Fig. 6, the first verse of The Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated”. From Alternative Guitar issue 1, by way of my cubicle walls in 1999.

This article was how I learned to stop just making noise on the guitar and focus. It is not easy to play barre chords with all downstrokes for 90 minutes, no indeed. Eventually, I learned all 30 tracks on Ramones Mania, and had the pauses between the tracks memorized, so I could turn my stereo up loud, my tiny practice amp up loud, and play through the whole thing. That is how I spent most of junior high. With glittery nail polish.