The 1949 Hillman Minx. I could'a had a V8.

It was blue and had turn signals. The signals were "arms" about a foot long that flopped out of the body about window height on one side or the other to show which way you were turning; they were lit at night. Sensational. Very strange. This particular Hillman was my first car, and I'm pretty sure I was steered into it because it wouldn't go very fast. The day I got my license I put 300 miles on that underpowered British sled. It was used, quite used, worn out in fact, and it began to fall apart from day one.  I can't remember how many miles were on the odometer, but it had to have turned over once. Hillmans were used as taxicabs in Great Britain, so it was probably a pretty staunch little vehicle to start with.

Mine had a crank, for cold weather starts, and that was helpful but you needed someone to choke it and pump the accelerator. The thing is it was a four cylinder, and I was like, "I coulda had a V8," slap my head, but heck it was a car, it was transportation.

It didn't wow girls, though I remember dating in it. I slunk through Winstead's Drive-in to the derision of the rodders.

I tried to beef it up some by getting the head shaved, but didn't know English bolts turned the wrong way, so snapped off about five of the soft iron mothers trying to get the damn head off in the first place. We had to tap those bolts to get them out of the block. I learned to swear bigtime working on that crate.

Okay, new head gasket on, bolts in place, torque wrench ready. All bolts finger tight. Torque 'em all at 65lbs. Next, hook up the accelerator cable. Where is it? Hmm, trace it from the accelerator, through the firewall, toward the block, up, up, oh no, must be an optical illusion. It looks like it's between the head and the block. Oh my. Oh my goodness. Rackafratzz mofronkator. Res ipsa loquitur.

Okay, new gasket, polish head surface, bolts ready. Etc. Finally got the Hellman running. No that's not a misspelling.

I get in to drive to school next day. Lean back in the seat. Snap! The seatback breaks in two and I'm sitting on half a seat. You can't even work the clutch or brake that way. I could go on, but it was not soon enough that a 1949 Ford flathead V8 entered my life and changed it for good. We lowered it 4" in back, pipes, cherry bombs, dechromed it, heads, cartbs, ignition, primer paint job. Here i come, Winstead's. I even got into one of those awful 50's hot rod movies. More about that some other time.

A Diet of Grand Slams Gets Me To L.A.

From Denny's to Denny's I made my way to Los Angeles. Sometimes I'd throw in a prime rib at some steakhouse on old Route 66, but only when I was tired of driving and needed to hole up somewhere, sleep like I was dead. When I drove out there, the plan was to stay awhile, which I did, several years. You don't head out to tinseltown and environs without a few stars in your eyes or a loose cog or two, but those are pluses for anyone planning to make a life there. Everyone is "in the industry." Real estate is laughably expensive. Looking for a place to live is your first shocker. "Fixer-upper, million-five." Stayed with a friend in West L.A., did some freelance, got burned more often than not, old story out there.

Fell into a job by doing a Nokia newsletter, both designed it and wrote it--the guy looks at it, takes me to Dancer-Fitzgerald-Sample, says "Look at this." The ECD hired me on the spot. That was over in Torrance. After driving to work for a few days from West L.A., sitting on that freeway parking lot, I just moved over to Palos Verdes, up the hill from the agency. I found one of the few rentals there, a quiet town house, and settled in, happily. Got to work about 5am, left at 3pm, my MO for the rest of my life in the ad racket. The building housed the agency and a brokerage, Merrill-Lynch I think. The only cars in the lot at that time of morning were mine and the brokers. It was like four hours later in New York and they worked on the NY clock. So there we were every morning, nodding at one another as we entered the big glass doors, they heading for their ground floor office to the left, me to the elevator for my 7th floor office. An actual office with walls and a door, good view. And a typewriter.

Before that, however, I was a man of leisure. I walked the streets of west L.A. looking at the world through RayBans and seeing, again, the hand-tinted postcards I'd discovered in a shoebox at my grandmother's in KC. That L.A. was trim lawns, yucca plants, bungalows and red tile roofs, palm trees, sprinklers. I discovered meaner streets as well, looking for a warehouse downtown, where I could live and also drive my car and Harley into the living room, a minor dream of mine, one of many unfulfilled. I found a soldier-of-fortune bar. Some old eateries with chicken fried steak on the menu. A pawn shop with wonderful guitars on the wall and old Shure microphones.

Over by UCLA, in Westwood, I entered a dusty Egyptologist shop, where I bought two large plaster Horus statues with papers that showed they were made for DeMille's Cleopatra. I was, essentially, broke but these were must-haves, and I'm an optimist. Things'll get better. I still have these things, about 40" tall. And things did get better. I expected to see Sidney Greenstreet in a fez, there. Followed by Peter Lorre. Lauren Bacall pulling a curtain back in a nearby apartment window.

