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BuckFlicks

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I've already made a post with a quick hello and a question, here's my for real intro:

I'm a relatively new guitar player, less than a year.  I retired last summer after 20 years with the Arlington, TX Fire Department, in dispatch and training.  I decided that my retirement "thing" was going to be learning guitar, as it's something I've always wanted to do since I was in high school.  Now, at the age of 50, I'm doing it.

I've never been one to align myself with one brand/family of guitars.  My first purchase was a Squier Contemporary strat, which I wasn't happy with, so I took it back and got a refund, and used that money to buy an Epiphone Les Paul.  One of my greatest guitar heroes is Alex Lifeson, and I especially enjoy the sound he gets from a Les Paul.  But I wasn't happy with the Epi Les Paul, either.  It was really heavy, the pickups were really hot and harsh, and it wasn't comfortable to play.  So I traded that in... Since then, I've bought a lot of "budget" guitars - I have two Epiphone Pro series which I love, the ES-335, and the ES-339 P90.  I also have several Squiers - a cheap Tele which I've done a lot of mods to, and a Classic Vibe Strat, and a Classic Vibe Jazzmaster.  My first "big boy" guitar was a Gretsch 5622T Semihollow Double Cut, which is a fantastic guitar.  

All the while, I've always had a regret that the first Les Paul didn't work out and that hole in my collection remained unfilled.  I just couldn't find an Epiphone LP that met my needs.  So I got the go-ahead from my wife to get a real Gibson.  So my anniversary, Christmas, and Birthday present is a Gibson Studio, in Smokehouse Burst.  I'm picking it up tomorrow.  Can't wait.  I freely admit I have had a chronic case of GAS over the last year, but it's dramatically curtailed over the last few months, and I think a real Gibson will make the GAS go away for a long time.  Now, I see new guitars and I think, "Oh... that's cool" and not "Oh, man... I need one of those."

Looking forward to consuming the wisdom and opinions of the group, and being a part of the Gibson family.
 

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Hey Buck, 

nice intro write up man.

congrats on retiring at the young age of 50.  That's awesome.  Plenty of time ahead to get your guitar aspiration realized.

life long Rush fan here,  still mourning the passing of Neil to be honest. 

Let us know how you make out with that Les Paul you got in bound.  I have 5 Gibson electrics, 2 are les paul standards, they are my go to solid body electrics.

and don't want to be the bearer of bad omens, but once you get the itch, you never stop lusting after that "next" one.   Not like I don't know what I speak of,  currently have a truck load guitars....   I've been playing since I was like 10, (63 now) you tend to "accumulate"..   

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Also life long Rush fan... I was in Guitar Center talking to the "bass guy" about if it was possible to replicate Geddy's pre Fender Jazz sound and and Chris Squire's sound without spending $2000 on a Rickenbacker when the other sales guy was scanning his phone and said, "Dude... Neil Peart died!"  Same moment, I got a text from my dad telling me the the same.  I had to leae the store and go sit in my car and cry a little bit.  Then I went home and listened to The Garden and lost it.

Yeah, I figured I'll never fully get over "next guitar" fever, but it's definitely lessened up a bit in the last few months... maybe I misspoke when I said the LP will make the GAS go away.  Hopefully the LP will help me manage the GAS so I don't spend what's left of my money on guitars before 2021.  

Thanks - the cool thing about working for a city is you can retire after 20 years, no matter how old you are.  It's 25 for some cities.  I wasn't planning on being done with working, but I was definitely done driving 60 miles each way on my commute.  The plan was to take a few months off and decompress, then find something part time to supplement my pension, but then Covid decided I wasn't going to go back to work for a while... Still waiting for the virus to take a break so I can get back to doing something - I need to fund my guitar/pedal/amp/accessories habit.  

 

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Welcome aboard Buck from the Austin area.  Congrats on your new LP Studio.  I’m sure this won’t be the only LP you’ll want.  They are addictive.

I retired at the end of 2011 after 28 years as a federal agent.  Buying back my 3 years of active duty military service in the Marine Corps, bumped my total service to 31 years.  I was 51 at the time.  Ironically,  circa 1983, while I was in college and prior to hiring on with Uncle Sam, I had been in contact with Arlington PD, who were apparently going through a hiring surge at the time.

