Team Shredded Bark

Signature Flat Picks

WTF?

We, or more accurately, I (team founding member John), leave a pick like those pictured above as a signature item in every cache I visit. I number them in sequence so I can track which cache I left each one in.

Why guitar picks?

I am (among other things) a guitarist. So I thought that this was an appropriate personal signature item.

Why, specifically, yellow Dunlop® Tortex™ Medium .73mm flat picks?

That's the pick I use. They're the best. All the greatest guitarists in he world, from Segovia to Chet Atkins to Yngwie "Fscking" Malmsteen use that pick*, Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: All other picks are crap!

Er, what I meant to say is that after much experimentation during my formative years as a musician, I found that this pick offers the best balance of durability and flex for my particular playing style.

But if they're so good, why waste them by leaving them in caches all over the world?

Well, it is part of a philosophy. Let me explain:

Like most guitarists, I have a love/hate relationship with my picks. When I was in the band, they were the bane of my performing existence. If they weren't dropping from my sweaty fingers at inopportune times, they were falling into tiny cracks between the equipment, or popping loose from the strings during a particularly energetic solo and flying into the audience's drinks. To help ameliorate this, I would duct tape a number of picks on my microphone stand, amplifier, beer mug, low-hanging lights, drum kit, the singer's back, the roadies, the bar-maid's platter, etc. in an attempt to have a pick waiting for me anywhere I might suddenly lose one during the show.

Nonetheless, I was in a constant state of seeking another pick to replace a lost one. Like many musicians, I attempted to fix this by purchasing a few picks and keeping a close eye on them. Inevitably, however, they would disappear, and I would have to buy more picks. For non-guitarists, this is akin to the lost-sock-in-the-dryer phenomenon. Geocachers seem to favor losing cell phones.

I began to feel that I was the victim of a cruel and unfair, pick-stealing universe. It was some time before I had the epiphany that I was just approaching the problem in the wrong way.

One day, or more specifically, 3 January 1995, (ain't the Internet grand?) I was listening to National Public Radio when I heard a commentary that grabbed my attention. Bill Harley, a storyteller and guitar player, read an essay on disappearing guitar picks. That was creepy enough, but it was his final paragraph that really made my hair stand on end, and made me realize that this was a message to me from the thermodynamic universe--Bill was using and distributing the the exact same picks that I used!

I'm not making this up. Here, with Bill Harley's kind permission, is the transcript of his commentary:

GUITAR PLAYER SEEKS EQUILIBRIUM WITH HIS GUITAR PICKS

January 3, 1995

LINDA WERTHEIMER, Host: For a guitar player, picks are essential. But for guitar player Bill Harley, picks constantly vanish. He's found a solution to that problem and an answer to one of life's mysteries.

BILL HARLEY, Commentator: I am in heaven. I just got a package in the mail, one gross of flat picks, 144. Only if you're a guitar player do you understand. The layperson would equate it with 144 pairs of clean, matching socks in the drawer. In the past 10 years, I've probably bought 1,000 flat picks, and I don't know where any of them are. Have you seen them? I don't think anyone's stealing them. Flat picks are the bane of my existence, but I have to have them. Without them I'm lost. I can't stand on stage without a flat pick.

I confess that their loss is consistent with other material possessions in my life, things that aren't valuable but that you have to have - matching socks, sunglasses, pens, watches, keys. There must be at least 500 flat picks lying around my house, but I can't find any of them. The implications are deep, and whether it's flat picks or earrings, all of us are left shifting around, trying to explain the loss of little things we need.

Some culture, I forget which one, believes that every person has a room where all the lost things in their life are kept. The room is accessible only in dreams. This is an interesting and terrifying proposition. I can never get the stuff back unless I learn to spend more of my waking time in my dreams. I'm afraid if I do find that room some night, I'm going to look at all this little stuff and realize how inconsequential it really is.

Lost things only have value in the context of where they're lost, not in some musty room where flat picks sit alone and forlorn next to old, misunderstood friends. Maybe I should lose a guitar so that lost friend would have something to strum on. No. I have another theory, which led me to buy that gross of flat picks. It's scientific. There's no magic. It's based on the second law of thermodynamics. The universe tends towards disorder. It's only natural that a concentration of flat picks should disperse throughout the universe seeking equilibrium. If I have 10 in one place, they're going to move away from each other seeking an absence of flat picks.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and there's a lot of places that have absolutely no flat picks at all. I am only a natural conduit, a hollow reed dispensing flat picks, helping the universe in its inexorable move towards a steady state. This position, like that of the borrower theorem, absolves me of guilt, and there is a corollary. If I redistribute enough flat picks and they are fairly evenly spaced, then wherever I go, a flat pick will be waiting for me and my guitar. I won't have to be organized and expend energy in the preservation of the concentration of flat picks. I'll be in tune with the universe. So buying 144 flat picks and watching them float away from me is no less than a religious act, completely defensive.

One more thing. My flat picks are yellow medium Tortex. If you find one, don't pick it up. I'll be back for it. So leave it there or you'll mess up the whole universe.

WERTHEIMER: Singer, songwriter, and storyteller Bill Harley lives in Seekonk, Massachusetts.

ROBERT SEIGEL, Host: This is NPR, National Public Radio.

You can visit Bill Harley's Web site at www.billharley.com

So, I recently bought a gross of my favorite pick, and, after I "sign" the backs and number them, I distribute them to every cache I visit. I always carry a few in my geocaching bag--sort of a Johnny apple-pick. Or pick-seed. Whatever. Feel free to trade out our signature guitar picks and put them in another cache, or wherever you want. It's all part of the distribution plan. Here's a list of where I have left picks so far:

•This is a complete and utter lie. I have no idea what brand of guitar picks those people use.

For the curious, the photograph features me and my yellow medium Tortex playing guitar live on stage at Lili's in Hamtramck, Michigan with my band Allison's Ghost back in the day. I lost that pick shortly afterward.