Author: Ridley

I’ve been in a fog of late, unable to think properly or remember things or feel any motivation to do anything interesting. It’s been…it’s been a while. Then, the other day, Nicole handed me a B12 supplement with breakfast and…wow, what a difference. I know that vitamins are, by and large, not especially effective, and it might just be a coincidence related to me not being sick anymore, but for the last three days, I’ve not only had energy, my brain has started working again. I spent something like 20 minutes last week trying to recall a violin line from a song that I’d played a zillion times and I couldn’t recall it and it just. drove. me. nuts. Sitting in the tub last night (yes, I take baths-baths are awesome), it all came back to me, as did a dozen other things I couldn’t remember. It feels like rebirth, albeit on a fairly small and significantly less dramatic scale. So, this is great. Now I feel like I can do stuff. I’ve missed doing stuff. Stuff can be a lot of fun. As it turns out Final Fantasy XIV is pretty much an MMORPG. I knew that going in, but it’s done nothing but reinforce that impression. That’s not bad, but it means that it’s less “Final Fantasy” than I was craving. The storylines are getting better as I level up and I’m only level 46, so maybe the flavor will improve. I did come across a cutscene that hit me as hard as anything since Wrathgate: The setup is that Alphinaud (the white haired boy) and Cid (the white haired man) are your buds, Gaius is the baddie (and Cid’s father figure somehow). Garuda, Ifrit, and Titan are…let’s call them demi-gods. You’ve just defeated Garuda in a fight, sort of, only not really. That’s the setup. This felt genuinely horrific to me, like, stick-with-me-like-an-unsettling-nightmare kind of horrific. That’s what I play the game for. If there’s more like this? I’m in. Speaking of things “I’m in”, I’m in a great mood right now. It’s sunny, I have energy, and I have Things To Look Forward To. Never underestimate the value of having Things To Look Forward To. When I was rock-bottom-y, I had to cling to little things, doctor’s appointments, payday, etc., as sort of the “next rung on the ladder” to keep me moving. in celebration of feeling great, here’s a profoundly stupid song that will put a smile on your face until you get tired of it because it does sort of get old, but…well, you be the judge: OK, I have a little work to do (I’m on call tonight!), but I didn’t want to let this good mood get away without putting something here. Cheers, RK

Heh. The title of this post came from me noting that fact that I had written three paragraphs on “dark mode” and that you were very lucky that I thought better of it and deleted it. I then wrote nine paragraphs of scattershot updates, some of which were interesting, some of them probably less so, but… Holy hell, Squarespace’s blog editor could use some work. The whole post disappear with one keystroke. I have no clue which keystroke. I know for damned sure the “undo” button won’t actually undo it so what’s the point? This is beyond frustrating. I mean, it would be worse if I’d lost a really good post, like that 70s television thing, but it’s still baffling that this is possible while at the same time impossible to reverse. Speaking of bad ideas, I found myself singing The Who’s “5:15” in a deeper register and with a slightly country and western inflection. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and when all you have are electronic instruments, you start imagining an electronic reworking of the song. I am almost certain that this is not something I should devote any time to. I am less certain that I’ll avoid the temptation. You’ are warned. Not related to anything, but here’s a photo of a snail covered in baby snails: Your timeline is now blessed. Anyway, I’m in fake-it-til-you-make-it mode right now. The well inside me is dry, but the itch is there. I want to do/read/write/play things, but I’m devoid of inspiration. That’s no excuse for not doing these things, but it’s an explanation, if that makes any sense. The rest of the year is going to be a roller coaster, not so much in the “up and down sense”, but rather in the “oh shit, we’re at the top of the hill and in a matter of moments, this sucker’s gong to go and there’s no getting off” sort of way. I am not, by nature, a holiday person. I am trying to be one this year. This particular holiday is, has been a good start. We had a simple plan: Hit up the farmer’s market, cook all day, stay home by ourselves, and don’t stress out. We did a good job with, although if yours truly had paid a little more attention, we probably wouldn’t have had goose-gizzard-as-opposed-to-just-goose-confit on the table, but it did give us a lot of duck fat and duck fat is a thing that magically makes everything better. I think I’m going to call it now as I have nothing in particular left to say and I’ve determined that a lot of what I said in the lost post was better off lost. I hope you’ve had some time away with work and that you’ve had the opportunity to spend that precious time any way your heart desires, be it with family, with friends, or alone if that’s your preference. Cheers, RK

