SWIMMING TO VANCOUVER

 If you should roam   Away from home   Take note of landmarks
Or you could end up  Out of luck   At the hands of cardsharks
                                         Burma Shave


As barometric pressure slowly rises, there develops a brief transitional period, just prior to the ensuing cloudburst. This is the "calm before the storm". It's actually a moment of pressure filling the last remaining spaces between the oxygen and water molecules, until the storm cell becomes too dense to stay afloat in the sky and must present itself to gravity, which delivers the goods to us, to praise or curse.

And so did the dark lords of meteorology deliver to me the might of a thousand deluges. They came in the form of two seemingly innocuous print deadlines - one magazine and one book. The magazine deadline was met head-on without incident - a mere splash in the pool - yet strenuous enough to leave me somewhat weakened and vulnerable to the book deadline  - which attempted to drown me in a tsunami of last minute challenges.

Okay, that's a bit over dramatic, but it was fun to write. The crux: Three days before the book deadline, I had to leave town for a previous commitment: Two weeks of house sitting for dear friends in Vancouver, Washington. I had happily agreed to this arrangement six months previous, but now suddenly perceived it as yet another deadline to contend with. That dour outlook didn't last long though...

When I hit the I-5 North on-ramp, all thoughts and emotions were flattened by the soothing dial tone of white line fever. My radio snatched fragments of NPR jazz and bluegrass where it could - in between dodging assaults from shady evangelists, over-caffeinated Top 40 DJs, and pompous talk radio blowhards. I love America, but I need a CD player.

Non-northwesterners, take note: This is a proper rest area. In my childhood, most were shaded like this. Now I'm old and my scalp is sunburned, thanks to "progress". Phooey!

Gosson crossing the Columbia. There was a slight moment of trepidation as I considered the ramifications of this drawbridge falling into the river while fender surfing with the rolling time bomb in the right lane. I swallowed my pride and backed off. Sure, the Oregon side of the bridge felt secure, but the Washington side has suffered some credibility problems lately...

I arrived in Vancouver refreshed and eager to do battle with Mr. Deadline. After a good night's sleep, I Felt Good, like James Brown.

My hosts were the Kiwi Metal Fab crew - L-R: Caroline, Loretta, and House Gilbert, AKA: The Irish/Kiwi Connection. Dogs Bailey and Murphy provide shop security. Between their thick accents (and barks), I can't understand anything this bunch tells me, but I love them all - dear friends for several years now. This was shot seconds before a last-second panic speed run to Portland International Airport. No sweat.

Arriving back at the house, I walked into a new reality - with my new room mates, Bailey (left) and Murphy. Murph is a mellow old soul. Bailey is - well - a bit high strung. Okay, he's a needy, greedy, neurotic over-the-top drama queen energy vampire, born without an Off switch. Four pounds of pure centrifugal evil. We're working it out.

                                                       The house.

 

                                                       Yard art.

                                    Where the magic happens. Lots of skill and sweat in here.

                                            There's been a run of Mopar customers lately.

                                                                               Shop art.

On book deadline day, hot rod superhero Mark Brislawn ("Briz") dropped by to rescue me with much needed insight into subject matter beyond my realm of experience. As always, good friends to the rescue! Thanks to Briz' expertise, I made the deadline with 47 minutes to spare.

Briz, resorting to visual aids in an attempt to make me understand a mechanical concept. Waste of time, buddy.

We celebrated with the traditional Friday night gathering of the Slo Poks - Vancouver's seminal hot rod club, steep in history and skills - shallow in political correctness at these closed club meetings, where no women or children are allowed. The food and conversation is always exquisite. Depending on your point of view, the same could be said for the farts and cigar smoke, I guess.

Briz owns a fleet of awesome homebuilt hot rods. Then there's the Salt Flat Rat. I've seen this Model A touring many times at Bonneville (often doing push-car duty), but never ridden in it before. Exhausted, I felt I had the best seat in the house, melting into the comfy bench with warm wind in my face. Life is good. Machinist Gary Vail rode shotgun.

 

The long steep entrance to Paul Springer's rural estate made for a dramatic entrance, complete with a long drizzle of steaming antifreeze as we parked. Ta Da!

                    Our host for the evening, Mr. Paul Springer, basking in his private machine shop.

Early arrival guys, standing around talking. But these aren't just any guys. I learn and laugh more at one of these meetings than I do in a year of researching and busting knuckles.

The big news on this night was the debut of Springer's BIG ROADSTER, built on a fire truck chassis. Springer calls this his beater. Somebody call Randy Grubb!

Random shots of other Slo Poks cars.

A chill set in at sunset and we set out for adventure! Well, after assisting this stranded motorist (Briz unstuck the guy's points, but we failed to stop his fuel leak).

Back at Briz' shop, Gary discovered what appeared to be K&N filter material clogging the Holley on Briz' racer (campaigned in the 60s by Gary Bettenhausen). At this point, we all called it a night.

