Forging an Art

FTW, again!  We were so excited about the HSM parody, that we weren’t expecting the princess sketch at the beginning of Sunday’s SWAC.  Fine family fun and then some – I love how Zora, who looks like she’s grown a foot since last season, was part of the sketch, and not as the little girl she used to be.  As long as they aren’t trying to keep her in that role, it’s all good, and actually, it’s better than last season.  She’s a great addition to the rest of the teens, and she fit in perfectly with the other girls as a non-Disney, Jersey princess.  Can’t wait ’til next time, as always.

Curious about social engineering?  Stop by Summakor to see what it can do for you.

The last two episodes – particularly the last one – essentially made up for the overhelming Two-ness of the middle two.  Although there were more than enough Twos to go around in these two, and the numbers are, yes, beyond overwhelming, especially for those of us who are not mathematically inclined, and when the doubles started in (the real Six telling the vengeful Six “if we are one, we can defeat Two”) I gave up trying to figure it out.  Arithmophobia aside, we were wondering about that cherry cake fixation – never mind the wraps, which were not mentioned until the end – and the missing pigs.  I liked those pigs. 

The bicycle hanging from the ceiling in the bar was a nice touch for those of us who adore the original series, and also felt like a warning, a removal of any sense of grounding, for all the violence that was to come.  The doubling was nice bit of confusion and a return to the original I hoped to see; as was the end, which returned to the beginning in a different manner than the original but worked very well all the same.   I did want and need more Rover, though, as I have a great affection for the balloonish beast.

Disorganized thoughts on the final third of the tale: “I used to smoke in order to think” (Two) – well, then, that explains my functional intelligence shutdown over the past nineteen years; Two using white paint to ‘autograph’ the new arrival’s overalls – as my son said, just like celebrities signing women’s chests – although he didn’t put it quite that way; the revelation of The Village as a figment of Two’s wife’s dream state/imagination, and the necessity of a replacement when she buys the farm – the more I consider this, the more I like it, and while it was rather disturbing to see 1112 suffocate his mother, and even more so to see him swinging dead in the bar (I expected nightmares from it and did in fact have them, althought they involved a clown, tightrope, and a lake I know but cannot place) it really did all have to happen for Two and his wife to escape, albeit without the son born within The Village.  Does this mean he never really existed?  Was only an imagined being, a thought, a hope? 

As the shopkeeper tells Two, ”that’s a bit philosophical for a Thursday.”

I’ve really had enough of Two and his strange adolescent boy.  If I have this straight, the child is not straight, and was having an affair with undercover 909, and stabbed 909 in the back.  There’s a cutting trend going on here, between the slit throat and back stabbing, and people focusing on knives – big ones, too, like the one the taxi driver used to cut the hole in his backyard open again after his daughter fell into it.  As Number Two says in the original series, “the butcher with the sharpest knife . . . has the warmest heart.”  It’s already hard to get the hang of the same Number Two all the time, considering that part of the mystery/disturbance of the original was the continuous changing of Two.  And who is Number One?  When Six asks this in the new series, a child answers that there is no Number One, that the title of Number Two is an act of humility because no one can be Number One.  I know I’m just comparing it too much to the original by complaining that this doesn’t work for me, and the original does have a Number One but there are conflicting theories as to what Number One represents.  I’ll leave it at that, because to take that any further would be telling.

The Modern Love Bureau is an entertaining bit, and the matchmaker truly feels she is “making a difference.”  Isn’t that what it’s all about?  More wraps, I think, may be what it’s really all about, because if you’ve been in a drug induced coma – induced by your husband, no less – and wake up for a brief amount of time, you would be so happy to have a fresh sandwich wrap waiting for you.  That wrap did look tasty, so I suppose I can’t judge the value placed on the it.  The flashbacks work very well, even in comparison to the original, considering the end of the original, which again, may be telling to, well, tell.

I like the tunnels, and strangely enough, the free pigs.  I’m not sure how or why the pigs represent stability – a scientific study, obviously – but the oinking presence of these grayish pink beasts is a nice touch.  And Rover?  My son had some theories about Rover, once of which involved him appearing from the sinkhole, so we’ll have to see where this takes us for the last two episodes.  My Rover comes from the ocean, but anything goes with this new series.

Lego Village!  How cool is this . . .

is fantastic.  I realize I might and probably will have nasty comments on this one, but that’s fine.  I’m used to being hassled (and attacked) for my political and religious views.  Such is life.  My dad and I went to see him on Saturday night, courtesy of my brother, and had a great time.  Apparently he is reading Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, as mentioned in Joe Kerry’s “Unelectable” Blog.  He might not believe in global warming and is proud to display his NRA t-shirt (oh, yeah) but he has succumbed to the popularity of this teen vampire novel.  I feel like I have to read it now.  Damn.  Like I don’t have a full plate – well, I guess if I can make the time (three hours, maybe?) to knock off the latest A-List series installment, California Dreaming,  I can invest a little in Bella.  Oh, but A-List is soooo fun and mindless.  There’s no excuse for reading it, except that.

