Day 3113

The guitars are gone. They will be joining some pretty amazing instruments in a little store I only discovered a few weeks ago. The owner appraises guitars for Antiques Roadshow and is on the advisory board of the Modern Guitar Museum in Los Angeles. The customers of this odd little place include rock and roll royalty. I was admiring a particularly nice bass and one of the guys casually mentioned that Nate Mendel from Foo Fighters had been in the store recently to look at it. I'm glad that little stores like this still exist in a world dominated by Amazon and Walmart. The three guys who run the place were incredibly nice and extremely knowledgable. This store seemed like the guitar equivalent of the place in Kentucky that is selling my model trains. I'm kind of envious of the owners of these places. They are both successful because they gained a reputation for knowing more than anyone else about a particular subject. Hey, what could be better than being a world class expert on model trains or electric guitars.

My vintage guitars found a home, but my vintage synthesizers didn't do so well. I had several old Sequential Circuits synthesizers that I thought would be very desirable. They looked brand new and still had their original shipping boxes. Everyone was real excited to see these things until one of the guys called a collector in Chicago who advised them to plug them in and see if they still worked. It never occurred to me that they wouldn't. Hey, they both worked perfectly when I boxed them up fifteen years ago. Evidently, Sequential Circuits electronics have a reputation for going kaput if they have been sitting around for extremely long periods of time. I was dismayed when we fired the beasts up and all that came out of them were some strange screeching sounds. We're going to see about repairing the synthesizers if someone is still alive who is familiar with them. They're either worth a lot of money, or absolutely nothing.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. Going through my old stuff made me think of this biblical phrase. If you keep something too long, it rusts, decomposes, and turns to dust. I've kept a lot of things well past their expiration date just because I liked the memories they evoked. I should have sold my Citroën SM sooner. When I finally did sell, all the rubber parts had gone bad and then engine wouldn't turn over. I should have sold the synthesizers the moment I removed them from the studio. They worked perfectly then and lots of people would have wanted them. I should have sold my BetaSP video equipment before analog video become obsolete. The stuff is worthless now. Live and learn.

At least the art I sent to New York is still desirable. I got a message from the auction house today saying that the shipment had arrived in good condition. What what I can tell, everyone seems real excited about these pieces. I think they want to reframe some of them, but that's OK. I'm still a bit nervous about the auction, but the appraisers are convinced that everything will sell.

I sanded the sheetrock today and it still isn't perfect. I applied a little bit more mud and will sand everything again tomorrow. Hopefully, I've got the energy to get this place looking nice again. The house is the best example of Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust I can think of. It looked beautiful when we bought the place years ago, but now it is starting to look like Grey Gardens. Jeez. I used to be an architect. I never thought I'd live in a place as cluttered and crumbling as my parents final home. Age catches up with you though. Eventually you reach a point where you just don't care what the furniture looks like.

Janet just asked me what I wanted to do for the Fourth of July. I have no idea. Certainly nothing that has anything to do with fireworks. I'm not looking forward to even going outside tomorrow. It's way too hot.

Bob Hope is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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