Oh, that guitar was sweet. You'd never know it was so cheap. It felt great to play, it looked awesome, it could do more or less any 60s guitar sound you could ask for, and I wanted to start an all-girl Beatles cover band called "Eight Days a Month." I managed to audition a few people but didn't get enough interest (even though there were at least four Beatles cover bands already gigging regularly in the area and plenty of demand for more, and I knew because I knew and hung out with all of them except the Eggmen, who were all Korean and played venues I didn't like), and my sparkly guitar ended up being nothing more than a toy.
In 2006, after the tech market crashed and I'd been out of work for a couple of years, I couldn't afford to live in the San Francisco Bay Area anymore. I was flat broke and had to sell most of my stuff, including the Danelectro, to fund a move to Austin, where I'd been promised a great tech writing market and a free place to stay until I found work. The Dano went to a friend who wanted to learn to play. I missed it, but it's not like I could play lead, and Austin was the wrong kind of town for a 60s revival band, and besides, I had to focus on finding work in what turned out to be a horrible job market, especially after my "friends" threw me out before I had either money or a place to go. Thanks to the kindness of near-strangers, I was able to hang on and gain a tenuous toehold, but essentially the next eight years were a continuous downward spiral of underemployment, poverty, and increasingly unpleasant insect infestations (including ants, roaches, and eventually bedbugs).
Then I met Mr. Idler online, within two weeks we just KNEW we belonged together, and less than a year later I left it all behind to move to the UK. The Danelectro was the last thing on my mind. I'd forgotten all about it. Until last week, when my friend got in touch and asked if I wanted it back, because now it's his turn to make a cross-country move, and it's been sitting in storage since he bought it and he's realized he's never going to learn to play. After a brief negotiation we agreed on half its current market value plus shipping, and my sparkly toy will shortly be winging its way to me across the Atlantic, just in time for Xmas. Or possibly my birthday. Shipping from the US sometimes takes much longer than expected.
It looks just like this, and is still in virtually mint condition. And that's why I need to build a sparkly valve amp, which I posted about over in Everyone's Projects.
Ironically, I know another, even more amazing Prodigal Guitar story from many years earlier that tangentially involves the comedian Rich Hall, but I'll save that for another time.
