bonjour!

so this one is the inaugural post. i'll take a quick second to introduce myself to the nobody who will be reading this blog. my name is jason, and i live in san francisco, california, not too far from the san andres fault that i hear will inevitably send this whole city sliding into the pacific ocean. good times! anyhow, i don't really have a clear direction that i want to take this thing yet, but i know that it'll somehow involve telling tales of the road and elongated pennies. apparently 'elongated' is the preferred nomenclature for the pennies that are dispensed from machines in tourist areas after they have been cranked through two opposing wheels which have been engraved with one of four designs of your choosing. saying smashed, smooshed or flattened will earn you healthy dose of ridicule from the elongated penny collecting community. why you should care if you're looked down upon by a guy who scours ebay for 1987 world series pennies that have been mashed to hell is up to you, but i'd say punch 'em in the nose and carry on: a penny off of ebay is an impure acquisition anyhow.
i guess we'll start with the first penny i own that got me into thinking about all this nonsense and work our way forward to now.

i got this little guy in chimney rock, north carolina 3 or 4 years ago. my best friend, john and i had decided to 'fuck it' and take a trip up to asheville to wander around and drink beer while he took photos of things. we did just that, and it was a good time for both of us all in all. in downtown asheville, there is an old man who owns a belt buckle store with what i'd consider to be a pretty awesome selection of badass, albeit expensive buckles. i'd recommend that you check it out if you're ever there, but temper my suggestion with the fact that the guy is also a dick. he actually yelled at us for having too much fun in his store. 'there's nothing in here that's so funny that you boys need to be laughing', were his exact damned words. i'd also tell you to visit the admiral in west asheville. it's a nifty, little place with wood paneling and a fantastic food menu. on weekends, after 8 o'clock (i think) they clear out most of the tables and spin really good garage and soul music. the best part is that the people there will actually start to dance and have fun once this happens instead of scowling at each other with crossed arms. man! nothing beats pretty girls dancing on a cool springtime evening.
anyhow, the next day took us to chimney rock, which, if you've not been, is one of my favorite places on earth. i hear they filmed scenes from 'the last of the mohicans' there. i heard that because every single damned person in the little town down in the valley will tell you that. the town (village?) of chimney rock is a neat, but sorta useless place since there is nothing, NOTHING there except for about a quarter mile of identical souvenir shops and mediocre restaurants. but it's really quite beautiful with a little stream that runs between it and the mountain. i also managed to score a legit, fur 'coon skin cap for fifteen bucks as i remember. anyhow, as a recently transplanted westerner, every time i think of the 'south', i don't think of much else besides porch beers, cicadas, beat up acoustic guitars, and the view of lake lure and the appalacians from chimney rock. i recently met a girl in denver who told me that she liked the appalacians more than the rockies because they were older and 'had wiser energy'. i'm still not sure exactly what the hell that meant, but something inside of me was forced to agree with her.
anyhow, this penny is sad juju for me. at the time, i had lost the love of my life to my own doing. so it goes. dirt. but man, i remember the way my heart felt back in those days, smashed all to hell and gone like that little 'lucky NC penny'. like isaac brock said, 'i didn't wanna go to bed and i didn't wanna stay up late'. it came out of the machine, still kinda warm and it immediately kind of saddened me a little. 'this is what this little guy will remind me of forever', i said to myself, and i was right. i think that was also kind of what drew me to the idea of starting to collect smashed flat abrahams; their value as emotional and historical bookmarks. ask anyone with tattoos and they'll be able to tell you exactly what they were doing with themselves and where they were when they got each one of them. i know that holds true for me. but in this case, an elongated penny is a more pragmatic method of committing a specific time in a person's life to memory; they cost 51 cents to make, are super portable (my whole collection to date is still in my wallet) and they don't get scabby and gross and punched by your friends. and, as far as the love of my life goes, i am fortunate to have remained mindful of the 'healing' process if you can honestly call it that. i am happy to report that once you realize that you'll survive that kind of crazy, painful mess it makes subsequent heartache a bit easier to fool around with. i have also tested this theory.