Round Pear-Shaped Tones - Notes For Guitar Players

I often have total strangers come up to me off the street and say, "MarcO how is it that you coax such dulcet tones from your guitar."

Their statements always brings to mind what Chet Atkins once said when a man walked up to him and exclaimed, "That guitar sure sounds pretty".

Upon hearing that Mr. Atkins set the guitar up against a chair and said, " 'how's it soundin' now?"








But I digress. The secret to my sound is not the fact that I have played guitar for 43 years. No sir. Constant daily practice has nothing to do with anything.

Look at Guitar Hero. Folks that spend $199 or so for Guitar Hero are overnight experts. Heavens no, practice and talent all are moot. The quality of your guitar means nothing. The secret lies in the pedal board.

What is a pedal board you ask? Well next time you watch your favorite guitar slinger take a second to look down at his or her feet and you will see little boxes all lined up that enable the guitarist not only to play, but sound magical.Without them they would sound pretty much like...well like uh...you.










So like the masked magician who reveals all of magic's secrets, I will reveal my secret pedal board to all that check out my blog.


I know it's difficult to see what each pedal
does, so for the curious I have pictured each
individual pedal.

The first is the Distortoshreddomatic. It's
possibly the most important box for
today's guitarists. This one is a classic from
a run of the units with a misspelling. I cannot
image what price it would go for on Ebay.

















The next is my Kazoo Tone. It captures that classic 1960's tone of songs like Winchester Cathedral, Palisades Park and Wild Thing.











I would hate to be the guitarist caught without the Mistake Suppressor. This covers a whole lot of what we guitar players call issues and automatically corrects them in real time. It's sort of like the voice correction software that all of today's singers use.


















This pedal reminds me of another Chet Atkins story. He taped over the word reverb on his amplifier and wrote the word TALENT on the tape. This pedal brings Chet's humor to life. It's the Talent Simulator. You all just gotta' get one.












Finally I bought this pedal manufactured by the White Company. It's a compression unit called The Trash Compactor. It tightens up the guitar's sound into one neat little compressed and compacted package. Whatever you put into to it comes out tight and sweet and smelling like a rose.




















So now that the secret is out, let's just keep it to ourselves...OK? Not everyone needs to know about the Pedalboard. S'hhhh.

Wiener Nation

Dr. Michael Savage PHD is the host of a popular conservative network radio talk show called the Savage Nation.

The man has a lead an incredibly diverse life as a social worker, biologist, botanist, world traveler and doctor of nutritional ethnomedicine (whatever that is?), author of best selling books under his pseudonym and many tomes under his given name.


He has been friends with such liberal people as Timothy Leary, Allan Ginsberg, Stephen Schwartz and yet his conservative views and dialogue have brought him prominence with the Right side of the isle. Although his roots are from conservative Russian Judaism, he professes no religion and his books are sold in Christian bookstores.

Occasionally I listen to his radio diatribe. I agree with much of his view points, yet sometimes his acerbic and acid-like remarks can be hurtful, unnecessary and however well meaning are at times just plain stupid.

He began his radio career by submitting a mock talk show demo tape to a San Francisco radio station and was given a fill-in job. Later a competing radio station recognized his quality and hired him for a full time program. His network radio talk show draws in up to 10 million listeners each day.

His fascination of a 19Th century sailor, Charlie Savage, that first brought firearms to Fiji provided his radio pseudonym.

His views can be summed up by three words, Borders, Language and Culture. He believes America needs to maintain and protect it's borders and evict all who are here through illegal means.

He believes English to be the language of American and that all Americans who live and work in the USA should use English. Likewise all USA citizens should be proud of our culture and all newcomers should adapt to the US culture.

I admire the man for his accomplishments. I agree with some of his viewpoints.

But I have to ask the question that no one else has dared to pose.






Would his talk show be as popular if it were called The Wiener Nation?

Nothing Really Changes, Everything Remains The Same

By Steve Kemme and Jennifer Baker of the Cincinnati Enquirer October 20, 2008

BLUE ASH – An 89-year-old woman arrested for not giving neighborhood children their football.

"That's my only way of getting through to these children," Edna Jester said. "I'll give it back to them later, but not right now."Jester was arrested and charged with petty theft after she took the ball and refused to give it back, Blue Ash police said. Word of her arrest has touched off national news interest in the case.

Officers were called about 6:30 p.m. Thursday to her home by one of the children’s fathers, Blue Ash Police Capt. James Schaffer said.

The football apparently was thrown into Jester’s yard, and it wasn’t the first time, he said. The issue has been an ongoing dispute in the neighborhood.

