All in the name of research

My friend Bob has been working in his "lab'' late at night to perfect an invention that will revolutionize the art of guitar playing. If I told you more he'd shoot me.

I am not kidding, at least about the invention part.

Bob's problem is that he is always surrounded by guitars. Now this is normally a pretty cool thing, but too many guitars can be a major distraction when you are trying to refine a revolutionary idea, even if it happens to involve guitars. Last night, for instance, I went back to the "lab'' to check on his progress and found him doing some vigorous 12-string bottlenecking on a Danelectro doubleneck.

Now Bob is an excellent player, and the sound coming from that Danelectro was truly splendid. But his picking seemed a bit off point. Fiddling while Rome burns, so to speak.

My role in this brilliant undertaking, as a business partner and designated project prodder, is to keep my inventor on task. And being that we have a patent deadline approaching, it's high time we generate some results.

Bob convinced me he was working on something that was crucial to our success, and he was kind enough to invite me back today to join him for some important "research.''

Which is where I'm headed right now. Wish us luck today...