COLUMNS
Talk Show 11: with Jon Clinch, Don Lee, Robert Anthony Siegel, Alix Strauss, & Sean Wilsey
/ Jaime Clarke
04.13.08
––What are your outstanding memories of the car?
Clinch: My outstanding memories are of its dissolution. The 1974 Vega was a rustbucket of a very high order, and mine in particular was no match for the highly-salinated roadways of upstate New York. Its front and rear fenders rusted into lacework within a year, and they would have fallen off had my dealer not clued me in about a secret warranty program that replaced them at the last minute.
Lee: As I remember it, it was a fast car, but butt-ugly. I was living in L.A. at the time, and rode that thing to the ground. Took a lot of trips up to San Francisco with it up Highway 1, camped in Big Sur on the way. My last year in California, just before I left for grad school in Boston, I was living in Burbank, but I had a job with a painting/construction company that had most of its business in the South Bay. So I used to leave the house at 6:30 in the morning and drive through rush-hour traffic to Huntington Beach or Manhattan Beach—50 miles, anywhere between an hour and a half and two and a half hours, each way. I'd get home at 7:30, utterly beat. The only way I could stay awake through dinner was to lift weights (I have a photo of myself from that time, and I'm virtually unrecognizable with twenty extra pounds of muscle). But I learned all the shortcuts, when to anticipate a slowdown and get off the freeway to Sepulveda, say, and where I could hop back on. I just tore the shit out of the car. In that one year, I had to replace the clutch three times—I kept burning them out. Toward the end, I had to change the sparks and spray the carburetor constantly just to keep the thing going.
Siegel: My sister was moving to Chicago to go to art school, and we drove her out there in the Caddy. A friend of hers by the name of Jan Chelminski did most of the driving—he would speed along at about a hundred miles per hour, with a single finger wrapped around the steering wheel. With the top down it felt like we were flying at an altitude of about one foot over the payment, a very naked feeling, both frightening and magical. I remember falling asleep in the back seat out of sheer exhaustion—an incredibly deep sleep—and then waking up, unsure for the briefest moment where I was. The wind was beating at my head and the trees were rushing by, and beyond that there was nothing but fields. It was like waking up from a dream into a different dream.
Strauss: I loved being in that car - whether I was driving or being driven. It was like a very tiny studio apartment on wheels. There was something about the freedom, the intimacy and the memories that car created for me. And if I wasn't driving, I was in charge of the music.
Wilsey: I was driving at night with two friends when the road in front of us disappeared. Before I could react we were flying, four wheels off the ground, having hit the top of a rise where the country road we were traveling on crossed an irrigation ditch. We landed perfectly after a solid three one thousand count.
Clinch: My outstanding memories are of its dissolution. The 1974 Vega was a rustbucket of a very high order, and mine in particular was no match for the highly-salinated roadways of upstate New York. Its front and rear fenders rusted into lacework within a year, and they would have fallen off had my dealer not clued me in about a secret warranty program that replaced them at the last minute.
Lee: As I remember it, it was a fast car, but butt-ugly. I was living in L.A. at the time, and rode that thing to the ground. Took a lot of trips up to San Francisco with it up Highway 1, camped in Big Sur on the way. My last year in California, just before I left for grad school in Boston, I was living in Burbank, but I had a job with a painting/construction company that had most of its business in the South Bay. So I used to leave the house at 6:30 in the morning and drive through rush-hour traffic to Huntington Beach or Manhattan Beach—50 miles, anywhere between an hour and a half and two and a half hours, each way. I'd get home at 7:30, utterly beat. The only way I could stay awake through dinner was to lift weights (I have a photo of myself from that time, and I'm virtually unrecognizable with twenty extra pounds of muscle). But I learned all the shortcuts, when to anticipate a slowdown and get off the freeway to Sepulveda, say, and where I could hop back on. I just tore the shit out of the car. In that one year, I had to replace the clutch three times—I kept burning them out. Toward the end, I had to change the sparks and spray the carburetor constantly just to keep the thing going.
Siegel: My sister was moving to Chicago to go to art school, and we drove her out there in the Caddy. A friend of hers by the name of Jan Chelminski did most of the driving—he would speed along at about a hundred miles per hour, with a single finger wrapped around the steering wheel. With the top down it felt like we were flying at an altitude of about one foot over the payment, a very naked feeling, both frightening and magical. I remember falling asleep in the back seat out of sheer exhaustion—an incredibly deep sleep—and then waking up, unsure for the briefest moment where I was. The wind was beating at my head and the trees were rushing by, and beyond that there was nothing but fields. It was like waking up from a dream into a different dream.
Strauss: I loved being in that car - whether I was driving or being driven. It was like a very tiny studio apartment on wheels. There was something about the freedom, the intimacy and the memories that car created for me. And if I wasn't driving, I was in charge of the music.
Wilsey: I was driving at night with two friends when the road in front of us disappeared. Before I could react we were flying, four wheels off the ground, having hit the top of a rise where the country road we were traveling on crossed an irrigation ditch. We landed perfectly after a solid three one thousand count.