The Man With The Silver Wheels

The man with the silver wheels
Sits in his chair with a quiet grunting motor
The wheels sometimes squeak
A general sound to let him know things are moving
The sound of motion
Ambulatory audio
Steel wheels minus DJ
He sits in his chair as it trudges down the broken, cracked, lumpy sidewalk
Cruel concrete uncaring about his disability

How did he get this way? Was he born sitting down?
No, no, no, no, no
Drunken Saturday night in his muscle car
The wheelman and his friends celebrating James Dean
Let’s re-enact the chicken race
The chicken race
Why did the chicken race to cross the road
Camaro flipping like a pinwheel until his tailbone cracked
Ambulatory audio of crushed metal, chrome, glass
Ejaculated gas and oil and burned rubber
Now he’s the man with the silver wheels

One night he trundled down an empty sidewalk
A Dollar-ride scooter stood horizontally before him defying him to pass
Incensed with rage he pushed the poorly propped ride
It crashed down with its little disco lights flickering and beeping sadly
Feeling empowered the following night he went out with everyone gone
And pushed down more Dollar-ride scooters
More tragic beeping sad LED lights flickering
It made him smile for the first time in awhile

It became a nocturnal ritual
The man with the silver wheels
Pushed down Rent-A -Bikes
Unicycles
Scooters
He went on a tear for a week
He got all DWP* (*drunk with power)
Night after night shoving over all kinds of transpo
Shopping carts
Motorcycles

Then a man in a van with two dozen Dollar-ride scooters saw him
Started screaming
The man with the silver wheels ducked out into an alley
Pulled over to a dark corner
Pitch black jet black starless and bible black
Hiding in the red brick wings with slats of lights piercing the dark
Red brick wearing spray paint names
Creeper78
XXX Klan
Hid in the shadows of his crime
The vandal of wheels waited for refreshing silence
He spun around and went home Home to the House of Wheels

When The Devil Rides

Great news, Angelenos. On Christmas Day and New Year’s Day all MTA bus rides are absolutely free, free, free! There’s only one catch:

The bus drivers are drunk as fuck and they don’t care.

Before I raised enough scratch to buy a car I had to take the bus on Christmas Day. After waiting an eternity for the bus to show up, I ascended the steps to be stared down by the driver, who silently mouthed “fuck you” at me. I may not have heard it, but I sure as Sam smelled it: the fumes rushed at me like a Johnny Walker fart cloud punching me in the face. The driver did this to just about everyone who boarded.

And how about the driving? Narrowly side-swiping parked cars, running two red lights and braking on a dime to avoid the third raced light sending us flying out of our seats! The ABM (Angry Black Man) in the back yelled, “Yo! Quit bullshittin’ aroun’ man!”
The bus driver glared in his rear view mirror at this remark. In defiance the ABM lit a Kool cigarette.
The driver turned around and shouted, “There will be no smoking in the coach!” (English translation: “If I can’t smoke, you can’t.”)

All this would be screamingly funny if it was out of a Bukowski novel, America’s most lovably zany alcoholic, but no, when the devil rides and you’re in the “coach”: Run, Motherfucker, Run.

New Year’s Day was almost as bad: our driver was pissed he had to work on New Year’s and dealt with it by snubbing the riders.

“Sir, how many stops until Sherbourne?”
Silence from the driver.
“Uh, sir?”
Dead silence.
“Sir, could you tell me-“
“SHERBOURNE, NEXT STOP, COMING UP!” he finally yelled.

After tiring of the silent treatment he relied on sarcasm.
“Yo, driver. Sunset Boulevard cross Fairfax?”
“Well, Sunset Boulevard crosses a lot of streets. I suppose it crosses Fairfax?”
“SHEE-IT!”

I think you know where I’m going with this. I don’t know of any other service industry that shows more contempt to their customers on the holidays as the Bus Co. To which I offer this: the next time these guys go on strike, pull up to the picket line, put your car in PARK, and rev your engine up, over and over, and then step on it. Let the smoke choke them and the revving noise blast out their protests. They won’t mind, they’ll be dead drunk.

Papa's Got A Brand New Sled

I never was in love with the look of the Toyota Prius, but when I heard about the great things it does I was pretty intrigued. Since my current car was on its last legs and my work offered a discount on hybrid cars it was time to take this bug-shaped apparition seriously.

The nearest car dealership that would honor my work discount (20%) was in El Monte. As I drove up to the car lot I saw seven Toyota Prius cars of varying colors parked below a blow-up Michelin Tire Boy six stories high. I picked the one with a GPS system, bluetooth, six-disc changer, mp3 player, and a leather interior.

Learning how to drive the Toyota Prius is like learning how to drive all over again: the system is so different than anything you've ever experienced before. The transmission is on the dashboard, just like a 1962 Imperial! I liked the fact that my key was a Smartkey. It doesn't warrant plugging into the ignition because the engine picks up the signal from the key hanging from your belt!

The first thing you do after you turn on the power (push button) is put your left foot to release the Emergency Brake and your right foot on the normal brake, just like an old Model T Ford. After you release the Emergency Brake you're ready to drive. Your odometer is an LED screen set all the way in the back of the dashboard.

As I pulled out of the lot I decided to phone Rebecca from the bluetooth, so I pushed the phone button from the steering wheel and called her, talking into the stereo speaker and her responding to me. A soon as the phone call was over the music resumed, but I didn't want to listen to jazz anymore, so I switched to disc 4 (Punk, baby!) by pushing the Next Disc button on my steering wheel, which also has Air Conditioning controls, too. There's no more leaning over to push buttons. Everything's done on the steering wheel now!

Since the 2007 Toyota Prius is a hatchback I can fold the back seats into extra cargo space so if I go on a big trip to Palm Springs I can load it up with tons of luggage, my portable DVD player, my laptop, guitars, amplifiers, videocams, beer chest and stuff.

I was going to post a pic of my real Prius but since my enemies have attacked my last car so much I'm keeping this baby under wraps for awhile. You're just going to have to take my word for it: the Toyota Prius is the future, and all other cars are as outdated as Herman's Hermits.