Happy New Years all! Had a great weekend down in San Diego with my wife and kids with my sister-in-laws. We spent time celebrating the new year, time at the beach and eating some fine food and beers. On New Years Day me and my brother-in-law decided to go across the bay to a new car show they had running at the convention center. It was a pretty good show, had all of the new cars you wanted to look at. Would’ve been nice if they had more concept cars, but it’s not like the San Diego Car Show is one of the big ones in the nation.
As we are making our way through the show however, we come across a booth that has a quite a few old classic cars, plus some automotive related sculptures, well once piece that particularly caught my eye was a robot sculpture made from old Ford truck parts and other various pieces of metal standing approximately 24” tall. After taking a quick photo, I start to examine it more closely, even reaching out to touch a piece of it as I couldn’t tell the material. Well as soon as my hand touches it, the little guy comes to life and swats my hand telling me, “can’t you read, ‘don’t touch the artwork’!”
I jump back pulling my hand back as fast as I can, “wow, you’re alive.” He tells me, of course he’s alive. I tell him I thought he was just a sculpture, and he tells me that’s no reason to touch him, after all, the sign does say not to touch anything. I apologise to him and tell him that I think he’s a great looking robot and ask if he has a name. “Henry” he says, which really makes sense, since he is made from old Ford parts. So I ask him if he has an owner and what his purpose is, and he tells me the owner of these cars owns him, and he is a mechanic and keeps the cars running in tip-top shape as well as keeping the cars showroom clean. I tell him I think that’s great, and that I use to have a robot to, but I haven’t seen him in many years.
Henry then asks me about his robot, that he has met a few robots over the years through various robot groups and run-in’s. I tell him, “I dunno, last time I saw Johnny Robot was in 1975, and he had a way of finding trouble so I don’t think he’s running any longer.” Henry looks at me and says, “Johnny Robot?” So I tell him yep, that was his name and then I give him a brief history of the robot I built when I was seven.
Henry looks at me and says, “yeah, I think I know that robot, I think I met him several years ago, and you’re right, he is trouble.” “Really?” I say, and I ask him to tell me what he knows. So the as Henry tells me, this is how the story goes.
In 2006, Henry and his maker were in Los Angeles prepping cars for the Los Angeles Car Show. Well they had several cars parked in an alley behind the convention center doing final touch up waiting for the go ahead to pull their cars into the center. Henry is just minding his own business, when he sees a man, who looks like a common criminal come running into the alley and he has a purse in one hand. Well right behind him comes this robot chasing the man, and the thing he that really made him stand out, was that instead of two arms, one arm is an old revolver.
“That’s him, that’s Johnny Robot!” I spurt out in excitement.
Henry continues, Well, Johnny Robot starts shooting that gun of his, and apparently it just shoots yellow rubber bullets now, and Johnny Robot starts firing at the bad guy while calling for him to stop running and turn himself in. The criminal doesn’t listen, he just keeps running, but he is now being fired at with these rubber bullets, but since they are rubber, though I’m sure the stung, they bounce off of the criminal. As the criminal passes by the cars that Henry is prepping, the rubber bullets start bouncing off of the criminal and hitting his fine automobiles, leaving marks on the paint.
Henry can’t have this, they’re about to show these cars, so he sticks his leg out and trips Johnny Robot as he is running by and the criminal continues on around the corner and out of sight. Johnny Robot get’s up and looks at Henry, and asks, “What were you thinking? I almost had him” Henry Robot then tells Johnny Robot that he was damaging his cars, pointing at the marks on the car next to him, and that Johnny Robot needs to fix this, the show is about to start.
Johnny Robot doesn’t like this, he then points his magnum at Henry Robot and fires a couple of rounds, leaving yellow marks across his domed head. “What are you doing?” Henry Robot asks, then knocking Johnny Over with his wrench arms, “Am I going to have to disassemble you?” putting one of his wrenches on Johnny’s magnum. Quickly Johnny uses his projector eye and starts showing a home movie from the early 70’s of kids playing in a sprinkler in their front yard. Henry watches the movie, not sure what to make of it, but at the same time unable to take his eyes off of the movie.
As Henry Robot stares at the movie, Johnny Robot fires a few more rounds of yellow rubber bullets at Henry Robot, knocking him down and Johnny Robot takes off running down the alley, the way the criminal had run. Henry Robot stands up and watches Johnny Robot run away just shaking his head.
I stand there, listening to his story in utter disbelief. Johnny Robot is still alive and living in LA. I then ask Henry Robot if he’s seem him since and Henry Robot tells me “no, that was it” and I stand there wearing a smile on my face knowing that Johnny Robot is still around, and apparently he uses my family home videos to mesmerize people, wow, this is all just so cool and funny.
Back to reality, my brother-in-law wants to move on, so I give Henry Robot my home address and ask him, that if he were to meet up with Johnny Robot again, that if he could tell him about me, maybe Johnny Robot could come visit me. Henry Robot took the information and promised that he would and I left Henry Robot to his car show.
On a final note, as I told the girls this story, I can not convey the excitement they have over the possibility they have over the thought that they may get to meet Johnny Robot one day. Who knows, maybe...
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