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The Frankenstrat

Instantly recognizable, lovingly emulated, crassly copied.

It's safe to say that the Frankenstrat is the most famous single guitar in the world. Yeah Clapton had The Fool; Jimi had that poor Strat at Monterey; Prince had a bunch of really cool guitars; Angus and his SGs are forever associated with one another; maybe SRV's "Number One" could give the Frankie a run for the money.

Frankie 1 - 1975

The Frankenstrat is like the ship of Theseus (or the Vision): over its life it was changed, repainted, taken apart, reassembled, until practically no original piece was left from the monochrome thing that Eddie cobbled together in 1975. 

And, as I looked into it, the Frankenstrat is the center of an almost Kabbalistic level of interpretation, reconstruction, and historiography.

Seriously. Some people have an obsession with this guitar that borders  on the unhealthy. 

There's a guy who checked VH tour schedule against the LA area weather reports to try and figure out what day EXACTLY did Eddie add the red to the previously black and white guitar. He'll tell you it wasn't March 26th 1978 !!! It wasn't rainy that day and Eddie said he painted it on a day with rain. 

On Ebay, dudes sell packages of reliced hardware (no - does not mean 'had lice added to it again' but to turn into a relic ie. stuff they've rusted and dipped into muriatic acid to age to make look 'authentic') so when you build a replica, you can have everything just like, well, a version of the guitar at some point.

People build replica Frankies and burn down cigarettes on the headstock between the tuners to get 'authentic' scorch marks. I saw one guy on a forum ask what brand of cigarettes Eddie smoked so he could nail that detail too. Considering EVH died of a recurrence of throat cancer, maybe we should not celebrate that aspect....

The best are the people who will sell you a 1971 quarter (gotta be from the Denver mint, man, none of that Philly shit)  so you can shim it under your whammy bar just like Eddie did. How much will that quarter set you back? Just $13 before shipping.

When I was deep in my model plane building obsession, I really did sweat the details and tried to make the most spot-on replicas I could. There was one F-16 in particular that on top of a $40 kit I bought aftermarket decals for another $20 and an in depth history of the Israeli Defense Force that set me back another $60 so that I could make that sucker perfect. Dropped like $120 on that hunk of plastic all told.

As I thought about it, I don't want an exact replica of the Frankie - for one thing, you can just buy those which would be the cheaper faster easier option honestly - if you bought all the same hardware, you'd wind up spending just about as much AND have to do all the work AND probably (nah assuredly)  not put it together as well as a luthier.

So, I'm not gonna yuck anybody's yum. 

You want to get the exact same Schwinn bicycle paint that Eddie used for your loving replica? Go nuts (though you're out of luck since they don't make that shade anymore - don't ask me why I know this). 

You want to throw in the same type of pickup in the neck position that Eddie himself couldn't figure out how to wire up but left in anyway just to fuck with people? You do you.

So the idea is, find a cheap guitar that plays ok, take it all apart and give it a paint job that's an homage to EVH. Throw away shitty parts and get proper replacements (not boutique, but nice solid pickups, real pots, etc) and then add some details (functional and otherwise) that I don't have on my two main guitars. 

Found a likely subject on the Honolulu Craigslist. $200 and a trip to Pearl City later, let me introduce you to the victim:

NEXT: Disassembly and paint prep

On this day

Important day, March 23. 

 On this day 79 years ago my dad was born. Called him up to wish him a happy birthday before I went down to the basement to do emails and next fiscal year's budget, since I don't go into work to, you know, work now. Socially distanced and unable to have a real get-together way over there in Arizona, my dad's birthday pretty much consisted of going to Costco and getting a mocha freeze. 

Fortunately, my dad appreciates the simple things in life: he even gave me another phone call later in the day to let me know that he was enjoying that sweet chocolaty coffee goodness. 

But more germane to this blog post is that on this day 42 years ago Van Halen II was released. 

I've been playing a lot of guitar during the COVID work from home regime, way more than I had in probably 30 years and VH II has been in very heavy rotation during the lockdown / pandemic. Which is interesting (at least to me) because I had never really listened to it very much. It came out before I had started listening to anything but pop and disco music and long before I ever touched a guitar.

