Bus Shop Blues
Last winter I found myself working on something new, my bus being winterized and up on blocks and covered with Saran wrap, Reynolds Alum foil and duct tape. Strangely at that time I found, that I had a lot of time on my hands, so I found myself working on a new screen play I hope to sell to the Travel Channel, CBS or NBC (The shipping Wars just aint my bag).
Everyone I know tells me I ought to write a book, which I find somewhat ludicrous and I am sure you do too. So I am going to shoot for a screen play of sorts. Here is a brief synopsis: Bus Shop Blues is writer/director Boxcarokie’s adaptation of the popular book by Lil Boy the bus king, Road Ranger of the Internet Highway. This would be boxcarokie’s his first attempt at honest-too-goodness fame and fortune.
Bus Shop Blues is a non-fiction account of the post-lousy economy wanderings of an old Geezer, who divorces himself from his friends, family, and possessions in search of a greater spiritual knowledge and communion with nature.
Old Geezer (his character is named Lil Boy) walks away from a loving if dysfunctional family who live in the area of the Great Lakes and spends his nearly $25,000-dollar life savings (consisting of a huge cardboard appliance carton full of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies) to make a trip to
Needles Kalifornia to commune with nature in the arid desert next to the Colorado River.
Not knowing how to get there for sure, he enlists the services of complete strangers to help guide him on his way. Sticking a well worn broom stick on the top of his bus (over-pass protection) he heads out on his new adventure, even tho there is a bitter blizzard in progress and white-out conditions are quite possible along his well planned route heavily discussed beforehand on his laptop computer.
Instead of the normal life he envisioned for himself, Lil Boy rechristens himself "Macmillan Screaming Eagle" and heads west in his beaten-up freshly Bondo’ed Silver Eagle Bus but quickly realizes he is denied access to the Golden State, because he is not bi-sexual and his motor is a smoking Detroit V892T, at which point he takes up hitchhiking.
The new goal on the horizon? Alaska.
By hook or by crook -- but without his beloved Eagle (now abandoned at the P.O.E. just down the hill from downtown Needles) Lil Boy determinedly sets his sights on Anchorage or Juno, via Reno or quite possibly, Spokane. Just depends on what the bus board guys tell him.
He tries desperately in vain to enlist the help of Boxcarokie on how to drive mountain passes backwards with his eyes closed, but finds strangely that no one will answer his emails. BoxcarOkie has sadly felt the pain and frustration like Geoff and has checked out for a well deserved self-imposed bus board exile.
Late at night, he reminisces of his old bus, which he now discovers that someone has symbolically set aflame. Each night around a campfire strategically placed inside a truck tire rim, Lil Boy determines to make it to his personal promised land, with stops along the way to experience America and its people.
These adventures will include a kayak trip down dangerous rapids, a gig working in a gin mill, daily vocabulary and spelling lessons via flash cards, extended stays with a ex-GM worker now a recycled new age hippie and a kindly old widower. Also untold thrills, spills, a lot of over medicated excitement, enough cold, hunger, and exhaustion to leave him emotionally defeated more than once.
Meanwhile back east, his friends (played by Pee Wee Herman and Christie Alley) and his illegitimate step-sister (Paula Abdul) haven't received so much as a postcard from him, and begin to fear the worst. Negotiations are now under way to get Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder to compose and score the contemplative soundtrack.
Last, the ultimate goal will be to find a suitable player for the role of Lil Boy, which will really be hard, now that Dennis Hopper is no longer with us, and Tom Cruise appears to be too tall for the part.
My, oh my, look at the time! It escapes me but once again.
That is the gist of it.
Opening at a theater near you this Christmas, a real tear jerker (it will have your heart down around your ankles, faster than a wet pair of leather pants). Tell all your friends ... On Blue Ray and Disc for the new winter season. And of course, “If you don’t especially care for any of my schtick, then you could pass and go to Denny’s for a bowl of grease and a hairball. I am not forcing you to attend.”
Watch those right-handers, see you in the fast lane.
BCO
Any resemblance to anyone living or dead, was most likely on purpose.
