The True life Story of Molly Gibson

Molly Gibson on the Road.

I have an urge to write, way beyond what I do most of the time, just scribbling notes about a new idea. But what do I want to write about?

Sex, adult adventuring, true war stories. Or the Old West. The new West, children's fantasies. Adult fantasies. Anything but science fiction. I never have liked science fiction.

But how about spirit fiction? See, there's a whole category. Could be spirit fiction. I thought about my guitar’s spirit and started a couple of times to write stories from my guitars point of view, in her voice.

I mean, she has a point of view under my supervision since 1968, that's 55 years, which is a whole adult life, even though she was born, that is, she was manufactured in 1959. That was 9 unknown years before I came in possession of her in Portland, Oregon, from a petty thief. Probably a drug addict.

“Hey buddy, you wanna buy a guitar?”, he says as I walked past him.

I see has this big black beautiful guitar case next to him. I said no. I can't afford it.

I could see the case was worth 250 bucks. He says I got a guitar in inside. I said, I just came from the employment office, I got 50 bucks.

He says I got this guitar, and he opened up the case and there is this beautiful Gibson that's worth 500 bucks.

I said, so how much you want?

You got 50 bucks?

I said yeah, 50 bucks. I gave him 50 bucks. I grabbed the guitar, closed the case and ran down the street disappearing in the soft night rain of Portland.

What about this? Why don't I let her tell you the story?

A Gibson Guitar tells her side of the story, being she has what she calls a MIND/HEART that has learned to telepathically communicate with a word recognition program in her present owners computer telling her beginning from a primordial rain forest 350 years ago, and for the last 55 years how she was in the lives of Elvis Presley, Peter Townshend, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Page,  Neil Young, Stephen Stills, scores of Drug Dealers and at last with Santiago McBoyle.

The true-life story of Molly Gibso

Chapter 1

The thing is, I wasn't able to tell any of my side of the story until my current owner bought a word recognition program for his Thang. I call everything that is weird, a Thang.

You see, I developed a telepathic ability. I get to type my words every time he switches on the Thang. I was able to save My Autobiography in a ghost file he knew nothing about and didn't discover until he took his Thang to a guy called a computer guru who discovered me because I'd used up all of the memory.

I got so mad I wasn't able to finish my work. I just jammed up the darn hard drive and shut the piece of junk down.

Well. My owner, Santiago Mcboyle, was completely amazed there was a document of over 30,000,000 words in that contraption. He had a computer guru transfer the document to a machine that could handle the download.

Boy, he was surprised when he began reading it and found out it was coming from a guitar. I mean, that's me. I began writing once I had learned my telepathic abilities about 20 years ago when he bought the word recognition program.

At first Santiago thought he had been hacked by some kind of weirdo until he realized it was me tagging along, singing the tune, so to speak.

I don't really remember much back in the beginning of me except I was a tree for years and years and years I was over 300 years old when an illegal logger decided he could sell me for a lot of money. 

Of course, Santiago didn't know that until he got to his part in my life. Holy caramba, was he knocked out it was me writing about where I had been with him as he battered me around the world for the last 55 years.

The funny thing is, he'd been writing stories for years and tried to publish his nonsense 100 times, but no one was interested in his blathering. Then he got what you humans call of a writer’s block, and it couldn't even write a coherent sentence for the last 10 years.

Well, as irony would have it. I've been writing my story that was way more enthralling than anything he had written. I mean, that is when Santiago decided to flog my words to a small publisher in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He said it was fiction he had thought of himself. How do you like that?

Well, I guess I can't blame him I mean, who would believe a collection of wood pieces and metal strings would be writing a true-life memoir? I mean, really who?

All of this is just way after I began my story back in 2004, I accidentally discovered telepathic powers with a program he bought for the Thang. To tell you the truth, no, no, just to give a little credit to Santiago, I mean, really a little credit, if it wasn’t for him, I could have never started this story.

But most of the last 350 years, as you humans call traveling through Suns and Moons, had been very nice, In fact, beautiful. It was the same kind of experience day after day, me in the sweet, warm rainforest of Guatemala.

That is, until one day a village idiot decided to cut me down for firewood.

Anyway, I mean, most of me went up in smoke long ago, except for my Mind/Heart and a few arteries and veins.

But one of the last pieces of me, a shopkeeper discovered, just as he was about to chop me up and put me in his pizza oven, he saw the magical grain and beautiful color of me. He thought he could sell it to a guy who was looking for special wood that could be made into guitars.

Well, the long story was I wound up in a truck that got smuggled into America and was sold to an entrepreneur who was a wood agent to a company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I sat in a warehouse for I don't know how long until Orville Gibson picked me up in 1894 and put me in a special rack that at some time would be made into a musical instrument.

I was in that dang warehouse from 1894 and nearly got made into a mandolin so many times I can't remember, but each time I got put back on the shelf. They left me for another stretch of Suns and Moons. I don't really know how long because I was in the dark on a stupid wooden shelf made of schizophrenic pinewood shelves that never had anything to say.

After I got this telepathic power, I was able to hack into Google. Google. Is that what it's called? Yeah, Google.

On Santiago's computer, the Thang, Google found out that according to my serial number tattooed on my neck, I was officially made into a glamorous beauty in the late 1959. The factory put a label inside my body that called me a country and Western jumbo. Lucky for me, they chose my very Mind/Heart to be who I am now.

But other slabs of me, which were just arteries and veins, they got made into what the factory called a Hummingbird. I heard some of them got really famous, but they didn't have a Mind/Heart like me.

Oh, oh, I forgot to mention. I'm not all Mind/Heart. I mean, you know, the guitar part of me. I mean, they had the nerve to put Sitka Spruce on the front of my body with a hole in it.

Sitka Spruce, for God's sakes, I have to put up with that blonde who says the dumbest crap you ever heard. But on the other hand, she kind of vibrates real good, and lots of musicians who have strummed across her face says she has a beautiful tone.

But what can I do? I just have to coexist with her. But she ain't telepathic like me?

OH, I could say names. I mean name names because I got traded and stolen so many times, I can't even remember most of the crazy travels I’ve had.

