When I was 16 years old, I had pretty much hit rock bottom. I was struggling academically, athletically and socially in my Sophomore year of high school (a bad trifecta) I still hadn’t gone past 2nd base with a girl and my parents wouldn’t let me have a Motorola Razor. Things were worse than ever.
However shortly thereafter, out of pity my dad bought me a
1997 Pontiac Grand Am GT…and everything changed.
It was a matter of weeks before I had installed a cold air
intake, mirror tint and two, thousand watt subs. I was awesome. I got a
reckless driving misdemeanor charge for street racing, a bunch of Carmel
Freshman started making out with me and flashing me for rides. It was also
around this time that I discovered vodka and started making rap demo tapes. Life
was good.
Flash forward 10 years, I hadn’t thought about my
existential teenage crisis in years. I was living the dream in Venice, actually
I was planning a Surf and Skate swap meet with a gay motorcycle enthusiast at a
bar on the beach…which is like the most Venice thing ever. A friend of mine was
supposed to pick me up and take me to Beerfest at Paramount Studios and I was
expecting to see his white Audi roll up, but instead he shows up in a brand new
Jeep Wrangler.
Now this friend of mine is an awesome dude and wildly
successful in his career, but he is by no means the alpha male that approaches
a girl in a bar and says “You’re coming home with me tonight.”
But that fucking Wrangler man. It gave him a swagger. Girls
made eyes with us at red lights. Dudes gave us approving nods. We were suddenly
in an elite society of people with an
awesome ride. Just cruising from Venice to a movie studio on a Saturday to
drink. No big deal. I’m pretty sure my buddy went home with a model that night.
Now unfortunately, that was just a courtesy car while my
buddy’s car was in the shop, but it left an impression that a cool car can
change everything.
Now jump to the recent past, a couple weeks ago I was
without a job, I had a broken wrist and I had a shitty car that leaked gas and
had no air conditioning. I was playing constant chicken with a combustible
liquid, and thankfully I was winning thus far, but I was pretty low, there were
times when I actually kind of hoped for a spark.
But one night while Ubering home from a failed date (I
refused to drive in the presence of women) I remembered what a game changer a
new vehicle could be, so I took to
Craigslist and started closely monitoring for a situation I could exploit. And
on Wednesday I found it. A Brazilian professional surfer was getting rid of her
Mini Cooper because it couldn’t fit her boards. I told her I would be in
Manhattan Beach in 20 minutes with a stack of hundreds.
So that’s it. I own a Mini Cooper now. And it’s fucking
tits. I know what you’re thinking, 6’3 210 pound dude in a Mini looks dumb.
It’s a chick’s car. Well to you I say BITCH DON’T KILL MY VIBE.
If some struggling writer who had a great great step-aunt
that was half Cherokee can self identify as American Indian, I reserve the
right to self-identify as a Mini person.
So here’s the thing. When I woke up this morning, my
problems weren’t suddenly gone. I still have questions in my head about failed
relationships, if I did well on my interview this week or what’s going to
happen when the state of California finds out I forgot to pay my seat belt
ticket. (Yes after a Tuesday morning tennis match on my way to have an organic
juice I received a seat belt ticket which, ok after that
pseudo-pretenti-douchiness filled last sentence, I deserved it)
But there is just something about driving a German inspired
British roadster that makes you stop giving a fuck. I mean I hit 90 going
around a hard curve on Sepulveda last night and it was awesome. And now comes a
three day weekend.
I am in a good mood.
It was one such goofy mood that gave me the following idea.
I’m going to start a fake club, make fliers and put them on every Mini Cooper
on the west side. I’m hoping hilarity will ensue? Anyway this is what the flier
says…
Congrats! You have been invited to join the awesome
and totally exclusive Venice Mini Club!
Greetings fellow
European sport coupe enthusiasts! My name is Dave and I am starting a new club
for us West Side Mini owners. I thought we could do super rad stuff like
recreate our favorite scenes from the Italian Job, drive down Lincoln in a
‘flying-V’ formation and talk about how much better life on LA’s west side is!
Membership is open to
any Mini owners that live AWOL (always west of Lincoln) with SOME exception
being made for our friends in East Venice (but not Eastern Marina Del Rey or
Eastern Santa Monica because that’s basically just West LA. Yuck)
Anyway, send me an
email at AwolminiC@gmail.com and answer
the following questions. Let me know if you have any fun ideas for social
mixers or if you are interested in holding a leadership position.
All club meetings will
be held in the downstairs room of Townhouse, Fridays at midnight!
Name:
Mini year/model/color:
Most hated east side neighborhood:
Essay!! How do you feel about the gentrification of
Venice?
Well. This will likely crash and burn, but I think there is
a chance I will get some hate filled responses or hopefully some genuine
interest, at which point I reserve the right to make my parody real, the same
way Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made Machete a movie out of a fake
trailer.
For some reason light hearted pranks are dead…and I’m
bringing it back!
We’ve got a three day weekend coming up. I’ve got several
barbecues, crawfish boils and Blackhawks games to tend to. And if I play my
cards right maybe some girl will flash me for a ride in my new car…and that
ride of course will be back to my place where I’ll finally get past second
base.
Why yes that was a double callback. Don’t worry, that one’s
free. Have a great weekend.
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