THE SECOND COMING!

It has been nearly 30 years since we had a bonified energy crisis. Initially after the first oil embargo in the early 1970’s, it’s long gas lines, odd and even rationing and the virtual disappearance of the station wagon, America responded by producing a collection “gas efficient” automobiles. These lovelies were not only the opposite of the much heralded muscle car, but they could be dubbed part of the “eye-sore” era of autos. In a word they were fugly; and unfortunately a little more popular than the granddaddy of all design mistakes, the Edsall. It was the 1970’s mind you so; weird things were “in” like bizarre color schemes, free-love, and Twiggy, a girl so thin that she could hide from you simply by turning sideways.

These automotive oddballs still haunt the American psyche. Leading the pack of misguided design was the American Motor Corporation. AMC, as it was known, invested heavily in peculiar looking autos, and promptly disappeared from the auto world by the 1980’s. It produced a couple of classics worthy of the “don’t let this happen to you” prize of distinction as the worst looking and least comfortable cars. The Gremlin is the first that comes to mind. A vehicle composed seemingly of tin in a clunky squared off stature; the hatchback looked as if Lorena Bobbitt had practiced slicing on it before utilizing her deft skills on a two-timing gigolo of a spouse.

The AMC Pacer was probably the king of tastelessness. A deformed VW Beetle- looking creation, the Pacer was somewhat akin to a swollen walrus, with an overactive feeding habit, sort of like beer guzzling sports fans named Hal that come over to your house to visit your dad, and sit ever too close to your kid sister. Known mostly for his beer-gut, Hal was the guy that seemed to have a diet only comprised of fast food pork rinds, and too many ding dongs. The Pacer had a bubbled-out rear window and windshield that gave it a swollen appearance. It was akin to what your sexy girlfriend will look like after she becomes your wife, has 3 kids, and a decades worth of nightly rocky road ice cream gallon parties to produce hips that seem out of place on her body. The Pacer was a short squatty styled sedan. What’s worse is that a ton of people bought these hideous things for a while, and gave hope to middle aged ice cream fetish mothers that their own bodies were somehow still in vogue.

Lincoln Mercury’s Capri was a sports car that was big enough for two bodies and a few pair of legs, provided they were attached to people in the front seat. It made a spirited sound similar to dad in the Lazy-boy recliner any night after a cheese and bean burrito festival. The VW Bug fits into the same category with the ingenious trunk up front, and the engine in the rear. Many women spent many an enjoyable time sitting in the back seat overtop of the battery and vibrating engine of the egg shaped classic fuel efficient car of all time.

The Subaru Justy was a rather small subcompact car. It was so small that the whole thing could fit inside of a corner telephone booth. That’s how cramped it seemed inside. Another tin can of the automobile sect, the driver and passenger could stick their arms out each window simultaneously, and the damn thing would have taken off like a lightweight biplane. Orville and Wilbur Wright would have been happy with a Justy! The only car smaller at its inception was the Honda Civic. A survivor into the modern era because it grew, initially it was about the size of a baby’s high-chair. It was practically a round ball and big enough to carry a load of dirty clothes from the hamper to the washer. Unfortunately, loading it would have left no room for the driver.

These hideous classics have been the product of two lapses in judgment given the temporary nature of energy shortfalls of their time. Look out because here we go again! With gas priced at over $4 per gallon, and little Al Gore minions running around clucking that the global warming sky is falling, can it be far behind that modern technology will provide the next round of automotive nightmares. What’s coming may make us long for the day of the Pacer and Gremlin.

Auto producers already offloaded the first gaff of the modern era in the form of “The Smart Car.” As aptly named as “geek” is to the pocket pencil protector carrying four eyed math whiz crowd, these little gems are just as misnamed. They are not smart at all. Unless you are a munchkin from the merry ol’ land of Oz you’ll find that there is barely enough room for two adults in a smart car. If you don’t mind riding 6 inches off of the speeding pavement in a box fit for sardines, then this car may be right for you. I imagine that it comes with a special key so you can roll the doors open much like you do with a sardine can lid.

Children have ridden similar sized vehicles on sidewalks for years. These things are little more than double seated go-carts with an egg shell body placed futuristically atop. It is hideous and already reaching preposterous proportions. The little thing will become like the proverbial squashed bug in the grill of the still much larger vehicles on the road when push comes to shove. Who wants such an ugly hood ornament as that?

