"the blue rocket"
Let us get back to the hate. Specifically the hatred of the daily commute on the subway. To fully understand we have to go back to the place where I grew up. I grew up in San Diego, CA "The Mecca of Skateboarding." San Diego was the destination for many skateboarders across the world in the eighties and nineties but since then there are other cities in California ( SF and now LA specifically) that are considered meccas of skateboarding. With that said, the afore mentioned cities are where smooth streets, clean wide smooth sidewalks, and every type of car from Ferrari's to Honda civics are seen and everybody drives. You pretty much have to drive. That is; to have a productive life in southern California from LA to SD you must drive or at least have a friend who drives because everything is so spread out. Here in New York City such is not the case. Here, many people have never driven in their entire lives; people well above age sixteen and even people into their old age have never even driven! For them, it's all about public transportation e.g. subways, taxicabs, ferries, and buses. And with public transportation other people control how and when the passengers get places. When I first moved out here to New York I avoided the trains like one would avoid a hooker with the HIV. I just mean I did not want to have anything to do with them. Except for maybe to look at one (a train) with an awesome burner on it. So after a month or two I bought the quintessential "New York City" car. It was a 1981 Pontiac Grand Prix LJ with a V8 engine, the kind of car DeNiro would drive in a Scorsese film. I paid $800.00 cash. I bought it from a generic gas station in Valley Stream, Long Island. It was blue. The exterior was light blue, and the interior was navy. It was beautiful except for the rust. It was very comfortable to drive and when I test drove it , I new it was mine. It had so much potential. I knew it could be a sick nasty lowrider, or even a classic muscle car. I mean it had a V8 engine with only 113,000 miles on it and it ran like a dream. I dunno about you, but I think a car with 113,000 miles on it is pretty good, especially when it is older than some of the kids I know. I drove my car around the the city everyday. It became way to work. I even was a black market cabbie with it.
I would charge the people I worked with $3.00 for a ride home each day. You know that's a good deal considering a gallon of gas is more than that nowadays plus I never had to pay for my beers. Anyway, let's get back to the look of the car. It had the look of a car that would have been in the movie "Bad Lieutenant" or "Mean Streets." The body style is totally 80's, similar to a Buick Regal, Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, or a Chevy Monte Carlo. It was like those cars, only beefier. I've never seen those cars with a V8. It was all stock original parts, stock rims and no crazy accessories, but this car had survived many harsh winters, and you could tell by the ashy, fading, peeling paint on the trunk and the rust on the side panels and the bumper; however all of those things are what made this car have character. I knew that car really did have character, so much that it got street casted by a producer. It got casted for an independent New York film and I rented it to the producer for $100.00 an hour. I definitely got my money's worth when it comes to how much I paid for it and how much I got out of it. It's gone but I think it's in good hands now...how I sold it is whole 'nother story.
This story is dedicated to Danny "fink" Finkelstein of the Witches Brew who named my car 
Comments