Mansfield belongs to the Earnhardts.

The predominant theme of t-shirts, caps, and miscellaneous accessories at the Ohio 250 on May 24 was Junior and his daddy. There was a flicker of orange and the 20, along with a few Kasey Kahne admirers, but most of the red was the 8, and all of the green was the 88. The black was shared between the 3 and Harley-Davidson, heavy on the 3. The first shirt we noticed, however, had nothing to do with NASCAR. A large fiftyish gentleman proudly displayed “If you find a girl willing to wash your truck, keep her,” with the image of a painfully well-endowed blonde with a garden hose in her hand and a smile on her face. My dad shook his head and grinned when I pointed it out. He shakes his head a lot, and that day was no exception.

My parents and I made the short drive from Akron to Mansfield, expecting an hour and half but discovering on our arrival that it had taken only an hour. My mother and I are well-travelled on the route, as it leads directly to the Mansfield Reformatory and its younger equivalent, Richland Correctional. In my mother’s family, “going to college” is a euphemism for “going to prison,” and since someone is always acquiring a “higher education” for one reason or another, we have made several trips to visit “students” of the State of Ohio. Saturday, however, we drove right past the old girl and on to Mansfield Motorsports Park.

We were first approached by teenaged girls selling programs for five dollars each. I noticed a pleasant looking man who was the mirror image of Jeff Burton, so much that I looked again, more closely. My parents decided to have Italian sausage sandwiches before the race, which gave me some time to check out the crowd of black, red, and green, and the recurring figure of Jeff Burton’s twin. Some unfortunate-looking men walked around, beer and cigarettes in hands, with ill-advised shirts: Drink Til You Want Me; Black Mountain Brewery: Helping Ugly People Have Sex Since 1989; and Almost As Good As Chocolate. Surprisingly, they were all accompanied by women. My mother had the misfortune of discovering the last one, a bright red shirt on a well-rounded fiftyish man. She looked at the back as he walked away, expecting to see an advertisement for candy, and started to shake violently when she realized what he meant by wearing it. Laughing behind my hand, I nudged my dad, who at 62 is in better physical shape than almost any man I know of any age.

My mom was surprised by the size of the trucks. “They’re so little,” she mused, and my dad began to explain the road equivalent. “But I thought they were, you know, monster trucks.” My mom comes up with some interesting notions now and then, but the look my dad and I exchanged verified that this was the top of the line for her. “Go ahead and laugh at me,” she growled, smiling, so we did.

We noticed a lot of Con-Way Freight t-shirts and caps making their way up and down the steps beside us before we realized that we were sitting in the Colin Braun fan section. Turn two was packed with Braun supporters of all ages, although I do not believe that the man with the “F.B.I.: Federal Bureau of Intoxication” shirt was one of them.

I watched the Jeff Burton double walk around the track alone. This seemed a little strange, but then again, there is a wax museum not far from Mansfield called Biblewalk (the name speaks for itself), so strange is a relative term in Ohio.

We spent the next few hours trying to keep up with some rather aggressive driving. Ron Hornaday pushed like a fiend through the field from the start, daring anyone not to notice him, but took a hit on lap 47 as he battled Mike Skinner for the lead. A few drivers kicked up some dust when they hit the wall in front of us, and Scott Lagasse took a beating so quickly that I couldn’t get my camera in front of my eyes fast enough to get pictures before it was over. There is not a lot of room in those turns, not enough for three trucks without taking a chance, so it must have been a gambling day. My dad held up three fingers a good part of the race, indicating three wide, mostly in turns three and four on the opposite end of the track. These drivers were as pushy as Cup regulars, so looking away for a moment to wipe the dust from our eyes could bring us back to a lead change or a wreck that was unpredictable seconds earlier.

At the very end – quite literally – a young rookie upset the field by taking the checkered flag. In a move that Rick Crawford would later call “ridiculous,” this boy tapped David Starr in turn two and moved up on his back bumper in turn three, turning Starr sideways and beating him to the finish by less than a quarter of a second. The crowd, on its feet amidst applause, collectively turned to each other and asked, “Who is Donny Lia?”

I stepped down to the fence to catch some photographs of the trucks and drivers as they remained parked on the track. A small crowd formed beside me where Rick Crawford was signing programs and hats. As I stepped up behind the group, a woman yelled out, “So, when you’re driving in your truck, do you get rattled around a lot?” Clearly, Crawford has more patience and tact than I have. He ignored her, while I wanted to ask her if she had always been stupid, or if it was something new. He was serious as he talked to his fans, carefully signing each item and responding to legitimate comments and questions. His boyish smile belied his years, and as the last in line, I was lucky I caught him before he called out, “drive home safely” to those of us who still lurked behind the fence.

Donny Lia
NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series