PUNishment

how you like them apples?

My life in cars.

I owned my first car before I ever had my license. It was a 1976 Chrysler Cordoba centennial edition with a bronze coin on the fender to commemorate our nations independence. Ironic, considering the car is named for a Spanish town and whose television ad features Spaniard Ricardo Montalbon Talking about his “needs” in a car as if it were a loving wife or a seasoned hooker. It was bright hot yellow with a black vinyl landau top which featured 2 small side windows in the rear framed by ornate chrome branches. Dispite being the “small chrysler” as ads suggest this car was the biggest thing on the road A smooth ride to be sure with a big gas guzzling v8 engine with standard 8 track cassette player and Chronometer(read clock) in the black vinyl dash which smelled perpetually of armor-all and cigarette smoke.

I worked all summer when I was 15 and payed my dad 750 dollars for the car. From time to time I would sit in its huge soft Corenthian leather seats and imagine driving it around. Once I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to pull it out of the drive way and drive it a few hundred yards. I got it stuck in the ditch trying to pull it back into the driveway. I employed my friends and siblings to help me get it out before my dad got home from work. The car was broken down before my 16^th birthday. My dad felt bad that I never got to drive it and pitched in come the next summer when I bought the second vehicle I owned and never drove.

This second vehicle was a late eighties modal Nissan light duty pick up. It was silver and it was missing a gear. We planned to change out the transmission and convert it to an automatic. After several failed attempts to find the tranny, I eventually sold it to my uncle who wanted to fix it. I’m not sure that he ever got it running, but for the brief moment it was mine it sat back at the top of the yard where I could point it out to my friends as we pulled away on the school bus.

By the time I got around to buying my third vehicle I was graduating high school and just got my license. It was 650 dollars, it was a 1989 ford escort sedan, it was red, and it got about 30 miles to the gallon. It had no title, instead I was given a “bill of sale” written on wide ruled notebook paper. I drove this car for the better part of my 2 years at college. I lived off campus, about seventy miles off campus and drove it the 140 miles every weekday. Most teenagers have some sort of foolish brand loyalty, it usually comes from what their parents own or want to own, and in better cases from shoddy anecdotes. I'm not proud of it but at one point I owned a shirt which depicted Calvin(of Calvin and Hobbes) urinating mischeviously on Ford's logo. I think I won it or bought it at the county fair, but why I agreed with it is still unsure. The teenage mind is capable of grand leaps of logic. Yet if fords were said to be made cheaply, this car was no exception. It did last me 2 years, though, with the exception of 2 major repairs to the timing belt and transmission.

At some point I decided it was imperative to remove the ford emblems from the car. You see during many of my junior high and high school years I had been duped into a brand consciousness. As my family was dirt poor this meant buying second hand and discounted nike shoes, and buying brand apparel knock offs and flea markets. For a while I thought this bought me a little bit of normalcy and if I could make sure no stray cockroaches were in my backpack in the mornings and try hard not to spill any any kerosene on my shoes from the space heaters then all the other kids would think I was just like them. Eventually through the help of hard rock bands and outsider friends I became enlightened and made sure to cut any and all brand signifying tags off my clothes which lead naturally to pulling the little plastic brand logos off my little escort. In the absence of the brands I placed a couple hard rock bumper stickers on there and felt pretty good about myself.

By graduation my friends and I were planning a road trip to California, for one reason or another this was going to be done in my car. Driving to and from school along the highway I noticed dark grey European looking car with a high windshield and wipers on the headlights. It looked educated, stoic, visually economic, slightly eccentric, and dark. Everything I wanted to be. It was a 1992 Saab 900 sedan, automatic, the headlight wipers were long since busted and the seat warmers no longer worked but aside from a heater core it didn’t seem to need much else. It looked exotic, it smelled classy, it had a decent stereo. I payed the man 1200 for it and drove it home.

