the world's most pathetic troubadour.

it's hard to be inspired when you can only play 8 notes on a guitar (minus solo parts that sound the same). i first picked up the guitar in school in year 8...when i was 13? i learnt the basics from there (and i've never moved past that stage ever since). a few weeks after starting, i remember buying a kapok from pearl point. it was RM 46, and it's still here with me today, sans any strings or tuning mechanisms. it's just a barren black shell, which looks quite imposing, in a way. who knew that the chinese could make such beautiful, cheap creations?

a few months later, for my birthday, my mother bought me my first, and only, electric guitar...a yamaha EG-303 that's since been under the custody of the masterful surprise. however, i've borrowed it from him, and it now rests here, in its case, along with the crate amp that came along with it (it was a guitar + case + amp set).

later, in laos, i bought a cheap guitar to keep myself entertained. it has since vanished. i honestly don't know what's happened to it. after a few more years, i swapped my electric yamaha for justin's acoustic classical yamaha. i did what everyone would do in that instance: get rid of the nylon strings and proceed to restring the whole thing with steel strings. very painful, but really, you gotta bleed for your art, no?

later, in brazil, i bought a classical guitar and decided not to give it a full-steel treatment. it could also have been because i could only point and make strange grunts in my purchasing decisions coz i wasn't too keen on learning portuguese. whatever works. my father had brought that guitar back and it also sits here, in my room.

recently, i'd borrowed an electric stony off a neighbourhood friend. and that also sits here in the room, against the window, on the far end of the couch.

i have four guitars in my room, none of them excessively expensive. none of them have anything in common aside from the obvious. and they're quite wasted on me.

a few days back, paolo was talking to me online about visiting one of the troubadour acoustic/indie gigs that've been springing up around kl over the last 2 years. he plans to perform at one of them in the near future, as do i. the problem being is: i need a backing guitarist. strike that. obviously, mr. gomes relishes the chance to see me fumble my way silly onstage.

now, in the tai catalogue, there're a few songs that're actually stageworthy. and undoubtedly, i'm going to write a few more happy singalongs about lost loves and gaining weight and baldness, as well as my current course in heading towards a quarterlife crisis. but i can't go very far because the songs that i hear in my head need a full band. and that's not going to happen much, unless i use my mouth to mimick instruments (i've done it before and the results were....unsatisfactory).

which either means i give up now or try to make my fingers bleed even more. i suppose that the world could use one more whiney song about the complications of eating cereal and then sandwich ham.

speaking of which, i've restocked my fridge of sandwich ham and bacon. i am complete, once again. friday has popped its head up. the weekend is around the corner and i still haven't started on the accounting assignment yet. my life juices ebb away from me ever so slowly.

there's absolutely nothing to do now. my efforts in recording a song earlier with lines about "procrastination" and "playstation education" have been unfruitful. i've got a backing track laid down but i'm just lost for words. not a writer's block...more of me not really being bothered to try to etch my mark upon the world of sad, lonely troubadour-ism.

damn you, gomes! damn you!