We were sitting with Kim Burdick the other night, and I though we were talking about tattoos. Her brother is a tattoo artist and I was thinking of cool ideas I have to get some more, but I thought a funny one would be a big portrait of Linnea on my chest, so I blurted that out.
Turns out we were talking about Jeepneys, and the art on Jeepneys, so I thought it would be a great idea to have a Jeepney tattooed on my back, with a picture of Linnea on it, how cool would that be?
So, what is a Jeepney?
Darryl, one of the leaders at 2nd Mile filled us in on the legend of the Jeepney. Legend has it that there was a war somewhere around here in the early 1940’s. It seems that the Philippines played a small part in this war and after the war the Americans felt it would be cheaper to leave behind thousands of jeeps instead of ship them back to the USA.
The Americans disposed of these jeeps by driving them over cliffs and into water and swamps. They bulldozed huge holes and buried the jeeps in them, and when they left, the Filipinos dug them up.
Over time an industry of pimping out these jeeps arose, and people fabricated parts for them. What we see as jeepneys now usually don’t have any original Jeep parts, but are totally fabricated in the country.
Jeepneys look like extended jeeps that can taxi 20 people in the back and have a flavor of the low rider style. The drivers of the jeepneys are inspired by stuntmen, and this jeepney is probably the coolest form of transportation we have seen, even better than the Guatemalen ‘chicken bus’.
