"Le Mans The Race, First Laps" Michael Legrand-Le Mans

There's a lot of idol worship out there these days in the men's world outside of athletics. I don't know why this is, I have a hunch that today's man spends so much time conscious of trying to be something that he never does what he wants. In turn he has no experiences, no great faults, terrible defeats or glorious victories. The average man around my age I feel is terribly banal and lives vicariously through the lives of others.

It is for that reason that we see the ridiculous idolatry of a man by the name of Steve McQueen, a man branded the "King of Cool" throughout the ages and especially in every magazine, blog and whatever other type of media out there focused on the 18-thirty something demographic. It is really sad actually and whenever I see another picture of him smoking a cig while driving or holding a gun I become a little nauseous.

And don't get me wrong I think the man is pretty cool. When I was a young man I would watch The Towering Inferno constantly and switch back and forth between wanting to be the quietly cool fireman (McQueen) or the tough architect (Paul Newman). As the story would turn out I would do neither.

But the two men have a lot more in common than being huge stars, the ability to make women slide out of their seat, military heroes and pretty decent style. They were both natural born racers. Paul Newman was actually significantly more successful having been successful in many races, eventually starting his own racing team and winning the race that Steve would make a move of in 1971. Le Mans.

Held near and in the town of Le Mans the 13 Kilometer race is held for a 24 hour period with a simple set of rules: Who can cover the farthest distance in one day's time. The beauty of the event (without getting into the weeds about technical rules and specifics in regards to cars) is that it is a full test of endurance. Endurance of the drivers through day, night, rain and wind; as well as the endurance of the cars. The cars must be shut off for pit stops there by testing the reliability of parts that are usually never tested in racing. Everyone and everything is put to the challenge.

The engineering has always amazed me, the little tricks of the trade that were figured out to score even an extra second in a 24 hour race. A little known fact that the reason Porsche's ignition has always been on the left side of the steering wheel was so that the driver could put the car in gear with his right hand while starting the engine with his left as the rules dictated it must be in neutral for a start. The speeds down the back stretch of the Mulsanne Straight(250 mph) were so high that the cars had to be significantly more advanced than most aircraft at the time.

While McQueen might be the human star of the race the real star was the Porsche 917, considered by most to be the most famous racing automobile in history. This car was designed for Porsche to dominate the endurance circuit and it did just that starting Porsche's stretch of 16 overall victories. The first time we see this beautiful girl in all her glory is with this song playing in the background, fighting with the blissful engine noise.

A few weeks ago I attended the American version of this race at Daytona, the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona, I try to attend every year and every year that I do I am spellbound by the event. The speed, the sounds, smells and insane amount of effort to cross the finish line a full day after you have begun. So far in my life I haven't lived vicariously through other people, I wanted to play pro hockey and I got to that level, I wanted to fly jets and I wear a set of wings on my leather jacket, because of this I think that there is a very solid chance of seeing a little American Flag on the roof of a Porsche with the name J. Kovalsky next to it within the next fifteen years. In the end life is too short to be left wondering what it could be like...

Make the jump to 4:00 for the song and a beautiful collection of scenes:

"Theme From the Endless Summer" The Sandals-Planet Surf

Rent, buy or queue up on Netflix a surfing movie. Find a movie that is modern and has a lot of interviews with surfers, maybe Step Into the Liquid, and listen to the way these guys speak. Listen to their tired act of speaking about being one with nature, the connection that only they feel and just how much soul these douche bags have, listen to them speak about themselves being some better type of creature who is more in tune with the planet because of what they do. Then pick up a surfing mag and look at the advertisements...a bunch of white kids who dress like they are from the ghetto trying to look hard out of the water while in the water hopping up and down, catching air and massacring a wave like some shitty corner artist tagging a mail box thinking they are going to be the next Basquiat. Then you can go down to the local break and on a flat day see over eighty people crammed into a lineup that is not even one hundred feet long. They will have all the gear, the new boards, the trunks, stickers on their cars, the racks and every other type of consumable product made to let the world know they surf. Ironically all this crap comes from some sweat shop in China, shipped here in large freighters that burn thousands of gallons of fuel a day to sell to these people who embrace a green way of living and The Surfrider Foundation. Then there are the older surfers who have sold out, whored their piece of the surfing world into cash so they can buy a massive homes at the Hollister Ranch all the while calling those who buy what they are selling kooks and walk amongst them with their noses in the air.

