12 January 2008

Everybody Move To the Back of the Bus!


A couple of years ago, when Link Wray died, I was looking in my computer for people who had something to say about one of my favourite old rockers. That was when I found Ed's Old Blue Bus. I thought the Old Blue Bus was pretty fucking cool: good music coupled with good writing by a guy who I figured had about as much time in his life for writing as I did. That was when I began 2 + 2 which became the Dope City Free Press.

Writing just about every day has been good for me. I like it.

Thanks for taking the time to ride my motherfucking bus.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the writing and your perspective on things... and the cool photos.

More about this bus!

Regards

Your driver said...

I was gonna say: Nice bus. I drove those old GMC's for many, many miles in Indiana, and then on the west coast for Green Tortoise. They made it through blizzards, tornadoes and desert sand storms. They also had 6 volt electric systems which meant that you had to chose between lights and heat. A tough call during Midwestern winter nights. They had two speed automatics or 4 speed non-synchro manual transmissions. Either way, the top speed was about 40. If you missed a shift you pretty much had to stop and start again in first.

I've come across Ed's Blue Bus before. The recent post on bluegrass reminded me of long ago, when I lived in Detroit. Many of my friends were children of the Appalachian diaspora, just as I am a child of the Maritime diaspora. Anyhow, we used to go hear a band of young hipsters called "Hardtack" who used to play bluegrass versions of rock oldies. Their rendition of "Love Letters In The Sand" was a never fail tear jerker for Cass Corridor hep cats.

Well, I've done it again. Turned a conversation about someone else, into a discussion of ME. All of which goes to prove that I really need to restart my own damn blog. You are a great inspiration. Seriously. I like to read your stuff.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Driving a union made bus
January moonlight
Indiana, Indiana
40 mph
Appalachian diaspora
Canadian diaspora
Love Letters in the Sand
A never fail 6 volt tear jerker

That's why I take the time to find good books and good blogs and good beer. Expressiveness, something a good beer ought to have, is gold in a desperate world that's hard not to turn your back on. Thanks for writing Jon...and start that web journal of yours.

RossK said...

Hey.

When somebody gets on and drops their money in the glass-walled box can you see it sitting there on trapdoor before you open it?

And if somebody's a little short, do you let them take the ride anyway?

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Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

I do not ride the real bus like I used to. Service is shit out here in the Berrylands. When I spent a lot of time in the East End I was taught how a nickle worked like a quarter in the glass box and how any sort of jingle in the box worked when you neededf it to. That is how most all commerce ought to be conducted: pay what you fucking can.

Public transit ought to be free if you ask me. It is the only fare that makes sense in a world we want to make better for ourselves and the game-happy motherfuckers we are spilling into our over-populated, water-short, can't-get-enough-dope world.

But free transit is a tough sell in as young a part of the European World as ours. That is because Free (or pay what you may, if you prefer) does not have the currency it deserves.

There are thousands of people who travel in their stinking cars to Canuck games and work and the race track every day from the urban core of the green Berrylands each day. If you think that makes sense, in a world choking to death on its attraction to mobility, keep insisting on us filling up on what will one day fill up nothing but Necropolis.

When I was a teenager the British hard rock band Status Quo asked, "Is There A Better Way?" There is. Get on the Free Bus, pay what you can afford.

RossK said...

That free/pay what you can bus....

Wouldn't that be, like, I dunno, magic?

Or some such thing.

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