the premises now in existence

From a 1921 advertisement for the Willys-Overland Sedan, a self-proclaimed "Woman's Car":


...at which point Helen was forcibly dragged from her car by a couple of Alexander Mitchell Palmer's agents, tortured, and sentenced without hearing under the Anarchist Exclusion Act of 1918. Despite being born in Cedar Rapids, Helen was then deported to the Soviet Union, where she died of starvation during Comrade Lenin's "Glorious People's Economic Plan to Kill a Whole Bunch of People" a year later.

Chumbawamba - The Good Ship Lifestyle (from Tubthumper, 1997) - "This is your captain speaking. We appear to have run aground on the reef of harsh reality. Please make a mad rush toward the limited number of lifeboats. Millionaires and trophy wives first."

pretty spider for a white guy

Super Lumina failed state inspection last Friday because of a safety issue (for a busted indicator and quite possibly the retractable titanium steel ramming spike I mounted on the bumper). Normally this would be the type of thing I'd have fixed on the spot, but because I waited until the last minute, the mechanic didn't have the parts or time to take care of it. I had to settle for a rejection sticker and an appointment to bring it in for repairs and a retest this morning.

I originally picked this particular garage (back in 2001) because it located a couple blocks from where I was living at the time, which meant I could drop my car off, walk home, and goof off around the house until it was time to pick up and pay. They also happened to be honest, affordable, and extremely good at their work -- an extremely rare combination -- and I continued to go there even after I moved to the Woburn Highlands on the far southern edge of the city.

The previous drill of "drop off and walk home" was slightly adjusted to "walk to my grandma's house (my former residence), and beg a ride home and back." This time around, though, no ride was offered, and I was too self-conscious about my present Worst Grandson Ever^TM status (passively earned, just so no one gets the wrong idea about my particular flavor of crapulence) to ask for one. So I ended up spending most of the day in my grandma's living room and attic, digging out and reading comics from the dozen or so longboxes I've yet to bring up the House on the Hillside and drinking Dixie cup after Dixie cup of watery fruit punch.

Most of the stuff was from the 1990's and early 2000's, and I was amazed at how many comics I bought and continued buy even after any sane rationale for reading a title slipped away -- Peter David's coyly smug Captain Marvel relaunch, Erik Larsen's Defenders relaunch, Mark Millar's Authority run, Devin Grayson's Titans. Chalk it up to collector's inertia, a noxious habit I'm glad to have since kicked to the curb.

There were also some relatively entertaining things I purchased and subsequently forgot about due to the high volume of incoming crap, and these were how I passed the long hours of my captivity in the Land of Bleach and Doilies -- Garth Ennis's War Story comics and his Enemy Ace: War in Heaven miniseries, Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth, Avengers/JLA (a.k.a. JLA/Avengers) , and John Byrne's run(s) on Sensational She-Hulk.

It was the latter that provided the most enjoyment, not for the playful (if a bit heavy on the meta gags) romp through the Marvel Universe's z-list which made me miss the old, good John Byrne, but for this editorial page illustration from issue #41 (July 1992):


There is a transcendental cosmic truth to be found within its majesty, providing that one has the strength of will to embrace it without descending into existential madness.

Flesh For Lulu - Restless (from Flesh For Lulu, 1984) - "Gothic rock" is a rather subjective term.
Polysics - Making Sense (from Neu, 2003) - I think we're well past any chance of that happening. Better to just ride the Japanese noise rock whirwind and see where it leads us.

the assassin bug

No nostalgic or philosophical musings today, just a tip of the hat to one of the Great Moments in Comic Book History^TM: Captain America engaged in a life and death struggle with the VW Beetle that crashed though the window of his third-story Brooklyn apartment:

(from Captain America #222, June 1978; by Steve Gerber, Sal Buscema, John Tartag, and Mike Esposito)
Was it meant to symbolize the American auto worker's sense of anomie as the industry attempted to cope with the flood of cheap, fuel-efficient imports?

Or was it another example of a writer jettisoning all pretense of plausibility in order to shoehorn an ill-considered "clever" idea into a story?

(Since it is the late Steve Gerber we're talking about, it could go either way.)

