Project MERCATOR | Project PANDORA
Though 'twas feared that The Loose Ties would be on sabbatical throughout the summer last Friday (3 June) I saw them at the Soggy Bottom Bar (in downtown Flint, & north of the river to boot, because I live dangerously) with two related acts. The Adrenal Dregs are new & still trying to find their sea legs; the connection is their drummer, Jon, brother of Loose Ties trombonist Dick & himself a utility musician for the Vehicle City's favorite ska band. A Suitable Paradise, formerly The Amity Effect, are the band of Brandon, Farr Afield's boyflesh; they, too, are still in search of their signature sound, at least to mine ears. Upon my arrival I made a beeline for the W.C., but was waylaid by friendly greetings & glad-handing, including my now usual greeting-by-hug from Farr Afield (at her instigation, dear readers; it is not my place to initiate casual hugs with comely lasses). I emerged from the W.C. refreshed, acquired a Red Stripe from an obliging barkeep, & soon gravitated to my best chums in the band, Ska Army & Nick Andopolis.

My master debating team-specific nickname is "Big Mac," first applied to me by The Most Dangerous Game & enthusiastically adopted by Too Sly. I think it an obvious & apt commentary on my morbid obesity, but they insist it is because I am a shameless & relentless flirt at tournaments. I've no idea what they're talking about, that's just the chummy, avuncular façade I always adopt around strangers. That notwithstanding, I was apparently in proper Big Mac form on Friday. The Adrenal Dregs played first & after their set their distaff keyboard player planted herself on the stool next to mine. We got on well, as well as we could above the din of A Suitable Paradise, & she seemed to find my hilarious. (A great many people do, even when I'm being quite witless. Perhaps it is the moustache at which they are laughing? Mayhap, but this phenomenon pre-dates the moustache by a decade.) When she went off to join her bandmates Ska Army said, with as much innuendo in his voice as he could muster, "So, you're getting along with the keyboard player." I'd perceived our intercourse as being no more than friendly, but I defer to Ska Army's suggestion that there was something more to it on two grounds: {a} I am notoriously daft about these things. {b} Ska Army's girlflesh is way too hot for him; it is a reasonable inference that he knows what he's doing to a greater degree than you'd suppose from talking to him.

I again visited the W.C. after my second Red Stripe; on the way back to my table I had to pass betwixt a girl & her friends at the bar. Without a word, without preamble of any sort, she reached out & twirled the left handlebar of my moustache. I mustered as much twinkle as my eyes could convey & said, "Yes, oh, yes." I then rejoined my chums. Let me be clear: I support girls twirling my moustache. I encourage girls to twirl my moustache. I regularly invite girls to twirl my moustache. (Just about the first thing I ever said to From Russia with Love was an invitation to twirl my moustache, which she demurely declined.) But I am of the opinion that a little preamble is in order before twirling a stranger's moustache. Am I wrong? When told of this later, Love/Hate suggested, as if the idea had not occurred to me, that maybe the girl was flirting with me; Love/Hate really is useless, isn't she? Obviously the twirling was flirting, & I'll cut the twirler a little slack owing to her probable imbibition of a few libations by that point in the evening, but I still think that some manner of preamble was necessary & in this instance quite lacking.

To be continued…

This Week in Motorsport
By Endurance We Conquer
Sung tunelessly with the gleeful abandon of a wee bairn: It's almost here! It's almost here! It's almost almost almost here! The 24 Heures du Mans is almost here! The Prototypes & Grand Tourers roll off at 3:00 P.M. local time on Saturday, 9:00 A.M. here in the Eastern Time Zone of the good ol' U.S.A. What follows the world's most grueling test of man & machine, a relentless day of breakneck speed, withering strain, &—for all those who do not stand at 3:05 P.M. on Sunday on the top step of the podium—rending heartbreak. There is nothing else in the world like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, not even the other twenty-four-hour automobile races.

