The Mule

 

We're all unstuck in time at some point in our lives. The essence of a human being relies on memory and comprehension and a certain amount of self-consciousness about our time and place on this mortal coil. We may be the only species on Earth that can't survive without those traits.

I write these words as a 65-year-old man, thinking about a book I received as a boy from a man who probably wanted to have sex with me. That book, written before I was born, is about a future history of human strife and upheaval that resonates with the current malevolence swelling in the hearts of many humans, especially here in the United States.

How's THAT for being unstuck?

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992

The book in question, Isaac Asimov's The Foundation Trilogy (TFT), is a benchmark of 20th century science-fiction spanning a thousand years of future human history. It should be required reading for every high school Senior to help them better understand the world they'll graduate into. They need to become unstuck in time to understand the future they'll help to create as thinking, feeling, emotionally complex human beings, even though the story covers vast distances in time and space.

My hardcover copy of TFT is worn out from multiple readings, its spine held together with packing tape, the pages yellowed with age.  I was around 12 or 13 years old when it was gifted to me by one of the male Boy Scout leaders involved with our troop after he found out I was inhaling science-fiction novels. The guy didn't have any kids.

I came to understand much later that this man - unmarried, pasty-faced and overweight - was likely a pedophile who involved himself in scouting to groom young boys for sex. I remember the day he presented the book to me as our Troop gathered at my house for an event (Dad was our Scoutmaster), signing his name on the inside cover and telling me he knew I'd enjoy reading it. Thankfully, he disappeared from our orbit soon after, who knows why (I think I know why).

Side Note: Pedophilia has ALWAYS been on the fringes of Boy Scouts. It's not a new phenomenon, and IMHO seemed to have increased as churches became more prominent supporters of Scouting activities. I never saw or knew anyone in my Scouting life who was abused or molested by a leader, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

So it goes. 

He was right about the book. I read it right away, then a second time to revel in the fantastic saga of science and galactic war and space travel.  What I didn't grasp... and wouldn't until I read it again as an adult... was that the story was actually about human interaction, human emotion, human loss and human achievement, cloaked as a space Western... a galactic 'Dallas'... a sci-fi 'How The West Was Won'.

The central theme of The Foundation Trilogy revolves around the science of 'psychohistory' and a man named Hari Seldon, a university mathematician living on the planet Trantor (as Earth would be called in a future time). He developed and championed a theory that could foresee the future of humankind solely based on human psychology, emotion and predictability. His predictions also included thirty-thousand years of galactic turmoil and war unless certain things happened at certain times, which relied on human beings being just that: HUMAN.

However, he couldn't know that his barely-accepted theory of psychohistory (and the entire galaxy) would be threatened by a mutant possessing incredible mental powers that could control the thoughts and actions of others across the vast distances of space. Known only as 'The Mule', the mutant would wreak havoc and threaten to upend the human race with the aforementioned thirty-thousand years of war and death and mental servitude.

No one really knew when The Mule was exerting his powerful mind control. They just 'thought' with seeming free will, but were in fact being manipulated by an unseen force that bent them to his bidding with literally no effort. Entire fleets of men and warships were controlled in this way, and planetary systems fell one after the other to The Mule.

Naturally, I ain't about to give away how the story ends, but OMIGOSH is it a great ending.

I re-read TFT again last year while the 'Rona raged around the world, and the story resonated with me more than ever, forging a strong connection between the malevolence of The Mule... a powerful tyrant who controlled the minds of others... with our 45th President, Donald J. Trump.

I'm NOT the only person to make this connection, as I've read a couple of articles that connect DJT with The Mule in concept.

Here's the rub: whereas The Mule used his incredible powers of mind control over others without their knowledge, DJT has created a 'cult of personality' that's been accepted, codified and practiced by his followers, seemingly with their full knowledge and approval. BUT... are his followers fully cognizant of the control he seems to have over them?

In fact, the idea of a 'Trump cult' is gaining traction due to the way his acolytes ignore science and facts and information which completely refute everything he says and does, yet they still pledge allegiance to him.  Some are even claiming he was 'sent by God to smite those who don't believe in Trump, the one true savior of our country.'

Really, truly scary.

A pathological liar, tax cheat and failed businessman with hundreds of millions of dollars in personal debt to foreign banks.

An aggressive philanderer, misogynist and accused rapist with dozens of women credibly claiming he'd abused and assaulted them.

A man who displayed a stunning level of ignorance of science, history and politics. 

A bully who would personally abuse, insult, demean, debase and denigrate anyone he pleased.

And finally, as a failed Presidential candidate, an instigating traitor who fomented an insurrection against the U.S. Capitol to support 'The Big Lie' and stood idly by, watching on TV from the White House, while his violent mob threatened the lives of lawmakers and law enforcement and tried to force the 2020 election results to be overturned. 

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov, 'Foundation'

Donald Trump was and is all of these things... and yet he's still revered, supported, promoted and defended by a large swath of the GOP and the citizenry.

Willful ignorance? Brainwashing? Mass psychosis? Latent stupidity?

None of this is mind-control on the level displayed by The Mule in TFT, but what can explain the counter-intuitive behavior of so many people? 

I think there are several things at work here which may not be considered mind-control per se, but in concert manipulated the thinking and opinions for millions of people. This includes a slavish devotion to celebrity, the aforementioned willful ignorance, pernicious misinformation and the 'The Gish Gallop', barely-disguised criminality, an unchecked and unregulated social media, FOX NEWS, and a Congressional GOP that's degenerated into the Disloyal Opposition.

Think about it: every one of these conditions set up a Foundation of Mass Misinformation that was absorbed and shared by millions of people, duped by their own inability to know the difference between facts and bullshit. Since they couldn't (or wouldn't) question their own belief systems, they decided to follow DJT while he attempted to steer the Ship of State over Niagara Falls. He almost did and still might if given the chance.

I could (and should) go on... but you get the picture, right?

Mind-control writ large. The Mule, reincarnated as a criminally-malevolent political terrorist.

In TFT, there were people determined to stop The Mule by any means necessary, but they were beholden to something he was not: humanity. They were checked in many ways by their own inability to overlook their essential humane-ness, the very thing that separates us from the other non-human inhabitants of our small Blue Marble. They had two crucial human traits: EMPATHY and COMPASSION.

Has ignorance, venality, vengeance and violence now become the hallmarks of conservatism in the United States of America?

We'll know in a year or two if this country learned a valuable lesson about putting a criminally-malevolent political terrorist in The White House. We'll find out if our collective humanity can prevent an inhumane leader from once-again gaining power in and control of our nation.

Here's what I've learned: the past is ALWAYS prologue, and we usually get the leaders we deserve. 

The sci-fi novels I read as a youth are still important to me, mostly because I can read them now with the eyes and perspective of a seasoned Old.