 

Fair Warning has always been the VH album for me. It was dark, moody, no cover songs....definitely the least pop record of all the Dave albums (apparently there were a couple singers after DLR left....hmm...who knew?). 

But after Eddie died (and my coworker... and Chadwick Boseman....  and my dog... and those half a million Americans and untold others around the world - just fuck 2020 already), I started going back through the VH catalogue and listening to the albums that I hadn't paid as much attention to.

And man, VH II is a blast. 

Sure it has a cover but I really like their take on "You're No Good" (plus there's that Tucson / Linda Ronstadt connection) and yeah, "Dance The Night Away" is likely to induce a diabetic shock but goddamn is it catchy (Jacob says it's his favorite VH song...and he's heard a lot these past few months).  "Somebody Get Me a Doctor", "Outta Love Again", and  "Light Up the Sky" are just badass rock songs and "Beautiful Girls" is (chef's kiss) the perfect self-deprecating goofy-ass Dave song all driven by that sick RIFF. And if you spend some time (and have a delay and a chorus) "Women In Love" is fun too.

FLASHBACK

I first started playing guitar in the summer of 1986. Within a week I was playing hours a day. By the fall I somehow convinced a friend at college to let me play one song with their band in the lobby of our dorm (eternal thanks, Jimmy Bi). 

First public musical performance? 

My take on the VH cover of "You Really Got Me".  At that point the VH version of the song had only been out about 8 years, which makes my head spin now. 

I can still picture it all these years later. Wore a shirt with a Swiss flag on it and blue medical scrub pants....I guess I thought that was the most EVH outfit available to me.

I was terrible, timing was horrendous, basically sounded like I had only been playing for a couple months (well, true) but man was it fun. 

In those early days, I would go through four guitarists in a sort of cycle, spend a couple weeks on each, learning songs, and trying to get those sounds. 

Angus....Eddie....Jimi....Stevie Ray....rinse and repeat. For years. Years. 

I played along with the albums and tried to cop their sounds with the only guitar that I had.

Sure, I listened to others and loved to learn and play Zeppelin and the Clash and Clapton and Jeff Beck and Redd Kross and the Fluid and Velvet Underground and on and on, but those were the four that I would return to again and again.

But Eddie's stuff was always beyond reach....my guitar didn't have a tremolo so couldn't do all the crazy dive bombs, didn't have money for pedals, but more importantly I just couldn't muster the discipline to really nail the hardest fastest stuff. Yeah, I could fake it...play a few measures of recognizable parts of "Eruption" (natch) or the main riffs of "Panama" or "Hot For Teacher" or "Unchained" but note for note? No way.

That was fine, there was always AC/DC - no effects required, just guitar and loudness....

FLASHFORWARD

Not a poor college student anymore and also a bit more open-minded, I started to collect effect pedals. By the time COVID hit I had a board with a wah, flanger, phaser, delay, overdrive, distortion, a couple stunt pedals that make your guitar sound like organs and synthesizes (omfg they are so much fun), a looper, a switcher to keep them all working together, and even a fricking CHORUS (80's me would've been SO disappointed). Also by now I had a Strat (which I got in the mid 90's) so the Jimi and Stevie sounds were a bit easier to try and emulate. Plus a couple amps to play all those pedals in stereo. Super fun.

I'd given five instruments to Lily and Jacob (this is the Lilyandjacoblog - had to work them in here somehow) in the last 8 years (if you count basses, which some people do) but I had successfully resisted guitar acquisition syndrome for myself for decades. Actually had only ever bought myself guitars in Tucson, Arizona....

I had what I needed and all was well.

But since last October when Eddie died, I started to think....Frankenstrat....

I should totally build a Frankenstrat.....

TO BE CONTINUED

Nine years later.....

Second Obama administration.... Kim gets a new job.... first kid goes to high school.... Brad gets a new job (same place though)... Kim gets another new job... *trump*... second kid goes to high school.... first kid graduates high school and goes to college... global pandemic.... Sally Sparkle dies.... second kid applying to colleges...

