Guitar Heroes

Two of my favorite guitar players are El McMeen and Michael Chapdelaine. These are acoustic guys, and masters of their instruments. Plug either name into the blog's search pane, you'll see I've posted about them a few times. Guys who can play.

In 2006, the two of them got together for a master guitar class, in New Jersey. Two days, intensive stuff.

I really wanted to go. What with the air fare and hotel and all, it would have set me back a thousand, maybe twelve hundred bucks, but I would have found the money, only ...

... only I would have had to take lessons for a couple years to get good enough to justify tackling the class ...

Kind of like the woman who cleans her house before the housecleaner gets there, so she isn't embarrassed. Me sitting down with guys of this caliber? Not gonna happen, because it would be such a pearls-before-swine experience for them ...

Oink, oink ...

Makes you think; when you honestly–well, as honestly as you can–assess your ability in a given arena, you might not do as well as you hoped. (Could be better, too, but my tendency has always been to think I'm better than I am when it comes to some comparisons. How good a driver am I? Why, better than average, I say ... Ego is always on my shoulder, egging me on. C'mon, Dude, you know you're better than them. Really.)

Two of my hobbies are martial arts and the guitar. I am not a master of either, and while once-upon-a-time, that would have bothered me no end to admit it, it doesn't do so now. 
I have some skills, and they are better now than they used to be in both areas; however, I'm not fooling myself into thinking I'm good at either. 

The thing about rating yourself low is that you can get better and notice the difference. 

I'm a romantic, but there is a strain of reality running through it that pulls me up short now and again. Fantasy is fun, but truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing. Sometimes it takes a while for those clouds to clear out ...