White Hats …

This afternoon I walked into Twin Town Guitars to do my annual purchasing of new strings for my acoustic guitar. From previous experience, I know that Twin Town is easily the friendliest, most non-threatening guitar store I've ever been in; but after years of being in guitar stores, the usual trepidation stuck with me. Those of you who have done time in guitar stores know what I mean: If you dare strum a few chords on a display model to see how it sounds, you get some Steve Vai wannabe across the room from you wowing you with the latest, greatest flash guitar moves or Tasty Licks. (Back in my early days as aspiring guitarist, guitar-shop standards were Van Halen’s “Eruption” or Kansas’s “Dust in the Wind” – yes, sadly the “No Stairway” bit in Wayne’s World is true.) Then you have to deal with a smarmy, often mustachioed fret-master trying to sell you a guitar … most times you swear you’d rather spend your time on a used-car parking lot.

Twin Town is a completely different experience. For instance, a few years back I was buying strings and said “the cheaper the better” to the guy behind the counter thinking I’d get a dirty look; he just smiled a knowing grin and said “of course!” I can never remember which exactly which strings my acoustic uses (I only play the thing occasionally – usually as relaxation while in front of the tube) except that they are “lights.” This year I remembered previously buying GHS Lights, so I strolled into the store and asked for those. But they were out. No problem – the dude asked me a few questions about my guitar and what kind of sound I liked. He asked what brand of guitar mine was and I had to think about if for a few seconds. I was about to say “Martin” and then remembered that those are the Cadillac of acoustic guitars. (I tell guitar-playing friends that “I own a Martin guitar … coffee mug.”) “Um, Mitchell,” I said, finally recalling my little scrappy gem of a Korean-made guitar I bought back in ’89 for $135. (Note: No Mitchell guitar site to link to that I can find – and no, I don’t own a Bil Mitchell.) Still expecting to get laughed out of the store, the guy just nodded and asked a few more questions. I ‘fessed up that I didn’t know much about my own guitar and he seemed cool with it. At some point I said: “'Uh, it's closer to the color of this one here rather than that one up on the wall ... I'm pretty sure ... yeah." He nodded and guided me along.

So I proceeded to buy a pack of D’Addario Lights that only cost six dollars and am amazed that the man spent that amount of time with me for six bucks. He looked me in the eye as we completed the transaction, tapped the strings packet on the counter, and said: “These are great strings – have a nice day.” Sweet! Twin Town, you’re the tops – see ya next year.


… And Black Ones

While crossing Lyndale on the way home from Twin Town, I nearly got run over by some crew-cut psychopath driving a Minneapolis Park Police truck. He was in a big hurry – I’m guessing to:

1) See a re-run of Cops on cable, or
2) Check out the hot bikini action at Lake Calhoun, or
3) Get to AnnaMarie’s bakery before they closed.

I’m still not sure what the Park Police does – I’ve always assumed they were somewhere between rent-a-cops and real ones – or if they are strapped with guns or billy clubs, so I called him “DICK!” but hedged my bet by yelling it a little too late.