This brings to my mind a tale of my youth.

It was 1957 when my parents bought their home. Our next door neighbors were a grumpy elderly couple, Fred and Mildred Ulmer. They suffered from obsessive compulsive lawn disorder. Three or four times a week on every spring and summer evening Fred would get out his tiny electric lawn mower and have a go at the grass. Mildred would sit in one of their old metal lawn chairs surveying his work like a prison sentry and bark orders if the old boy missed a spot. Mowing with such a small mower was not an easy feat as they had a double lot at the corner of the subdivisions block. But the grass on their lawn was comparable to a golf course green. It was short, bright green and plush. It was like walking on plush carpet.

They had installed a wire fence to mark out the division between our yard and theirs. Upon our arrival it was made clear to my parents the Ulmers did not like children and did not want our nasty little sneaker clad feet on their precious grass.

When you are five years old the world seems huge. My backyard was massive. Well I thought so but it was relatively tiny. But it was my Crosley Field, Dodge City, Soldier Field and Normandy Beach. As the new kid on the block with a sizeable back yard, I attracted some friends that were ready to play cowboy, army, dodge ball or baseball. Inevitably one of the balls would go over the fence between my home into the Ulmer’s well-kept manicured back lawn.

The fence did not have a gate between the houses. The fence merely ended and was only put in place as a line of demarcation to declare to us kids No Trespassing. But my ball was in their yard. What a dilemma!

So one of us kids, would keep both eyes open and look out to see if old lady Ulmer was watching. If we didn’t see her or Fred then I would make a mad dash around the fence, grab the ball and retreat to safe ground. However many times she would come out scolding us for daring to cross the threshold into Der Kinder Verbotin territory. Many times words would occur between the Ulmers and my folks over the retrieving of the balls. I do not recall that they ever kept the ball without returning it. Although I am surprised they did not take that action. The police were never called.


This week’s news from the Queen City of Cincinnati, which is usually bad or stupid and gives our fair city the reputation it deserves, regarding the 89 year old granny bring back the same control problem. Her land was her own and a No Kids Zone. The neighborhood young’uns kicked the football into her yard one too many times and she held the ball. The referee cried foul. No actually it was one of the fathers. As you can read instead of settling it in a civil way the police and said, “Book ‘em Dano.”

A wise magistrate dismissed the charges as another idiot move by the city. The football was returned. Charlie Brown can once again attempt to kick.

We get older, technology improves but life is the same ol’, same ol’. 51 years later and we see that nothing really changes does it?

We Have Nothing To Fear But Fear...

"Put me in a money market fund"

People all over the world are panicked and moving their money to a safe haven much like they did back in 1929 when people pulled money out of the banks and stuffed it in their matteress.


The trouble is that when people pull money out of the stock market, which depends on selling shares of stock, and put it in a money market the share price of stocks plummets, which leaves less capital for the companies that are selling shares.


Of course there are bonds, which a company, municipality or government uses to borrow money with a promise of repayment. But folks are scared of bonds too.
I do not know what to think.

The talking heads on TV don't make the situation any better.




Ol' FDR was right when he said,
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself..."

That explains it to a T. Everyone is getting out of the the market due to their fear of fear.

It's Art, It's Art and all of the critics agree, agree

Once upon a time, when Maplethorpe trauma invaded Cincinnati, I sent in a song to my radio hero Gary Burbank. I had arranged it on my synthesizer with a sort of oomp-pah German horn section background. It was essentially a reworking of My Bonny and the chorus was the title of today's blog. So sing along...



Which brings me to what I really wanted to discuss today...art. That is visual art. Paintings, etchings, that sort of thing. My wife and I recently were watching a show on PBS that offered an indepth look at some ancient painter and why he painted what he painted, what his thoughts were even down to how his brush strokes were applied.


Yesterday I visited my brother and his family. They are wonderful people and sure I love being with my family. Like all families there are some quirks. One nameless relative seems to enjoy dwelling on knowledge and travels, which gets expounded on during most visits. A very sweet person though. This week's discussion was regarding an artist named John Stobbard, a popular artist that did maritime paintings.

Because I am not one to be a smart ass, I kept my mouth shut. But today I will enlighten all and prove that I am equally versed in the arts by expounding on my knowledge of one of the worlds most famous men that took brush to an easel, A man who knew exactly how to mix burnt umber with titanium white. This would be non other than Causius Marcus Collidge.

Known to all as simply "Cash" he was a self taught artist that rose to fame drawing cartoons for newspapers and furthered his career by sketching comic backgrounds for carnivals. You know the kind of standup boards that have a hole where you can stick your head in and so you can take a nice photo of you being a muscle man with your buxom sweetie hanging on your shoulder.

