What's Wang This Week

I'm writing this in Google Chrome. Neat.

I'm back in Berkeley now. My trip home this summer was a whirlwind of chasing after my nephew, spending time with family, spending time with visitors from Berkeley, going to concerts, and attending weddings. Then it was over, and all of a sudden I was in front of a classroom trying to explain some of the finer points of conditional probability to a bunch of new graduate students. People have been asking me if it's good to be back in Berkeley; ask me again after I've had a minute to catch my breath, as I don't think I have since before I left Berkeley.

Once I do find a second to catch my breath, you'll probably find me practicing on my very own brand new banjo. I'd call it an encounter with GAS, but besides the possible acronym issue¹, this wasn't an unplanned impulse purchase. This isn't the first time I thought about getting a banjo for myself, which you may recall ended in me deciding to buy a mandolin -- which I ended up never getting, but that's a different story -- but after borrowing one from Kyle all of last year, I decided that banjo really is cooler (I use the term loosely) and that I should get one for myself. Since Guitar Center was having their Labour Day sale and they had really cheap starter banjos in stock, I jumped. What better time than now to learn to play more kinds of, as Brad said, "really bad music"? Anyway, I'm spending my practice time learning to play some basic rolls following some lessons that I found on the internet. Once I finish that, I'm going to work on convincingly chewing on a long piece of straw while sitting on a porch.

My nephew is two and a half now and boy is he a handful. When I was in Paris this summer, he recognized me right away, but didn't know how to say my name, as R's give him some trouble. I wasn't that insulted, given that he couldn't say his own name either. A couple of times, he called me Artus, because one time he played with an 8-year-old boy named Artus and thought that Artus just meant "older boy that I play with". Anyway, now he can say his own name, and more importantly he can say my name... sort of. He calls me "Oucha". So long as he doesn't start calling that kid Artus "Oucha", I have no problem with that.

Also while I was at home, I did the Grouse Grind with some friends from Berkeley. We were so unprepared. I had been told by my friends Tung and Zara that if you take the Grouse Grind slowly, you can do it in 50 minutes. After about 1h15m, I remembered that Tung once did about 150 pushups in one minute. Anyway, we made it up in 2h15m or so, hampered in the first third by Shankar, the fittest member of our squad, having just eaten a large spicy meal, and then hampered in the last third by the rest of us being unable to keep up with him post-digestion. At least we made it up; Wikipedia tells me that the Grind's difficulty is "often underestimated" and that North Shore Rescue has to actually rescue people who are unable to finish it. It was an accomplishment, made sweeter by the fact that I never have to do it again ever.

Earlier on in the summer Allan also visited from Berkeley, and I spent a weekend showing Allan and Shankar around Vancouver a bit. We walked around the Seawall on the first day, and they're not the type to complain, but I started to suspect they were getting a bit tired of walking when they started to slow down a bit. My suspicions were confirmed when they suggested that we sit down after about 7K and they never suggested that we get back up and keep walking. That night we did more walking to get to and from the fireworks, and the next day both of them were sore and really tired. I'm a little worried that my friends from Berkeley are just going to remember Vancouver for being really tiring and difficult, and not for the amazing all-you-can-eat Japanese food, which is how I remember it.

A good friend of mine back from the good ol' days of the Math Club got married right at the end of my time at home. It was a great wedding and I'm really happy for her and her husband. The wedding was great fun and it was a fantastic time catching up with the old Math Club folks. I've been to a couple of weddings in the last year and a bit, and both times, instead of the couple kissing when glasses are clinked, they require you to stand up and sing a love song. Both times, now, I've sang "All Out Of Love" by Air Supply. That was an even more fantastic time. The other Math Club folks suggested I sing some "Roxanne", but I felt it was inappropriate to compare my friend to a prostitute on her wedding day.

