Sabbath Bloody Sabbath FULL!

Honestly, I was never too impressed with this as a video, per se, but it is the video to the song...so here it is.

Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath

 Time to return to the roots, stuff that really matters the most: including the all-time favorite Black Sabbath album, Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.  Like Dark Side of the Moon and Back in Black, this is a classic album.  I can’t say it belongs in everyone’s collection, but certainly every ROCK fan should have it.  I bought it in high school at the same time I bought Sabotage, albums #5 and #6 respectively in the Ozzy/Sabbath lineup.  Such a good album, in fact, that every track deserves individual attention.

Of course, the album cover itself is one of the best, plus its backside – combined, it infers that the “demons” tormenting the poor guy are simply his own family members which his delirium transforms into devils instead of sympathetic friends and family.  Stunning!  With all the great albums which have remarkably poor album covers – Zeppelin IV comes to mind immediately – that the art and the music complement each other so well is itself commendable.

Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.  The title track, killer all the way through and a good opener.  I had first heard this on Speak of the Devil, so I wasn’t prepared for the second set of vocals when I originally heard this on vinyl.  

National Acrobat.  Tuned down to C#, a good example of a complex song which shows Sabbath’s more artistic angle. 

Fluff.  A light instrumental, one of my favorite.  Although you couldn’t fill an entire album with soft Sabbath songs, there are a few: “Solitude”, “Planet Caravan”, “Laguna Sunrise”, and “She’s Gone”.  This is one of the better ones.  

Sabbra Cadabra.  Bar none, one of the top Sabbath songs.  Metallica covered it on their Garage, Inc. album, a rare occasion when they actually picked a better example of a band’s material to cover (along with “Astronomy” by Blue Oyster Cult, another gem).  The song has two parts: the initial up tempo part, then the second more romantic and darker part.  

Killing Yourself To Live.  Opens side two with a bang.  Especially kick ass in the middle when Ozzy whispers – over the fantastic riffing, “smoke it – get high.”   

Who Are You.  Features Rick Wakeman of Yes on keyboards.  When the band toured with Yes, Wakeman stuck with Ozzy and the gang.  I never figured out who the song was directed to, though the best bet is God.  This is after taking God’s side in “After Forever” from Master of Reality.  

Looking For Today.  More cynical but good rocking songs with familiar time changes and soft parts interlocking, a good combination of metal and organic.   

Spiral Architect.  A light acoustic intro, leading into a more spatial song to close off the album.  

Sean – the same guy who so cleverly figured out Rob Halford’s sexual orientation (and advised me that it was Clapton, not Harrison, playing lead guitar on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”) – missed the boat on this one.  He was too stuck up on Frank Zappa and Rush, so he slagged off Black Sabbath as having idiotic lyrics.  All these lyrics are excellent, well-written and thoughtful, easily in Neil Peart’s class and range.   Although Ronnie James Dio era Sabbath is most noted for its lyrics, I think that gives short shrift to Geezer Butler’s work on the first 8 albums they did with Ozzy Osbourne.   

Ozzy Osbourne still had his voice back then.  As I noted earlier, he can’t claim the pipes of Robert Plant or Ian Gillan, but he does sing – which more than can be said for rappers or the “cookie monster” singers from most thrash bands.  Geezer Butler and Bill Ward do the job on bass and drums, respectively.  And of course Tony Iommi nails the guitar.     

Incidentally, I learned to play “National Acrobat”, “Fluff”, “Killing Yourself To Live”, and “Sabbra Cadabra” – and the acoustic intro to “Spiral Architect” – on guitar.  “NA” has a low tuning, C#, shared with “Into the Void” and “Snowblind”, so I tend to play those three together. 

Happiness vs. Shit That Sucks

I was going to do this as “happiness is”…but that struck me as incredibly gay.  So I’ll balance it with the dark side, trying to match entry for entry but not necessarily making it so.  Also, lots of stuff definitely sucks (dying, getting killed, robbed, bubonic plague, AIDS, cancer, etc.) but since it hasn’t happened to me personally, I can’t really comment on it. 