Tin Machine - Working Class Hero (from Tin Machine, 1989) - I've noticed that revisionist music historians have tried to make the claim that Bowie's Tin Machine phase was anything other than a embarrassing failure of colossal proportions. These revisionist music historians are out of their flipping gourds, as this mutilation of a beloved John Lennon track clearly illustrates.

Jimmy Edwards - Love Bug Crawl (from Rockin' Bones: 1950s Punk and Rockabilly, 2006) - After his agent stopped taking his calls, Herbie was forced to paint himself purple and hire out as a contract killer in the late 1970's in order to fund his illegal fuel additive habit. A high-pitched "BEEP-BEEP" and the tinny hum of a four-cylinder engine revving up was the last thing many a snitch or mob rival heard before being cut down by a sub-compact angel of death.

spit on your grave

From Yahoo's featured stories box:

Awwwww... Such a shame. I feel so broken up about the news, honest. In fact, let me dig out an appropriate funeral dirge for this somber occasion...

Dave "Baby" Cortez - The Happy Organ (from The Happy Organ, 1959) - The #1 hit that helped convince scores of musicians to start twiddling with their organs.

(Seriously, though, my sense of schadenfreude doesn't extend to the poor souls getting shafted due to plant closures because the captains of fucking industry couldn't figure out the simple calculus that "economic downturn + soaring gas prices = retool the production lines towards smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles." Then again, the suits never feel the pain, so there's no motivation to think proactively.)

last year's model

A snapshot of the cultural sensitivities of Nixonian America, as represented by two advertisements for model cars which appeared in DC comic books during that period:


Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass - Tijuana Taxi (from Going Places, 1965) - HONK HONK!

Happy hour at the Eden Roc's lounge: One-piece molded plastic chairs and the curved Formica surface of the well-stocked bar. The clientele sporting sharkskin suits and Brylcreem-lacquered "smart look" 'dos or pastel "Jackie O" ensembles and sky-high bouffants. They tap the ashes of their Kents into crystal ashtrays while sipping at their Tom Collinses or vodka martinis, and over the din of casual conversation can be heard the peppy, suburbanite-safe sounds of light quasi-Latin jazz, the echoes of which will resonate in shopping plazas and elevators for decades to come.


Dead Kennedys - California Über Alles (from Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, 1980) - This cautionary ditty about the dark side of paternalistic liberalism (resolved fortunately by America's drunken stagger toward petit-fascist ideology) came up on the Zune's driving playlist during the commute home last Tuesday, and it reminded me that I voted for Jerry Brown in the 1992 Democratic primary.

Oh, what a lovely thing the American political system is, offering each and every voter the opportunity to choose between getting devoured by fire ants or drowned in a bucket of slaughterhouse offal.

wouldn't that be strange

Well, look at that -- it's the Schadenfreude school of marketing theory put into practice:


Actually, the same Honda ad appeared on all the Yahoo News headline stories, but it was still mildly amusing to come across it in the context of General Motors' labor-related woes. It reminded me of Goodyear's ad blitz in the wake of concerns about the safety of rival Firestone's products, with ads that stopped just short of saying "Goodyear: Tires that won't explode and cause you to die in a horrible wreck."

From the same article:

Investors will likely look at the situation as a one-time nonrecurring item, as they have in similar occurrences in the past, said Sklar. Some, he added, may see the strike as a sign that GM is hanging tough in its negotiations and is determined to secure the concessions necessary to make the company competitive.

"So, in kind of an unintuitive way, a strike is positive for the stocks because it means that the industry is being resistant to the demands of labor."

Fuck fair wages and benefits, squeezing concessions from the folks who actually build the damn cars and trucks makes the speculators happy, and that's what really matters. Forget the fact that the reason why GM is in such a fix is that the corporate inertia of its executive leadership got complacent and put all their eggs in a basket towed by gas guzzling trucks and SUV's despite compelling economic trends.

So it makes sense that the line workers bear the burden for that blind complacency...

Crass - General Bacardi (from The Feeding of the 5000, 1978) - "The generals sip Bacardi/while the privates feel the pain." Too fucking right.

Fischer-Z - The Worker (from Word Salad, 1979) - The "Z" is pronounced "zed." Get it?

the mansions of glory have been condemned...

...and the suicide machines have been sold as scrap metal to China.

