Thursday, February 19, 2009

drive

I'm still kind of hung up on high school driving memories. I was participating in my favorite "Vee's got the kid, I'm out of the house" freedom activity, which is driving the 'Rage around while having a guilt-free indulgence blastout of one of my high school CDs, on my way home from having my hair cut.

What CD? You really want to know?

EVE6!

Hilarious. Kind of. But still kind of amazing. Sorry, but I got to give the dudes props for the inventive use of homographs in just about every song. It gets gratuitous (see: "Showerhead") but I still love it. And I will always love the line about finding a dime under the corner cushion wishing it was someplace else and SO! DO I! SO DO I!

I wonder, though, who else out there experienced that dream-filled driving in high school. You know, where you went fast because you could go fast, and you cranked up your stereo because you could crank up your stereo, because YOU were driving, you were in control, you were in a world where everything, from the sound to the movement to the temperature, happened the way YOU wanted it to. Was I the only one who drove with a purpose, an aimless purpose, finding obscure roads, trying to own time when everything felt like it was moving too fast, happening too fast, leaving me too fast?

I'm still helplessly drawn towards songs about driving, about being on the road. Am I still trying to control my life (or ESCAPE MY LIFE?) through driving? Probably. IT'S A TIME HONORED TRADITION!

See you out there on the back roads! WATCH OUT FOR A 'RAGE BLARING "Small Town Trap!"

3 comments:

E. Langley said...

i wish you wouldn't reminisce about driving. its depressing to think that i don't know the next time I will own a car to drive either aimlessly or purposefully. When I come home for break in august, im gonna commandeer mom or dad's car and drive the shit out of them.
Been thinking about getting meself a little moped to scoot around Nakseongdae in on, but given the mortality rate for delivery-bike boys around here, maybe i should stick to the subways and buses and taxis.
BTW, you get to ride around in your car, but I take taxis once or twice a week and its glorious to spread out on those leather seats and lean your head back rather than scrunch and press against soju-stinking grandpas and get elbowed and jostled by a horde of purple-haired ajumma on the subway.

Unknown said...

soju-stinking grandpas! purple-haired ajumma!

i always hated driving until I lived in Brokemos and took the bus all the time. Brokemos was the worst place to drive because we lived there during a time of high gas prices, there was nowhere to go, we had no money, there was nowhere to park on campus, potholes, and the cops were always out in full force waiting to bust people for failure to signal, etc. so i always took the bus.

however, sometimes i would just miss driving so much, i would take the car out on a friday night and brave to cops and potholes, cruise grand river avenue and listen to the radio. i felt like a REAL MAN! not a bus boy.

DRIVING IS POWER!

Shawn said...

"Driving is Power"

So very, very true. I do feel like a foreign species in Los Angeles, a jumble of habitrails for cars to scurry in.

I had a similar experience to Kristine in high school -- I went from home to school to work and sometimes to the houses of my friends' parents and then back home, so the only place that was MINE was my car, so getting in between those places in my car was when I felt the most free ... I felt like I was driving around my very own living room, with my own friends, my own music, etc. It's where I had the most honest conversations and I would actually spend hours parked in a friends driveway -- in my shitty car! -- just because it was a space that was ours -- we didn't even have to be moving!

You should create a driving soundtrack about the joyful independence that automobile driving can bring you. I recommend "Roadrunner" by Jonathan Richman for the first track ... then there is Maybelline by Chuck Berry, "Racing in the Streets" by Bruce Springsteen, "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash ... the list goes on! Driving cars and music: it's as American as apple pie!