It was after I hacked into Google. I found out my Mind/Heart. That's me talking, is what people call Mahagany. That's a kind of wood, mahogany, but like I said, as a guitar I got stuck with a dumb blonde top. But at least they put a lovely strip of rosewood on my neck, who never says anything at all, but it just hums.

I found out recently, the Mind/Heart part of me was a special order for Elvis Presley in 1959. Elvis never even got to touch me because I was stolen by a warehouse junkie who traded it to The Everly Brothers for a pound of cocaine. I can tell you I made the circles after that.

There's another thing I wanna say. It really, really, really annoys me, that darn agent in Santa Fe told Santiago the first thing he had to edit was my 30,000,000 words down to a measly 100,000 because no one would buy a book that big.

And secondly, and I mean, I'm insulted. Totally insulted, The Agent said the 1st 29,900,000 words were not only repetitious, but just boring. Boring as hell and just sounded like a plagiarized version of Groundhog Day because it was just the same day over and over.

Well, holy cow, I was stuck in the ground in the middle of a rain forest for over 3 centuries. But I'll tell you this, each day was a miracle.

Just so you know how those days went, I'm going to tell you how a Turn of the sun and moon was perfect.

OH. Wait a minute. Yeah, there was a few times it wasn't quite so perfect. See, I nearly got burned to death by forest fires a few times. But lucky for me, by then I was over 200 feet tall, and the fire only scorched my toes. There was another time a wave of leaf eating ants, stripped me almost completely bare butt naked. Another spell, I didn't get anything to drink for about 20 sun and moon Turns. Darn it, I got thirsty.

But worse was when I saw that little maggot guy with a big noisy axe start chewing on my foot and I crashed into the forest. Then he got all of me, cut me to pieces and sawed my Mind/Heart out.

Well, that was a thing I kind of expected.

I mean, because us trees and other living spirits saw those little swarms of humans do the same thing to their own kind many times. So, in a way, we weren’t surprised.

But I'm getting off the point about my wonderful being, in the rain forest.

The thing is being a Turn in the rain forest is like being on a big wheel that is dark. Then it gets light. But it's not just two things, but many things.

I mean, it's really dark, sometimes almost black, except for the sparkly stuff humans call stars. Then a beautiful tint of every color you can think of. Stars gets brighter and brighter. That changes.

There is a in and out of breathing creatures make all through time of the light turn, it's in, it's out, slowly, sometimes really fast.

The colors start to dim then then sparkles come back way up over my head and a beautiful feeling of velvet comes all over my leaves.

The dark turn begins to roll. Like I said, it's always a big wheel, maybe even a ball that is swirling and churning through being.

It's always a Sympathy of a Symphony of music I heard sometimes so loud, I felt like my body would split right down the middle.

Oh, oh the birds, the Panthers, the Jaguars, the monkeys, and the crawling and flying thangs. Everybody in the rain forest had to be sure they were heard.

What sound they made. Music, I tell you. Just music It was to me for all those years.

Oh, but I worship it all, even though there were two things I loved the most.

The first was every once in a while, during the dark turn, those sparkles would become so bright I would almost fall right over. I would gaze up above me and one of the sparkles would swoop across the dark and shake my soul with brilliance.

What, you think literary talking wood doesn’t have a soul?

But then during a turn, one of those flashing sparkles of light stopped and got even brighter than it came down right over the top of me and glowed. It throbbed and boomed dropped down on the ground, shimmering. Making a music I had never heard.

Well, all the creatures stopped singing. It got absolutely quiet.

Then the Thang on the ground, made bumping and whizzing and light came out of the middle this funny little turd kind of Thang said, “I am Whatsonotso from Gonesolongso. I'm checking to make sure you are OK. I see you are. Goodbye.”

Just like that. And then the Thang just vanished. All the creatures started singing again. That was weird. And it never happened again. I still don't know what it was. Google told me it was probably a UFO, whatever that is supposed to mean.

I mean, for heaven's sake. Almost everything I've ever known is some kind of unidentified flying object.

Anyway. I loved those flashes and the beautiful singing in the dark being Turn.

The other part was in the light being. I always waited for it when the beautiful bluish kind of misty wetness would come. Every living creature would all go quiet, then misty wet would wrap around me, hold me like when I was just a seed in the ground.

Light glowing flowed through my leaves, a golden beam cutting through the blue misty wet. Falling swords onto the ground. Beam after beam like columns and pillars Google showed me what you call a cathedral.

I could go on and on and on about the Jaguars and the yellow Panthers, especially the solid black ones that made the most marvelous purring music after they had eaten a little creature, they pulled up into my arms.

Yes. And that little Jaguar whatever it's called, a little oscillates. And you know those other things humans called pussycats. There were all kinds of animals.

Darn, but those howler monkeys every night. I could have done without, but lots didn't make much music at all. I mean, they were Iguanas. They were armadillos and snakes, even though the snakes made a hissing noise like a symbol on a drum.

But the birds. Oh, wow the birds. I can't even begin to tell you about them. Oh so many. The Collared aracari, Guans, chachalacas, and curassows let alone the billions of Thangs, chirped and squeaked notes all through the dark and light beam.

Even so, I never got tired of the celestial chorus. It was just magical. Well, except for those darn howling monkeys that made my bark skin itch. Oh, and those ravenous dang ants seemed to take great joy stripping me butt naked!

Every 20 or Sun Turns, I mean what you call years, I call Turns you see? But Humans for a long time never bothered me. Once in a while they would come and trim off my dried-out arms. It was OK because it made me get even taller.

It wasn't until some humans got a thang called an Axe. I started getting paranoid and even worse was when they got an axe that made noise. They started cutting my sisters and brothers down around me. It was a measly little man, when none of my family was left standing, finally brought me down.

Well, still though. If it wasn't for him. I would have never become what I am now. A beautiful guitar. That has learned to telecommunicate with a word recognition program in Santiago McBoyle’s thang. It's given me the chance to tell just part of the last 350 years I have witnessed the Turn of the sparkles and the Sun and the Moon.

