Khaosan Road is a good spot in Bangkok to see American automobiles from the ’50s. There are a lot of American hippies from the ’60s there too.

I know that title sounds like a reference to the House Committee on Un-American Activities but it’s an allusion to George Lucas and not Joe McCarthy. And while you may think Star Wars when you hear George Lucas, I think American Graffiti. ‘Cuz my buddy and I took a hit of window pane when we went to see the first Star Wars movie and those that followed have just never made any sense to me. So I’m talking about the golden years of the American automobile and not X-Wing Fighters. Not that Joe McCarthy doesn’t play into the theme of this post too: despite the gorgeous automobiles they helped produce, unions and their organizers were assumed to be commies back in the ’50s. Not unlike how the Tea Party views unions today. But then the Tea Party too is becoming a thing of the past. They’d probably have done better if their platform included bringing back the 1955 T-Bird rather than reestablishing an American utopia that never really existed outside of the television studios.

George is a local hometown hero where I live, there’s even a statue of him downtown. And, again, it’s because of American Graffiti, not Star Wars. Even though the latter would probably do more for tourism. But George’s earlier flick was a homage to the weekend nights of his teen-age years spent driving up and down the same stretch of pavement and that pavement happens to still exist and belongs to what once was a small speck of a town squatting in the Central Valley of California. Mel’s Diner, may or may not still exist too. I’d have to check. It keeps re-opening and closing again, and then opening elsewhere before being re-opened in or near its original location. Kinda like a Jedi mind trick on the local populace.

Every few years the town fathers decide it’s time to recreate the city’s golden years and promote weekend cruising along the strip again. Most are old white dudes who were born and raised in the area and somehow manage to forget their forefathers did their damn best to prohibit that activity back when they were young. And then being old white dudes who actively support the Tea Party, they also tend to forget the valley’s demographics have changed over the last fifty years and now when all the cool old cars from the ’50s and ’60s do make an appearance on the strip, they’re all low riders. So instead of downtown being filled with modern day versions of Opie from Mayberry RFD, the local Latino gangs show up, violence ensues, and the town fathers’ plans turn into a night or two of the police busting up the low riders cruising the Strip instead. Just like in the good old days. Which pisses everyone off. Except for me. ‘Cuz I’m a big fan of irony.

Outside of California, everyone thinks we are a bunch of dope-smoking hippie astral travelers, forgetting that Saint Reagan was from California. And ya know back in the day Nancy would have just said no to the idea of cruising too. The truth is the conservative right is well represented in the Golden State, and the Central Valley is a hot bed of conservatism. Not to mention Mennonites. But they don’t count because we use electronic voting machines now. So the local vote tends to go to the Republicans, even though Tea Party aficionados are out numbered by Latinos three to one. No problemo. Our governor is a dope-smoking hippie astral traveler, so anything the local conservatives attempt to do he thwarts anyway. The irony is that the Latino community is, by and large, conservative themselves. And would vote Republican if the Grand Old Party would embrace their conservative ideals instead of trying to pander to them. The Tea Party could double its voter roll by signing up new members during a low rider version of American Graffiti night if they’d spent those last fifty years getting to know their Latino neighbors instead of just hiring them as gardeners. Instead they view immigration reform in the context of a foreign invasion. And think nominating Marco Rubio as their presidential candidate will lure the massive Latino voting block to their team.

Marco is the Tea Party’s golden boy ‘cuz they think since he speaks Spanish he can reach all of the people they’d like to see deported. A ten minute conversation with their gardener would dissuade them from that train of thought. Latinos are not a homogenous voting block. When it comes to Latinos, those with the strongest prejudice against Latinos are Latinos. If you don’t believe me, go ask a Mexican if his family is from Guatemala. I’d have said Cuba – like Marco’s familia is – but then you probably wouldn’t be alive long enough for me to say I told you so. Even those Latinos who do decide to vote Republican in 2016 will not vote for Marco Rubio because he speaks Spanish; they’ll vote for anyone else because he is Cuban. Not that it matters anyway. Everyone has already conceded the race to Hillary. Which is a good thing. ‘Cuz I really want to vote for Marco, but don’t want my vote to be the one that puts him in the White House. ‘Cuz I don’t support pretty much any of his beliefs. But there is just something about him that makes me want to bang the hell out of him. And it’s about time the U.S. had a doable president. Or another eight years of Bill Clinton. Which, face it, is why Hillary will win the race.

So locally, we just had another attempt by the town fathers to turn back the hands of time, and the local paper sent a staff reporter to cover the event. They could have made the error of sending an old white Tea Party fan, but instead compounded their error by sending a fish too young to even remember the film much less the glory days of cursing the strip. Her take on the event was that celebrating the golden days of the American automobile was quickly becoming a thing of the past because all she saw was a bunch of elderly men with gray beards or gray mustaches, a rather myopic view considering the large number of Taco lunch trucks that had descended on the Strip. But she thought she’d come up with a cute twist to her story, that the only people interest in cars of that age were those of that age themselves. Which only proved fish are no better at appreciating cars from the ’50s than they are at doing math. And she decided the reason that young (white) people were under-represented at the event was because today’s youth treats its automobiles as they do most other things in their life: as a disposable commodity. Which does little to explain why most of the garages on my block turn into mini-repair and body and fender shops every weekend. But then most of those homeowners are Latino and don’t count. Until election time rolls around again.

Cambodians, on the other hand, evidently don’t count at all. There used to be a large Cambodian wat about a mile from my house. It looked nothing like the wats in SE Asia, but along with the Mennonites you would occasionally spot a monk in saffron around town. Too bad I never saw one driving a 55 T-Bird, ‘cuz that woulda been a cool photograph. But unlike the Strip, the town fathers decided that temple had nothing to do with the city’s history so they used eminent domain to buy the land, told the monks to get the Buddhist version of hell out of Dodge, and then turned around and sold it to Walmart to put in a new super-sized store. Which is a very American thing to do. So now I have to travel to SE Asia to see Cambodian monks. As well as automobiles from the ’50s. Because I’m not Latino and when they hold an American Graffiti night locally, I don’t fit in with all the low riders. But then otherwise today’s post would have been a Monk Shot! instead of a 7 Shots post, so I’m not complaining.

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