Man, between volume one and volume two of the Beck anime, that jerk Koyuki got way better at guitar than I did. Me, I’m stuck with the holy rock trinity of power chord progressions, E-A-B E-A-B-A. Well, no not really, I’m a little less sad than that, but not much less. It’s fun picking up the guitar again after a long time away. It’s different this time around — I’m just picking because I like the act of learning how to play…again ^_^;. My tuner must be broken, because it always says the guitar is in tune and it surely doesn’t sound like it is.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve watched the first volume of Beck like five or six times already. It’s great, like two turn-tables and a microphone of goodness. I’m so into the show, I pulled out my acoustic guitar from its super dusty guitar case, that’s all but a neglected apartment decoration now, and tried to see how much I remembered (mind you I was never that good, more of a drummer than a guitar guy, but apartment complexes don’t take kindly to drum kits). Man, do my finger tips hurt. I’ve lost just about all of the hand strength I had when I used to play and can barely hold the chords on an acoustic for three or four minutes at a time before needing to rest and get some blood flowing back in my left hand.

I’m loving every second of the pain involved with relearning those chords and building muscle memory. It’s been three days now. There are some chord progressions and passes that are coming back to my fingers, but it’s anything but smooth. I’ll never be a rock star, that’s for sure. I’m almost smack dab in the middle of where Koyuki is trying to find his way and Saito the aging bachelor trying to survive and get a stinking parrot to sing along. In my case it’s a dog instead of a parrot, and I’ve got a good 10-15 years before I go Saito full mode. What a scary place to be!

Pretty much no matter what happens, there’s a stretch where you’re going to have to work your ass off, might as well be for something sweet, no? There’s always going to be office jobs. We can’t all be rockstars, but at least be the guy or gal who took a shot before landing in a cubicle. Swing the bat Takkun! Man, I can’t believe I went there.

So yeah, Beck. It’s great. The box it came in is pretty cool too, made to look like an amp. Funimation has been doing some good stuff with a few of their collector’s boxes. Someone there is having fun and I’m enjoying it too, probably too much. I went to music store yesterday and just oogled the guitars. I always wanted a semi-hollow body. Lucky for my neighboors my figure habit means I can’t afford an electric and an amp.