Thursday, December 8, 2011

Darkness on The Edge on Night

When I work on cars I like to listen to The Boss. He puts it all in perspective, that I'm part of a long line of historical nobodies who find quiet contentment in replacing worn rotors and plugs and piston rings and ignition coils and swapping out parts only to find that the parts weren't broken to begin with or else they were the wrong parts to replace. It's paying dues and since I don't trust mechanics to work on my vehicle and not charge me to jerk off or buy premium parts when there is no reason to do so, then I have no alternative as long as I own a car or van. I'm not an overpaid flim flam stock analyst; I value my money. Overcharge someone else!

The 1974 Vespa Ciao moped I ride is a different story because there is hardly anyone else but me who can work on it. I own the only flywheel puller on this side of the Mississippi. And after a long day of starving and racing around like a madman fixing cars and vans in the rain then I like to listen to Bruce sing his highway song to the wrench monkeys of the world, the men who have small dreams and broken egos. We are the mechanics and we are lonely but our sadness lubricates the rusted bolts of our mendacity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poetry for gear heads...It takes a free man to maintain his own vehicle and you sir, are a free man!

Oggy Bleacher said...

This is Bruce Springsteen in his true element. Soothing the oil stained elbows of a man and his van.

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Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.