However what C.M. Collidge is best noted for is the 16 paintings he created for the Brown & Bigelow Cigar Company. These are known as Dogs Playing Poker.


Laugh if you will, you can have your John Stobart, you can have your Thomas Kinkade. In 2005 two of the original by C.M. Collidge called A Bold Bluff and Waterloo were auctioned off for $549,000.


It's art, it's art and all of the critics agree, agree.

It's art, it's are and all of the critics agree.

'Herd This One About A Cow?

The follow story is from the October 1st Cincinnati Enquirer and was written by Jennifer Baker. It is just too unbelievable to not include in my blog.

MIDDLETOWN OHIO - A 32-year-old woman was sentenced to a month in the Middletown Jail Monday after she was arrested and charged with chasing children, blocking traffic and yelling at police - all while wearing a cow costume.

Michele Allen pleaded guilty Monday in Middletown Municipal Court to one count of disorderly conduct, court officials said.

Middletown police said she chased children in the 3100 block of Wilbraham Road and urinated on a neighbor's porch Saturday night. An officer ordered her to go home and stay there.


About 11 p.m., police were called to the 2400 block of North Verity Avenue after receiving a report that a woman in a cow costume was blocking traffic.

Allen had alcohol on her breath, slurred her words, was belligerent and swore at the officer, a report states.

We've Come To This

Dr. Seuss said "Getting old ain't for sissies." So true. We all hope the quality of life today is better than it was in years past. But I wonder? Especially when I see grannies robbing banks.


This brings to mind the old Monty Python show and their sketch on Bands of Roving Grannies.

(from Hell's Grannies)
First interview:
The whole problem of these senile delinquents lies in their complete rejection of the values of contemporary society. They've seen their children grow up and become accountants, stockbrokers and even sociologists, and they begin to wonder if it is all really...(disappears downwards rapidly) arggh!

Second interview:
Oh well we sometimes feel we're to blame in some way for what our gran's become. I mean she used to be happy here until she, she started on the crochet.

Reporter: Crochet?

Yeah. Now she can't do without it. Twenty balls of wool a day, sometimes. If she can't get the wool she gets violent. What can we do about it?


This used to be funny, but here's a recent bank surviellance picture. This lady has recently held up two area banks.

It's a shame we've evolved to the point where old ladies have to rob banks to live.

Those Greedy Bastiges

Be sure to thank the greedy bastiges that consider themselves masters of the universe for the current economic mess that is affecting us all and cause our government to bail them out.

Greed, avarice, usury and other corruptions promoted by a handful of men and women have lead the United States and the rest of the world into a monetary debacle. Most people that have planned and saved for retirement are seeing the savings plummet by thousands of dollars. Yet fools like Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide Mortgage...


... and Alan Greenspan, the former head of the Federal Reserve, Franklin Raines, Treasurer and chief book-cooker at Fannie Mae, David Moffit of Freddie Mac, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg of AIG, who was investigated for fraud in 2000...

...and Martin Sullivan and Roger B Willumstad who both succeeded Greenberg, but apparently didn’t learn any lessons from his misdeeds.

Unfortunately Lehman Brother and Merrill Lynch did not follow basic investor advice to diversify and both got stuck holding too much of their assets in subprime debt.

For the unfamiliar, a subprime mortgage is what all those #$^* # folks that call your home during dinner time to convince you to refinance your home are trying to sell you. You let them know your credit is perhaps somewhat questionable and they say, “No worries. For you such a deal I have.” This is an adjustable rate mortgage. The first year is a mere 3%. They downplay that with points, fees, closing costs it is going to cost you plenty. Then of course it adjusts up to several points above prime each year or perhaps more often. Alan Greenspan thought this was a lovely idea, since it stimulated the economy and created more home ownership. At least until the money dried up.

We’ve been down this road before. In the greater Cincinnati area many folks were duped by the CEO of Lincoln Savings and Loan Charles Keating. This savings and loan associations and others had been deregulated in the early 1980s, allowing them the opportunity to make highly risky investments with their depositors’ money, an opportunity of which Keating took advantage.

Some regulators noted the danger posed by these deregulations and pushed for more oversight, but Congress refused. This may be due, in part, to the Keating Five, five Senators — Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, John Glenn, Don Riegle and John McCain — who had received, for both themselves and for groups they supported, well over $1 million from Keating in the 1980s as favors and political contributions. They later met twice with regulators who were investigating American Continental Corporation, in an attempt to end the investigation. (In 1991, they would be rebuked to various degrees by the Senate Ethics Committee.)