Isaac Asimov... Arthur C. Clark... Ray Bradbury... Harlan Ellison... Kurt Vonnegut... Kim Stanley Robinson... Robert Heinlein... these writers held the wild future of the human experience in their big brains and shared it without trepidation or hesitation or apology. They put forth ideas which, with the passage of time, are now more real than ever.

The youth I once was, star-struck and inspired by the fantastic future these brilliant people created, gained an open mind and open heart and a willingness to question everything. That questioning mind rejected the simple-minded poetry of religious belief and chose instead to ask a lifetime of questions that result when asking hard questions without easy answers. I've not regretted that decision for a nanosecond ever since.

The grizzled adult I am now can still see that wild future with the same youthful open mind and open heart, regardless of the willful ignorance or the mindless religious fervor held by so many around us. The future of our Nation will rise or fall as the tides of political and sectarian turmoil ebb and flow, constantly rebuilding or eroding the foundation we stand on, literally and figuratively. 

As revealed in Isaac Asimov's story, The Foundation was shackled by a fear of ignorance and tethered to an ideology that valued knowledge, empathy, humanity and the certainty that civilization would eventually find it's way to universal peace through education and enlightenment.

A single hardcover sci-fi novel has given me a lifetime of reading enjoyment, filled my head with questions about mortality and continues to offer a peek towards a vast future history as yet unwritten.

It doesn't matter that my life will end sometime in the next 20 to 30 years, because I've already seen the wild future, or at least several versions of it. I'm a spectral mote of dust, insignificant and expendable. At the same time, I'm made from the stuff of stars, living a singularly unique life on this small Blue Marble that spins around a dying star on the far edge of a galaxy intermingled among millions of other galaxies.

It just doesn't get any better than that, nor should it.

"Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty." - Isaac Asimov, 'Foundation'

All images, Gracias de Google Images; Living Colour 'Cult of Personality' and 'Blue Danube Waltz' videos, Muchisimas Gracias de YouTube; Do not fear death or the unknown... always look it straight in the eye and laugh mightily.

Flying Low

 

The exact date in 2005 is lost to me now, but the memory is seared into my brain.

It started out as a long Sunday night drive from Northern California. I was heading home to SoCal after a solo turn-n-burn trip to visit my ailing younger brother Chuck in Paradise, a small town nestled in the Sierra foothills 75 miles North of Sacramento.

It would be the last time I'd see Chuck alive, but that's another story.

I was rushing home so I could be at work the next day. The Artist hadn't made the trip because it was too long a drive for her over a single weekend. I'd done it several times over the years, so it was no biggie for me.

My Black '93 Toyota SR5 Xtra Cab was a total Highway Star for drives like this, owing as much to the strong V6 engine as to the long wheelbase and excellent road-going suspension. That baby could ROLL.

The run from Paradise, through Sacramento and on to Stockton only took about two hours, with light traffic most of the way. I stopped at a decrepit gas station in Stockton to fuel up and grab a Mountain Dew and a bag of Chili Cheese Fritos, my road food combo of choice.

Once back on the Southbound I-5 freeway, the traffic disappeared and civilization fell away. I was cruising at about 65mph because the area was a known speed trap and I didn't need a ticket.

As I made the Tracy Cutoff, I could see one or two cars waaaay up ahead of me, so I nudged the throttle and settled in at 80mph. Soon enough, the Cutoff blended onto the main two-lane I-5 Southbound. I was now going about 90mph with a couple of cars about a quarter-mile ahead. I also noticed a car in my rear-view mirror, about a quarter-mile behind.

My sled was cruising along so smoothly that, just for fun, I squeezed the throttle a bit more and was now going 100mph, smooth as butter. Watching the roadway ahead, the two cars in front of me used the inside lane to pass a slower car, so I did the same when I caught the crawler, as did the car behind me. 

After a few minutes at this excessive velocity, I realized the cars in front and behind were doing the same speed as me!

Eventually, our high-speed auto caravan grew to six cars, all of us keeping to the same speed, catching and passing slower cars in a nighttime freeway ballet. It was amazing to watch us all sweep around slower cars and trucks, one after the other, at 100MPH!

Now, don't get me wrong - this kind of driving was totally illegal and dangerous, and any single thing could have led to disaster. But after a while it seemed so natural... the starry nighttime sky, the headlamp-lit highway streaming underneath, the tunes pumping from the speakers, my concentration cranked up to 11... perfection. A shared celestial moment between drivers who knew nothing about one another except that we were hauling ass.

It was MESMERIZING.

We sped along like that for almost 90 minutes... at 100mph... at night... on the freeway... slicing through the Northern San Joaquin Valley like so many bolides.

I imagine the other drivers had the same shit-eating grin as me the entire time, whooping out loud when we each caught and passed another car, flowing from the outside lane to the inside lane and back to the outside lane. I don't recall there were very many semis on the road that night.

Eventually it had to end, so when the exit signs announced the Kettleman City offramp (gas/food/lodging), two of the cars ahead signaled their exit and, as we flew past, popped their hi-beams and flashers in a sign of shared law-breaking exuberance.

Not too long after we blew by Kettleman City, our Night Train dwindled down to just me and one other car.

We'd done the 130 miles from the Tracy Cutoff to Kettleman City in less than 90 minutes, but now we were approaching the southern half of the valley and on the run to Bakersfield. The traffic grew a bit heavier and I backed down to 85mph. My compatriot behind was lost in the mix, probably doing the same with a new-found abundance of caution.

The rest of the drive... flashing past Bakersfield, over the Grapevine and dropping into overnight SoCal traffic and civilization was an 85mph blur of lights and cars.

I made it safely home, grabbed a few hours of sleep and headed off to work.

BUT... that magical 90 minutes was still buzzing in my head. Had it really happened? Yep, and it wouldn't happen again.

Stupid. Exhilarating. Illegal. Fantastic. Dangerous. Spectacular. Wildly inappropriate. Wholly enjoyable.

I've had the good fortune to drive real race cars on real racetracks, but that insane high-speed nighttime I-5 drive stands out as a truly singular experience, one that gives me pause when I realize exactly what I'd done, how much risk I took and how little it seemed to worry me at the time.

I'm an old fart now and wouldn't do anything like that on the open highway again. However, in my mind's eye I can still see that freeway ballet, performed when no one else existed in the world except me and my temporary road warrior compadres in our speeding projectiles, hurtling through time and space.

I wonder if any of them remember that night the same way I do?

Todas las imagenes, gracias a Google Images; video de Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen 'Hot Rod Lincoln', muchas gracias a YouTube; Recuerda volar bajo y evitar el radar!

The Mothers-In-Law

 

"I've had two awesome Mothers-In-Law in my life."

