u/UnleavenedTed

I am currently working six days a week and take care of two disable family members, so I don’t have time to play music with others at any regular interval. I do not want to go backwards by only playing over loops and synthesized backing tracks. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I live in a house with a giant Liberty safe (no combo). I called Liberty and they said if I call a locksmith, they will walk them through opening it. I’ve heard they are not very effective and since it is gigantic, it sticks out like a thumb and can’t be hidden. What do you think?

The 70’s Twin is a Silverface and is 1/2 the price but I’m afraid it could become a money pit.

I understand it’s not a very popular scale length. However, is anyone making or willing to make such instruments? ($10k max budget)

I have been playing guitar for a long time, and recently got interested in jazz. I find that I am kind of stuck in the style that I developed over the years (jazzy but not jazz). I work 63 hours a week and take care of a family member, so I don’t have endless time to practice (plus I have a chronic hand injury issue), so I need to make the most of it. I struggle with organizing my own practice plan that is purposeful and all fits together.

Basically, I need to learn the language of jazz and incorporated it into my playing, but in the most efficient manner possible. I am getting arthritis in my hands so I don’t have years to do this. I have never been one to take shortcuts when it comes to music, but I’m afraid time may not be on my side.

I have tried to just find things on YouTube and I’ve had some success, but I think that I need more structure.

I’ve heard good things about the G50 but the JX30 definitely looks cool, and it’s MIJ (plus, it’s 20 minutes closer than the G50). I currently have a Blues Deluxe and a Supro Keeley collab that I got before getting into jazz but they just aren’t as pristinely clean as I’d like. Any advice would be welcome!

Years ago, long before I was interested in gold coins, I was interested in something else round and expensive…pills. The boyfriend of a close relative passed away suddenly. As I was the only other family member in the state, I went over to help out. I threw my shoes on at light speed and shot out of the door like a bullet coming out of a gun. I would like to say it’s because I was eager to help…eager to console the family member whom I loved dearly; however, the frenetic urgency was for another reason. The deceased boyfriend went to pain management.

I arrived at the house, but had to wait for the coroner or whoever to do their thing and transport the body to the funeral home. They mentioned that he was on heart medication. Crap! I thought. Had they taken his medication? Was that the protocol? Well, the very second I was allowed, I ran into the house and threw open the medicine cabinet. I rummage through the pill bottles. Metformin. No. Naproxen. No. Simvastin. Shit on a stick! They had taken it! My stomach was a bile filled submarine evading an enemy…sinking to depths I didn’t know were possible, less it should fall out of my pant leg. My heart quickly gave chase, plunging down, down, down!

The whiskey I had drunk before arriving was wearing off now. Am I gonna have to go choke down more disgusting, gritty Kratom purchased from the patchouli fumigation station of a head shop? ”Dammit!“ I cursed in my head. “It tastes like a tree took a shit!” That is when I remembered something. The safe! Of course, the safe! He knows that there is a fiend in the family, it might be in the safe!

Now, I’ve seen the movie, ‘Killing Zoe‘ many times and I know the disastrous outcomes cracking a safe on opioids, but luckily the family member in question was my chief enable. They would no doubt give me the pills if I just asked…if I exaggerated my withdrawal symptoms and writhed around on the floor a little like a pathetic, underachieving trout.

Sure enough, before long I had permission and the combination. I was so excited (or maybe just starting to get dope sick) that my fingers trembled and skipped uncontrollably around the safe’s keypad. On the second try, I successfully entered the combination and threw open the metal door. Sitting on a shelf, seemingly illuminated by a single ray of light, like an artifact from an Indiana Jones film, there sat the translucent orange bottle that contained the pills, my youth and my innocence.

Before you could blink, the bottle was in my pocket, but not before four of the small, orangey pink 10mg oxycodone were dry swallowed down to my gut…which contained nothing but stomach acid and cheap bourbon. My relative stood beside me and said, see if there’s anything else in there you want, but don’t take any cash, I’m sure there’s some in there.  Even in the depths of my addiction, I wasn’t completely bereft of morality and chose to obey their request.

“What’s this?” I said while picking up something shiny. Flipping it over, I see ”$50” emblazoned on the back. ”Can I have this?” “I don’t care,” they numbly replied and the coin joined the bottle in the pocket of my straight-cut blue-jeans.

Swimming amongst the lint in my pocket were two different types of round, flat objects…both encased in plastic. The cheap whiskey I had drunk before arriving was starting to wear off and I wasn’t going to let the inevitable negative imbalance in my GABA-receptors sully the positive imbalance in my mu-opioid receptors. No cash, but who needs cash? I have $50. Legal tender!

I hop in a shitty car and drive the three or four miles to a shitty liquor store. I walk to a specific shelf with the mindless, laser like precision that only comes from repetition and grab a plastic jug of Old Crow by the neck. “Do you take coins?” I ask in a voice that gets more gravelly with each passing minute. The cashier subtly rolls his eyes and nods his head. Instead of dumping out a pan handled Dixie-cup of sticky nickels (as I’m sure he expected), I pull out the coin, now out of its protective plastic case. He grabs it and looks at it. “It’s a $50 coin, it’s legal tender!” I exclaim. Now, I don’t remember any excitement in his eyes, so it’s quite possible he didn’t know what it was either. Regardless, he accepted the coin, gave me my change, and I went on my way.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into a month, months turned into years. I got clean. I got sober. I found God, and then lost him again. But the sobriety stuck, even if the ideology didn’t. I started a family, I started to make a living amends the best I could. I finally had savings. Junkies don’t have savings. But I was no longer a junkie. 

The policies of my country made me concerned about the economic future of the working class,  and the value of the paper dollar. I started to learn about precious metals… and then I remembered. A whiskey soaked memory…fragmented, cut with inter-cranial quinine and neuronal baby laxative and then reassembled into the most accurate and complete memory that my damaged brain can muster. Poured into a wax paper bag, stamped with ‘American Gold Eagle Horror Story: How I Once Sold a 1oz Coin For Face Value’ and then delivered to r/gold for mass consumption.

If you own an American Gold Eagle, there is a chance…a very real chance that you own this coin.  And if you do, I have one piece of advice. Don’t trade it for a bottle of Old Crow and a pack of Maverick Menthol 100’s. That coin has been through enough.

And no, I’m can’t buy one of the $15,000 PRS Private Stock guitars that already have it lol

It used to get on my nerves because it’s not actually a scan. However, now, I’m not seeing it. Do they not do that anymore?

Even super high end archtops don’t seem to share this, nor do even the better Doc copies.

After playing guitar for several decades, I crushed my hand and had to have metal put in. 10 years post injury and I can only play guitar for short periods in between episodes of inflammation. It’s been very difficult on me psychologically (if it wasn’t for my child, I might not have the heart to keep going…music has been my life since learning piano at age 5). Now that I’m finally getting into playing proper jazz, I want a real jazz box, but I’m concerned that it may play more like an acoustic, which is difficult for me. What are some things I should look for, what are some things I should avoid?

P.S. I already have a PRS SE Hollowbody, So I’m really only looking for suggestions that are real, full on jazz guitars. It doesn’t have to be specific guitars, it could just be things to look for or avoid. Right now, I am looking at the Ibanez artcore and artstar line, and maybe consider considering some Eastmans (budget is unfortunately a factor, at least until I get my teeth fixed). Help is greatly appreciated.