And the only problem I have with all of this is the hypocrisy and the incredible self love these people have in their cores.

Which is why even though I have been surfing since I can remember and literally grown up in the ocean I don't tell people I surf. It is also why the only times I ever make it out are when the conditions are either really big (there's nothing like a nasty, cold ten foot east coast day to drive away the masses) or when I can be assured that no one is in the lineup and there are no attitudes.

Admittedly I am not as good as I should be for someone who has surfed for thirty years, however there aren't too many great surfers who are six foot three and weight two hundred and fifty pounds. But I don't really care about that so much, maybe when I was twelve and I would watch Tommy Curren gracefully cutback I felt inadequate however at this point I remember one of the most classic lines from not only the greatest surf films ever but one of the best films ever "Been doing much surfing Matt?" "Nah (shakes his head), Nah, just when it's necessary"

So there are those days that come up a few times a year when the world is just the shitshow that it always is and I take the blinders off and realize it. On those days I don't need to put on my Arnette glasses, Billabong t-shirt, grab my sticker-ed up stick and hop in my car with Hawaiian print seat covers to throw on a leash and be seen and let the world know that I am a surfer. Rather I'll keep my khakis and button down on, grab a towel and throw my old ten foot Jacobs in the car with little fanfare. I'll collect some quarters from the ashtray (thankfully my car still has them) and buy a cake of wax, a cake because that is what I've always called them. And it will be Sex Wax in their old standby circle form, not some new brand that is made for water temperatures in three degree increments and one has to buy fifteen different bars. I'll change in a towel on the beach since my old home there is long gone and leave my khakis in the sand. No rash guard, wetsuit, not even surfing trunks but my PT shorts from the Navy and then I'll walk to the rocks and paddle out. Most of the times I'll take about three waves in an hour, walk up the beach and put the khakis back on, feel the sand trapped between my toes fall off as the pants come up to my waist, throw the button down on and not button any of the buttons, not rinse off or kick the sand off of my feet but let it scrape off on the floor of the car as I drive home with the salt crusted on my body.

And maybe in saying all this I sound like those soul-zen masters in some of the surfing films. But I don't think so because when I am back in the city I won't talk about the waves I caught that day to let the chicks know I surf or the guys enviously look in my direction. I'll go back to my apartment, one in which there is not one artifact of surf gear laying around and lay down in my bed to pass out quickly just as I did as a tan child in the back seat on the car ride home dreaming of surfing that inside bowl section and how it jacks up on the bar. There is not better feeling than falling asleep after that day in the surf, not after you sign a deal, not after you come, and I don't care what anyone says not better than the day you kids were born, there is just nothing better.

The movie The Endless Summer encompasses all of that and does so without arrogance or airs. This haunting theme as the sun sets over the water has always been ingrained in my mind and always will be and I'll indulge this one opportunity to speak of it and surfing in general because when it comes down to it, no one wants to hear you speak about the day your kids were born, that great orgasm you had the night prior or how you killed it on that deal you made...and they don't care about that drop knee turn you made through that fast section. No one really cares because no one really understands it the way you do, however this song is an insight.

"Sweet Dream Woman" Waylon Jennings-Good Hearted Woman

Best known to the average Joe as the narrator's voice in The Dukes of Hazzard, barely known from the days in which the above picture was taken as the bassist for Buddy Holly following the break up of The Crickets. Waylon Jennings eroded into a hairy, troubadour crafted by that eroded landscape of the American Southwest which he called home.

But one can look his story up on wiki just as anyone else.

Yesterday I drove out to see the parents, the night prior was frustrating in town, Bridge and Tunnel pricks on their constant quest to ruin the city for two days a week. I went out for a steak alone as all my other companions were busy with events of this second week in February. Every step along the way was an exercise in patience and civility and on the verge of explosion I went home. I threw the lights on down low and laid down in bed with my clothes on fully intent of heading out for one last drink before the night was over, merely a reprieve from the events before and waiting for the call from someone.

The call came around four in the morning while I was sound asleep.

I woke up early on Sunday and headed out, dealt with shitty drivers and traffic until I found myself on the couch watching the ProAm at Pebble with my father in the same position I have taken at said place for the past thirty three years. After a few hours it was time to head back in and take care of some business.

