O.K. MOTORHEAD
Come on: I'm the sensitive type.
Yes, it's a come-on; I know that; but it's also the best I've got right now. Sure, my motor-mounts might not be what they used to be. Hell, sometimes they're a little too springy. Other times, they creak, but at least that creaking's sexy. I'll tell you one thing, though, and it's truer than anything I've ever said before. I'm a Mercedes in a roomful of Fords over at the State Fair of Texas Automotive Building. We're talking 20th Century German engineering: One devil of a lot smoother than that 1972 Pontiac DeVille you've been driving.
You know who you are. Everybody's been talking about that shit-brown jalopy that looks like it's been skinned. We see it everywhere: Over at the 7-11, when you're buying all sorts of fast food: potato chips, taquitos, sometimes even pumpkin seeds. And over at the bar where you hang out: slurping one freaking cheap beer after another. Then you're over at the Temple of Lost Discipline, angling for nuns and fun. It's Saturday night and Sunday morning all over again--and again and again and again and again. The operative term here is "repair": If you can find a good mechanic, we've heard you deliver time after time to whichever ear you can get to listen, you're going to get the bastard home. And home? What's that? Home seems to have something to do with shortcuts on transcendence. You've got to hot-wire the system--that's what we think--and if you can get the right wires under the steering wheel crossed, the blasted thing's going to start again. But where's it all going?
You with that bumper sticker on the rear window where everybody can see: LORD, PROTECT US FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS. But who's the Lord here? Lord Montbatten, famous British military expert? Maybe Lord Jim, novelist Joseph Conrad's famous failure on the road to self-redemption? Possibly one of the guys from P-funk? Man! We could go on all night about this one.
You know what? I'm afraid to let you drive me. All my real friends have been warning me for two weeks straight. Hell, you're not listening, are you? Push my pedal and the car doesn't slouch forward, it glides. Even the slightest press sends it into motion as surely as the moon moves in its orbit. And when you're out on the road--rolling up Interstate 30, for example--when you hit those Department of Transportation hair-pins, I'm going to shift from one lane to another like magic. While yours is going to move as a matter of sheer force. And the gas coming out the rear end? Non-existent in my case. But in yours--or, I might say, out of your case--it's a blossom of billowing soot and the kind of smell you'd expect on the road to Midlothian, where those huge refineries are.
My upholstery is smooth and well-tended. Yours seems to have a number of unseemly springs poking through, something that could damage just about any driver's ass. Your skin looks post-steroidal: enough welts to make your hood look like either a chronic acne survivor or the champion of the last big hailstorm. Strictly Earl Shieb. And the trunk? What've you got rolling around back there? The gas station attendant? A head of three-week-old organic lettuce? Possibly your brain. What's up with that?
I know, I know: You try to clean the big old baby up sometimes. Sometimes, when you're not pre-occupied with the latest episode of Digimon, you'll even go out and shine it. But this is mainly for display. You want people to know you're shining that body. Ostentatiousness in the singles lane. People are supposed to feel sorry for you, pummelling a rusted cab with a ragged dishrag for almost 15 whole minutes. Poor, pray tell, needs a new vehicle. But that's the whole point: The more beat-up it all seems, the better you believe in your chances with the neighbors, strangers and yes, especially strangers, the ones who least expect the truth behind the image. It's kind of like a pity-fuck, that vehicle of yours. Crushingly heavy. Lot's of complaining. A case of the shakes. A professionalized study in victimology. The lost chapter of Moby Dick, moving down the freeway in a giant blatfest. Obnoxious noises coming from just about everywhere imaginable. It's one big, silverbacked grunt, threatening people in the other lane, and sometimes it refuses to start at all, mainly because the engine's flooded with gasoline.
So don't even try getting near this one. I don't like my door scraped in the parking lot either. Like I said, the kind of car you drive represents, to put it into modern-day lingo, the kind of person you are. You might tell yourself, "This is only for a while, until I get on my feet," but we know the story. We've seen it a thousand million times. The old project, sitting right there in the driveway, positioned so it can catch the sun just right. People drive by it and stare and stare. But this one at least runs most of the time. This one doesn't require all that grease and special sauce in the old tank. It's been well taken care of. It might have a few marks on it, a little storm damage and all that rot, but it's a beauty. And, like I said, it's a smooth ride that requires a smooth rider. Too much on the gas or the brakes and you might ruin it.
Excuse me while I kiss the sky. Smooooooth moooooving steel--vegetable lover....
