took it, opened it up and there it was finally in my arms again! This time I ran to my studio, plugged it in and played and it sounded beautiful. Normally guitars are made of wood of course, and the type of wood and it’s grain and density will determine aspects of it’s tone and level of sustain. Well this one is metal. Not wood at all, so it has a kind of slightly metallic sheen and shimmer and clarity to the sound that no other guitar I've played has. It is quite unique.

I found out later that in 1993, the Fender Custom Shop had ordered 150 custom aluminum bodies with chrome finish to be made up to their spec. They took 109 of them and engraved the Harley Davidson name into the body, and their logo onto the pickguard. These became the legendary Harley Davidson strats. Then they took 25 and engraved the name Mustang into the body, and put the car's logo on the pickguard. These became the famous and more rare Mustang Strats. Then they took 15 and engraved a setting of palm trees into the chrome body and these became the extremely rare, “Aloha” model strats. There was one left. They didn’t touch the body, they left it clean. Then they carved a large Fender Custom Shop logo itself into the pickguard. They only did that to one. This is that one. One of a kind, in that sense.

It was wonderful to play and hear, but in the spring of 2005, when I was starting to play with a band, I found that when I played it at band volumes through an amp, it squealed like a microphone. I had problems. So I decided to fix it. I took it apart, and made up a special mix of waxes, paraffin and beeswax, and melted them together and had them at 160 degrees F, and took out the pickups and dipped them in the wax to seal them. It’s called “potting the pickups” and it’s an old trick of guitar luthiers to seal the pickups and insulate against microphonic signals being picked up. Then I remembered Ted Nugent’s trick of stuffing pantyhose filled with foam into the f-holes of his hollow-body guitar to cut back on the feedback. I tried, but the gaps between the braces inside the body wouldn’t allow it, so instead, I got some spray foam insulation and a tiny straw nozzle, and strayed that into the body cavity through the cracks. That stuff expands as it dries, so I had to be very careful to put just the right amount.

So, after I put it all back together, and tried it – the nasty whistling feedback was greatly reduced and the guitar still sounds wonderful. It has a wonderful tone and resonance now. This has become my most heard guitar on all my recordings.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "White Magic"

White Magic:
This is my 1989 white 3-pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom. It has an almost magical ability to sustain a note (because of it’s extreme weight - it's over 13 lbs), and it is a very powerful rock guitar. I use this when I want a really powerful, commanding sound. I have sometimes called this sound “The Voice of God” (no blasphemy intended.) I also joke to my friends that when you play this one plugged straight into the Marshall amp, you have to spread your legs apart “to allow for testicular expansion….”

Given that there are millions of Les Pauls out there since 1953, and given that is one of the most popular guitars of all time, you wouldn’t think this true, but in fact, in 40 years, I have never actually seen another white 3-pickup Les Paul of any model. White Les Pauls are rare themselves, and 3-pickups are extremely rare, and I’ve never seen the combination of the two things - especially as a Les Paul Custom with all the extra binding and abalone inlay work, before or since this one.

The reason I bought this one in 2000, was because I missed my old one. I had originally bought a white Les Paul Custom (a 2-pickup model) back in 1973. These were rare. I had never seen a white one and I lusted after it as soon as I saw it in the store. I bought it for about $850 – all the money I could manage to save from working at the pizza store for a year. I treasured this. I even became somewhat relatively well known as a guitar player partly because of that guitar. Even if people didn’t remember my name, they remembered me as ‘The guy with the white Les Paul”. It was a striking guitar. I shaved the back of the neck to make the neck thinner to better fit my hand. I eventually sold it to a young guy named Zakk with long blonde hair for $500.
Then years later, when I moved to Dallas, I saw a 73 Les Paul Custom in black hanging on the wall in the guitar center and the price on it was $25,000. I kicked myself for getting rid of mine – especially for only $500.
Then after that I saw in a catalog a special white Les Paul with a shaved neck left as raw wood – exactly like my old one, but it had circles painted on it to look like a target. It was a signature guitar for a now famous guitar player who played with Ozzie Osbourne, and now has his own famous band, Black Label Society. His name is Zakk Wilde. I have often wondered if that’s the same Zakk that I sold my Les Paul to, and if my original Les Paul eventually became the famous Zakk Wilde model referred to as “The Grail”. The original Grail guitar became legendary among heavy metal fans. I guess there is a chance that was my guitar originally. Here is a link to Zakk Wilde's website: http://www.zakkwylde.com/nwwd/mafia3.htm The official Zakk Wilde Guitars, speakers, strings, amps, and even custom chopper motorcycles.

