big blue pimp mobile.
One of my favorite memories of vegas.
after work, late night, the big yellow moon over the desert, driving home along the strip
and all the zillions of neon-lights reflect and blink in the polished, massive, long bonnet of my Lincoln Continental Mark V.
people say big cars small cocks – it's true!
in these moments I realized how absurd it was: working with spymonkey in fucking “rat pack las vegas”, big classic car, 60's designer house with a pool in the shape of a whale and cocktails!
the moment I got to vegas I knew for sure - first priority was, to buy the biggest motherfucking american car I could get my hands on.
one most know – as a little boy in the 70's, in germany you grew up with all the american tv gods: starsky & hutch, streets of san francisco, kojak, petrocelli…. only to name a few.
we all had these playing cards as kids with a photo of a car and underneath all the technical details (details means, our interest was only: speed, horsepower, cylinders – what else do you need?) and of course … american cars, big american cars everybody wanted these card games only with US cars – no boring volkswagen and wirtschaftwundershit.
so my quest in las vegas was to fulfill my childhood dream and buy one on those cars.
the thing is – I have no clue about cars. absolutely not. no idea of gas consumption and so on… .
i wasn't picky. It didn't take me long. classic cars can be a good investment! a 60's Cadillac's with shark tails or a ford mustang – are amazing pieces!
i still remember the day I first saw my vehicle….. the salesman showed me around and they only happened to have one older car that was available. the courteous sales rep told me – usually they don't sell classic cars but this car supposedly used to belong to the owner of the dealership.
there it was. Lincoln continental mark V! metallic blue! built 1979! at a second hand car dealer! mouth wide open i was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it. paced up and down along the side of the car not being able to comprehend that only the bonnet had the size of a small european car. a car boot still big enough to dump a body inside.
here I was again – embraced by the 70's. kojak kissed my cheek and huggy bear gave me high five!
then I did test drive it. test drive is too much of a word. i steered that “titanic” through the ice fields of nevada. i maneuvered that tank like ship at 15 miles-an-hour around bends. sweating, panicking and gripped by fear i would bump into traffic lights and lamp posts, all kind of things. all the limitations a road offers and normally you're not aware of. but inside such a vast american car things look very far away and very, very close the same time.
went back three times, with various friends.
i knew – this is a once in a lifetime mad thing I only would do here in las vegas.
bought the car!
drove off the premises. after half a mile the car overheated and broke down. they towed it away and fixed it.
few days later i drove off the premises second time. only to break down again – this time after two miles. same thing again. overheating.
40 degrees vegas.
ten days later they changed the radiator.
and finally I managed to get home safely.
but only to face week after week of rows to come with elke, my dear wife who was 7 th month pregnant and needed a safe environment for nesting. a family car not that pile of shit.
she stubbornly refused even to be a passenger for a few weeks.
withstanding my wife telling me off. No problem
i had my crises after I refilled the gas for the first time.
twenty gallons of gas transported me 170 miles.
but first i thought, well some yankees must have sucked gas out of the tank, stole my petrol - the way they do it here in europe. stupid me with blushed face went up to some guy who drove a big cadillac and after listening with some amusement to my miles per gallon ratio, he answered: “that's not bad. nine miles!.”
against all odds. I held on to my pimp mobile.
things improved. my wife still pregnant started to kind of love hate the Lincoln.
we got married in it!
the night before our wedding my wedding preparation consisted mainly of glancing through the yellow pages for the cheapest wedding available…. made a few phone calls….in las vegas for a wedding you can choose between either moderate priced one-legged elvises who look a bit like straying dogs who were reborn as the king or the other extreme: to make your vows in helicopter over the strip (bloody expensive).
i found the cheapest solution.
drive thru at the little white wedding chapel!
you drive through a special lane and the reverend does the whole ceremony peeking out of his little window….just like at “mc donalds”. …that's the normal procedure. not with my Lincoln.
the big day had come. nice brunch at our place with the spymonkeys and some lovely friends of us. everybody sharply dressed. lucy decorated the car with balloons and white ribbons – it looked fantastic. we drove in a convoy to the wedding chapel, on of these 40 degrees hot days in vegas, but after a while I realized the car starts to overheat again. at every red light the warning signal came on. we barely made it to the chapel. once there we pulled up outside the fast-drive-thru-wedding-counter with the engine overheating!
no, boiling! although I switched the engine off the radiator still was growling, spitting, and making sounds of a rumbling volcano just before erupting. It sounded as if the whole fucking engine was about to explode! as if all the bad spirits of my wicked past were caught in that very engine - and now on the day of my wedding, the moan and groan, bang against the guts of that 6ltr.engine only to try to break free and tell everybody what an asshole I am.
the reverend although an ex-convict (many of them are in las vegas!!! go to prison and enlightenment visits you) panicked a little, told us to get out of the car, better to park the car in safe distance. and we did our vows outside the growling car – it might have watched us - in a little kitschy pavilion, which was actually much nicer than the “drive-thru” experience and would have been only available to us with upgrading our wedding.
the vows and the whole ceremony were actually much, much nicer and more emotional than we all expected it to be thanks to the tattooed preacher who was a very witty character. although i don't remember one phrase of the vows which we had to repeat.….. to a non-english speaking person that “thy shalt thout promitheth and bla, bla, bla” doesn't make any sense to you. the very last thing he made us promise was kind of: “whatever happens to your and your partner, your marriage – you have to promise to try everything to always to stay best friends.”
“thou shalt amen!”
THE END
and now like in a movie.
the film is over.
..and over the credits running you have these short little film clips which show you the ongoing story of the “Lincoln continental MarkV, built 1979, 6ltr. Engine”
- my wife gave birth to our beloved son, thelonious vegas, and the first trip in his life was in my Lincoln. the journey from hospital – back home.
- summer 2005. i dared to take the Lincoln on a road trip to the pacific - went to san diego with my surfboard tied on to the roof. the trunk filled up with every tool I could find in my garage, the whole range of mechanic oils (might have looked like a salesman for lubricants), additives for every oil – the trunk looked a bit like some tool case out of a jules verne novel. “20 000 miles across the desert into the middle of the pacific beach”. nobody wanted to come with me. “can't cross the desert with that car!” all went smooth. salt water stained its body.
- and now the Lincoln is back with us in Vienna. Only yesterday it got towed away again.
