Maybe Just What I Needed...

I can't believe how embarrassingly smitten I've gotten with Rat Rods...that's right, Rat Rods, and yep, me. They're incredible, and exactly the kind of scene and vibe I've been trampin' around in search of for about a hundred and a half years. They're an upturned nose at classic car culture, a nod to our past, and a brilliant no-rules mash up of creativity and fun. I want one.

So here's the almost impossible deal...I wanna find something worth working on, learn as much as I can with as much help as I can, have a whole lot of fun, put some sweat and scraped knuckles into whatever it is we find, and hit the road with it by next summer. Sounds ridiculous doesn't it? Kinda, but that's part of the fun.

Sure it'll cost money, and yeah, I hardly know the first thing about the working end of a grinder, let alone the difference between a chassis and a leaf spring, but the end result is so amazing that I'll walk through all of my ignorance barefoot wearing a sign that reads idiot to manage the feat. Yeah, I'll very likely have to spend ten months listening to other people tell me what to do (not my strongest skill set), and naturally, I'm going to have to fight off the haters and naysayers. There's no question that I'll be needing a lot of help with this.

I'll need to find a place to work. I'll need to invest in a lot of gear...either that or I'll have to steal or borrow it...and I'll very likely need to amp up my patience. I've never made a single thing in my life, but I grew up with stories of my Dad, my Uncles Larry, and Marvin and Murray, building and ruining cars. I watched my father do custom work when I was a kid and I remember weekends filled with pinstriping and slicks so thick they looked more like lawn rollers than tires. I remember the story of my Uncle Murray and his buddies finishing up school, loading up in the car and heading out for Pomona in California for the drag races. They watched the freeway turn from one to two and then three and four lanes wide, shot through a few LA clover leafs, and said screw it and never made the track. In a time where no one under 40 is making a goddamned thing (or learning how to), I want to.

Like I said, I've never made a thing in my life, except maybe empty promises. I'd like to put an end to all that with one bad mother of a creation...something that I can step back from, look at with wonder, and erase nearly forty years of helpless consumerism with ten months of using my own two hands to put something into the world that didn't exist before I helped it to.

Sounds crazy, but maybe we all need a little bit of crazy every now and again.