Tuesday, December 14, 2004
The Pisser
When I lived in New Orleans, I met a lot of unusual characters. One guy I call "the Pisser." I used to have a 1973 Ford Econoline van. I bought it in Seattle in 1990 and it helped me move to Tucson then to New Orleans. I loved that van, and it took me and my bands, Beyond Seven and Dog and Pony Show on tour across the nation. It was not pretty and it was not safe, but I never had an accident and after a while I fixed all the problems and it ran pretty good.
At some point I decided that I didn't need the van anymore, so I put an ad in the paper. A guy responded. He played trumpet on a riverboat that went on cruises up and down the Mississippi. For some reason I went over to his house. He had 3 70's Ford Mavericks and 2 70's Ford vans. Obviously he was short a van. He also had an 302 engine and C4 transmission that I wanted for my Ford Fairlane, so we worked out a trade, I would give him my van, he would give me the engine and have the transmission rebuilt.
One time I was over there and he came to the door in his underwear and I could see behind him a young man in his bed. I guess he was a gay trumpet player, that's cool, do what you gotta do. After he got my van, he decided he didn't like it and eventually resold it. His reasoning was this: He liked to go on road trips and while on the trips he wanted to have a van with side doors that swung out, my side door was a sliding door. He wanted the doors to swing out so that he could stop on the side of the road and pee out of the van. I guess he was modest and didn't want the people driving by seeing him pee and the swinging doors would shield him from view. I imagine what a driver would see is a van with a door open and a stream of liquid coming out of the van. I can't really figure out if he was thinking of kneelingin the van and peeing or standing on the ground outside the van but still using the doors to block the view of cars driving by. Why couldn't he use a rest area anyway? After this incedent, my wife and I always refered to him as "the Pisser".
At some point I decided that I didn't need the van anymore, so I put an ad in the paper. A guy responded. He played trumpet on a riverboat that went on cruises up and down the Mississippi. For some reason I went over to his house. He had 3 70's Ford Mavericks and 2 70's Ford vans. Obviously he was short a van. He also had an 302 engine and C4 transmission that I wanted for my Ford Fairlane, so we worked out a trade, I would give him my van, he would give me the engine and have the transmission rebuilt.
One time I was over there and he came to the door in his underwear and I could see behind him a young man in his bed. I guess he was a gay trumpet player, that's cool, do what you gotta do. After he got my van, he decided he didn't like it and eventually resold it. His reasoning was this: He liked to go on road trips and while on the trips he wanted to have a van with side doors that swung out, my side door was a sliding door. He wanted the doors to swing out so that he could stop on the side of the road and pee out of the van. I guess he was modest and didn't want the people driving by seeing him pee and the swinging doors would shield him from view. I imagine what a driver would see is a van with a door open and a stream of liquid coming out of the van. I can't really figure out if he was thinking of kneelingin the van and peeing or standing on the ground outside the van but still using the doors to block the view of cars driving by. Why couldn't he use a rest area anyway? After this incedent, my wife and I always refered to him as "the Pisser".
# posted by Mike @ 9:28 AM 