When you think of the 1970s, what do you think of? Disco? Watergate? The end of the Viet Nam war? Awful chain restaurants? Cocaine? Those are all good answers, but if you want to really experience the 1970s in the U.S. of A (or at least my suburban bit of it)., there’s one cultural touchstone that sums it up better than any other and you seldom hear about it anymore: The TV variety show. Now, maybe this collective amnesia is a defense mechanism or maybe it’s just that we all remember it but we’re too embarrassed to talk about it, but it was there. It was a thing. It was everywhere. What was a “variety show”? It was weird. The most common form was an hour-long show featuring a somewhat-popular musical artist which would feature monologues, skits, comedy, and, of course, musical numbers. Many of these features would follow the same format from week to week: “It’s now time for everyone’s favorite part of the show, ‘He’s a little bit country; she’s a little bit rock and roll!’” If that sounds awful, then I’ve done a good job describing it. Most of these shows were not good. They were something you’d watch because there was almost guaranteed to be something that someone in the family would enjoy…sort of. It was the Bennigan’s approach to television: If we put enough stuff on the menu, everyone will be able to find something they can eat. One of the biggest was a holdover from the 60s. It was called “Hee Haw” and it starred country and western legends Buck Owens and Roy Clark. I doubt I can describe just how deeply weird this show was, but I’ll give it a shot. Everyone looked like they’d stolen their outfits from a high school production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. They sang (of course), they did stand up, they did singing comedy, they did comedy interspersed with both “pickin’” and “grinnin’”, I think there were some farmer’s-daughter type girls for some jiggle. Many others followed this same formula. Sonny and Cher were probably the most successful, especially if you count the post-Sonny Cher show (there would be no solo Sonny show). Donnie and Marie Osmond had a show. The Jacksons did, as did Flip Wilson*, Mac Davis, Tony Orlando & Dawn, and Bobby Goldsboro. The Captain and Tennille had a moderately successful show in spite of (or because of) the fact that “The Captain” was the living avatar of what would become known as “yacht rock”. Sha-Na-Na apparently had a show although now one remembers it, even the members of Sha-Na-Na. The cast of the Brady Bunch had a variety show. If that doesn’t fill you with lurking horror, I’m not sure what will. If you ever saw the Simpsons’ short where they had a variety show, please understand this one thing: It wasn’t parody; it was exactly the same as the shows of that era. Skip to 16:06. I apologize for the quality, but needs must when copyrights are being violated. The pinnacle of this trend would have to be the Shields and Yarnell show. Remember Shields and Yarnell? No? Let me educate you. Shields and Yarnell were popular mimes in the 1970s. Think on that for a moment. They were actually pretty funny, but the idea that there were mimes popular enough to get their own TV show tells you more about the decade than any history book is likely to do. Now, the ones that didn’t quite hew to the same formula weren’t all bad. Laugh In was terrific, as was Soul Train, and Carol Burnett. Oh, and technically, Saturday Night Live was (and still is) a variety show. What these shows had in common was some sense of an edge. The rest of them were uniformly populated by bland, middle of the road artists doing safe routines and safe music and telling safe jokes. Honestly, it would be much cooler if the 1970s were best represented by disaster movies, polyester suits, and the Ford years. Alas, none of those were the true character of the decade. Just like we remember New Wave music from the 80s and tend to forget that what people were really listening to was Huey Lewis, Lionel Richie, and Phil Collins, we tend to forget the bland-but-genuinely-popular aspects of the culture and latch on to the more interesting stuff. Which, honestly, is probably for the best. * I hate lumping Flip Wilson in with this group because Flip was awesome. He deserves better, but his show didn’t.

