Today’s title is brought to you by The Beach Boys, my favorite of their tunes, “Sail On Sailor”… And I’m finding myself getting distracted by the hottie on the far right… What can I say? I’ll be a Dennis Wilson fan forever.

You know, I used to go to these big picnics every summer and they had these two amazing guys who would be there with their guitars and sing oldies for us all afternoon, including Beach Boys tunes. I somehow always ended up sitting closest to these guys every year and I think they were pleased that I enjoyed myself, singing along, and my vast knowledge of music. Well, one year I’d asked if they knew “Sail On Sailor” as it was my favorite Beach Boys tune. They didn’t… I wasn’t very surprised, it was a bit obscure for most people. So fast forward a year. The main guy told me they had a surprise for me. I was puzzled, but I told them to let me know ahead of time so I could record it with my phone. Imagine my surprise when I heard those opening chords… They had learned “Sail On Sailor” just for me and, at the end, the main guy said, right into the microphone as he looked right at me, and told me it was for me! What an honor! And it surprised a lot of people they did that! And I now have a great memory on a video that I watch from time to time and it always makes me smile!

Anyway… enough about weird events in my life and my fetish for Dennis Wilson…

I chose those lyrics for my title today because, well, that’s how I’ve been feeling. “Uninspired, drenched and tired…” Yup, that’s me. Just a sad piece of work who feels like her creativity has moved and left no forwarding address.

About a week ago, I was on YouTube and found this gentleman in my recommendations. He’s a professional artist named Josiah Brooks, aka Jazza. I’ve been binge watching his videos every day. Aside from the fact that I think he’s gone off his meds (or maybe that’s just the artistic temperament), he’s quite amusing. He has a great onscreen personality. And he does some great illustration work as well as sculpture, painting… You name it. I especially like the videos where he tries to follow Bob Ross (the man who taught me to paint) tutorials without knowing which colors he’s using, using only audio prompts, blindfolded… It’s interesting to see what he comes up with when he’s not allowed to see what Bob is doing (or not seeing his own work). He tests different supplies to show us which will give us the best bang for our buck and try things he’s never used before to give us some insight as to what you can do with the material (like goache, which I had no clue what it was) he’s never used before. I was hoping that, by binge watching his videos, I might get some of my inspiration back. Hey, you never know. Stranger things have happened…

So since I had something else to pick up, I made a run to Michael’s yesterday…

I always go through the pencils, markers, canvas, paints, brushes and sketchbooks while I’m there whether I need anything or not. Which right now, I do, but I kept my paint buying to a minimum. Anyway… Last time I was there, I bought a big canvas because I have something in mind. But I realized I was running low on one color I absolutely need. So I grabbed my paint and decided to grab a few new brushes while I was at it. I was a bit disappointed they didn’t have any goache (guess I’ll have to spend a lot more at Blick for that), so I’ll need to hold off on trying that something new I suppose. That’s alright… I ended up spending more than enough as it was. Aside from paint and brushes, I also bought some washi tape, a big pad of scrapbook paper and a bunch of other shit I didn’t need but couldn’t resist buying it. That’s nothing new… And this is why I could never work at a store like Michael’s. Or a jewelry store… I wouldn’t get paid in money. I’d just tell them to pay me in art supplies or jewelry. Not a good idea…

So Jazza inspired me to buy new supplies. And, so far, that’s about it…

I find this quote interesting… “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” But… if you’re not inspired, how the fuck are you supposed to work?! I’m confused, Picasso!

Funny side note on Picasso… He died of a heart attack (apparently around dinner time) in France on the very same day I was born. Literally… Like he died about 8 hours (considering the time difference) before I came into the world… I only found this out because I saw some thing on Facepuke or something that told you to Google who died on the day you were born. Picasso was the one who came up for me. I found that kind of interesting. When I told my mom who died the day I was born, she said, “Maybe that’s where you get your talent from.” I don’t know why she thought that. There were several family members on her side who were artistically and musically inclined. And I don’t think she believes in reincarnation. Still, it’s a nice thought. It would also explain my fear of having a heart attack, now, wouldn’t it…?