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12 hours ago, BuckFlicks said:

Also life long Rush fan... I was in Guitar Center talking to the "bass guy" about if it was possible to replicate Geddy's pre Fender Jazz sound and and Chris Squire's sound without spending $2000 on a Rickenbacker when the other sales guy was scanning his phone and said, "Dude... Neil Peart died!"  Same moment, I got a text from my dad telling me the the same.  I had to leae the store and go sit in my car and cry a little bit.  Then I went home and listened to The Garden and lost it.

 

My son called me when he found out,  "you're not going to believe this...."   he was right, I didn't.  There must be some mistake..  this cannot be.. I couldn't listen to them for about an hour or two after I found out,  I tired, I just couldn't do it.  But the first song I did play was , ya you got it right.. The Garden.  It seemed to me that life would never be the same.   But then I came to my senses....

We all gotta go some day..  Still that was a tuff one,  SRV was the other one that really hit me hard.

It's really great that you're able to enjoy life retiring at your age.  I think that is awesome.

One of my pals told me a story where one of his life long buds retired two weeks ago.  He died of cardiac failure a week later.  Don't seem fair. 

 

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What was so tragic about Neil's passing was that he was so uncomfortable in public, and especially in later years just wanted to be home and enjoy being with his wife and young daughter, after the tragedies he's faced with his first wife and daughter... and when he was finally able to do just that, he was gone in just a few years... similar to the story your friend told you.  That's what hit me so hard about Neil's death - not my loss so much as the incredibly sad circumstances of his life and death. I still get a little choked up thinking about it.

TX-Ogre - Zappa fan?  My trainer when I first came to work for the city had a military retirement from the navy, and now he's got a city retirement to boot.  He's in a good position.  

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I'm a Zappa Fan. Seen him 3 times. A documentary about him is coming out I think next month and the Halloween '81 shows set is coming out early October.  A few Zappa nuts here.

I might have to do a little Crank'n and a Coke'n in the Winchell's donut midnight.

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21 hours ago, BuckFlicks said:

What was so tragic about Neil's passing was that he was so uncomfortable in public, and especially in later years just wanted to be home and enjoy being with his wife and young daughter, after the tragedies he's faced with his first wife and daughter... and when he was finally able to do just that, he was gone in just a few years... similar to the story your friend told you.  That's what hit me so hard about Neil's death - not my loss so much as the incredibly sad circumstances of his life and death. I still get a little choked up thinking about it.

so true,  the hand life dealt him in the late 90s, not a lot of people would have gotten through like he did..  gives a bit of weight to "grace under pressure" don't it?

 

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On 8/21/2020 at 1:15 PM, BuckFlicks said:

TX-Ogre - Zappa fan?  My trainer when I first came to work for the city had a military retirement from the navy, and now he's got a city retirement to boot.  He's in a good position.  

FZ was a major influence on taking up guitar.  I have about 40 of his albums on vinyl.  I have transcription books for the Hot Rats, Over-nite Sensation and Apostrophe albums.  Unfortunate, most of the material is beyond my skill level.

I only did 3 years on active duty so no military retirement.   Just able to add those years to civil service retirement.  When I hired on with Uncle Sam in 1984, the maximum age for initial hiring for the 6(c) covered law enforcement and firefighter positions was 35 years old.  This was due to the requirement to have a minimum of 20 years service prior to the mandatory retirement age of 55 for law enforcement positions.  So unless you were medically retired from the military prior to age 35, you couldn’t “double-dip.”   Non-law enforcement positions didn’t have the mandatory retirement age, so there were a lot of retired military that “double-dipped.”

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I have everything from Freak Out to Jazz From Hell on vinyl except Just Another Band. I have alot of digital stuff  and CD's of stuff not on vinyl. I tried to get a gobment job after I retired but the Warrent Officer hired his friend. I was more qualified since it was my same job. Oh well I'm a contractor for NASA now and my job is sweet.

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Welcome, BuckFlicks, 

I'm very excited for you in your reception of that Gibson Les Paul Studio. 
It's a great guitar, and I've had a few over the years. 

That smokehouse burst is a fabulous finish, and I am a huge fan of the black back and sides. 
So classy!!

