The High Cost of GAS

In a weaker man, this little book could easily trigger an outbreak of GAS -- the dreaded guitar acquisition syndrome, which is defined as the obsessive and irrational purchasing of musical related equipment. David Schiller's mini-coffee table book "Guitar's -- A Celebration of Pure Mojo" has eye-popping photograhs of some 500 guitars -- some beautiful, some bizarre, some historic and some rightfully obscure. Mixed in is text about their makers and players.

The most interesting guitar was The Log, Les Paul's 1941 creation, which is generally considered to be the first solid-body electric guitar. It was a 4x4 piece of lumber attached to a Gibson neck and headstock with a pickup made from an electrical clock, Schiller says. In order to make it look more guitar-like Paul grafted halves of an Epiphone body to the 4x4.

Shortly after The Log came Leo Fender (left), a reformed accountant who liked to tinker with electronics and became the guitar industry's Henry Ford. Through design, quality and sharp marketing, Fender guitars became a musical icon. They were so popular that Leo sold his company to CBS in 1965 for $13 million, which was $2 million more than CBS had paid to buy the New York Yankees a year earlier.

It turns out Leo couldn't even tune a guitar, much less play one, so maybe there is hope that I, too, will have a meaningful impact on the music business someday.

As tempting as those guitars look in Schiller's book, I think I'm immune to GAS for the time being. Instead, as mentioned earlier, I have a case of GPAS (guitar pick acquisition syndrome), which is considerably more benign due to the affordability of picks. Also, a couple dozen picks are much easier to store and hide from your wife than a couple dozen guitars.