The next day, a rat-in-a-maze drive eventually delivered me to Chip Starr's shop in North Portland for a photo shoot. Chip and I met at Woodburn Dragstrip many years ago and became fast friends (so to speak). He and Chip Sr. campaign the White Lightnin' Austin gasser - one of my all-time favorites. Chip's day job is providing high tech lighting for animated films, but his off hours are spent wrenching on hot rods - and his recent passion - sports car racing. Since I had the camera handy, I clicked off a few "non work" shots.

Radically non-descript, except for its beautiful crustiness, Chip's shop sits in one of my favorite neighborhoods. He doesn't need a sign - he's slammed as it is. Flying elephant wall art was there when he moved in - it's that kind of community.

Chip's current race car. The flip-nose Bugeye Sprite has been racing since 1964. Double-cab VW in background is a buddy's car.

More of the same, inside the walls. These guys are waiting their turn, along with several others that I didn't shoot.

Chip hasn't forgotten where he came from. This Austin has been raced since the early '60s. Last time I saw it run, we were both turning low 10.30s.

The man himself, doing that voodoo that he do - healing the wounded with a wave of his magic wrench.


More activities are scheduled for the coming days. Besides grueling photo shoots, some leisure time is also on the agenda. So stay tuned for fun!

 

TEMPORARILY OUT OF SERVICE!

Due to pressing multiple deadlines, this week's blog is brief. Thank you.

Here's a picture of a car:

In other news, my longtime friend and bandmate Lyle Miller passed away this week, at 96 years old. Lyle hosted a very popular bluegrass radio show in Iowa, in the 1940s. After serving in WWII, Lyle and wife Fern drove their '28 Chevy coupe across the country, in search of greener pastures. They didn't find anywhere they liked as much as the Iowa/Nebraska region, so they bought a house down the street from Bill and Charlie Monroe, in Omaha. I began jamming with Lyle in 1977. He joined our band (Bluegrass Playground) shortly after and never left. His gratitude for the gift of music was contageous and never wavered. His humility and honesty continue to inspire me. Lyle was a father figure to me.

This was during our last performance - a 2009 festival in LeMars, Iowa. Photo by Marylin, wife of our late bass player, Dick Zion, who passed a year after this show. Banjo player Danny McElroy and myself are the surviving original members. Handpainted neckties were our trademark. The squirrel on Lyle's is an inside joke between us and our audience.

Godspeed, Lyle. If I see Grisman, I'll see about getting your Loyd Loar Gibson back to Fern...

And I'll see you guys soon. I'll try to post something on here next Tuesday (but no guarantees).

Scotty
 

MY DARING ESCAPE FROM CYBORGIA!!!

                            CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES AND THEMATIC VIOLENCE.

For a more refined reading experience, visit the Gosson Bros. Racing Library at www.gossonbrosracinglibrary.com

7:30 AM. Computer monitor levitating over desk. Speech truncated. Must take break...

When the SGE offices moved into the spacious top floor of the 100+ year old Allan Cartography building in downtown Medford, I envisioned an exciting new life: Lunching at the myriad neighborhood coffee shops and cafes; window shopping while strolling tree-lined sidewalks; chatting it up with members of the local arts scene; and generally embedding myself into the urban community. The reality has been more akin to solitary confinement in a windowless basement holding cell. I've been working like a dog.

This month of May includes a deadline for a Cartech book that has challenged me to capacity. Just when I feared breaching the edge of sanity, Hot Rod Deluxe magazine threw high test gasoline on the fire: Could I write a late breaking feature story for the upcoming issue, which ships to print in a week? And, oh yeah, the photoshoot for this piece is scheduled for the day before shipping. Who am I to refuse a request from the tin hat priests of hot rod photojournalism? Of course I accepted. I enjoy a good adrenaline rush as much as the next Darwin Award candidate.

The story was knocked out, submitted and accepted,  in record time. Immediately afterward, I stuck my head out the window, gulped up some fresh air, and reflected: Strapped into my hot rod, I was a cyborg - a humanoid cog in the machine. And now, a month of banging gears at the keyboard had delivered me to a creepy and lame parallel: Flirting with disaster at every turn of phrase, roller coaster story arcs, utter dependence upon  intuition and decisiveness for deadline survival. An engaging ride, but disturbingly far from reality. No doubt about it - I must unplug the cyborg and shake my humanity awake.

Upon cracking open the door to the outside world, I was assaulted by searing sunlight. I prayed for my scorched eyeballs to acclimate, or fall out. How long had it been? My own neighborhood appeared completely foreign to me (once my vision returned). Following a wobbly moment of hesitation, I took a tentative baby step. Then another. And another. The third step landed me at the base of a mummified tree! Good Lord! What had happened to the trees? Double you tee eff?! You know how we Oregonians are about our trees. This was obvious premeditated physical blasphemy! Biological bullying, in the first degree.

    Mother nature in bondage. Right here in small town America. I turned and vomited into the gutter.

Had I really been so isolated as to be unaware that rogue gangs of "yarn bombers" (that's what they call themselves) had been roaming deserted late night streets, stalking unsuspecting vegetation? Yes! A vast network of underground cells populated with jihad knitters had been operating in my town for over a year! And as I soon discovered, this local assault was merely a training exercise for national-scale warfare.