The new faces of Bishop Museum

Jacob and Tutu spent a Friday afternoon in March walking around the Museum and pretending to have fun with all the cool stuff here. Not much acting required since we rock.

They were filming a commercial that will be running during the Merrie Monarch Festival starting tonight.



Jake got the full treatment with makeup and all....



Definitely cool to see Jake on tv whacking the air cannon that he helped prototype a couple years ago.

Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times Yes

Community is coming BACK! Lily and Jake were heartbroken when it went on hiatus. when I broke it to them and explained what hiatus was it was like announcing a death in the family - "I have some bad news you guys..."



OK. Now start watching the damn show everyone. Then DVR it and set it on auto repeat since the cable company probably tracks that kind of stuff and it'll get back to NBC somehow.


On another tv related note, we have just finished the third season of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'm so glad that I have kids of the PERFECT age and who ate the show up since I would've felt ridiculous watching it alone.

Amazing art, attention to detail, story arcs, sub plots, and moral dilemmas that you don't usually expect to be aimed at the 8-12 year old set.

Actually applauded and got a bit weepy during the last 4-part tie up the loose ends, climactic battle with bad guy, plus denouement episode.

The Honorable Cory Booker

Mayor of Newark responding to a reporters question about whether marriage equality should be put to a popular vote in the wake of its passage in the state legislature.



And that my friends is how a politician steps up and defends civil rights. Good to see public officials that call it like it is. Well done.

Donation sent.

Just Off the Workbench

Two recently finished planes. One old, one new.

First is an RAF Mosquito that disrupted a daytime Nazi rally as part of a three plane a nuisance raid. A black eye for the Germans but the raid cost the lives of the pilot and bombardier/navigator on this day in 1943.











Next is a F-15C from the 65th Aggressors squadron out of Nellis AFB, Nevada. The squadron is part of the Adversary Tactics Group and the planes are painted in (primarily) Russian camouflage schemes. In this case a SU-27 Flanker. This particular paint scheme is only a few months old. Haven't done an in flight model in a while. Think it turned out nice.













Geek out with all of the other pics at my Model Planes web album.

This is how it begins

Jake had a blast at the Lemonds' last weekend skating with his Kailua crew. Jake hadn't used his board since the xmas before last but it seems that the hook is now set. So after a quick trip to the skate shop, Jake's got new wheels, bearings, bushings, risers, and a Spitfire (non-RAF) helmet.

Uncle Dave even turned me on to a new (to me) style of board. The Carver. The closest thing to surfing out of the water I've ever done. Amazingly good fun.




For those of you who live in Leipzig and don't see waves, one word. Dude.

Jake was the only one in the family who didn't wind up on the ground in pain (it'll come though).

Dude addendum

Dave sent me a link with insane footage of the monster swell from last August.

It was big when it reached Hawai‘i.

When it hit Tahiti three days earlier it was, what some might say, gnarly. Really gnarly.


Check out Mpora Gear

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

What's making Lily happy?

Her eerily good, make up and mask free impression of a chimpanzee.

If you are a mirror and have been within a few feet of my daughter in the past few weeks, you already know this, but for nonreflective and unvitreous among us, here you are.

Two Words: Du ude !

A haiku for a glorious south swell:

Solid ten foot faces
Occasionally bigger
Go to work late dude

Not sure if this was actually a once in a decade swell as some media reports have said but it was (actually still is - supposed to hang around another day or two) a solid south shore summer swell.

A totally gorgeous Hawaiian summer day, light trades, mellow crowd of old dudes on longboards with the rare shortboarder/boogieboarder. Clean conditions. Mahalo mahalo mahalo.

I am a creature of habit and only surf two spots:
Under headhigh = Kewalo's
Headhigh and up = Big Left's

Big Left's will only break (with quality) a few times a year and man this was one of those lucky rare days.

About the same conditions that broke my previous board:


You know it's big when the Ala Wai Boat Harbor channel closes out:








Life is good.

New tattoo method

Pros: No needle (read: pain)

Cons: Munchies

No way

Unbelievable.

