backlot

my better half thought i had taken this at some hollywood backlot. nope. i stopped at the anaheim show at the promenade. first time there. probably the last. giving points because i was early, but with all the tall buildings around, most of the shots look like this, half sun, half shade. dramatic, but sucky at the same time. maybe if i'd shown up later, after the sun was down and the street lights had come on, but then there would be more people there for the live band in the center intersection.

i found it funny that several of the cars i saw here, i also saw drive in to the garden grove main street show, and then even later, one showed up at ruby's in whittier. and i thought i got around. ain't it great to have more than one to choose from, if not all to go to on a summer evening?

anyway, there were several really great cars there. the location could be better at different times of the day, i suppose. it would have been nice if the old guys behind this one would have moved to let me shoot the back end, as that planter made it hard to get there otherwise. but oh well. i didn't feel like asking them to move, and they seemed pretty oblivious otherwise.

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and i'm still pissed at my computer for crapping out on me yesterday; was up until midnight reloading the whole freakin system and still am working out tweaks. even with all that, it still had the nerve to lock up as always in the middle of playing with this picture. and my screen is too dark, the colors are odd. i'll have to calibrate; hope it doesn't look too bad.

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and to the bungholes that have been trying to bury comments on old pages with links to sell their own shit...go suck it. i'm in no mood to put up with you. go buy your own advertising space.

time warp

 

so, on this last day of the year, i think back to times past. flipping through my parent's photo albums, i found these.

i vividly remember this oldsmobile tornado. the thing was built like a tank, and had huge tires, at least relative to my size.

that's my younger bro and me in the snow, when we lived in virginia beach. i look a bit evil in this shot, but i think i was just trying to look at the camera and keep the snow out of my eyes at the same time.

my dad was pretty stylin' in that plaid jacket. lol. that must have disappeared before i was born, as i don't remember ever seeing him it or having it in his closet.

every year, back before seat belts were required, my dad would drive us 10 hours to my grandmother's house in west virginia at thanksgiving. i'd be crawling around on the floor space under my mom's feet up front, sometimes with a pillow and taking a nap. lots of leg room, or was it that i was just small? we'd have to put snow chains on sometimes to get over the mountains, and my dad drove like a maniac then...and still does now. he never wanted to stop, just drive straight there, but with kids, my mom wouldn't let him; kids get really cranky when they're hungry or have to take a whizz.

we'd stay a few days there, get the creeps down in gramma's basement, which always smelled like mold, and was always very cold. then we'd turn around and do another 10 hours home. joy.

i wanna say there was space under the back window, behind the seats you could lay on and watch the clouds go by, but maybe i'm thinking of just the back seat. i'll have to ask my brother with the seemingly photographic memory.

i don't know why, but every year, maybe every other year, my dad would have us out sanding all the paint off, and then he would primer it, then sand it again. then paint it with a couple of coats of the same blue every time. i don't remember it having scratches or anything, he just seemed to like using his paint gun, and maybe he was just bonding with my older bro. guess i'll have to ask.

when i was old enough to drive, i finally got the keys to it. i drove it to work for a couple of months, before it went christine on me. i think the brakes went out as i was coming to a four-way stop. fortunately, there wasn't anyone at the intersection and i somehow wrestled the thing into a parking lot and whacked it up against a curb to stop it. freaked me out so much, i don't think i ever drove it again. he sold it a year or two later.

he also had this 1959 oldsmobile 98 for a while; i think that's the tail end of it in the picture with my brother, but i don't remember it at all. my mom says it was their first car together, and it was pretty nice. i would rather he'd kept that one, but oh well.

 

hope you all have a safe and happy new year!