I’ve been doing this wrong since Middle School

Yes yes, I read all about Fire and Fury and everyone around Trump describing Trump as incompetent. And I read all about JeffBo Sessions restarting the war on legal marijuana by killing the Cole memo. And as reliably as a tweetstorm after an unflattering chyron, Trump created a distraction, continuing the time-honored tradition of using the justice department to harass vanquished political opponents with the goal of imprisonment. Sure, it’s not necessarily an American tradition, but #MAGA amirite? But I think we can all agree it’s about time that the FBI finally looks into those damn emails. Color me some shade of surprised and use a heavy coat, because you’ve got to overcome a nice blend of nausea and jade. Pink hat.

We did, however, learn directly from the First Daughter herself that Donald’s Homer Simpson Orange hair comes from a distinctly Trumpian blend of a Just For Men coloring agent and Trump’s impatience not letting “brown” sit in for the manufacturer’s recommended time. Sip a scotch on that sentence. Let it marinate. That’s beautiful poetry.

Eagle-eyed readers of the post directly before this will remember distinctly that I have made some New Years Resolutions. Being that my new year resolutions aren’t even a week old, I kept true to my requirements. Guitar before Washington: I read a sweet post on Guitar World about getting back to the basics.

This is Steve Vai. He is a better guitarist than I am.

It turns out that I have been holding the guitar wrong. The big part covers your face, and the pointy sharp end goes near the part of your body where pointy sharp things don’t usually go. Also, guitars have 7 strings. I was unaware.

Steve’s idea of basics basically boil down to the one thing that every guitar instructor has ever told me: perfect practice makes perfect. Practice takes time. If there’s one thing that parents of young children are lacking, it’s sleep. If there’s two, it’s sanity. If there’s three, we get sleep, sanity, and free time. Free time. That’s what’s needed for guitar.

Don’t get me wrong. I have plenty of time for Raffi’s There’s a Spider on the Floor (on the Floor), even though the only tab I could find was for a ukulele. But time for scales and sweet riffs, well, not so much. However, I am traveling an awful lot for work in the next couple months, and there’s not a whole lot to do in your hotel room. Usually I watch stand-up on Netflix. And by “usually” I mean literally every time for hours. So damn, I thought. Maybe I should drink scotch. Then I thought I should noodle on the guitar. So I looked at travel guitars. They look like they’re total shit, but it’s hard to judge a guitar’s playability from a picture. And it usually doesn’t take much more encouragement than “Hey look, Guitar Center” for me to justify going into Guitar Center. So into Guitar Center I went.

Travel guitars are a unique breed. They’re basically the only guitar you’ll ever see where the first two criteria are not “Cost” and “Sound”. “Looks”, also, barely matter if you’ve got the rest of the secret sauce.

The first guitar I picked up was the Martin Backpacker. I hated it immediately. I have no review for it other than I hated literally everything about it. Sound was terrible. Comfort was non existent. It’s impossible to hold and it looks stupid. It was, however, cheap. I played it for 10 seconds and have no further review.

Next up: Traveler Guitar Ultra-Light.

No, the picture isn’t truncated at the head. That’s what it looks like. It weighs nothing. It’s light. The action is surprising decent. The tonal quality is non-existent. I couldn’t tell what it would sound like at all. I could strum as loud as I wanted to and could barely hear the thing. The one I played didn’t have the metal guitar-shaped leg piece installed, but it was still way more playable than the Martin. I played it for a relatively long time actually and almost considered buying it. I put it back on the wall, where it looked ridiculous, and played some of the other “Travel” guitars. Baby Taylor. Little Martin. A Disney guitar with flowery shit burnt into it.

I kept coming back to that ugly Traveler Ultra-Light. The Guitar Center rep told me that we could make it happen, that he’d work whatever deal I’d need to walk out with it, because he knows that he sold a lot of them around Christmastime and he assumes that more than a couple are coming back. It weighs less than 2 pounds and it’s 28 inches long. I was tempted.

Starting price is $299. For those not good at maths, that’s almost $300.

Nope. Nope nope nope nope. I’d pay about $100 for it. I can get an Epiphone or even a(nother) Strat for $300. There’s plenty of guitar gear I would trade $300 for, and this isn’t one of them. Not close. So, I tried the Little Martin. Didn’t like it. I tried the Baby Taylor. Liked it better than the Little Martin, but not nearly as much as the (uh, $700) GS Mini sitting right above (that Taylor is Discontinuing!!! Ugh!). The Disney ones played exactly as you’d think a Disney guitar would play.

But here’s my conclusion: Besides the horrible Martin Backpacker that I wouldn’t touch with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole, and besides strategically packing the overly priced Traveler Ultra-Light in my carry-on, I’m stuck with either checking a guitar (“Travel” or not) or checking my luggage if I’m flying somewhere. I’ve already got a travel-ready Squier with a hard case sitting in my house largely, unfortunately, untouched, and since I fly Delta as often as feasible, my first guitar is checked free. Maybe I’ll do that since it’s the low low price of free.

When I’m done, I’ll catch Chapelle on Netflix.

Josh