I have some special friends visiting from out of town, so it’s time for celebration and much mirth. In spite of that, we decided to make a pit stop at Guitar Center.

I should mention at this point that one of my friends shares my Southpaw Syndrome. We were wondering what would happen if the GC staff saw two lefties in the same place at the same time. We figured either the back half of the store would blow off or half of the guitar sales staff’s heads would explode. Or both; but hell, we’re up for anything today.

I got to show my friends that GC *does* care about lefties, via their Lefty Wall of Fame (a few token cheap guitars hanging on one wall, out of reach). A new addition of note was some humongous Ibeenhad acoustic with all sorts of electronics happening and knobs all over the place. Never seen wunna them afore. Oh yeah, and some used BC Rich monstrosity with actual graphics on it and a locking wiggle stick. If only I could have reached it to try it out [sigh.....]

After that brief detour, we got to go into the Drummers’ Den to sample the goodies. Fortunately for us (and them), none of us could actually PLAY the drums, so we were allowed to browse and comment rudely.

Did you know that there’s a Mambo cowbell? No, really, it was right there on the percussion wall. We were left to presume that if you attempted to play a samba, it wouldn’t sound. That’s some tricky electronics there…. Right next to it was a timbale cowbell. It sure didn’t LOOK like a timbale, but who am I to argue with drummers?

We verified that the purple plastic thingie sounded much better than the yellow plastic thingie of the same species. We thusly validated my wife’s favorite color (purple). She fancies herself a percussionist, but she mostly likes to bang on things (sadly, not often enough for me).

We also got to see a guiro or two. I don’t know what it was, but I do know that no matter how you try to pronounce guiro, you’re wrong.

Leaving the fascinating world of percussion behind, we headed straight to the backwards guitars and amps. My friend mentioned that after she bought herself the offshore Strat, she never got around to purchasing an amp. AHA - I said… a project! Unfortunately she has just about as much disposable income as I do, so most of the store was out of the ballpark (I really must stop with the sports metaphors - at least until the new medicine kicks in).

Let’s face it - you’re not going to get a sweet old tube amp in the $100 neighborhood. Aside from building her one, we started looking. There’s the Champion 600, Fender’s nod to their ancient tweed practice amp. I didn’t get a chance to check it out, but knowing Fender, it’s a great amp that has one or two features grossly different from the original design (like all of their reissues). At about $150, it was a great starting point. I also mentioned the POD/headphone combo, in case she was afraid to share her music with anyone else.

And that was largely it until we hit the Wall O’ Line6 and I saw this very silly display of boxes with $99 price tags and strange graphics. I haven’t seen it yet, but there’s a Line 6 (Spider?) amp with an 8″ speaker for $99. We didn’t get to try it out, but if it’s at least as decent as the POD, I told her it would probably be a great deal - something to consider. Most amusing and sad was the box itself - it was unbelievably short of anything resembling useful information. It mentioned you could get tones `similar’ to a bunch of famous tunes they
listed, it said something else in about seven different languages (none of which any of us understood or spoke) and there was not much more there except for a picture of PART of the amp.

“BUT IT HAS AN INSANE SWITCH!” I screamed loudly, in my best lower class Geico accent. You’d ave to pay at least noine noinety noine to get someding like-at wiv biggah speakiz, of course.

How anyone can argue with a practice amp with an insane switch is completely beyond me. I can’t understand why the $99 didn’t LEAP out of her pocket at that very moment and walk out with the amp before we did. (I’d love to see the amp open my trunk and lock itself in too, but that’s another story entirely…)

Off to effects we went, time running out before we had to be off to dinner. OMG - have you seen the Daisy Rock LP-like metallic pink guitar? It was so delightfully hideous and over-the-top sexist that I would’ve bought it on the spot if it were properly oriented. And only
$349! Hmmm… I wonder if it comes in metallic lime green…….

I found something called a Baja S1 Players Tele with a very interesting neck. In fact, the neck was so interesting that they must’ve gotten it from somewhere else - Fender has an unwritten law that states every one of their guitars must have the same C-shaped, 9.5 radius,
sharp-shouldered neck as every other Fender.

We sighed even more heavily, as we knew we were already late. Otherwise we would have created some entertainment by asking one of the staff if Fender was making this guitar lefty, or better yet, in a Strat, lefty, with that same neck. We could have videotaped their synapses firing individually, as if in slow motion but in real time. Right before they issued a group IDUNNO in an indistinct mumble and wandered off to hand the doubleneck Gibsons to 13 year olds who couldn’t possibly lift them, no less sit with them on their laps.

Oh well - better luck next time. Maybe we can visit a different GC before my company leaves. Sometimes you have to manufacture your own entertainment.