I started physical therapy! This is a big deal. I think my funk was in no small part due to my having injured my shoulder and the sense that nothing but major surgery would do me any good. I had reached the point where undressing at night was a very painful thing. Nicole finally convinced me to see a doctor, and the doctor gave me a very grave look when I demonstrated just how little range of motion I had in the left arm. But…because she knows a lot more than I do about this stuff, she recommended I try physical therapy. For those of you who’ve never gone of a physical therapist, it’s a strange experience. It’s much less intense than I’d imagined, but extremely targeted. What we’re trying to do is build up the muscles around the torn…crud, I forgot the name of it, but it’s part of the rotator cuff…and allow the torn muscle to heal. They have me doing very simple exercises work on one muscle and one muscle only. The good news is that I’m seeing progress. Once I see the needle move, it’s very easy to stay motivated and dive into it. The bad news is that I’ve managed to get myself sick. I don’t think it’s the flu, but it’s really, really nasty. Being the wuss, this has wiped out any gains I’ve made, mood-wise. In my own signature style, I’m now set up to spend the entire weekend in bed in hopes that I will ready to get to back to work on Monday. I started this almost a month ago and then saved it as a draft because I lost half of the post to a mistake, likely on my part, with the SquareSpace editor, and then the plague that has been, well, plaguing Austin kept me down and deeply, deeply depressed. Today is the first day I’ve felt any kind of spring in my step and I’m bound and determined to make use of it as all good things in this life are fleeting, aren’t they? The lay of the land hasn’t really changed much since I started this post. We have moved to a new office which is exciting (new!) and disappointing (lousy commute, oh-so-much construction detritus in the air), but overall, it’s a good thing. I share a room with a dude I get along with really well and that makes a ton of difference. Still, it’s work, right? There’s a hard cap on just how good it can be. I do get to go home soon, and I am looking well forward to that. Since Nicole isn’t on social media these days, she may not even see this, but I’d just like to say how impressed I am with her. I love her, sure, but when she puts her mind to things, she does them and she doesn’t do half-measures. She much better than I am at many things (drawing, writing, costume design, etc.) and I don’t even feel any jealousy over it. Now that’s an interesting thought: There are people I genuinely resent when they surpass me, or know things I don’t, or whatever. My guess, and it’s a deeply speculative one, is that the more you respect someone, the more you’re willing to celebrate their victories as opposed to feeling diminished by them. Depression makes reading hard, but I’m at least back to reading comics again. I’m enjoying the two new-ish Kieron Gillen books: “Die” and “Once and Future”. They couldn’t be further apart in tone, but they’re both great reads. As someone for whom tabletop RPGs were literally life-changing, “Die” was always going to be a must-read and where he’s going with it is truly vicious in the way only the best DMs could manage. “Once and Future” is almost a Warren Ellis pastiche and I’m not just saying that because Bridgette McGuire could only be played by Helen Mirren. Speaking of Brother Warren, his latest installment of “Trees” is an absolute treat. It’s set in Russia, but it’ reads more like Scandinavian crime fiction which is a Very Good Thing Indeed. His rapport with artist Jason Howard has gone from “tight” to “telepathic” which is pretty damned chilling when you wrap your head around the subject matter at hand. I’m also reading Ellis’ “The Batman’s Grave” which sees Warren working within the confines of a character who should, by all rights, have run out of stories. I’m enthralled with the first two issues, but I’m not at all sure where this one’s going. God help me, I’m trying Final Fantasy XIV. I thought I was done with MMOs and, to be honest, I met be, but I like the characters from (deep breath) Dissidia: Final Fantasy Opera Omnia so much I’m giving it a try. There are some really good bits and at times it feels like Final Fantasy, and at others, it feels like a re-skin of Dark Age of Camelot with shitty DirectX support. So, we’ll see. It’s miles ahead of FFXI in terms of solo playability (no big hurdle to clear) and I really, really like the character generation. We live in hope. That’s it for now. I hope to go back to being me soon, but for now, I’ll do my best to fake it. -RK P.S. Physical therapy is going surprisingly well. They’ve cut me to once a week because I’m a good patient, and I’ve been doing my homework. I’ll be honest: I didn’t expect it to work.

