This blog is probably of interest only to my immediate family. As a method of emotional recovery and personal repair I've decided to do something really hard. I'm going to learn how to play the guitar. Not just any guitar style but serious blues and jazz. Instead of going down the 'medicate myself until I don't care' road I've decided a bit of soul nurturing is what I need. I am by nature an obsessive person. It's what got me where I am today. As in, a tiny rented condo in downtown Redmond. I've made a fortune and lost it. Had a great career and lost it. Had a wonderful house and lost it. I've still got a great wife (Liz) and managed to not lose her (goodness knows how), along with our fabulous son Alan. I have to get back on my feet and be great again. It's a tough thing to do when you sit here staring at an Emmy all day. Yes, it's mine. I admit it, I used to be great. So now what? Well, the plan is that I turn a script I wrote ten years ago into the great series of books that everybody who read it said it should be. Yup, Harry's coming back folks. So why the guitar? When I was young I used to 'roady' for friends godawful bands and think 'I could do that, that could be me' (see, I was thinking like a lead guitarist even then). I remember sitting with my friend Andy and listening to him play and thinking that his playing was a bit on the trite side, a bit boring. There were better musical options than the ones he was choosing. I just never believed that I had a 'right' to play. It sounds crazy but there you go. Another problem I thought I had was that I'm a lefty. I can't just pick up someone else's guitar and play it. The strings are all wrong. This guitar thing came about because we went to Toys R Us to spend our son's birthday money. After buying Alan a guitar he didn't really want (his drug of choice is Bionicles) Liz came to the startling insight that I needed to learn to play. I cried in a little sad kind of way(I do a lot of that these days) realizing that after 35 years Liz gave me permission to realize a dream I had buried so deep that I had forgotten completely about it. On the other hand, it hadn't forgotten about me. A deep seated obsession has taken over me. I have purchased a lefty Les Paul clone, a Behringer practice amp and then because it was so unbelievably cheap a lefty SX SST Strat copy. I hug them and love them so much that Liz is beginning to get jealous. I fixed her little wagon by buying her the weirdest bass on the planet.
An Ashbory fretless bass. How weird? It has silicon rubber strings, it sound like a full upright and it's only 28 inches long. Thats how weird. We've christened it the Dogbone. And now that Liz is fully committed to our musical future, we've invested in 'Learn & Master Guitar' for me since it seems the best tutorial system out there (judging by the price). We can't afford flesh and blood tutors and they wouldn't do any good anyway. I'm dyslexic and ADD so I've got to do this my way. I'm 53 and I'm learning to play the guitar.
An Ashbory fretless bass. How weird? It has silicon rubber strings, it sound like a full upright and it's only 28 inches long. Thats how weird. We've christened it the Dogbone. And now that Liz is fully committed to our musical future, we've invested in 'Learn & Master Guitar' for me since it seems the best tutorial system out there (judging by the price). We can't afford flesh and blood tutors and they wouldn't do any good anyway. I'm dyslexic and ADD so I've got to do this my way. I'm 53 and I'm learning to play the guitar.