I really missed that old les Paul and so eventually, I saved up my money and looked on eBay until I found this, and this one is even better than my original one that I sold to Zakk. A collector had it along with a white ES-335 built specially by Gibson in 1989 and had kept it in pristine condition in a case for 11 years. I bought it and now it is a treasured member of my little collection. And a nostalgic reminder of the old days when I was a teenager playing with all those bands, and when I began as a professional guitar player. I remember all the adventures I had on the road. There is a lot of energy and memories and power and magic in this guitar. Hence the name.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Lightning"

This is "lightning".
This is a handmade guitar from 1976.
She is part of a very special custom handmade pair: Thunder and Lightning. Lightning is the guitar and Thunder is the matching fretless bass. It is fast to play and cuts through the band sound. It is powerful and quick. This is without a doubt one of the most beautiful solid-body guitars I have ever seen. It was handmade by the luthier Bernardo Christian Richo (later, he sold his name to a Japanese company and they made less expensive guitars under the name B.C. Rich) But this one is handmade in his shop in California. The current guitars called B.C. Rich are nothing like these guitars. The new ones have bolt-on necks, and are made from cheaper woods and are made in a factory in Korea by Samick, and sell for $300 - $400. But there were handcrafted by Bernardo himself in those days, made from the rarest woods, and the neck and body were cut from a single piece of wood. The best pickups and electronics, the finest finishing touches. Multi-tone switching and pre-amp electronics, coil phasing, etc. These cost thousands of dollars even in the 1970s.

This model is called the Eagle Supreme. Every one he did was slightly different. No two are exactly alike, and they are obviously extremely rare now. I have only ever seen two other Eagles.

There are three extremely rare tonewoods in the world and they are extremely expensive and difficult to obtain now. One is Brazilian rosewood (The wood that my guitar Brazil is made of), and one is cocobolo wood (only found in forests on the western shore of Costa Rica), and the other is Hawaiian Koa wood, which is now only grown in one small area in Hawaii, and only sold by one company in the world, and is no longer available in the thickness needed for a solidbody guitar. Even just the thin veneers of Koa that are left are between $1,000 and $2,000 just for the wood for the sides and back of a single acoustic guitar.

This guitar would literally be impossible to build again now. The wood cannot be bought anymore. And this is crafted like a gem for the royal family. The neck and body are one piece so it has beautiful sustain. Ebony fingerboard with cloud abalone inlays. Just an unbelievable handcrafted guitar. I bought this to replace my original white Les Paul, and this is what I took on the road with me in a custom made flight case I had made. The case is virtually indestructible You can drive a truck over it.

My first wife bought this guitar for me as a wedding present in 1978. She played a trick on me. I took her to this custom guitar shop called “The Twelfh Fret” in Toronto to show her the most beautiful guitar I had ever seen. I had been talking about it for months, and we happened to be in the area so I decided to stop and just show it to her. It was my dream guitar, and I was planning to save my money to buy it.

But when I took her to the store it was gone. I asked the salesman where it was and he told me they had sold it. I was crushed. We walked out and I was so sad. I was speechless. I had wanted that guitar SO badly. I had been dreaming about it at night. I saw myself playing it on stage. It was perfection. We got in the car and drove away.

After about a mile, she asked me, “You’re really upset about that guitar aren’t you?” I told her “Yes. That was my ultimate guitar. That was the one I wanted more than anything. I’ll never find another one like that again.” I was heart broken. She looked at me and said, “I can’t stand to see you so unhappy. I can’t keep it secret any longer. The reason that guitar was gone is because I bought it for you and told them to take it down and put it in the back. Turn the car around. Let’s go back and get it.”

I couldn't believe my ears! It was the most generous thing anyone had ever done for me. And it was a lot of money back in 1978 – especially for a 21 year old girl working as a secretary. I was flabbergasted. She cried when she saw how happy I was. I sped the car around and sped back to the store and just about ran back inside pulling her behind me and when she said it was alright, he went and got it from the back and brought it to me. I was thrilled beyond words. Tears were coming down. Tears of happiness and gratitude. And she cried again. It was a wonderful day. I took that guitar on the road and everywhere I went I felt special and other guitar players stared at that guitar. It was something very special.

One time, while playing a club in Amhearst Nova Scotia, we were on a break, and I was coming out of the mens room, I saw Rick, our drummer running off the stage, and his foot caught the guitar cable attached to this guitar and it yanked the guitar off the stand it was hanging from and tossed it out to come crashing down face-first on the dance floor.

I immediately ran over to it and picked it up. Amazingly, it was not broken like it easily could have been. There was just a gouge in the plastic pickguard. That was 1979. That gouge is still there to this day, 26 years later.

I also customized the guitar by adding a 3rd pickup. A pre-CBS Fender vintage strat pickup in the middle position. Now I wish I had never done that. I should have kept it in original condition. So I have recently bought some pickguard material. When I get time, I will take out that pickup, make a new pickguard to replace the damaged one and also cover up the space where that middle pickup is now.

GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar - "Ruby"

Ruby:
Well, it was a while in coming, but I have finally finished building my new guitar.