I guess I'm grateful for that, even though I don't like that fancy Santa Fe Agent that made Santiago cut out my whole story except for the last 55 Sun and Moon Turns with him. But something's better than nothing. It's because I got traded and stolen so many times I can't even remember all the places I have been taken.

Chapter 2

I told you earlier that I have to coexist with that darn blonde Sitka Spruce. It has a hole in the center of my present body. Musicians call it the sound hole, but for me it's just a hole in that blonde’s head.

I have to tell you the truth.

See, I got put together with a few pieces that didn't come from me, and in fact, my whole body is a little complicated.

It was after I developed telepathic abilities to communicate in the computer. I plugged into Google and found out my Mind/Heart is what people call mahogany. And that is also where I learned what the dumb Blonde was, you know, Sitka Spruce. But anyway, what surprised me was this strip of wood up my neck. It is a very beautiful Wood cousin humans call Rosewood. She is pretty quiet though. I mean, she just hums, never says anything, That's not like the blonde. Rosey I call my neck, seems to be agreeing with whatever I'm thinking even before word recognition types it out.

Another thing I found out was my Mind/Heart of Mahogany was a special order made by Colonel Parker. You know who he was? He was Elvis Presley's manager. He wanted to surprise Elvis, but that didn't work out very well. Elvis never even got to touch me because I got stolen by a warehouse junky that traded me for a pound of cocaine to a dealer who supplied marijuana to The Everly Brothers.

Boy, the trading started there, even though I was in a beautiful, solid black case that cost as much as me, Phil got in an argument with his brother Don because when he opened the case, he thought I was going to be one of those pigs with lipstick the factory called a Hummingbird. I mean the nerve to call that old piece of me a beautiful creature when all they did was paint my parts brown with a big splot of orange. Even worse, the thing they call a pick guard. It had fake diamonds and rubies laid around my dumb blonde Sitka Spruce cousins’ hole in her head. It was totally crass, like some rhinestone cowboy would love.

So, everybody got in a huge fight, I mean Don and Phil and they slammed me back in my expansive black chariot case and gave me to one of their roadies. His name was Benny the Amphetamine Fein, and he took me on vacation to Amsterdam so he could smoke marijuana without worrying about getting busted.

My trouble was just beginning though. See Benny the A.F. checked into the Vincent van Gogh Hotel right in the middle of Amsterdam's junkie alley. The idiot left me in the black case in his rented car parked right in front of the hotel. When it came out in the morning, guess what?

The windows were smashed in and I was off on an episode with another junkie who traded me for a fix of heroin. Talk about going downhill? I thought this was the end of me.

The junkie was also a dealer, and he put me in his stolen Mercedes belonging to another dope dealer who booby trapped it with a bomb. When he started the car, the bomb blew, and shot the guy right through the front window, impaling him on a iron fence in front of a fashionable brothel.

Good grief. By the time a fire department arrived, I was totally on fire. Well not exactly me, but the black case was turning to charcoal. One of the firehouse guys pulled me in the case out of the back door and nearly drowned me with water and some kind of stinky pink foam.

Well, my black beautiful case was pretty was much a write off. I mean, the whole thing looked like it had scabby ash Leprosy.

I was pretty shook up and got really hot before they got me out of that firebomb, but other than being a nervous wreck, I was okay. You can't imagine being inside that case on fire. It was a smoking nightmare.

You think that was the end of bad luck there though, wouldn't you?

See the fire guy couldn't find anybody who would claim what was left of the burnout Mercedes the dealer had stolen, let alone me in a burnt up black coffin.

I got stored in Amsterdam’s impound warehouse. That was where I set in another dark hole for two or three Sun and Moon Turns. That's what you humans call years. Sounds weird to me. Years. They’re Turns.

One day, one of the warehouse employees was taking inventory of all the crap confiscated in crime scenes and drug busts.

He opened my burnout, scabby coffin case, and there I was, just as beautiful as the day I came out of the Gibson factory in Nashville, Tennessee many years after Orville had started his factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The thing is, now this is Amsterdam, you know, See, I mean Amsterdam. Have you ever been to Amsterdam? What a city. But anyway, there I am in this Amsterdam warehouse, and this inventory clerk, wasn’t any more honest than the liars’, cheats and drug addict alcoholics that had already passed me on.

So he sold me for 1000 kronas, whatever that is, to a young guy named Pete Townshend. I found out, you know, with my telepathic abilities, I get into Google. This guy Townshend started a very famous band called Who or What? Or Something. Who, I think Who?

But that was a few years before, before he took me to New York City in 1964, then traded me for a Gibson 1275, Bob Dylan owned, Bob didn't like it. Bob Dylan,

Bob the Man, Bob liked me a lot, but usually he left me in his apartment or hotel rooms because later he decided to go all electric with a Stratocaster.

Boy, guitars are a story! We should get together, us guitars and tell our stories sometime.

But Bob Dylan, wow. He was really nice to me and he put me in another beautiful Guitar case with the sweetest, most beautiful golden honey velvet plush deep lining. Man was it cool. Even better than the first case that went all leprosy scabs in the fire.

Geez, I thought I had it made because Bob Dylan treated me like a queen and played beautiful, soft, fingered songs on me. I mean, Bob really knew how to make my voice come out sounding prettier than a talking rainbow.

Talking rainbow? Oh, maybe you didn't know rainbows talk? They not only talk, they also sing.

After all, if a piece of mahogany can telecommunicate, it's perfectly obvious a rainbow can sing the most beautiful operettic voice in the world. Pavarotti, hah! Rainbows sing circles around that fat wop.

It was only after this guy who owns me now, a wet-back Mick, Santiago McBoyle.

He got me hooked up with his computer. I discovered Bob Dylan composed some of his best songs on me, yes me, Molly Gibson, doing the best I could vibrating out my love for him. What a trip Bob Dylan, was!

I guess all good things have their days. See, it was when he went all electric in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival that he dragged me along like always, so he could rehearse quietly in the hotel rooms.

Well, he bumped into a guy in the lobby called Jimmy Page and invited him up to his room so they could do a little jam. Like always, they smoked a lot of wacky-backy, and Jimmy Page talked Bob Dylan into trading me for a Fender X2, whatever that is. I found out Bob used it on it Blonde on Blonde. I hope it had nothing to do with Sitka Spruce.

