My Telecaster - Unique Mojo

I own a Fender Telecaster Thin-line Reissue guitar. It is a Mexican-made Fender. I bought it in 2003. It's not fancy. It's not a collectible. It's been lugged, beaten-up, dropped, and knocked around. I've opened it up so often the screws in the pick-guard are loose and rattle around. I put black tape over them to keep them from falling out. 

There is a nasty black scorch mark from a soldering iron on the side of the body. I am dangerous with a soldering iron in my hand. If you opened up this guitar you would see solder splattered all over the place. Sort of like a Jackson Pollock painting.

I replaced the original Fender Pickups with Telecaster Texas Specials, and then later I replaced those with 1 Seymour Duncan Hot Rail in the neck position, and one 1 Seymour Duncan Old '59 in the bridge. Surprisingly, this guitar is super-quiet. No hums, no crackles, no fizzes.

I am a little embarrassed about the condition of this guitar. It's a result of lots of experiments, lots of work on it, by a person who really didn't know what he was doing, when he was doing it, he just did it, and then lived with the results.

The wiring is all sloppy, and loopy and if you tried to trace the wires from one place to another, well, you'd need Google Maps to figure it out. Last night, I did a "truss-rod adjustment." I lately put on some super-heavy electric guitar strings, and I noticed the action up the fretboard was pretty bad. For a brief second I thought maybe I should bring the guitar into a shop and let a real guitar tech work on it. But then I figured I couldn't deal with the embarrassment of showing this guitar to anyone with any knowledge.

So instead, I watched a YouTube and then figured I was an expert. And all seemed to go well. I made the adjustment, and now the action is much better. I am very proud of myself. And I must say there is something amazing about this guitar. I have totally put my stamp on it. It's unlike any other guitar in the world. You would not want your guitar to be like this guitar. But that's ok. When I play it, I realize it has it's own unique mojo. And in it's own quirky way, it sounds and plays great. It is so much me.

Do guitars have soul? I believe so. Can an inanimate object radiate energy? Yes. Does this guitar uniquely contain, and offer up music to me? Yes, indeed. It is so.