How much do you love guitaring ???

Today I took off early from work and went to hang out at Guitarville. I love that place and they have some really good quality used guitars as compared to Guitar Center in Seattle and real friendly people too.They buy used good guitars from people around. I hang out there, play some pentatonics on highly unaffordable guitars and think, am not good enough for this machine here. Today I played Louis Armstrong's famous What a wonderful world on a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Black Beauty . Damn was it a guitar or a piece of cheesecake???

Now let me come to what I wanted to post about. I am usually not taken away by cheesy stories, but there was this guy who came into Guitarville,to sell his nice custom fender telecaster. He looked like he was in his early twenties. A nice smile. I was thinking, why would someone sell a guitar like that, probably he needs cash really bad. Then I saw the cast on the whole of his left hand.

Damn, now I heard him speak to the guy who buys guitars there. I was almost in tears. This guy works for a lawn mover company, and cleans lawn mover blades. He plays( or used to) in a grunge rock band (did I say he's from seattle? lol). And yesterday evening, he had a gig somewhere and he was running late from his last client. As you might expect, he rushed up on cleaning the mover blades, and did something hastily. And bang !!! All his four fingers of his left hand fell like pieces of wood on the lawn.

Now the doctors, have told him that, they were able to save only his pinky. Now what about the rest??? So he came into the shop today, to sell his guitar. I was thinking so bad for him, guitaring is history. Every one in the store lost steam, they turned down the radio and basically dint know what to do. Now how much can a person take?? For someone who loves music, who loves guitaring, who is so young and good at it, and could have had a great musical career, this is ridiculous.

When I was almost going to empathise this guy, seeing me struggling with my chords, he really hit me hard in my head saying, "dude i love it more than you can think . I am takin lessons from next week using a thumbpick and going to use my right hand on my fretboard. So I am probably going to get a lefty tele and also thinking of getting on the drums". I almost wanted to worship him no matter what.

People like this dude here, after an accident usually rock on more. I then had a casual conversation with him. Told him about various artists who had accidents like these and became jaw droppers for the world later. Here's some people I can think of, if you know more, feel free to comment on.

Django Reindhart - The mother and creator of Gypsy jazz aka guitar god.

"At the age of 18 Reinhardt was injured in a fire that ravaged the caravan he shared with Bella, his first wife. They were very poor, and to supplement their income Bella made imitation flowers out of celluloid and paper. Consequently, their home was full of this highly flammable material. Returning from a performance late one night, Django apparently knocked over a candle on his way to bed. While his family and neighbors were quick to pull him to safety, he received first- and second-degree burns over half his body. His right leg was paralyzed and the third and fourth fingers of his left hand were badly burnt. Doctors believed that he would never play guitar again and intended to amputate one of his legs. Reinhardt refused to have the surgery and left the hospital after a short time; he was able to walk within a year with the aid of a cane.
His brother Joseph Reinhardt, an accomplished guitarist himself, bought Django a new guitar. With painful rehabilitation and practice Django relearned his craft in a completely new way, even as his third and fourth fingers remained partially paralyzed. Hence, he played all of his guitar solos with only two fingers, and managed to use the two injured digits only for chord work."

Tommy Iommi - The inventor and mother of heavy metal guitaring, lead guitarist of Black Sabbath.

In an industrial accident at the age of 17 on his last day of work in a sheet metal factory, he lost the tips of the middle and ring finger of his right hand. Iommi considered abandoning music, but his boss (who knew of Iommi's "night job" as a pub band guitar player) encouraged him to reconsider by playing a record by jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who earned wide acclaim despite limited use of his fretting hand.
After attempting to learn to play right-handed, Iommi strung his guitars with extra-light strings (using banjo strings, which were a lighter gauge than even the lightest guitar-strings of the time) and wore plastic covers over the two damaged fingers. He fashioned the latter himself, by melting plastic liquid-soap bottles into a ball and then using a soldering iron to make holes into this ball, putting his fingers in while the plastic was still soft enough to be shaped. He then trimmed and sanded away the excess plastic to leave himself with two thimbles, which he then covered with leather, to provide better grip on the strings. Subsequent tips have been custom-made.

Dave Mustaine - Lead singer and guitarist of multi platinum band Megadeth . Pioneer of trash metal.

"Mustaine suffered a compressed radial nerve, normally referred to as "Saturday Night Palsy," in his left hand and arm by hanging his arm over a chair while sleeping. This accident, which happened while Mustaine was in a waiting room at a hospital where he was being treated for kidney stones, made it impossible for him to play guitar. Consequently, Mustaine disbanded Megadeth in April 2002. Sanctuary released a collection called "Still Alive... And Well?"

Mustaine went through physical therapy for his arm injury. During his recovery, he explored other areas of the music industry, including production. Contrary to what doctors had predicted, within a short time he fully recovered. However, all was mostly quiet on the Megadeth front for the better part of 2003. Mustaine left Jackson guitars, did a solo acoustic performance at a benefit show, unveiled his new ESP model at the NAMM convention, and oversaw the release of Peace Sells... But Who’s Buying? as an audio DVD presented in Dolby 5.1 surround. He also remixed and remastered all of Megadeth's albums, releasing them through Capitol Records in 2004.
It was during this period that Mustaine became a Christian."

Jerry Garcia - Father of the hippie era guitaring, leader of Grateful Dead. Psychedelic sixties.
At age four, Garcia experienced the amputation of two-thirds of his right middle finger. While vacationing in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Garcia was given the chore of steadying wood while his elder brother chopped, when he inadvertently put his finger in the way of the falling axe. Garcia's father drove him, after his mother wrapped his hand in a towel, over thirty miles away to the nearest hospital. A few weeks later, Garcia, who immediately after the accident never looked at his finger, was surprised to discover that a majority of his finger was missing when the bandage he was wearing came off during a bath.Garcia later confided that he often used it to his advantage in his youth, showing it off to other children in his neighborhood.
Garcia had several traumatic or tragic events occur during his youth. Less than a year after losing a segment of his finger, his father died. While on vacation with his family near Arcata in Northern California in 1947, his father went fly-fishing in the Trinity River, part of the Six Rivers National Forest. His father, not long after entering, slipped on a rock underfoot, plunging into the deep rapids of the river. The incident was witnessed by a group of boys who immediately sought help, beckoning a pair of nearby fishermen. By the time they pulled Jose from the water, he had already drowned. Following the accident, Garcia's mother took over their late father's bar, buying out his partner for full ownership. As a result, Ruth began working full-time and sent Garcia and his brother to live with their maternal grandparents, Tillie and William Clifford, just down the road. It was at this point that Garcia started playing the banjo, his first stringed instrument.

Now back to the story, there are indeed many more people, with many more physical and emotional setbacks, but still continue to rock on. An amazing inspirational story. Hope our guy, too one day becomes a grunge star. And me, better play good, because I have no excuse not to do so. These guys don't even want to use one.

Rock On !!!