I have a new 16 gig nano and from the time I purchased it it has been on random. It is something I never really do since my other iPods have over sixteen thousand songs and I don't need to hear some of the very random tunes that are held on it. But on the nano, since it is limited to around three thousand there is nothing but the stuff I can listen to at any time.

I took the exit for the Holland Tunnel and cruised through the ramp at around ninety which for some reason I am always doing. As I pulled up to the first traffic light before the tunnel, the one where you can make a left and head into Hoboken I was sitting there staring out of the window with my mind totally blank and void, the music not even registering in my consciousness. That is until this tune came on, like an old friend who walks into the bar unexpectedly, it warmed my soul and loosened my jaw (which is the first symptom of stress for me), my heart rate slowed and goose bumps ran through my skin when Waylon in his deep timbre howled "Sweet Dream Woman, come and be a woman to me".

But the thoughts that raced through my mind were not some dimly lit room with a nude long haired temptress arching her back above me and kissing my neck, nor the sweetness of blue eyes laughing in the sun on a beach towel laid where the grass meets the sand. Rather it was a lone trucker pacing though I-10, my college buddy and his band traveling from gig to gig in a Prevost for the past two years without a home and myself sitting in the jet with the headphones on, the communications turned down on some J route headed back east on a Sunday after long weekend out west with a hangover and my survival gear suffocating my insides. It was the story of life and the cinema that is everyone's individual life. It is life that is that temptress, and just as all the other temptresses before they have all passed and are left as fodder for dreams. For now there was a temptress just on the other side of that tunnel, one that will leave me in a while and I'll be left searching for another on that lone highway.

Sam Cooke-One Night Stand: Sam Cooke Live at the Harlem Square Club 1963

When I began writing this post I initially was going to write it about the song "Cupid" but I forgot to single out the song on iTunes and the whole album started playing and I decided, for the first time to just write in general about an album or an artist and not a song specifically. Sam Cooke hearkens back to a simpler time of love, going steady, drive ins and that (well at least pretense) ideal of pure love. In reality the guys were still trying to get laid just as they do now and the women were pretending to not be interested in their advances and their assets.

But even in today's world there still always comes a time when that simple, beautiful, innocent type of love comes into someones heart. Whether it is there or not Sam is the man to belt out whatever you are feeling, to sing along and to just let them dang old words come spilling out of those lungs.

"Bring it on Home to Me", "Cupid", "Chain Gang", "Having a Party...the setlist is epic and I challenge anyone to put this album on while on the road and attempt to not sing along. You can't. It is too much. Outside of Springsteen Sam Cook is one of the only artist I have ever had the experience of putting on in a roomful of men and have had them bust out in a sing a long from the top of their lungs.

I remember the last time I had it on in the car. It was a rented Toyota Highlander and I was driving from Key West to Miami to see an old lover with little expectation of any hope of rekindling the old flame. Over the seven mile bridge I was screaming "All day long they work so hard 'till the sun is going down..." and while I was crossing through Key Largo "...everybody swinging, Sally's doing the twist now, and if you take request..." until I was on 95 south heading towards South Beach rocking "...sometimes I don't know how I stand the things that woman do to me..."

By the time I showed up at her door I was horse and barely able to speak. We had lunch at Carpaccio while I was attempting to keep my eyes on her and off the insane looking Euro trash roaming around the floor, trying to be the gentleman that I am, later on at the Delano while in the lobby there was a smooth house mix of jazz fusion being played by a saxophone I still had ole' Sam floating through my mind. Late night with the humid, sweet air wafting though the curtains of her flat we sat around on a pure white Corbusier couch until I broke the tension by throwing on "Twistin' The Night Away" and we broke out in dance.

Sam Cooke died under strange circumstances, and because of that incident there's somewhat of a black eye attached to his legacy but in my mind I know that his indictment was erroneous. I know this from when I hear him begin "It's All Right" with the sweet rambling "La la la la la la, oooh ooh ooh cha cha la la la fellows when someone tell you something about what your girl has done or what your wife has done I want you to remember one thing, don't go home on hitting on her and that stuff, go home and shake her wake her up, and when she wipe the sleep from her eyes tell her...It's alright, it's alright, it's alright believe me it's alright, believe me baby it's alright as long as I know, long as I know that you love me it's alright."

That's it right there, buy the album, embrace it, hear it, don't listen to it and savor the sweet harmonic ramblings of Sam Cooke live. Take that ole' girl by the waist and throw her around in a shuffle just as you know she wants you to do, kiss her on her neck and work your way up while singing any line, verse or song from this beautiful work, take in the smell of her hair and the smile she cracks when you sing it off key as Sam would never do and promise her you'll never part regardless of it is true or not for lies such as those are of the good kind and are always acceptable.

"Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio" Los Lobos-...And a Time to Dance

I don't speak a lick of Spanish so I have no idea what they are saying in this song. I guess I could have looked it up on Google but I prefer to just listen to the music and dig the feeling, the sights and sounds I think of when I lay back and drink down an ice cold Imperial.

I guess of thought of this song because in a few weeks I'll be taking a drive out west, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah; some of my favorite places in the world. The most wide, epic and forbidden places in this great country. I am heading out there with a great friend in a Kerouacian-Thompson type road trip to explore the land and ourselves.

This song came to my attention in the movie "Fandango" and early Kevin Costner film about four friends and a college road trip in the time of the Vietnam War. Not many people have seen the film but it is a pearl, and the ending is beautiful on a lot of different levels.

I am not quite sure what I'll find out there but every trip I make such as this I find something, and while I am not going on a visit to see Dom (watch the movie), the experience and meaning remains the same.

"That Look You Give That Guy" Eels-Hombre Lobo

A few weeks ago I met a woman for a drink at Daniel. This woman I had met a few weeks earlier, exchanged numbers and said we'd get together. As is usually the case in Manhattan something always pops up with me, then something popped up with her and time elapsed. However, she called me and said we'd do it this week for sure. That we'd meet at Daniel. I love Daniel, I love how it intimidates people and hence keeps away the riff raff, I love the ceilings that they couldn't change when they remodeled the interior because they were protected by law. I love the French staff, the revolving doors you have to walk through to get in, the fact that it was the old Mayfair hotel and the nights of pure debauchery that must have been spent there. I love that it is two blocks away from my home and how if you are the right person (as I guess I am) you can sit at the bar in jeans and a t shirt and not draw stray looks.

But I don't love it when a woman wants to go there for a first meeting. Daniel is expensive. It is well known. And when a woman first meets you and asks to go there she is either: Used to playing in a league where men make my salary in a day OR just a total money chasing tart. I don't think there is any other in betweens...at least for a first date.

It was only drinks so it wasn't going to run too pricey and she was attractive enough that the suits at the bar would be envious so I said why not. I threw on my favorite jacket, a pair of Berluti monk strap shoes I had just shined, greasy old jeans soiled from working on the Porsche and made my way to blocks up to 65th and Park.

When you walk into Daniel you are accosted with smiling faces of the staff behind which is always suspicion. Meandering over to the bar where an empty seat stood on the south side I heard a Hotel Costes track come through the speakers. I ordered a Sapphire up with a twist as I do and have on every spot on the globe no matter how remote and Francois produced a fine one to say the least. Staring at the lights behind the bar and an old wasp at the far end with too much Chanel on this Eels song came on.

Immediately I dispensed it as hipster trash. But like the gin flowing through my veins warming my soul on this cold night the sounds made their way into my ear boring a hole into my brain and meshing with the alcohol in the soul. I loved it. The simple lyrics better than the Dark Lady sequence of a Shakespeare sonnet. The one track electric guitar standing in civil disobedience to everything Phil Spector proclaimed. This song's lyrics remind me of Springsteen's "I Wish I Was Blind" in their lamentation and despair and Springsteen is of course a Titian master.

Everything blended into a slow motion haze even when a glance at the steps reveled her, smiling and proudly strutting towards the bar. An open seat on my right she put her bag down and leaned over to kiss me as I stood and buttoned my jacket. She was bundled up in fur and a white dress that hugged her hips and made a silhouette "S" up to little saucers, a thin nape exposed and dark hair that fell by the wayside carelessly. The song ended and we began talking. Another song began. And again another song, another drink until it was time to walk her home in the frigid Manhattan air to her place a block away. Too long because of the cold, too short because I didn't expect an invite up.

And I never did and never will because it just wasn't there. I never wanted to be that guy for her and I knew that almost before I even agreed to show up in the first place. What a simple pleasure it was to watch her walk towards me with this track in the background setting the scene in an already beautiful place surrounded with all the visceral stimuli imaginable. A simple pleasure for some other guy to experience, to never let her down and tell her everything she ever imagined to hear those longs nights when she wasn't wasting her time with a man at Daniel and laid in bed wondering were that one really was.