Well, I'm sorry to say that I'll still be grumblificating, for the moment.
1st strike was the archaic urban 4-part handshake.
2nd strike was when he expected me to listen to him tune his guitar. He refused my offer of a tuner twice. ("Are you out, or am I?" "Can't be me. I used the tuner on my amp - A-440 all the way, man. This is my son's rig." "Your son's rig? That explains why you're a 1/2 step down, man." Then he made us listen while he tuned by ear with all his effects on, the dumbass.)
3rd strike was when he used effects so poorly that no one could hear what he was playing. He had a Behringer amp that might have sounded good, if only he'd give it a chance. I finally told him straight up to turn off the delay, cuz it was too hard to play on time around it. I couldn't believe his lack of taste in this area. It was like he'd never played in front of ppl before.
4th strike - he couldn't play a lead to "Folsum Prison Blues" (I had to play the intro cuz he couldn't grasp it!!!!), he couldn't follow on any chord progression, & had obviously not looked up a single song on the list the drummer gave him.
5th strike was when it became obvious that he wanted to START a band, NOT to join one, as he started to explain where "his heart really is." As he played his original quasi-latin/blues fusion, he kept falling apart like he was made of unfried cracker crumbs or something.
That was when I said "I'm going out for a smoke" (I was gonna add "...& when I get back you'd better not be here"). It was during the little break that he decided "I won't waste any more of your time," & soon he was packed up & on his way home.
It was nice to get Dddonnie & Mike together, cuz we all had a good laugh at this one. Mike said we scared him 1/2 to death. I guess he'd figured that the country/rockabilly/older rock that we do was gonna be a piece of cake or something. HAH!
So we're back to putting ads in the paper & CL & here & heaven only knows where else...this time the ad will clearly state that if you wanna START a band, don't bother, but if you wanna JOIN one, we might be interested...
DIBBITZ!!!!
I HATE "square one."