I got a letter from my Li’l Bro a couple of days ago. It’s always great to hear from him. I spent a lot of time drinking whisky and jamming econo with him. My band broke up right around the time I met him, which was fortuitous because I ended up with a friend I was able to spend hours with, just playing music. Sounds corny, too, but I learned a lot about playing music with him at the same time I was teaching him the fragments of theory that I understood. So the lesson there, I guess, is that if you really want to learn your instrument, try teaching someone else. I was working on learning about a six-string and he had just switched over from bass, too. It was the blind leading the blind.

In his letter, Li’l Bro describes how he broke his guitar. Fell out of a tree with it into a lake. That really sort of sums him up. He’s passionate about playing and spends all his free time writing songs. He doesn’t sing well and he knows it and doesn’t care. He doesn’t play with finesse or a lot of technical crap and he knows it, and doesn’t care. He gets better all the time, though. That’s one of the things I learned from him about playing. Play anyway. I poke all my jam night friends with that a lot now.

He’s never performed either, and also mentioned in the letter that he’s ready to take that plunge. As soon as he gets a new guitar, I guess. He’s on the opposite side of the state, and one over, or I’d call him on his shit and go to his town and drag him onstage at an open mike thing. I still might. It’s only a 10-hour or so drive. There’s no better place to learn than in front of 50 other people.

It’s probably a good thing that we live so far away from each other, even though I miss having goofy drunk jam sessions with him. When we hang out together, we get in trouble. Last time, we both went to jail. And then we wrote a song about it. Of course!

He finishes the letter with the usual, “And tell that husband of yours I’ll kick his ass at any video game!”. Which is an ongoing joke. Li’l Bro is merely an average gamer. He hasn’t met the likes of my Smart Half, the quintessential game geek. None of the Smart Half’s friends will play against him because they always lose.

ALWAYS.

LOSE.

At the last MtG tourney he played in, they were down to the top 8 and had to play the Smart Half, and all 8 declined to play him.

No. He and Smart Half have never met. But they will, because I want to see one of them go down in PS2 flames in my living room.

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