Dumpster Diver

On Friday I stopped over a friend's house to pick up a project I was helping him and his wife with. I hadn't seen him in a while so we hung out most of the afternoon getting caught up and he showed me some of the editing and special effects he had been working on for his demo reel he will be sending out to potential clients.

We started talking about all the things he could do on the computer and we watched a few short films people had put up on YouTube and Vimeo. While he could do all sorts of effects he didn't have story in him that he wanted to tell. So we started brainstorming about all the sorts of things he could do and, together, we started working out a basic story that we could film in two days and then he could edit it and make it look really cool.

While talking about the story we started talking about what kinds of props we both have that we could use. While he pulled out a few things he mentioned he had some more stuff in the garage. And there, in the garage, was a bass guitar he said he had pulled out of the dumpster a few months ago. It didn't seem in such bad shape so, after we were done talking about the story for the movie, I took the bass home and spent yesterday afternoon cleaning it up, tightening some loose bolts and screws, and giving it a new set of strings.

And now it plays like a dream. It's not the best bass in the world but, for the cost of a little time, a little love, and twenty bucks for a new set of strings, my friend has an essentially free bass he can learn to play music on.

As for my own music playing and the recording of the OilCan Drive album...between playing the guitar and bass for weeks on end and playing this new bass all day yesterday my hands have really taken a beating. They don't hurt at all and my fingers have really toughened up but, as you can see from this picture, I won't be doing any hand modeling anytime soon.

Have a great day.