David Perry’s Blog

I’ve decided it’s “good effect for business” to have a blog-  to keep people updated on the whatsup with dp. This coincides with my quitting smoking.

I spend my weekend in Davenport, Iowa as the guest of THE WIZZ, a Santa Klaus quasi-biker  look-a-like and former beatnik (who got his name from “big daddy” himself) , and his Flying Eyeball Reunion- a gathering of pin stripers, rat rodders and local goofs.

The Wizz claims his father, a WW1 veteran and ace pilot, and his squadron of farmboys, were the first to use the flying eyeball imagery on their warplanes and jackets. He says it was inspired from Egyptology, a recent discovery circa 1910. I’m sure he’d gladly tell you the whole story.

My friday night was spent signing books at the Putman gallery.

Saturday, the car show,  was spent signing books at the fairgrounds. I was to judge a pinup show and tattoo contest, (both of which never transpired.)

Some rodeo or county fair was at the expo the week before.
I felt like Rat Fink, surrounded by flies during my signing.
Saturday night we went to a bar THE RUSTY NAIL and caught a killer act the WIZZ had booked- “Cadillac Kolstad and the Flats”. Imagine a a young Jerry Lee Lewis, drunk on wine, with a slightly out-of-tune upright piano, playing familiar yet fresh, and slightly tweeked versions of tired rock standards. Great hair, too. These guys were wasted on the Rusty Nail crowd. One lady told me she didn’t know what kind of music this was…I told her barrelhouse, which didn’t compute. The I said “Boogie Woogie” which didn’t help much either. She said “it’s not car guy music”. OK…

Sunday was spent at Cordova Dragstrip, the “grand daddy of them all.” The escape route for runaway dragsters was a corn field. The Wizz introduced me to Tazz, a gravely voiced man who ran the strip, Tazz mixed a perfect rockabilly mix for drag day, probably the best i’ve heard played at an actual dragstrip. The Wizz and Tazz have a encyclopedic minds for obscure 60 rock music.

As for Iowa, lousy on beer (Bud, Bud lite, Miller, Miller Lite), good on decrepit neighborhoods, good on beef, lousy on vegetables.

Met some funny guys, esp. John Myers, a pinhead from Tulsa, kept us laughing.