Last week, The IP decided to combine a needed car repair with a day off from work.  It was a good decision.  The sky was bright, the temps were crisp, and the area in which The IP found himself could not have been more interesting.  That might sound ridiculous, but just stick with The IP here.  The destination was Z-Car Atlanta, an independent Nissan/Datsun garage out in Norcross on the famous Buford Highway.

Even from the air one can sense the no-frills aesthetic of this end of Buford Highway.  The IP will suggest an aerial tour of the area at the end of this post.  It’s amazing what those hot-air balloon photographers can do these days.

Z-Car Atlanta is owned and operated by Korean-American Donald Pak, a skilled Nissan/Datsun mechanic with over thirty years experience.  The shop is unique for its idiosyncratic displays of used car parts and for providing the visitor with a palpable sense of authenticity; in other words, it’s not like a Goodyear or Midas chain store.

Don Pak’s shop presents an endless parade of parts couriers, Z-car afficianados, and customers like The IP.  It has an organized chaos that gives it a very entertaining quality.  It used to have a pair of friendly junkyard cats too, but they must have gotten squished out on Buford Highway.  Oh well.

The waiting lounge is a curious-but-comfortable area in the shop with a big automobile bench seat couch, a radiant heater, and a big color TV amongst a bunch of tires endlessly playing all the bad daytime judge shows one rarely sees if they have a full-time job.  WTF?  The IP noted 4 different judge shows the time he was there.  He got the feeling that the type of folks who watch these shows are probably like the people on them.  Watching them is an excursion into fascinating social anthropology/pop culture mixed with a big dose of pathos.  Do people like this really exist?  WTF?

As its name implies, Z-Car is a shop dedicated to Datsun’s famous series of 240, 260, and 208Z model sports cars, as well as the later Nissan models, one of which The IP owns and which also needed a new head gasket. 

The 280Z maintains a passionate following, and rightly so.  It’s one of the sexiest cars ever designed, and it both performs and lasts well.  There really is nothing like a vintage, 1970s 280Z.

Even Z-cars that are a bit rough on the edges have an undeniable presence and stature on the pavement.  They look fast standing still.

And if your waiting for your new head gasket at Z-Car Atlanta, you can always take a walk in their boneyard:

There is something very sad about automobile boneyards.  The words “decay,” “dead,” “accident,” and “WTF!” come to mind.  The IP always wonders about the original owners of these once-magnificant machines full of hope and promise.  Who were they?  Are they still alive?  How and why did their car end up here?  So many questions.

Yet there is something entirely right and even beautiful in the outdoor sculpture of it all.

When we stupid pithecanthopes have killed ourselves with overindulgence, the conifers will again reign supreme.  Plants are the most noble of living things.  They just slowly reclaim dead civilizations.

Then there are those boneyard cars that seem intact and useable, like this Mitsubishi Montero.  It’s a good looking, early-generation SUV, if you ask The IP.

But more often it’s skeletal remains, the rudiments of cars entirely stripped of their personality.  Can anyone really tell The IP the make and model of the above “cars?”

And The IP will have a special prize for the pithecanthrope that can identify this old jalopy.  The IP thinks it’s a Ford.  What do you think?

And what kind of accident did this Kani House van get into?  WTF? Did it flip onto another ve-hicle while making a sushi delivery?  We’ll probably never know.  Again, so many questions.

Oh yeah, that aerial tour. Go HERE and let the map download and then click on “Bird’s Eye” to view the Buford Highway. Scroll around and see how cool it is.

Hey all you krazy pithekanthropes!! It’s been a long time since The IP blogged at ya. How ya doin’?

Geez. What a month it’s been so far. The IP’s analog-to-digital transfer friend and audio consultant, Mike, won a Grammy, his friend and first blogmeister, Ned, came back from Rome, he finally received his Jet Set Planet t-shirt from Glen Leslie, he scored some great thrift-store LPs, and his workplace became a national symbol of our tanking economy. For what more could a pithecanthrope ask?

OK. First things first. The IP knew Michael Graves when he was hawking his services at a little table at the Atlanta Record Show, a hotbed for Atlanta record freaks that was held in a pleasingly cheesey, frozen-in-the-80s hotel next to The Connector:

Compilation producers Art Rosenbaum, Steven Lance Ledbetter and mastering engineer Michael Graves pose with the Best Historical Album award for “Art Of Field Recording Volume I: Fifty Years Of Traditional American Music Documented By Art Rosenbaum” in the press room during the 51st Annual Grammy Awards held at the Staples Center on February 8, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Steven Lance Ledbetter;Rosenbaum;Michael Graves

And now there he is on the right, holding a freakin’ Grammy.  And he was cool as a cucumber during his acceptance of the award (at least he looked cool as a cucumber; he told The IP the other night that he was thinking “WTF!!” the whole time; in a good way, of course.  Way to go Mike!

The IP’s musical doppleganger, Glen Leslie, over at KFAI’s “Jet Set Planet” show, kindly inquired if The IP had received his incentive gift T-shirt for the sizeable donation he made to the community radio station in Minneapolis.  Frankly, he hadn’t.  But Glen put the screws to KFAI management and got it delivered the next day.  Way to go, Glen!