Mindless Pleasures

No, I am not talking about Thomas Pynchon. (Mindless Pleasures was his original title for Gravity’s Rainbow.) I mean my Terra Crusher , nitro-fueled, radio controlled, 4-wheel drive, two-speed, monster truck that is finally up and running again. It has a new engine with a pull start. If you want to know what this all about, watch this video. No, mine no longer runs in reverse – that went out with the old, destroyed engine, but that’s a small matter. This truck, for me, is one of those things I dreamed of having as a boy, and now that I do have one, it’s every bit as good as I thought it would be. How often does that happen?

When I was a boy, I was interested in car racing. I recall hearing a discussion between an older boy and his father in which the son complained that car racing “fucked up the environment.” Even as a kid, I thought that was a tad harsh. Pretty small potatoes, pollution-wise, a few hundred cars running like crazy for a few days a year. Still, I guess, if that’s what you concerned about, it might seem very retrograde to be into automobile racing…incorrect, as they say these days.

I enjoy my fume spewing screaming vehicle without guilt – only a toy, and I have absolutely no interest in full-scale monster trucks. In fact, they struck me as idiotic. Let’s hear it for the amazing aesthetic effect of miniaturization!