She is a 2006 Serrie StratMaster, and her name is Ruby. Ash body with a quilted flame-maple top, in a deep ruby gemstone color, with 22K gold-plated parts, maple neck with jumbo frets, locking Sperzel tuning heads, embedded pickups and rear access electronics so there is no pickguard to mar the finish. Gold Straploks. Gold American Fender custom shoppe tremolo/bridge system. Even the knobs are gold-plated with Ruby pearloid inserts to match. Two Fender Noiseless Vintage single coil pickups and a Seymour Duncan "Pearly Gates" humbucking pickup that was designed to have the exact same sound signature of the 1959 Les Paul (these go for over $100,000 now).
Ruby is reasonably light, well-balanced, refined, beautiful to look at, smooth and easy to play, and she sings like an angel and growls like a beast.
I originally made her to sell, but I don't think I could give her up now! I may put pictures in eBay to sell others like this one but use this as the prototype/model for selling the others.
Also, I am creating "GuitArt - The Guitar Calendar" with pictures of all my guitars. I think Ruby will be January, since this is the month she was born. I will be posting pictures and descriptions and backstories on all the other guitars here as well.

The Choreography Tree

Yesterday, I went for a walk in the park and happened across this interesting tree. This is not really much of a park. It's actually just the obligatory greenspace, walkway that builders have to put in to meet zoning bylaws when they build a subdivision. It's a great subdivision. Wonderful homes, clean, safe - immaculate, actually. But there is not much in the way of scenery.
However, this one old, twisted oak tree did stand out to me. It looked to me like it was dancing. In fact, it looked rather like it was a composite of a number of people dancing. In fact, it reminded me of a specific dance. There is a scene in the movie White Christmas, where Danny Kaye is dressed in black with a black beret, and surrounded by all these women are dressed in black with pony tails, and they all look like beatniks from the early 50's and the song is called "Choreography". It bemoans the fact that no one just dances anymore, but instead everyone is "doing choreography". They move from place to place on the stage and strike composite poses, and this tree, with its jutting branches twisted around each other and reaching out with strange twisted artistic grace - looks like one of those poses. You can almost see the individual bodies of the people in the branches.

A Flying Car - My Design

About a year ago, I read a magazine article about inventors trying to come up with a workable flying car that could sell for about the price of a luxury SUV. In other words, a small plane that can take off from a driveway or very short road, and be safe, maneuverable, and seat 4 people plus a little luggage, and still be under $50K to buy.

There were a number of designs, but they all had flaws. Too heavy. Too expensive. Not enough lift. Not small enough. Not big enough. Too complicated – whatever. I looked at the problems they were having and I had a solution. I had a creative idea for a design for one that would in fact work. It is simple, and comparatively inexpensive, and I actually took the time to draw out the design of it, which you see here.

This design has a way of creating the lift from a standing position, and then convert into forward motion at speed, while keeping costs down.

What this shows is a wide-fuselage, short-body propeller plane (jets are expensive) which essentially acts like a helicopter for take-offs and landings, and a plane for linear flight. There are vertical propellers in the wings, and a propeller at the front and the rear which swivel vertically to provide a 4-point helicopter style lift. You’ve seen military helicopters taking large cargos with two propellers. One front and one aft. Well, this has that and two more – one on each side. Once airborne, the front and rear props swivel back into horizontal position and now act as a pull and push mechanism with counter-rotating blades, to fly at higher speeds than a helicopter can.
There are four main motors. One fore, one aft, and two in the rear fuselage which run the two wing rotors by belt/chain drive (to keep a low wing profile for aerodynamic purposes)

There is even a camera shutter-like closure for the tops of the wings and a solid closure on the underside of the wings to close off the wing rotors during higher-speed horizontal flight and provide smoother, quieter flight, and more lift. Landing gear is integrated into the swivel front propeller so that when the motor is front-facing, the wheel is tucked up and away, but when the motor is up and lifting, the wheel is down. Similarly, when the wing rotors are being used, the covers are open and down, and the wing wheels are mounted on them. When in flight, those covers are closed and so the wheels are tucked up out of sight. Seating is 4 people + luggage behind the second row of seats.

This allows a person to take-off and land from a driveway, and commute long distances into a city – or other cities. Wherever they need to be. Live in a rural setting, on less expensive land, and still have a big city job with the associated income. The best of both worlds.

I realize that I don’t have the funds and facilities to be able to make this up myself, and I have had an extremely busy year for various reasons, so I was not able to create the working model prototype yet. I need someone to help me: a partner with the means to help make this vision a reality. The design will work, and I have included the core of it here, however, I will say that I have deliberately made two fundamental flaws in this design so that it is not stolen and used by someone else. There is enough of the idea shown here to show essentially how it works. Enough to garner interest, however not enough to have a working model. Two pieces are missing (at least). These will not be immediately discovered, but are crucial and integral to the design. It will be un-flyable without them, and if left out, they cannot be added later without a complete rebuild and redesign.

If you are interested in pursuing this in partnership with me, please send me an email.