Kickin' Rocks

with Don Pennington

Two Bit Opinions and Striping Brushes

Little kids can be pretty cool, especially the real ones... the ones that like cars. These kids are obviously on the right track to be ultra successful in life and are sure to have several inoperable cars in the front yard before they are in high school. We were all little kids once, yes we were, my mother told me so. Some of us grew older and some of us got smarter, but we still seem to hang on with a death grip to those life experiences that form our unshakeable opinions of what a cool car really is, and that every single decision that we make about cars is correct and should be considered law by the owners of those weird looking cars, the outsiders. Cars that have stuff hanging on them that don't meet with our approval are just wrong. Their owners apparently came from some place where the only car magazines are the J.C. Whitney catalog and The Wall Street Journal. These people have no chance whatsoever at being cool, ever.

The main problem with this belief, or maybe the best part of it, is that when they, the outsiders,  look at our cars (the coolest cars on the planet), they also see things they don't like, our cool is not their cool and theirs is clearly not ours, so we therefore, are also on the outside looking in. So who is right, who is really cool? Does if even matter?  It's the different points of view, coolness or lack thereof, depending where you stand, that makes things work. If it wasn't for the outsiders, who would buy the stuff that we wouldn't be caught dead with on our cars, a lot of the biggest names in the car business would be out of business, people would be out of work, houses repoed and children starving, what a mess. Being the leaders of the free car world we therefore have an obligation to buy at least one weird part from J.C. Whitney once a year to keep the kids bellys full. I hate to keep pointing at Saab, but this is a perfect example. From my point of view there are the ugliest cars in the world and have been for decades, but any Saab owner has similar and probably more outspoken opinions on these old beaters we like. Here's the test for letting the Saabs into the inner circle. We have all had a beater from time to time, that by simply putting on a set of chrome wheels makes it look pretty good. I don't think any Saab on the planet can pass this test.

Looking at any car, anywhere, can be a valuable experience. There is always something on any car that can be appreciated no matter what your childhood coolness factor was (Saabs excepted of course). Years ago several guys were stuck at a car show in eastern bum you-know-what, which means you take your car to this show, set it all up, spend several hundred or your bucks doing it, then walk around the show for two or three days waiting for the thing to be over so you can go home. (And you wonder why the wife thinks your time could be better spent at home working around the house). While walking, the inevitable starts to happen, it becomes "pitch on everybody and everything time", according the these guys there wasn't a single part or idea on any car in the joint that was any good or that couldn't be corrected using the walking group's ideas. The group of course carefully steered away from their own cars or expressing a positive opinion on anything that might result in negative feedback from a member of the group. At the risk of being high sided out of the group, this just seems wrong. If the guy that built that car likes what he has done, that should be the end of it. It's his car, his creation, his ideas, done deal.

Well here we are, thinking that this generosity towards the unwashed to think and do what they will with a car is magnanimous, meaning we are cool and are making place for those other people to play on our street is a good thing. Good for you, I still think the narrow and self centered can be a bunch of fun, and watching people play that -I'm cooler then you- game is a hoot. The best part of watching rather than playing this game, is that we can agree with one side of the street and don't need to show our hand and look stupid to the other side. I especially like the times when some guy is standing amidst a group  shooting his mouth off about his magnificent skills as a metal man and the cornerstone cars he has built. Unknowing to him, one of the listeners IS the best metal man on the planet, and everybody in the group knows the metal man except the jaw flapper, and the jaw flapper is pushing the superior skill levels necessary to properly apply Bondo (I think we have to put an R with a circle around it here so we don't get sued). The great fun is watching this thing play out. Now this guy is absolutely sure of his opinion and is pushing, beating off opposing comments from the onlookers and displaying a significant amount of skill with the B.S. to the point where you are sure he was a -one size fits all shoe salesman- in his other life.

For some reason and for many people, all the skills and all the things created with those skills all boil down to one thing...chin music. The reason many people build these cars and spend untold hours and mega dollars is to have chin music rights. Wouldn't it be cheaper for these guys to tell their stories about their cars without actually having the car? While attending the biggest hot rod event on the planet, they could rattle on and on about this high dollar feature and having the best skills on the planet to create the thing, without spending any money, except the general admission ticket for walk-ins. If this guy is guttsy he'll point to a car that isn't his and claim it, making his pitch seem true, hoping the actual owner isn't in the audience. Or he could carry on and on and somewhere is the dissertation say, "you can't see my car from here it's over by the stage or the rest room"... he's not sure. "I'd take you over there but I think my wife took it shopping".  

So watching this guy is interesting. One particularly chuckle filled moment was when he realized he was losing the center stage and started scrambling to come up with more dramatic statements like "Bondo (circle with R again) is the perfect body working product, in fact it is so versatile that politicians are using it for ear plugs during public hearings", and we certainly know it works there. So that's fun, seeing if he can dance to the music. Then the big finish. The flapper suddenly recognizes the real metal man, his face goes a real funny color, as did the faces of his audience as they began gagging for air in between uncontrollable bouts of hysteria. This same thing happens when your best friend is telling his latest whopper on you then realizes you were standing behind him, he suddenly starts dancing trying to fill the big hole he is now standing in.

I guess what this is all about is that these fake hot rodders really urinate me. They may have a cool hot rod, but why they start pitchin' on other cars and people is beyond me, when they start doing that they fall off the club bus. One of my buddies suggested that maybe these people are high on the wine flask or Bud vase depending on their taste. Usually people who drink that much are encouraged to attend meetings and climb steps. The only guy that jerks me more than the down-talker is the guy who starts making comments or asking questions about something that isn't finished yet. Like when I'm in the middle of a striping design that covers most of a deck lid, one that I am especially proud of, when the "expert" wants to know if I am going to add  little stick people... doing you know what. I get in a little hot spot by replying "hey buddy... when it's done and it's got little people on it... then you'll know".

While we are on this striping jag, did I tell you about the killer hi-boy with that god-awful striping all over it, ruined the car! Man what was that striper thinking, maybe he needs lessons or something. But then.... who am I to judge his work?