I also played quite a bit of Rock Band over the holiday. I was already looking forward to the next generation of Guitar Hero/Rock Band games, but this actually had me considering spending $140 to buy the crippled Wii version of Rock Band just so I could practice the drumming. Guitar Hero is great, but even though you might be honing some skills that could help you in actually playing the guitar, at the end of the day you're basically wasting your time. (Albeit in the best way possible.) With the drumming on Rock Band, though, you're potentially actually learning to drum, so it's educational. Right? Right? Right? Anyway, that didn't materialize on account of spending the money on the banjo, and also as I figure one annoyingly-loud-for-my-landlord-and-neighbours hobby was good enough.

My parents had a food processor that they never used, so I packed it here to Berkeley. I was so excited to use it that I spent most of last week thinking of things to make in it. I decided to try making mayonnaise, since I figured that it would be impossible to make without a food processor. Ever seen it done? It's like frickin' alchemy or something. Anyway, apparently it's not that easy to make it in a food processor. That was a complete failure, and a waste of 500mL of oil and four eggs. I was so pissed off that I decided to conquer Mount Mayo with no oxygen tank, and I took up mixing bowl and whisk. Surprisingly, this actually worked, wasn't very hard, and was much more fun than watching oil and eggs sloshing around in the food processor. It really tastes a lot different from store-bought mayo (more French somehow), and now I understand how people might serve mayo, and only mayo, as a sauce for fish.

Some guys work on their car, or bench press 350 pounds. I'll take my banjo and my mayonnaise. My banjonaise, if you will.

Current Music: Blue Rodeo - Casino

1. Actually the G in GAS is for "gear", not "guitar", so this is not an issue at all.

Maximum strength GAS relief

Fortunately for me, my bout with GAS coincided with Guitar Center's 4th of July sale weekend. Now, I know I've previously said I hate Guitar Center, but I'm willing to shop there if they're not making much profit off me. Come to think of it, I never got that mandolin... I guess they decided it wasn't worth it to sell me a mandolin at 20% off sticker price, like they said they would, so they just never called me back. It's What Jowen Would Do.

Also fortunately for me, the Fender Classic Player Jazzmaster doesn't seem to be that well-regarded by those who love Jazzmasters. The Mexican-made Classic Player model has some changes that make it not so much a Jazzmaster as a real guitar that looks like a Jazzmaster. The Jazzmaster, as I understand it, isn't exactly a real guitar so much as it is a conflagration of eccentricities in the shape of a guitar, and to fix a number of its flaws risks robbing it of its real essence. Even more fortunately, the store didn't have one because the one they got shipped was defective and they sent it back. So a fool and his $800 are not so soon parted after all.

I did, however, turn my attention to a low-end acoustic 12-string, which I might actually get some good use out of in my increasingly theoretical singer-songwriter role. After trying a couple and a night's deliberation, I decided on a very nice Yamaha FG720S-12 which I got at $270, $60 lower than usual. Eat it, Guitar Center. I played it and played it until my fingers couldn't take any more, which wasn't very long because I hadn't played much in a while and 12-strings are a bitch to play. Then I played some more. I would have written this post sooner, but I was too lazy to take a picture of it, and then once I got around to it I found that I had no batteries new enough for my camera to turn on.

This is the first guitar I've ever bought entirely on my own. All of my previous guitars were either chosen for me by my dad, given to me by my dad when he got better ones, or bought after much consultation with my dad. Because of that, I feel like this is the opportunity to teach myself to do a little guitar maintenance. Adjust the truss rod, make a new saddle, file the nut. Maybe install a pickup someday. It might make it seem a little more personal.

I've always been a packrat. As I get a little older, I'm starting to look at all of the crap that I've hoarded over the years and evaluate each piece on how much I'd miss it if it were gone. In the past I've said that guitars become like your friends, and each one is a beautiful and unique snowflake, blah blah blah, but I'm feeling a little more pragmatic about it these days.

For example, my first proper guitar was a white Fender Strat. It was real sharp, but it had a duff neck and it wasn't getting any better no matter how much we tried to adjust it. We traded it in on an amp, and I don't miss it at all. On the other hand, we had another old beater acoustic that we thought sucked for a long time. One day, though, my dad made some adjustments and it transformed from an unplayable bastard to silky smooth. As the years have passed, this cheapo guitar -- which was already about 12 years old -- sounded, played, and held up better than at least three other more expensive acoustics. I'd be really choked if I lost it.

