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Wow, another rainy day on the Hillside.
This week’s Hillside Gem calls for a particularly fun little conglomerate of speed and Newfie. (Newfies on Speed?) I actually found this one a few years ago in my buddy’s car.
This gem makes me happy. It makes me feel like drinking, kissing cod, and dancing like a fool while not caring one little bit. I hope it makes you feel the same way.
Happy Friday!
Actually, I did have a couple of V8’s back when Triceratops still roamed the highways and byways. But after some recent action and adventure in my anemic little S10, I found myself pining for the old, “Detroit Iron” days with every hill I had to drive over. On every down slope, I thought back on my V8’s with a fondness I reserve for old lovers.
My first was a ’77 Mustang. It was pure fuckulance wrapped around a lovely 302 (that’s 302 cubic inches for all you young’ns). I could do brake-stands without using the brake. I’d just stomp the pedal, the ass-end would skip off the pavement, and she would come down in all her howling glory. Sold it to an exchange student for 500 bucks and went to a ’76 Aspen SE. That one hauled a fair amount of ass as well. It had 318 under the hood, but a craptastic carb. It would flood out if you took a corner too quickly. And just like old lovers, you forget their foibles over time and only remember the good. In the years since the Late Cretaceous Period, I’ve had nothing but wimpy little four-bangers. My ’77 Porsche 924 was the exception. It was pure sex. It had four cylinders but they were four, very big cylinders. But even so, it lacked the thing I love most about V8 engines: raw power. And a big, warm, throaty sound.
You know, I picked up “Mad Max” a while ago and dropped it in the DVD player. I turned on my speakers and…there it was. There was that F-U rumble and howl I had forgotten since the world moved on. I closed my eyes and soaked it all in. I remembered putting the pedal to the metal and being shoved back in my seat as I blew past a semi. I remembered the vibrating thrum that would come through the carpet on the tranny hump, assuring me all was right with the world. How I skipped and danced when I heard an Olds 455 Rocket fire up for the first time! How I loved watching the hood come up when my buddy with a 351 Windsor downshifted into passing gear! How giddy my fear was when the air-induction on my sister’s Camaro opened up, flooding her 350 four barrel with speed and win! (It’s true. My sister ROCKS!)
Anyhow, I have come to believe that the North American car industry died not this past fall, but when poets (with big effin nuts) stopped making cars. The bean counters and marketing folks took my lovers away from me around the time Lee Iacocca found his desk at Chrysler.
“But Ringmaster, with new tech and new alloys, you can get the same or greater horsepower with a quarter the size and less fuel to boot!”
It’s true. I can. I can also change this:
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could” (Thank you Mr. Frost)
To this:
“There’s this fork in the road. I wanted to travel both at the same time but couldn’t. I was sad about it.”
See what I mean?
Sure I could “drift” all “fast and furious”. It’s not the same. New cars can do stuff, but they don’t make me feel stuff.
You wanna save the North American auto industry? Hire poets.
Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s that time of the summer. When the Ringmaster heads west for action and adventure. I’ll be AFK for the next week or so, so I want to leave you with a couple of interesting Hillside baubles to enjoy while I’m gone. Feel free to carry on here while I’m away.
First up is this multi-faceted gem. It’s not a “video” really…I chose it because it has decent sound quality.
This one gets played very loud everytime I hear it. I can’t help it. Not only does it have introspective lyrics, but it has deadly riffs layered throughout in an ever changing style. It’s poetic. It’s skilled. And it’s “balls-out”, all at the same time. I wish there were more of these laying about…
And speaking of “balls-out”, take a gander at this baby.
Not as pretty as the first one, but kinda dark and fiery. I added this to the Hillside Gem Collection simply because it makes me wanna smile dangerously, swing from trees, and wreck stuff. And hit the road and drive as fast as I can. Which is what I plan on doing.
Crank it up! See ya soon.
It occurs to me that the reason I’ll never win the lottery is that God loves me. Or, better, he loves YOU.
He knows what I’d do with obscene amounts of cash, you see. To paraphrase The Rainmakers (AWESOME band, btw – go download or buy a CD): I’d live myself to death in a couple of years. Instead of plodding along, earning a (mostly) honest living, learning and growing from the little day-to-day things, I’d suddenly be able to do whatever I wanted. Picture that spoiled kid from your school who got everything and had no responsibilities. Remember how surprised they looked in the back of the Mounties’ cruiser? That’d be me after a lottery win. I don’t know how surprised I’d look though.
