The problem with
today’s youth

by JACK OATMON

There’s nothing more indicative of the excitement and glamour of automotive culture than an entire weekend dedicated to drunkenly revering a fleet of high-powered penis replacements zooming around in circles, torching gallons of gasoline into the atmosphere all the while—not to mention all the fabulous brand placement made available thanks to the sponsors.

But for some of you people out there—weird people—the whine of Formula 1 engines and the sparkle of chrome aren’t sufficient to turn your little cranks. Some of you are out there moaning about community and the environment, making preposterous claims regarding Arctic disasters and such, completely oblivious to the fact that glacial melting is actually revealing previously unreachable oil reserves, proving incontrovertibly that whether climate change is occurring or not, we’ve got plenty of petroleum to burn on those 740hp beauts out there at the Grand Prix this weekend.

I’ll give you an example. A little while back, sometime last year, I got an e-mail from this Haligonian freak named Rich Aucoin, who told me he was riding his bicycle across Canada, toting a trailer of synthesizers and a Grinch Who Stole Christmas costume. He said he was doing a show in Montreal and that maybe I’d be interested in seeing it. I don’t know where these nutbars get the idea that I’m eager to spend my time and energy on them, but just last week, I get another whopper from him. This time he’s travelling across Canada, recording with as many musicians as he can meet and in as many studios possible, while accompanying the music with a film spliced together from dozens of movies in the public domain. He’s calling it Public Publication. Sounds about right—get all the lunatics in the same place and give them a microphone. Sounds like the Sierra Club all over again. He’s even running a half-marathon in each city to raise money for the Heart & Stroke Foundation. I mean, what the hell does this guy have against driving and private enterprise, the very pillars of our peaceful society? And the damn alternative media just lap this diatribe up. He’s even got a friggin’ tour blog hosted at Exclaim! Magazine: http://richaucoin.exclaim.ca/. Eugh!

Anyways, if you want to have a lark and show this pinko what you think about his Commie bullshit, take a break from the sweet, sweet sounds of those majestic, purring, 19,000rpm engines and make a trip up to the Plateau to heckle him with me. He’ll be at Cagibi with Jon-Rae Fletcher and AlphaBaby on Friday, June 6. And bring a GMO tomato or two to huck at him!

Meanwhile, for more high-octane, gas-guzzling beats, I should give you a heads-up that local Turbo podcaster and OCD crate-digger Mike Mind has launched a weekly night at Coda called Diskopia. That’s on Wednesdays and is likely to feature some of the best and most obscure in acid house, Italo, old school techno and tracks with deep-voiced male session vocalists saying stuff like, “I feel the groove, I feel the music, the house music in my bones.” It’s free of charge and will feature Dave Shaw of Montreal’s best disco crew, Loose Joints, along with William Samman on Wednesday, June 11. So go, and dance, and free yourself from the cares of the world.

EAT THAT, DAVID SUZUKI! jack.oatmon@gmail.com