Excess frustration leads area man to blog.

I've tried. I really have. I'd hide away in private. Work my fingers and hands so hard, but nothing comes from it. Up and down so much, I have callouses and blisters. Sometimes I draw blood from the friction, I've rubbed them so hard. I'm frustrated, and my wrist hurts. Grandpa watched me and told me I was doing it all wrong, but I've been doing it the same way since I was a kid.

All because I can't play guitar.

I so wanted to be a rock star when I was growing up, but I was denied the parental encouragement and hand-to-muscial semblance coordination. What - I can't live strung out and groupie shuffled, a footnote in rock history by the age of 28 who failed to grow along with my fanbase by refusing to succumb to shifting musical tastes? No sense of entitlement to the VIP laminate of revolving admittance into celeb reality-show rehab? No guitar-shaped couch and chinchilla bedspread? FINE.

But I am so encouraged by my own awareness of mortality and non-coolness, that I am determined - nay, obsesstified - to one day take my musical abilities one step further, and play actual guitar better than Guitar Hero. And I suck at both.

So now, a beautiful, black Fender Strat has been shuffled in and out of it's well-worn carrying case for ten years. Picked up, plugged in, and the volume turned to eleven. The distortion pedal has been maxed out to gargantuan fuzz levels. I've piled so much reverb and delay effects onto the sound to hide my ineptness, this wall of blackness spills out an hour after I've hit a C chord. It's not music, it's just one man's ego trip.

A sculpture of wood and wire sits low on my waist, and I spend a few minutes adjusting my shoulder strap. I study each string intently, determined this time that I will play a simple song through to it's enevitable car crash conclusion. Any song. ALL the way through. Not just the intro, not wasting an hour on just the chorus. One that I don't necessarily have to like, but a good three chords and out feeling of accomplishment. Flipping through my massive bible o' Dinosaur Rock Guitar Tablatures, I dunno...maybe "Satisfaction"... some Boston song. Maybe I get some of those Roy Clark color stickers to attach to the frets a'la "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore."

I have the posturing, I have the swagger and mannerisms of a road-worn Golden God. I just can't get my fingers to match my mind. Trying to hit the frets just perfectly until that metal muted ringing of failure no longer exists. Blind Southern blues men with no shoes sold their souls to be able to play a cigar box strung with window screen wire, how friggin' hard can this be? I tell myself to only look at the neck, and not at the pickups. I hit the first chord, and then try and fingerpick my way through.

Watch the fingers.

Here it comes...bend the string up, pull off. Next chord...

Aaaaannnnnd...

wait.

Now I gotta stop and think.

How does that chord go? My long fingers and tiny hands can't make the bend. Finger two goes where? Keep the thumb straight, action is at the elbow. No way I can do this without looking down. Maybe I run the whammy bar up and down a few times. That's always fun.

I start. I stop. And I put it back down.

Oooooh, how does the riff to "Smoke On The Water" go? I can practice that. Dah - dah -dah....

Sigh. I'll never be cool.

You know what's cool? How good my guitar looks in the corner, propped up against the chair

Yeah. People ask, "Oh, you play?"

And I say, "Oh, I pick it up once in awhile."

I've BEEN ready to rock. I just can't.