We packed the car and headed to Jeff City to pick up my girlfriend to head west. Her parents gave us a resounding NO, and we drove it back home and took her car to Chicago. Had we tried to take it out west, the alarm system which relied on a battery in the keychain would have stopped us in our tracks as it did when we returned. We found a way around the alarm system and hooked up a push button starter. The headliner fell down and I replaced it with a rage against the machine poster; the one with the black and white burning monk in front of the old 40s coupe. This car gave me all sorts of problems but was too beautiful to just let go of. This seemed to be my philosophy with a lot of things.

It used gallons of oil monthly but it moved me to St. Louis. Eventually the waning transmission gave out completely and it sat in my dads yard where several people inquired about it but no one really wanted it. Eventually my dad used it in a trade for a minivan.

My dad loaned me his huge-ass, 5 miles to the gallon, Ford Econoline van while I was looking for another car. A ride my friends would endearingly refer to as the “stalker van”. One friend said jokingly “ I bet that thing can stop on a dime”…”oh man” I told her “ it can stop on a whole bunch of dimes” Driving back to my dads a goose hit the windshield luckily it didn’t come all the way through.

Das had a friend who worked a car auction. At these places all you can do is get in and start the car, and put it in gear and sit there. There are no test drives. This friend could drive the cars around the lot though and said he would do this for me. I found a little grey Nissan Maxima that I liked. He drove it and it ran fine. I waited for the car to come down the line and called my bid as the jabbering auctioneer dribbled out 50s and 100s I was surrounded by shifty looking used car salesmen and probably bidding against the cars owner. Luckily he stopped bidding at 750 which is where I had planned to stop and the car was mine. I came to get the car the next day which is when I realized the car was very close to the one we tested but slightly different. As we pulled out the car shifted nicely into second and the topped out at about 40 mph without shifting into third. I got out of the car and cussed at it. There are no refunds at the car auction. I was stuck with this crap car and had to do something. What followed was one of the worst ordeals of my semi-adult life and after a couple months of skeezy junkyard owners, mistaken transmissions, and big favors the car was finally running properly. This 89 Nissan Maxima was made just at the point when cars started getting curvy as opposed to the boxy style of the 70s and 80s. I hated this car for what it represented. I didn’t even like the look of it. It was a v6 and I was now an environmentally conscience suburbanite. The radio was a joke but it was a workhorse and it lasted me a few years. It still ran when I gave it to dad about a year ago.

Which takes us to the 1989 Toyota Corolla I own now. In my opinion a beautifully simple car, great on gas mileage, relatively simple to repair, I wish I owned one of these cars for every color. I got it cheap from a friend because I had to replace a couple parts to get it running. I really like this car.

The transmission went out. I replaced it. Then, The engine went out. I replaced it. Now, and this has all happened in the course of 7 or 8 months, I’ve been struck by a careless driver who gave me bogus insurance Info and a phone number that doesn’t work. My brakes are out and my trunk and bumper are smashed in. I have liability only. On the phone my dad said “Maybe your not supposed to have this car” and I’m thinking maybe he’s right…but ill try and fix the brakes and see what I can do about the trunk but she’s starting to get loud and run funny again and I foresee that after not so long she’ll be put out to pasture as well.

These cars have problems sure. But does that mean that they don’t deserve love?

I’m tired of driving half dead cars until they fall over exhausted, I want to be able to keep one running for more than a couple years. Even if I could afford a newer car it wouldn’t be the same I’ve grown an appreciation for these old vintage clunkers, which still exist in spite of bad odds and numerous owners. I can’t help from getting a little romantic.

Barbecue for Breakfast

With some people creativity is a spring which gushes forth from a rift in their very soul. With others its a slow steady work of diligence and industry. Yet with some it is a grasping, competitive affair which knows only deadlines and headcounts, a shameless plea for attention punctuated by an awkward throw from a wooden horse. Its the karaoke of art...and its my bread and butter...

i'm only half joking...

The following is a comic which was born out of such a womb...took on a bit of steam...and then hit the grass like a cold banana when the teat of attention suckled dry...go figure.

Anyhow it represents my first real attempt at comic strip...

Click the images to make them too large to read comfortably...