Yes, it's a come-on; I know that; but it's also the best I've got right now. Sure, my motor-mounts might not be what they used to be. Hell, sometimes they're a little too springy. Other times, they creak, but at least that creaking's sexy. I'll tell you one thing, though, and it's truer than anything I've ever said before. I'm a Mercedes in a roomful of Fords over at the State Fair of Texas Automotive Building. We're talking 20th Century German engineering: One devil of a lot smoother than that 1972 Pontiac DeVille you've been driving.
You know who you are. Everybody's been talking about that shit-brown jalopy that looks like it's been skinned. We see it everywhere: Over at the 7-11, when you're buying all sorts of fast food: potato chips, taquitos, sometimes even pumpkin seeds. And over at the bar where you hang out: slurping one freaking cheap beer after another. Then you're over at the Temple of Lost Discipline, angling for nuns and fun. It's Saturday night and Sunday morning all over again--and again and again and again and again. The operative term here is "repair": If you can find a good mechanic, we've heard you deliver time after time to whichever ear you can get to listen, you're going to get the bastard home. And home? What's that? Home seems to have something to do with shortcuts on transcendence. You've got to hot-wire the system--that's what we think--and if you can get the right wires under the steering wheel crossed, the blasted thing's going to start again. But where's it all going?
You with that bumper sticker on the rear window where everybody can see: LORD, PROTECT US FROM YOUR FOLLOWERS. But who's the Lord here? Lord Montbatten, famous British military expert? Maybe Lord Jim, novelist Joseph Conrad's famous failure on the road to self-redemption? Possibly one of the guys from P-funk? Man! We could go on all night about this one.
You know what? I'm afraid to let you drive me. All my real friends have been warning me for two weeks straight. Hell, you're not listening, are you? Push my pedal and the car doesn't slouch forward, it glides. Even the slightest press sends it into motion as surely as the moon moves in its orbit. And when you're out on the road--rolling up Interstate 30, for example--when you hit those Department of Transportation hair-pins, I'm going to shift from one lane to another like magic. While yours is going to move as a matter of sheer force. And the gas coming out the rear end? Non-existent in my case. But in yours--or, I might say, out of your case--it's a blossom of billowing soot and the kind of smell you'd expect on the road to Midlothian, where those huge refineries are.
My upholstery is smooth and well-tended. Yours seems to have a number of unseemly springs poking through, something that could damage just about any driver's ass. Your skin looks post-steroidal: enough welts to make your hood look like either a chronic acne survivor or the champion of the last big hailstorm. Strictly Earl Shieb. And the trunk? What've you got rolling around back there? The gas station attendant? A head of three-week-old organic lettuce? Possibly your brain. What's up with that?
I know, I know: You try to clean the big old baby up sometimes. Sometimes, when you're not pre-occupied with the latest episode of Digimon, you'll even go out and shine it. But this is mainly for display. You want people to know you're shining that body. Ostentatiousness in the singles lane. People are supposed to feel sorry for you, pummelling a rusted cab with a ragged dishrag for almost 15 whole minutes. Poor, pray tell, needs a new vehicle. But that's the whole point: The more beat-up it all seems, the better you believe in your chances with the neighbors, strangers and yes, especially strangers, the ones who least expect the truth behind the image. It's kind of like a pity-fuck, that vehicle of yours. Crushingly heavy. Lot's of complaining. A case of the shakes. A professionalized study in victimology. The lost chapter of Moby Dick, moving down the freeway in a giant blatfest. Obnoxious noises coming from just about everywhere imaginable. It's one big, silverbacked grunt, threatening people in the other lane, and sometimes it refuses to start at all, mainly because the engine's flooded with gasoline.
So don't even try getting near this one. I don't like my door scraped in the parking lot either. Like I said, the kind of car you drive represents, to put it into modern-day lingo, the kind of person you are. You might tell yourself, "This is only for a while, until I get on my feet," but we know the story. We've seen it a thousand million times. The old project, sitting right there in the driveway, positioned so it can catch the sun just right. People drive by it and stare and stare. But this one at least runs most of the time. This one doesn't require all that grease and special sauce in the old tank. It's been well taken care of. It might have a few marks on it, a little storm damage and all that rot, but it's a beauty. And, like I said, it's a smooth ride that requires a smooth rider. Too much on the gas or the brakes and you might ruin it.
Excuse me while I kiss the sky. Smooooooth moooooving steel--vegetable lover....
posted by Faceshaker at 2:02 AM
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