In 1985, Keating hired Alan Greenspan (sound familiar) as an economic consultant, in an unsuccessful effort to convince an oversight agency to exempt Lincoln Savings from certain regulations. Greenspan delivered a favorable report, writing that Lincoln Savings was “a financially strong institution that presents no foreseeable risk to depositors or the government.” (Greenspan produced similar favorable reports on numerous other banks that also failed soon after.)


In 1989, American Continental Corporation, the parent of Lincoln Savings, went bankrupt. More than 21,000 investors, most of them elderly, lost their life savings (in total about $285 million.) This occurred largely because they held securities backed by the parent company rather than deposits in the federally-insured institution — a distinction apparently lost on many if not most depositors until it was too late. The federal government covered almost $3 billion of Lincoln’s losses when it seized the institution. Many creditors were made whole, and the government then attempted to liquidate the seized assets through its Resolution Trust Corporation, often at pennies on the dollar compared to what the property had allegedly been worth and the valuation at which loans against it had been made.

In 1989, Keating was subpoenaed to testify before the House Banking Committee, but refused to answer questions, invoking his right against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.


Keating served 4 years in a federal prison and lost most of his holdings, but was allowed to maintain a large ranch in Florida. The rich get richer and the poor get children.

We will come out of this mess. However it is my hope that those who are responsible will be punished.

Yeah! Like that would ever happen.

President Bush held a White House conference this past week to set up a bail out of the nation's financial institutions. The Dems accuse the Republicans of stalling because the Democrats want more coverage of the little guy. The Republicans accuse the Dems of wanting to throw money at everything and want to know where this money is going to come from. The Republicans want the financial institutions to be more transparent and carry more insurance to cover themselves in the event the financial companies and banks get their arses in a sling like this again.


Meanwhile one of the nation's largest consumer deposit banks, Washington Mutual, has a bank run paying out almost $17 billion to frightened west coast depositors in a week. The bank runs out of assets and is taken over by the FDIC and then a tenative purchase agreement is reached by JPMorgan Chase.

It is a scary time in our country. There is plenty of people that should step up and take responsibility, but that ain't going to happen.

You know what? I have plenty of problems. I was hoping that by age 56 I would be debt free. But that is not the way the economy is set up. And I have yet to have anyone offer to bail me out of debt.

The Blustery Day

After Winnie the Pooh was abducted by Walt Disney, the folks at his art factory churned out a cartoon called Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. It was based on a chapter from a story book written by A.A. Milne


And though I sincerely hope the Milne family eventually gets safe return of the Bear, I have to say that Winnie the Pooh's Blustery Day ain't got nothin' on the collective experience of the folks in the greater Cincinnati area last Sunday.







There are some poor souls without electric or water as of this writing.

I was composing my thoughts on this very blog last Sunday afternoon when the power went out. My wife and I hoped for a brief interruption, however we were without electric service for Sunday and the next two days.


For those of you that long for the good ol' days, you can have 'em. I would rather not do what needs to be done in the bathroom by candlelight. Cold showers are also not pleasant.

Last Sunday the remants of Hurricane Ike came our way beating the town much like it's namesake used to bitch-slap Tina Turner. The winds were clocked at 75 mph at the local airport.

In fact the control tower had to be evacuated and flights diverted. Ancient tree's snapped like tooth picks. Power lines and poles tumbled down. And then we all went back to the dark ages.

Except for the Cincinnati Bengals. Duke Energy had priorities and the NFL overrides the rest of humanity. The Bengals got their butts kicked despite of having power, water and lights.

I had to throw out all the food in my refrigerator. The local gas stations showed their compassion by raising gas prices to $4.59 a gallon. It was $3.69 the week before since crude oil had dropped.

Duke Energy has already issued a statement saying, "This is costing us big bucks folks. So open up your wallets because you are footin' the bill. "

Kentucky's governor flew in from Frankfort last Monday to pose for pictures and make a brief speech letting us all know he would take care of us. He then flew away home.

We haven't heard a peep from him since.

Photos used are posted in Cincinnati.com where you can see more.

Tough Love vs Spanking

Most of America's populace think it improper to spank children, so I have tried other methods to control my kids when they have one of 'those moments.'
One that I found effective is for me to just take the child for a car ride and talk.

Some say it's the vibration from the car, others say it's the time away from any distractions such as TV, Video Games, Computer, IPod, etc.

Either way, my kids usually calm down and stop misbehaving after our car ride together.

I've included a photo below of one of my sessions with my son, in case you would like to use the technique'