The one guitar that I miss the very most, though, wasn't even my guitar. When we first started the band, Graham didn't play guitar. He proved to be a quick study, though, and before long the time came for him to buy his first real guitar. He got it second-hand before the age of Craigslist, without someone with him to tell him if it was good or not. Fortunately, he got really lucky.

We dubbed it New Wings, as was our custom. (My guitars were Wings and Acoustic Wings.) New Wings was, on paper, an unremarkable stock Mexican Standard Stratocaster, but two things made it special. First, the previous owner was a smoker, and because of that there was a cigarette burn on the headstock and all of the plastic parts on the guitar had yellowed and given it a cool, aged look. Second, it had the single nicest neck I've ever seen. My better judgment tells me that it must have had the same shape as every other Mexican Strat out there, but in your hand it felt wider across the nut than usual. Because of that, the neck gave the impression of being thinner than usual, which made it really comfortable for leads, yet with a solid enough depth and heft to make chords easy to grip onto. It had absolutely perfect action: low enough to make playing anything a breeze, but with just enough fight in the strings to keep things from bending all over the place.

Graham played it most, of course, but I played it plenty and used it on at least a couple recordings. We both loved that guitar, and when it got stolen we were both really choked. Graham replaced it with guitars that are nicer on paper and, to be honest, better sounding, but they'll never be New Wings. If anyone sees a sunburst Stratocaster in a pawn shop somewhere covered with UBC/Riverside school paper/Radiohead stickers, buy it. We'll pay you back.

I think that every time I look at a guitar, I'm hoping to find another New Wings. I feel like I've got a few now -- Wings II, Wings III, and Wings IV -- that are really great and cover all my bases, so I think I've done pretty well. If I'm being really honest though, although I wouldn't trade any of them straight up for New Wings, none of them will ever be New Wings either.

So will this new 12-string be New New Wings? Probably not. But I can hope.

Current Music: Ron Sexsmith - Exit Strategy of the Soul

New for 2008: the Fender Classic Player GASmaster

Ohh yeah... come to papa. Your little sister can come too.



Current Music: My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges

GAS: the end

Instead of buying a new acoustic guitar, I have decided to hold out until the summer and hope that I can bring a better one from PoCo to Berkeley. A quick strum of a Martin D-28 reminds me to accept no compromises, and so this seems like a less wasteful solution. Besides, both the Epiphone and the Gibson are gone, and the other Gibsons in the store just don't compare to the D-28, which makes this decision a lot easier. And thus ends my first (internet-documented) bout with GAS.

Instead, I decided to pick up either a banjo or a mandolin with my 10% off coupon. I've always thought about trying my hand at both instruments, and what better time than when you have a small discount. I was leaning banjo, but they didn't have any really cheap ones in Guitar Center last night and so I went with the mandolin. Unfortunately, the cheap mandolin they had didn't have a bridge, which is an important part of a stringed instrument, so I have to go back and seal the deal sometime in the next week.

I brought Mike along with me as he expressed interest in picking up some strings and picks, as well as in taking up the bass. He found a rather nice Squier bass for $200: nice neck, P+J pickup configuration, and a nice light construction (which may suck for sustain but whatever). He didn't buy it though because it had a big skull and crossbones design on it. How vain. Beauty lies within, Mike.

While I typically get frustrated very easily with the mandolin whenever I play one in a store, I think that's because the only thing I know how to play is the little opening riff to "Losing My Religion", and I don't even know how to play that very well. I think I'd better go back and recreate how I started playing the guitar, so that I don't get too ambitious and just get frustrated. After that, I think the mandolin will suit me, as I have a high voice that tends to be shrill and grating.

