Wednesday 11/21/2007 ~ How Steven Colbert Ruined My Birthday

For my birthday last week I got a copy of the new book by Steven Colbert, "I Am America (And So Can You)." Needless to say, I was excited! I'm a big fan of his show, and I knew his book would be parodyific. I read the cover, cover to cover, and then the inner dust jacket flap. Everything indicated it was going to be brilliant. Then, on the VERY SECOND PAGE (in the Introduction, so it's labeled "page viii") there is a typo! And not an accidental typo, like "peolpe" instead of "people." It's a typo based on a basic lack of understanding of the English language... and to me a typo that appears so often these days that I'm beginning to have concerns about the intellectual future of America.

On page viii Colbert discusses "America's Heroes" and he defines them as the "people who bought this book." I smiled at that comment as well as the following sentence, when he indicates that people who merely "borrow" the book are not Heroes. Then, referring to those who may borrow the book, he says "They are no better then welfare queens mooching off the system like card-carrying library card-carriers."

No better "then" ????? I was shocked. I closed the book. And now I can't bring myself to read the rest... It makes me too sad.

Colbert, on the dust jacket, claims that he didn't write the book, he merely dictated it into a cassette recorder. But someone typed the manuscript. And someone else proofread it. And someone else MUST have read it before it went to print. So that's at least THREE people involved with this book who don't know the difference between "then" and "than." And it would be bad enough if it was just this one poorly edited book. Sadly this erroneous substitution of "then" for "than" is becoming more and more commonplace. I see it on newsgroups, blogs, forums, discussion groups and even in some low budget publications. And now, in an actual hardback book, semi-written by someone I respect. It's as if I went to see Van Halen and the band kicked into "Hot For Teacher," but suddenly Eddie started to play the wrong chords, and not because of a legitimate rock star excuse... like he was drunk or high... and not because he suddenly decided to play jazz... but because he simply thought that's how the song went.

This week I saw a movie called "Idiocracy." It was written by Mike Judge, writer and director of the movie "Office Space" and creator of the TV show "King Of The Hill." In "Idiocracy," a normal, everyday guy is frozen and wakes up 500 years in the future, where everyone in the world is stupid. It's pretty funny... until you realize that at the rate we're going it may be an accurate prediction.

Of course, you may be wondering what this has to do with guitars... Well, not much. But fortunately, my birthday wasn't totally ruined. I put the book down, THEN I went to see Blue Cheer at the Rex. They were a lot older THAN they were in 1966 when "Summertime Blues" was a hit. But they still had the sound... and the volume. THEN I went to see The Frampton Brothers at the 31st Street Pub. Ed's Les Paul was a lot heavier THAN Sean's Gretsch Silver Jet, but they both sounded great. Hearing a couple of good bands cleared my head and cheered me up! Maybe my mistake was reading in the first place. Hey, wait a minute....

If you have a guitar (which I certainly hope you do, since it makes you smarter, and we NEED that)... and your case is falling apart... THEN you need a new case. One that is better THAN your old one! This week's email special features hardshell cases, at a super price.

See you soon,
Carl

PS: Hey! Happy Thanksgiving! Thanks for being our favorite customer all of these years. It's been fun hanging out and talking about music and guitars and stuff. Sorry I got carried away with the "then" and "than"... it's just a pet peeve of mine... and I've never been good with pets. But, come on, they don't even SOUND the same... it's not like "their" and "there" and "they're"... oops... OK, enough about English and spelling... Next week it will be all guitars, all the time... In fact I had a nice chat about guitars with Jacques from France last weekend at a guitar show in Wilmington, Delaware. I'll tell you about it next week. Actually, the vintage guitar market is currently going through some changes, I should have talked about THAT... but it's already 10:35 AM on Wednesday and you're probably leaving work early for the holiday weekend and I don't have time to start over... Next week: Guitars! And I ain't kidding!

PPS: Hey.... there's a band you should see this Saturday at The Rex. I used to go to see them thirty years ago at The Decade when they were called Gravel... and at a time when most local bands were doing cover tunes, they were packing the clubs with great original material. Eventually their songs were covered by big time Nashville artists like Hank Williams Jr, Mel Tillis, Alabama, and many others. They changed their name to Corbin/Hanner, and today both Bob Corbin and Dave Hanner have million-selling gold records on their walls. They are among the most successful songwriters ever to come from Pittsburgh.
Corbin/Hanner
Saturday, November 24, The Rex, 8:30PM

PPPS: Customer of the week:
Corbin/Hanner