Driving used to be fun. I'm not misremembering that, am I?

Today I had to drive my wife and her elderly rabbit Jack to the vet's office in Wellesley. It's not that great a distance as the crow flies, but the route there is circuitous and ends up being a fifty mile round trip through some of most aggravating stretches in the MetroWest/Northwest area. Vet trips aren't meant to be of the same character as leisurely Sunday drives, but the experience really brought home how my love of behing behind the wheel has soured in the past couple of years.

There are many reasons for this shift in attitude:

- The mass migration of aspiring homebuyers looking for better deals beyond the 495 Curtain has led to massive rush hour traffic jams stretching fifteen miles north and south of Boston, especially since the announcement that the Big Dig was officially finished caused a large number of public transportation riders to start commuting by car again.

- The overdevelopment of inner ring suburbs, where massive condo complexes and retail centers have been plunked down on postage stamp-sized lots off back roads, has dumped massive levels of traffic on roads not designed to handle it.

- The rise of "bigger is better" vehicle culture has led to an escalating arms race mentality on the roads, even for drivers who don't opt for a Escalade or Hummer. Even the armchair liberal Prius driving set will more often than not switch into full offensive mode as they pull out of their driveways.

- MOTHER. FUCKING. ASSHOLES. WHO. USE. CELL. PHONES. OR. TEXT. MESSAGE. WHILE. DRIVING. I don't care if it's hands-free or Bluetoothed up the wazoo, using that shit while driving needs to be a heavy finable offense. (Or violators could be lined up against against a wall and summarily executed. I'm okay with either course of action.)

- The inevitable jadedness that comes with commuting to work every day by car. It doesn't take long for the luster to flake and peel off when the material embodiment of your freedom and mobility pulls double duty as the thing that bears you into the drudgery of work every morning.

The love hasn't left me entirely, though, just gone dormant like a desert flower awaiting the rain. Times like a few weeks ago, when I went to pick up Maura at the subway station late on a Sunday night, it all comes flowing back to me...

The tree-lined darkness of South Border Road on the warm summer evening, feeling the hum of Super Lumina's V6 coming up through the steering wheel and accelerator pedal, a hand picked selection of favorite songs blaring from her CD player...

If only heaven was half as nice.

Amen Corner - Expressway to Your Heart (from The Collection, 2001) - This British (Welsh, to be more specific) Invasion act's definitive moment of glory was "Scream and Scream Again" the theme song to the not-so-great horror film of the same name, but their other stuff isn't half bad, either. No one will ever touch the magificence of The Soul Survivors' orginal version of this song, although I enjoy the slightly "off" vibe that radiates from the Amen Corner's 1968 cover.

Republica - From Rush Hour with Love (from Speed Ballads, 1998) - It's odd to listen to Republica now and think back to a time where the band was tagged with the "electronica" label. Some of the elements are there, but their overall sound is pretty decisively pop-slash-rock, and doesn't bleed across genre boundaries as much as either, say, Carter USM or Helen Love did.

The Modern Lovers - Roadrunner (from The Modern Lovers, 1976) - Yeah, I posted this track way back in the early days of this blog, but given today's topic, I couldn't not include it. The only serious choice for the official pop song of the Bay State; no dissenting opinions will be tolerated.

My current driving experiences would be more properly represented by Johnny Rotten's rendition/mutilation of the song, but that is what's great about a good piece of music -- it can enable one to transcend vile reality.

I went looking for the spirit of 1956 today while I was on Route 128. It was buried under a pile of abandoned CRT monitors some cheap shitheel left abandoned by the side of the highway.

do you hear some outside air

A couple of Fridays back, Maura and I were coming out of the pet store when she noticed that Super Lumina’s passenger side rear tire was looking a bit sickly. I’m inclined as a general habit to pooh-pooh such observations, as Super Lumina has a heavy frame and a heavy engine, and there’s a noticeable give where the rubber hits the road even on a new set of properly inflated tires. This time was the real deal, though, and explained why the car’s stability while cornering had been getting progressively wonkier over the previous month or so.