When I make that statement, 99.9% of the response is either complete disbelief or an incredulous LOL. "SUUUURE YOU HAVE!!!" they howl, "...and HOW long have you been off your meds now?!?"

The common wisdom says almost nothing good about Mother-In-Laws (MILs) and most often characterizes them as either meddling interlopers, scheming manipulators or bossy know-it-alls... sometimes all three at once!

I suppose that's true in many (most?) cases, but let me offer an alternate to the common wisdom. I've been lucky enough to have shared my life with two awesome MILs who enriched me, made me laugh and feeling grateful for them.

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MOTHER-IN-LAW #1

It didn't start out that way with MIL #1. In fact, it got really bad before it got really good and it was a long, strange trip. Our first meeting at her home for Thanksgiving dinner in 1977 was weird and troubling and should have been a portent of the emotional mayhem that was to follow. I was just too dumb and lovestruck with her daughter to see it.

In short order, I struck out at the plate:

Strike #1 was that her wonderful Jewish American Princess daughter was dating a Mexican.

Strike #2 was that her daughter was pregnant only 6 months after she started dating the Mexican.

Strike #3 was that her daughter was marrying the Mexican who impregnated her. 

I was OUT!!!!!

#1 hated my lack of responsible family planning, my unskilled non-collegiate background, my sketchy heritage and that I wasn't Jewish like she'd always dreamed her Son-In-Law would be. She never relented, denigrating and insulting me in the same passive-aggressive ways she'd been eviscerating her long-suffering Husband with for so many years.

During that tumultuous 4-year marriage and eventual divorce (1978-82), she even accused me of abuse and neglect, all of which was completely false but it was how she rolled. What I didn't know and wouldn't for a while was that she was in the beginning stages of a serious illness that would eventually take her out.

The divorce was brutal and messy and difficult, and I floundered trying to get my footing back. Luckily I met The Artist around that time, and she gave me the love and purpose and meaning I needed to reboot and regain my stride.

Over the next several years of child visitations, court proceedings and the wreckage of an ugly divorce, things slowly began to change for #1 and me. During a birthday party for my daughter at their duplex, #1 and I finally connected in a wide-ranging conversation lubricated with a lot of Asti Spumante. Over the course of that afternoon, she began to laugh more, talk more and even admitted that I was a pretty good provider and father to her only Grandchild.

I was thunderstruck, to say the least.

Soon afterwards, her health issues began to turn serious with a diagnosis of systemic Lupus. She was in and out of hospital, and during one kid weekend when we went to see her at Cedars Sinai, young daughter and I spent several hours at her bedside, with daughter held tight in Grandma's arms and me next to them in a chair, all of us laughing and chattering and feeling really, really glad to be together.

That turned out to be the last time I'd see #1, who'd spend the next 20 years slowly dissolving away from the powerful, crazy, hilarious woman she'd always been. I'm glad my last vision of her was sitting in a hospital bed with a huge smile on her face, waving goodbye.

MOTHER-IN-LAW #2

How can I describe the galactic difference between MILs #1 and #2? Unlike #1, #2 was loving, accepting and gracious to a fault right from our first introduction. She was completely open to bringing me into her family fold when I started dating her third daughter (The Artist), who was also in the final throes of a failed marriage.

The fact that #2 was a Virgo like me bonded us almost immediately, but even though she's deeply religious she never EVER proselytized to or judged me, using her personal example as the gold-standard of her being. She'd raised a family of 4 kids astride her Husband of over 60 years, a stoic-yet-hilarious man who loved to diss and bait me, always giving me his sideways smirk to let me know he was only kidding. They were the classic first-wave Boomer Couple.

When The Artist was seriously injured in a 1988 car accident, which required wearing a halo head/neck/back brace for three months, #2 and I actually got into a several arguments about who was gonna be the primary giver of loving care and support. Those semi-heated arguments always ended in tearful laughter and hugging acknowledgement that we were just trying to out-do each other.  Soooo typically Virgo!

When #2 was struck down with a mysteriously debilitating illness in 2011, The Artist and I shifted into overdrive to save her life, an episode you can read about in my essay titled 'Slipping Into Darkness' . I was manic about making sure we did absolutely everything we could so she didn't wind up dead or in potato mode at some stupid nursing home. We made the 80-mile round trip from our home to her hospital rooms every day for weeks on end, fought like hell to convince the Doctors to do a final test that miraculously uncovered the reason for her illness, and cleaned her house every weekend for months during her rehab.

She survived!!!!!

True fact: decades ago she asked me to carve the turkey for the family's annual Thanksgiving feasts because she said hubby always butchered the bird. This was high praise in my book, and for years I carved with gusto and appreciation for her loving gesture.

#2 has become one of the Most Important People in my life, and although she's now 86 years old and adjusting to life without her Man (lost in November 2020), I would move heaven and earth for her. She RULES.

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So often, married couples deal with and suffer from the kinds of unfortunate parental relationships that can torpedo a newly-hitched duo in ways both seen and unseen. This phenomenon has historical precedent, but that never makes it easier to handle.

According to De Wiki, the phrase 'Mother-In-Law' comes from the Middle English phrase 'modyr in lawe'. The term was first used in the 14th or 15th century, and the idea behind it is that your MIL has the same rights and duties as your biological mother and is given those rights and duties by the legal pact of marriage.

Funny, but not funny, but actually funny... amirite?

All too often, prospective Sons/Daughters-In-Law are blinded to the whims and vagaries of their future MILs because the prospect of signing on to a turmoil-filled marriage JUST CAN'T HAPPEN. It may be wishful thinking, willful ignorance or simply a lack of foresight when a guy or gal finds themselves at the receiving end of the bad juju that comes with a bad MIL relationship.

None of this seems to be relevant to Father-in laws, who are usually A-OK unless they're just dickheads. Go figger.

I can say this much: based upon my first meeting with #1, if I'd not been so stupidly in love with her daughter I'd have listened to my gut and run from that place and never again dated my soon-to-be-ex-wife.

Hindsight... 20/20... and all that.

My advice to anyone who intends to bring a MIL into their lives is simple: never EVER forget that marriage is a painful way of showing parents how very much a child has grown and maybe doesn't need them any more.  This can trigger all sorts of reactions ranging from sorrowful loss to spittle-flecked anguish and resentment, all wrapped up in seething hostility and outright hatred.

Let all of that go by the wayside. Focus on being the most loving, most attentive, most supportive spouse you can be and the rest will eventually take care of itself. Diffuse any animosity with kindness, compassion and understanding... unless you have one of those "OH MY GOD WTF AM I GETTING INTO?!?!" moments like I did in 1977 when I should have listened to my inner alarm screaming RUN, NOW.

Because someday you too will be in their shoes, greeting a child's new Significant Other who may just turn out to be The One.