I mean blondes! Sitka Spruce used to blurt out the most stupid crap right in the middle of me talking to Bob.

The next thing I know, I'm on a plane going to London, England. Basically, my life didn't change much because Jimmy Page also stuck me in hotel rooms all over the place and would play me when no one was around. But wow, he was some kind of amazing musician.

He got stuff on me that made my voice sound like it came from out of space. I mean just amazing. I had no idea I could sound so incredible. I mean, that was fun. Jimmy Page, man, what a wizard he was.

But wouldn't you know it? One day he invited this band called Buffalo something or other to his room. Why they are called a Band of Buffalo, I don't know. Anyway, this band comes into his room and there was this darn drug deal starts all over again and this odd-looking guy with a bumpy forehead and squeaky voice sees me.

He told Jimmy Page he loved me. I mean, like humans say, love at first sight. He had to have me. I mean, honestly, I was kind of flattered. No one ever said that, not even Bob Dylan.

Jimmy Page and all of the other crazy people in the past didn't want to let me go, but this guy called Neil, with the Buffalos said he knew a guy who knew a guy and he could deliver the best Colombian weed ever smoked. He would trade me for Weed. I mean flaming weed.

That's all it took. Jimmy, Page said, Is it Columbian Gold?

Oh man, it's more like Platinum., says Squeaky voice.

Who cares. Gold or platinum? I mean, I get traded for a weed. I was insulted!

Chapter 3

Squeaky Voice said it's more than gold, it's platinum.

The thing is, even drunks, drug addicts and losers have dreams just like you and me.

I could name names. Famous people. Oh yeah even parts of me that have been in other famous people’s hands like Melanie playing a Hummingbird, with Sitka Spruce’s dumb cousin.

But names oh, I have names, Bob Dylan, Peter Townsend, Jimmy Page and that Squeaky Voice, it turns out his name is Neil Young. He acted kind of old you know, just old. But see, he was friends with this guy called Stephen Stills.

Neil and Stephen used to sit around and drink whiskey and get drunk and smoke pot and go crazy and jump in Stephen Stills Unimog up in the mountains, driving crazy raving until Steven Stills crashed three Unimog’s and they wouldn't let him buy anymore.

Wait, did I say unit mugs? No, Unimog’s.

So anyway, the guitar-case I was in, my beautiful black case was in the Unimog, they left it overnight and this drunken hippie climbs into it, sees the guitar-case and skedaddles.

We're out on the highway hitchhiking off to Portland, Oregon! I don't believe it. I'm going back to where this story started.

In Portland, I'm left out in the wet, cold, windy night rain and this guy standing on the street corners is trying to sell me for $50.00. I mean 50 bucks.

I mean, at that point I have to say my life really sucked.

Well, anyway. He stands out there till it was dripping inside my case.

I hear mumbling out there somewhere on the sidewalk. It’s a voice mumbling and suddenly the case opens up and this weird looking guy, looks like Vincent van Gogh's looking at me.

Next thing you know, this guy slams the top and I'm being bounced up and running and jumping up and down the streets of Portland, Oregon.

He takes me to this dump called the East River Hotel. Are you joking me? Listen I have been in the best fancy hotels. This was a ghetto hole where he was living with another maniac called Jackal, but he is Santiago McBoyle, who got me by slamming the guitar-case lid and running off into the night.

What would you think you guys, huh? I mean, come on Oh, come on. Yes, of course. Santiago Mcboyle. I mean, what kind of name is that?

I mean, he lies to everyone. He tells them that he's half Mexican and half Irish, but you know what? He's out of it crazy. I mean, completely nuts.

We've been living together for 55 years. whether I liked it or not, somehow, he keeps losing me and keeps finding me no matter what happens. You wouldn’t believe what I had to put up with!

Yeah. So I still wind up back in his hands. Well, I can't help it. I finally have got attached to him even though he is completely nuts, in fact he’s pedigreed. He tells people he has papers. I believe that. I mean bite me.

Yeah. What? You want me to start? What he's done?

What?

You want to know what happened to me? Oh, you say? I mean, I will tell you.

He didn't even have me for 12 hours before I was mutilated. I mean, I didn't have a scratch on me, not even a little tiny little anything. I was absolutely, immaculately perfect.

So he starts dragging me into coffee houses, open mic nights, you know, and he's banging some kind of cord on me and screaming. He thinks he's singing it. He sounds like a coyote out on the Prairie, but you know, at least he was playing me. I mean, not like those other guys who actually knew how to play, though. And you know, the guitar and sing too,

But anyway, he gets off the stage and this guy comes up and says, hey dude, that' a beautiful guitar Can I play play it. And like an idiot, he says go ahead. The guy takes me up on the stage and he starts whaling on me and banging on me, except he's got this enormous gigantic cowboy buckle on the back of me and his belly, and he's like grooving, like ants crawling all over my body.

Well, what do you think?

Finally Santiago realizes this guy is doing something to me that doesn't seem to be normal. He jumps up and he takes me out of this crazy guy's hands with cowboy buckle hands and he says give me my guitar back.

The guy sees Santiago looks nuts. Of which he gives the guitar bank and slinks off.

I'm quite sure Santiago is not well. You'd think that was the end of that when you the next thing I know it's another night in the East River Hotel.

Santiago and Jackal decided to go get a bottle of wine at the local Metal Workers Union beer joint. Santiago walks in with his ponytail and beaded neckless.

One of the metal worker union guys says Isn't she cute?

Well yeah, you have that ponytail something like dummy news smart kind of guy look, and you go into a ruffian’s bar?

So, Santiago stands at the bar and feels tugging on his ponytail. He turns around and this ruffian guy about 9 feet tall and weighs 4000 lbs. says, “What was does your booty do?”

Santiago nimbly slipped out of the ruffians’ fingers and turns to him and he says, “Look man, all I want is a bottle of wine, thank you very much anyway.”

Santiago turns his back to the ruffian.

Oh, wow the jumbo monster behind him huffs and puffs and he looks up and he looks down, but this little squirt in front of him is just ignoring him.

