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Apologies ahead of time if this gets long winded, the story is very important to the concept of the guitar however.
When I was 17 I was sent to rehab (Billy Gibbons was my roommate!) and after about a week I met a very awesome woman named Joni. She was 10 years my elder and married, very VERY beautiful and we connected almost immediately. I had a rather abusive childhood and as I grew older I was on a path to self destuction, but after meeting Joni and listening to her story I was in shock that someone could go through such things and still be walking the earth and have an incredible personality.
We kept in touch in the years after I left the facility and helped each out other long distance through various trials in life. As my first marriage was coming close to implosion and me being out of work she happened to fall right back in my life at the time when I was almost at the end of my rope. She had a line on a friend who was in need of help, he had a contract to record several commercials, stingers and other various boring crap, but had injured his hand bad enough that he needed to hire out the guitar work. I sent her a demo and got the gig, however, I had no place to stay as they were located in another state. It was agreed that I could stay with her, her husband and new born son while I did the gig over the course of several months.
In the meantime I needed more money, and she helped me there my getting a job at the local zoo where she worked as a zoo-keeper. Joni was FASCINATED by tigers, and it rubbed off on me rather quickly. Even though I was not allowed to be in contact with the animals, she snuck me into the inner cage where this monster of a female white bengal was sleeping and let me pet her, and showed me how they "purr". It's not quite like your common house cat, it's more like a wave of labored breathing, it was quite a surreal experience to say the least.
As my marriage finally came to an abrupt close (some dude answers my phone!), I had to hit the road for an extended period of time to deal with it. As I left, she went to her car and grabbed a little stuffed bunny and placed it on my dashboard looking out over the road. She said that as long as I had that bunny watching out for me I would be ok on the road.
About a week after I was back home dealing with all the bullshit, I get a call from Joni's sister. Joni, her husband and little baby slid off the road and hit a utilty pole head on, the baby was the only survivor.
Needless to say, at almost 16 years now I still have that little bunny on my dashboard. I've been through a dozen cars since then, and the butt of a many of jokes about it, but the little dude has never let me down.
Onto the concept of the guitar, my idea is a Ghost/Spirit Bengal.
Why not a regular white bengal? People always mistake them for a zebra and it doesn't really have the meaning I'm hoping for. I've got a couple of bengal guitars, but not a fitting tribute to someone that meant so much.
I'm thinking of combining something like this:
with this :
If even possible to have the tiger stripes even be less pronounced, ie, more "ghosted".
And to really make it for only me, if possible I would love to have something she wrote to me when I left rehab across the top horn, facing me, where only I can see it as I'm playing. If it could even be done from a copy, like this scan and in her script would be fucking awesome, and mean the world to me :
I guess the whole idea is that I can imagine her in the after-life walking with her (and now mine) favorite animal, and this would be some connection to that. I know it may sound silly to alot of people, and I understand this isn't a usual concept, it's not very intricate, or hardcore demons and shit or anything like that, but there are certain people that come into others lives, sometimes for a short amount of time, that make such a huge impact that it's hard not to wonder if that was part of their purpose on this earth while they were here.
Mike you're an awesome dude for doing this, and either way I'm determined to get this concept on a guitar, if I'm not chosen please let me know if you are willing do this job for me and shoot me a quote. I have a couple of imports hanging around that this would look great on, in my opinion.
As an aside, for those that read the story :
The family contacted me a few years back and asked me if I would be willing to visit their son who was very interested in taking up guitar (his dad was also played and he inherited his guitars). I agreed and spent a couple of weeks with him and gave him lessons while I was there. We spent most of our time playing guitar as he didn't want to talk to much about what happened, so I went with the flow. Fast forward a year and the kid is amazing! At true natural if there ever was one, sadly I lost contact after that, but I know he must be out there shredding the crap out of an old Fender!
When I was 17 I was sent to rehab (Billy Gibbons was my roommate!) and after about a week I met a very awesome woman named Joni. She was 10 years my elder and married, very VERY beautiful and we connected almost immediately. I had a rather abusive childhood and as I grew older I was on a path to self destuction, but after meeting Joni and listening to her story I was in shock that someone could go through such things and still be walking the earth and have an incredible personality.
We kept in touch in the years after I left the facility and helped each out other long distance through various trials in life. As my first marriage was coming close to implosion and me being out of work she happened to fall right back in my life at the time when I was almost at the end of my rope. She had a line on a friend who was in need of help, he had a contract to record several commercials, stingers and other various boring crap, but had injured his hand bad enough that he needed to hire out the guitar work. I sent her a demo and got the gig, however, I had no place to stay as they were located in another state. It was agreed that I could stay with her, her husband and new born son while I did the gig over the course of several months.
In the meantime I needed more money, and she helped me there my getting a job at the local zoo where she worked as a zoo-keeper. Joni was FASCINATED by tigers, and it rubbed off on me rather quickly. Even though I was not allowed to be in contact with the animals, she snuck me into the inner cage where this monster of a female white bengal was sleeping and let me pet her, and showed me how they "purr". It's not quite like your common house cat, it's more like a wave of labored breathing, it was quite a surreal experience to say the least.
As my marriage finally came to an abrupt close (some dude answers my phone!), I had to hit the road for an extended period of time to deal with it. As I left, she went to her car and grabbed a little stuffed bunny and placed it on my dashboard looking out over the road. She said that as long as I had that bunny watching out for me I would be ok on the road.
About a week after I was back home dealing with all the bullshit, I get a call from Joni's sister. Joni, her husband and little baby slid off the road and hit a utilty pole head on, the baby was the only survivor.
Needless to say, at almost 16 years now I still have that little bunny on my dashboard. I've been through a dozen cars since then, and the butt of a many of jokes about it, but the little dude has never let me down.
Onto the concept of the guitar, my idea is a Ghost/Spirit Bengal.
Why not a regular white bengal? People always mistake them for a zebra and it doesn't really have the meaning I'm hoping for. I've got a couple of bengal guitars, but not a fitting tribute to someone that meant so much.
I'm thinking of combining something like this:
with this :
If even possible to have the tiger stripes even be less pronounced, ie, more "ghosted".
And to really make it for only me, if possible I would love to have something she wrote to me when I left rehab across the top horn, facing me, where only I can see it as I'm playing. If it could even be done from a copy, like this scan and in her script would be fucking awesome, and mean the world to me :
I guess the whole idea is that I can imagine her in the after-life walking with her (and now mine) favorite animal, and this would be some connection to that. I know it may sound silly to alot of people, and I understand this isn't a usual concept, it's not very intricate, or hardcore demons and shit or anything like that, but there are certain people that come into others lives, sometimes for a short amount of time, that make such a huge impact that it's hard not to wonder if that was part of their purpose on this earth while they were here.
Mike you're an awesome dude for doing this, and either way I'm determined to get this concept on a guitar, if I'm not chosen please let me know if you are willing do this job for me and shoot me a quote. I have a couple of imports hanging around that this would look great on, in my opinion.
As an aside, for those that read the story :
The family contacted me a few years back and asked me if I would be willing to visit their son who was very interested in taking up guitar (his dad was also played and he inherited his guitars). I agreed and spent a couple of weeks with him and gave him lessons while I was there. We spent most of our time playing guitar as he didn't want to talk to much about what happened, so I went with the flow. Fast forward a year and the kid is amazing! At true natural if there ever was one, sadly I lost contact after that, but I know he must be out there shredding the crap out of an old Fender!
More importantly, he respected that music and the guitar was important to me…something I wish my wife and in-laws would do more. And, if my son so chooses (and his mother allows it!), it’ll be something he can think about when he picks up these guitars.
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