Git R Done
Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2010 7:24 am
One good thing about having a bus in the shop, it gives you plenty of time for “other things.” Last week for instance, I built a whole bunch of bird houses, sank three poles in concrete, put up a flagpole, finished off the fake fuel stand. Here is a little background and some photo’s of it for your perusal.
Originally the plumber said $1,200 to run a water line to the shop, $50 for a permit to hook up to my OWN septic system (Man, don’t that hack you off!), and I don’t even want to talk about the other associated problems the permit Nazi’s suggested to me.
Anywho, after thinking it over ... That dog didn’t hunt.
So to get water for coffee and washing my hands etc, I built a fake fuel stand. Used a 65 gallon insecticide tank from Tractor Supply and a buddy gave me some decals. Fabricated the steel, welded it together, painted it (like I said “I paint everything”) .... and walla ... One handy dandy fuel stand ... It looks like the real deal, but it isn’t.
And here is the “take away” as Dr. Phil is fond of saying ... I can wash my hands i’fn I want to now.
Just ended week number ten of a three week paint-job and overhaul, and still, the coach remains in the shop. I am almost certain that it will require copious amounts of money and the name of my first born male child to bail it out. It is hopeless. Oh well, just gives me even more time to work on my screenplay, sure aint going anywhere.
Here is a brief synopsis: Bus Shop Blues is writer/director BoxcarOkie’s adaptation of the popular book by Norma Jean, a non-fiction account of the post-body shop wanderings of an old Geezer, who divorces himself from his friends, family, and possessions in search of a greater spiritual knowledge and communion with nature.
Upon his 2010 final exit from Comprehensive Collision Specialists, Bait Shop, Video store and trauma center, Old Geezer (BoxcarOkie) walks away from a loving if dysfunctional family and spends his nearly $25,000-dollar life savings to make a trip to Kalifornia to commune with nature in the big trees.
Instead of the normal life he envisioned for himself, Boxcar rechristens himself "Macmillan Screaming Eagle" and heads west in his beaten-up freshly Bondo’ed 1983 Eagle until he is denied access to the Golden State, because he is not gay and his motor is a smoking Detroit V892T, at which point he takes up hitchhiking.
The new goal on the horizon? Alaska. By hook or by crook -- but without his beloved Eagle (now abandoned at the P.O.E. just down the hill from downtown Needles) Boxcar determinedly sets his sights on Anchorage or Juno via Reno or quite possibly, Spokane.
Late at night, he reminisces of his old bus, which he now discovers that someone has symbolically set aflame. Each night around a campfire strategically placed inside a truck tire rim, Boxcar determines to make it to his personal promised land, with stops along the way to experience America and its people.
These adventures will include a kayak trip down dangerous rapids, a gig working in a gin mill, extended stays with a ex-GM worker now a recycled new age hippie and a kindly old widower -- and also -- thrills, spills, a lot of over medicated excitement, enough cold, hunger, and exhaustion to leave him emotionally defeated more than once.
Meanwhile back in Oklahoma, his friends (played by William Hurt and Kristy Alley) and his illegitimate step-sister (Paula Abdul) haven't received so much as a postcard from him, and begin to fear the worst. Negotiations are now under way to get Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder to compose and score the contemplative soundtrack. Last, the ultimate goal will be to find a suitable player for the role of BoxcarOkie, which will really be hard, now that Dennis Hopper is no longer with us.
Opening at a theater near you this Christmas, a real tear jerker, it will have your heart down around your ankles, faster than a wet pair of pants. Tell all your friends ...
My,oh my, look at the time! It escapes me but once again. I need to make another trip to the Bondo Capital of Western Oklahoma. Maybe I can talk them into painting it “so it looks like a Newell.”
Wouldn’t that be cool?
Watch those right-handers, see you in the fast lane.
BCO