Whose Shake Is This!!?

It’s Talladega, Baby!!!

It’s the race we’ve been waiting for!! The Aarons 499 from Talladega Superspeedway tees off tomorrow at Noon. Qualifying and all Satruday activities at Talladega have just been canceled as I write this up. The field is set by owner points and Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth start on the front row. But it really doesn’t matter much at ‘Dega who wins the pole. It more a matter of who survives the inevitable mayhem at the end. The spoiler seems to improve the racing at Texas, but ‘Dega will be it’s first real test. Can it keeps the cars out front taking off like goddamn fight-bombers? Can it break up the drafting parades a bit and allow for more passing?

Practice speeds at ‘Dega are not always a strong indicator either of success, since some of the back markers practice in qualifying trim in the hope of garnering some the start and park money. Mike Bliss, for example, notched 197.268 mph in the 2nd practice…the 3rd highest speed. Junior and Jeff Burton and Bad Brad Kesolowski had great practice runs. Burton topped the charts in the 2nd practice at a sizzling 199.467 mph and I’m still (sorta) hanging on to the Jeff Burton Bandwagon by the skin of my teeth. But truth be told, I’d rather see Junior win this one instead of Burton. And, as always, Kenseth for the win over anyone else.

But enough of these feeble words.

It’s Talladega, Baby!!

It’s Talladega, Baby!! And it my first semi-annual fan-service extravaganza. Jimmie Johnson comes into to Talladega with a 108 point lead on Matt Kenseth, but I’m not going to let that rain on our parade here. It’s Talladega, Baby!! And that means, TITS!!

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Why I have not shot myself in the head because Jimmie Johnson won his 2nd focking race in a row at Las Vegas last Sunday, is an utter and total mystery to me at moment, especially in light of the fact that none other than Jeff Gordon (yes THAT homo Jeff Gordon) pretty much said that Jimmie Johnson’s utter dominance of NASCAR is boring as focking hell. Not in those exact words mind you, but you can pretty much read between the lines. When even Jeff Gordon thinks his protege is boring as piss, what I’ve been saying about Jimmie Johnson all along has strayed from merely being my humble opinion to plain focking truth.

Evil mechanations of Chad Knaus.? Check! At Vegas, on the final pit stops, Knaus called for a 4 tire stop. Gordon’s crew chief Steve Latarte called for 2 tires to maintain track position.

Damned ability of Jimmie Johnson? Check! Johnson was able to cruise through the field and with 4 fresh tires, blasted by Gordon for the boring and tedious win.

It’s hard to hate Jimmie Johnson. It really is. He’s good guy. He’s honest, hard-working, straightforward, and exceedingly pleasant. He’s handsome, but not a pretty boy. He came up the ranks the hard way…paid his dues on 50 cc motorcycles, off-road racing, the local tracks, and ASA.  He’s the best focking driver in NASCAR. But….but…he bores the crap out of me. And not just me….even his fans are not as crazily enthused with him, as, for example, Junior’s fans are (obviously). Hell…Jeff Gordon’s fans are more passionate. Even Matt Kenseth sparks up more enthusiasm among his fan base.

So why have I not shot myself in the head yet?  Or hammered a wooden stake through my heart? As Jeff Gordon says, “I just think it depends on the rivalries and the stories…What we need is Kyle Busch and [Tony] Stewart to be butting heads, banging one another and talking trash. That would be good television.”

Wait. What?? Did I just actually quote Jeff Gordon?? Bring me that wooden stake and a ball-peen hammer….

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“According to THIS book, someday you will publish a photo of us on the Internet.”

Sometimes I just get caught up in my own format. It becomes a trap from which I can barely escape. Hopefully, by recognizing that and bringing it to light, I can indeed effect an escape. Format. Perhaps I should explain, and as always, I will try not to allow the facts to get in the way of the truth.

I’ve been using a format for my blog that primarily involves a synergy and/or a resonance with current anime shows that I have been watching. As y’all should have guessed by now, I stay on top of all the new shows. And I use screencaps from those shows for various expositional or comedic effects, or both. Also, I will sometimes dredge up an older show and go off on that. Format. Yes. Now the concept of format actually comes from my old SF Fanzine publishing days back in the late 70′s and into the 80′s when I lived in Minneapolis and published a Hogu Award nominated fanzine INTERGALACTIC STARBARN and also published zines for the two local APAs (Amatuer Press Associations, for those among you who are mundane — hee!), MINNEAPA  ((used various titles there, also published quite few zines ananomously there under the nom de plume of Mark Heifer)), and one for STIPPLE-APA, titled ZINE. I also published a zine, entitled MY ZINE TITLE for the Chicago fandom’s local APA, WINDYAPA….although my first zine published there was entitled The Johnny Callison Show which was written live from the Convention Suite of Minicon 17 on Saturday evening April 18, 1981, and then published in WINDYAPA #6.

