Why is your fleet green?

The first time I saw this van parked on NW 32nd in front of The Scoop I stopped dead (although driving at the time). Catching up with Mr. One Name has been on my radar since that first February morning. In the meantime that very same van was the one borrowed and deployed to move rental chairs from the house to the park (and back) on the wedding day. What an honor. Someone has already remarked to Jim, "I didn't know you did weddings."

Ballard News-Tribune. August 2, 2010

Jim, serving this universe since 2029
Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. I should have known better than to expect straight answers from a man who painted his van chartreuse with slogans for a nonexistent business. Then again, is the business real and the slogans fake, or is the business fake and the slogans real?

The van color is the exact shade of a bicyclist's most visible jacket, fluorescent green. When applied in metallic paint on a big vehicle, the sight tends to stop people in their tracks.

Once stopped, they look for clues in the lettering: Desultory Logistics, one side reads, "We'll get it there…whenever." Adjustable Belief Systems reads the driver's side, "Serving Ballard and this universe since 2029." What the?

The owner of the van is a man who prefers to be known by just one name, like Madonna or Cher. His one name is Jim. Allowing only that he had a previous science career and has "morphed" into computer geek, Jim is computing director for a department at the University of Washington.

Speaking of his distinctive automobile, he allows, "It needed to be distinctive for corporate interests."

When people ask if the phone number on the van is real, he counters, "Why don't you call it?" If someone asks him, "What do you deliver?" Jim answers, "What have you got?" After all he says, referring to an unknown corporate entity, "Our hallmark is flexibility."

Some true statements slip into Saturday morning conversation at the coffee shop where Jim starts and ends his weekly walk. He moved out to Seattle from the Boston area 22 years ago, driving cross-country in three days. The green van is not his only means of transport, and his fleet also includes a sailboat named Nola, after the character in Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Have It."

Jim bought the van on Craig's List, the start of "a chain reaction." The van was white and needed to be painted. Friends mocked the white van, saying it looked like those linked to kidnappings and/or stalkers.

One morning, a bicyclist rode by in chartreuse. "I'm going to paint it that color," Jim said. "No, you're not," someone countered. He couldn't let his friend win that one.

Jason at Maaco on Eastlake painted it just that green. Then the "real estate" of the large bright sides called out for business slogans and catch phrases; what Jim calls the promotion phase of his entrepreneurial effort.

Jim considers his product to be a state of mind rather than an actual delivery service. The state of mind is general flexibility regarding a distinction on "what is real" and deadlines in general.

As for whether his life has changed since the Desultory Logistics van took to the streets of Ballard, Jim answers, "Absolutely!" He claims a lot of woman wave at him and smile. Someone on Ballard Avenue screamed, "I love your van." A potential customer, Jim figures.

The fleet is about due for service and a bit of touch-up. Jim has been considering new slogans, such as, "You can rest assured our drivers are not fugitives" or "Our drivers have some command of the French language." (They claim to serve Aix-in-Provence – as well as Shilshole and Ritzville).

In person, Jim could pass for an ordinary tallish, middle-aged bald man with glasses, until you try to ask him a question. "Why is your fleet green?"

Answer: "Because it isn't white."