Category Archives: cars

Faster Than Hell

Back in 1984 a Paris friend bought a fiendishly fast KZ 1100 cc bike. One evening we were sitting at le Savanne, an African transvestite after-hour bar in Les Halles, Francois dangled the keys in front of my face, “How you like to take the monster for a ride?” I had a Vespa. Its top […]

NOT ALL CRASHES ARE ACCIDENTS by Peter Nolan Smith

I never met Princess Diana, although a friend of a friend married her brother. Diana would have been at the wedding. I never received an invitation. No great loss, because the Princess of Wales wasn’t my type, however I viewed her death as a blow against the empire of goodness. I arrived in London the […]

Mission Delta 88

People drove big cars in the early 70s. My father bought a four-door Delta 88 Royale in 1973. Only 7000 were made that year. The overhead-valve high-compression V8 engine owed its existence to muscle cars such as the GTO. The Delta 88 was no family car. A heavy foot on the pedal rocketed the ton […]

Demo Derby Redux

Three Labor Days ago Richie Boy drove to Ditch Plains for a morning surf session. His Brazilian wife was intent on taking in the sun. The incoming morning tide was building green glassy tubes held up from a rare offshore breeze. Within an hour they’d be overhead. I wasn’t joining my longtime friend in the […]

I, Robot Kill Kill Kill

In I ROBOT Isaac Asimov’s 1950 short story collection about robots in the future, he sets up the Three Laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm 2) A robot must obey orders givein to it by human beings except […]