The Motif:Guitar Picks

    From the time I was born, I have always been surrounded by music. Whether it is my music, my mom's students (she teaches piano), or even elevator music, I have always enjoyed its shadow like presence, rarely leaving me alone. I have always been intrigued by it, and how ti can produce such great emotion, whether in the form of new genres or fallen idols. As a kid, I had tried piano, but with my mom as a teacher, I always found and excuse to not play. The one instrument that has always seemed to find a way into my mind is the guitar. It has always fascinated me. It is truly full of endless possibilities. The great part is how it is an instrument that will always be "hip" because it is so adaptable. First there was the classical guitar, then later on we were given the electric guitar, equipped with pickups and effects to produce the sounds of generations, all of which were easily alterable. Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin in the late 60's and early 70's, Brian May of Queen in the 1980's, Kurt Cobain of Nirvana in the 90's, Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters since the 90's, and many many more.

    Back in 6th grade I got my first electric guitar. It was a dirty yellow Fender Squier (essentially a cheaper Stratocaster) that my mom bought with a tiny Fender amp for $200 at a garage sale. Then a few years went by until I began formally taking lessons. I had been recommended a teacher at Bananas at Large, a music store in downtown San Rafael, by a friend of mine.When my mom went to go schedule a lesson, we learned that he was not currently accepting new students. But all clouds have a silver lining, and in this instance, these was more lining than cloud. On her way out she met Miles, my current teacher. Miles is the son of Neil Schon, the guitarist for Journey, but you would never know it because of how down-to-earth he is. Miles is insanely good, I should point out. And I'm not just saying that from the perspective of someone who has never touched a guitar and thinks even the simplest riff sounds fantastic. No. Even from the perspective of somebody like Carlos Santana, he is good.

    So from that day he taught me the ropes, from riffs to scales to any song that I wanted to learn. It was really the perfect learning experience. It's interesting however, when it comes to learning. See we have a deal set up were I get an hour long lesson for the price of a half hour lesson and in return, my mom teaches him piano for half an hour. But see there are a couple different types of musicians. Miles and I, we play by ear. It's cool really, we sound it out, rather than learn by the book, and in my opinion it is much more fun because you can just hop into any song and get the idea. My mom however, plays by the book. She is fluent in the language of music. But she relies on the book so much that she really doesn't memorize any songs. So you can imagine lessons between them went smoothly. It was like putting out fire with paper. It doesn't work unless you REALLY know what your doing.

    But they managed to have worked around it. Since then I have been picking up guitars whenever there is one available and playing around with what I know, just ask Ben.  

    

      It's a funny feeling really. Walking into a restaurant with a group of friends, having a hell of a time, and just knowing that the employees are in the back drawing straws to find out who is going to have serve the group of teenagers. Well, they may as well be because well, we had a great time, but I don't think I can say the same for the waiter. In no particular order, we more or less de-moralized the waiter along with the overall job of being a waiter, made a fat mess, got into an argument over the tip that I'm pretty sure could be heard in Cambodia, which eventually settled at us jokingly (yet convincingly) saying that if we couldn't agree then we just wouldn't leave a tip at all (all of this happening with the waiter looming overhead), butted in and took over a "Happy Birthday" song, and probably pissed off a few people here and there.
    I should start by saying that we went to Outback Steakhouse, down in Marin City. We had decided on this after many weeks of my friend Peter Blanchard (not the one in the story below) and I talking about how we wish there was a place at Redhill, where we go for lunch at school, that sold ribs or something of the sort in a quick and efficient manner so we could have them for lunch (such as kebobs). But alas, there was nothing. So we looked at each other and immediately knew the only answer. Outback.

    So then the idea was set, we just needed to figure out a day. A glorious day in which we would go feast upon the delicious steak and ribs served with the fantastically-amazing barbecue sauce. We would call it, "Steak Night" which we may or not have gotten from the popular sitcom Scrubs. Nevertheless, it was a fantastic idea.