Format. Typeface, Masthead, Colophon, Comments and the layout thereof. I would use a format for each of my apa-zines and try and stick to it consistently. It was a small little obsession that was, to varying degrees, shared with my fellow fans. It would prompt such comments, like my comment to Robin Beal in WINDYAPA 11 ((which btw features my cover drawing of myself and fellow Minneapolis fan, Mike Wood (the late Mike Wood, beloved by all in Minn-Stf and longtime editor of MINNEAPA) arriving in Chicago…Mike flying in in the guise of a wood-duck, and me sky-skiing over downtown Chicago being towed being a Northwest (Bozo)Orieinted Airlines DC-10)): “Well by golly, this format is a real wicked drug. [Hi Gretchen.] I like yours. real easy to read.”

Now am I clear about FORMAT!!??

Okay…onward!!

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The countdown clocks are ticking, ticking, inexorably ticking. Countdown to Daytona 500. Countdown to Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona. Countdown to F1 Practice in Bahrain. Countdown to the F2 Race at Silverstone. Time is running out and there is no hope left of stopping it. No hope of turning it back to the beauty and wonder that once filled its days and hours to the brim. No time to catch a breath of innocence and wonder, no time to hold it’s contemplative silence gently in one’s hands or heart. The clocks are ticking and they will not stop. There is no hope left.

A year ago, the ticking of the clocks was music to my ears. This time of the year was a-swirl with excitement and anticipation. Each tick of the countdown clock was bringing me closer to the excitement and exhilaration of a new season of racing. I couldn’t wait for the clocks to tick down to the respective zeroes and bask in the hallucenogenic roar of the engines as my favourite drivers and teams raced off into the on-rushing year with hope and determination with an almost  psychedelic furor not to end until the final checkered flag is dropped at Homestead or Bahrain.

Now, in this terrible year of 2010, I’d like to stop all the clocks and chronometers. Not forever mind you. But for the moment. I’m not looking forward to anything or any of this and I’d like to stop the ticking ticking ticking for long enough to salvage some hope from what seems to be a hopeless world.

“And under the oppression of the silent fog

The tolling bell

Measures time not our time, rung by the unhurried

Ground swell, a time

Older than the time of chronometers, older

Than time counted by anxious worried women

Lying awake, calculating the future,

Trying to unweave, unwind, unravel

And piece together the past and the future,

Between midnight and dawn, when the past is all deception,

The future futureless, before the morning watch

When time stops and time is never ending;”

from “The Dry Salvages” by T.S. Eliot

Now don’t get me wrong. I want to feel this excitement again. I want to be looking forward to the new season of racing. But somehow, somewhy, I’m not. And I don’t know if it’s the racing and what it’s become, or me and what I’ve become, or both. But right now I want it all to stop so I can unweave, unwind, and unravel the mess that this has become.

Well, it’s hopeless I guess.  The clocks are ticking. Daytona 500 is 21 days and change as I write this. Rolex 24 hours is 6 days and  change. Bahrain is 46 days and change. Sao Paulo tees off on March 14th but IRL thankfully has no countdown clock. So you might as well join me. I have no choice in the matter. The clocks are ticking. So come along for the ride.

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As I begin to write this, there are 35 days and change to the start of the Daytona 500.  Normally, I would be excited right now, anxious with the anticipation of a new season. I’d be a fountainhead of analysis regarding all the Silly Season changes and moves, directing poignant commentary like it were some NASCAR symphony orchestra. And I’d especially be all over the on-going Danica Patrick Saves NASCAR story, along with the on-going Jeremy Mayfield saga like a cheap polyester suit on an hot humid day.

But I’m missing the spark, I not feeling much of anything right now. Now admittedly, this has more to do with me and the great and terrible world we live in, than it has to do with NASCAR. But it disturbs me greatly when something I am passionate about, flickers like a little flame and then goes out. Imagine if you will when on Sunday, February 14th 2010, the Grand Marshall of the Daytona 500 steps up to the mike and utters those famous words, “Gentlemen, START YOU ENGINES!!!”  Imagine instead of the nuclear roar of the engines, imagine instead a dead and utter silence, and silence so bitter, so penetrating, so piercing and numbing, that bit by bit and person by person, the world around you begins to deconstruct and you are left alone at the starting line, in ghostly echoes of the empty speedway, under a bright and terrible sky.

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