"I told my Mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said 'Get the hell off my property!'" - Joan Rivers

Todas las imagenes, gracias a Google Images; videos de 'Monster-In-Law' y Los Beatles 'She's Leaving Home', muchas gracias a YouTube.

Flight of the Phoenix

 

I don't know about you, but discovering new music has a way of planting me right into the ground on a specific day or time or place and it never wavers, not even a little bit. I hear a tune and I time-travel to that time-stamp, RIGHT NOW.

Kurt Vonnegut called it 'being unstuck in time'. I tend to agree.

Grand Funk Railroad's 'Phoenix' LP, released (surprise!) on my birthday in September of 1972, is one of those seminal vinyl pressings that has aged very well and grown almost as important to my audiophile foundation as records by The Beatles or the Stones or Stephen Stills or Janis.

Hyperbole, you say? Let me try to explain. First, a little background is in order.

In September of 1972, I turned 16 years old and almost immediately got my First Car and my First Paying Job. As a newly-minted high school Junior, I'd soon discover the joys of cruising Whittier Blvd. on Saturday nights, drive-in movie dates and having to work a steady job at $1.65 an hour to keep myself clothed and my car fueled-up and insured.

Musically, I was all Beatles and Stones and Doobies and Led Zep and CCR, but Grand Funk Railroad (GFR) wasn't on my radar. However, my younger brother Chuck (R.I.P.) was all over GFR, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and lots of other bands that hadn't yet pierced my bubble.

I recall the day he brought home 'Phoenix', closed the door to his room, played it loud once and was disgusted by it because they'd committed the Cardinal Sin of trying something new. "THIS RECORD FUCKING SUCKS!", Chuck yelled in his room. A few seconds later he tossed it onto the floor of my room as he walked out the front door, headed somewhere to smoke something with someone.

Curious, I slapped that disc onto my turntable.

As the band's 6th studio LP, it was the first one they'd produced themselves after having fired long-time producer/manager Terry Knight. That alone was a huge shift, but they also decided to experiment with a new sound, new instruments and a new production style that would lose fans but gain them many new ones.

New fans just like me.

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Here's a tune sampling of one of my favorite LP's... EVER.

'Flight of the Phoenix'

The opening track of this LP showcases Mark Farner blazing away on the keyboards and guitar in a bluesy hot-rod boogie of an instrumental, with Mel Schacher and Don Brewer ripping up the rhythm on bass and drums. Thickening up the boogie goo is new member Craig Frost on backing keyboards with a brilliant cameo by famed fiddler Doug Kershaw on his electric violin. This was complete heresy to GFR's loyal fan base (STRIKE ONE!!). Although there's an extended mix of this tune available, the LP's original track is the best one.

'Trying to Get Away'

True to their original sound but with so many more layers of sonic depth, a classic tune about being on the road and how much it can sometimes both suck and blow simultaneously. Again, the keyboards are front and center and the groove they develop is just so fine. Mark Farner's vocals are perfect.

'Someone'

A power ballad about loving a person who doesn't love back, the basis for so many tunes written by so many heartbroken souls. Great vocal harmonizing, cool and sweet, and Mel Schacher's bass is really highlighted.

'She Got to Move Me'

Another bluesy rock boogie about that scourge of the road-traveling rocker: underage groupies on the make. Like so many of the tunes on this LP, there's a jazz-inspired thread that makes it move.

'I Just Gotta Know'

A surprisingly political stance is taken in this one, with the theme of all youth pitching in to make the world a better place, no matter what it takes. Classic rockin' be here.

'Rock 'N Roll Soul'

One of their biggest hits and released as a single, this tune rose to #29 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1972. These guys knew what they were doing in the studio!

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For a 'hard-rock' 70's band, they also had several Top 40 hits that included 'We're an American Band', 'The Loco-Motion', 'Some Kind of Wonderful' and 'Bad Time', were produced by Todd Rundgren and Frank Zappa, and survived intact through to their first breakup in 1976.

If this music speaks to you, find 'Phoenix' and play all the tunes for a peek into my time-warp mode. You'll be glad you did!

Special Bonus Track: 'Out To Get You' from their 1976 LP 'Good Singin'/Good Playin', produced by Frank Zappa who also shreds on lead guitar. This tune kicks so much ass.

"You cannot talk about rock in the 1970's without talking about Grand Funk Railroad!" -- David Fricke, ROLLING STONE Magazine

Lead image, Gracias de Google images; todos los videos, Muchisimas Gracias de YouTube.

Police On My Back

 

What I don't know is a lot, but I'm convinced of at least three things: 

We have gun, racism and policing problems in this country, and they ain't necessarily exclusive of each other.

These are far more complex issues than most people are willing or able to deal with, so the fallback position is to let political persuasion, ideology, social standing, ethnicity or personal situation set the tone for our own mostly-unexamined opinions.

That's the wrong thing to do, but you know... HOOMANS.

I'd wager that other than the occasional traffic stop for a moving violation, most 'Murricans have little to no interaction with law enforcement, and la-de-da good for them. I wish I could count myself among those 'Murricans, but that ain't the case.

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Real World Cop Stop #1: It was sometime in late 1974 or early 1975 when my Cousin and I were chowing down some fast-food while sitting in my '57 Chevy in my hometown of La Puente, California. All of a sudden, several police cars raced up and and surrounded the car, the cops jumping out and pointing their guns at us.

We were both frozen in mid-bite, eyes wide open, when a voice over the loudspeaker said "REMAIN CALM AND DON'T MOVE!" We complied. 

A few moments later we were outside my car, food dropped on the ground, bent over the trunk lid with hands cuffed behind our backs. A few minutes later, they were uncuffing us and apologizing for their mistake. It seems a grocery store had been robbed less than 30 minutes earlier and the APB went out for two dark-haired young men driving a brown '57 Chevy... we fit the description. However, while we were cuffed and our records were being run, a radio call came in saying the real culprits had been snagged.

No harm no foul, and the cops were really nice to us afterwards. They left and we stood there, stunned and still hungry.

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We depend on the police to deal with law-breaking criminals and to leave the rest of us alone so we don't have to think about those criminals. We expect cops to be judicious and objective with their authority, to know in advance how to correctly handle every situation they respond to and to never break any laws while doing so.

This is very hard because of HOOMANS.

Here's the conundrum: Policing is an extremely difficult career choice that only a certain kind of person is willing to take on. Once badged, cops are asked to deal with the very worst examples of humanity on everyone else's behalf, yet are expected to maintain a high level of empathy and professionalism even though they're exposed daily to the worst examples of humanity.

Cops are HOOMANS, too.

Try this on: you have a job that requires constantly dealing with awful people doing awful things who would prefer that you don't exist, which means it can be difficult to remain objectively judicious with your authority, to not overreact, to not resort to base instincts. It's the same for anyone who served in the military on an active field of battle.

