Mission: To promote driving less so all may live more.
For those who do not know, Leo Kottke is one of the best and quirkiest acoustic guitar players of the last fifty years, an American Treasure whose sense of irony and sarcasm might undermine anything I quote below.
That said, I was recently watching a DVD, Leo Kottke: Home & Away, Revisited, during which he talks about cars, reminding me that my heart sings when I consider a world with more music and less noise and air pollution.
[sitting in a boat that is on his lawn, no trailer, just a boat on the lawn]
I had a lifelong hatred of cars, so I bought a boat. Now I hate boats. Still, when I’m on the road I meet people I wouldn’t ordinarily run into—like guitar players I listen to. And when I’m home, I get to go out and sit in the boat.
[onomatopoeia] Vrromm, Vrromm.[driving in his car]
Well, I’m late again. I’m driving again as you may have noticed this.
[wiggles steering wheel, zig-zagging back and forth]
I do this to irritate the other drivers ’cause they generally irritate me, and I’d rather beat ’em to the punch.
The fact is if I spend too much time yelling at ’em, I take my life in my hands, not that I care when I’m driving. There’s something about being encapsulated like this that convinces us we’ll live forever … instead of running into that bridge abutment there [points right] like I might tend to if I’m looking back here like this [turns around to talk to the camera man in the back seat] and I know there’s a curve coming [points left, passes it], or was coming.[continues to speculate on life after death and deprecate other drivers]
(2005, www.reconstructedarts.com, approx. minute 44)
For the entertainment section in today’s post, Leo singing his frustration at his car mechanic: