Bleeding all over my guitar

Left work about six hours early today to rush home and ROCK! But that bastard Eric Clapton almost killed me.

Claption's unplugged version of Old Love contains one of the most passionate solos he's ever done, at least according to Wolf Marshall, author of Eric Clapton, from the album "Eric Clapton Unplugged": A step-by-step breakdown of his acoustic guitar style and technique.

I borrowed the book today from my co-worker Agustin. We're thinking about getting together someday and jammin' out some slow hand-- just a couple of guys, cuttin' up our fingers on the smoky blues-rock ballads spewing from our guitar holes. Maybe a couple beers, maybe not.

Not that I really like Clapton. According to the old lady, he's overrated. I never developed any specific opinions about the man's work myself, but he certainly never turned my crank. I just assumed that whatever the old lady was talking about was the reason I felt the way I did about him. But one thing's for sure now that wasn't before: I do not think Clapton's overrated, not after what I suffered today.

I lost several hours -- even with Wolf Marshall's guidance -- pounding my fingers on the razor-sharp strings until the tips became tender and possibly damaged. Midway through the day, I broke for an hour to regroup. I had barely learned the arrangement, and yet plunged like a fool into the solo. At last count, I had a tenuous grip on three and a half bars of the solo's twenty-four. And those three still need considerable work before they can be released to the public. The strings of my guitar will have to be replaced soon. The stress was too much for them.

At this rate, I'll have memorized the basic form of the solo in eight days -- not counting an additional week to rehearse the entire song. But there's no way I could continue splitting from the job six hours early for the next eight days. There are bills to pay. The old lady would be alarmed if she found out I had played hooky on 46 hours of paying work. Fact is, mastering Old love is going to take a lot of time and a lot of maddening concentration.

It might be that I never liked Clapton because I knew instinctively that he was a thousand times the guitarist I would ever be. Could be I just knew that if I listened closely, I'd become instantly hypnotized by even his most boring songs.

The shame of it is I still don't like Clapton that much. I'm only doing this because Agustin is infatuated with the guy. But Clapton is not overrated. Anyone who says otherwise is ignorant and wrong.

Jk.