I can’t sleep. My body clock thinks I should be at work, so I’m up early writing this because I was surfing the channels and ran across VH1 Classic’s Rock Band 2 countdown, a count down of the most popular songs featured in version two of the popular video game. This issue is a burr under my saddle. How many commercials have we seen recently with musicians somberly pleading into the camera to help "Save the music"? Schools are cutting back music programs left and right and all the while VH1 Classic is counting down music from a video game!

My friend Jude recently found out that he has to buy a cello for his daughter who signed up for orchestra this year. When I was in school, the school provided the instruments and you’d sign them out for the year. These days the financial responsibility lies with the parents. Jude is worried because of the state of the economy and potential layoffs happening. He said if he gets laid off, the cello’s the first thing to go. He may have been joking but I’m sure that’s the case all over. When money’s tight, it’s hard to justify that kind of expenditure. And yet these video games are selling at an alarming rate.
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The first time I held an acoustic guitar I was probably 13 years old. My father had borrowed a guitar from his friend so he could see if he really wanted to try to learn how to play. I remember the guitar sitting in the corner of the living room for two weeks. I don’t even really remember my father picking the guitar up but I’m sure he did because he was trying to learn the Marty Robin’s song Streets of Laredo. I think he got frustrated and just quit trying.

What I distinctly remember though is feeling drawn to that guitar. Nancy Wilson of Heart was and still is my guitar hero. The first time I heard the Dog & Butterfly album – particularly the song Dog & Butterfly, I knew I wanted to play the guitar.

One day, in direct defiance of my father’s instructions to leave the guitar alone, "It’s not a toy" he’d say, I picked up that guitar and started trying to figure out the song which had frustrated my father into submission. My father wasn’t used to failure. He dropped out of high school in the 9th grade, lied about his age and joined the Air Force long before I was born. When he got out, he worked at a steel manufacturing company, and worked his way up and eventually started his own business which to this day is very successful. How my father let this piece of wood and steel get the best of him is still a mystery to me.

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