Archie Bunker
Member
I started playing in 1980 at age 12 and developed into an intermediate player. Having many other interests, I was unable to devote as much time as I should have to being a musician. My love for the arts and music is so strong that it sometimes hurts.
Things changed about 7 years ago when my luthier got a PRS SE Custom 24 on a trade. He set it up beautifully and I was immediately smitten with it. As a big VH fan (through Diver Down, after which I bailed), I played Charvels with one H and one vol, but they were not the best guitars for me. I learned I preferred a different radius and frets and a bird-inlaid monster was born. Now there are so many Core, S2, and SE PRS in this house that sometimes I'll actually lose some of 'em for a while. How strange it is to be looking for a guitar in the same way people might scour the house for their misplaced keys or phone.
The PRS thing revitalized my desire to be an even better no-talent amateur hack than before and things moved along well for a year or two, then I stalled and couldn't figure out why. I'd watch great players like Petrucci, Bumblefoot (WOW!), Govan, Dweezil, etc. and while I was realistic about my zero-point-zero percent odds of attaining their skill levels, I knew I should be able to play a good deal of that stuff. My eyes, mind, and heart were all over it, yet the wires from my brain to hands didn't seem quite right. I chalked it up to plain aging, a lack of virtuoso talent, and perhaps residuals from a simple herniated cervical disk surgery 1991.
Wow. That surgery was over 30 years ago. How time flies. Death stalks us like a jungle cat. A damn jungle cat, I tells ya. But, I digress......
Last year I grew increasingly aware of more symptoms. Clumsiness and action tremor in hands, an intermittent dreadful whole body malaise that defies description, strange torso pains, L side of neck and shoulder pain, numbness and tingling along L ulnar nerve path, upper body weakness esp. triceps and delts, weird urinary urgency, and a change in carnal prowess from apocalyptic to merely quite reliable, but not a lock. Chalked up most of it to aging (53), for none of it was severe unlike with the aforementioned neck injury that rendered me razed for a couple weeks until surgery. If that's aging, it sucks even worse than many bemoan.
Also had very strange problem clearing my throat and swallowing pills smoothly as if there was a speed bump in there.
In early Sept 2021 we took a road trip to HOU to see the beauty + savagery uber-colossus known as Between the Buried and Me, aka BtBaM. I was at the edge of the pit during an expected no-mosh stretch when this overstimulated douche canoe slammed into me blindside with enormous force. It was like I'd been hit by a jetliner at cruising speed. Nobody else was moshing. Why do people insist on doing such things? SIGH
The next day I felt a strange kind of lousy. Nothing new other than a rise in intensity. Was functional, but clearly unwell. That led to various clinicians, studies, and much shoulder-shrugging. As the process progressed, I finally got my answer and it explained everything.
Many dig playing medical detective. I'll give the clearly-sharper-than-avg souls in this forum a crack at this nut as I compose the remainder to post shortly, revealing the answer.
Whaddaya reckon was afoul with me? One friend quipped that I'd so many guitars that my hands had a panic attack. Nice try, but, uh......no. If anything, the guitars were protection from panic and the issues involved much more than merely my hands.
So.......WTF?
For the record, Fractal plays a significant role in this, uh, adventure.
Things changed about 7 years ago when my luthier got a PRS SE Custom 24 on a trade. He set it up beautifully and I was immediately smitten with it. As a big VH fan (through Diver Down, after which I bailed), I played Charvels with one H and one vol, but they were not the best guitars for me. I learned I preferred a different radius and frets and a bird-inlaid monster was born. Now there are so many Core, S2, and SE PRS in this house that sometimes I'll actually lose some of 'em for a while. How strange it is to be looking for a guitar in the same way people might scour the house for their misplaced keys or phone.
The PRS thing revitalized my desire to be an even better no-talent amateur hack than before and things moved along well for a year or two, then I stalled and couldn't figure out why. I'd watch great players like Petrucci, Bumblefoot (WOW!), Govan, Dweezil, etc. and while I was realistic about my zero-point-zero percent odds of attaining their skill levels, I knew I should be able to play a good deal of that stuff. My eyes, mind, and heart were all over it, yet the wires from my brain to hands didn't seem quite right. I chalked it up to plain aging, a lack of virtuoso talent, and perhaps residuals from a simple herniated cervical disk surgery 1991.
Wow. That surgery was over 30 years ago. How time flies. Death stalks us like a jungle cat. A damn jungle cat, I tells ya. But, I digress......
Last year I grew increasingly aware of more symptoms. Clumsiness and action tremor in hands, an intermittent dreadful whole body malaise that defies description, strange torso pains, L side of neck and shoulder pain, numbness and tingling along L ulnar nerve path, upper body weakness esp. triceps and delts, weird urinary urgency, and a change in carnal prowess from apocalyptic to merely quite reliable, but not a lock. Chalked up most of it to aging (53), for none of it was severe unlike with the aforementioned neck injury that rendered me razed for a couple weeks until surgery. If that's aging, it sucks even worse than many bemoan.
Also had very strange problem clearing my throat and swallowing pills smoothly as if there was a speed bump in there.
In early Sept 2021 we took a road trip to HOU to see the beauty + savagery uber-colossus known as Between the Buried and Me, aka BtBaM. I was at the edge of the pit during an expected no-mosh stretch when this overstimulated douche canoe slammed into me blindside with enormous force. It was like I'd been hit by a jetliner at cruising speed. Nobody else was moshing. Why do people insist on doing such things? SIGH
The next day I felt a strange kind of lousy. Nothing new other than a rise in intensity. Was functional, but clearly unwell. That led to various clinicians, studies, and much shoulder-shrugging. As the process progressed, I finally got my answer and it explained everything.
Many dig playing medical detective. I'll give the clearly-sharper-than-avg souls in this forum a crack at this nut as I compose the remainder to post shortly, revealing the answer.
Whaddaya reckon was afoul with me? One friend quipped that I'd so many guitars that my hands had a panic attack. Nice try, but, uh......no. If anything, the guitars were protection from panic and the issues involved much more than merely my hands.
So.......WTF?
For the record, Fractal plays a significant role in this, uh, adventure.