Pictures of My Guitar

Yes, I have been known to take a shot or five of guitars I buy. I know I may indeed off them sometime in the future, so it serves as a record.
But...

There is a website that among guitar players is HUGE with a capital G.
My Les Paul

As the name would suggest it is primarily a Gibson site but over the years has grown to encompass many brands.
It boasts of well over twenty five thousand members. Huge in forum numbers.
From the data I have seen the average age is forty six, the average number of guitars each member owns is four.
The site is privately owned but the income stream is not negligible by any stretch of the imagination.

The first and foremost occupier of time on this website is posting pictures of a new guitar.
Yes, are we all excited by the purchase of an expensive thing? Cars do this to people. Shelling out three or four thousand dollars for a guitars also qualifies.

But having seen one Les Paul, you have seen them all.

And yet what I have noticed is more often than not the people on the site are not musicians.
Wait, wait...what?!

A website about photography, do the members post pictures of their cameras or compositions they have made WITH their cameras?

Do saxophonists wax poetic over the patina of the brass? Or do they discuss the tone, how when they are playing Trane they are transported?

But guitarists, want to measure dick size. The fuck?
"Mine costs more..."
"Mine has the best flame maple top..."
"Mine has a long tenon (the method of attaching a set neck, a glued neck)..."

Are you kidding me?

In 1972 when you wanted to prove your were the better guitarist, you came to school and during Study Hall would show all your friends how you figured out Johnny Winter's latest.
I bought a Stratocaster, Augie had an SG, Corky bought a Les Paul...we didn't compare construction or flame or hardware...we compared chops.
What I can play that you can't.

So on the website I tried to cajole and prod and push and what I got in reaction was,
"Quit peeing in our cheerios..."

Some people got it. That an older member of the tribe is passing down knowledge earned with years.
And I know that youth is made to not "get it" until it is too late and they are my age.

Sure I have pride in the crap I own; that's human nature.
But what is more important?
What I own, or what I make of myself using the tools at my disposal?

It has been a frustrating week in many, many ways.

Laugh or cry, right?
Watch me.