Even just writing about the things I’d do with my money makes me smile and think that it actually wouldn’t be so bad. See how weak I am in the face of filthy lucre’s siren call? I’m sure things would start out innocently enough…
Like supplying my family and friends with everything they ever needed or wanted. Like donating SCADS of money to the world’s oppressed. Like buying a 50 cal Desert Eagle and going Down Under to shoot some ‘Roos. Giving Ceno a showing of “Eraser Head” projected on a man-made fogbank over a lake as we sat on the beach and smoked. Like flying myself to the top of some giant mesa in the American southwest and sitting there, martinis in hand, while my favourite music thundered all around me. This would be possible because I had a massive speaker array set up behind my lawn chair the night before.
After enjoying all that, I’d pay to see my good friend Neo fight a couple of massive tom turkies, and a hissing Canada goose. (This, of course, would be a cage match.) But then I’d think to myself: “Self – how can we make this better? How can we make this spectacular?” And so would begin an epic fall from “generally OK sort of guy” into the realm of “ass hat”.
Because from there, I would add more barnyard fowl into the cage. And a rammy little goat. Then I’d quickly become a bad person because I just couldn’t resist it. I’d haul Neo out and replace him with machete wielding little people who knew how to fight. After that, I’d have Ceno in the cage pounding the daylights out of a couple of clowns. What a spectacular spectacle! I’d pay all fighters involved a big wad of cash, and have a barnfowl Bar-B-Q afterwards. The beer would flow like wine. I’d fly Viper and Atomique over to play really loud music for us. After I reunited the Beatles to open for them.
I might settle down for a bit after that and simply take a trip to Tahiti…but then again, I just might end up in the canopy of the Amazon or Madagascar on a giant platform, smoking Cuban cigars and smacking golf balls at any monkies that happened by. And yes – I would pee off the edge. I would also go to Antarctica just to see what happens when I run screaming and yelling through penguin nesting grounds. Could I feed the penguins to the Leopard seals? OH! Wait! Let’s fly to Scotland and golf St. Andrews! With hockey sticks! And wearing mustard-stained “wife-beaters”!
After getting the bum’s rush out of Scotland, I’d realise just how boring having scads of money is, and I would ask myself again: “Self? How can we make this less boring?” The easiest answer to that is, of course, ROAD TRIP!!
Only it would be in a Lear jet with all my friends, a never-ending bar, and a pile of strippers. We’d all take turns telling the pilot where we wanted to go…the only caveat would be the pilot gets to make random, aerobatic maneuvers en route. In a moment of rational thought, I’d think to invite a doctor.
Also? I’d buy a tank. Late model. And probably drink and drive in it. But only off-road while I was hunting elephants on the Serengeti. I’m pretty sure I could get a 105 or 120 mm paintball to do so…I’d hate to actually hurt an endangered species, you know.
But silver tarnishes. After a long while of general ass-hattery, I’d start to think about storing up for the future and leaving a legacy. So I’d endevour to buy the Phillipines. Warm, lots of beautiful people, lots of pineapples, lots of banana ketchup. I’d also look pretty darn smashing in a military cap and aviator shades. I’d have Churchill and Patton and Ghandi cloned to run the place while I paved the lawn of my presidential palace, and mowed it weekly with a bubble mower. However, being of quick temper and with a readily available supply of rum, the prospects of all this ending well would be slim to none. I’d probably start some shit with North Korea one night after going on yet another pisser and watching “Red Dawn”. I suspect it would end in a global conflagration of some sort, and I’d end up burnt, broke, and making a hut on a Phillipine beach out of roasted pineapples.
There you have it. None of this will ever happen. Proof that God loves us.
That being said, can I borrow a fin til payday?
So it’s a dismal, rainy day on the Hillside…I’m back under the flourescents after a few days at home with a very poopy Middlin’ Clown…and I got a call from the mechanic who said my truck needs a new differential. Ouchee.
But hey – look what I found just laying in the parking lot!
The guitar is so silky and nice. A couple of gemologists have assured me its lustre comes from a Fender Strat run through a Chorus. That and I thought the broken-down vehicle in the video was a nice touch all things considering.
So watch the rain…enjoy.
So I was wandering the Hillside this morning and I happened to look down just at the right moment. Lying at my feet was this gem.
So shiny…so nineties…so Kids In The Hall.
Happy Friday all!
