vantage raze holding it now feels like pressing down on something that's trying to fight me. it was the first thing with strings i owned. i bought it from the place no one talks about anymore after what the owners' son did. he has his own wikipedia page. that's how bad it was. he was paroled after spending a decade in prison. he should have been buried alive. before the business went under, max told me one of the people working there hugged him when he stopped in to buy a pack of guitar strings or some other meaningless thing. they were desperate to see someone walk through the door. anyone. this was before the ugliness. but they already had a reputation for ripping people off. not that i knew anything about that. or about guitars. all i knew was i wanted one. eric clapton massaging his martin in hoboken terminal made me believe i could play. i asked the guy who was there that day to point me to something cheap that would get me started. he did. twenty-five years later, it's still here. and though i'll probably never pick it up again unless i'm feeling masochistic, i like knowing that piece of my past is intact — a callus i can let myself forget time has carved into me until someone else touches it without understanding how the mark was made. 221216 what's it to you? who go blather from