dir/new_school/rant: G r i n d i n g  i t  o u t

I still want a minivan… Many of you are thinking well Paul don't you have a Minivan? And yes I do. Though to be honest the KungFu Shuttle seems to have a cracked Dilithium crystal. Let me also make one point clear here ok. This is an old school aside folks... I like StarTrek, as a matter if fact I love Star Trek. I love the Original series and the first two movies are excellent and Star Trek three and four are not bad. Next Generation, Babylon Five or er Deep Space Nine and That Janeaway Austen shit, I could live without. Star Trek never let me down and it was a very soothing transition from Lost in Space as a kid growing up. I probably draw subtler -some would argue that one- references from Star Wars though.  And  i'm all about reverence for Star Wars, but we should all just admit that Empire Strikes back was the bomb. It's ok, most of you didn't really relate with the whole minivan thing. This might just be a creed blowing exercise. Let's see here how my mind works KungFu shuttle, Obviously I'm a geek, stuck on those bad eighties advertisements for the Ford Aerostar. You remember the one with the Aerostar driving smooth and about as aerodynamically as a wood chuck that you'd prop a door open with, while the announcer compares it to the technology of the Shuttle. I am pretty sure this was pre-challenger, those ads disappeared quietly afterwards. But I remember them and I always had a soft spot for minivans and they do remind me of the great adventure. Cause face it, maybe a half dozen SUV drivers  have gone off roading past a dirt road. We buy SUV's cause they are cool and make us feel tough on the road. The Shuttle analogy and imagery that comes to my mind, is that I just want to haul shit around and every trip is an adventure.  Not to mention I love the groovy cockpits of Minivans, buttons and all that jazz, do excite me.  Cracked Dilithium Crystal: Motherfuck, I've been researching cars for the last ten years, hardcore. Number crunching, under the hood, personal accounts. I am the fucking advice guy of Cars, new/used domestic/import, Class/model. Does that mean that with all the right research, hands on perspective, industry insider knowledge and common sense, that I am one hundred percent free of the likely hood of getting a fucked up vehicle. No…. It doesn't it just means I am savvy and a bit better at shaving some of the obvious points off, risk is still there though, whether it be used or in fact new. Point is I'm having problems with my minivan. Which sucks, the only thing worse then buying something used -told you so- is buying something used that no one understood your reasoning for buying in the first place. -Other peoples problems, my mom constantly pounds at me- Side note, my mom drives an SUV, she decided she couldn't live without the cool. Look through any mainline account of Star Trek and you will be told that it's origins lie on Horatio Hornblower. Star Trek was an interesting show in it's first incarnation because it was very European in the sense that it used Science Fiction as a backdrop to talk about things which would have been too radical for any contemporary show of its time which was mainstream. Star Trek covered racism, politics, social issues and religion. Before Roddenbery was blinded by the popularity of the show in it's post-broadcast renaissance. he was a fairly creative and free reigned guy. He wrote the pilot, which sucked dick and went back at it again and fought NBC tooth and nail to maintain the vision that he had and ultimately had placed in the hands of a number of very creative writers who made the series shine. After it's death, Star Trek grew larger and created a franchise in the void of a canceled badly rated TV Show. Roddenbery then went from good idea guy, to visionary. Poor Bastard. It's not like the torture of Star Trek being dissed regularly is a new thing though, so you never know, These incarnations of Star Trek might be valued as much as the Original Series….somehow I doubt that. The point is that Star Trek was about the impossible dream and the underdog and proving people wrong, it also had a dynamic group style. Everything about what the first show was I admired and gleamed this. Be what you will and stand by your principle, enough that you are willing to take risks. Especially when no one else believes in you, cause with a little help from your friends, you'll find the humanity, anger, drive, determination, power and logic to make it happen. All of that from over the top acting and scifi huh… As far as the new shit goes, as a nitpicking clean up to this paragraph, I'll be brief. We had some Utopian shit, some soap opera shit and some Lost in Space rehashed shit, you can skip this stuff or love it, I do understand. Star Wars…. one word Dagaboo. If you can get past the swampy muppet shit, the truth of life is there. Quite Zen in a popculture kinda way. Not to mention, Empire Strikes Back is all about consequence of action, how going solo will get you an asswhupping and how relationships and faith are important to have. If I had to sum up the rest of the series. Star Wars was clean and hokey, good start to a Saturday morning serial. Return of the Jedi, well we all saw that to line Lucas's pockets and catch some of that ass kicking action we loved. It's is a split movie, half for the kids and the other half a begrudging followup to ESB which Lucas thought was way too dark. Episode 1, sucked dick, I went to get a hotdog and waited patiently in line.  As for Jar Jar Binks. Let me explain something. I never thought Jar Jar was a "step and fetchit", jive talking black parody, that's some shit in the back of your heads. Jar jar, was a ugly platypus Ewok, taller and with less fur. Even the snorkle having  slave owning character and all the slant eyed evil politicians were just over the head satirical references. It's satirical albeit bad and tacky, but still satirical folks. I didn't think much of it. Did Lucas take a great imaginary landscape he created and find a need to slap us over the head with crass stereotypes as opposed to the faceless minions who were led by a heavy breathing, prick boss? Yah he did, go figure. No one liked Lucas and his attempt at subtle humor with Howard the Duck or his midget medieval Star Wars, so he got a little nervous, didn't want to shock us. One word huh? My friends hate it when I go on a diatribe. First car was a brown bomber; of course most of you know that I rode motorcycles for five years before I went the car route. But the Brown Bomber was a Buick. It was great, big, gas guzzler, I had tons of sex in it, rode it everywhere and never feared for my life. It died one faithful day in the freezing rain, dead tranny. My second car was a Ford Ranger. Peppy, cool, new, stripped and a blinding bullet of a car for a four cylinder stick and it had ABS, so it saved me from almost every peril I flung myself into, except for the "Bee" episode. Ask me about that sometime folks. I didn't have any sex in the ranger, but I did use it for a lot of romance, sadly no sex though. The Third car was the Chevy Blazer, S10, no luck in getting the big dog. The S10 was a taste of living on the road. It was comfortable, on it's last leg, roomy as shit and it let me beat it down like a dog, with near death defying driving, until it finally gave up the ghost and my wallet asked why I was pissing money on a gray, ten year old car, which didn't haven't a roof lining and came with an electrical system to rival a European luxury sedan. I ditched the Blazer and said good-bye to a long odyssey of Sex in the City. As a matter of fact I had more sex in more parking lots then I did at home. What happened to the tradition of sex in a car anyway? Simple answer, Bucket seats and a center console. I move on to the F150 that I loved for almost three years. Loved to hate it. Let me tell you about my sports coupe with the worlds biggest trash bin. Faster then shit, couldn't stop if you begged it too and always with a bunch of shit in back. It did the job and held up under my considerable abuse and dogged pursuit of bad ass driving. "Long live the F-150, Long Live the King." No sex, lot's of hand holding though. Lot's of hand holding….Blah… Now we come to the Blue Ford Windstar, I mean the Green Ford Windstar, no sorry, outside my office window -creative lie, I am in a cubicle, no windows here- I'm currently driving A FUCKING TAURUS!!!!!!!! Blah. I hate cars, I always feel like I'm in a escape pod, toss in the palm pilot, laptop and a bevy of gear meant for a vehicle, twice it's size and Princess Leia is just a bit fucking cramped folks Faith though comes in relationships and managing the situation. When my patience permits I'll talk more about the trials and tribulations of my used car odyssey but for now…. The therapy is over. Hope you dug it as much as I did. Pablo