New Guitar

           On Monday morning I finished working out the chords for “Flash Forward" by Serge Gainsbourg and ran through it once in French.

            At 7:00 I was tuning my guitar to get ready for song practise when the threads on the machine head for my E string stripped. I’ve never had that happen before with any guitars. It’s an interesting coincidence that I was planning on shopping for a new guitar that very day if there was enough money in the bank. Meanwhile I still needed to rehearse my songs and so I picked up my dusty old Epi that I hadn’t played in seven years. I had to shake some beads out of it that I’d thrown in a few years before when I’d used the guitar to make sound effects for Brenda Clews at a couple of her performances. I was surprised that it tuned easily. Its tonality is actually better than the Oscar Schmidt but it sounds horrible because of buzzing. It went out of tune slightly less than the guitar that I've been using and I made it through rehearsal but I wouldn’t want to use the Epi again.

            I wanted to call The Remenyi House of Music at Bloor and Avenue Road to find out what I would have to expect in coming there to shop for a guitar but first I had to pay for my June phone service. Freedom Mobile didn’t open until 10:00 and so I had breakfast and I paid my rent online. I saw that my income tax return had come through and after the rent and my phone service I would still have a little over $600 in the bank, so now would probably be the best time to buy a new guitar. I started thinking a couple of years ago that when I turned sixty five I would upgrade my guitar and so circumstance was helping me along towards meeting that goal.

            I didn’t go to Freedom until 11:45. Because of social distancing they were only allowing two customers in the store at a time. I was second behind a woman who I recognized from the food bank although I haven’t seen her there this year. She was smoking while waiting to go inside. Two doors east there was a longer line-up in front of Mobile Computers, I assumed for the tax service he offers rather than for his computer repair service. A short middle aged woman who was perhaps a mix of Somali and Indian DNA, with long, curly grey hair, asked me if the other line-up was for Freedom too. I assured her it wasn’t. We chatted a bit and she asked me if I worked in a restaurant because she said I looked like a chef. The customer ahead of the woman in front of me must have been buying a phone because it was a long wait until he was done. The rest of us were paying bills and so the line moved quickly after that. They were accepting cash this month.

            When I got home I called Remenyi. I was told I had to make an appointment but then was offered 13:00, which was ten minutes away. I said I could make it by 13:30 and he said that would be fine. Before he hung up I asked if the stripped machine head on my Oscar Schmidt is covered by the lifetime warranty. I figured it didn’t hurt to ask since I might get a new Oscar Schmidt out of the deal. He said I’d have to bring the guitar in to find out. Since I planned on carrying a new guitar back with me this time I didn’t want to bring the old guitar in case I had to carry that home as well, and so I decided to leave that for another time. I got ready to leave and brought along an empty gig bag in which to carry the new guitar. When I got there one of the straps on the gig bag ripped off when I was removing it from my back. I crossed the plastic clasp over to the same ring that the other strap was attached to in hopes that it would still function.

            When I went inside I asked if I could use the washroom. The manager said that the government has specifically told businesses not to let customers use their washrooms. That seems really fucked up. I asked where I could go and he said it was okay but I would have to use the hand sanitizer first. He showed me a dark stairway to the basement and told me that at the bottom it was down the hall and past the boxes. I went down and fell on my hands and knees in the dark. He could have at least warned me that there was a last step after the stairs were done. I could have seriously hurt myself and felt like if I’d fallen at a slightly different angle I could have sprained an ankle.

            I was the only customer in the store and I guess that’s what the appointment was for. I was disappointed that they didn't have any black guitars. The closest thing to a black guitar was a burnt navy blue Ibenez that was more than $100 out of my range. I tried a few guitars. The Yamaha and some of the others sounded a little too bell-like for me. I asked if they had anything with a deeper sound and he pointed out the Washburn Heritage dreadnought. The pale spruce top made it one of the ugliest guitars they had but when I sat down and played it there was a big and rich sound that I liked. The sales guy told me that I should be going for sound over look and I agreed. Down the road I could maybe decorate it in some tolerable way. It was quite a bit larger than the Oscar Schmidt even though Washburn is actually the parent company that makes Oscar Schmidt guitars. I knew that the bigger guitar wasn’t going to fit in my gig bag and so I asked for another one. I asked for the student discount but my salesperson said they only have a student discount on books. I told him that I’ve gotten a student discount on everything I’ve bought there, including the Oscar Schmidt but he said as long as he’s worked there there’s never been a student discount. They gave me a discount anyway and I got the $429 guitar for $400. The $541 bill was cut down to $508. The new gig bag was much more solid than the one that broke. I rolled up the old one and stuffed it in my backpack anyway.