Happiness is…

            Slam dunking a case for your client.

            Getting an excellent offer in settlement on a case.

            Relaxing after a hard day at work, drinking a well-earned beer (or two, or three…etc.).

            Getting a great new job.

            Receiving the package you’ve been waiting for in the mail.

            Seeing your favorite band in concert – and they play your favorite songs.  Bonus: the t-shirts rock too.

            Hearing from an old friend you haven’t heard from in a long time.

            Finding something you thought was lost.

            Getting a new (or newer) car.

            Getting your car back from the shop – for less than you thought it would cost.  Particularly when it comes back from the body shop with a mirror shine paint job and all the dents, dings, and scratches gone.

            Finding a new album to listen to over and over again.

            A great movie which grips you for its duration: and (if on DVD) some killer extra stuff.

            A good book you can’t put down until the last page.  Bonus: a great movie adaptation of the same book.

            Going on a trip to a really nice place.

            Falling in love.

            Getting a new, faster, more advanced computer with new features.

            A warm gun.

            New strings on the guitar, or new tubes & a bias job on my amp.

            Learning to play a new song.

            Being able to appreciate a beautiful day, no matter what s**t may be going on your life at the time.

            Watching an impressive thunder storm from the safety and dryness of your apartment/house.

Shit that Sucks is…

            The judge buys opposing counsel’s idiotic arguments.

            When some cheap-ass insurance company won’t offer a reasonable amount.

            Getting fired (or even laid off).  Even if you saw it coming a mile away it, sucks, but it’s especially nasty if you didn’t see it coming.

            Coming home from work and finding you have no beer – and it’s too late to buy any.  I really hate getting to the checkout line and having the cashier insist that you missed the deadline when your watch disagrees (stupid store policy of refusing to sell beer 5 minutes BEFORE the time deadline runs).

            Getting an email which says that the item you ordered is out of stock – and had been when you placed your order.

            Going to the store and finding that not only are they out of stock of your favorite item…it’s been discontinued.

            Finding the concert is cancelled – because the band broke up.

            Bulls**t from people who call themselves your friends but don’t act like it.

            Losing something important.

            Having your car totalled or wrecked.

            Having your car break down.

            A band you really like breaks up – or a key member dies (e.g. John Lennon or Layne Staley).

            A crappy movie – or a crappy date – or both.

            Having to cancel a trip for some bullshit reason – or being unable to go.

            When you find someone you love has been cheating on you – or just plain using you.

            Your computer’s hard drive crashes, wiping out lots of important s**t.  And HP has discontinued the recovery discs you need to install a new hard drive.

            Getting caught in a thunder storm with no umbrella and no shelter.

It’s rare in life that anything majorly awesome or crappy happens.  Usually our happiness or misery is the result of an aggregate of cool or shitty stuff.  Part of the secret to happiness – which I’ve yet to master, despite my generally (sometimes annoyingly) upbeat disposition – is the ability to focus on the good stuff and not on the bad. 

Judas Priest Then And Now

I recently caught Judas Priest on the Masters of Metal tour with Heaven & Hell and Motorhead.  Somehow I knew we weren’t going to hear “Dreamer Deceiver” or “Run of the Mill” (although Halford had specifically mentioned the latter song in a recent interview, which shows he hasn’t completely forgotten that era), so what we could expect would be the best of their more recent material.  I have to divide their material into two phases:  “old” and “metal”.

