This shot is featured on the front cover of my 4th solo guitar CD, It Only Hurts when I Laugh!    I bought a used Fender Jaguar from a pawn shop when I was 20, and I haven't learned how to play it yet. The name of the CD comes from my habit of laughing when I make a mistake. So many things I do are unforgiving when I make an error, that it makes me laugh when I do so, with a guitar--because nothing is damaged. And with the computer editing programs, these days, fixing an error is no big deal. So what I'm saying, with the title of the CD is "Watch your ears, if you hear me Laughing, because it might Hurt Them! I would apologize for not being much of a guitar player, but I have too much fun torturing God, for making me a clutz. Everything I do is origional, though--so if you if you feel like a change--My music doesn't resemble anyone else's, that I know of.

My guitar ended up with Gibson Humbugger pick-ups, Grover Machine-heads, and the electonics reduced to two switches and two knobs.   ..and covered with two layers of leather.   I had origionally re-painted the used guitar, after I had bought it--but it got knocked off of its drying-hanger, by an unsuspecting room-mate, in the dark of the night--and a long 3/8's inch-deep gash resulted, all the way across the middle of the newly-painted back.   That broke my heart--so the pieces of it sat in the case for the next 2 or 3 years, until I made my way to Laugana Beach, in Southern California.   The War in Vietnam had ended, and I was hoping to make a career, taking photographs of pretty people.   None of the other guitar players out on the coast had time for a beginner, like me, however.   I never have been able to make a chord sound chrystal-clear.   Mine always sound like the cat got her tail under the rocking chair.
Many, many, years later, I discovered that, with a "tube-overdrive" sounding amplifier, you can make a full-bodied sound with just two strings, on an electric guitar.   By covering it with two layers of leather, I had hoped to give the guitar a finish that would last me its lifetime, without becoming marred.   Well--lots of the stiching around the edges is frayed out--but the leather is just as soft as when I made it. I still love it.   I is my first major art piece.   With such a deep scar, under such a primal-hide covering--this guitar was meant to play the blues.    I'm surprised I don't have a name for it.   I don't have many things I've carried around the country for 37 years.   I can't think of any, at all, now that I mention, it.   It is the only link I have with my home in Lafayette, Indiana.   I bought it in a pawn shop on 6th st. for $125.   I guess I'm getting my money's worth. ..for all the laughs I still get out of it.