After a while of dealing with awful people doing awful things who would prefer that you don't exist, pessimism and antipathy and anger begins to seep in. What was once a noble calling becomes a debilitating exercise in survival, leaving you filled with trepidation and angst and anxiety and a daily fear for your own life.

A soldier in battle knows it boils down to 'kill or be killed'. For law enforcement, that mindset becomes dangerous when dealing with the public, especially if you know the likelihood that those awful people doing awful things who would prefer that you don't exist are armed, oftentimes more heavily armed than you.

So... there you are, a duly-sworn law enforcement professional filled with all the bad juju that dealing with The Awfulness brings, regularly confronting situations that YOU JUST KNOW is gonna get out of hand.

That right there is what we refer to as a MINDFUCK, and it often turns all bad real fast. Why? Because HOOMANS.

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Real World Cop Stop #2: In 2002 while working at a tire testing autocross event in a Phoenix suburb, my co-worker and I were driving back to our hotel after having dropped off our clients and their rental car at Sky Harbor Airport. There we were, two bald-headed Mexicans cruising the nighttime Arizona freeway in a Yellow Corvette convertible that I'd rented for the autocross shootout. Top down, tunes up, rolling at the speed limit because Yellow Corvette, the offramp to our hotel literally within sight.

I hadn't noticed the police car pulling up fast behind me until he lit up the night with his gumballs, strobes and spotlights, so I quickly pulled over to the shoulder. Within about a minute, four more cruisers joined us by the freeway, two of them sliding in front of the Corvette, blocking our path. A minor freeway jam-up ensued alongside.

Loudspeaker: "DRIVER AND PASSENGER... STAY INSIDE THE CAR." After a long couple of minutes, two cops approached both sides of the car with their right hands resting on their guns.

Him (to me in the driver seat): "Sir, is this your car?"

Me: "Good evening, Officer... no Sir, this car is a rental that I picked up in Tempe several days ago."

Him: "Sir, do you have proof of that?"

Me: "Yes Sir... right there in the console."

Him: "Sir, please give me your license, proof of insurance and the rental agreement... and do it slowly."

Once he had my papers, I was asked to exit the car and follow him back to his cruiser.  My co-worker also got out but was asked to follow another cop to his cruiser in front of the car.

We spent the next 30 minutes individually fielding myriad questions about the car, our work, why a Yellow Corvette, where we lived, yatta yatta yatta all to allow them lots of time to run our licenses and the car's registration to see if they could trip us up by giving conflicting answers.

Eventually they seemed satisfied that we weren't gang-banging car thieves, gave us back our docs and without a word, jumped back into their cruisers and blasted off, leaving us there in the dark by the side of the freeway.

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These days, people are afraid of the police. Of course, NO ONE wants to get pulled over, but the general feeling among many civilians is that the protocols, protections and guidelines we always assumed were endemic to law enforcement when dealing with the public... well, they seem to have gone MIA.

Yes, we hear inflamed and overhyped accounts via the 24-hour 'no sparrow shall fall' news media about every single thing that happens across our vast nation involving law enforcement, but it seems we've lost a valuable sense of trust in the men and women who choose to wear the badge.

That is a BAD THING.

The more we mistrust law enforcement to do right by us, the less likely we are to understand and accept the vital role they play in our lives. Once lost, that trust is woefully difficult to rebuild, and anyone who lives in an area with a crime rate above 'almost zero' will attest to how strong that mistrust, apprehension and suspicion can be.

I have relatives who worked in policing during the 70's and 80's, and they were amazing examples of all that is good about law enforcement.  One of them worked as a Detective at the infamous Rampart Division of the L.A.P.D. and witnessed some of the most egregious acts of policing misconduct ever documented.

Even though he'd just recently retired from the force, that same relative was shaken and scared at the results of Rodney King's 1991 beating, the ridiculous trial and the public outcry and violence. He feared for his comrades... and for the rest of us, too. He knew where it all came from.

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Real World Cop Stop #3: About 12 years ago, my wife and I were leaving her parent's home in Lakewood, California in her 2000 Blue VW Beetle. I was driving towards the freeway on a surface street and exceeding the 35mph speed limit by a mind-numbing 10mph, when out of nowhere a police cruiser jumped in behind us and lit up his 'pull over now' lights.

Once stopped, I waited for the officer to come up to the car, my license and registration at the ready. When he did arrive, his right hand on his holster, he asked me to get out of the car and follow him to the back of it.  Once there, he asked me if I'd mind putting my hands over my head so he could handcuff me 'for my own safety'. Natch, I did.

At this point, I still had no clue why he stopped me, let alone cuffed me. He inspected the car's interior and informed us he stopped me for exceeding the speed limit and that another guy with my name had an outstanding warrant. He never did explain the cuffing or car inspection, admonished my speeding and let us off with a warning before letting us go.

WEIRD.

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I'm technically a 'person of color' who doesn't appear at first glance to be anything other than a vanilla white dude. However, I have no doubt... NO DOUBT... that if I'd been of a darker skin tone, those Cop Stops could and probably would have gone much MUCH worse. That's not conjecture, but many vanilla white hoomans who deny that reality simply haven't experienced the stomach gut-knot when The Man decides to pull you over and you ain't a white dude or chick.

And now... a bit of comic relief:

Real World Cop Stop #4: In 1975 while attending junior college, I was dating a really lovely and wholesome girl that I'd met I can't remember where, and for our second date were headed to The Ice House comedy club in Pasadena.

We were rolling in my bitchin' BRG 1968 Triumph TR-4A, a really cool but absolutely awful car that would eventually cost me a great job because it kept breaking expensive British parts. My date loved the car, and we enjoyed the drive that evening from West Covina to Pasadena, the night filled with promise until I got lost and did an illegal U-turn within blocks of our destination.

I got pulled over in a nanosecond by one of Pasadena's Finest, so I figgered to get an embarrassing ticket and then drive away, but NO. After The Man took my license and registration to run, he came back to the car:

The Man: "Sir, do you know you have an outstanding warrant out for your arrest?"

Me: "Wait... WHAT?!?"

The Man: "Yes sir... a warrant's been posted for 'non-compliance of vehicle equipment violation' for this very car."

Me: "BUT BUT BUT... that violation's been cleared! It was for missing windshield wipers and I got it signed off and everything!" 

At this point, I gestured towards the new windshield wiper arms that had been on order from the U.K. for months and had just arrived a few weeks earlier. Didn't matter.

The Man: "Sir, I'm afraid I'm going to have to arrest you on this outstanding warrant. You should have made sure it was cleared up before you drove this car."

Within a minute or so, I was handcuffed and pleading with him to please reconsider but no dice. He then told me that my car would be towed to a yard unless the young lady would be willing to drive the car away.  She didn't know how to drive a manual transmission but would call her Dad and Brother to come out and retrieve my car.

