work in progress

the 5 types of assholes who work at your local guitar shop

1. the archetype

this is the guy you'd kind of expect to find at the local guitar shop. he's everything wrong with music today. he's thirty-something and has long, frizzy hair (he's channeling some iconic seventies rocker but coming up short, ultimately settling on michael bolton). he has a somewhat muscular build, which he accentuates with some abomination of an oxford polo or paisley garment, tucked above the naval (of course) into his dad jeans (tight around the fupa, and straight as an arrow down the legs) and always leaves his top two shirt buttons undone. he's a very spiritual person and believes in things like the ability to communicate profound sentiments through his guitar. if you were to wander through his garage (let's hope it never comes to that), you'd find a poster of jimi hendrix alongside an obnoxiously large confederate flag. he is genuinely unaware that both of these things, jimi and the confederation, are no longer relevant--let alone, living--and is oblivious to the inherent contradiction in displaying these two symbols of american iconography side by side.
he's particularly anal about the shop's merchandise. it's not store policy, but he feels compelled to post signs all around the store, informing customers not to touch--nay, look--at the guitars and other equipment unless they plan on buying. rarely, does he actually do any work himself, but spends his days wandering about the shop and tune-noodling all the guitars--that is, he does the thing where, instead of tuning like normal people, he makes a special point of hitting every harmonic he can think of, like a douchebag, and then peppering this strange practice with random zeppelin and jimi riffs intermittently throughout.
he has an asshole name like zander or some other new age bullshit. or carl. or--you know what, it doesn't matter what kind of name he has. he's the type of person who makes you hate his name just because it's his--even if it's your name, too. imagine you had no idea what child pornography was called. and then you found out it's name was carl. well, you'd probably hate hearing just the name carl. and you most certainly wouldn't want to have any affiliation with it. even if it meant something else first. that's kind of what it's like with this guy. he is a name upon which one associates all things douchey.
oh, and he plays in local bar bands--though, it's just a temporary thing. he's still waiting on his big break...whenever classic rock becomes popular again and, you know, not classic.

favorite quote:
"you know, i'm like--i'm not religious, i'm spiritual."


the middle-aged neil young fan

ok. i've kind of got a soft spot for this guy. he's got somewhat tolerable taste in music. i mean, he likes neil young, right? nothing wrong with that.

wrong...

this guy loves neil young for all the reasons neil young supporters hate him. where most fans actively choose to ignore the fact that young is canadian, this guy embraces it with gravy-chugging admiration. in fact, the sole this guy watches hockey is because he knows that young is from canada and hockey is sort of a religion there.

his other favorite artists are pretty easy to guess: the standard singer-songwriter fare (james taylor, bob dylan...you know, that whole crew of song scribes whose literate approach to songwriting has prevented them access into the arena of schlock country singers).

this guy really likes to sell you stuff. boy, does he. walk in with the sole intention of purchasing a set of strings and he'll try to push at least thirty additional accessories (the latest tuner, picks, mysterious crank-tools, chewing gum, etc.) on you before you leave, almost as a sort of punishment for only buying one thing.

3. the name-dropper

oh my 'lanta. this guy--whew! whatever you do, do not make the mistake of dropping the name of any band around this guy. he's played with them all. toured with the stones. dropped acid with blind melon. sucked diamond dave's dick...this guy has been to hell and back. and the only thing he prides himself on more than working at some crappy bumfuck music shop are these stories. you may think the best strategy for getting this guy the hell away from you is to act like you're not impressed, but this only incites him, encourages him to be even more obnoxious. if you want to play it safe, try this: walk right up to this guy and spew out the name of at least fifteen well-known bands within span of ten seconds. seriously, he won't know what to do. his brain will get all tripped up and, hopefully, if we're lucky, his head will explode--a fitting climax to his illustrious career as an alleged hanger-on--a grand finale and, ironically, the only truly interesting experience in this guy's life. too bad, he couldn't live to annoy you with the details.

4. the drum instructor

this guy is kind of like the black sheep of the guitar shop. they don't really advertise drum lessons or equipment at the store but there's always a little nook, in every guitar shop, for drum stuff. and it's this guy's job to guard that nook with his life. he's kind of like the sole indian in the store. he has his own little enclave, which the guitar assholes have generously set aside for him, but he's not allowed or encouraged to wander outside of this space. no one really like him and he doesn't care for anyone else, either. he's a drum instructor. plain and simple.
since every drummer, it seems, aspires to work in a music store (why?), it's pretty easy to guess this guy's influences. they're the same as every other drummers (they're a weird breed, drummers): dude from rush, dude from "dave," dude from zep, yadda yadda yadda. pretty standard stuff.