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PONTIAC BLUES by Joe Carducci

My dad isn't driving alot now that he's in his eighties, so its likely I've inherited-or-requisitioned my last Pontiac from him, a 2003 Aztek, so I better baby it as best as possible living some steep rocky blocks off the paved highway. Even then there's deer, tho I've only hit them east of the Mississippi. Dad was a doctor and had some quid-pro-quo with a patient/GM dealer. He always bought American (except for one used Fiat) and there'd be a station wagon (I'm one of nine), but the other was often a cool car like the 68 Malibu, or the 70 Challenger. I was moving to Hollywood in 1976 and when they saw I might walk there, my parents gave me the Challenger; it had an 8track in the dash. Dad bought that because the Johnny Cash in the demo sounded so good; my favorite 8track to play was Amon Duul's Phallus Dei. I left Naperville at 5am and got a ticket listening to Sabotage before the sun even came up - there's still a speedtrap near Dixon, Illinois. I sold the car in Portland and didn't get another car from dad until my 63 Ford Country Sedan, which i moved back to Chicago in, rusted out. He gave me his 83 Pontiac Parisienne Brougham - a top-of-the-line doctor's car. (I'd missed out on dad's mid-seventies Trans-Am.)


I was rooting around in Wax Trax one day researching for the book I was writing, R&TPN, when I heard Jello Biafra's voice. He was in town to do the Oprah show. I gave him a ride there and I could tell he was concerned about my car. Soon after I got to SST in late 1981 Jello stayed with us and said the DKs were looking for a carducci to run their label, Alternative Tentacles. (I had re-issued their first 45 and put out their second single while at Systematic in 1980-1, but Jello couldn't then get his band behind the label concept). SST was an important model for the world of independent record distribution but we didn't always behave with proper indie manners. So Jello I think suspected I might have bought this bourgie-mobile with my SST cashout fortune. He was relieved when I told him different. It was nice to have stereo FM radio after that back-to-mono 1963 Ford (You can see that model in reruns of The Fugitive). You could really hear Bonham's kickdrum in that car; the rearview mirror shuddered to it.

I moved to Wisconsin, then Wyoming and sold that Pontiac and wound up with my sister-in-law's dad's 1989 Grand Prix. Her dad was born in China and escaped to the Phillipines after the Great Leap Forward, got married had two kids and moved the family to Chicago in 1979. He bought American too. Really nice size car with a cassette deck. Hit a deer near Valparaiso, Indiana. Requisitioned mom's 1998 Bonneville; it came with a cd player. Wider than the Grand Prix but not bad. Hit a deer in Pennsylvania, not terminal but gave it to my cousin's kid whose dad works for GM and had already worked on it for me. Now the Aztek.

I've been listening to some Paul Revere & the Raiders compilations that Andy Schwartz sent me when he was doing for Epic. Some of their off-gems are the car songs they did for hire for GM: SS-396, The Judge, Corvair Baby! Those were the days for Detroit. They'd give you a free 45 if you dragged your parents to the dealership. Then Ralph Nadir killed the Corvair; Detroit suddenly had to worry about the liability of their smaller, less safe cars and so they went big just when the Japanese figured out car manufacturing and just when American daughters began to need small simple cars to go to college and work on their way to building today's gynocracy. See Eastwood's Gran Torino. Its pretty good. The Pontiacs always had little GM mysteries built in about them. Turn the key and just to remind you how blessed you are to own a combustion engine vehicle it would occasionally do nothing. No problem, it would start in an hour or so and be fine for months. Until you took it for granted again. Deer-willing the Aztek will last til 2012 which if i recall is the end of the world by the Mayan calendar anyway. Can't wait. Btw, there's a beautiful color pic of a GTO on the NYTimes front page today - above the fold one last time. The Aztek was discontinued last year, now the Pontiac line itself is history.

Photo Joe Butoh>
Driver Malia Ma
Passenger Jameel

in other family news, my uncle joe died two weeks ago. he was my dad's youngest brother. dad was born in italy; the rest of the kids in america. dad worked for his father in his groundskeeping business in bradford, pa. he'd have to get out on winter mornings before dawn to shovel the rich folks' walks and he said he envied little brother joe still sleeping like a baby. joe painted. he was in nyc in the late fifties/early sixties but moved to columbus ohio and worked commercial art while painting his own stuff on the side. i have some good ones on my walls and he did the new cover of Rock and the Pop Narcotic for me, a version of Spot's photograph of Black Flag practicing without singer Dez that was on the cover of the 2.13.61 edition. joe did a good job; he has the band graphically pulling power from the earth and then accelerating it as they throw it off into the air in music. i had arranged to use joe's favorite of his own work for my essay collection next year. so i look forward to getting that together soon.

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