I wish to share the 24 Heures du Mans with all of you because I stand in awe of its splendor. The race is a glorious synthesis of sport & mechanical ingenuity; you cannot win the 24 Hours of Le Mans without both the stamina of the athlete & the intellect of the engineer. It is a celebration of human achievement. Join me, won't you?

Formula Fun!
The Grand Prix de Monaco, now run nearly a fortnight ago, was an amazing spectacle. Reigning World Champion Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull (Renault) won, as he has five of the so-far six rounds of the World Championship, but throughout the race his triumph was anything but a forgone conclusion. This year's tires, by Pirelli, are designed not to last as long as did the previous year's tires, by Bridgestone; this designed obsolescence was at the request of the governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (F.I.A.), in order to complicate race strategy & introduce an element of uncertainty that would "spice up" the races. In 2010, many races were run with the cars making only a single pit stop, & that only because the F.I.A. requires that two different types of tires (a harder "prime" compound & a softer "option" compound). 2011 is a different ballgame; at Turkey, with its punishing, if unimaginatively named, Turn 8, a monster of a high speed corner with no fewer than four apexes, many teams made as many as four pit stops. The streets of Monaco, tight & twisting & bereft of high speed/high G-load corners, are hardly known to beat up on tires, but a two-stop strategy was still thought to be the way to go. Vettel was set to be on a two-stopper before a mistake in the Red Bull pits & staggering pace by '09 World Champion Jenson Button or McLaren (Mercedes) & '05 & '06 World Champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari meant that a second pit-stop would shuffle Vettel behind both Button & Alonso, the kiss of death to the young German's chances of victory as overtaking is notoriously difficult on the streets of the Principality. So, on preposterously old tires in the most glamorous grand prix of the year, Vettel tried to hold off both the fiery, aggressive Alonso & the calm, silky-smooth Button. I think he would have done it, too, pulled off the win even with those two breathing down his neck, but in the closing laps the red flag was flown, temporarily halting the race, after a frightening shunt involving Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso (Ferrari) & Vitaly Petrov of Lotus Renault. While the race was stopped everyone had a chance to change tires & on fresh rubber the Red Bull had no trouble keeping the Ferrari & the McLaren behind. Yes, Vettel wins a lot of races & so maybe this victory doesn't strike you as much of a surprise, but each of his wins has been different, & the performance of Vettel's teammate Mark Webber proves that the pace isn't all in their car, the RB7. Sebastian Vettel is a world champion with a very good chance of becoming a repeat world champion. Watching him grand prix after grand prix is the same as watching any other dominant athlete: spellbinding.

During the weekend of the Grand Prix de Monaco sessions were twice red-flagged, once during the race while Petrov was extracted from his shattered Lotus Renault & once during qualifying when rookie Sergio Pérez of Sauber (Ferrari) slid hard into the barriers at the Nouvelle Chicane after losing control of his car coming out of the famous Tunnel. Petrov was held overnight at the Princess Grace Hospital, merely for observation, & released the next day. Pérez was held for longer & it is still unknown if he will be medically cleared to get behind the wheel of his Sauber at the next grand prix, this weekend in the Canadas. Both shunts were horrible to watch, & sobering reminder of the peril of motorsport, even with all the great strides that have been taken to improve safety for all concerned.

Coming up on Sunday, just hours after the close of the 24 Heures du Mans is the Grand Prix du Canada, the first of the summer's races to be broadcast on the Fox Network instead of the also News Corp.-owned Speed. The Canadian round of the World Championship, at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, is the geographically nearest grand prix to your humble narrator, & will remain so even after next year's planned return of the United States Grand Prix at the under-construction Circuit of the Americas outside Austin in verdammt Texas. Yet after the Horror of Hart House such is my antagonism to the Canadas that I have absolutely no desire to subject myself to the insult that is setting foot inside that benighted country, not even to see the Formula One circus for myself. Hooray for F1! Boo to the hated Canadas!

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
The Pogues, "The Body of an American" from The Best of The Pogues (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: "And they often heard him say, 'I'm a freeborn man of the U.S.A.!'"

Mittwoch, 8 Juni
Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer, "Mr. Song" from Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer (T.L.A.M.)