Anyway, the little squirt, which is Santiago, gets the a bottle of wine and goes home.

Nothing happens except five minutes later, a banging on the door. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And I hear this big voices, come out, you horrible hippies come out or we'll kill you. Well, that's what they said. And then boom, boom, boom, boom on the door again and they said come out. We'll set the house on fire. Boom boom boom boom. Alright, we're going to set the house on fire now. Boom boom boom.

So next thing I know I’m in Santiago’s arms looking out the window and flames are flowing and the 9,000 lb. ruffian has got a torch and he's coming to the door. I'm going, oh no, I get to burnt up finally after how many forest fires and now I'm holed up in a cheap hotel, it's happening. I don’t believe it!

So, I'm calling to Santiago, STOP THIS MONSTER!.

He goes over to the fireplace, and he picks up an axe and he goes to the door with the monster ruffian going boom, boom, boom. Santiago swings the door open, and the guys got the torch in his hand and Santiago says, “I'm very bored with this? Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Santiago is going to split the monsters head right in half. Well, this guy wasn't completely stupid because he saw the look in Santiago's eyes and realized, oh what?

The 9,000 lb. ruffian says, “Oh excuse me Sir. Thank you very much. Goodbye,” and Santiago slams the door.

Well, the next thing I know, these monsters outside are all beating each other, calling each other chickens because they couldn't beat up a little skinny hippie squirt.

In the morning there's a pecking and pecking and pecking on the door. Santiago opens it up and there's this big monster that tried to kill him the night before and he’s got bongos in his arm. I mean, little drums in his arms and he says, “Sorry, I didn't want to cause a fight with you. I had to beat up my two friends to make them go away. I want to apologize, and I just wanted to give you this bongo drums.”

Can you believe that actually happened? I was there. I mean, I heard it. I saw it. I know it happened. Wow. You’d think after a while I would get used to people like Santiago, but that experience nearly burning me down in a cheap, frizzy hotel got me really upset.

So the next thing I know we're out on some kind of highway. Santiago has got this fuzzy little dog by him. Every once in a while Snatiago opens up the guitar-case, takes me out then sits on it and plays me. The next thing I know a bunch of crazy hippies pick us up and they take us a few miles then stop and they all go into a house, drink wine and smoke pot and go crazy. I mean, over and over and over this kind of thing happened.

But one day, Santiago is sitting on me in the guitar-case on the highway and the little dog he calls Pig, starts jumping up and down and whining and barking and grabbing Santiago, so he chases the little dog away just as a 18-wheeler giant truck roars by right where Santiago was sitting on me in the guitar-case.

The next thing I know I'm up flying like a plane through the air and I'm terrified, what's going to happen now. I feel a boom crack crash. Is this it? I hear whizzing air and gravel splattering, a zoom, zoom, back up in the air and down on the ground and up in the air and down on the ground and suddenly stop flying and my guitar-case is spinning around in circles.

Well, you see, this little dog was trying to pull Santiago off the road because he knew the truck driver was aiming for him. But when the truck went by, the vacuum behind it picked me up in the guitar-case and I then flew through the air at 75 miles an hour until I hit the asphalt like a flat rock on the lake and went skipping down the highway, and titties on kitties, no more pity for me.

I'm sorry, but every day was like that and I'd only been with him 10 days and it's been like that every 10 days for the next 50 years.

It's only the last five years we sit around and look at each other and Santiago looks at me and he says, “Molly, I love you more than any woman in my whole life. You are mine I am yours.”

Well, that is sweet. If I feel like it, I'll tell you more later, but now I'm just tired. I'm gonna play with myself. You know I can do that. I can make my strings vibrate.

Chapter Four

I could hardly believe it, I mean, I escaped death with him hitch hiking on the highway more times than I can even tell you. But there we were on the highway, and I had no idea where we're going until we arrived in Aspen, Colorado.

Well, that certainly started things because he ran into a bunch of hippies that were tripping on LSD.   

Santiago said, OK, he would not do the same thing. He said that two or three times before when he said he was never going to take LSD again. So he plays something he thinks is music and sees things floating through the air,  banging on me in some open chord with him howling like crazy and them saying what a wonderful singer and guitar player he was. He was absolute crap.

What, do you think that would stop Santiago? No way. He just keeps carrying me around, acting like he was a rock star. One thing led to the other and he goes to the University of Colorado in Boulder. Then he starts playing in coffee houses. Good for him, though.

He finally saw a real guitarist. Yeah, his name was John Fahey. John was doing a coffee house gig and he asked people to bring up guitars that were completely out of tune. Santiago watched him play 6 different guitars that were totally out of tune. John made a beautiful sound out of each one. Santiago took me up and John was like an angel from heaven strumming me. He said I was the sweetest guitar he had played in a long time. Well, that gave Santiago some kind of insight about how to play me, but he never got close to how John Fahey played me..

Santiago started like, doing strange things on me, that sounded pretty good for a change. Also, it was kind of fun to hang out with all those hippies because they had all kinds of different guitars and banjos and all kinds of stuff. And every once in a while, you know, I actually thought I could talk to another guitar, but I realized it was just me talking to myself because all the other guitars were completely dead. I mean, just dead wood. They didn't have any mind/heart at all.

Santiago met up with an old army buddy Fred, and they bought a car for $100, so they wouldn’t have to hitch hike everywhere.

This guy Fred was an actually really good musician and had a handmade guitar that was made out of the most beautiful wood I've ever seen, well, not as beautiful as me, but it was pretty nice wood.

And you know what? It was kind of like the rosewood on my neck because that guitar didn't say anything. It just hummed as well. But the thing was, when Fred was playing the guitar and Santiago was playing me, it was magic.

Next thing I know, we go to a place called Colorado Springs, and we meet this gal who owns a beer joint and she says, why don't you guys come and play in my beer joint? What should we do? Of course.

So we made a little bit of money. Santiago takes Fred back to Aspen where he met all those hippies on LSD.

But I forgot to tell you what happened before Santiago and Fred got to Aspen.