I gave the tire in question a thorough going over to see if I could find any visible punctures or damage, but came up empty. Suspecting the awful truth, but hoping for the best, I stopped at the Citgo station down the block and got the tire back to its proper PSI level. The next two weeks were a waiting game; nothing seemed to happen at first, and I was ready to chalk it up to “one of those things” that come with car ownership. Then, last Sunday, I did a spot check and the tire was looking as bad, if not worse, than it did two weeks previous.

Again hoping against reality, I went back to the Citgo air pump. The leak appeared to be a slow one, and I figured that I could play for time until my next scheduled vacation. It was not to be. I just took a quick look out the living room window and the tire is about as flat as it can get while still being drivable on.

Damn it. I knew I was due for a new set of tires, and I’m always up for a day off work, but I hate having the issue decided for me, with a massive last minute shuffling of priorities (not to mention the not-insignificant cash outlay involved).

Johnny London – Flat Tire (from The Complete Sun Singles, Vol. 1, 1994) – I think we can make it to the juke joint on the bare rim if we all lean to one side.

Albert King – Flat Tire (from I Wanna Get Funky, 1974) – In which a veteran bluesman feels my pain, and knows how to make it dissipate.

The Adverts – On Wheels (from Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts, 1978) – “On Borrowed Wheels” in my case, as my grandma has lent me her rather boxy Olds Cutlass until I can get my car out of the shop. It’s not a bad car, but it’s two weight classes below Super Lumina, and despite sporting only a four-cylinder engine, its mass-to-power ratio makes it feel like it’s going to leap out from under me every time I feather the gas pedal.

let that be your battlefield

Before I got married, bought a house, and assumed all the related financial responsibilities of an “adult,” I had modest plans to transform Super Lumina from a staid family sedan into something a little more slick-looking. Nothing too ostentatious – a low key spoiler, a new paint job (burnished gold), and maybe some interior strip lighting. A nice dream, but lack of funds aside, it would have been a bigger hassle than it was worth. The problem with having a showy car is that you spend every waking minute worrying about the inevitable pits, dings, and scratches than vehicle will acquire through the attrition of daily use. I’ve grown to care less about Super Lumina’s minor cosmetic issues, and have instead focused on keeping what’s under her hood in perfect working order.

Now that I’m within two months of paying off the car loan, though, I’ve started thinking about ways to use that freed up cash to make needed improvements. They are all based in functionality rather than appearance, and largely inspired by the stretch of Interstate 93 north between the Columbia Road ramp and the Massachusetts Turnpike, where the rules of the road have devolved into mild guidelines to be freely ignored. (“Wait until the last possible moment to cross three lanes of traffic to the exit? Sounds like a plan! No need to interrupt my text messaging to flip my turn signal on!”)

With those road conditions in mind, here is my current list of desired modifications for Super Lumina:

- twin-linked liquid-cooled hood-mounted chainguns: They don't even need to be that powerful, just able to penetrate fiberglass and sheet metal. They should also have a forced ammo feed capable of automatically clearing most jams.

- rear-mounted “smart” caltrop dispenser: The caltrops would resemble ball bearings and only spike up when driven over by a specifically designated target in order to avoid collateral damage.

- a titanium-steel bulldozer blade: This may require reinforcing Super Lumina’s underbody so that it can properly handle the stress of impact, and minimize the risk of damage to the engine.

- a sunroof cupola with pintle-mounted machinegun: Because in our house, road rage is a couple’s activity. This would give my intrepid wife/co-pilot a chance to vent her spleen. Outside of combat, it would function as a excellent vantage point from which to assess traffic conditions should we be stuck behind a two-story tall SUV.

- hubcap-mounted spikes and blades: Intended more for the intimidation factor than for actual use, they would hopefully deter those folks unwilling or unable to keep their damn vehicles within the marked lane boundaries.

- trunk-mounted adjustable reflector screen: I don’t know why everyone these days feels the need to have their highbeams on 24/7, and I don’t care to hear their reasons for it. This slick innovation is designed to give those inconsiderate jerks a taste of their own medicine by reflecting the blinding glare back into their eyes.

- cell jammer-screamer: a powerful short-range transmitter which broadcasts an earsplitting 200-decible white noise shriek across the entire cell phone frequency band. “Have I got your attention? Good! Now pay attention to the road, asswipe.”

- a custom-fitted stereo-system with mp3 CD capability and a dock for most digital music players: It can’t all be about road rage, OK?