The “old” phase includes the first two albums Rocka Rolla and Sad Wings of Destiny.  Rocka Rolla has a few so-so songs, “Rocka Rolla” itself and “One For The Road”, the better ones, “Winter”/“Deep Freeze”/”Winter Retreat”/”Cheater”, “Never Satisfied”, “Dying to Meet You”, and the best of all of them, “Run of the Mill.”  Sad Wings has “Victim of Changes”, “Tyrant”, “Genocide”, “The Ripper”, “Island of Domination” (a great closer); the two light songs to balance it out, “Prelude” (opening side 2) and “Epitaph”; and my favorite Judas Priest song, hell, one of my favorite songs, period, by any band, “Dreamer Deceiver”/”Deceiver”.  Ages ago a pair of US teenagers killed themselves over this song, but I never heard anything in it which would lead to depression or suicide, or which I perceived as a call to either; “Beyond the Realms of Death”, however, would fit that role far better.  Priest were sued over the issue but won – rightly so.

This older material has a 70s feel and vibe to it, and Halford sometimes even sings with a normal voice (wait, is that the same guy? Do they have two singers?).  The clear highlights are “Run of the Mill” and “Dreamer Deceiver”, which have long, winding guitar solos and really take you up into the clouds, or deep into Hell.  I can hear some vague touches of this on Nostradamus, emphasis on the word “vague”.   Even the logo – in an English font – is somehow older than the more modern version they’ve had since Stained Class.  We picked these up on vinyl back in 1984.  Just like Rush prefer to avoid mentioning Fly By Night and Caress of Steel (I’m sure Neil Peart cringes whenever anyone even mentions “The Necromancer”) Judas Priest tend to avoid these albums.  Even “Ripper” and “Victim of Changes” are out of the setlist these days.  With “Live At Wacken” the Scorpions played with Michael Schenker and Uli Roth, and played songs from their first two albums Lonesome Crow and Fly to the Rainbow, which have a similarly stylistic relationship to the rest of the Scorpions’ mainstream metal material.  If the Scorpions can Accept their past, why not Judas Priest?  In addition to the usual gripes about the sound quality, they talk about not having the rights to this material – so it can’t be properly remastered the way Sin After Sin and later albums were redone.  What we need is a tribute band to play a 1975-era Judas Priest lineup.

Alan Atkins.  This was the first singer, before Rob Halford.  His name still appears on credits for some songs on the first two albums, including “Victim of Changes”.  In a more recent interview he explains that he left the band because he didn’t think it was going anywhere; most likely it was Halford’s voice which made the difference, so yes, they weren’t going anywhere – with him.  I got his solo album, which contains reworked versions of some of those songs.  Verdict?  Excellent voice, but not Halford – like comparing a Z/28 to a Corvette.  [Hmm… maybe get Atkins to sing for that tribute band….]

The “metal” era starts with the third album, Sin After Sin, and continues to the present, including the classic albums British Steel, Screaming for Vengeance, and Defenders of the Faith.  Of these, Defenders is my favorite, even over British Steel.  From “Freewheel Burning” all the way to “Defenders of the Faith”, the album is solid.  The production kicks ass, without being too polished (it also happens to be the very first Priest album I ever listened to, which may affect my objectivity somewhat).  Ram It Down and Painkiller were a little too raw and obnoxious; I analogized Painkiller to daring someone to drive fast, and they did so pulling their tired, broken-down Chevy Nova (80s era) to 100 mph with the damn thing falling apart.   I’ll probably catch hell from the entire faithful for saying this (especially since I don’t like Painkiller), but I like Turbo.  “Parental Guidance” and “Private Property” are bit too catchy and goofy, but the rest – particularly “Out in the Cold” and “Reckless” are fine. 

            As for the other albums, Sin After Sin gives us “Sinner”, Stained Class gives us “Beyond the Realms of Death” (now THAT’S a call to suicide), Hell Bent For Leather gives us “Delivering the Goods” and “Before The Dawn”, and Point of Entry gives us…well ok, it’s a shitty album.  For some reason, I can’t get too excited about the Halford comeback album Angel of Retribution, though I can’t identify any truly Point of Entry moments on it.  In any case, these albums established Judas Priest as one of metal’s defining elements, even before Iron Maiden came around to give them competition.  [Incidentally, if you subtract out the people wearing t-shirts of bands actually appearing at a metal concert, which includes freshly purchased tour shirts, and disqualify an Iron Maiden concert (for obvious reason), the most common band’s t-shirts at most metal shows seems to be Iron Maiden.  They must have an entire village in Indonesia doing nothing but making 1000 different Maiden shirts.]

