Counterpoint: a good musician can be musical with a humble instrument. I’d listen to Bob Dylan play a $25 ukulele. And there are thousands and thousands of shitty players who own $5,000 Les Pauls — they’re the ones at the guitar store with an amp really cranked, just annoying the living shit out of everyone.

I’m 44 and my dad is 82. I’ve heard his voice crack a couple times, but in my whole life I’ve never seen him actually cry. He was also a Marine in the Korean war and grew up in the Great Depression in rural Idaho. Neither of which I have ever had a real conversation with him about. There’s a level of emotional…