Ministry – Jesus Built My Hotrod (from Psalm 69, 1992) – Or it was assembled at a GM plant in Ontario. I can’t really remember now.

Adam and The Ants – Cartrouble (from Dirk Wears White Sox, 1979) – My trouble is with everyone else on the road.

Jane Wiedlin – Rush Hour (from Fur, 1988) – It used to be that if we got on the highway at 9:15 AM of thereabouts, it would be clear sailing all the way to Dorchester…until the building boom came along. Now the highways are thick with New Hampshire-dwelling expatriates from the Bay State who continue to work in Massachusetts and create fifteen mile long traffic jams.

this is the game that moves as you play

Before I started driving into work every day, a good driving music mix CD could last up to three weeks or more. In these days of stop-n-go traffic on the asphalt nightmare that is Route 93, I'm lucky if I can get a week's worth of listening out of one before wanting to toss the disc out the window.

Putting a mix CD together should be easy, in theory. I have a large and varied music library, and I can think of dozens of songs that would put me in a "rocking in my family sedan" vibe. In reality, however, I have to take into account the tastes of my intrepid co-pilot, a.k.a. my wife. There are more similarities than differences between our tastes, to be sure, but there is no way in hell I'd expect her to tolerate the classic rock and crap metal that loomed so large in my white-trash childhood and early adolescence.

So the trick is to balance tastes without sinking to a lowest common denominator. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn't, and I get to find out exactly what my better half really feels about certain favorite songs or artists, like with the “Shampoo Incident” of Fall 2006, where the wife took the unprecedented step of anticipating the a contested track (“Trouble” by Shampoo) and hitting the skip button before the music could even begin.

Here’s the track list for the driving music disc I burned this morning:


Many of the songs are ones I’ve posted here in the past few weeks. That’s a pretty common occurrence; in the process of pulling out material for various themes, I end up rediscovering forgotten favorites or encountering new ones. As per an unspoken agreement, I also include certain number of tracks from “Maura’s bands” (most of which I happen to like, but I’ll always associate with her listening tastes). This time around, they include X, The Epoxies, The Soviettes, The Gits, and The Dents. No INXS or Ladytron this time out, though they also fall under that category.

Another factor that has to be considered is the ambient sounds associated with highway driving. Many much-loved songs, especially in the goth and post-punk genres, fail to make the cut simply because they can’t be heard over the background noise of the road and/or the hum of Super Lumina’s engine.

Generation X – Dancing With Myself (from Kiss Me Deadly, 1981) – Punk rock has died more times than the heating coil of my old 1990 Cutlass. I’d venture that the video for this song was Death #73 or #74. Billy Idol’s relationship to punk rock strikes me as analogous as Poison-Mötley Crüe-et cetera’s to heavy metal: a having one’s cake and eating it too scenario that tries to juggle commercial aspirations and subculture mystique with an eye toward the teenybopper demographic.

X – The Have Nots (from Under the Big Black Sun, 1982) – Love changes people in subtle ways. Before we began dating, Maura’s love of X began at Under the Big Black Sun and ended with See How We Are. My love of X, on the other hand, began with Los Angeles and ended with Wild Gift. As we grew closer as a couple, so did our record collections. Today she is likely to be caught humming “Sex and Dying in High Society” while I quietly sing “The Hungry Wolf” to myself while I’m doing yardwork. Ain’t love grand?

another battle was won and lost

I was going to skip posting anything today. I’ve spent the better part of the day dealing with an irritating head cold while trying to replace a fried hard drive on my work computer. I succeeded on the tech front, but the only person who can get me hooked back up to the shared network drive I need to use for my work duties is out of town until next Monday. Rather than sit around on my hands doing nothing except stifling recurring coughing jags, I went home early and crashed out while listening to Carbon Based Lifeforms’ World of Sleepers. The resulting dreams were interesting, to say the least.

I’m now wide awake, and still feeling, as a medical professional would say, “like shit.” Tomorrow has a whirlwind tour of veterinarian offices – one for our rabbit, Jack, in Wellesley at 11:30 and another for two of the outside cats in Winchester at 2:00. When it’s all over, I don’t think I’ll be able to tell where Super Lumina ends and I begin. We’ll be inseparably bonded in a man/machine gestalt by hours of the nastiest highway and surface road driving Massachusetts has to offer (outside of the Day Boulevard rotary, which is as close as one can get to The Road Warrior this side of the nuclear holocaust).

