DRAG RACING IS MUCH MORE PUNK ROCK THAN ANY SLACKER GEN X SHITHEAD WITH AN OUT OF TUNE GUITAR
by Cole Coonce
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I know, I know: You are young, beautiful, and you
live in Babylon Hills, California, 90210. You are trying to get a
handle on this Grand Guignol play aka "life." You are frustrated,
misunderstood, beat up by the pain of being alive, and at the same time you
are seeking out the proper mode of expression, the milieu that trims your
foliage. You are seeking your muse, but at this point will settle for a job.
Even that pursuit, however, is frustrating and futile. It seems that the
kooky global economy means that the chirren' of upper-middle class honky
imperialism are lucky to get a gig at the local Brazier Burger (although one
can immediately begin careering in the dynamic, engrossing, gravy train
fields of distressed property repossession, telemarketing, West L.A. parking
enforcement, stuffing envelopes at the regional IRS depot, ad blahseum).
You are boxed into a corner. Blocking the only exit out
of this dead-end lifestyle and cash flow cul-de-sac is a
riot squad of non-inhaling, bleeding heart liberal
do-gooder politicians who are in cahoots with
constipated "fiscal conservative" billionaire robber
barons. Together, they are asphyxiating the job market,
kowtowing to the whims of Alan Greenspan and the Federal
Reserve, leaving the young adults of the U.S. of A
choking on the exhaust fumes from opportunities headed
down 'yonder way. Between NAFTA, GATT, and the Third
World Population Bombs in the neighborhoods, not to
mention the greed of ravenous senior citizens cherry
picking Social Security entitlements (with the yunguns'
providing the credit base!) until its barren as the salt
flats and I'm gonna grab my gee-tar and tell my troubles
to the world! Ooh, you poor suffering, snivelling,
shiftless, ingrate, trust fund fuck...
I think I hear my bullshit detector ringing louder than
a smoke alarm at an AA meeting. The truth is thus: the
denizens of White Flight, California comprise a society
of complainers, bellyachers, cable teevee fuckoffs, and
pampered bourgeousie bongheads, indifferent and/or
oblivious to the fact that there is fuckall to give
their dreary lives meaning. If there is something that
can breath some fire and moxie into the simpering spirit
of this slice of failed humanity (and I maintain there
is--read on if you dare), this society choses to ignore
it.
Perhaps because of the ubiquitous presence of teevee
(both "interactive" and merely passive), kids today are
bored, jaded, and unlike, say, our youth-gone-mad
predecessors of the 1960's,. not terribly motivated.
They demand that our entertainment is served to
them--they don't seek it out, and certainly do not
create it. I know, I know: "Tell me what can a poor boy
do, 'cept to play in a rock 'n' roll band." Oh god, not
that shit, again--smash a fire extinquisher against my
skull before I have to listen to another Silver Lake
indie rock band regurgitate Paleolithic minor-mode rock
riffs whilst some "riotgrrrl" vocalist atonally spews
out whatever passes for vitriol these days (probably
some half-baked rant against the vaguely monolithic
White Male Power Structure, while we know that on L.A.'s
Day of Reckoning--April 29, 1992--she had hauled ass out
of the city on the I-10 East in her pre-owned Honda
Accord, to be nestled safely in the confines of Mom and
Dads' cushy condo at Big Bear. While her City of Angels
burned like Dante's Inferno, she was channel surfing, a
remote control device in one hand and a Diet Coke in the
other, scrolling through the televised coverage on
cable, hoping the darkies did not torch her band's
rehearsal studio in Echo Park)...
Bullshit rock bands aside, these kids don't get a whole
lot accomplished--at least nothing tangible or relevant
to the human condition. (This is just my opinion, of
course; I do not consider the creation nor the
consumption of, say, the Paisley Dorktones' new
interactive 10" Dolby CD-ROM (encoded in Bi-monophonic
SurroundSound!) particulary interesting, exciting,
fulfilling, or invigorating. I would rather watch a
nitromethane-guzzling dragster explode and disintergrate
at 300 miles-per-hour; now that's entertainment!).
(The whole notion of a "slacker" society, I'm sorry--I
just don't get it. Not only to choose to blame our
insufferable indolence on a lack of cash flow,
resources, and opportunities, but to wear the
insignifigance of life in the 90's like a badge of
honor...What?. Tell it to the Serbs (now there is a
resourceful bunch!) and the Croats, rivethead. We are
priveleged peoples, livin' large in the Land of the
Eternal Sun.)