Here's an article from Midweek, an O‘ahu based lowbrow weekly (read: they publish Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly and local right wing nutzoids).

I can understand pandering to Republican homophobic idiots (triple redundancy I know) on political issues, but a VET WHO DOESN'T BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION?

This guy somehow graduated from veterinary school (same one as you Roger) without coming to grips with the fact that modern biology is based on the work of Charles Darwin. If you are looking for a vet to take care of your pet, you might want to check out his "thought" process.

I wouldn't trust this guy to open a childproof top and he's prescribing medicine for living creatures.

Dr indeed.

What is a crouton?

So I was thinking. Call me a splitter, but things need to fit in their categories. They simply must. Some examples.

Roast beef (or garden burger for the vegans who walk among us)= entree /meat
Mashed potatoes = side dish / starch
Green beans = vegetable
Bread = cereal / grain / baked good
Doughnut = pastry
Apple = fruit
Beer = beverage (and oh what a beverage)
Parsley = garnish
Mustard = condiment
Pepper = spice
Sage = herb
Ice cream = dessert
Pita chips = snack
Hummus = dip
Ranch dressing = dressing (duh)
Pickle = hmmmm, tough one....

So I ask again...what is a crouton? It's so much more than a simple baked good.

I suppose that bacon bits might be in need of a taxonomic home as well.

We need a new word!

Big Sad

Gene finally sold Rancho Regretto today and will be moving...well...who knows where but probably Phoenix (god - perhaps even Scottsdale - ugh).

Good luck to him and Alex - hope they find a dream house but definitely bummed that my room, MY ROOM won't be my room anymore. And all that stuff that I scratched into the foundation og the house as we built it, before I helped lay the tile will someday be found by somebody who isn;t related to me.....

I only lived for three years at old RR but lots of important stuff happened between sophomore and senior year of high school. I'll miss the wild animals, the remoteness, the amazing view, the far too large pool and hot tub, the desert...oh the desert.

Was hoping a lot of loud music, drums and guitar playing and booze might help but not so much.....

Maybe time for more loud music, drums, guitar and booze....definitely more booze.

Happy Father's Day

We've been without a grill for about 8 months. Certainly a luxury but hard to resist the siren call of grilled meat when summer rolls around.

Bought this and saw Toy Story 3 with the rest of the (Hawaii) Evans'. The meal and movie were top notch.

In case you're interested:

Flank Steak
Mix in a medium bowl: shoyu (soy sauce to you mainland haoles), red wine vinegar, garlic, ginger, olive oil, salt, pepper (and whtever else sounds good).

Put steak in gallon ziploc bag.

Smash bag, though not to the point of breakage.

Flip over.

Smash and flip every once and a while until you've finished a beer or two (no need to marinade if you beat up the steak occasionally for 20-30 or so).

Grill until it's cooked the way you like.

Serve with slices of toast.

Yum.

And I'm still considering if TS3 can possibly be as good as TS2 which I consider the best movie ever made....it's close. Fantastic Pixar goodness.

Latest

Just finished another P-38. Very pleased.

Gotta love those sharkmouth WWII fighters.

Thrilling

The Ma‘ema‘e A+ after school program just had their annual family fun night.

Lily stole the show with her zombi-licious Michael Jackson moves.






Jake was cool and let lily wear his leather jacket which completed the ensemble.

She most certainly does not get her dancing prowess from her old man. Shudder.

I've found a kindred soul in Stephen Fry. Great podcast btw.

Submariners

For years Charley has been telling us how cool the Atlantis submarine off of Waikiki is, and with the Boy Scout coupon book the price is totally awesome.



So we caught the tender by the Hilton Hawaiian and cruised out to meet the sub



Which was off in the middle of the ocean



Grandpa Gene looking sea worthy though highly charged with static electricity



Zach and Jake plotting their course



Up by the cockpit - note depth gauge at left. We did go a LITTLE deeper. Like down to 105' - way cool.

Saw a spotted eagle ray, some turtles, lots of fish. No sharks though.



An artificial reef down at the bottom. My fish pictures were pretty lame, but a really amazing experience. And now that Jake and I have season passes, one that we'll definitely do again.