Is it just me, or was Tuesday a really, really bad day for American democracy? On the same day that a group of representatives from one party broke into a secure area with unsecured cell phones live-streaming what they saw, the lawyers (the real ones, not bag men like Rudy) argued in court that it would be unlawful to even investigate the President, let alone indict him. Obviously, I’m not a neutral observer here, but if the other party were to behave that way, I genuinely believe I’d be not just appalled, but terrified as well. I expect it’ll get worse before it gets better. On the plus side, Tuesday was also our wedding anniversary. This is a Very Good Thing Indeed. When the other stuff around me is, at best, swirling chaos and, at worst, things I cannot discuss in public, coming home to Nicole keeps me going. I hope I am as good for her as she is for me, but that bar is incredibly high and I don’t want to ever take her for granted. I took the week off of work to celebrate and we took off for the unlikely destination of Seguin, Texas. The resort-ish grounds we stayed on were perfectly nice, very quiet, and not far from a really nice small Texas town. There are essentially two types of small towns in Texas. The majority, unfortunately, are suffering from all the young people moving out as soon as possible. The storefronts on the town square are largely boarded up. There’s the sense of slow, inevitable decline. Dollar General is a big player in these towns. However, there are some which have managed to keep the younger people and, thus, the businesses. These are usually towns with small colleges. The town square has dozens of new-ish businesses mixed in with the old ones which are still doing well. Dollar General is a big player in these towns too, because, well, this is sort of Dollar General’s wheelhouse, but other than that? They’re nice. Refreshing. Seguin is very much the second sort. It’s not too far from Austin and quite close to San Antonio, New Braunfels, and San Marcos. The coffee shop on the square was aces, and there’s an HEB. If you’ve ever lived in central Texas, then you understand the importance of being near an HEB. We weren’t expecting much, but we really liked the area. It’s more of a place to live than to visit if you know what I mean. It’s fall now. We went straight from summer, with temperatures in the 90s, to this: Highs in the 50s, low gray clouds all day, and oh so much drizzle. An interesting feature of the the central Texas autumn is that the live oaks shed their leaves all at once. They go from waxy green to waxy brown overnight and just dump the entire lot in a wet, slippery pile. They don’t even have that earthy leaf smell you might associate with this season; they just get musty and ugly and last until spring. It’s my understanding that it isn’t like this everywhere, but my experiences with non-Texas fall are extremely limited. At least we have root vegetables a-plenty to look forward to at the farmers’ market. This is definitely my favorite food season. Who knew that parsnips were delicious? Probably a lot of you, but it was news to me. Ok, that’s about it for now. I’ve had a lot to work through (and probably will for the next couple of weeks as the office is packing up and moving), so things are a little scattershot in my head and, thus, on the page. Thanks for bearing with me. -RK

Things are a little whirlwind-y right now, aren’t they? I don’t know about you, but I’m finding it increasingly difficult to live a normal life and act like everything is OK when we have a full-blown constitutional crisis playing out in the distant District of Columbia. I don’t think I’m exaggerating here: The executive branch of the government has indicated that they do not intend to abide by the law. If there’s no reaction to this, then that’s it. We’re done. Hail Caesar. If there is an appropriate reaction, then we may well have another civil war. So, attempting to lead a normal life in this environment is a little like whistling past the graveyard, except the graveyard is now full of zombies who are infected with Ebola and carrying grenades and probably drinking White Claw because that seems like the sort of thing these zombies would do. Nonetheless, I will persist. It’s also a little tough when the vector of your employer is not one that feels in keeping with your own values. We’re not talking full-on Amazon-making-workers-pee-in-a-jar-and-wear-tracking-devices, but it doesn’t have to be that bad to be a concern. I’m in the room where important things are being cut and cut deeply and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. This is not a great feeling. Enough of the “bad”, how about some good things? Well, best of all, Nicole has achieved something that I’m very proud of. She is a force of nature when she puts her mind to it and puts me to shame in that regard. Also, I’ve sort of acquired a new synth which makes me unreasonably happy. I found an old Ensoniq SQ80 on eBay at a ridiculously low price and I’m super pleased with it. In addition, the weather is starting to get reasonable again so yay for that, and we have a vacation coming up soon. I may have to take several here in the next 3 months for, um, “reasons”, but right now my focus is on a week off coming up in a week and a half. So…light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe. It’s been a long-ass tunnel and this may just be some bio-luminescent fungus on the walls, but that good enough right now. Now I’m cleaning up and I’m moving on, going straight and choosing life. -RK