    But what if we could make it better. We could. Invite more people. that is where Jimmy Kramer and Gilbert Leonor came in. Gilbert, the king of all trolls, was their to enhance the experience because well, he doesnt care what people think about him. Many people claim the same, but Gilbert is really the only person who I know it as a fact. Jimmy came along for the fun of it. He makes things more fun just by being around.
    We eventually decided on a Friday, because well, it was the weekend and let's face it. It's Friday. So while we asked our parents for money and Peter was on the floor begging for use of the family car from his dad, we were waiting, knowing we were almost there.
    I may have forgotten to mention that it was tuesday. As you may be able to imagine, that was one of the longest weeks in all of human history. It couldn't have been longer if I had been locked in a basement without lights or food. Every class went by and all I could think about was the mind boggling sensation of an enormous plate of ribs, big enough to feed a horse, that I would finally be able to sink my teeth into when the holy time had finally come. On thursday night, I more or less began fasting to make sure that I would be able to eat anything and more importantly anything we ordered.
    Finally Friday came, and after my classes we hung out and eventually set off. When we got their we were greeted by a somewhat attractive hostess and were shown our seats. We ordered the "Bloomin' Onion" as an appetizer, or really Peter ordered it because before I could even have a second piece it was gone. We looked at him and you could see the shame in his eyes. He regretted eating that for a while. After some fun and food and of course the uprising of all hell, we argued over the tip, sarcastically shouted "Well fine if we can't agree on a tip we just wont leave one at all!" which got the waiters attention. Then we left a generous tip and left.
    It was fantastic. So good in fact we will be doing it again soon.

    Back when I was 14, a freshman in high school, something happened that has and will forever stick with me. This was not something small like a fight with a friend or parents, or a failed test, or even an experience with drugs or alcohol. No, this was different. I'm refraining form using the ever-popular word "bigger" because that's not necessarily up to me to decide. I can't decide whether the loss of the family pet or a grandparent is "bigger" because there is really no comprehensible way to decide or compare the two. I'm not even 100% sure why it's a term we use other than for the purpose of describing the size of something. Perhaps it is just a coping mechanism we use to deal with our problems. But, no matter how one looks at this event, you cannot expect someone, especially a 14 year old to simply overlook it.

    It was the night of February 16th, 2010. I was up in Tahoe, in an apartment on the backside of Heavenly, a ski resort on the lake, with my good friend Stephen Milowe, his family, and his older sisters boyfriend, Keenan Pope. I had been sick the entire time I had been up there, so my days consisted of watching the mediocre-at-best show "Middle Men", a two season TV show that I'm confident was written by people that find even the simplest of all common puns hilarious.Sometime around 8 o' clock at night I got a call from my friend Royce Wintermute. "Hey did anything happen to Peter?" he asked.
    "What? I'm not sure. Why?" I responded.
    "Uhh. No reason. I just heard a rumor but I'm sure he's fine."
    "Okay, I'll check". I said

    Then I hung up the phone and sent Peter a text. It's funny how when something big (there it is again) in your life happens you can remember every detail, down to conversations and text messages. That's how I know the previous conversation is accurate. But I digress. Peter Kolenda is the person that Royce was referring to. Peter was my best friend, hell I had been best friends with the kid since as long as I can remember. He and I went to pre-school togethor at the Sleepy Hollow Nursery School. Since then he was home-schooled up until 4th grade, when he came to Brookside Upper Campus. He was put into my class. This was like the best thing in the universe. From there he made a bunch of friends. That was one of many things Peter was good at, making friends. By the time we graduated, he was arguably the most like kid at the school. Then, when 6th grade came he went back to being home-schooled while I went off to Whitehill. Around seventh grade he moved to the city, where all of his siblings had either gone or were currently enrolled at SI. From then until that night he had been home-schooled until high school when he continued the family tradition of going to Saint Ignacius High School.

    So I sent Peter a couple text messages. The casual "whats up" just to see if I could get a response. I had figured he may have broken an arm or something, so I just wanted to check in. Having not gotten a response after a little while, I decided to call his phone. It went to voice mail, so I left a message. "Hey Peter, just wanted to know if you wanted to hang out sometime later this week. I'm on a break so I'm good to go anytime after Thursday."