So on our second date, her and I (me cuffed) were in the back of a police cruiser headed for the Pasadena Police Station. AWESOME. She called her Dad, explained the situation, and I heard a huge peal of laughter over the station pay phone... he though it was hilarious. To his credit, her Dad and Brother drove all the way out to Pasadena on a Saturday night, picked her up at the station, retrieved my car and drove them both home. 

The following 12 hours of incarceration in the Pasadena jail are a story for another time. Suffice it to say I didn't go to L.A. County jail the next morning with the other Saturday night lawbreakers, and I bailed out soon afterward with the help of my Uncle Rick. The feeling of walking out of the police station on a Sunday morning was exhilarating.

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I don't pretend to know first-hand what it feels like to be a considered suspicious person simply because of the color of my skin or where I live or the people I associate with. I can only imagine what it feels like to be a law enforcement officer, considered by many with contempt or derision or fear, any time they find themselves involved in a traffic stop with the public, the most dangerous thing cops have to do.

Nevertheless, I do know we have a long way to go, as a society, before we can honestly say we treat each other with compassion or understanding or empathy.  

It doesn't have to be that way. I think we can all do better. I know I can.

"I think we all have empathy. We may not have enough courage to display it." - Maya Angelou

Todos las imagenes, gracias a Google Images; video de The Clash 'Police On My Back', muchas gracias a YouTube; Apoye a su policia local.

Stingray Stomp

 

The phone call I made to Epitaph/Epitone Records in early 1997 started out really weird:

Him: "Good morning."

Me: "Hi... thanks for taking my call, it was hard finding your number! I want to get some information about a surf band on your label named Blue Stingrays.  I just bought their CD and really love it, but I have no idea who they are and I'm hoping you could help."

Him: (says nothing)

Me: (after a few seconds) "Hello... are you still there?"

Him: "Who IS this?"

Me: "... uh, excuse me? My name's Bob, I live in Mission Viejo and I'm trying to get some info on the Blue Stingrays."

Him: "Are you a reporter?"

Me: (stunned) "What?"

                           'Brave New World' - Blue Stingrays

The day before that phone call, a random search through the CD racks at my local Borders Bookstore uncovered a mystery that was like catnip to this music geek.

I'd been searching for some cool surf tunes in preparation for a music taping project. I was planning to record six hours of music (all drawn from my personal digital and vinyl collection) onto cassette tapes for use during the 1997 International Jet Sports Boating Association (IJSBA) personal watercraft (PWC, a.k.a. jet-ski) racing season.

As the IJSBA Regional Event Supervisor, I'd be working at all the National Tour and World Finals races during the year, so having a say in the kind of music being played would be AWESOME.

Our Competition Director asked if I'd be up for the project, which I agreed to in a nanosecond.

My goal: mix one 90-minute tape of semi-mellow music for morning practice sessions, then mix three more tapes of rocking music for the qualifying sessions and races. Although compact discs were already a thing, the players were very finicky and prone to jamming in outdoor environments. Cassettes were low-tech but very reliable, so that was the medium of choice. The tunes would be played over the race site PA system to get the crowd amped up during the morning pre-race rituals and competition events.

One problem: I didn't have that much surf music in-hand, so off to Borders I went.

'Goldfinger' - Blue Stingrays

After scanning through the 'Surf' music section at Borders, I'd already pulled out 'Bikini World', a compilation of surf tunes by bands from around the globe. Otherwise, the pickins' were slim.

That's when I found 'Blue Stingrays Surf-N-Burn'.  Never heard of this band, but I recognized a few of the song titles and decided to buy it and take a risk. Plus, great CD cover image... always a good sign.

I cued up the CD when I got home and was blown away at their sound: totally old-school, crystal-clear with lots of reverb, and marinated with a sense of humor and homage to the surfing lifestyle that we native Californians of a certain age have in our DNA. The kind of tunes we heard on our transistor radios.

An added bonus was the cool dark blue guitar pick with the band logo on it that fell onto my lap when I opened the jewel case.  WINNER.

My confusion began when I started to read the liner notes.  According to their bio, Blue Stingrays was the original California band that started the surf music trend in 1959. Once the genre began to blow up, they rejected stardom and moved to a Tahitian island for 30 years to hone their sound, with 'Surf-N-Burn' as the result. The other LPs in their discography were no longer available. 

Now... I've listened to a LOT of surf music in my life but had never heard of this band or their music, which was odd because they were supposedly the first to break out the signature surf sound.

I had to find out more about Blue Stingrays.

                           'Stingray Stomp' - Blue Stingrays

I was able to locate a phone number for Epitaph Records in Hollywood, the company that released the CD under the 'Epitone' name.

That's when I made the phone call that took a decidedly weird turn.

Him: "I said... are you a reporter?"

Me: " Nope... not a reporter. Just a surf music fan who found this CD by a band that I've never heard of. I'm making a mix tape for the upcoming jet-ski racing season and want to add some surf music. I have to know more about the Blue Stingrays... they're GREAT!"

Him: (apparently satisfied with my answer) "OK, I appreciate your honesty because this is a brand new release. Do you know who The Heartbreakers are?"

Me: "You mean Tom Petty's Heartbreakers? His backing band?"

Him: "Yeah, that's the one.  Tom's been on a hiatus, so the guys... Benmont Tench, Mike Campbell and a couple of others... they wanted to do a side project during their downtime, and since they all love surf music they created a fake band name and bio as a cover to record under so no one would know."

Me:  "Wait a minute. You mean the liner notes... the bio... the discography... it's all fake?  That is SO COOL! They sound so original, and the music is just fantastic!"

Him:  "I'm glad you like it, they had a lot of fun recording new stuff and creating the bio. The music is first-rate 'cuz those guys are all great musicians. That's why I asked if you're a reporter... the CD was released unannounced a few days ago and we're trying to keep it quiet so Tom's record company won't get all pissed off. You must've bought one of the first copies on the market!"

'Surfer's Life' - Blue Stingrays (my favorite cut on this CD)

We talked for a few more minutes and he asked me to be low-key about the music for at least a few weeks, because the news would get out soon enough. I agreed and thanked him for letting me in on the secret. I mean... he didn't have to tell me squat, right?

The mix tapes? They were played over the PA system at all eleven of the IJSBA National Tour races that summer and all eight days of the World Finals in Lake Havasu City, Arizona that October, where we hosted over 1,300 professional and amateur PWC racers from all over the world. It was AWESOME.

A Regional event promoter who helped with announcing at the World Finals admitted to me he'd dubbed copies of the tapes to use at his own events during the next racing season. 

Hearing my mix tapes blasting from the PA at race event sites all over the country was a pretty special feeling for this lifetime music geek.

