Guitar hero

Have you ever been driving and seen one of those idiots in a car next to you singing along at the top of their lungs to the radio or CD player, beating the steering wheel like it was drums or pretending to be playing guitar?

I’m one of those idiots.

The other morning I drew some stares in the parking deck here at work, because I was listening to Dazed and Confused off of Led Zeppelin I, and just as I pulled into the parking space the song was at the breakdown in the middle, where Jimmy Page starts going off with his solo and it melds into Bonzo’s manic drums and – well, you had to be there.

But clearly, I couldn’t get out of the car until the song was over. Several people walked by and looked over at me funny, though I toned down the performance a bit. The minivan is equipped with a rocking stereo, even though one of the front speakers doesn’t work, and I had that baby cranked up to 11. If this van’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’.

I have always been a frustrated musician. I was one of those goofy kids who would crank up the stereo and get a tennis racket and pretend it was a guitar. I’m not sure my dad has ever recovered from walking in on me during a particularly animated rendition of Cat Scratch Fever.

I took up playing guitar at the University of Georgia, when I was given an old Yamaha acoustic by my friend Vic Chesnutt. My favorite chord was E-minor, because it only required two fingers to play. So I mastered that baby pretty quickly.

Then I moved on to learn whole songs, sticking to ones that began with E-minor. There aren’t that many – Eleanor Rigby, Knights in White Satin, Horse With No Name. Not the kind of stuff you can woo college girls with.

I have continued to play through the years, though never very well. I have dreamed at times of buying a real nice expensive guitar, like a Gibson or a Martin, but I’m not sure it would make much sense, given my playing ability. It would be like buying a monkey a Mercedes.

I now play an Ovation, which is a perfectly nice guitar, especially if you’re one of those guys who plays earnest songs in a coffee or a wine bar. It’s the kind of guitar John Belushi would smash on the frat house stairs.

I suppose that if I found a genie and a lamp, one of my wishes would be to be able to play a note-perfect version of Romeo and Juliet. I’m referring to the original version or Mark Knopfler’s live performance from the CD with Emmylou Harris, not the abomination by the Indigo Girls, in which they suck the life out of the song (insert your own joke here).

So if you see me in the car sometime acting the fool, have some courtesy, have some sympathy and some taste. I’m not insane, even though I may be making a “guitar face” and arching my back while simultaneously merging a 1999 Plymouth Voyager into Atlanta rush-hour traffic. Let’s see Eddie Van Halen do THAT!