See, Fred and Santiago. They stop up on top of the mountain a couple of miles from Aspen, and it's all foggy and they can't see anything. So they decide to stop the car right on the top of this mountain and go out and play in the fog.

So they're playing away and doing this incredible kind of, I guess what's called a raga, you know, some kind of Indian tuning that was just like droning on. And it was actually very beautiful in the fog. And I felt so mysterious and actually like I was an opera star.

And then there was giggling and funny things going on in the fog, and suddenly four girls start circling around Fred and Santiago all go singing and laughing and clapping.

And Santiago sees one of these girls and he totally falls for her who is dancing in the fog up on a mountain somewhere near Aspen, Colorado. Oh I am jumping ahead of the story.

Santiago and Fred got a folksy music gig in the Jerome Hotel, which was full of all kinds of famous people and rock'n'roll stars and they were always saying, wow, where did you get that beautiful guitar, pointing to me. I would smile, of course, but they couldn't see me smile.

Fred and  Santiago do the gig at the Jerome Hotel, and one of the famous musicians says he’s doing his next gig at the Denver Pop Festival where something really wild is going to happen. He talks Fred into going too, but Santiago wants to find the girl he fell in love with on the mountain. She’s disappeared, so he decides to go with Fred to Denver.

The city officials had declared a festival camping site and stuck 60,000 hippies or something Like a million hippies. Or maybe 20,000. Who cares anyway, A bunch of hippies in this kind of valley that had a sewer running through the middle of it.

One morning Fred and Santiago go out and buy a whole bunch of Dunkin' Donuts and wake up these 60,000 hippies with their new song that they had done that was like this Indian raga thing.

And so we're walking around in the morning as the sun is rising up and hippie girls are handing out the Donuts that they brought back from Dunkin' Donuts…maybe 10 or 20 dozen. I can't remember a lot of Donuts.

And Fred and Santiago are like doing this raga and one by one all these hippies wake up as the Suns is rising. They start clicking stones and whacking sticks and groaning and moaning and making sounds with Santiago and Fred. And it was like magic.

I mean, the whole valley full of hippies was singing to us. It was beautiful.

The Denver Pop Festival was just a few weeks before that famous pot smoking LSD crowd all went to what they called Woodstock, but every hippie and guitar in America were at the Denver Pop Festival where we saw Jimmy Hendrix and Johnny Winters and Three Dog Night, and Joe Cocker, and Frank Zappa and Poco, and Credence Clearwater, and oh, yeah, Ike and Tina Turner and just a whole bunch of amazing crazy young people. They all had guitars, and they were all making all kinds of sounds I never heard before.

Well, one thing led to another. Fred and Santiago were playing all kinds of gigs, all kinds of places. We take off to Missouri, where Fred had to go his brother’s wedding and they had a gig at a girl's high school, and I mean there was nothing but girls. And of course, the girls all fall in love with Santiago and Fred because they are a couple of handsome young guys.

And naturally, Fred and Santiago fall in love with two or three of them. The only problem was they were all like 15 or 16. So, nothing worked there except the next night.

Fred was best man at his brother's wedding, which he did, and we had a lot of fun. But then when the wedding was over, Fred's brother told him he couldn't have a celebration party in town because the cops would raid him because they all thought he was a drug dealer. Well, he was a drug dealer.

So anyway, the plan was we would go up into the mountains somewhere in the trees and just build a big fire. And you know, play music and drink wine, smoke pot and take LSD and everything crazy hippies do.

So, there we are, in the middle of nowhere in Missouri in the Ozarks, I don't know, somewhere up on a mountain.

The campfire is roaring, and everyone is stoned and drunk and hallucinating, and Santiago is there on his own in front of the fire, just doing his raga thing on me, which was really beautiful because I was like right in tune with all the snapping and popping on the fire when suddenly out of nowhere some kind of invasion started.

This big light comes out of the trees and then a whole bunch of other lights come out of the trees from all the directions and there's one big light comes flying right at me and it comes right up to me, and this light goes bam, it goes right through my strings and down inside of me. I tell you I was molested.

So, I hear Santiago say, “What are you doing? You are attacking my guitar, you idiot! Get that flashlight out of my guitar!”

The next thing I know, this guy goes boom wham bang and pulls his flashlight out of me and it like screeches through the strings and makes me feel like I'm going to die.

And this guy says to Santiago, Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stick my flashlight into your guitar.

Wow. Talk about being insulted and assaulted. It was both and I couldn't believe something like that could happen to me. I mean, imagine having a Flashlight stuck up your hole. It wasn't fun at all.

Next thing I know, Santiago is in the car with a guy who's the head narcotic squad officer In the Missouri State narcotic squad. The officer says they'd run out of police cars, so Santiago had to take him to the police station in his beat up $100 piece of junk, with marijuana in the glove box, and him trying to act all country-like with the Narc.

We get to the police station and Santiago walks in with this guy, the head Narcotics officer. He says to Santiago, “That's all right. You just sit here while I go in and interview all these drug addicts that are in there.”

Somehow these two had got to be friendly in the car going to the police station, with this guy telling Santiago that he had his eye on Fred, because Fred was weird because he talked to him one day when Fred was walking around the street looking up in the sky and he asked Fred, why are you looking up in the sky? And Fred said I'm looking at the clouds, I see faces up there.

“I tell you”, the Head Narcotics Officer said, “Fred is a lunatic.”

Well, Fred was a lunatic because he was in the nut house with Santiago when they got out of the army.

So Santiago is stuck in the cop shop, and he goes looking around in the waiting room, and he looks up on the wall and he sees this picture of himself standing by a car, except he's got his hat kind of pulled down over his eyes. And the poster says watch out for this guy. He's a drug dealer in town. If you see him, arrest him. Santiago goes, oh, oh, I am gonna get busted.

So, he starts to walk out of the police station when suddenly the police officers let everyone out of the jail arrested that night because the parents had stormed the police station raising hell with them about them arresting 15- and 16-year-old people having fun in the woods.

Well, as it turned out, where they decided to have fun in the woods was just over the hill from the Attorney General of Missouri, who heard all this noise and banging and howling and screaming and hippie stuff just over the hill from his house. He called the local cops and said go arrest those bums before they get out of town.