MYTH:

FACT:

UP!.......series

I've just finished watching Michael Apted's series of documentaries entitled The Up Series.
This ongoing series began in 1963 when a group of British 7-year-olds were interviewed on their opinions about love, money, education, and --probably most enlightening---their ambitions. The series featured children from diverse backgrounds, some coming from wealthy families and boarding schools, others from orphanages, or farming communities.

Apted has directed American documentaries and critically acclaimed films, most notably Coal Miners Daughter, Sissy Spacek's portrayal of Loretta Lynn growing up tough in Appalacia or Nell which starred Jodie Foster as a modern feminine version of Tarzan or Jungle Book's Mogli. Why I hadn't heard of this till just recently is beyond me, it's an Ebert top 10 and has apparently been mimicked in several other countries, including the US and was the subject of a Simpsons episode. I imagine the success of the newest pixar film will inadvertently lend it some light.

The idea sort of draws upon an old jesuit saying "give me a child until he is seven and will give you the man", which is sort of ambiguous but, what I think it was intended to mean is that looking at the factors of social class, personality, ambition of a seven year old certain predictions can be made about how they will grow up. Every seven years Apted seeks to find as many of the 14 original participants as possible and checks in on their current lives, ambitions, failures, struggles, achievements. What he achieves are several character studies in the broadest sense, 14 distinctly different biographies that are made even more interesting by the fact that his subjects lead more or less normal everyday lives.

Some of the kids change most drastically from 7 to 14 others from 14 to 21, others and perhaps the most interesting remain in a sort arrested development till well into their 30s. This was the case for one participant Neil who at 7 was intelligent, joyful, and some what naive when asked what he thought about colored people he responded that it was hard to imagine a "purple person with red eyes and yellow feet". He wanted--as many children with strong imaginations -- to be an astronaut. His plan b was to become a coach driver. After seven years there was already definite signs of disillusionment about him and his cheerful demeanor gave way to a more measured, realistic tone. By 21 he was homeless and angry. In his bitterness one could sense a sort of forlornness or existential dread, when coupled with his nervous instability it made him seem hopeless. Over the next 2 series living in extremely modest abodes, hitch-hiking all over Great Britain, and collecting social security his anger begins to give way to tolerance and he becomes more capable of stomaching society eventually moving back to London to pursue politics.

You get a sense with Neil that hes always struggling to bring the truth out, a trait by which in my opinion, he becomes the star of the show. Indeed, the whole cast seem to be collectively bad at self delusion and justifications and most of them allow the cameras back in every seven years. A few though don't which casts a sort of darkness upon their character, perhaps undeserved as they weren't fully capable of agreeing at 7 to do the show in the first place.

Though the show originally intended to make comparisons between classes, colors, and creeds, after the first 2 or 3 the tone becomes more personal than political and takes on a character that that the originators might not have imagined(Apted having been only a researcher, not director of the first installment). The basic questions don't change, class, money, love, work, dreams, but the subject in large part care very little about the politics and desire to talk more about personal goals achievements, children, marriage and so forth.

One conclusion that might be drawn from this, and one that probably my other favorite character Nick comes to at 42 is that the class barriers are so subtle and pervasive that as a fish in water, one cannot see them at work. This could be exemplified by the fact that the privileged seem to be thankful and dutiful, a bit close lipped, and in a couple cases absent altogether. The less fortunate in their turn seem to look at the world as though they were given ample option to do as they pleased and wouldn't want the burden of the privileged.

Nick ,perhaps the most successful and self-made of them all, knew from a very early age he wanted to move from his provincial setting and get on in the world as an important and useful mind. Each installment shows him further actualizing this dream. He moves to the United States in his twenties to pursue a career in teaching nuclear physics whether or not his distance from England harms or helps his opinion is tough to say.

Tony, one of the most interesting, is a hyperactive kid from the wrong side of the tracks who is adamant even at 7 that his dream is to be a jockey. He realizes this dream if only briefly and as it ends he wastes no time moving on to his next choice--cab driver. In one of the series best moments he is asked about dropping out of school...he explains that he only knows a few things "girls, dogs, horses,bets, cars, mom, dad, and love," he fires these out in rapid succession "that's all I care about, that's all I want to care about" simply and genuinely.