What's Wang This Week

Basically just four things:

1. Flight of the Conchords (you're welcome);


2. VectorTD (get a feel for it on the default level, then try the "Do The Splits" map and feel my pain; thanks, Peter);


3. a 12" cast-iron skillet; and


4. continued GAS; I'll spare you the details.

Current Music: Flight of the Conchords - Beautiful Girl

Still GASsy

On Friday I decided that the Gibson J-45 was out of the question, primarily because it was gone. I guess it really was a deal, because someone snapped it up in the two weeks between my visits to Guitar Center. That's fine; the Epiphone was still there. I went and I played it and it was pretty good, just as I remembered. I compared it to some cheaper guitars and there was no contest.

As one is taught to do when buying their first guitar, I compared this guitar to some very nice Martins just to see how it stacked up. I've always been fond of Martins -- I have an entry-level Martin DM at home that still ranks as the nicest guitar I've ever played, even having played real expensive guitars in stores. "Well, that's great," I thought, "but I'm feeling the need for a Gibson-style."

But! The first Martin I picked up immediately transported me back. All of a sudden I was sitting in the rec room at home in PoCo with my DM, composing the theme song to stevekwan.com. Even with grimy old strings, this thing is a beauty, and so were most of the Martins in the store. When I A-B'd them with the Epi, it was clear that the Epi was just not as special as my DM.

I figured though that the Epiphone might not stand a chance as it had older, crappier strings on it, and a fresh set of good strings might bring it to life. I talked to one salesman about one of the Martins, and from his answers I could tell he had no idea. Also, I found out that Guitar Center doesn't offer any kind of one-year maintenance policy (it's standard at Long & McQuade in Canada to offer a free setup within a year of purchase). Perhaps even worse, it was clear he had lost all his zeal for talking to me when I told him I wasn't necessarily planning on buying a guitar right that day. I talked to another salesman and asked him -- as one is taught to do when buying their first guitar -- if I could try the Epiphone with a different set of strings. He looked at me with the smarmiest, most patronizing face I can think of and says "If all the strings are broken, for some reason."

What I did at this point: nod, walk away, decide silently to take my business elsewhere.

What I wish I had done at this point: go back into the guitar room, break all the strings, then re-request.

This is their customer service? One time back home Long & McQuade let me take not one, but two guitars home overnight just to help me make a decision! So, fuck Guitar Center and fuck the horse they rode in on. My old beater Yamaha is holding up just fine for itself, to be honest. I decided that my next guitar is going to be a 100% no-compromises instrument. It's going to be a guitar that I can honestly say that I prefer to my old Martin DM. And, unfortunately, it's probably going to cost around $2000. It might take a few years, but I can wait.

Then I got a letter this week from Guitar Center thanking me for being a valued customer and offering 10% off any purchase made before June 30.

I wonder how that Epi would sound with a new set of strings.

High GAS prices

After mulling over the decision for a week or two, I started to lose my zeal for the Gibson J-45 in favour of the Epiphone Masterbilt. When I thought about it, I remembered the Epiphone being really quite impressive, while the Gibson was nice, but not particularly nicer than the Epiphone. $1100 for an American-made guitar, particularly a Gibson, just seemed like a great deal.

But I thought about the Epiphone further. "Am I really going to pass on this guitar, which is cheaper and maybe even better, just because it was made in China?

"That would make me no better than a white woman."

I have GAS, cont'd

It's been over a week and I've resisted buying the Gibson J-45. I also resisted the urge to go to Guitar Center and drool over the guitar for an hour in the hopes that something will happen to convince me to either buy it or not buy it. I've done some research and I've found out that the Epiphone Masterbilt AJ-500R is not in the style of the J-45, but of Gibson's "Advanced Jumbo", which is considered by some to be their finest acoustic ever. And the reviews of the Epi have been really good. It really might be just as good a guitar as the Gibson, although by now I have missed out on the Memorial Day savings. Really though, I can't help but feel like $1100 for a Gibson is just a better investment. New, the guitar costs $2400.