Well.

So Santiago manages to get out of the police station. He gets in the car and Fred gets in the car, and they split out of there soon as  they could get out of there and head back to Aspen.

Well. it happens on their drive back to Aspen, Fred decided he had seen the light, and he was gonna become a preacher. He tried to convert Santiago, right there to become a preacher.

Santiago told him go stick his Bible up as you know where, and they kind of got in a big disagreement in Aspen when they got there. So, Fred decided he was going to go back to Missouri and make good about becoming a preacher.

Santiago can’t find the little hippie gal he fell for up on the mountain but finds out she has gone to college in northern California. So, he says to Fred, “Well, I'm going to California and find that little hippie chick I met in the fog up on the mountain above Aspen.”

So next thing I know I'm in Eureka, California, with Santiago and this little hippie chick. Santiago decided to trade his $100 car for a wrecked school bus to live in the Redwood Forest with a black musician who plays the wash tub bass and all kinds of instruments and had all the hippies in Northern California come to his house once a week where guess what they would do? Yeah, drink wine, smoke pot, take LSD and go nuts playing music.

But you know what? Santiago got to be pretty good playing crazy music, and we kind of got to know each other a little more. I was beginning to think, you know what? One of these days, Santiago might be able to finally play me like a real musician.

That was just the start of all kinds of things. From there, wow, we went all over the place. Let me tell you the places. I mean, Mexico, I mean, Colorado and then I wind up being dumped In Telluride, Colorado where Santiago tells a friend, complete drug addict who's on heroin, to take care of me while he goes on a little vacation.

Guess what? I don't see Santiago for another five years. He had dumped his little hippie chic, telling her he would be back in a few days, and leaves me with this drug addict, who actually was a real musician, and he could play me like no one I've ever heard before.

An even crazier thing was because the drug addict was in Telluride and this guy was like a trust funder, he always had musicians dropping into his house. You won't believe this, but the musicians were famous all over the world.

I mean Neil Young was there one night. I said Neil, Neil, I'm yelling Neil, Remember Me? He was like stoned and drunk and crazy and couldn't remember anything. Stephen Stills even showed up later and same thing. Nobody remembered me because they all were into snow. Everyone called it snow. I guess they went to the mountains to get Snow. But they didn't mean snow. They meant cocaine.

Wow. So that was what was happening. Oh. right? Did I say that Peter Townsend even showed one time?

I was always waiting for the day that Bob Dylan might pop into Telluride at this guy's house, but he never showed up once.

I was so disappointed because I know Bob Dylan would have remembered me and my whole life would have been different.

Well, it didn't happen.

Five years later, Santiago shows up at this drug addict’s door, knocks on the door, and says, “Hey, I'm back,” and his friend the drug addict is on heroin, I mean, he's really conked out on heroin and cocaine and all kinds of stuff.

The drug addict says, “Oh, I guess you come to get your guitar. I've taken good care of her.”

Well, actually he did take good care of me.

But I was terrified. Oh no, here I go again with Santiago Mcboyle. What will happen to me now?

Oh, well, I'll tell you later because I overloaded the Word Recognition Program and have to reboot the darn Thang...

Chapter 5

Well, that was so long ago.I mean, it seems like another life, really. In fact, it was another life because now it's completely different. Now that we're up in the mountains of New Mexico and the high desert, that's what they call it.

You know, they're just so many things that have happened, but mainly it was because Lady #7 walked into his life.

Or you might ask, who is Lady # 7?

Well, of course, that is the 7th woman that decided that she wanted to be in this maniac's life.

As far as I can figure out, she must be as crazy as he is. Two lunatics together. What could go wrong?

So anyway, Lady #7 walked in, and it wasn't exactly love at first sight.

In fact, it took pretty severe negotiation by Lady #7 for about 6 months to finally manage to move right into the middle of Santiago's life.  

You know what I mean? Into his House. It was a big deal because you know what? She didn't care that he was broke. She said she'd pay for everything, and she did.

Oh, every once in a while, Santiago would make 10 or 20 bucks from some of his priceless art…silly sculptures that only crazy people buy.

But anyway, there she was, and there she is. And that's how it goes. 

I mean, can you believe it? They're going on 20 years now that they've been together.

Years…I think that's what you guys call the sun cycle.

Let me see, where did that start out? 

Oh of course, Santiago pulled up a brand-new black shining Harley-Davidson all dressed in black shiny leather.

He had a bandana around his head, he thought he looked like that charmer in Easy Rider, oh yeah, Peter Fonda, he’s a hero to me too, I mean I google him telepathically all the time. But Santiago was just la crazy hippie Hells Angel-less Bandido nut case,

Naturally, she fell in love with him at first sight. She really loved black leather and was almost as nuts as Santiago.

Believe me, if she'd heard him howl while playing me at the beer joint’s Open Mic night, she would have run off screaming.

He always was going to the local bar on open mic night and banging on me and just howling what he calls the Blues.

I mean did I say Blues? Oh God, it's so boring. Blues, Blues, Blues.

Oh Well, never mind.

So where was I in this story?

I forget to tell you about when she first met Santiago and she said, “I love you” to Santiago, almost right away.

Then she said, “Don't worry about anything. Don't worry about money. What's money?”

Santiago says, “Why don't you live with me?”

Like he stepped right into the trap.

She said, “Oh that would be lovely, I have only a few things.”

He said, “I've got a big empty house.”

Did I say, she fell in love with him because he was on a black motorcycle dressed in black leather, even if he didn't have anything except for a house that was almost empty but for one table and one chair, and he slept on pillows.

Well, she saw all that blank space and walls and she was more than double in love with him.

Did I say she had a few things? How about animals? Did she say she had a few animals?

Santiago said, “Oh, that's no problem. I love dogs and cats.”

Lady #7 said, “Oh, that's good.”

So, she arrives with three dogs and five cats, naturally. What else?

So, Santiago says, “Oh, you've got a lot of animals.”

And she says I love animals, and he says I love animals and so on and so forth.

 She said, “I have a truck load or 2 of things to bring.”

He says, “I’ve got plenty of room.”