I took a screenplay course under Robert McKee, the legend, and watched a tape of Chinatown about 50 times, along with other movies. Sometimes I'd watch four or five movies in a day, for story structure. I did write some screenplays, one of which got me and a Beverly Hills ad-guy into a conference room with some portly individuals in good suits who said, "Trust me..."  Got option offers for small amounts. Nothing ever came of it. Talk about an old story in L.A.

Then I got a tentative offer to write a book about Harley-Davidson's comeback; long story, but to shorten it, I didn't want to give up my ad job, and the pres wanted a business writer anyway. So that went away, too. As did a screenplay adaptation of an acquaintance's novel, when the agent passed away. So it went, but L.A. was, in the final lookback, hellaciously good to me. And I love it. And all that writing out there...great practice.

As White As This Page...

And cold as a banker's smile when he's foreclosing. Actually that's a warm sort of smile, as jolly as they get. So, as cold as the steel flagpole where the kids double dog dare you to put your tongue on. Colder.  This is rural Kansas, people, where that damn wind from Canada blows through with nothing but barbed wire between it and the polar north.

The horses are waiting at the corral fence for their pittance of grain, a mix of sweet feed and crimped oats, ears back while they eat, don't bother me, Mr. Food, you brought the stuff, now scram. I put half a bale of hay in the feeder by the loafing shed, half a bale in the one by the big cedar where they like to stand butt to the wind.  The long hose is, of course, frozen, so I lug rubber buckets out to the stock tank, just two this time. I'm keeping up with their minimal winter thirst, keeping the tank full so the stock tank heater can reach the surface, keep it from freezing.

To think, during fly season, the boys and I looked forward to this. Or at least fall and frigid nights, warmer days. With wind chill it's 10 below out there right now. The boys are Mighty Mouse, a lame cutting horse, and Harley, a big buckskin. They are well into their 20's.

I buried Blue, Dutch, Lopez and Jack Ford, all good horses in their day, all gave it up here--they seemed to like it here. They were all so different in their ways. Blue had two speeds, standing and flat out--he'd been a roping horse and thought the touch of a spur was break-the-ribbon time, through the gate. Lopez rode like a Cadillac--he came up from Mexico when they retired the mounted patrol down there, sent them up by the hundreds for the packing houses. I saw him, a small bay who hated humans (he had seven brands) and bought him. Took me weeks to coax him out of the woods here. Dutch was a big gentle appaloosa, always ready to have some fun and ride; he began to stumble though and I found he was going blind, When he did, I laid 2x4's here and there so he would step on them and realize there were objects near them, so he wouldn't bump into them. Jack Ford was the first horse out here, given to me by a friend when I moved back from Los Angeles.

He babysat Harley when we separated Harley from his mama. That was trauma of a dramatic kind. Poor Harley. But he finally got over it. Jack and he were inseparable.  When Jack Ford passed away, it was mighty sad here.

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I had horses many years before Kansas, up to a dozen at a time, but two stand out. Percy my friend who did everything he could to stay underneath me when I'd had a few. Senor, another good friend. Percy I had for 17 years. He was probably 15 when I bought him in Iowa. He was a story all by himself. I'll tell it sometime. Part of it is in an anthology called "Roll." https://www.createspace.com/3756502

It's white out. And cold. If I win a lottery I'll get Mighty Mouse and Harley a warmup shack like they have in the mountains for skiers--only theirs will be bigger. Knowing them, they wouldn't use it.

The book "Roll" by the way looks like this--and that's one of my sculptures on the cover. CoCo Harris, the editor, named the book after the sculpture. She put together some pretty good memoirs in "Roll."  The story of how I acquired my good friend Percy is one of them.

Stay warm.

Talkin' Trash & Drinkin' Mash: I bought the record for a dime.

Back in the day (yore, again, olden golden times) waaayyy back in high school, before rock n' roll was officially named that, we used to drive down to 18th & Vine in KC, to a used record store and buy 45rpm record singles for ten cents apiece. I drove the Butchmobile (they called me Butch back then, Guinotte was declasse) a 1949 lowered and loud Ford, primered and shuddering from mismatched carburetors, parked it outside this house of 'jump blues and rhythm & blues' and we'd spill out of the low and slow cruiser, into a vast mecca of vinyl. Stacks and stacks of records everywhere; old 78s, 45s, and exotics, all.  And the joint was jumpin' with delighted music lovers.

I came upon "Drinkin' Wine Spo-dee-o-dee" by Stick McGhee and his Buddies, snapped it up. One dime. Possibly I discovered it before the Jerry Lee Lewises and rockers to come; at any rate I fell for it bigtime, played it slick probably, over and over. It goes for $30 and up on eBay, but mine wouldn't if I could even find it. I'm sure I wore it down smooth as a dinner plate.

