Live Or Let Live?

The forum situation is deteriorating faster than it is coming together. There is a seemingly constant sense of angst  about it, a sense of being ambushed by the new and contemporary. Some people would call it “paranoid,” but they would be the dumb ones. The smart folk understand that there is no such thing as paranoia – it’s just a mask for ignorance. And we are all just ignorant traditionalist stuck in a period of paranoia. That’s what they want us to think anyhow…

But I am no johnny-come-lately. I am one suave gringo and I have a plan for it all. It’s an assignment that is fraught with risk, personal danger, and even treachery. The best kind. Greed and weakness are as present as they have ever been. But screw it man… I’ll deal with that threat later. The time has come to talk about fun, about victory and victimization – about who has a sense of humor and who doesn’t. It’s time to talk about survivors.

There’s been a rash of them lately on the board of infidelity, but two of them have caught my eye – both east coast styled roadsters. The first is this sleek little number. It was found somewhere in the Chicago area and I have no doubt that it was built by some young lad with no concept of paranoia. It’s balanced, well proportioned and looks as if it’s builder spent some time away from the industrialization of the east coast while deeply entrenched in the fine fabrication principles of the aircraft industry. But there’s no way to be sure.

The other isn’t sleek. It’s frumpy and ridiculous – the line of which can be followed no better than a trail in a Columbian rain forest. And the owner is none to happy about it. He wants something sleek and proportioned like the other car. There is no interest here in following the drug trails of Columbia. No sir. That just won’t do. And he’s got supporters on his side too. One of which was banned for asking about equal rights after another member received virtual fellatio.  Yes, it’s gotten THAT weird.

But the principle of this argument is a complicated one. Is a survivor untouchable? There are two trains of thought among the masses and I’ll attempt to record them here.

First, there are the passionate ignorant ones – the folks with a sense of humor and a grounded impression of history. They believe these survivors are virgins of antiquity and should be kept in their state at all costs no matter the quirkiness they come with. In fact, sometimes I wonder if the more far fetched the car’s appearance is, the better. Damn the the trend setters by setting a new trend, right? Let’s be clowns with a sense of preservation! And you can laugh at them if you want to, but they have a point. The second car mentioned above is a perfect example of how a typical east coast car was done. It’s like a history book with a weak spine and tethered edges – pages full of shit that you never knew. And as soon as you start removing pages from the book, we start loosing just a little bit of yesterday.

Secondly, there are those that call it as they see it… Or maybe they just call it as it is. “What good is a history book,” they say, “if you don’t agree with it’s contents?” They see the ugly duckling for what it is and not what it was. And they are eager to make it their own more contemporary version of what it could have been. Sometimes I wonder about these folks too… I wonder if they might get a bigger kick out of the paranoid reactions of those that don’t agree with them once they convert a survivor to a modern traditional hot rod. But they don’t have as strong a sense of humor as those they mock. And I’m not sure they even understand the approach or purpose of those silly damned clowns.

The irony of it all is that there is no right answer here. There’s just two different countries separated by a river… and in that roaring body of water lies the cars that we argue back and forth about. I don’t blame any one person for choosing one country over the other as that is just who they are. It’s no more controllable than mindless sperm meandering through the tube of life’s creation.

But as the drunken curator of this here museum of adultery, I am expected to chose a side. And I will. I choose to be down in the river with the cars. It’s a nice place to be with great books and comedy all around. The only fear being that at any point these banks of dirt might some day collapse around me causing me to drown with my friends. Call it paranoia if you must. I don’t mind.

…………