"You're Gonna Get Yours"

People in my family know people—or they know people who know people.

For example, my older brother does quite a bit of entertainment writing and can secure everything from backstage passes to Disney tickets with a quick phone call. So, imagine my surprise when a piece of “insider” swag was delivered to my mailbox and my brother wasn’t involved.

Put another way—the banjo saga has taken an interesting and unexpected twist.

My father-in-law, ever the creative thinker, called in a favor and delivered one of the more unique gifts I’ve ever received. His company, a finishing (printing/laminating/binding/etc.) firm recently did some rush order work for none other than Mr. Roy Clark—the man I credit for originally interesting me in the banjo back when I was still losing baby teeth and wanting to be a “CHiPs man” when I grew up.

One called-in favor later and several days ago, I received a surprise manila envelope from Roy Clark Productions. Inside was an 8”x10” photo of Clark with the following inscription:

To Carter
Thanks for the kind words posted on your blog
Keep on pickin’
Happy Birthday
Your Friend,
Roy Clark

I was dumbfounded, and it took me awhile to believe that this was really from Clark and not from one of my scheming friends or family members.

Stacey had to fill in the back story for me—some of which I’ve recapped above—but she also said that, yes, Roy Clark had read my blog. I’m not sure if he interpreted my comments about him as serious or insulting (I tend to come off as a condescending jerk to those who don’t know me—and even to those who do), but I will say that anyone who thinks merely of Roy Clark as “that rube from the redneck show” hasn’t heard him play any of the instruments in his repertoire. Check the YouTubes for proof—underappreciated isn’t the word. The dude can play his tail off, and he’s ripe for a Rick Rubin-styled, Johnny Cash-esque makeover if I do say so myself.

The autographed picture was very much appreciated, but it was more important to know that perhaps I offered a few moments of entertainment to a man who has certainly offered me plenty (Saaaalute). In addition, it was the result of a kind gesture based on something that I said I liked—almost in passing.

By the way, have I mentioned how much I like $100 bills?

"Beliefs and Obsessions"

I have an obsessive personality. When I decide that I NEED something—regardless of whether I truly need it or not (and usually, I don’t)—I can think of little else. Probably the worst thing to happen to me as a kid was receiving my older brother’s hand-me-down Musician’s Friend catalogs.

Contained within these pages were images of instruments, amplifiers and accessories so far out of my price range that they might as well have cost a million bucks. That didn’t stop my futile wish-listing, though. After trying to decide which guitar in the whole catalog that I’d pick, if given a choice between any of them—I foolishly chose the Steve Vai Jem 7V, complete with carved handle...ugh—I began to stare at the pages of drumsets.

I was convinced that I had to have a drumset, even though I’d not long since bought my first electric guitar—a D-grade Strat copy from Japan. I began poring over the images of drumsets, and they even began creeping into my dreams. I even went so far as to make a kit of my own out of differently sized boxes and using skateboard rails as sticks and pie tins as cymbals. After a few aborted attempts to craft a homemade bass drum pedal, and growing increasingly frustrated that the rails constantly pierced the box tops, I gave up. It was surely an unrecognized sign of the mania that would follow me into adulthood.

So, it should come as no surprise that I continue to find objects over which to obsess. The latest object of my desire? A banjo. Yes. A banjo.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted a banjo, though never enough to go out and actually buy one. I’m pretty sure—and I can’t believe I’m admitting this—that I can trace this desire back to the Hee Haw episodes I’d watch on Saturday nights. Between Stringbean, Grandpa Jones and Roy Clark, I thought that the banjo looked like a lot of fun, and I’ve always liked bluegrass music on some level. But, if it was a trip to see Alison Krauss & Union Station in 2004 that reignited my interest in the banjo, it was a chance to see The Avett Brothers in early November that finally sent me over the edge.

For the last two months, I have been banjo-crazy, and my poor wife has been suffering just as much as I have, though if only for having to put up with me. I’ve ordered catalogs, devoured retail Web sites, watched countless YouTube videos and even joined a couple of banjo-themed forums. I’ll not even speak about the dreams I was having, or the cardboard banjo that Stacey and Connor made me as a joke... I hope.

At Christmas, however, my obsessing over owning a banjo finally ended when my mom stepped up and gave me a banjo to call my own–although I had picked it out and ordered it myself and shipped it to her house several weeks before Christmas, which nearly killed me. She was footing the bill, which meant I had to wait, but it was more than worth it.

Now how do I play this damn thing?

Where to start with this picture? How about the super awesome stars-n-stripes guitar? How about Ernest Borgnine in the background? How about the fact that both Buck Owens AND Roy Clark were in the same place and the Hee Haw set didn't explode from an overdose of awesomeness?!