Menehune

Josh rewound a dead very early Dimarzio PAF for me, and a dead Dimarzio Super Distortion from the same era. Both true and brilliant. A set of his Charlottes went into a mid-90's Studio. Also brilliant.

Some years ago I bought a few switch buttons constructed of a 1/2" tall plastic sleeve, a topping 1" metal washer, and a 1/8" black plastic plug that fixes the washer to the sleeve. The actuation advantage seems more in the raised height of the switch button than in its width. Haven't used them much.

If you also have a Gold Tchula, then the Red Moon counts. Otherwise....

You're at the local girls college's rathskeller on a Friday night. The band is playing, you see this fantastical girl - no, woman - across the floor. She catches your eye, and you blurt out to yourself "Good God, that's the one I'm going to marry!" You dwell a bit too long, then go in search of her, but she's gone. it was dark, but you swear she had wise green eyes under short dark hair framing her lovely and handsome face - the face of a woman who understands and wants life in its adventure, its accomplishments, and with a man who'll dive into it all alongside her for keeps. And It all haunts you until your last sigh. Yes, even if you've been lucky to enjoy an enviable life with her cherrybursty soul-sister. That loss still make you wonder. It still haunts.

I played the Midnight Special version of that guitar for a few years back in the day. Standard two-humbucker toggle switch, single volume and tone. Mine had pickups potted in black plastic covers - cheaper to make, but I don't recall them sounding so awful that I needed to replace them. A thin-bodied guitar. Nice action, I remember. Modestly priced. And Kerry Livgren of Kansas played an L6-S, so that made it all the more way cool. Instead I moved on to a Les Paul Standard with natural maple top, maple neck, maple board, and I swear a maple body, because it weighed a ton and I got 8-pack abs from playing that guitar standing up.

A bad cover band couldn't do worse.

Whammy Davis Jr. I spat out my hard candy laughing. God, where it it? Oh. Under my shoe. Great....

Most of my amps have it, so why not use it?

From the interior pics it looks like that Standard ate crackers in bed.

Think you've got enough blue guitars there, pal?

I'm in a happy place kit-wise, but that Newport has me casting my gaze across things I could live without and sell. And then I re-realize that I can live without all of it. So damn that Newport.

I bought a Two notes Captor X for recording. Although I haven't yet used it for live performance, I can see where it might be useful. It has a Speaker In (from the amp) and Speaker Out (to your cabinet, if you so choose); a three-way attenuation switch if you want some amp output going to a cabinet for stage presence; Left and Right XLR outputs; handles up to 100W; provides Bluetooth control of the box from your smartphone (or USB-connected control from your PC) for cabinet/IR selection, mic placement, mic gain, reverb, double-tracking (a slightly differently EQ's signal in left and right channels to emulate double-tracking), EQ, and other audio controls; and a MIDI USB, in case you drive your rig using a MIDI switcher. There are a number of cabinet IRs available for purchase for modest amounts, and I'm sure the Intertubes is full of other IRs that can be loaded.

All of the above. And also cultivate gratitude. It doesn't come easy in the ruts of ennui - which I've experienced - let alone the wilderness of purpose, but I found telling myself that I'm grateful for the gift of experiencing life goes a long way in putting the bad stuff into the lets-just-deal-with-this-now-and-get-past-it bucket and the good stuff into the thank-you-so-much-for-this bucket. Everything gets put down into buckets and I go on working on being grateful for being alive and able to work to empty one bucket and overflow the other. Some years ago I cracked open a fortune cookie and read its slip of paper: "Any day above ground is a good day." I kept that fortune.

IF the guitar has a nitro finish AND you've cleaned off wax and oils thoroughly using naptha (aka white gas, aka Ronson lighter fluid, aka Coleman fuel), you can use a very fine artist's brush to flow lacquer thinner into the clearcoat finish craze lines and impact points to heal them. Won't be perfect but will mechanically rejoin the adjacent finish sections and reduce the appearance of spider and bullseye checking. If the nitro color coat layer is checked and you've ruled out a refinish, I think the best you can expect is to stabilize the clearcoat.

I have a problem with Warm Audio mooching so much of the trade dress of a pedal that's still in production. Copy circuit ideas and improve it - sure, or even clone the circuit outright. But don't ape the original right down to its use of a top plate, its control layout and captions, its knob style, its typography, and its yinyang graphic.