Last night I was flipping channels after Colbert and I saw Jessica Alba on The Tonight Show. She seemed a little dumber than I expected her to be given the interviews I have read, as well as a little bitchier. Fortunately for me, she was just as hot as advertised. I started daydreaming about becoming a famous musician and getting to be on talk shows as the second or third guest after her. I started to wonder how gauche it would be for me in that situation to tell the story about the time Pete, Brad, Travis, and I snuck into a theological college at night trying to sneak a peek at her filming Dark Angel at UBC. Then I decided that if I'm in that situation, there is no way I'm not telling that story. I would also tell her that Jowen says hello.

I flipped channels a little more and came back to the Tonight Show a bit later. Lucinda Williams was playing a Gibson J-45. I flipped back to Letterman, where Matt Damon had been discussing the effect his Matthew McConaughey impression had had on their friendship; the dude from Bright Eyes was also playing a Gibson J-45.

I think this is a sign. If I buy the Gibson J-45, I will one day get to play it on a talk show that Jessica Alba is also on. Playing the J-45 on the same show as Jessica Alba is huge.

I have GAS

Once I got in an argument with my mother and she complained to me that I would never stop wanting to buy guitars. I told her that no, I won't buy more guitars, I have a good working set now and I basically have all my bases covered. Well, I suppose mother may actually know best here, because I have a serious case of Guitar Acquisition Syndrome at the moment, without money to finance the habit.

This morning the apple of my eye was the Epiphone Masterbilt AJ-500R, a very classy low-to-mid-range acoustic guitar in the style of Gibson's classic J-45, with all solid construction and a nice, plummy low end. Today also happens to be Memorial Day in the US, which means Guitar Center (their spelling, not mine) has its annual Memorial Day sale. I told myself I'd go early in the morning to buy a harmonica or two, nothing more; deep down, though, I knew that if I saw that guitar for anything south of $450, I'd buy it. I still have not forgotten that argument with my mother, and damned if I don't want to prove her right. Moreover, if I'm being really honest, what I really need is an amp. However, I figured it was defensible as my very nice Martin acoustic is languishing unplayed at home in PoCo, and all I've got here is a beater beginner's Yamaha which comes from the time before beater beginner's Yamahas were actually good guitars. Even above and beyond that, the neck is frustratingly narrow, which precludes me from good clean fingerpicking.

As it happens, I didn't get an early morning start on account of mild food poisoning, which led me to not return to basic function until 2PM today. I viewed this as a positive, as the more I thought about that Epiphone, the more I wanted it. This is good, I told myself (although that's about the only good thing that this current bout of food poisoning has done for me today). Yes. I am master of my urges.

At 4PM I went to Guitar Center and made a beeline for the acoustics.

There was still one AJ-500R on the shelves, and sure enough, it was still as nice as I remembered. I thought about checking out other, cheaper, acoustics, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I've been playing for a long time now. This guitar deserves to be owned by me! Just as a reference point, I picked up a used Gibson J-45 and plucked a few notes on it. Very nice, but for $1600, that's not happening.

The salesman dude who helped me the last time I was there saw me playing that and said "Wait, $1600? That's not right...." I put the guitar down and went back out to buy a harmonica, but the salesman found me and said "Hey, if you like the J-45, it's eleven with case".

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa.

I didn't snap it up. And remember that guitars are way cheaper than just about every other kind of instrument; saxophones, pianos, violins all cost thousands upon thousands. And don't tell me you've never had GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) yourself. A new graphics card for your computer. Seasons 5-7 of Friends. A new pair of shoes. A new dress. You've not had my life -- don't judge me.

But now I am telling myself "Hey, $1100 for a guitar that will last a lifetime is pretty decent. The Martin might get damaged in transit if I tried to bring it here. This guitar works better with my voice than the Martin anyway. It's not even a top-end Martin. It's still technically my dad's guitar. What I said to Mom only applied to electric guitars. It'll retain its resale value. This guitar deserves to be owned by me!"

Damn you, Gibson.

Current Music: David Bowie - Andy Warhol