Lunch today will be a mixture of the sacred and the profane. A friend back east took pity on me and sent me a Kosher salami which has been hangng in a brown paper bag on a door to dry out. I also have one jar left of Zabar''s mustard. Now is where the whole thing kinda falls apart - the bagel. Round these here parts what they call a bagel is some round, soft thing with a hole in it. It should be illegal to even call the thing a bagel. Anyway, that will be joined by some potato salad (bought at a local "deli" counter), a bag of carrot sticks, radishes and snap peas , and to wash it all down a Muggs root beer.
Me and BBE.
I guess all my dogs were not barking up the same tree for a while because it was a couple of years before I realized that BBE was Barcus Berry. Got a big Whoa out of me when I found out. Barcus Berry is a legend among us geezers. Back in the early 1970s I was playing fiddle with a blues string band and wanted to electrify the thing. I had always relied on DeArmond 210 pickups for my guitars so went out and found one of their contact mic things for the fiddle. I attached it with a big rubber band. Absolutely horrible sounding. Someone suggested I try a Barcus Berry Pickup which
attached to the bridge with something that resembled silly putty. While pickup has certainly been eclipsed as technology marches on, back then it was state of the art and the best there was. Now I know ya'll play G&L guitars but anybody also using BBE pickups?
"Goin' down to Lillian's Music Store to buy a Black Diamond string"
Tom Petty
While on the topic of blasts from the past any of ya'll recall Black Diamond strings. I do believe they are back now. You could get them at your local music store, hardware store, the Five and Dime, anywhere. The windings on these things had a nasty habit os separating in several places and you could actually slide the sections up and down on the core. The G string in particualr was a killer. I also recall more than once when the stores were closed having to twist the high E and B together above the nut to be able to play.
Anyway, here is the display you used to see all over the place.
Anybody who has some cool piece of music memorabilia - lets see it.
I figure I would introduce ya'll my little guitar family this week. At present I am only the semi-owner of a G&L which means it is mine but I have yet to pay for it. More on that maybe tomorrow.
Here is the old man of the bunch - born in 1931 or 1932. A National Duolian. It looks black but is actually a very dark mahogany color.
Happy Eating Folks.
