Mellow Yellow.....R.I.P.
I'd like to take a moment to memorialize one of the most famous cars in the buffalo area. i write this now, because in less than 24 hours she'll be parked away in my grandmother's garage, never to be driven again. i'm going to get a bit nostalgic, perhaps even a little emotional. you'll be there saying "dude, it's just a car!"well watching "the brave little toaster" a bunch of times when i was little infused in my brain that inanimate objects have feelings, too. and besides, i'm gonna miss her, dammit!Zipgun (her original name) was given to me the summer of 1998 by my uncle Kevin. he bought it new (oh by the way, it's a 1981 Toyota Tercel, freakish yellow) way back when and couldn't part with it when he got married and had to buy a newer car. he kept it up and ready, planning to sell it to me when i was old enough to drive. i remember seeing it once or twice when i was way little. anyways, the first time i saw it in the driveway, it was so sweet. it was MINE. and it was ugly. rusty, yellow, square, perfect. it was a standard too, so i had to learn that. no sweat. finally, i got my drivers license in november of 98, and started driving her around. i remember the reaction when i first pulled up to work in it.Andy: It looks like a piece of cheese!Jarrett: I bet it's got a little gerbil running on a wheel under the hood!Andy: No! I bet its probably like in the Flintstones, you have to open a door and push with your legs!Me: Shut up guys! It's cool!I was embarassed at first, but i learned to laugh at it. it's actually very difficult to take it seriously. you have to see it to understand. it's just funny. jarrett and andy later admitted that they loved the car, and they would both help me fix shit on it in the future, andy installing my cd player and jarret fixing the leak in my oil thingy. this wasn't till later though, so for about a year i drove with no radio and a leaky oil thingy. good times. junior year came and went. the only two of my friends who could drive it were mark and ed, since they were the only who knew stick. (i recently taught sam how to drive stick in it)that summer rocked. i turned 17 and had taken drivers ed, so after 9 PM, i was the only one of my friends who could legally drive. we had quite a little routine going, pool hall, denny's, zoobing. repeat the next night. zoobing was fun. anyone whos been to denny's in the past five years knows what a zoob is. theyre these little plastic things that click together to make dinosaurs and people and stuff. a box goes at denny's for about 3.99 plus tax. me, mark, and mark (sometimes referred to as "other mark") would drive around tonawanda and "drive-by zoob" people's houses. other mark provided the music (these were pre-radio times), mark was the zoob sniper, and i was the getaway driver. dramatic music going, we'd creep up to the house, mark would chuck a zoob (or two) onto the lawn and i'd peel out. we did this every night for about a hour. it's stupid i know, but hey, it was fun at the time. if you've ever woken up to find a zoob on your front lawn, you now know who was responsible. i also had my share of car trouble that summer. shit just wasn't working. sometimes it would fix itself when i turned the car off. some said i had elves or something that came out and worked on it. sure, whatever. as long as it runs. had to roll start it a couple of times at work. this involved me in the drivers seat, and the entire twinlo staff pushing me from behind around the drive-thru. when i got a good enough speed the car would just automatically start, and i'd have to get home before it turned off again. senior year, 1999. first day of school. there was a long line for yearbook pictures so me, mark, andy, and sam took off. mark said to follow him. i said sure. mark drove 58 mph down a 30 mph road. or so the cop said. i refuse to believe that my car ever got up to that kind of speed. anyways, he somehow managed to nab both of us. wrote us up for going 45 in a 30. what a nice guy. he actually was though, gave me some advice for my court date and all that. inspired my second film school final, "good cop, bad cop." or at least some of it, anyway. went to court, went to driving school. eh, no biggie. the next few months were cool. soccer season. i drove out to a bunch of games, despite my still radio-less dashboard and brakes that were beginning to grind and spark.then came homecoming. cardinal o'hara vs. turner carrol. our team kinda sucked (apologies to anyone who was on it, but come on, you did) so we were gonna lose. i figured we needed to keep some kind of dignity on our home field. so gina and i spent the morning building a shitty makeshift scarecrow. jeans, t-shirt, face, all stuffed with hay. halftime show started, me, the bus, couple other "floats" (actually just cars with streamers on them) do a couple laps around the field. then everyone leaves, but i stay. i get out of the car, grab the scarecrow out of the trunk, and hold it up into the air. the crowd laughs. it was pretty dumb lookin. anyway, i walk forward, and prop it up, with a little help from my friend rich. get back in the car, rev the engine rather loudly, you know, to get the crowd goin. peel out, head straight for it. a turner carrol fan thought about running in front of me, decided against it when he saw i wasn;t stopping. rich lets go at the last second and BAM! stuffing goes everywhere, the dummy is destroyed. the crowd is going wild. hooray for me. hooray for my car. what a great halftime show. i should probably mention that this is where the "mellow yellow" name comes from. while writing all over my car with makeup crayons, gina wrote the phrase "mellow yellow 2000" on the back window. partly because my car is yellow, partly because the song was stuck in her head. i dont wash the car very often, so that was written on there for quite a while. i actually think most of "2000" is still there. so the next few times i took it to the mechanic's they saw it. Me: Hi, i need to bring my car in. it's making a funny noise again.Mechanic: Name?Me: Pete McKinnyMechanic: Year and Make of the vehicle?Me: an '81 Tercel...Mechanic: Ahhhh.....Mellow Yellow....the nickname stuck. and all was good. got the radio installed in Andy's garage. got installed wrong. a few months later some wires fried and everything went crazy. that was funny. expensive, too. january 2000. new millenium, my poor car survived Y2K. i'm driving home late one night, i forget where i was coming from. the roads are all slippy and icy. light ahead turns yellow. i figure i can make it. i have to try, since if i hit the brakes i'll slide through the intersection anyways, only sideways. well i didnt make it, i ran through the red light. or at least thats what the cop said. yup, second ticket. (wait a minute...just like the guy in my movie! whoa....) i was pissed about this one. its not like i was endangering anyones life by going through a light a half-second after it went from yellow to red. ah well. friggin cops. all goes well after that. driving back and forth to niagara falls and then to buffalo. gas was still somewhat cheap back then, too. march, 2000. driving along with my good friend doug (whom i havent talked to in a while, actually) after closing night of the ohara play. we were talking about whatever, on our way to a campfire at sams house. i lose sight of my spedometer and start going wayyy too fast. or at least thats what the cop said. again. bastard! something like 52 in a 45. bunch a crap. i told the story at sams house, using the f-word like you've never heard. funny now, looking back, expensive too. cant go to driving school anymore, this one gets marked on your license. frig. now my insurance goes up.May 2000, i wash it for the first time since ive owned it (yup, almost 2 years). the occasion? prom. steph's nice enough to go with me, the least i can do is pick her up in a car thats clean. so i scrubbed, hosed, vaccuummed, i was proud with the results. probably one of the only things i did right at prom, but who cares? this livejournals about the car, not me. drove home from graduation a week later, now kindof an unofficial adult. what do i do with my newfound freedom/responsibility? i paint blue flames on the car. yup. and the look fuckin sweet. i forget who had the original idea, i think jeff. went over to his house early that morning (his birthday, actually). his dad sketched the flames on, we placed the contact paper and and spraypainted it. peeled it off and looked. holy shit. it looked even more ridiculous, but at the same time, it became that much more cooler. i started a trend (both jeff and braun's cars sport the flames now). i drove it around with pride the rest of the summer. i think it actually made it go faster. and you know the best part? ever since then the only thing the cops have gotten me for is a broken headlight. heh.the rest of that summer flew by. it ended in a parking lot of denny's, ironically the same place it pretty much started. we hacked in a circle till about 4 in the morning, drew some chalk outline under other people's cars, and took off for home. the next day, i moved out to the RIT dorms. my car moved into my grandmother's garage. every so often, on visits home, i would go over and start it, make sure she was still running. no problems at all. i missed her. one day, in script writing class, jack beck needed us to write about life experiences. i chose my three tickets. this of course was turned into my script for my final that quarter. it involved a boy who got pulled over alot and then lied to his parents about it. it was wayyyy too long, but it starred my car, which is the important part. it almost got towed (apparently you cant drive around without license plates) but it all went well. back to my grandmas garage until the summer. summer 2001. i'm back from school. first thing to do, get zipgun inspected and on the road. receive a call from the mechanic a few days later. Bad news. The axl is going. it'll last the summer, but winter snow and salt will destroy it. to replace it will cost about 800 bucks, which is 300 more than what i bought it for. mellow yellow is dying, and i cant afford to fix her. for 200, they got her to work for the summer, which is great. just like old times, tooling around with the windows down and loud music killing my ear drums. pressure from my parents has me looking for a replacement, though. it was hard. zipguns got some big shoes to fill. i couldnt just get any car, but i also couldnt afford much either. about a week ago, i found it. a 95 pontiac sunfire. 5 speed. very nice, very sleek. i liked it, but i wasnt too sure. could i ever like this car enough? i dont know. i finally made a decision and bought it. right now its just a nice car that i own. soon i hope to personalize it and make it mine. i'm still unsure about more flames. time for something new and different, maybe. but yeah, its mine, and its on the road tomorrow. so whats to become of the legendary Mellow Yellow? tomorrow i drive to Holler-Grapes and switch the insurance over. then i drive to my grandmothers and park her in the garage. i'll take off the plates say goodbye to my good friend of two and a half years. i'll shut the door and go off to pick up the new one. i dunno what i'm gonna do with her. some say i should sell her. others say i should give her to my brother, but he doesnt sound interested, especially since the axl's going. maybe i'll keep her there till i'm rich and can bring her back, kinda like how dying millionaires cryongenically freeze themselves until a cure is found. maybe i'll sell it to some deserving young kid who has the money right now to fix it. nahh, i'll probably blow it up in a movie.yeah, that'll be sweet, it'll be an evil clown car or something, and at the end it can crash and burn or have a car bomb in it or....heh, i'm rambling. there's probably laws against that anyway. well, i think that's it. the legend ends tonight. if i forgot any mellow yellow memories, feel free to comment to me about em, i'll add them to the journal. until then, thanks for reading my big long story, or at least scrolling down all the way to the bottom. adios,pete"goodnight sweet Mellow Yellow, and may a flock of angels sing thee to thy rest." - William Shakespeare