It’s been a brutal summer and I just haven’t been able to sit down and concentrate on writing much of anything lately. Today is the first day we’re not going to see highs in the mid-90s or above, and if that’s not a metaphor for how I’ve been feeling, I don’t know what is. OK, in truth, I may not know what it is, but it feels like a metaphor, so go with me on this one. The biggest thing is that Nicole’s cat passed after 20 years of being there for her. Tricksie is the best cat I’ve ever known and, while it is unquestionably a wonderful thing that she lived as long and well as she did, it’s all a feeling of loss right now. My chest hurts writing this and I can assure you that, whatever I’m feeling, Nicole is feeling is many times as much. Best kitty. Work hasn’t been great, either. I’m hesitant to go into too much detail, but we’re at the point now where I feel almost nothing but dread. Fortunately, I can operate in this mode for long periods of time. I’ve outlasted more situations like this than I care to recall, but it’s still not a lot of fun and my internal resources for dealing with it are pretty low. Oh, and I did something to my shoulder. I presume it’s the rotator cuff, but I haven’t seen a doctor yet to confirm it. I tore something on the elliptical machine and it’s not getting any better. Reaching is incredibly painful, so doing stuff like changing shirts is not great. I’m scheduling an appointment to get it looked at, but I know enough about shoulders to know that this will likely end in surgery. So…that’s my recap. That’s what’s been happening the last 3+ months. It’s not much, to be honest. I’ve been in a rut. I just haven’t had the energy to do much anything I’ve wanted to do. No writing, no music, no reading…just trying to get through the day/week/month. But…today is the first day of fall. It’s not really the first day of fall, but it feels like it so we’re going with that. Time to get moving again. So…welcome back, both of you who read this on a regular basis. The next update will be forward looking, but I wanted to get the decks cleared first. Consider ‘em cleared. Thanks for sticking with me. Cheers, RK

I am in a funk, trying to drag myself through the motions until I can get home and collapse. That’s really unfair to Nicole, and I’m actively attacking this on several fronts, but…right now I’m trudging through thigh-deep sand. I’ve had neither the time nor the energy to write anything here and that really irritates me. So, while I’m not really “feeling it”, here we go. I was in Half Price Books a while back and, browsing the sci-fi section, it occurred to me that I had never read any Philip K. Dick. He’s a lot like the band Big Star in my cosmology in that, while I may not be directly familiar with his work, he’s influenced pretty much everything that I’ve liked in the genre. So, I checked online for the best point of entry to PKD’s works, and Barnes & Noble had a list ranked “in order of difficulty.” Glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to start with VALIS. This is not a review of VALIS. I don’t think I could review it, or summarize the story, without coming across as an absolute loony. I’m pretty sure that this would be considered a feature, as opposed to a bug, by the author. It’s an interesting, challenging, and funny-in-all-the-wrong-ways, which makes it one of the better books I’ve read of late. You get that sort of thing when you have one of the most imaginative minds in science fiction trying to come to grips with what he perceived as a direct encounter with a higher intelligence. What struck me the most, though, was just how much one of my favorite comics was…let’s be generous and call it “influenced”…by VALIS. Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles is somewhere in my all-time top ten favorite comics, but I had no idea how many of the main concepts were lifted, sometimes almost word-for-word, from Dick’s novel. I won’t list the ideas they have in common because it would spoil the fun for anyone who has read one but not the other, but I will say that Morrison was clearly a huge fan. I love stuff like this, where you dig into the influences of your favorite art and discover the roots, or at least another bit of a trail leading back to the roots, of whatever it is you love so much. It’s a sort of literary archaeology, like reading late Hammett and early Chandler, when the connections were so obvious you didn’t have to dig very deep to find them. The book I’m currently reading is How To Set A Fire And Why by Jesse Ball. It’s a terrific read if you’re someone who likes the idea but not the execution of Catcher In The Rye, a comparison which will make sense should you choose to read it. I recommend it. But, what I really wanted to talk about is why I’m reading it. I was poking around Book People looking for something to read and came across this one. This is probably unwise of me and unwise of me to admit to, but I put some stock in the blurbs on the back of novels. If a book looks interesting and an author I enjoy (or more than one) has contributed a blurb, that’s usually enough to sway me. In this case, the blurbs were uncanny. A while back, I read Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and I thought it was terrific. I got involved in a discussion about it on Chuck Wendig’s site and I was asked if I’d read Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars. I hadn’t, but I was informed that the two books were similar in tone and theme and that, whichever of the two you read first would be the one you preferred. So, I read The Dog Stars and confirmed the consensus regarding which I would enjoy more. Looking at the back of How To Set A Fire and Why, there were two blurbs: One by St. John Mandel, the other by Heller. That is odd, isn’t it? I thought so. It was enough to get me to buy the book and I’m glad I did. Oh, and the day after I purchased it, I found out that Chuck Wendig would be coming to Book People which isn’t uncanny so much as coincidental, but it’s still curious. So, the reading thing is up and running again. The writing? Not so much, but it’s about to be. From a musical standpoint, there’s precisely one thing I’m working on, but the damn thing is a hydra and it keeps sprouting new bits, so now it’s either one complicated song or three which are less so, and I’m not sure which. It’s annoying because the whole thing came out of mis-remembered bit from a Chris Isaak song. No, not that one. What I can’t nail down is the rhythm, and instead of doing the disciplined thing and working on a drum track, I’m beating on the piano, trying to force it into shape, without much luck so far. I guess that’s about it. No vacations for the immediate future. We were told “no vacations” in a meeting and it was a joke only it wasn’t a joke. I suspect you know what I mean. It’s too hot and horrible out to do much vacationing anyway. I kind of just want to curl up and not kill time so much as just ignore it and let it fade away. -RK

This one’s heavy on health-related stuff, just so ya know… A month or two ago, I started to feel…old. “Old” as in “I’ve aged 10 years over the last month.” Getting out of cars has been difficult and painful. All my joints hurt. My mental focus has been lousy. I stopped reading on the train. I’ve been consuming caffeine at an alarming rate but, even doing that, my energy is still absurdly low. What the heck is going on? I came across one of those click-bait articles the other day, this one listing medicines that it is dangerous to take for long periods of time. One of ‘em was Prednisone. Now, I have not been taking Prednisone because my doctor gives me a horrified look when I even suggest it, but I was on a low-potency steroid for about four straight years. I looked over the symptoms of going cold-turkey off of steroids and, yup, that’s me! Nicole put it perfectly: It’s like I’ve been swimming for the last four years and now suddenly my body has to support its own weight. It’s really obvious in retrospect, but with my brain in “just a piece of fluff between the ears” mode, it wasn’t obvious at all to me. I just felt like I was declining which is a pretty lousy way to feel. I’ll be mentioning this to my doctors and to the folks who are providing this nifty experimental treatment I’m on because they may have some good ideas. Plus, self-diagnosis is notoriously unreliable and I could be dead wrong. I don’t think I am, though. So….how to fight it? Pending my doctor’s advice, then the goal is to fight through some of it. Get back to reading, finish the 3 songs and 1 remix I’m working on, but also try to go a little easy on the body. Low-impact aerobics and stuff. I’ll be ok. My enemy has a face now (even if I’ve drawn it badly), and I can fight that. It beats feeling like I’m just withering and not knowing why. I got this. Nicole won’t let it be otherwise. -RK

