Acts of Cultural Vandalism - One Piece at a Time

Here's something from the draft pile.

Johnny Cash "One Piece at a Time" (1976)

Welcome to another act of cultural vandalism. Today is a sort of small act of vandalism as the subject in question is small. It's the song - "One Piece at a Time" by Johnny Cash. A song about an assembly line worker who decides to get a free car by stealing parts from the factory one piece at a time over a period of a couple of years. It seems a clever idea. The factory could (back then) afford to lose a piece or two a day. It's probability. But this scheme had one huge flaw - where he was working - Cadillac. Why is that a problem? Cadillac is a part of General Motors, a company notorious for the practice of planned obsolescence - the practice of making products that only last a set amount of time in the hope of making customers buy the next new model. Its something many people have raged against since it first came to public attention in the 1930s and attacked in a number of adverts from European carmakers, such as Volvo.

"Beat the System" Volvo ad (1971)

If the man had been working in a factory making, say, Volkswagen Beetles it wouldn't have been a problem. He would have a car that was no different to the ones leaving the factory, as these classic car ads from the iconic DDB Volkswagen campaign clearly demostrate.

Volkswagen ads from DDB (1960s)

But he worked for Cadillac. He desired a Cadillac, like most Americans then. It was this engineered desire (in the form of high quality engineering and shiny chrome) that made Cadillac the aspirational brand. It was the car you saved up for. Its the car you bought to show off that you made it in the world. Its the car rich texans attach bull horns to. You get what I'm saying, don't you? Cadillac was the car everyone wanted if they had the cash. If you made or saved enough, you bought the Cadillac (which may be the reason why Cadillacs are mostly driven by old these days - they saved enough to afford one).

One thing that fuelled that desirability was Cadillac's habit of redesigning their cars every year or so. This made the newest Cadillac look fresh and exciting while the older models (which can be bought more cheaply in the second-hand car market) looked dated and something from yesteryear. It was this that was the biggest flaw in the factory worker's plan. Without realizing, he wasn't collecting the parts to make one single model, he was collecting parts for multiple models of car. Considering the changing shape of the Cadillacs from 1949-73 its astonishing that the factory worker didn't notice the problem until the very end. I mean, I would have noticed that I got a left front wing that has two headlights and a right wing with just one let alone that only one rear wing has a tailfin. But he had the parts and built a car with them anyway. The result was a mutant Cadillac. 

So what did this mutant Cadillac look like? Although a fictional object, an actual car was commissioned for promotional purposes. It featured in a music video for "One Piece at a Time".

Music video with mutant Cadillac

In case the video is no longer available, here's a photo of it.

Incredible, isn't it? Although the parts weren't made to fit, with some bodging and tinkering, you can make a car out of any collection of mismatched parts. The very car from the video is currently a museum piece in the Historic Auto Attractions museum in Roscoe, Illinois.

So why this subject you ask? Its because of Cat's gift to Ian. You may remember that Cat destroyed Ian's Ford Cortina by in May 2013 and soon afterwards he was beaten to a bloody pulp by Ian. He had spend months in medical care to recover and during that time decided to make a peace offering. This peace offering is...

It's better that I showed you....

Yelp. What better gift to make up destroying an old Ford than a new Ford made from old Fords.

It took him years, but was it worth it?

CAT - Look, things had been busy with....

IAN - Five years Cat! Five years!

CAT - It's my first time building a car.

IAN - You didn't need to. I bought a new car since you destroyed my old one.

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Yeah, when I first wrote this back in 2013, I was thinking of featuring Cat in a "final sketch" at the end of each post. I had sketched out the car back then. It's only today that I finally drew it!

Five years to finish a joke. 

Hope you all liked the "Frankenford"

Finding My Voice with a Guide for Hitch-hikers

According to one of those anecdotes that a person tells so many times that the person later forgets the actual event and only recalls himself telling the story, one night in 1971 a young man was hitch-hiking across Europe, like a number of young people did at this time, before hitch-hiking lost its "cool." On that night, this young man was drunk, lying down on a field near Innsbruck, Austria. He was looking up to the stars. Next to him was his copy of Hitch-hiker's Guide to Europe. He then had a thought - "Would it be a good idea for someone to write a hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy?"

This idea would form the basis of franchise that morphed from an idea about a comedy series where the Earth gets destroyed in the end of every episode. The result first aired on BBC Radio 4 40 years ago, leading to a series of books, a few stage shows (including one where the audience sat on a hovercraft), a TV series, a video game and a feature film, starring Martin Freeman. 

I bring up Douglas Adams' The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy here because, recently, I have been getting reacquainted with it. This is because BBC radio is in the mist of transmitting the whole radio series, plus a new adaptation of the sixth book. And with this, I have re-watched the TV series and film on DVD. So, right now my mind is brimming with ideas relating to manic depressed robots, the "Shoe Event Horizon," and super fast space travel made possible by a warm cup of tea.

Also, I have been looking inward to myself and my work. Been almost 30 does make you do that. For years (maybe since I started writing fiction back in 2003) you could say I was in my "finding my voice" phase of my artistic career.  A phase pretty much every creative goes through. You start off copying other people's work, dissecting it to find out why it works, and using that knowledge to improve your own. Finding originality is overrated - mostly by lawyers who specialize in intellectual property. If you marry this with a lot of practise you (eventually) get a true creative. But a potential creative in this phase can be vulnerable, so don't insult their work so called "friends." Leave the most serious criticism to people who really know their stuff ... and Simon Cowell.

Recently I began writing a big story. It was of an idea I had for years. (I wont's say what it is let) While I was doing so I realized something - I'm becoming Douglas Adams. Of all the sources of inspiration I have ever found (and I have found a LOT of inspiration all over the place) the works of Douglas Adams can be seen as the most significant. And thinking back its no surprise.

I first read his stuff back in high school. I was looking for a book to do a report on for English class and I found in the school library The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. I found it interesting. The ridiculous situations with (some) logic, how technology is used in the story and how he describes things were things that stood out to me when I first read it.

I had heard about The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy some time earlier (in 2003 it was voted fourth most favourite novel in the UK in a televised survey). But it wasn't until the movie came out in 2005 that I finally got familiar with the story. Not long afterwards I read the books. It was by this time that the idea of the big story I just started writing was beginning to form....

I don't what to reveal what it is about right now. All I can say that its basically a fictional account of a world-changing event that happened in a cartoon I was watching back in 2005, caused by an object in a way that'll make the idea of tea been the source of creation of a new form of spacecraft propulsion look like a lead balloon.

As I began writing this story I noticed the Doug Adams hallmarks in my approach to storytelling - the ridiculous situations with (some) logic, how technology is used in the story and the long-winged way he describes things. They are there as clear as day. I can't deny it now. I'm becoming Douglas Adams.

Outside writing fiction, Douglas Adams does share some similarities to me, particularly on the subject technology. He was a avid fan of computers, especially the Macintosh. In fact, he is claimed to be the first person in Europe to own a Mac. He was an Apple fan boy long before it became cool and then annoying. 

It's a shame he died before he could see the iPhone. That device would have pan-galactic-gargle-blasted his mind.

Anyway, I must stop now. Time to grab my towel.