So in short, I’m feeling restless and sick, my paid work is backlogged by tech hassles, and I have a long day of driving ahead of me. At least I have my music collection to help take my mind off of things.

Generation X – Kiss Me Deadly (from Generation X, 1978) – In which a young Billy Idol and friends serve up the punk rock equivalent of a power ballad. Sure, it’s a little on the sappy side, but it really couldn’t work any other way.

The Hives – A Get Together to Tear It Apart (from Veni Vidi Vicious, 2000/2002) – Has it really been five years since this album was released in the US? Wow.

drive me fast, crash me crazy

“The more you drive, the less intelligent you are.” – Miller, Repo Man

It’s a fickle romance we have, my automobile and I. It started out as a blast, having the mechanized freedom to come and go as I pleased, but the charm faded pretty fast after being cut off by some cell phone-using asshole in an Escalade for the umpteenth time. All pretenses about being a rational animal slipped away, and the lizard brain took control. Defensive driving? Well, the best defense is a good offense. If that means matching speeds to keep some fuckhead on my left from getting across to his exit after he nearly sideswiped me, so be it.

I got my driver’s license just before I graduated high school in 1990, but it wasn’t until the November of 2001 that I became a car owner, and even then it had to be forced upon me. My brother got married and moved to an apartment in Allston, where parking is extremely hard to come by. He and his wife decided to hold on to her later model Ford Escort and shed the 1990 Olds Cutlass he bought from my grandmother a couple years previous. He offered the car to me, but my natural state of inertia led to the poor machine lying idle in my grandmother’s driveway for three months, with no steps taken towards getting it registered and insured. At the beginning of November, he issued an ultimatum: either I assume ownership or he’d have the car towed to the scrapyard.

Even though I ended up sinking most of my savings into keeping up the old heap (six hundred bucks off the bat for new brake pads, rotors, and calipers), Supercar and I had some really fun times together. She only had a four-cylinder motor, but she could beat most rice rockets from the stop line, at least for the first hundred yards before she topped out. She’d turn over on the first try, even on the coldest days, although her heating and cooling systems were always problematic. The poor girl had a hard time holding her antifreeze, and would spring coolant leaks every couple of months.

She wasn’t much to look at, either. The paint had peeled off to the bare metal in several places, and she had rust spots in several places, including a huge one on the center roof that looked like Supercar was sporting a bindi. My wife’s nephew referred to her as “the Stained Car”, as in “Someday, you and me and Otto can go to Toys’r’Us. But not in the Stained Car.” It was the rust that did in Supercar. When I tried kicking the driver side door shut with my boot, and it left a gaping foot-shaped hole in the metal, I knew that the poor car’s day had come.

Before I had Supercar towed away, my wife and I swung by my grandmother’s place to sit inside the old heap one last time. I cut the red plastic Oldmobile insignia out of her steering wheel, to keep as a talisman. It now resides in the glove compartment of my current car, a 1998 Chevy Lumina that used to belong to the retired police chief. Super Lumina has more horses, more interior and trunk space, and plenty of options, but will never match that 1990 Cutlass in terms of personality.

Rust in peace, my old, sweet chariot.

The Go-Go’s – Speeding (from the Fast Times at Ridgemont High OST, 1982) – My wife was quite the Go-Go’s fan in her tweener days. She used to listen to Beauty and the Beat over and over on her brother’s record player. One time, she didn’t notice she put the record down over another one on the turntable. When it wouldn’t play, she cried. That story made me simultaneously chuckle and feel sad.

The Dugites – In Your Car (from Hisstorical: The Best of the Dugites, 2004) – Cute (maybe too cute), catchy Aussie new wave pop from the early 1980’s.

Vince Taylor & His Playboys – Brand New Cadillac (from a 1958 single) – I love the Clash’s cover version, but it doesn’t come close to matching the raw menacing power of the original.

The Toy Dolls – Tommy Kowey’s Car (from a 1980 single, collected on Ten Years of Toys, 2002) – It took a while to convince my wife that vocalist Michael “Olga” Algar was indeed a man.