But I was a little inspired yesterday, just not in the way I wanted to be…

I hadn’t been practicing my guitar as I was nursing an infected root canal (which would make sense if you knew how monstrously long my roots were) and I was just too miserable to do much of anything. So yesterday I decided it was time to practice again. I took Constantine out of his case, grabbed my pick and capo and parked my ass on the ottoman to practice until my fingers bled. Now, usually I leave my case open because… I don’t really know. Laziness? Usually none of the animals bother with it more than to just sniff. Baxter in particular is horrible with that… He’s so nosey and I have to tell him who it is he smells. But yesterday, as I began practicing, I looked over to see this… Apparently Sebastian thought it was a great idea to take a nap in my guitar case. Great… Thanks for leaving a whole bunch of little Tribble like blobs of hair in my guitar case, fucker…

Recently, I was listening to “Who’s Behind The Door” by Zebra. What a great tune! And there’s some beautiful guitar work in that song! So I did a Google search and found the guitar chords which, sadly, didn’t have the long intro. I found a video tutorial for the intro, but it meant having to tune my guitar to a different key and I didn’t want to do that because, frankly, it’s a pain in the ass… I resigned myself to playing the main part of the song following the chords I found which didn’t require retuning my guitar.

But yesterday, I was feeling very saucy, I suppose… I decided to figure some of it out myself. I have perfect pitch and play the piano by ear so I figured why can’t I do that with my guitar? I’ve had enough lessons that I thought I might be able to figure it out. I don’t know why I thought that… So I started with the first string and just kept plucking until I found the main note and went from there. And I did figure some of it out! Amazing! I was so proud of myself! Now I just have to practice until I can play it fast enough and better (I screw it up a lot).

I’m actually looking forward to my lesson on Monday and not just because I had to cancel my last one due to a swollen face and massive pain from that tooth… I can’t wait to go in and show my instructor what I figured out! He said I’m at the mid to top range of beginner, which I think is pretty good since it takes a long time to master the guitar (especially a 12 string, which my ass was way overly ambitious in wanting to learn on). So I can’t wait to show him what I figured out! Not too shabby for a beginner, huh? Plus I have a feeling he doesn’t know this song. I like being able to introduce him to all sorts of new tunes and see his reaction to the lovely guitar chords!

I also found out some interesting things while I was trying to find a YouTube tutorial that was in the standard tuning, of which I found none…

Apparently, “Who’s Behind The Door” is supposed to be played on a 12 string acoustic/electric. Sweet! See, I knew there was a reason I wanted a 12 string other than to learn how to play “Ripples” by Genesis (you can clearly see they’re playing 12 strings in the video)! My instructor also told me Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” was also played on a 12 string… So now I know 3 songs that were meant for me to play!

Anyway… So while looking for tutorials, I found an interview with the lead singer and guitarist of Zebra about “Who’s Behind The Door”. I saw he was holding a guitar and thought what the hell, so I decided to watch it, figuring he would play the song, which he did. Most of the time, I was watching his hands and hoping I would become that good one day. Then I caught just a brief glimpse of the headstock and I was like, “Wait… What did that say?!” I stopped watching his hands, waiting for a glimpse of the headstock and, when I got to see it, I nearly fell over. It said D’Angelico… And, if you look close at the picture, you can see that the headstock on Constantine, here, also says D’Angelico…! Imagine that! When I got this guitar, I’d never heard of this company. When I went for my first lesson, I found out from the owner of the place that they’re one of the best. Now I’m seeing someone in a rock video playing one! That made me feel incredible! I got one of the greats!

It may not seem very exciting, things like buying art supplies or figuring out how to play something by ear… or even finding out that your guitar is more amaze-balls than you thought it was. But at this point, it’s a bright spot in an otherwise “meh” existence as of late.

I went to Barnes & Nobel yesterday as well (because it was right next door to Michael’s) for no reason. Well… seemingly no reason. In actuality, I think I was looking for some help, something to help me answer the question of, “What now?!” I looked through every self help book and found nothing even remotely close to anything pertaining to my situation, help for someone who has more life behind them than in front of them and can’t figure out what the fuck to do with what remains. Instead, I came away with two Cup Noodle plushes with a cat in one cup and a fox in the other as well as a copy of The Odyssey. Pretty sure Homer doesn’t have the answers, either…

So I’ll just keep going about my “meh” existence, pray to the universe for my creativity to return and get all giddy and stupid when I play something right on my guitar… Whee…