Not a smart car, but a coffin car; that’s what they should be called, and for what 60 mpg? (That’s miles per grief). Why not? People bury themselves in their classic cars all of the time. Why not have a smart car you can plug in, and recharge for the run-about town driving sensation, and the permanent burial place when you’re in it and get flattened like a Hummer pancake? It’s about the size of a cemetery plot for you and the misses anyway. Maybe it will help you to drive it through the pearly gates. It is well known that the main entrance to heaven is only about the size of the eye of a needle anyway. In a smart car the occupants might make it.

Mystery of Electric and Gas Shortages Solved

If you own the power you own it all! Anybody who ever reigned supreme in a game of Monopoly can tell you that it’s true. That is unless of course you play some new version of the game. You know the new editions that have diluted the financial message of the early 1900’s board game whose only purpose now is to exploit your pocketbook by way of your emotions. Today on the market there’s foreign language monopoly, Barney I Love You” monopoly, Dukes of Hazard monopoly and even University monopoly. The college version is useful in making NCAA schools worth attending, as undergraduates stay up all night vying to see how they can meld some form of monopoly into the wild, carousing, over drinking college lifestyle that Universities have come to represent.

Nevertheless, owning the power means you are king! That seems to be the sentiment of many in this country who look at the high cost of gasoline and electricity. The good old days are gone; you know the ones with block long lines waiting for a fill up, and the rolling blackouts inflicted upon California. The good old days? Heck yea! Then even though there were shortages your gallon of gas was still well below a dollar a gallon. There was much whining then because we don’t like to wait for the goods and services we feel we deserve. We’ll pay through the nose just don’t make us wait! Witness as proof that of any Bridal Gown discount sale. The outlet, at great risk to its very infrastructure, will sell thousand dollar symbols of purity to women who’ve had more sex than Heidi Fleiss on a slow night; for about a dollar ninety eight over cost! This creates a stampede akin to a cattle drive gone awry as typified by a bad John Wayne movie. The virtuous young ladies attack each other to get the garment of their choice that they’ll wear for a total of four hours. The whole ruckus is an affair that reminds one of Wreslemania on a rainy Saturday night in Alabammy.

Now there are no gas lines but we’re approaching the cost equivalent to a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Put some Chunky Monkey in your tank and see if that’ll make your motor run! If they could figure a way to make Hagen Daz combustible we’d have another energy source for about the same cost.
With exorbitant costs, there is finally a whimper out of the public’s collective mouth, and that’s just about the ice cream.

The West Coast blackouts were a different story. In 2001 and 2002 darkness could reign down upon your home without much warning jut like nightfall! Panic stricken people reacted as if it were the stone-age during a solar eclipse. People ran trembling through the streets as if the sky was falling, and the gods were angry with them. On top of that tension, prices spiked to ridiculous amounts per kilowatt hour, similar to the cost of hair darkening grease during the Reagan administration. Of course certain energy companies and high government officers were in on the shenanigans. Then to top it off California became saddled with Arnold, The Governator. Someone has been pulling pranks on the costal states ever since. The most popular commentary after a Schwarzenegger political speech is Huh? What did he say?

Many people complained that we are restrained in that we have plenty of product but no way to refine petroleum, and turn material into electricity (without charging a gazillion dollars per unit). That of course is so energy company CEO’s can drive around in bullet proof limos. What do you think they are afraid of anyway? As long as they stay in the limo smoking their big fat cigars made from illegal Cuban tobacco, and rolled with American hundred dollar bills they won’t have to worry.

The refinery shortfall premise does have some merit. There is one particular yet seldom mentioned theory on why there isn’t enough petroleum, gasoline or electricity. It’s not that our refinery capacity is lacking. It’s not even that evil conservatives have a hand on the lever of such power, and another one in my back pocket.

Have you ever driven past a field that has high tension power lines? The towers stretch in pairs across roadways, grassland to the horizon and beyond. They always look exactly the same no matter where you find them! The hypothesis is that this delivery system is simply not enough to carry the glut of that has built up behind the mysterious bottle neck of energy. There is only really one set of power lines and they go around the world! Each time you see a set in a field, realize it’s the same ones you saw across town, in another state, near the zoo, or in any number of “Ultra Man” episodes and “Godzilla” movies! They all look alike, they all stretch in the same direction and they are not enough to carry the world’s energy.

There are some positives to this situation. If you are ever lost and you run across a power line field, if you follow them toward the horizon eventually you will find your way home or to a good b-movie monster fight. The illusion is that many of these lines are stretching criss-crossing the country delivering all of our electricity. In reality there is only one set of towers erected by some guy named Mort. He of course has been subcontracted by your electric company to give the impression that they are everywhere. You hardly notice. The only person doing well outside of limo bound fat cats is Mort. Nobody knows why this lowly electrical worker has yachts, Lear jets, and his picture on a box of Wheaties. Now that his secret is out I bet you won’t be able to find his picture on cereal boxes anymore!

