Close, But No Cigar

The list of things in my life that need serious attention and/or action is not short.  A sampling of items on my "To Do" list:

• Scour the house in preparation for the Thanksgiving festivities
• Participate in activities that will end the existing plutocracy and bring down the filthy rich and their despicable oligarchy
• Finish building the master bathroom
• Plant bulbs before the ground freezes
• Introspect on possible causes of my continued self-destructive behavior and establish a concrete and workable plan for positive life changes
• Fix the door handle on the Zuke Of Earle so that I don’t have to roll down the window all winter every time I need to get out

With so many matters needing addressing, it’s difficult to prioritize, which is why I’ve chosen to devote every spare moment in the near future to the construction of the one thing truly missing from my life:  a cigar-box guitar.

The cigar-box guitar is - not surprisingly, I suppose - a guitar made out of a cigar box.  As with every project I undertake, my first step was to fire up the googly-tubez for instructions painstakingly research the history of the subject and to discover what relevant knowledge has been gleaned to date.  Much like Ike Newton, after all, I stand on the shoulders of giants.

I’ve assembled the basic necessities, the sine qua nons, if you will - a cigar box, a stick, and tuning pegs:

Above:  Renowned Guitar Virtuoso Buck and Master Carpenter Indy are eager to help!

Sure, there are some additional things that I’ll eventually require – strings, a piezoelectric transducer to turn into an internal microphone and a ¼” jack (much like Dylan at Newport, I’m going electric.  Also much like Dylan, I’ll be booed upon playing, but for entirely different reasons),  some actual woodworking skills, extra cigar boxes and sticks for when I inevitably screw things up – but as for now, I have plenty of beer and lots of power tools, so I’m off to a good start.

I’ll eventually get to those other big projects, probably.  Maybe.  But in all honesty, if I can’t sit down at the end of the day and kick out the jams on my patio with a bottle of Jack and a cigar-box guitar, well, then they really just don’t matter all that much now, do they?