All The Young Douches
So proud to be so dumb
Back in 1989, with a loan co-signed by my mother, I bought a 1987 Jeep Wrangler. I’d been driving since I got a learner’s permit at 16 but every car I owned until then was a sub-$1,000 beater found in the Pennysaver Classifieds. Some of those Mopars–they were all Chryslers or Plymouths (strangely, no Dodge) because my brother Mario (RIP) didn’t object to working on Mopars–are now considered classics and I wish to hell I’d hung on to at least one (the ‘71 Satellite or ‘72 Sport Fury). But when the 440 in my 1968 Chrysler New Yorker threw a rod on Route 80 Westbound, occasioning a hideously expensive engine replacement, and that 1970 Chevy Nova (by now I was living in NJ and my brother was out of the picture) shit the bed and the 1979 Jeep Wagoneer Doris Nicastro bequeathed me became a nightmare of maintenance, I decided I needed a new car. A newish car. A fucking Jeep Wrangler. I knew nothing about the 1986/1987 transition of AMC (American Motors Company) from independent manufacturer to marque owned by Chrysler. Nor the impact the sale of AMC would have on what came after the curvilinear round-headlight Jeep CJ (Civilian Jeep): the angular, square-headlight Jeep YJ (You Jerk?), AKA Wrangler. All I knew was that I wanted a convertible with 4-wheel drive and the Wrangler was about the only game in town. There was a low-mileage one for sale in Northwestern New Jersey, Sussex County. A loan was arranged and soon it was all mine. Red with a bare bones black interior, the only creature comforts were air-conditioning and the upgraded Pioneer stereo I installed (the stock radio was a crappy AM/FM only unit). The Jeep had a kidney-punishing ride due to its antiquated leaf-sprung ladder frame and large Goodyears with aggressive tread, but it WAS a convertible and DID have 4-wheel drive, almost never engaged except in winter. Lowering the top was a gigantic 10 minute pain in the dick, requiring much unlatching, unsnapping and the removal and stowing of several parts. Putting the top back up took even longer. The Wrangler’s heater couldn’t outpace the flimsy soft-top in winter, so eventually a used hard-top was procured. THAT fucking thing provided even bigger ball pain. Installing and uninstalling it required two people and an hour or more. When I lived in Tenafly in a rented room in a big Craftsman house with attached two-car garage it was easy enough to stash the hard-top. In 1992 the Tenafly place sold and I moved into an apartment in a house on Undercliff Avenue in Edgewater. The only spot for the hard-top was in my designated parking space where a front yard should be (I parked on the street). Stupid me, I left the top sitting there unsecured and uncovered and came home one day to find it unavailable. It’d grown legs and walked. Rather than take it as a sign, I went out and found another hard-top, which was locked up with an elaborate network of long heavy chains locked to a nearby fence. The Wrangler itself was stolen one night in Elizabeth, NJ, after I crashed on a friend’s couch post-Oscars watching party. I had the peculiar thrill of chasing my own car through the 1:00 AM Elizabeth streets in a two-door 1964 Rambler Ambassador I half owned. I’d spotted the cute little lemon-lime Rambler (green top, yellow body) for sale in a Tenafly gas station and convinced my Elizabeth friends to split the purchase price: $800 (why I thought we needed yet one more car between us or how this “sharing” was supposed to work is lost to time). Under the hood, the Rambler had a 327 V-8 that could easily outpace the Wrangler’s straight 6 but its drum brakes were no match for the discs in the Jeep. Though I stuck like glue to the three miscreants fleeing in my car I nearly crashed several times as they pulled crazy evasive moves, like hurtling down one way streets the wrong way. Before I’d even put on my boots, grabbed the Rambler keys and flew out their door, I shouted to my friends “CALL THE POLICE!” and after 15 minutes of chasing my Wrangler, two or three Elizabeth Police squad cars all at once appeared out of nowhere. The Jeep skidded to a halt and the car thieves bolted in different directions. In classic cop show fashion one thief was dragged off the top of an eight foot cyclone fence mid-scale. The other two thieves got away and one was subsequently caught. One of the three had enough priors to send him to jail for quite awhile (with my assist, see below) and, upon release, he was ordered to compensate me roughly a grand (the cost of my deductible and a punitive fine). Of course he never did. Unable to afford the repairs, for months after the attempted theft I started the Wrangler with a screwdriver, toggling the ignition linkage the thieves accessed by breaking the thin pot metal cover over the steering column (a screwdriver is what sent one of the three to jail: at the scene, an Elizabeth cop said “If we find any burglary tools in the vehicle, he’s