Folk Art: The Bazzanobago

Grrrrrr >:( It's game time! Get your "gameface" on!!

I'll just put it right out there by saying it bluntly: "guineas" love cars. Guidos have a big hot rod history here in the tri-state area, which is ironic to me, because my Italian-American grandmother never learned how to drive. She didn't have to because she was from the city and it was unnecessary. Besides, that was my grandfathers' job, because he liked cars and taking care of them. My grandma liked sitting in the passenger seat, so she could look out the window and relax, like a real Queen would. It was so cute!

But starting with junior high school, the kids in my town started going nuts about cars quickly, their hormones linking up to mechanical equipment that goes fast like peanut butter goes with jelly, and why not? This country has tons of curvy hilly back roads that are a blast to drive. Our humble little county goes dead at night, and as teens, we took full advantage of that road freedom to turn off the headlights and turn a mountain pass into a scary roller coaster ride. 

I had family that lived over the Bear Mountain Bridge, and the fastest route from here to there in this single terrifyingly narrow road with a tiny guardrail between the mountain side and the Hudson River lurking way down below. In the winter (just in time for Christmas holidays), it freezes with a fierce ferocity that randomly drops huge chunks of ice onto the road, making you swerve into another tiny single lane of murky incoming traffic that was blurred by the river's thick blanket of fog and the alcohol my parents may have ingested. We always made it home, but it was often an unwelcome white knuckle ride.

"Jetting" away, but still makin' stops.

As a result, I've learned to have a healthy respect for the climate here, and the dangerous twists of weather that occur so quickly, you have no choice but to drive through it. I'm an excellent and safe driver, but such is not the case with a lot of my friends, family, and neighbors. As their 80s mullets grew in, so did the cheesy red cars their parent's bought them for their 16th birthday fill the parking lot before school started each morning, making it a testosterone-fueled danger of its' own, with smirking, nastily leering boys sitting on car hoods wearing big gold chains. Uh, pass.

I love cars, but unfortunately, they tend to be of the suavely cool 60s kind, hard to drive and even harder to maintain. Sigh. C'est la vie. Luckily for me, my paisans in Pearl River have cars and trucks so weird, that the garage next door has turned into a cooler and less scary version of that high school parking lot of my youth, with a procession of tricked out pieces appearing every week. 

Also lucky for me, it's football season, another big boy-time filled with beer, food, parking lots, and cars. Every time I see this proper GuineaMobile back for a tune-up, I smile to myself. Can't you just hear their conversation? I wonder what their horn sounds like? It's another piece of Rococo genius, the owner having rigged a series of ever-smaller orange horns in descending order behind the front grill, and that's just fun.

Enjoy the game, guys! Have a great season, and have a beer (or two) for me.

The 'Bago's back!

The Rust Bus

Wow! That is one brown truck, from head to toe.

The owner of a certain big old yellow house (where a certain artist, writer, and publisher also lives), also owns and operates a very successful, busy garage next door. They work on old junkers, classic American sports cars, and every other type of vehicle on the planet. 
I often look out the windows in the kitchen of my studio apartment to see the trucks go by, while I drink coffee in the morning. It's like a grownup version of Tonka trucks, except this game has tight deadlines that run on lots of grease and manpower.

Wait a sec...that's wood grain! He painted faux wood grain! Why?!

The other day, this little school bus was parked in the lot next to the garage that's reserved for longer jobs, and it immediately drew my attention. When I opened the curtain all the way for a better look, I knew I was going to snoop around for a closer eyeballing on my way to the market one afternoon, and so I did, but not without speculating on the type of character who would drive such a stand out vehicle. My first guess was immediately "Woodstock Hippie", because the thing looks like it's being held together by rust, but up close it revealed an entire different (and surprising) story.

Wow! I mean, it's nuts, but it is painted really well. Weird...

Someone actually took the time to paint the entire bus a brown color that's supposed to simulate wood grain, because the whole bus is delicately painted with a second darker brown color that mimics the grain running through wood. What the eff?! Why do that?! Why do all that painstaking custom work on a mini bus that looks rusty from afar? It's so weird.

But, closer inspection revealed a few more clues, like the "Wounded Warrior" sticker prominently posted in the interior (the hinged door of the bus was open for the day). Ah. Say no more: it's a restoration project as therapy for PTSD. Yep, this would definitely qualify as that. It's crazy, and it makes no sense, but it does take a lot of time and effort that's task-oriented. I have a family member through marriage who is similarly constructed. Whenever someone brings up a hobby, like say, gardening, she immediately spits out, "Oh yeah! Great therapy!". Uh, actually, I really like gardening, and I have a good green thumb, but if plants help keep you together, for the love of G-d, please go for it. She always comes off like she's gonna explode in this tense, over-caffeinated, jacked up way.

Jeez, even the headlights are done up. Whatever. Enjoy, my brother!

Same principle here. I wouldn't want to actually meet the individual who painted this entire thing badly with great skill and a type of devotion that makes absolutely no sense, but I am glad that whoever he or she may be, they are back on U.S. soil safely. It may be insane, it may not even register as a paint job to most onlookers, but if your special magic bus brings you some degree of calm and peace, go for it brother. You earned it as the price you paid for our freedoms.  
Long may your freak flag fly.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/