Auto Eroticism
I’m just not into cars. I must be the only person who ever passed a high-school driver’s ed course on Long Island and didn’t get her license immediately thereafter. I CAN drive, in the sense that I know how, and could do in an emergency. I just DON’T, and you should bow before me in gratitude that this should be so.
Because I’m far too imaginative to be allowed out on the road. I constantly project what the idiots around me are doing, or are likely to do, and drive accordingly. I’m not very good.
I did drive once in L.A., when Jim was a little too drunk to get behind the wheel. I figured I could certainly get us where we were going more surely than he could at that point: it wasn’t far, and I drove fast, so they wouldn’t catch me. Going twenty mph would have been a giveaway.
But otherwise not, and so I have no reason to covet automobiles.
I do appreciate a few, though. I have always dug the iconic mid-50’s T-bird. And the late-60’s Jaguar XKE. Studebakers of various vintages appeal to me with their quirky design. Classic 60’s Mustangs, too.
(For a while Jim drove a ’68 Shelby Cobra Mustang, the only car he ever outright owned, which Elektra Records allowed him to choose as his bonus for the huge success of the first album—I believe the other Doors went for guitars (Robby), sound equipment (Ray) and a horse (John). Sadly, the Blue Lady, as the car was known, had met its demise, or he had lost it, or something, by the time I got out to L.A., and he drove me around in a rented snot-green Buick Challenger instead. Ick.)
These days I like those cute little sit-up-and-beg PT Cruisers and Morrises, the ones that look like infant London taxicabs. And I shamefully confess to a great fondness for the mid-70’s Pacer hatchback (I just think it’s cool).
But I had never experienced full-blown car lust until I laid eyes on a 1967 black Porsche convertible.
I had off-handedly written it into one of my rock mysteries as the English guitar stud co-protagonist’s (Turk) conveyance of choice. Then I realized oh wow, never actually seen one, and I figured I’d better go check out what the hell it looked like, just for accuracy’s sake.
So I went online and found one—on eBay Autos, of all places. And, I tell you, I fell in love.
Oh. My. God. It was GORGEOUS. Shiny black, with cream leather upholstery. It had two seats in front, and two more in the rear that you could sort of scrunch in for brief rides but looked uncomfortable for anything longer. Elegant, jaunty, full of itself in an understated and yet totally justified way. Soooooooo pretty.
And I lusted after it. More than I can tell you. Never mind that I don’t drive, never mind I had nowhere to put it, never mind that it was in L.A. and I was in NY. I waaaaaaanted it. It was Turk’s car! And it only had an $8,500 opening bid! Which maybe should have been a red flag, but the claim was that it ran just fine and I was willing, nay, eager, to believe.
I could sleep in it, I rationalized. I could use it as a planter in my building’s back yard. I could garage it down the block (for three times the monthly rent of my admittedly minuscule yet rent-controlled apartment) and hire someone to chauffeur me around whenever I wanted, for money, or just for the glory of getting to drive a classic Porsche.
As for getting it home from California, several friends on several of my online boards offered their services—one of them, a blonde as nutty as myself, suggesting that we could do a Thelma-and-Louise road trip from L.A. to NY, only with a happy ending. And I seriously considered it.
But in the end I reluctantly let it go, unbidden-on; another eBayer drove it home instead, for the opening bid price. I wept. And I continue to sigh on occasion for what might have been. True, it wouldn’t have been a “green” vehicle (a Smugmobile, as MDF Mary refers to her own hybrid). But it would have hardly ever been driven! I would have gone periodically to venerate it and shine it up and just sit in it, humbly and appreciatively.
Still, that’s what books are for, and I’m sure Turk will be happy to give me a lift from time to time, in gratitude for my having given him such groovy wheels. What a guy. What a CAR.
Because I’m far too imaginative to be allowed out on the road. I constantly project what the idiots around me are doing, or are likely to do, and drive accordingly. I’m not very good.
I did drive once in L.A., when Jim was a little too drunk to get behind the wheel. I figured I could certainly get us where we were going more surely than he could at that point: it wasn’t far, and I drove fast, so they wouldn’t catch me. Going twenty mph would have been a giveaway.
But otherwise not, and so I have no reason to covet automobiles.
I do appreciate a few, though. I have always dug the iconic mid-50’s T-bird. And the late-60’s Jaguar XKE. Studebakers of various vintages appeal to me with their quirky design. Classic 60’s Mustangs, too.
(For a while Jim drove a ’68 Shelby Cobra Mustang, the only car he ever outright owned, which Elektra Records allowed him to choose as his bonus for the huge success of the first album—I believe the other Doors went for guitars (Robby), sound equipment (Ray) and a horse (John). Sadly, the Blue Lady, as the car was known, had met its demise, or he had lost it, or something, by the time I got out to L.A., and he drove me around in a rented snot-green Buick Challenger instead. Ick.)
These days I like those cute little sit-up-and-beg PT Cruisers and Morrises, the ones that look like infant London taxicabs. And I shamefully confess to a great fondness for the mid-70’s Pacer hatchback (I just think it’s cool).
But I had never experienced full-blown car lust until I laid eyes on a 1967 black Porsche convertible.
I had off-handedly written it into one of my rock mysteries as the English guitar stud co-protagonist’s (Turk) conveyance of choice. Then I realized oh wow, never actually seen one, and I figured I’d better go check out what the hell it looked like, just for accuracy’s sake.
So I went online and found one—on eBay Autos, of all places. And, I tell you, I fell in love.
Oh. My. God. It was GORGEOUS. Shiny black, with cream leather upholstery. It had two seats in front, and two more in the rear that you could sort of scrunch in for brief rides but looked uncomfortable for anything longer. Elegant, jaunty, full of itself in an understated and yet totally justified way. Soooooooo pretty.
And I lusted after it. More than I can tell you. Never mind that I don’t drive, never mind I had nowhere to put it, never mind that it was in L.A. and I was in NY. I waaaaaaanted it. It was Turk’s car! And it only had an $8,500 opening bid! Which maybe should have been a red flag, but the claim was that it ran just fine and I was willing, nay, eager, to believe.
I could sleep in it, I rationalized. I could use it as a planter in my building’s back yard. I could garage it down the block (for three times the monthly rent of my admittedly minuscule yet rent-controlled apartment) and hire someone to chauffeur me around whenever I wanted, for money, or just for the glory of getting to drive a classic Porsche.
As for getting it home from California, several friends on several of my online boards offered their services—one of them, a blonde as nutty as myself, suggesting that we could do a Thelma-and-Louise road trip from L.A. to NY, only with a happy ending. And I seriously considered it.
But in the end I reluctantly let it go, unbidden-on; another eBayer drove it home instead, for the opening bid price. I wept. And I continue to sigh on occasion for what might have been. True, it wouldn’t have been a “green” vehicle (a Smugmobile, as MDF Mary refers to her own hybrid). But it would have hardly ever been driven! I would have gone periodically to venerate it and shine it up and just sit in it, humbly and appreciatively.
Still, that’s what books are for, and I’m sure Turk will be happy to give me a lift from time to time, in gratitude for my having given him such groovy wheels. What a guy. What a CAR.
posted by Patricia Kennealy Morrison | 1:02 PM
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