going to prison.” and from a toolbox kept in the Jeep I promptly retrieved my own screwdriver, handing it over to the cop and adding “Like this one?” FRAME JOB). To keep the car from getting swiped again, I used The Club™–that bright red steering wheel lock relentlessly advertised on late-night TV–and doubled-down by Harry Houdini-ing it with a heavy steel chain (back then I bought chain by the linear yard) wrapped around the brake pedal, looped through the steering wheel and secured with the beefiest Masterlock I could afford. When I finally got the steering column repaired my mechanic suggested installing a trick anti-theft device he’d thought up: if the cigarette lighter was pushed in the ignition circuit would be complete and the car would start. Pull the cigarette lighter out, good luck pal! And it fucking worked. It thwarted the NEXT thief, who somehow managed to remove The Club™ (I kept it but post anti-theft device had stopped chaining the brake pedal–a monumental inconvenience). The Wrangler was fun, especially on a bright summer day, top down, stereo blasting, heading down the shore with a friend or two. And I loved how I never needed to shovel myself out in winter, just put it in 4-wheel low and drive over the snow. But my least favorite, law, the one about diminishing returns, soon kicked in. Hard. The Wrangler was in the shop more and more often. Something was always breaking and I’d increasingly pester my Elizabeth friends for the interim Rambler (I had nowhere to stash it, so it stayed at their place). When we finally unloaded the Rambler (it had always been impractical) they’d loan me their other spare car, a 1984 Mercedes-Benz 300D turbo-diesel–a joy to drive compared to the rough-and-tumble Wrangler. It’s a car truism I learned too late: first-year models haven’t had the bugs worked out. They’re generally more problematic than what emerges after a few iterations and years of refinement. And the 1986/1987 CJ/YJ transition exacerbated whatever AMC-to-Chrysler Frankenstein mash-up issues the Jeep brand suffered. The camel that broke my straw back was the day the Wrangler tried to kill me. Through an Audio Engineer friend I’d gotten a freelance gig with a legendary NJ rock radio station, something I thought might lead to more work and possibly a staff position. The friend couldn’t cover the live remote down at some Central Jersey auto dealership, so he deputized me to transport the gear (PA, mixer, microphones, etc.), set it up and run it. The day prior he’d given me the lowdown and all the gear, which I took home, lugging it all inside and loading it in the Wrangler again early the next morning. I was almost over the Pulaski Skyway when the Jeep lost all power. Gravity helped me coast to a stop on the shoulder of Route 1 & 9, where I clambered out and peeked underneath to see if maybe I was leaking oil. Again. The entire undercarriage was on fire. Hoping to flag down a passing motorist, I ran into the right lane of the roadway, waving both arms frantically over my head and yelling “HELP!” No one stopped. As the Jeep continued emitting huge clouds of black smoke from its nether regions I hurriedly unloaded all the gear, shuttling it as far away as I could carry it. Then I awaited the inevitable explosion. After more anxious minutes, a dude in a Newark Airport hotel shuttle van pulled over, grabbed his fire extinguisher and heroically put out my burning Wrangler. When I finally used my flip-phone to call my Audio Engineer friend he was glad I was okay but livid I’d fucked the gig. I wasn’t far from his house and he came and retrieved the gear, bitching about how the radio station lost a lucrative remote and would never give me another chance. The job-killing Wrangler was flat-bedded to my mechanic where we discovered the Jeep’s perpetually leaking oil pan had coated the undercarriage in 10W-40, which eventually ignited. After shelling out hundreds more to remedy the issue, I was done. I no longer trusted–nor could I afford–the Wrangler. I went and found a clean 1983 Mercedes-Benz 300D turbo-diesel on Ebay, taking three buses to Cherry Hill to retrieve it. Then I sold the Wrangler, also on EBay, to some assholes out in Colorado (assholes because they issued all sorts of threats when the hand-off of the Jeep to the trucker hauling it to the railcar that’d take it to Colorado didn’t run smoothly; thanks again to that trucker for covering my ass with the Colorado assholes by shouldering the blame).
Imagine if, four years after finally unloading that piece-of-shit, I went and bought it back. It was never great to begin with but now it’s four years older and exponentially more dangerous to drive. The odds of dying in it have risen precipitously. I could have bought a clean, low-mileage model that’d keep me safe and not explode on the side of the road. But all I remembered is I had loads of fun in it, utterly forgetting how much it cost me and the toll it took.