                                 Shocked and awed, I staggered toward cozy safety. Wrong!  

Outraged, I strode into the knitting boutique below my apartment and demanded answers. I soon engaged in a seemingly casual conversation with "Sonia" (who bore a striking resemblance to an aged Patty Hearst). She claimed to be "a co-owner of the business", That's just how she said it: "The business". Everyone knows that anybody who speaks in italics is obviously connected with the Mafia. My mouth went dry and my heart rate doubled. "Sonia" revealed a level of fiber-terrorism running rampant across the entire country that I couldn't have imagined in my most cherished dreams worst nightmares. Momentarily letting her guard down (as I laid on the charm), "Sonia" let it slip that, in fact, a highly sophisticated guerrilla yarn bomber squad had actually "bombed" the enormous bull statue fronting the Merrill Lynch world headquarters in New York City! I played it cool, but couldn't believe my ears - the local ringleader had just testified against her own superiors! When she realized her epic blunder, she would have no choice but to take me out, most likely with fistfuls of #3 knitting needles. At least. This was way more reality than a month of solitary hard labor had prepared me for.

I frantically scanned "Sonia"'s showroom for escape routes, finding none. I had walked straight into her devious trap! Internally terrorized, I outwardly feigned calm fascination with a vibrantly illustrated poster depicting rare crotchet stitches from around the globe (including XXX hardcore double-hitches). At last, an unwitting customer entered the shop, and I knew this was my only chance at escape - and survival! On a pretense of "See ya later" (yeah, like never!), I bolted for the unguarded door, cruelly located just below the brightly lit EXIT sign. At first, I felt a slight remorse for knocking the walker out from under the elderly matron "customer", then realized she was more likely a hired assassin. All I knew for certain is that I'd never run so hard in my life. I didn't slow down until after double-locking myself into my apartment.

Fearing for my life, I clawed for my cell phone and pounded at the numbers: 911. 9 - 1 - 1, damn it! Nine One One !!! I heard the awful metallic clicking outside my door. It sensed my fear and matched it in tempo and intensity. The clicking. My God! The clicking! Closer, faster, louder - mocking my panicked heartbeat by clicking at an ever-frenzied rate, until the deafening cacophony pushed the last vestiges of oxygen from the room with one all-encompassing, endless, knitting needle C L I C K !!! That's when I dove for the window. Three stories below, certain death awaited. Time slowed to a near standstill. As my face was about to contact the glass, I saw a hint of breath begin to fog the window pane. My eyelids began the descent to brace for impact. The last worldly image I would see (and only peripherally), was this unfinished blog entry on my computer monitor, reflected in the window to my own death. Caught up in the excitement, I had forgotten all about this blog deadline! I feel much better, now that it's finally finished. Thanks, "Sonia", whoever you really are. It's just good to be alive.

I celebrated my survival with online research and discovered these shocking images. It's even worse than I thought...

Recent statistics show yarn bombers to be the leading threat to national security. Do you need any more proof than this?

Brimming with newfound confidence (based on my heroic handling of the yarn bomber incident) and greedy for more, I ventured even further out from my mechanized womb - to the James Drive Studio, where a special guest star was scheduled to add a touch of finesse to our mouthbreather-level recording project. We'd been hearing about a female vocalist, name of Murphy, who drives a '64 Chevy fleetside pickup. I spotted her in traffic, signed her to an exclusive contract at a stoplight, and now it was time for her to earn it. Tricia Murphy was waiting outside the studio when I arrived. She requested a glass of water, sat to drink it, walked into the studio and directly up to a waiting microphone. Murphy twirled her finger in the universally accepted "Go" sign, and the tape rolled. In one amazing take, she nailed every note, dismounted, and stuck the landing. She hasn't been heard from since. But we now have a dash of culture to juxtapose the otherwise primal din on one cut of the album. Thanks, Tricia.

The Celtic Songbird, praying for my camera to spontaneously combust while digesting a glass of tepid tap water. This could well be the only photograph of Tricia Murphy. The hand knitted sweater gave me chills. You don't suppose...

This image of producer Rob James is to silence critics of my breakthrough "dark mystery" photographic technique. You're welcome. 

Walking among mortals is healthy and all, but I have things to do. So I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Lockjaw, at the Custom Metal clinic. He lets me play with my Model A project, after office hours. Doc says I'm responding well to the therapy. This is my reality.

 

To refresh your memory, we began with two lengths of 2 X 3 rectangular tubing for frame rails, and a couple of 1 1/2" round tubes for crossmembers...

                          ... Cut them to predetermined  lengths, allowing tight formation to the body lines...

                                             ... Tacked internal supports into the junctions...

                                  ... Tapered the front ends of the rails to affect frame horns...

                                 

                                   ... Finish-welded the rails and ground those welds down...

   ... And this week, while I bask in decadent leisure, Doc is waving his magic sander over the rails to make them appear as one-piece units: "No fill, just skill." Yes, he really is magic. Ask anyone...

Next week, an explanation for this:

                                                                                                                           Or maybe not.