Report Card

I suppose I've been sidetracked lately by odd-sized guitars and other people's hands and haven't written much lately about my progress on the guitar. I still play the thing at least 45 minutes every day and the progress is incremental, especially if your definition of "incremental" is the third listing in the American Heritage Dictionary -- "a slight, often barely perceptible augmentation." Nonetheless, I still enjoy it a great deal, find it to be a good release and remain dedicated. I'm still on track to make my debut on "Austin City Limits" in about 25 to 30 years.

I've been working on what looks like the playlist for a classic rock station. I can handle most of "Smoke on the Water" and "Day Tripper" and some of "Come Together." Now we're working on "A Horse With No Name" (man, that song has some dopey lyrics)*. Not that you'd necessarily recognize any of those songs if I played them. I'm figuring I'll get the general idea down and then smooth it out and get faster. As it stands now, my renditions could politely be called "plodding."

At this point, six months into it, I'd have to give myself a C- for execution and an A for attitude.

* A comedian once goofed on this song by saying, "You're in the desert. You got nothing else to do. Name the freakin' horse!"