Yep, the kids of the 60's were some busy buckaroos.
That's right: hippies were more ambitous than you! What
with campus demonstrations, love-ins, extended holidays
in Southeast Asia, multi-media slide shows projected on
the likes of Nico and Edie Sedgewick, riots on Sunset
Strip, and a whole lot of consciousness expansion--who
had time to complain about the futility of existence?
If all that was not enough, there was another cultural
renaissance occurring simultaneous to the Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Tests and the Summer of Love. For, back in
the day, the kids was also shakin' some action at the
local drag strip. This was where the young gearheads
displayed their gumption, bravado, and intellect. They
showcased these attributes in machinery they crafted
themselves (generally speaking)--contraptions that
resembled a spaceship as much as anything else. These
were formally known as "rails" or "dragsters."
"Drag strips," "rails," "dragsters." What the hell is drag racing, you may
wonder? It is a socio-technological phenomena that is louder, faster, and
more primal than either grindcore or the Big Bang itself, that's what.
Drag racing was born at the dry lake beds and the the abandoned military
airstrips of post World War II Southern California, and these locations
remain a staple of hot rodding. The mood and vibrations at these exhibitions
of unbridled horsepower are very primal, chaotic, and apocalyptic. Despite
the clouds of smoke and fire that might obscure the action, a message cuts
through the haze and fumes--a message the gearheads and hepcats and kittens
intuitively undestand: speed is a metaphor for freedom.
The premise of drag racing is simple: two cars race in a straight line for a
distance of 1/4 mile (1320 feet). The first car to the finish line is the
winner. And although the premise is linear, by as early as the 1960's the
approach to these contests became increasingly surreal, bizarre, and
abstract. Drag racing became an art movement.
Aesthetics aside, miles-per-hour is the real objective
here. And in order to satiate their voracious thirst for
speed, speed, and more speed, out-of-control mechanical
savants sculpt strange looking combustion-driven
timebombs--y'know, "dragsters". To complement the car's
unorthodox yet minimalist appearance, the motors and the
fuel are equally exotic--your basic Chrysler engine is
now supercharged or injected, and the fuel (the engine's
blood) is either maximum octane airplane fuel, methanol,
or the highly volatile nitromethane ( a fuel classified
as a Class A Explosive by the Department of Defense).
So how does this relate to the problems of the Age we
live in? In an era of fiber-optic saturation, of sensory
overload,of electronic bombardment, if you are not going
to build and race a dragster, then what is a valid mode
of self-expression? Going to USC Film School for six
years so you can end up directing infomercials or rock
videos (which are basically the same thing, now that I
think about it) after deluding yourself into thinking
you would create your generations On The Waterfront, or
8 1/2, or Five Easy Pieces, but hey man, if your career
catches a break you can still direct a "Feature Film"
(ooohhh!), like the sequel to Reality Bites--the working
title is Reality Swallows--and in this film Winona
Barrymore plays an affluent Melrose chickee reduced to a
South Central crackwhore after her hip lifestyle
collapses due to her incompetence at the West Hollywood
post-modernist coffee klatch/tattoo parlor/performance
art gallery (where she worked as a curator's assistant
until she was fired after summoning the rent-a-cops
(played by Corey Feldman and Eric Estrada in
hil-ar-i-ous cameo appearances) to oust Cher's
conceptual artist/nouveau beatnik boyfriend from the
premises when he shat on a lava lamp statue of
Socrates--turns out this was just Act 1 of a
"performance piece" that Mr. Cher had entitled "Judge
Ito" (tragically, our young heroine mistook the "artist"
for a common homeless guy defecating in the foyer); but
to complicate the plot of Reality Swallows Congressman
Sonny Bono--that's right, the previous Mr. Cher (as
himself)--finagles a deft political powerplay with
fellow Republicans Jesse Helms (Charlton Heston), Phil
Gramm (Clint Eastwood) and Bob Packwood (Don Knotts)
that destroys National Endowment of the Arts head honcho
Jane Alexander (as herself) (this after this GOP Gang of
Four uncover evidence that Ms. Alexander green-lit the
controversial "Ito" piece, forcing her to resign in
disgrace); which then capsizes her lifestyle into a
downward spiral that finds Alexander estranged from High
Society and ultimately a street person, walking the
streets of Compton, where she re-unites with her
estranged daughter--you guessed it, Winona--and the two
of them pool their only marketable talents in
Post-Reagan America, re-uniting as tag team of mother
and daughter strawberries), or, a more realistic career
opportunity (after depleting your parents nest-egg
because you insisted they pay for your education)--yes,
even more degradingly, you wind up schlepping as
"production assistant" on a dubious gangsta' rap video,
pampering that insipid no-talent "director" fuckwad in
the "Dreamworks" baseball cap while on location at
Florence and Normandy as AK47 recording artist MC Cinque
lip-synchs his "catchy" militant anthem "Colonel Sanders
is the Joseph Stalin of My 'Hood"? Do you really want to
base your life on a career and a subculture dehumanizing
as all of that?