Take time to look carefully the next time you come across such a field and you’ll find they always run in the same direction. Clever Mort, but not slick enough to fool the watchful eye. You may have fooled us in the past but with prices going out of site your shrewd tactics have been discovered. How did you ever think you were going to get away with it?

What could possibly happen next? Will power lines cease to carry the glut of electricity those power brokers are sitting upon? Hardly. As long as the power is in the hand of a few guys the power lines will stand as picturesque as a symbol (like a stature of liberty) to the wealthy. Isn’t America a great place to live? It is especially true if you’re a big-wig, a guy named Mort, or Godzilla!

BATHROOMS!

In a free capitalistic country such as America, it is really refreshing to know that freedom abounds in all areas. Take for example lavatories. While men usually have no specific requirement beyond a bush, open road, or a tire that is still upon a car, women need more creature comforts even in this; the most oddest of places. Can you picture your wife squatting in a field with a roll of leaves in her hand? Probably not, but many men can picture it of themselves out of true life experience; and that is just during pledge week at the college fraternity!

Bathrooms are perhaps one of the most intimate places on earth. We spend a lot of time naked in there, and there are usually mirrors. What greater example of vulnerability and hideousness is there than that? If you’re not in one with a moon cut out on the door then you are probably in some sort of modern version of the crapper. With a few stalls and urinals on the wall most men are satisfied. When manufacturers get clever with group canal basins in the middle of the bathroom for whizzing, many guys get uncomfortable. Perhaps it is the fact of whipping yourself out and waving it all over the place that has the modest a bit wary of this bathhouse style fixture. There are still also, great feelings of homophobia among many males in this society. The penile aversion even goes so deep as to inspire the catchy men's room phrase "if you shake it more than three times, you're playing with it".

Women on the other hand will often join hands, hop skip and jump their way from the restaurant dinner table to the restroom together. This for men is a big no no! Aside from the obvious discomfort among patrons when men might hold hands, most he-men are not coordinated enough to hop or skip without tripping over themselves and thus looking like a boob.

Ladies use these bathroom breaks as social interludes with likeminded compatriots to gossip and make fun of their dates. Guys who might be forced to stand in line on mass at a sporting event have a more Neanderthal socialization. It is often accompanied by loud drunken rhetoric, and cattle sounds including the famous moo-cow calls as they wait to relieve themselves. Now you know why Bessie is always loudest when she is standing in the field. She's full and needs to be tapped!

Sparse as male restrooms can be, the contrast is that some women’s rooms actually have furniture. What better place to sit and wait for your friends who are doing their business than in a chase lounge by the sink area? Upscale locations have their own separate sitting room; sort of like a classy family room for the urinally challenged. Who wants to talk to someone through a stall room door when we can converse in the comforts of home and still share a urethral experience?

At swanky hotels and establishments there are often finely dressed gentlemen standing at the wait with fine linen towels, a smile, and a plate that you are suppose to fill with money. For guys, the general consensus is “look dude I’m already in here because of waste so don’t expect me to give away my money as an additional cost to pooping”. That doesn't work. Thank goodness they don't charge dimes anymore to enter bathroom stalls. That was a post World War II idea that must have come from the ranks of Third Reich bathroom designers. More refined once again, the ladies might not mind it if there was a finely dressed man in their bathroom if he was perhaps, Sean Connery, Tom Cruise, or Brad Pitt. Nevertheless giving guys money in a bathroom would seem somewhat tawdry as demonstrated by Richard Gere in the movie American Gigolo.

Technological advances such as the bidet are mind blowing. Somebody dedicated their life to the pursuit of such a device! Do you realize how many hours have been contributed by countless engineers, designers, and craftsman so they could create a piece of equipment to wash your tooshie hands free? A lofty goal perhaps, but can anyone take credit for such an invention with a strait face? “I invented the crack washer and it made me a zillion-air; mostly because women don’t like to touch themselves down there!” How would you like to ride the crest of that wave all the way to the bank?

Of course this is the 21st century and there are those who think we have evolved enough to have unisex bathrooms. This seems to be an invitation to trouble. Not since they started putting infant changing tables in men’s bathrooms has such obvious evidence surfaced that the women are guiding the unisex concept. Where else can she slap the unsavory for not lowering the seat, chastise those without aim, and enhance her love life by meeting that one in a million good-looker? After all Brad Pitt has to whiz just like the rest of us.