Halford’s solo & Lifestyle.  For a brief period of time, Halford went off on his own, with two thrashy/industrial projects, Two and Fight (neither of which I’ve heard) before establishing a very brief solo career of material which sounded more like Judas Priest than Priest itself, which at the time was indulging its thrashier tendencies with Ripper Owens for two albums, Jugulator and Demolition. 

            Back when we were in high school, our friend Sean claimed that Halford was gay.  At this time Halford was still denying it – but dressing in leather, with the spikes, etc.  Hey, he denied it, it was good enough for us, even if we did share Sean’s suspicion, if not his conviction.  After Halford left Priest, he finally came out of the closet, and admitted that – despite all the denials to the contrary all this time – he had always been gay (he revealed that his dream celebrity crush was on…Howie Long!  I wonder if Long himself has ever been notified of this as-yet unrequited love).  Looking back, none of the songs have lyrics which would indicate this, with the possible exception of “Raw Deal” from Sin After Sin,  Was Point of Entry an anatomical reference?  It would be more accurate to say that some songs such as “Eat Me Alive” and “Before the Dawn” could be interpreted as having a female OR male love interest, but they are deliberately vague and ambiguous.  The reality was that we really didn’t care much when he did come out.  Part of that was because we already “knew” (despite the denials – and thanks to Sean!) and part was because the music really didn’t reflect his orientation.  We enjoyed the music before, and we still do.  What he does behind closed doors is his own business, as distasteful as we may find it.  We’ll focus on the music instead.  If the next Priest album, after Nostradamus, is called Penetrator, with songs about “between the pitcher and the catcher”…then we’ll find another band to listen to.

Ripper Owens.  Talk about up and down.  On one hand the guy went from being in a Judas Priest tribute band, to replacing Rob Halford himself.  On the other, he was put in the position of singing thrash songs on two Priest albums, Jugulator and Demolition, which are extremely atypical albums.  Vocally he acquits himself well, and he also does a passable Halford impression on the classic JP tracks on their live album from this era.  Similarly, these albums sound like well-executed thrash metal performed by competent musicians.  If you like or want that kind of stuff, it’s not bad.  For some reason, though, I can’t bring myself to compare it to Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, or Trouble, which are “real” thrash bands; I can only compare it to other Judas Priest material, and it comes up short.  By being put in this bizarre position, Owens was doomed to failure.  It was as if the Beatles hired a different drummer to replace Ringo, but only to make two albums of reggae music.  Of course Halford eventually came back, and of course, Owens was let go.  The whole thing is surreal, like a dream that’s so fucked up you can’t even call it a nightmare.

Heavy Metal Parking Lot.  If they ever gather all the Judas Priest live DVDs together as a group package, they should definitely include this.  Although it clocks in at all of 15 minutes – and the band itself is completely absent from it - this low budget (local access cable) documentary clearly captures the audience of a Judas Priest concert at its worst…er…best.   And I have to confess that had I been there in May 1986 at the Cap Center parking lot, waiting for the Turbo show to begin, I’d have been just as stupid and incoherent as any of the live action Beavis & Butt-heads they found cheering, hooting and hollering.  The extra features are just as entertaining, including “Neil Diamond Parking Lot”, a reunion with some of the HMPL morons, and one fan’s fairly accurate analysis of Judas Priest’s albums.  This movie is definitely a must-see for any true Judas Priest fan who was “there” in the 80s, even if they weren’t in that particular parking lot.  However, for anyone not into this music to see this film would give a grossly inaccurate picture of the music itself, as Judas Priest are far more intelligent and competent musicians than their fans would indicate.  However it is, after all, heavy metal, just some of the better examples of that genre.

