As promised (sorry, it took me a bit to dig up the pictures)
Garfield and the Beast
Playing music has been a passion for me all of my life. A family friend had an upright piano and when we would visit we kids would invariably ask to play. This was reliably greeted with a diversionary tactic because neither my mom nor the hostess wanted us pounding on the antique keyboard. When I would visit with just my mom however things were different. My mom’s friend would let me sit at the ancient behemoth and play (“This can be our little secret”). That’s because I didn’t pound – I explored. I would play single tones and allow them to ring. I would play arpeggios (not well but well enough) and wonder at the tones I created.
The world is an oyster to an ingénue. The horizons are vast for an impresario. Artists can set the world on fire. But mere musicians – not so much. Technicians are a dime a dozen whether they work on cars or play the guitar. I loved playing but I wasn’t a great performer. I tried several times to learn to read music but never got beyond the basics. I started a thousand songs but never finished a single one. I played in dozens of bands starting while still in high school but none of them ever went anywhere.
But I enjoy playing so much that, although I took a hiatus or two, I always came back to it. No matter how bleak my circumstances got, like the song goes, I’d never sell my guitar.
The closest I ever came was during my second marriage.
I had gotten into an accident while uninsured. It was my fault and I owed the other guy $2800. We didn’t have it at the time so I scrounged a portion and his insurance company allowed me to make payments on the balance. She pressured me to sell my gear, and I did (reluctantly) sell my best Fender amp. The pressure was unrelenting to divest the rest but I stood fast. Eventually I paid my debt and soon enough found another band to play in.
By around 1991 things were going pretty good in our little family. I had a decent job, had just bought a house, and had put together a new group. We needed a PA so we pooled our resources and bought a bare-bones kit that got us started. As I remember I put the total – about $3500 - on my credit card and the others made payments on their share to me. My split was about $900. Since “the band” got paid first (paying whatever expenses incurred as a course of business) we quickly paid off the gear with earnings from gigs.
When my wifey found out she hit the roof. True, I should have let her know what we were doing but it was my credit card and my credit (we had separate credit cards). I tried to explain how it was an investment but she turned a deaf ear (and a cold shoulder).
A couple of weeks later she announced that she had made a purchase. I waited for the other shoe to drop. “Since you decided to spend money on stuff you like I decided to spend money on stuff
I like”. Man, I could see where this was headed! She explained (OK, more like notified) to me that she had bought some Garfield figurines from the Home Shopping Network. I tried desperately to show some interest but I get the impression that my reaction came across like “That’s nice dear” to her. When they arrived they were everything that one might imagine Garfield figurines to be. (yawn). While I was away at work she went to the hardware store, bought some shelving, and had it installed - more or less – in the dining room by the time I got home. There was a sh*t-load of shelving there. Those Garfield figurines sure looked lonely and abandoned sitting there all alone like that. I’m sure that was the impression she wished to convey.
Sure enough (and I’m certain much to the relief of those forlorn Garfield figurines sitting all alone on that shelf) they were soon joined by more Garfield figurines. And more Garfield figurines. And more. At one point I asked if she was about done and, in her trademark snotty tone she told me “you buy what you like - I buy what I like”. I patiently explained that we couldn’t afford these extravagances, to which she threw back at me, “You mean like music equipment?!”
I reminded her that I had already paid off the equipment but it didn’t matter to her. She was out to prove a point and no mere man would be giving the rout. She finally stopped someplace around the $3500 mark.
You don’t have to say a word - know you’re impressed.
The display wasn’t as much a display as it was a shrine. No, that’s not true – it was a spite fence. It was there for one reason and one reason alone – to spite me for having the temerity to make an independent decision. She never allowed the kids to touch any of her Garfield crap – smacking them any time they ever tried. At one time she purchased a cat – a Siamese - and brought it home. The cat made the fatal mistake of leaping up into the midst of the shrine one afternoon after spying a squirrel outside the window. She had the cat put to sleep.
That was 1991. It’s now 22 years later and I still own the PA. And it is still making money for me.
I wonder how much the shrine is worth?