The rest of the characters are interesting in their own right, some more than others, but in the end all are indispensable. Watching the series no doubt induced serious self-reflection on my part as I imagine it would have a similar effect on all. In an age where reality television is king and where character driven dramas, no matter how unrealistic and mundane, seem to be as addicting as meth to urban 20-somethings, it baffles me how long this has remained under the collective radar. I still have yet to see the 49 installment and the 56 is set to come out in a couple years. While it may or may not be that genesis of reality television it was/is likely the zenith.

Additional Findings

In addition to the findings of the last post, today I found the following in a book about musical instruments...


At first I was confused, as I ignored the representations of fixtures and furniture and assumed it was a top side view similar to an architectural blueprint. Upon further study though, it seems the "teloporter" a seemingly ordinary telephone booth is a secret entrance to a high-tech underground lab which has all modern emenities including its own restroom. The teloporter it seems either works by falling toward the floor of the lab aided by an electromagnetic field represent by the lines eminating from the platform which rests directly below it much like your ordinary elevator. Or perhaps more ambitiously, actually tel-o-ports and rematerializes below much like a star trek beam-in, in which case the placing of the fake booth(which may infact actaully send as recieve calls, one hopes this is the case in order to better camoflague its secret purpose)directly above the platform, is a mere coincidence.

In any case the author has provided us with a somewhat limited legend below the treatment, which serves to let us know there is a door to the bathroom as well as a cieling(which lends validity to the thoery that the teloporter drops, without it teloportors could see over the door and into the bathroom ruining the privacy of any mad scientist, henchman, lab assistant, or secret special agent defecting below.

Sadly though the author has misplaced his drawing and will most likley have to settle for throwing his/her self down the laundry chute onto a pile of broken chairs.

Finders Keepers

Shuffling books at the library one finds all sorts of things... often items get used as bookmarks and then forgotten between pages, christmas cards, post cards, one book had a used condom wrapper inside...it was that second tier, slightly cheaper name worn by couples who shop for bulk not brand notoriety.

To some people a book drop looks a lot like a trash can. A used tampon applicator can end up resting gracefully atop a copy of the newest Fern Micheals romance novel. Seems it fell out of a plastic bag filled with soda cans and an empty box of nachos...sometimes a girl has to get crafty...



I can't tell if these are in ascending or descending order of importance.


Today I found something a bit more interesting



It seems at first to be an idle doodling or an experimental poem,
but a closer look reveals its ambition

Indeed it is a top secret project...classified level 5 type stuff
the delicate shading of the plug, the expensive resume paper
all hint that this will be something big...so long as it's creator has
internalized his/her patent pending suction/tension pulling mechanism
and can get their hands on a gigantic VHS tape.


If you've relieved yourself in my restroom and weren't keeping a watchful eye on your trajectory
then you may have seen my greatest find (pictured at the top).
I found it some years ago working at an antique mall.
Spraying down the men's room toilets with lysol at the end of the night. I found it folded up, resting atop the tiolet tank in one of the stalls.
It's am ink-jet reproduction of lopsided mams in bad light which someone must have found inspirational to say the least. Luckily I share their appreciation for fine things, and so I framed it in an ornate gold frame and it hangs proudly on my bathroom wall. If you ever go there you may find two handsome gentlemen of leisure with impecible taste...


And while were on the subject of all things lost and found. I found this book at the library last week...


It's a collected serial comic based loosely upon the diary of a high school sophomore in 1985 which was found on the floor of a gas station bathroom.

It is indeed awesome.

Its a time-capsule back to the days of bad hair and false hopes...
of course I mean high-school.


Tammy is the kinda girl that will show you nip for a dollar and then let you keep the dollar.
If you let her hang out with you she'll buy you chili cheese fries from sonic and wait patiently while you make out with your girlfriend. Is it possible that an older Tammy posed for the photo above? Perhaps in exchange for dinner at Chili's or a ride in a PT Cruiser? No, probably not dummy...i just need some sort of call-back so this post can end with a semi-conclusive and quasi-humorous aire.