            I probably could have adjusted the gig bag to wear over my backpack but I didn’t bather and just hold it over my left shoulder while riding my bike with one hand. When I arrived at my building my upstairs neighbour David, whom I haven’t seen since Christmas, was just coming home from work. He wanted to see my guitar and so I showed it to him in front of the door. When I got home I threw out two old gig bags. I tried out the guitar and it was still in tune and didn’t go out of tune like the old one. It sounded beautiful.

            I’ve always associated Washburn guitars with the Lieber and Stoller song “DW Washburn” that the Monkees recorded but that song was about a hobo named DW Washburn.

            I had a late lunch of the spine of the chicken I’d cooked a few days before.

            I took a siesta and when I got up I switched the guitar strap from the Oscar Schmidt to the Washburn.

            For dinner I had a potato, a carrot and a chicken breast with the wing attached while watching two episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood.

            In the first story Friar Tuck is about to begin a pilgrimage to Canterbury. When Robin finds out that the band is short of honey for the winter, since Canterbury is in Kent and Kent is renowned for its honey Robin decides to join Tuck on his journey. Once in Kent Robin discovers some kept beehives in the forest and so they venture to the nearby village to find the keeper. They find the young beekeeper has been put in stocks as punishment for being betrothed to a witch and his fiancé Alice is about to be dunked by the soldiers of Count Duprez. The idea is that if Alice sinks and drowns she is not a witch but if she floats she is a witch and will be hanged. Robin fights the men off with his quarter staff while Tuck rescues Alice. After Robin has freed Edward from the pillory he is knocked out from behind and taken to the dungeon. Tuck learns afterwards that Alice is a handmaiden to the Saxon Lady Margaret but the Norman Count Duprez has taken over her castle. He wants the title to Margaret’s estate but she refuses to marry him and so he has plotted to have her servants one by one declared as witches with the eventual result of Margaret being seen as the leader of the witches coven. If that is achieved the estate will be forfeited to him because Prince John has promised it to him. Alice gets the guard in the dungeon drunk enough on mead that he falls asleep so she can free Robin. Tuck goes to Duprez to demand that he release Robin. Duprez threatens to put Tuck in the pillory even though only the bishop has the authority to punish a friar. Tuck offers Duprez a challenge. He says that he will spend a day in the pillory but if no villagers throw any rotten fruit or eggs at him by the end of the day then Duprez will have to sign a document declaring his accusations of witchcraft are false and that he relinquishes any claims on Lady Margaret’s estate. Duprez knows that throwing things at prisoners of the pillory is the favourite sport of the villagers and so he is certain he can’t lose. He agrees to the challenge. The day passes with Tuck in the stocks and no one comes to molest him. Robin takes out all of Duprez’s men and then swordfights with Duprez. It is a longer duel than usual as Duprez is pretty good but Robin of course wins. Tuck is released from the stocks and Duprez is placed in them after signing the document as promised. Tuck marries Alice and Edward and they plan to honeymoon in Sherwood Forest where Edward will teach Robin and his men about bee keeping. Tuck continues on to Canterbury.

            Lady Margaret was played by Norwegian born actor, dancer and singer Greta Gynt, who was a superstar in Britain and in Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s for her starring roles in such films as “The Dark Eyes of London”, "Mr Emmanuel", "Take My Life", "Dear Murderer" and "The Ringer", but had been forgotten by the time she died in 2000.

            In the second story Robin’s man Tom has been captured but cannot be made to talk. Sir Simon convinces the sheriff that what is needed is to spread doubt about Robin Hood among his men. Since Simon has a history as successfully serving as a secret agent for Prince John, the sheriff enlists him to infiltrate Robin’s band. Simon poses as the very poor Jack the Cobbler and is found by Robin walking through Sherwood Forest. Robin invites him to dinner and “Jack” tells Robin that he fell out of favour with the sheriff because after he made a pair of boots for him he refused to pay and Jack threatened to call the law. Jack is invited to join Robin’s men. Jack begins to plant evidence against Robin such as a golden goblet stolen from a friar and money hoarded in a cave. The sheriff offers all of the men full pardons if they turn Robin in and finally they do so. Robin is brought by the band before the sheriff but suddenly Robin says, “Alright men!” and Robin and his men overwhelm the sheriff and his guards. Robin and his men were all on to Simon from the start. The main tell for Simon was that he had smooth hands while there are calluses on the left thumbs of all cobblers.