Another option, perhaps, is to start a post-punk rock'n'roll combo, but man
is that tired.
And boring.
On the California cultural horizon, not only are there are entirely too many
indie rock bands and student filmmakers, there is an intolerable glut of
twelve-stepper tattoo emporiums, performance art fanzines, and waitresses
auditioning for a bit part on "Baywatch"...
So what is a poor SoCal riot boy or grrrl to do?
You want sensory overload?
You want to rage against the machine, mallbreath?
You want to blow shit up?
Well check this out: Drag racers blow more shit up on any given weekend
than Timothy McVeigh's Michigan Miltia, the SLA, and the Hezbollah
combined. And they do it righteously. If you want to get radical then
smash your television, get a job laying bricks (assuming your not
getting fat off your parents' morally dubious mutual funds) and sink
all of your cash and free time into running a race car at the local
drag strip. The
hep thing about this endeavor, race fans, is that it's completely Karl Marx
approved--Anyone can do it! It's totally DIY! You can borrow your grannie's
grocery-getter and run 'er down the ol'1320--they have a class for you at
the local drag strip (it's called "Stock.Eliminator") Or you can build your
very own dragster from the ground up (or, if you aren't much of a backyard
tinkerer, commission one from a professional chassis builder). An even doper
scenario is to purchase an old front-engine dragster (most of these "rails"
were built in the '60s), shoehorn betwixt the frame rails an early Chrysler
hemi engine (recently liberated from an '58 Imperial rotting at the local
Pick-Your-Part), and GO!, man, GO! Whatever your decision, be it the more
labor intensive and paycheck-siphoning dragster route, or the decidely more
financially-benign street-legal "stocker" or "doorslammer" reality, the drag
strip has a place for you. But before you make your decision, remember the
rule of "cubic dollars" which is stated as thus: "Speed costs money--How
fast do you want to go?"; If you want to go 200 mph in the 1/4 mile driving
a dragster, it is gonna cost some dead presidents--but nobody at the drag
strip is gonna tell you can't run a race car. Only you can tell yourself
that. To put this another way, in drag racing all limitations are
self-imposed. Drag racing is of, by, and for the people (kinda' like punk
rock used to be, remember?).
Sure, you could get killed in a race car...but to hear
you Gen X'ers tell it, you got nuthin' to live for
anyway because life is banal and pointless, right? So
dumpster that hopelessly out of tune guitar, quit your
feeble "low-fi" indie-rock band, (or drop out of art
school, ripcord on your nowhere "modeling," "acting," or
"documentary filmmaker" career), shitcan your trendoid
threads, and get some grease under your skin. Live the
American dream, goddammit. For about the same amount of
money and gumption necessary to "self-produce" and press
a 45 Rpm 7" record you can create beaucoup smoke, noize,
fire, and thunder by running a race car at your local
drag strip. This is a much more noble and glorious mode
of expression than being in a band. (Indeed, one would
be hard pressed to find a more boring and pointless
outlet for the psychosis and angst of life than banging
out more tired barre chords on a shitty guitar. Punk
rock, actually music altogether, died with Sid Vicious.
Show some respect for the dead, will 'ya? Quit.)
So if you are mad at the world, or just plain
bored--quit yer yappin'. You and your buddies can pool
your resources and run a dragster. Just get it together,
or shut up and fuck off.The local drag strip is the only
logical cafe society for today's real dissidents, it is
our Tianamen Square. It is a place where the stakes and
envelopes are pushed (things explode and people do get
hurt), and that always makes for interesting art. And
until that Silver Lake "riotgrrrl" climbs into a
maximum-horsepower dragster, I will consider her pose as
a tortured artist completely innocuous, irrelevant, and
rather pathetic. -- FINI
CLUTCH DUST VAPORIZES INTO THE ETHER: THE COLE COONCE READER