This is going to be a little different today. Today, I’m going to convince you that, yes you, can play a musical instrument. I’m not going to say that you can or will play it professionally or even particularly well, but if you’re interested in playing, it’s within your grasp to do so. Playing musical instruments, even playing them poorly, brings me enormous joy. I think there’s a perception out there that they require a huge investment of time and money to have any fun with them and, in my experience, that just isn’t so. Let’s do this as a Q&A where I’m on both sides of it, because it’s always easier to answer your own questions, isn’t it? Why should I play an instrument? Because you want to! I mean, there are plenty of scientific studies that show that there are benefits to doing so (here’s a good example), but my experience has been that “wanting to do it” is the reason that makes it stick. For me, it was hearing music that I loved and wanting to be able to make that music on my own. OK, I want to play an instrument. What should I play? Whatever speaks to you. There’s no “best” instrument to start with, especially if you’re not planning of making a career of it. If what moves you is harmonica music, pick one up! Bass? Piano? Drums? Clarinet? All good! Think about what kind of music you want to make and go from there. Fine, I want to play guitar. Should I start with an acoustic? If you like acoustic guitar music, then sure. If your favorite guitarists play electric and you want that sound, though? I honestly think electric is easier than acoustic. It’s also not nearly as expensive to get started as you probably think. We’ll come back to that. Sweet. I’m going to get an electric guitar! Which one should I get? It matters a lot less than you think. If there’s a guitar that has a shape you love, then that’s a good choice. If there’s a guitar your favorite player uses, then that’s good too. What I don’t recommend, though, is buying your first sight unseen. I wouldn’t buy a laptop without checking out the keyboard first to see if I like typing on it. You really want to pick it up, check the weight, check the feel of the neck (is it comfortable to wrap your wrist around it?) and see what it feels like. If it’s not comfortable to play, you’re not going to enjoy it. I had an old Gibson RD* that I loved the shape of and the sound, but it just plain hurt me to play it. Don’t do what I did. Where can I go to check out the feel of a guitar before buying it? Well, music stores are usually a pretty good bet. Guitar Center usually has enough people in it that I don’t feel self-conscious trying stuff out. There’s always That One Guy shredding at too high a volume or a classically-trained pianist in the piano department, so if you want to be left alone, it’s pretty easy to get lost there. Some pawn shops are also good for this. Find one that doesn’t have all of their instruments behind a counter if you want to try your had at a bunch of ‘em. They’ll usually have variations on four guitars: Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster, Gibson Les Paul, and Gibson SG. There will be others, but most of ‘em will at least look like one of those four. Should I buy new or used? That’s a fine question! Here’s the secret that has kept me going all these years: Used instruments tend to appreciate in value, so buying something used usually means that you can sell it for more than you paid for it if you don’t like it. I have had dozens of instruments and I have very rarely taken a loss on them when I sold them, so in some ways, it’s a very low-risk hobby. But…I have been ripped off a couple times on eBay. Buying new means that, if you ever do decide that this instrument is not for you, you will likely take a loss on it. But, you get a warranty and that’s not a bad thing. Plus, you actually got your hands on the instrument before you bought it, so you can be pretty sure of what you’re getting. I tend to split the difference and buy used through either Guitar Center or Reverb.com. You pay more than you would on craigslist but with less risk as well (and a warranty of sorts in most cases). What about an amplifier? Don’t electric guitars need expensive amps? Yes and no. They need an amplifier, but it doesn’t have to be an expensive one. If you’re not going on stage, then a small amp that has some built-in effects is probably going to suit you just fine. I use a tiny Roland MicroCube, which is small enough to be battery powered but it can produce more sound than my apartment can really take, and it has some decent effects as well. So, guitar, amp, cables, etc. How much will this all cost me? A few hundred dollars if you find good deals. Realistically, for under $500, you can get a really nice setup that will be fun to play with, provide plenty of flexibility, and if you decide you don’t like it, you can probably sell for what you paid. Should I take lessons? It depends on what your goals are. I took guitar lessons for a couple of years before my teacher told me that I just wasn’t going to get any better. Most of what I learned, I got from sheet music books (they have chord diagrams above the sheet music), guitar tab sites like ultimate-guitar.com , and lately, from YouTube. (guitar tab is a what of writing guitar music that is less formal than sheet music and more suited to playing guitar) I’ve changed my mind! I want to play keyboards instead! Cool! That’s way more up my alley. It doesn’t have to be either/or, though. What keyboard should I get? OK, before answering that, I have to ask you a question: Are you more interested…