   Shortly after that, the phone in the apartment rang. Todd, Stephen's dad, picked it up. He then handed it to me with a rather emotionless face. It was my dad on the phone. "Hey what's up?" I asked.
   It was then I heard the words that have haunted me to this day. "Tripp. Your friend, Peter Kolenda, did in fact commit suicide."

Learning to Drive a Manual

    At the end of last year, on December 31st, I was sitting on my couch doing nothing, as usual on a non-school day. Sometime around noon I got a call from my uncle. "Hey Tripp, what are you doing tomorrow?" he asked. 

After thinking for a little while I came to the conclusion that I was free and responded with a casual "nothing".

"Well how 'bout you come on a drive with me and some friends from the Ferrari Owners Group?" he asked.

"Sure, sounds fun," was my casual response.

"Alright cool, I will pick you up at 8 a.m. Now can I talk to your parents?"

"Yea sure, here they are."

And just like that, the conversation was over, and my New Years Day had just filled up. So I got back to the couch and watched T.V. for a good 45 seconds before being interrupted by my mom, telling me I had chores to do. Since Sunday was my usual "chore day" and I would be gone for a good portion of it, I had to get them done earlier. I unwillingly got up after being yelled at for ignoring here for 30 minutes and began to do my chores. After cleaning my room and taking the garbage out and a few other things, I was done. After what seemed like 10 minutes, my Saturday was over and I went to bed.

    Then Sunday came. 7:30. My alarm goes off, which I ignore. 7:35. Alarm goes off again. Ignored again. 7:40. Alarm goes off once again. While my original plans were to ignore it, my dad had other ones. He came in and gave me a stern shaking, told me to get up and turn my alarm off and then proceeded to leave the room. After a shower and bowl of cereal, my uncle drove down the driveway, followed by the thunderous sound of his Ferrari. He owns a 1984 Mondial, shown here, however his is a bronze-ish color. I went outside and after a quick conversation between my uncle and my dad, we left.
    After a little driving we arrived at the Bon Air shopping center, the chosen meeting place for the Ferrari Owners Group. After a little while admiring the cars there, we were given directions for the drive. These directions are not disclosed until just before they leave for the drive. At first I thought this was some secret shenanigan deal, but my uncle later told me that it was so the cops didn't know where they were going to drive, so that they could drive fast and not get caught. A little while after we had gotten directions we set off. Most of the group had the new current Ferrari 458 Italia or the previous Ferrari F430, so we were a little underpowered. Fortunatley many of the rich guys who own these fancy cars buy them to show off, meaning that really can't drive for crap, unlike my uncle. That is where we caught up.
    Anyway, after a little driving along the coast and through the valley, we broke off from the group. While I watched the swarm of Ferrari's continue on straight, we took a right. A little way down the road we pulled over, near Nicasio. My uncle turned the car off and got out. Not seeing anything around, I proceeded to get out as well. He then walked around the car and handed me the keys. As I got into the drivers seat he said to me, "You got three tries."
    At that point the pressure was on. Three tries to drive a manual, which I had never done, on a car with a $15,000 transmission.Then my uncle told me how to do it.
1) Start the car in Neutral (the stick is in the middle)
2)Push down the clutch (the third pedal, on the far left)
3)While holding the clutch pedal down, push the stick into first gear
4)Slowly release the clutch pedal while pressing down on the gas pedal
5)Continue on the gas until your driving
    From there it is easy. Just drive and when you need to change gear (usually around 3000 RPM), let go of the gas, hold down the clutch, move the stick to the desired gear, release the clutch and hit the gas again
    So it was time. First try: a quick jump forward and the car shuts off (Oh yeah I forgot to mention, if you stop the car not in neutral, it shuts off). Second try: same results. Third and final try: A nice jump forward, a little grinding and I was off. I had just learned to drive a stick in a Ferrari.