(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

image
...am here to tap through the walls.


Mon Nov, 03 2008

The Eve

Jesus, I wish I could say everything that there is to say about what's going to happen tomorrow in my homeland.

I know good people who're going to vote for Obama. I know them: I work with them.

I know a lot about why they're going to do this, and I do not know how to illuminate it without their taking insult at all of it, no matter how supplicant I might be in the presentation.

At one point in a discussion about it, it was proposed that we should all "agree to disagree". That horrible old cop out.

I didn't ask what would happen if I disagreed with the United States Government, or the massed opinion of people who are going to vote tomorrow.

There is not one point in the world, at this point. They're going to do what they're going to do, and with the whole world looking on, slavering.

I don't know how it'll be worse than this, ladies and gentlemen. I guess it'll take eight years to find out.

~~~~~~

I see the various discussions with people taking my name in vain. I should like to remark when I get home: some good bit of time away in blog-life.

Nov 03, 08 | 11:10 am

AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

Early Norlin ES-335 -- 1970, in Walnut ("ES-335TDW"). This is a period-piece look and feel, and arguably the sound as well but that's to cut things very finely. A "classic" 335 would be the original of 1958 in the Sunburst or Natural finish, or the Cherry Red of 1959; the Walnut of 1970 (second year of that finish offering) is not really a "classic" 335. In the history of the Gibson aesthetic, this is analogous to, say, vertically-striped polyester bell-bottoms or Bahama Blue shag carpeting. None of this is to say that they're not cool guitars, and this is a nice one. Excellent photographs.

Chrome hardware, featuring the trapeze tailpiece (like my L-47 and I've always liked it) and ABR-1 bridge with period-typical nylon saddles. Bound rosewood fretboard, with small block markers, and then the crown inlay at the machine head. These would be the T-top Humbuckers. Vintage Nazis would moan that the upper bouts are pointy (the body templates were wearing-out in the factory) and the fourteen-degree machine head with the volute signals a sometimes not-fun era of the line, but these things really do rock or moan or whatever you want a 335-type semi-hollow to do. ...which, of course, is because it really is a 335.


In the months since I've let AxeBites languish all to bleedin' hell, Gibson's Robot Guitar technology has sifted out to other models than the original Les Paul application. I don't know how it's going: I still haven't even seen one of these self-tuners. I don't see piles of them burning on the sides of the highway, nor reverent hangings in display cases over bars, so who knows? This 2008 Robot SG is ready to rock in the Metallic Red. Nickel hardware; it's the stoptail wired for data to send to the tuners, with dual Humbuckers. It's a bound rosewood fretboard, but I really like the single-bound machine head with the crown inlay. That's a real cool old-school look, right there, to set off that crazy-ass color. {nod}