Ramon had given her a copy of the New York Times article, and it was likely this that had her apologizing for her small town intrusion into our big city world. This of course is pure bullshit. We are misfits all, and Ramon, with his Hollywood power-broker schpeel and his foam mattress bed on a hippie freak bus, is most certainly the king of this rat pack.

I don't know where I'm going with all this except to says that to some we are pure magic, a presence that enlightens and wows. And to others, we pass by unnoticed or are, to the detriment of the observer, a disgusting absurdity.

Like the guy in the Arizona who kicked me out of his junkyard on some twisted aesthetic technicality.

Enough about that. We have more serious matters at hand. Just entered South Dakota and the Zepher, the International Harvester truck that Big John bought back in Minnesota seems to have taken one of its daily dumps. Oil, that is. Black gold, Texas tea. I wish I had a dime for every time someone's taken a photo of my car, and another dime for every time I've heard my car and I likened to the Beverly Hillbillies.

Tex is driving. He's the drummer in the newly formed art car band The Fanatics. Aside from a few lines on his character-weathered, mustached & goateed face, you'd never guess he was 43. He pines for his new love Julliette whom he left back in Austin. It's great to have someone else driving Duke. I've been having a hard time getting much written what with driving and all this fun we're having.

Just snapped a shot of Seven's dog baby with her head out the window of IFSM. Seven is a real trooper in my opinion. Bound to a wheelchair, he's managing this trip almost entirely independent of our help. I mean, picture it. Every time we stop and I jump out to stretch or hit the bathroom or pump my gas or sell a few postcards, Seven is occupied with doing whatever he can do himself from the driver's seat of this car. All short stops (and we make many) are sit-in-the-car stops for him.

Smoke & Buffalo

Enter: Sioux Falls, SD. Stopped for a tune-up for Seven, some gear oil for the Zepher, and to retrieve Ramon's new camera from UPS. Naturally, the stop consumed about 3 hours of our day. But as Ned just noted, had we not stopped there we may never has seen the Shag Car, a mid-70s Chevy Impala, chopped and lined in a kind of puke yellow shag carpet. Billy the kid found us, and I don't know who was happier to see who.

He arrived swerving and honking with all his sound effects firing, an impressive enough entry though what he did next will no doubt worm its way into art car lore and stick. After some introductions, photo poses with car and various members of the gang, Ramon asked him to do his bounce thing for the video camera. Now, the bounce thing was kinda like what you see those low-rider cars do with their hydraulics, but was however, a simple toe-heel, high-throttle-brake maneuver whereby the car jerked forward and rocked like a standard shift being driven by a novice.

Bill did as he was bade, but then, with the engine still roaring, he locked up the breaks and laid down more rubber and sent up a bigger cloud of smoke than I'd ever had the hysterical laughing lung-displeasure to inhale. All of us standing there on the sidewalk were consumed in the noxious cloud for a moment and with several still cameras snapping and one movie camera rolling, we caught all of it caught on film.

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Art Cars in Cyberspace ©2004 Pineapple Publishing and Consulting
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Last update April 1, 2004