Cars are filthy, disgusting and dangerous

I was hanging out at Melendy's awhile back. It's a bar in Santa Rosa where the Oakland Raiders used to frequent. I'm a 49er's fan. But I'd rather drink with the Raiders. I'd hate to embarrass myself before the 49ers. It's not possible with the Raiders.

Joe Melendy, the owner of the bar, and I were engaged in a conversation. He asked me what I did for a living. He knew me, but only as a drinker. At the time I was a newspaper reporter, and I confessed as much to him.

"Oh," he said wiping off the bar with a towel. Then he stopped and looked me straight in the eyes.

"I was watching Mike Wallace interview President Reagan last night and I got to ask... do you ever feel like a whore? Because I know your editors pay you to ask the questions you do. So... do you ever feel like a whore?"

It was one of those defining moments. You either sink or you swim, and if I wanted to keep drinking there with any modicum of respect, I had to swim. Think, fuckhead, think. Ah, finally.

"No," I said. "Do you ever feel like a drug dealer?"

That was the second free drink I ever got from Melendy. The first one was for knowing who the backup quarterback for Elway on the Broncos was in 1987 (Kubiak).

Melendy's is no longer in business. Moral: Don't give me more than one free drink.

Of course, I AM a whore and he is a drug pusher, but it doesn't matter. You may be a garbage collector. Bet you're called a sanitation technician. It don't matter.

The biggest whore job I ever had was writing about cars for a newspaper's advertising section. I was good at it. I wrote about "urban tanks" and "rag tops" and "woodys" like I actually owned one (I think I did have a woody... once.)

My favorite car is a Yellow Cab.

A friend of mine, Bruce R., a journalist at a competing website, bought a new car about six years ago. He told me it was his first new-car purchase ever. I read him the riot act.

"You're supporting the oil companies and the assholes in Detroit," I said. "You're just encouraging them."

I regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. He looked crestfallen. Here was a guy who spent all his extra money on pot and Greenpeace, and I was ragging on him for his first real venture into the real world. He just wanted the smell of new vinyl. So what's the harm? Sorry Bruce.

Lately, I've found myself in a band with a bunch of car guys. They talk about their V8s (I could have had one), their cams, their fuel injections, their payments... it's a country band.

So this goes out to the Fence Cutters. With the zeal of a Rotarian at a tree planting ceremony I will muster the most positive article I can write about the good old automobile.

I know. Some will say that cars haven't done us any good. Phallic symbols that maim and kill. They'll look up Highway Patrol statistics, cite drunken driving arrests (25 percent of all deaths on the highway are caused by drunken drivers... the rest are caused by fucking cars.. double meaning intended) and note the death and destruction caused by the internal combustion engine

Then some dweeb will chime in about the pollution of the environment, the congestion on Highway 101 (and Interstate 31), the propagation of the military/industrial complex and the sartorial plight on the landscape caused by the wardrobes of used car salesmen.

But what about all the good that has come from the invention of the automobile? Why if it weren't for cars:

• Ralph Nader would never have become a presidential candidate.
• The Cars would have been just another Boston rock band. (Like Boston.)
• Lee Iacocca would have been yet another Italian with a Princeton degree.
• Jack Kerouac's On The Road would have been at least four times as long.
• Car salesmen would be loosed on the world, likely as crack dealers.
• A Blazer would only be found in gay bars.
• Route 66 would have been a stupid TV show, now wouldn't it?
• We would have all been virgins a few years longer.
• Bumper stickers would keep sliding off horses' asses.
• Fill 'er up would be a sexist remark.
• Porsche would be that character from Shakespeare. (Or is it that Greek guy?)
• The Japanese would be way, way behind us
• The Germans would have to find some other way to express their anal retentive tendencies.
• And "American Pie" wouldn't have had a chorus.

Most of all, I wouldn't have made the big money writing about cars.

I know whereof I speak. The last big job I had in journalism (other than this column) was writing about cars for the Marin Independent Journal. I wrote unctuous puff pieces praising the industry. I was an advertising writer. It was good for me.

Until one day when I interviewed a Mr. Kite for an article I was writing for the benefit of his dealership.

"This is a great thing which you are doing," Mr. Kite told me.

Yeah, I thought. Writing about cars is up there with teaching the illiterate, saving the baby harp seal, and protecting the North Coast from offshore drilling. I quit the next day. The day after that I ragged on Bruce.

The best authority I know about the automobile industry -- Joe T., night gas station attendant at the Beacon on Main Street in Sebastopol, Ca. -- tells me not to worry. The auto industry is a passing fad, he says. Timmons know his stuff. He's been servicing stations since the age of 15.

"In probably 50 years it will all be over and we'll go back to horses," Timmons says.

Too bad. We're a better nation and a better people as a whole thanks to the car. Then again, probably not, but I'm a cowardly lion when it comes to being published. I might need to make money again from auto articles and I don't want to alienate the advertisers.

I do believe in cars, I do believe in cars, I do, I do, I do.

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STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can read anything else into it, you're on your own. Copyright 1997 by Mike Jasper.