Posing With Guitar Quotes

Fat green frogs, the eternally grinning type destined to be shellacked into bizarre poses while wearing mariachi hats and holding toy trumpets and guitars and then sold in tourist traps all over Mexico, jostled lazily in the dappled shadows.

Daniel." He looked up. "El-la.I was wondering if you'd catch me." He offered me a cigarette. I gave him a shame-on-you look;he grinned. "This is your band?" I asked. Visible piercings aside, no one looked like that went by the name Ax. "Nope,but I go to school with the lead's sister. Regular guy got food poisoning at a Christmas party last night.I've played with them before." "Weddings?" It wasn't quite how I'd pictured him performing. "Usually clubs, but the last one was a bar mitzvah. Musicians have to eat, too," he added, a little sharply. "Sorry." I wanted to wave the smoke away, but figured that might be adding insult to inury. "I thought you played the guitar." "Guitar, piano, a little violin, but badly, and I'll have to garrote you ith one of the strings if you tell anyone." That's the thing about Daniel. Obviously-the violin being a case in point-I don't know him very well,but he seems to hold a grudge for even less time than Frankie. "Secret's safe with me." He shrugged, telling me he didn't really care. Then, "Nice dress." "Just when I start liking you a litte.." He made his vampire-boy face. I could see why it usually worked. "You like me,Ella. Wanna do something when this is over?" "Tempting," I said. "No, I mean that. But no,thanks. I'm not at my best these days." "You're good," he said quietly, blowing out a stream of smoke. "You'll be fine." "Yeah." I shivered. It was bitter outside. "I should go in." "You should." The cold didn't seem to be bothering him at all, and he wasn't even wearing a jacket over his white dress shirt. I turned to go. "Oh, I think I figured it out, by the way." "Figured out what?" "The question.The one everyone should ask before getting involved with someone. Not 'Will he-slash-she make me happy?' but 'Does it bring out the best in me,being with him?'" "Him-slash-her," Daniel corrected, clearly amused. Then, "Nope. No way. Wasn't me who posed the question to you, Marino.I would never be so Emo." "Of course not.But it was one smart boy." I waved. "Hug Frankie for me." "Will do. Hey.Any requests for the band?" "'Don't Stop Believin'," I shot back. He rolled his eyes. "I'm curious, in that last song-are the words really 'I cut my chest wide open'?" "Yup.Followed by, "They come and watch us bleed.Is it art like I was hoping now?" Avett Brothers. Too gruesome for you?" "You have no idea," I told him. How much I get it.

With his child passed out on the couch, after arrests and drunk tanks and hospitalizations, Lynch, the undertaker and poet and essayist, looked at his dear addicted son with sad but lucid resignation, and he wrote: “I want to remember him the way he was, that bright and beaming boy with the blue eyes and the freckles in the photos, holding the walleye on his grandfather’s dock, or dressed in his first suit for his sister’s grade-school graduation, or sucking his thumb while drawing at the kitchen counter, or playing his first guitar, or posing with the brothers from down the block on his first day of school.

Hi, Bruce,’ said Uzma. ‘Hello,’ Bruce replied. ‘Would it be possible to have a photo taken?’ she asked. ‘Sure, we can do that!’ he replied, smiling broadly. I took the photograph. Then it was my turn. He signed my book and bandanna and posed for another photograph. Just as I was about to let the next fan have their moment in the sun I turned to Springsteen and said, ‘Bruce. Three words: “Point Blank”, acoustic’ The following night I was sitting in the Sheffield Arena with Amolak and my sister. It was 16 April 1993 and we were in the front block ten or fifteen rows from the stage. Uzma was having the time of her life. It was her first Springsteen concert and it was so wonderful to see her having so much fun. Springsteen had just finished singing ‘Badlands’ when he requested an acoustic guitar and told the audience: ‘A fella came up to me and asked for this song. I don't know if he's out there tonight, but if he is, this is for you.’ He began slowly strumming the acoustic guitar before singing, ‘Do you still say your prayers darling, before you go to bed at night? Praying that tomorrow everything will be all right?’ He was singing ‘Point Blank’. I doubled up, buried my face in my hands and wept. Amolak hugged me. ‘Point Blank’ was one of my favourite songs. I never imagined I would hear it sung acoustically. The fact that Springsteen had remembered my request and then decided to actually listen to my suggestion was overwhelming. As I continued to cry uncontrollably and as Bruce Springsteen continued to sing ‘Point Blank’, Amolak said to me: ‘You see, buddy, dreams do come true.’ *

Oh, they’ll catch them,” said Walters. “Catch ’em? Catch ’em?” Porter was astounded. “You out of your fuckin mind? They’ll catch ’em, all right, and give ’em a big party and a medal.” “Yeah. The whole town planning a parade,” said Nero. “They got to catch ’em.” “So they catch ’em. You think they’ll get any time? Not on your life!” “How can they not give ’em time?” Walters’ voice was high and tight. “How? Just don’t, that’s how.” Porter fidgeted with his watch chain. “But everybody knows about it now. It’s all over. Everywhere. The law is the law.” “You wanna bet? This is sure money!” “You stupid, man. Real stupid. Ain’t no law for no colored man except the one sends him to the chair,” said Guitar. “They say Till had a knife,” Freddie said. “They always say that. He could of had a wad of bubble gum, they’d swear it was a hand grenade.” “I still say he shoulda kept his mouth shut,” said Freddie. “You should keep yours shut,” Guitar told him. “Hey, man!” Again Freddie felt the threat. “South’s bad,” Porter said. “Bad. Don’t nothing change in the good old U.S. of A. Bet his daddy got his balls busted off in the Pacific somewhere.” “If they ain’t busted already, them crackers will see to it. Remember them soldiers in 1918?” “Ooooo. Don’t bring all that up….” The men began to trade tales of atrocities, first stories they had heard, then those they’d witnessed, and finally the things that had happened to themselves. A litany of personal humiliation, outrage, and anger turned sicklelike back to themselves as humor. They laughed then, uproariously, about the speed with which they had run, the pose they had assumed, the ruse they had invented to escape or decrease some threat to their manliness, their humanness. All but Empire State, who stood, broom in hand and drop-lipped, with the expression of a very intelligent ten-year-old.

I'm in a group that puts up statues in Austin, and our most recent work was a bronze Willie, holding Trigger, that now graces the entry to the Austin City Limits studio. I got to pose for that statue, holding a Martin guitar of the same model, N-20. Clete Shields, of Philadelphia, was our sculptor. In 2011, when the statue was cast and delivered to Austin, we covered it with a parachute and stored it in a movie studio until it could be installed. One night, Willie came by for a private unveiling. He was gracious but a little overwhelmed as he exchanged a long look with himself. Bill Wittliff, who is on our committee, explained that what we liked about this piece was its engagement with the audience. "People will come to you," he said. "Little children will touch your knee and seek your counsel." "Do what I say and not what I do," Willie advised.