Looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Last year when Harvey Robinson, aka Hillbilly, had a hard time leaving the shop, all the tools ended up in the pawn shop, and well, that just kind of took the wind out of our sails. I mean, it was such an amazing feat to get a new floor in the big room, but when he took over, and smoked like a chimney, and almost immediately filled the room up with crap he pulled in from Monty’s Pawn Shop (our neighbor to the west) garbage pile, it just kind of hurt. It was so far off topic, and somehow after all of it, we just couldn’t deal with the whole damn place. It took the better part of a year to get our courage back and stop whining about it all.

But when I woke up all mean from the bourbon I drank during the New Years Eve party, I said to myself, “I’m gonna go get rid of a bunch of crap this year.”  And so the ebay listing started, the craigslists postings went off the hook. And then I started some general demolition of my own. I can say with confidence that I can extract the metal out of a piano, save the cool parts, and get the rest ready for the dump in, well, in a while. Like half a day. Or a whole day. You can work on one, till you get stuck, you can work on another till you get stuck, and then the old stuck doesn’t seem so hard.  And you volley back and forth until you finally get somewhere. Here is a pretty picture I took after I had removed all the tuning pegs from a piano:

Piano strings busted in the sunlight

Piano strings busted in the sunlight

It is a peaceful thing I realize. I had gone after a piano with force and a mallet, and I realized I just hurt myself, and ok, I hurt my friend Sam who had come over to help me. We were chillin’, with our sledgehammers, and I gave one hard whack on the side of the piano, and the whole body of the piano kind of jumped up and landed on her big toe. So she is now going to lose that toenail, and I’m going to have to live with that. It isn’t easy being the head piano demolisher in Hot Springs.

My friends Jonathon and Debbie came by and grabbed a few pianos. A chiropractor in town traded me some back crackin’ for a grand piano body that he will use as a planter. It has been a serious community effort.

The jumping piano, left right where it was, after the toenail injury.

The jumping piano, left right where it was, after the toenail injury.

I always wanted curly hair!!!

I always wanted curly hair!!!

 

 

Piano rolls on Ebay, old amps on Craigslist, beautiful piano harps just because you stopped by at the right time and I had it out, and you helped me lay a super heavy piano on its back….and am I glad I got some real long johns last fall.

I see a desk.

I see a desk.

 

organ desk

I see another desk.

 

Stuff! Stuff!

The layout on this blog is getting out of control, and I’m going to reveal that I don’t really know how to insert photos properly, so I’ll just pretend that I am done rambling on. The point here, to summarize, is lots of stuff is gone, and lots more stuff needs to go. I don’t want to die a hoarder.

Lead. This makes my OCD flare up

Lead. This makes my OCD flare up

 

 

I see mental illness