Did she say she had a truck load or two of things?

No, it was 10 truckloads completely packed from bottom to top, and she completely filled the entire house with stuff.

Did I say stuff?

It's like Santiago and Blues.

Did I say Blues? Did I say stuff?

Blues, Stuff. It went on and on.

Well, Santiago was grateful that she had so much stuff because he didn't have the Blues so much anymore, because she bought him rib eye steaks, bottles of wine, boxes of whiskey and tours of the country.

Did I say tours of the country? New York to California, Mexico to Canada. They went everywhere. And then she said, “Do you want to go to Europe?”

I forgot how that all happened. Yes, before she moved into the house. This was Lady #7’s big calling card.

She said, “Do you like music?” He said, “Do I like music, are you joking me?”

She said, “Do you like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young”

He said, “Do I like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young? Oh boy oh boy!" What, are you joking? Stephen Stills and Neil Young?”

Personally see, I wanted to go. I communicated with Santiago, “I'll go, you go, please oh please let’s go!”. He could hear me telepathically naturally!

Well, you think that was what was going to happen, huh?

Santiago went home without Lady #7 in his 4-pillow bed that night and got drunk. He howled and thumped on me banging out BLUES, BLUES, BLUES and he came to the conclusion that he was out of his mind to take on another woman, especially the 7th because he had sworn only the night before to have only trucks, motorcycles, dogs, me his telecommunicating guitar, and pot in his life and no more women.

So, he rode on his big Harley past Lady #7’s sitting at the bar outdoor patio, where they first met the next day, and he said to himself, “I'll talk to her later in the evening,” trying to get out of how he was going to say, “I'm going to shoot you in the head, darling,” meaning he was going to dump her.

Anyway, later in the evening he cruised by accidentally where she was still sitting at the beer joint patio, looking directly at him.

He stopped bravely to talk and he said, Lady #7, I'm sorry, but I'm quitting. I swore no more women in my life. Ever. Ever.

She looked at him and she said, “First of all I have 5 questions for you. Number 1, Don’t you Remember what I said about Going to Red Rocks and seeing your favorite Band, CROSBY, STILLS, NASH AND YOUNG?”

He said, YES…

She said, “Number 2, Do you remember I said, don't worry about anything, I will pay for everything?”

Uh huh, he said…

She went on, “Number 3, didn't I say that while we are there, You can do anything to me you want,” and she wiggled and looked at him straight in the eye.

Well Lady #7 is very sexy, as I'm told by humans when they talk about those kind of things.

 And he says, OK, Yes, uh huh…

And she said, “Number 4, when I come back with you on your black shining motorcycle, didn't I say, you never have to see me again if you don't want to and no hard feelings?”

And he said, uh-huh, uh huh and began to sweat around the neck.

And she said, “Number 5, are you completely freaking crazy?”

Well.

That stopped Santiago in his tracks. It suddenly occurred to him. He might be nuts.

He had a paid holiday with a sexy babe who bought him everything he wanted. Took him to a rock'n'roll concert with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, and then she was going to say chow baby, good bye and no bad feelings.

Santiago said, “OK, when do we leave?”

You see, he wasn't completely crazy, but almost.

Lady #7 Convinces her Hero, she is the one.

My heavens, did I tell you how they got there in the 1st place on his black shiny motorcycle?

Santiago, being the genius that he is, decided he was going to take all his baggage, plus a tent, a pop-up stove, an air inflated mattress with a pumping device, 3 sets of motorcycle tools, plus a jug of wine, and me stacked on top of that mess, plus several things no one can explain…

She was taking a sensible small bag that fit on the side of the motorcycle.

Everything had to be strapped all around the motorcycle, front to back so one couldn't see anything but the tires.

We almost out of Santa Fe before the motorcycle caught on fire, because Santiago had packed Lady #7’s small bag on top of the hot exhaust pipe and it caught on fire. I saw the smoke and tele-screamed for Santiago to STOP!

Being the absolute adventurer that Santiago is, he put the fire out, put Lady #7 back on and we managed to get all the way to Taos before the Harley had a blowout, almost killing both of them, and smashing me to pieces. Lady #7 had bucks, got the tire replaced and back out on the road we go…

We got all the way to the rock'n'roll concert, at the Red Rocks near Boulder, Colorado.

The wind was howling and all I could hear was the wind blowing. Santiago had me on his lap and I could see Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's mouth moving, but I couldn’t hear a word. I’m yelling at the top of my telepathic mouth, SAVE ME, SAVE ME but Neil couldn’t hear, and Stills couldn’t hear and I’m tele-screaming HELP ME! SAVE ME!

NOTHING JUST WIND HOWLING

But I could see up on a big media screen all of the lyrics of their anti-war songs, and blood and people dying, and I knew nothing had changed.

55 years later and I'm READING the same story…

You humans are crazy.

Well, anyway, we get back on the motorcycle.

Fortunately, Lady #7 had the good sense to convince Santiago to pack up all of his things in a box and ship them back to New Mexico.

Yeah, so that's what he did, all except me, because Santiago swore, he would never leave me behind again.

However, we got on a freeway and stuck for 8 hours behind a major traffic jam.

Did I say that was all that happened? No. By the time we got halfway back to New Mexico, Santiago was out of his mind,

He said, “I have 150 miles left to go on this motorcycle. I've been on it for 8 hours and the only thing I've got on it is Lady #7 and my guitar, and I can't stand anything anymore. I want off this bike…boo hoo hoo!”

So, he went through the black of a night on a potted highway with Lady # 7 and me, doing 100 miles an hour, and he couldn't see anything except black cows out in the road with white spots.

This is not the way I wanna die, nooooooooooooooooo, I’m TELE-SCREAMING 

But we got to where we were going.

A hotel that Lady #7 had called ahead, reserved a bed with champagne and candles.

Santiago looked at her.

Lady #7 Smiled.

On the bed with the champagne and the candles and he said, “Baby, I love you. Don't worry. When we get back to New Mexico, you don't have to go away. Please, PLEASE stay with me.”

The lady wiped the tears from her eyes, looked at him sweetly and smiled.

The deal was clenched.

THE END