When things get bad, and they always do, it’s easy for me to hide in the anger and frustration. It’s even easier for me to use the anger to feed bad juju. But I can’t say that anything good comes from swimming in the negative stuff. Lately, though, Santa Fe is becoming a cesspool and it’s hard for me to NOT become angry. Nothing improves, however, and being angry just gives me heartburn. Like five Pepcid-needing heartburn.
What’s better for me is to find ways to create something good. It may not amount to an anthill in greater landscape of the cosmos. But the anger does go away. Heck, it might even be helpful within the creation process.
The main thing I like to is build guitars (my latest build is pictured within this post). I am not a luthier by any definition. However, I do like the challenge of getting a whole bunch of parts and turn them into something that magnetically captures vibrations and turns them into sounds. When I’ve finished the last string and tuned a new build, I plug the new guitar and if it works, the rush is something that I can’t easily describe.
In that moment, whatever in which I wallowed flows into my fingers and out through the my amp (I use a Peavey 6505). It’s like medicine or a magic potion: build a guitar, bang on the strings, add some distortion, and voila, no more being mad!
Now, when the guitar doesn’t make sounds or there’s wicked buzzes or the strings snap, that’s a different story. When that happens, I picture myself becoming Pete Townsend and smashing the stupid thing into a million toothpicks. I have yet to actually smash the guitar. Once my fantasy subsides, I get back to work and fix the issue at hand. Because I know the sensation that awaits me when I’ve actually made decent sounds out of the thing, I work hard to find the issue.
Either way, though, anger no longer causes my heartburn to flare out of control. I’m about to start a new build because things in Santa Fe may be beyond repair. Because things are so bad, I am going to build a guitar completely from scratch. I’m THAT angry.