                           'Zuma Sunset' - Blue Stingrays

If you love great surf music, there's a lot more on the CD than the sampling here, and knowing the genesis of this 'fake' band only makes it easier to appreciate the craftsmanship and skullduggery it took to create Blue Stingrays.

Sometimes, only certain kinds of music will work for my state of mind, the task at hand or the situation. 'Blue Stingrays Surf-N-Burn' is that kind of music. 

Every time I hear 'Surfer's Life', I see a video in my head of the jet-ski races... the snap of the Starting Line band, a dozen boats at speed aiming for the first buoy, a stand-up racer dragging his leg in the water on a hard turn... all in super slow-mo, the water flying away in sheets from the hulls in a massive spray, catching the sun and sparkling, just like the music.

Download this musical release and you'll be rewarded with a gift that crosses time and space. Better yet, find and buy the CD and read the liner notes about a band that never was... but will always be.

Plus... FREE GUITAR PICK!

Then imagine what it was like to hear bitchin' surf music on a transistor radio!

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Special Bonus Track -- The other CD I bought at Borders was titled 'Bikini World' (Relativity Records) and featured music by surf bands from all over the world.  This tune by The Fathoms, a Boston-based group, is one of my faves from this excellent and eclectic collection.

                             'Fathomless' - The Fathoms

Imagen principal, Gracias de Google Images; todos los videos, Muchismas Gracias de YouTube; cuando cae la goma, la mierda se detiene.

Special Dedication: This post is dedicated to Snackie, Blake (my brother from another Mother), Jonny Ya-Ya, Connecticut Steve, Tim, Mark, Mike, Tony, Shawnie and all the IJSBA brothers and sisters for some of most memorable working days of my life. I've never worked as hard or had as much fun as we did during those halcyon racing days... the IJSBA Traveling Circus.

The Matador

This story is 100% true... none of the names or places have been changed to protect anyone or anything.

That's just how I roll.

1. SACRAMENTO BLUES

Sometime in mid-1980, I found myself at loose ends. It happens. 

Having separated from my soon-to-be-ex-wife, I used a job transfer while working for a hydraulics distributor to move to Northern California to work the service counter at their West Sacramento branch. My new gig was to intake mud-caked valves and shit-covered pumps for the area's rice farmers, sketchy manufacturing plants and even sketchier service techs.

I'd found a small apartment in the nondescript suburb of Citrus Heights, directly across from the Birdcage Mall, a nondescript indoor shopping cavern that I avoided like the plague. I had also bought a very clean 1971 AMC Ambassador from the family of an old dead guy who had cherished that sled. It was Yellow with a black vinyl top and constantly reminded me that everything eventually dies.

For reasons that escape me now, I lost my job and spent the next few months working as a temp all over the valley. Sometime during that period, I also had to sell the dead guy's Ambassador so I could pay my rent. I did a lot of walking, hitchhiking and riding the buses that never ran on time.

(I later found out that because the notorious Folsom State Prison paroled prisoners directly into the local area, anyone who made a habit of hitching rides was probably going to get murdered sooner rather than later.  I didn't get murdered, so yay for me.)

After a month of being non-vehicular, my neighbor Kevin mentioned that he was going to a State auction to buy a car for his girlfriend who lived in Redding.  This was news because he was living in the apartment next door with his wife Karen... Kevin had seeeeecrets. With a serious wad of $100 to spend, I went along with him on the following Saturday morning.

We drove into downtown Sacramento and found the auction lot filled with cars, trucks, buses, forklifts, heavy equipment, trailers and every type of State-owned conveyance. We found the auto corral and walked up and down the long rows of cars that would be up for bid. Most of them were in decent shape and well outside my price range, and after an hour I figured I'd be outta luck finding anything to bid on.

That's when we came upon The Matador. It was the last car in a long row, with the passenger side directly up against the chain link fence separating the corrals.

At first glance, this wasn't a car anyone would want.  Vintage 1972 AMC four-door bathed in Institutional Green. The hood was dented, the grill was broken, and both driver-side doors were caved in. On the plus side, the rest of the sheet metal was in perfect condition. It had good tires with matching wheel covers, twin A-pillar mounted spotlights, and the interior was decent. 

I mean, how much could they want for this thing, right?

I got inside and was hit with the stench of old beer. I turned the ignition key and it started right up, the engine running so smoothly I wasn't sure it was actually running. I lowered all the windows and sat in there, thinking it wasn't as bad as it first seemed. Hell, even the A/C and radio worked! The odometer showed a reasonable 80,000+ miles, much less than the wrinkled exterior would indicate.

                    (Not The Matador, but the exact same make/model/year/awful color.)

After a few hours of car grazing and a really bad roach coach burrito, we walked over to the auction area for the bidding. Kevin was interested in a couple of cars but nothing really looked promising to me. About a dozen cars rolled through the auction and were quickly snapped up before The Matador rolled in, with the damaged side and nose most prominent.

The Auctioneer quickly read off the car's stats and then said "Bidding on this car starts at $50." I stood there waiting but no one bid on it! Maybe it was the exterior damage and 'that color', but nope... silence. I looked around for a few seconds and then raised my hand. 

"$50 bid from that young man... do I hear a raise?"

Nothing.

"No more bids?  OK, the bid is $50 going once... going twice... SOLD!"

I had a car! I followed it to the Sales trailer, gave them the $50 plus another $5 for the admin fees and walked out with the pink slip. Kevin was outbid on all the cars he'd wanted, and I drove my bitchin' new old car back to Citrus Heights with the windows all down to air out the stench.

2. MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

Shortly after I bought The Matador, everything went to crap.

The apartment property managers announced our complex would soon be turned into condos and anyone who wasn't planning to buy would have to move out in 30 days, and I was already a month behind in rent.

I was broke and my new job at a surveying equipment store wouldn't pay enough for me to cover the back rent, so I made an executive decision: I was gonna skip town in the middle of the night and head back to L.A.

On my last day in the Sacramento delta, I went to work and lied to the owner about an overdue child support payment and convinced him to give me an advance on my next paycheck. It was a terrible thing to do, but desperate people yatta yatta yatta.

(To this day, I'm still ashamed of lying to my Boss and taking his money.) 

That same night and with $150 in my wallet, I quickly loaded as much of my shit as possible into The Matador, leaving behind all the furniture. I had to slide the front bench seat all the way forward to fit everything, and the suspension was so overloaded the car looked like an insane homeless guy's lowrider.

The whole time I was loading the car, I fretted about the one obstacle that could botch my plan: the Southbound I-5 Grapevine Pass incline, rising to 4,100 feet above the San Joaquin Valley floor. In my mind, that steep roadway loomed large as a car-killer, and knowing The Matador was overloaded and old and all, I was almost certain that it wouldn't survive the climb. Now out of options, I figgered it was worth the risk.

