The highway through Pennsylvania is boring and I felt my mind wandering. When buying guitars, you have to know where to draw the line. One time a guy tried to sell me three fourths of a guitar. He heard I traded in the bizarre and the macabre . . . Mr. Guitar Noir, so to speak. The bottom 1/4 had been cut cleanly. So cleanly it looked like it was done with a chainsaw. The bridge was gone, so the strings were splayed willy-nilly like a spastic granddaddy long leg. "This looks like it was hacked off with a chainsaw," I said. I pricked my finger on an errant G string. "That's because it was hacked off with a chainsaw," he replied. "Bobby was playin' Freebird on it when Mayella kilt him with a wild swing of a two stroke Craftsman and Bobby had just put on a fresh chain too. He was gonna cut far wood after the game." He pointed to what looked like a dried up Earth worm on the volume knob. "Skin, swear to God. And if you look at the back, the blood stains make the face of Castro!" My friend, there is a fine line between a storied guitar and just court evidence for a troubled marriage. I walked away. I told him the guitar was just far wood.
AuthorThe Guitar Hunter chronicles his journeys here. Check back often. Archives
April 2012
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