Raebert’s tired of being exploited by the 1 percent. Not that he knows what a percent is. He’s just a registered voter. Thanks to ACORN.
Tim aside, if I’m going to be talking to myself, I’ll do it where I’m most comfortable. In the garage. Tim will catch up.
Johnny’s Last Chance Garage is actually a much older website than this one. It suits me. Hardly anyone will find it. I won’t have to try to be entertaining. There won’t be much need for links. I can just be me, and I can conclude my diary of the death of America in an appropriate setting.
It’s not a real place, I suppose. But as real as anyplace you live. It exists in my head, a weird cross between this…
And this…
You know. Idealized but dilapidated. Stuck in the country. Not the nation. The country. Where I belong. There’s really no saving us now. Only the guys who sit on the porch and watch the passing parade can see it. Everyone else is still caught up in the deadlines and ultimatums of daily existence. Not their fault. But I have come to realize that my priorities are not theirs. I keep looking all the way down the empty road. They’re racing to the next stoplight. I’ve said what I have to say TO everybody, probably too many times. Now, because I have to write or stop breathing, I’ll be writing to myself, from the vantage point of the porch as the cars go whizzing by. If they want a fill-up or a Coke, they can stop. What we old fashioned types call, uh, what’s the word?
With a faint but friendly smile.
Otherwise they can keep whizzing by.
I’ll still be here for a while. But the site has served its purpose. It’s a warehouse for writings people will discover many years from now, when they’re raking through the wreckage looking for clues about what went wrong, wondering why and how everything suddenly blew up while they were just going about their business. We don’t care much about the Olympics at the garage, so if anything occurs to me over the next couple of weeks about the world’s biggest cosmetic commercial, I’ll put it here.
Otherwise, mosey on over to the garage, pull up an uncomfortable chair and have a beer or a soda. Smoking is allowed, just not when a car is being gassed up. The only rule that’s really needed in the country.
Robert,
I am in the process of (hopefully) finalizing a deal on an old service station where I plan to offer food, beverages, and a full check up of your car. Just like in olden times (where I am from). I used to go out, ask the people how much gasoline they wanted and then proceed to check the tires and the oil and wash the windshield. All of that died out here long ago.
But I am trying to being it back. Which makes your post most intriguing to me. Because I am quite literally attempting to resuscitate long-lost rituals of kindness and helpfulness.
Links related (they are images of the spot I am negotiating for). I think I will call it “Full Service Coffee” or something like that. It has a full pizza kitchen inside. Another failed American dream ready to be swooped up and rekindled.
America may be dead but Capitalism is alive and well. At least in the microcosm. For as long as it lasts…..
http://i.imgur.com/r2g1AlA.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/FqQTmxW.jpg
Good luck. I had an idea for a nationwide franchise that beat Starbucks by 20 years. Can’t imagine yet why no one was interested. It was called “Just Coffee.” You drive up to the window, you get a real cup and saucer, thick white enamel, you know, and it’s filled with strong black coffee. No cream, no sugar, because only pussies want that, right, and you drink your coffee and hand the cup and saucer back to the attendant before you drive away. A simple, clean product and business model. Nothing could have been more perfect. So be careful in your business plan. It’s a jungle out there.
Y’all think I’m kidding. I’m not. I’m also not complaining. I’m just reorienting my perspective. I talk to you, you talk back or you don’t. That’s the market. You don’t. Fail. So I go to the next thing, which is talking to myself, with no effort to entertain you and no more hyperlinks. Anything I reference will be done the old way, requiring you to look it up.
Not that you’re not welcome at Johnny’s Garage. You are. Pull up a tractor tire and set your ass down. You’ll see. Raebert’s out back. He’s getting to be like me (surprise), a Proustian recluse who sees anybody only because he feels a duty to family. He’ll be four in a couple weeks. I’ll be older than that.
I’ll be there. Looking forward to it. I have always enjoyed hearing what you have to say more than checking hyperlinks, anyway. The problem with them is that the older the post, the higher the chance the links will be dead.