The last thing I loaded was my cat Dinky, a jet-black refugee that a neighbor left behind when she moved away. I'd set up a small litter box on the rear floor for him, but once inside the car he buried himself somewhere in the loaded rear seat and began to howl with displeasure.

With Dinky continuously howling somewhere in the back seat and me jammed up against the steering wheel in front, I slowly pulled away from the apartment parking lot, the car's suspension bottoming out every so often to remind me of what was going to be a fretful trip.

The long drive down Highway 99 through the dark night was filled with dread, even though The Matador seemed to be cruising along A-OK. Around 3am I pulled into a gas station outside Bakersfield to fuel up.  I was resigned to whatever might happen during the run up the Pass, with visions of exploding water hoses and clouds of black smoke filling my mind's eye. Dinky never once stopped howling the entire trip, he was SO MAD.

I finished fueling and pulled out onto the freeway, and after a few minutes I could see the line of red tail lights in the distance, all negotiating the steep Grapevine climb. 

Cruising at about 65mph, with the incline getting closer and closer, I started to panic. Had I made a really stupid mistake by trying this midnight run in a $50 car? What am I gonna do if the car breaks down halfway up the slope? Who would stop at 3am to help someone driving an insane homeless guy lowrider Matador?

I flashed past the tiny burg of Grapevine and started up the hill. It looked like a vertical wall of roadway but I was committed and knew it was boom or bust. As the hill got steeper, I gently pressed the accelerator and The Matador shifted down a gear and picked up speed.

For the next 15 uphill minutes, I was in a frenzy but shouldn't have been. That fucking car just CRUISED up the Grapevine incline, keeping a constant speed, shifting down every so often but then back again, not missing a beat.  By the time I made it to Fort Tejon and over the summit, I was whooping and shouting and crying and laughing, all at once. Oh, and Dinky was still howling in back, not realizing how lucky we both were.

The dark early-morning downhill roll into Castaic, through the San Fernando Valley and all the way to the San Gabriel Valley was a blur of emotion, exhaustion, exhilaration and the expectation that no matter what happened next, I'd be OK.

The Matador came through.

I pulled into my Mom's driveway in Arcadia at around 6am, turned off the car and with Dinky still howling, fell asleep. I woke up about an hour later, got out and checked my Institutional Green 1972 AMC Matador. It still looked like an insane homeless guy's lowrider, but it was bee-yootiful.

$55, well-spent.

3. THE END

I never did register The Matador, not in Sacramento or the entire time I drove it in SoCal. I'd semi-repaired the caved-in doors and bent the hood back into shape right after I bought it, so the car appeared official and screamed "NARC!!!" right down to the twin spotlights and that color. In fact, I'd be driving to work in my shirt and tie and sunglasses and a cop would cruise up next to me, we'd meet eyes and he'd always give me the head nod and keep on going. I could have smuggled guns and drugs in that car and no one would have been the wiser.

I stupidly got back together with my soon-to-be-ex-wife about a month after my return to SoCal, and she hated The Matador so much she refused to ride in it, which was fine with me. One day I bought some matte black spray paint and sprayed 'THE CLASH' in huge letters across both the wrinkled driver-side doors, complete with a giant black star. That made her hate it even more, and somehow I never got stopped for having no plates or registration. I did get lots of honks and thumbs-up from other drivers.

After a few months of daily 80-mile round trips between our Covina apartment and my job in Rancho Dominguez, The Matador started running rough. One morning the engine was really struggling to stay running. I popped the hood and smelled hot fluids, so I checked the oil and noticed it was watery and light brown, a sure sign of water in the oil (which is BAD), prolly a cracked block or a blown head gasket. Realizing the car wouldn't be reliable enough for the long daily commute any more, it had to go.

One problem:  I'd never registered the car and even though I had the pink slip, it would be difficult to sell with a mortally wounded engine. I located a wrecking yard that would take the car and title, no questions asked, so with my s-t-b-e-w (and 3-year-old daughter) following me in her '72 VW Fastback, I drove The Matador to a location deep in an industrial area of Monrovia. The yard guy looked over the car and offered me $100 cash for it. We traded title and keys for cash and left in the VW, and I watched in the rear-view mirror as the guy got into The Matador and drove it into the back.

After all that, I'd doubled the money I paid for The Matador.

EPILOGUE

About 6 months after The Matador went to its Great Reward, my relationship with the s-t-b-e-w crashed and I found myself sleeping on the couch. One Saturday morning while she was out with our daughter in the VW (our only car), I decided to take a walk and clear my head.  I left our Covina apartment and headed West, not really thinking about where I was going... and I kept on walking. 

After a couple of hours of Westward trekking, I realized I was halfway to Mom's house in Arcadia so... I just kept on walking. I wound up walking 15 miles to her house, spent the night there and she loaned me her sweet Blue '74 Camaro to use for a few days.

I drove back to Covina the next afternoon and discovered the s-t-b-e-w had removed all of my belongings from the apartment and dumped them on the curb for the next day's garbage pickup. I scrambled for my clothes, audio gear and record collection and stuffed it all into the Camaro, with the s-t-b-e-w holding our daughter and screaming at me for being a piece of shit. I had to slide the driver seat all the way forward to fit my stuff in back, so I jammed myself behind the steering wheel and drove away. 

I spent most of the night just driving around, winding up parked in the driveway of my good buddy Jerry's house in La Puente at around 2am. I shoved the seat back as far as I could and fell asleep until his Mom came out around 6am, knocking on the window to wake me up, dragging me into the house for some breakfast.

I was once again broke and at loose ends, but the story would eventually have a happy ending.

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I think about The Matador every now and again, amazed that it cost so little but was such a reliable ride and really saved my bacon. The days of being able to buy and drive a $50 car are long-gone, and I've developed a weird appreciation for AMC vehicles... especially Pacers.

In fact, just a few years after The Matador left me I was lucky enough to buy a recently-repaired 1962 Rambler American 2-door from my friend Tim's Dad, and it was basically the same color as The Matador. Three-on-the-tree shifter, an OHC 6-cylinder engine with electric overdrive, bench seat... that sled could cruise at 80mph in overdrive. The first real road trip The Artist and I took in it was to Northern California, including a run through Sacramento.

She really didn't like the American's color that much, but I thought it was bee-yootiful.

            (Not the The American, but the exact same make/model/year/beautiful color.)

Sometimes, it's the little things in life that can make the biggest difference. Things like a $50 car, a can of black spray paint, a long walk or even an overnight drive. You just never know what they'll bring to your conscious existence, which always becomes richer as a result.

Todos los images, Gracias de Google Images; Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass 'The Lonely Bull' video, Muchismas Gracias de youtube.com.