Guitar Expo

What a weekend!

I already told you how Lisa and I did yardwork yesterday.That was so much fun that I figure I’d let you in on today’s adventures. Well, just one for now. The others will need to wait.

Today saw Giovanni, Marco, and I going to a local Guitar Expo. Marco was complaining a lot. Giovanni was somewhat listless. Marco was irritating me and I found it hard to describe the awesomeness of what we were seeing to Giovanni with Marco ranting about how there was nothing to do. god help me. The expo was very loud and there was a lot of stuff going on. Giovanni had no idea where to begin. I needed a solution. It was lunchtime. I took them outside to get food.A truck was parked outside the expo and they had a big sign describing how awesome there pulled pork sandwiches, lobster rolls, and clam chowder were. You had me at pulled pork sandwich. Marco got that very sandwich. I initially told him he had to share it with his brother (me) because it was way too big but then he snarfed it down before you can say Jiminy Cricket. Giovanni got some fries and fried chicken. They had beer at the expo, which was driving me nuts, but Lisa wasn’t around so I got a bottle of water. Once I verified that the wild beasts were tamed, we headed back into the expo.

Giovanni has been wanting distortion effects for a while so I started talking to one vendor who had an amazing array of effects neatly arrayed at his booth. There must have been 60 different units. I explained to the guy that my son was just starting out. He asked what kind of music Giovani liked and my son replied: AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen. I swear to god light started streaming from the windows. I glowed with pride as he didn’t reply Travis McCoy or Bruno Mars. I was amazed when he went through almost all of the models and not only explained what they were about, but how he personally felt about each of them. Anyway, we could not decide on  a M78 Custom Badass ’78 Distortion, a relatively cheap intro-model for $75, or a more expensive hand-made model in the $150 price range. Obviously there were other models costing hundreds of dollars but we didn’t come expecting to buy anything. The guy offered to have us hear the difference. As the man turned to set things up, I asked Giovanni if he wanted to play. He said, “No, no, that’s ok.” We both expected the guy to play for him. When it was all set up the guy handed his Epitome / Les Paul to Giovanni and told him to go ahead. Giovanni has the same Guitar. When handed the instrument, Giovanni didn’t bat an eye. He sat down and started playing and going through each filter with the man running the booth. Eventually he settled on the Custom Badass ’78. I was super proud of my son. Giovanni payed the man with his own money. When we got home we had to install a battery since the unit didn’t come with a DC cord it could use. Instead of installing the battery for him, I handed him a screwdriver and told him to figure it out. He opened it up, installed the battery, and went downstairs to play. He was down there for hours.