Hank Williams Jr. got hold of it and his lyrics went:

Well down in New Orleans where everything's fine
All them cats is sippin' that wine
Drinkin' that mess is sure delight
Soon to be fightin' and fussin' all night

Drinkin' wine spodee-o, drinkin' wine
(drinkin' wine)
wine spodee-o, drinkin' wine
(drinkin' wine)
wine spodee-o, drinkin' wine
Pass that bottle to me

Anyway, Stick McGhee's version was primal and fun with a fine-ass groove. Had this guy been born just a couple of years later, and been healthier, you'd know his name along with Chuck Berry and Fats Domino and that whole cavalcade of mega-stars. Unfortunately, Granville Henry McGhee died at 44 of lung cancer in 1961. Booze, which often amplifies smoking, appeared often in his discography: Whiskey, Women and Loaded Dice; Double Crossin' Liquor; Drank Up All the Wine Last Night to name some. He was with Folkways, Gusto, King, Savoy and Atlantic labels, probably others in a too short, spotty career. He must have been well-regarded by peers; he did an album with John Lee Hooker: Highway of Blues.

The version of Drinkin' Wine that I bought, was "the clean version." The original, that he sang in the army went: Drinkin’ that mess is our delight, And when we get drunk, start fightin’ all night. Knockin’ out windows and learnin’ down doors, Drinkin’ half-gallons and callin’ for more. Drinkin’ wine motherfucker, drinkin’ wine! Goddam! Drinkin’ wine motherfucker, drinkin’ wine! Goddam! Drinkin’ wine motherfucker, drinkin’ wine! Goddam! Pass that bottle to me!

He recorded a version for Harlem Records, but the later Atlantic single shot up to Number 3 on the Billboard R&B chart. Born in Knoxville, TN, and spending most of his life in New York, McGhee was a big talent not fully realized. He retired in 1960 it is said because he lost his passion for music. 

R.I.P. Mr. McGhee. You brought me and and a whole lot of others hours of fine sounds. I guess you could say it this way:

Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Renting BSAs with lies, cash and a borrowed license.

Used to be, in olden times, (of yore) a garage redolent with intoxicating fumes of internal combustion engines, on 18th and Troost. I was 14, and visiting my grandmother's house for the summer on Manheim Rd. right off of 39th and Troost. I lived in Tulsa at the time, but would move back to my native KC for high school and beyond. But this was summer, and I had adventure on the mind, having outgrown model airplanes and AirBoy comic books.

On a trip downtown, the streetcar passed the above-mentioned garage, and I saw, in the flash of passing, a tangle of motorcycles and a sign that had "RENT" in the message. I had ridden small motorbikes in Tulsa, anything with a motor on it. I recall a Whizzer, a sort of motorized bicycle. But i was up for bigger game. I was hard/firm on the path of an obsessive limerance with motorcycles and it has never left me, though my riding days are over. Through the years I've had mostly Harleys, but those were interspersed with other brands, British bikes among them.

I got off the return streetcar at the garage that rented BSAs and wandered through them, my hand floating over fenders, gas tanks, seats, headlights. Taking time to read the full sign I was informed these chrome and lacquered beauties were available to anyone with a valid license and a certain amount of cash for deposit and hourly fees. I would fulfill these requisites.

I borrowed a license. I had brought lawn-mowing and pin-setting money with me from Tulsa. Two days later I was back at the BSA garage of dreams.

There were no pictures on driver's licenses back then. Within minutes I was revving a BSA. One minor setback: I started to sign my real name to the contract. The man who was in charge, looked at me with narrowed eyes, said, "Not your license, right?" I flushed. He said, "Oh, go ahead." Took my money, stated a time limit, waved me out. Not exactly a business model for today's litigious society. Life was good back then.

I rode up Troost for awhile, turned west, ended up in the Plaza, and pulled into Winstead's. I left my BSA parked next to a sedan, and swaggered inside for a burger. I ate it seated on my freedom express dream machine. Then I kicked it alive, headed south for the open roads. Hair blowing, bugs peppering my face, this was living. Then it almost wasn't. Some woman in a Chevy ahead of me slammed on her brakes, and I slid sideways until I hit the bumper, part of me under her car. I was okay until she took off. The rear end of the car lowered enough to catch part of an arm and leg, then she was gone.

Mainly road rash and bumper scrape, my injuries looked worse than they were, and the BSA had suffered no ill effects, a scratch or two. A learning experience. I told the adults responsible for my summer welfare I fell out of a tree. Nutty kid, they shook their heads in total belief. The incident did nothing to curtail my passion. I rented more BSAs that summer, and, at 15, I was the proud owner of a Harley knucklehead. Paper route money bought that motorcycle, even though my folks forbade me to even ride on the back of one. So how is it possible to own a motorcyclle with no plate, no title, no driver's license, and no parental consent? That's a story for another time.