Wiardgroup

"youth is wasted on the young"
      G.B.Shaw

--- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, "Gary Chang" <gchang@...> wrote:
>
> Certainly, Unobtainium still exists in your life, Doc.  It just might
> not be here at this modular JC Whitney parts counter we are standing
> at....
> 

   most certainly it does! Senor Chang...
Unfortunately, they don't publish "The Lost Youth of Mike Murphy"
magazine...Man ! i'd pay big bucks for a subscription to that...
articles like "Carry your own subwoofer to the gig" , "Spend a WHOLE
Saturday at the (locally owned) Music Store haggling for a paisley
telecaster" ...
i'd beat a path to the mailbox for copy like THAT!
=)

so while we're all kissing and making up. Decorum compells me to
stress that my grousing prose is , at it's heart, not directed at the
business of building instruments or selling magazines about said
business. It is a complaint against the natural process of aging. 
   That Chinese curse we bandy about is serious business. (You
twenty-somethings out there, TAKE NOTE: You WILL get what you wish for
.... and you'll wonder what the HELL you were thinking!!)
When i suppress my curmudgeon gag reflex and take off my rose-colored
nostalgia glasses, the big picture is astoundingly unchanged. The
instrument makers are no more or less venal and larcenous than they
ever were. It's the same as 1968. A few are gifted (if quixotic)
craftsmen and the rest are usurious hacks with the money to put glossy
pictures of people who LOOK like gifted craftsmen in their magazine ads. 
And the ratio of quality to.... uh....well .... NOT quality in the
instrument press is about the same now as it ever was, too.

The change is in me.
Synths are no worse, nor are synth magazines.
i've  just lost my youthful ability to be cheerfully oblivious to the
ubiquitious down-side, and focus with ardent desire on that one
holy-grail piece of gear (du jour!)i wanted.  i remember clearly how
much i iconized my first 2600 and later, my Xpander. Hell! i remember
how dazzled i was at the ravishing sleekness of the DX7 .... oblivious
to how thoroughly that sleekness would handcuff me when i tried to
adjust a velocity response..... like trying to build a ship in a VERY
small bottle!

Grant and i were born 5 months apart and when we met we both felt like
we were telling one another's stories. As much as i can wax loquacious
 about the objective underpinnings of my fetish for Wiard's designs,
i'd be a liar and a hypocrite to deny that a 'generational' affinity
for Gant's mindset is not a major factor my love for his gadgets.
Grant and i watched the absurd parade of life from, pretty-much, the
same street corner. The difference is that his comments took the form
of schematics! 

Hmmm
i even remember wishing fervently that i'd hurry up and get a year
older...
Chinese curse indeed!

(oops! time for my nap)
;)
-doc

PS: Gino, if you see Aitkin again tell him , he has a permanent fan in
Missouri, just for the clarity of his writing alone.