Fuck. Fuckety-fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. But it didn’t end well last time and I fail to see how it will this go-round. The super rich will get super richer. The rest of us will pay yet more. Criminals will go free and good people will be locked up. The response to the next pandemic (you’ve heard bird flu has jumped to pigs and that RFK Jr. may be put in charge of our “health”? Fun!) will certainly be bungled and untold numbers of Americans will die. We’ll lose so much progress it boggles the mind this all came down to THE PRICE OF EGGS. Oh, and bro podcasts (people, if nothing else, can we please declare a moratorium on podcasts? WE HAVE ENOUGH NOW, THANK YOU). So many stories about the death of “legacy media” and how nothing on the left can counter the rise of the right-wing media ecosystem, especially the bro podcasts Barron Trump told his daddy to do (confession: I tried to listen to Joe Rogan years ago because a friend was into it but I’d sooner swallow bleach). When the final story of this disastrous election is written will it really come down to all the young dudes who daily were propagandized by bro podcasts ostensibly about anything but politics but with the politics sneakily “...downstream from culture” as Andrew Breitbart pontificated? You’re listening to your favorite MMA podcast and the host or hosts begin dissing vaccinations, singing the praises of RFK Jr. and bemoaning how everything is more expensive now. You’re like Well, there must be SOME reason for all the autism... and eggs WERE cheaper back then… and I like eggs...
It’s not the eggs, it’s the dregs. These “low-propensity” (translation: moronic) voters who can’t think beyond their next trip to the grocery store. And among the thousand ironies is this: JOE BIDEN WAS THE FIRST PRESIDENT SINCE RONALD REAGAN TO EVEN ATTEMPT TO REVERSE THE ONGOING ECONOMIC ASSAULT ON THE MIDDLE CLASS. Our economy is currently the envy of the world. We emerged from COVID without a recession. Wages are up. Unemployment is down. Inflation is back under control. Yes, eggs and rent and car loans and mortgages and homes are still way too expensive. HOW WILL TRUMP FIX THAT?! He can’t and he won’t. But since every third movie out of Hollywood is about REVENGE and VENGEANCE and RETRIBUTION you just had to show those DEMONRATS, those COASTAL ELITES, those COLLEGE GRADUATES who holds the power, right? Even if the Blue states send WAY more tax dollars to Washington to be redistributed to your resentful Red state than they get back in Federal dollars (NJ, the most abused, gets .74¢ back for every $1.00)?
American life will get meaner and stupider, while the craven lickspittles and billionaire conspiracy theorists soon in charge further line their pockets. I could be wrong–the next four years might be “America’s Golden Period” or whatever the fuck Trump called it–but we tried tax cuts for the wealthy and rampant deregulation and look how THAT panned out. As for Trump’s other promises, like mass deportations: if past is indeed prologue, we know he’s a lazy, incompetent fucking liar… witness the wall and “Infrastructure week”… and I’m not gonna worry about things that may not come to pass. There will be enough to worry about with the shit he actually attempts.
Fuck. Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck. Fucking fuck me.
Sorry. It’s hard to concentrate. Putting three words together other than HOLY and FUCKING and SHIT eludes. I’m exhausted. In the midst of everything and nothing–making a meal, cleaning the dishes, working in the garage, washing my car, reading a book, watching TV–He did it… he fucking won... after all we knew! floats through my brain. Again. I’ve worn a new groove in my gray matter, synapses have fused, short-circuited by one single word twenty stories tall and endlessly looped: TRUMP. We’re fated, apparently, to be subjected to it every single day of whatever life we have left. To be subjected to HIM, the worst case of Daddy abuse alive. America, what the fuck? You had one job: save democracy from Donald Trump. And you utterly failed. You willingly, gleefully reelected a human pile of garbage to “lead” us through four more years of American Carnage™. Even an insurrection couldn’t dissuade you. You saw that and thought More shit sandwich, please!
This hurts and will for a long time. Somehow, we’ll get through it with the support and love of those who are important to us (and less fluoride, apparently). I plan to spend more time with those people and less obsessing over every stupid thing that comes out of Donald Trump’s rictus of a mouth. Somehow (a nationwide BULLSHIT DETECTOR school?) we need to help people understand what I learned back in the late ‘80s during my first few months in talk therapy: Actions have consequences. Yes, it feels good in the moment to lash out. But what will it get you, ultimately?
A country burning like the undercarriage of my Wrangler.
