This is Robert "Rockette Bob" Van Keuren III. He lives in his twenty-something-th art car on the streets of downtown Reno. He could be described as one of Captain Beefheart's wriggling brainworm parasite opera protagonists come to life, or maybe a Tom Waits song about an old drunk dressed as Santa Claus being genuinely kind to children and flipping off the grownups. I suspect the ancient Chinese penned numerous tales of his adventures purely on speculation. He is the Tao too drunk to walk home, a wrathful diety struck down into the gutter by an improbable malady, or just the guy with the white beard waiting in line at the post office for a package of Pee Wee Herman memorabilia.

Bob's created some of the most ambitious, obsessive and truly "outsider" art cars this country has ever seen. Many of them can be viewed in a small lot in Goldfield, NV. Most of them don't run anymore - Bob's a little rough on cars. Whichever vehicle he currently occupies is likely to be filled with plastic nativity figures, snowmen, Mardi Gras beads, doll parts and truly bizarre objets d'art, though which a deer trail excavated out of the clutter leads to a humble man's bed.

Bob was a casino dealer until a stroke nearly took his life a few years ago. We exchange dream stories. I live with the feeling that, no matter how I may try to avoid it, for better or worse, I will end up like him. In a recent letter he wrote,

"... i am reading a book about insomniacs and night terrors right now. the fellow wrote a book about blood and his aids boyfriend that i scimed last week. the police found me laying in a parking lot the other day.i had them bring me to margrets instead of the hospital -jail. the dope they had given me,plus the scotch whiskey and a weekend of music almost killed me.and then i think she tries to kill me and the neo-nazi with my stole bike is gonna kill me also.the hells angels and the homeless viet vets are after me also...... on a lighter side, my friend is buying the building next to the clamper hall. big-time music promoter'v+T railroad is going in and i get to live on site... is this the place for your poker room??? the deal goes down thursday and the next two years are the construction dates.hollywood scriptwriters are related..... perhaps i will get involved with art-cars and an event....oh,ya.....lot's of beautiful whores also..............take care.........rocket-man"

(photo by Suzun)