I have have had the opportunity to fly helicopters in and around Arlington and Grand Prairie over the past few years (on just a few occasions). 
Such a busy metropolitan area, that!!

I live and work in northern Alabama, the Huntsville/Redstone Arsenal area. Also a boom-town!

You may remember serving on the day in February 2007 when a friend of mine had an engine failure in an experimental Bell helicopter, and had to land on the Walnut Creek Country Club golf course in Mansfield, TX.  No injuries, and no post-crash fire, thank God. 

Anyway, welcome!!

🙂

 

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Yes!  I was working that day.  We got numerous calls about a helicopter in distress and was about to crash on the south side of town and sent fire and PD units looking for it but never found one - and later heard from Mansfield dispatch that they had it.  

It really is a huge metro area... from the far western end in Tarrant county to the far eastern end in Rockwall county and Denton and Collin counties to the north, it's one huge metropolitan area - bigger than several states... continuous asphault and development.  And spreading by the day.  We live about 15 miles outside of urban sprawl but it's moving closer to us every day.  When I moved out here, we had one stop light and a sonic.  Now we have three stoplights, a Domino's, two dentists, a pharmacy and 7-11 and a Shell station.  

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On 8/30/2020 at 9:01 PM, Sgt. Pepper said:

I have everything from Freak Out to Jazz From Hell on vinyl except Just Another Band. I have alot of digital stuff  and CD's of stuff not on vinyl. I tried to get a gobment job after I retired but the Warrent Officer hired his friend. I was more qualified since it was my same job. Oh well I'm a contractor for NASA now and my job is sweet.

Don't forget your U2 collection. All Canadian pressings.

  • Haha 1
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2 hours ago, Pinch said:

They're muzak that still manages to offend. Crazy.

Bozo thinks he's the world's original super social justice warrior. He's just a guy from Ireland who can't sing and got famous. There is one guy from Ireland who sings circles around Bozo. He ain't called The Man for nothing.

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On 8/20/2020 at 4:04 AM, BuckFlicks said:

I've already made a post with a quick hello and a question, here's my for real intro:

I'm a relatively new guitar player, less than a year.  I retired last summer after 20 years with the Arlington, TX Fire Department, in dispatch and training.  I decided that my retirement "thing" was going to be learning guitar, as it's something I've always wanted to do since I was in high school.  Now, at the age of 50, I'm doing it.

I've never been one to align myself with one brand/family of guitars.  My first purchase was a Squier Contemporary strat, which I wasn't happy with, so I took it back and got a refund, and used that money to buy an Epiphone Les Paul.  One of my greatest guitar heroes is Alex Lifeson, and I especially enjoy the sound he gets from a Les Paul.  But I wasn't happy with the Epi Les Paul, either.  It was really heavy, the pickups were really hot and harsh, and it wasn't comfortable to play.  So I traded that in... Since then, I've bought a lot of "budget" guitars - I have two Epiphone Pro series which I love, the ES-335, and the ES-339 P90.  I also have several Squiers - a cheap Tele which I've done a lot of mods to, and a Classic Vibe Strat, and a Classic Vibe Jazzmaster.  My first "big boy" guitar was a Gretsch 5622T Semihollow Double Cut, which is a fantastic guitar.  

All the while, I've always had a regret that the first Les Paul didn't work out and that hole in my collection remained unfilled.  I just couldn't find an Epiphone LP that met my needs.  So I got the go-ahead from my wife to get a real Gibson.  So my anniversary, Christmas, and Birthday present is a Gibson Studio, in Smokehouse Burst.  I'm picking it up tomorrow.  Can't wait.  I freely admit I have had a chronic case of GAS over the last year, but it's dramatically curtailed over the last few months, and I think a real Gibson will make the GAS go away for a long time.  Now, I see new guitars and I think, "Oh... that's cool" and not "Oh, man... I need one of those."

Looking forward to consuming the wisdom and opinions of the group, and being a part of the Gibson family.
 

Welcome Buck, congrats on the early retirement. Did you get the Gibson LP?  We love pics....

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On 9/9/2020 at 8:45 PM, Sgt. Pepper said:

If the U2 fits it annoys. What people hear in their music that they enjoy is beyond me.

They're just pretending to like them is my theory.

Think about it. It's one of those theories so irrefutable, why not just call it a fact.

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