Judas Priest: Rock Hard Ride Free (Live in Finland 3.6.2008)

While the sound and video quality here is less than perfect, it does showcase one of my favorite songs, which they DID play last night at Nissan Pavilion. Probably my own special preference, but I think "Defenders of the Faith" is the best of Priest's "metal" albums (as opposed to the first two).

Black Sabbath - Lonely Is The Word

My favorite, by far, of the Sabbath w/Dio songs. Although - or because - they didn't play it last night at Nissan Pavilion (Dio apparently thought "Time Machine" was a more important song) I'm posting it here.

Gemeinshaft vs. Gesellshaft

In high school, my friend Jean (John in English) had our respective obsessions.  His was Vietnam (the war) and mine was Germany & WWII.  Our conversations would have the following ingredients:

 “ARVN!”                         “Wehrmacht!”
“Dien Bien Phu!”             “Stalingrad!”
“Green Berets!”              “Skorzeny!”
“French Foreign Legion!” “Waffen SS!”
“Ho Chi Minh!”                “Hitler!”
“Westmoreland!”             “Rommel!”
“Saigon!”                         “Berlin!”
“Apocalypse Now!”           “To Hell And Back!”
“Tet!  Khe Sanh!”             “El Alamein!  D-Day!”

 And so on…  Eventually he married a German woman and moved to Stuttgart, whereas I ended up in a law firm representing Vietnamese clients.  So we’re switched up.  

 In 1996 I visited Germany for his wedding, which took place in a small village in northwest Bavaria, Eichenbuhl.  This was a town so small everyone knew each other by name.  His sister-in-law was moving to Munich, the huge city, where, by comparison, she would be swallowed up by the faceless masses, a sea of anonymity where you didn’t even say hello to the person living next door to you in the apartment building.  

Although Jean himself didn’t express any particular preference for one vs. the other, much less express any particular value judgments, he did recognize that the two were dramatically different environments.  New Yorkers, for instance, have a bad reputation (justified or not) for refusing to help each other out or get involved.  In fact, you tend to find that people in small towns around the world think this about the people from the big cities: a sea of hostile strangers who wouldn’t lift a finger to help each other out in a time of need, which – of course – people in small towns do all the time.

I can’t count how many American films try to cram this theory down our throats, time and time again.  Typically the protagonist is an arrogant “city slicker” who looks down his nose on the small town hicks with whom he’s temporarily stuck, but gradually learns to appreciate this environment and its people – however quaint and out of style they may be – and begins to see his big city peers and friends as shallow and deceitful. Ultimately he decides to stay there and marry the “girl next door” he fell in love with.  “Doc Holliday”, with Michael J. Fox, is just one of these types of films.

A remarkable example of the contrary view is expressed in the movie and novel “Peyton Place”, where a girl’s life is ruined by the hypocrisy of the small town gossips.  Everyone knowing everyone else turned into a twisted nightmare, as the gossips wouldn’t mind their own business and petulantly and arrogantly judged those who they found lacking in character.  Even the main character, Constance Mackenzie, all high and mighty, hides a sordid past.

Ferdinand Tönnies was the late 19^th-early 20^th century German philosopher who articulated the constrasting concepts of “gemeinshaft” (community) vs. “gesellshaft” (society).  Gemeinshaft is defined as a group in which individuals consider themselves working for the best interests of the group – typically a family group or small town - whereas in a gesellshaft – typically a large corporation or bureaucracy – the individual works for his or her own best interests.  Liberals tend to tack onto this analysis, describing large corporations as faceless bureaucracies with no human touch, in which office politics, intrigue, and profits all dominate, which is why they seek a return to simpler, smaller groups as well as a return to rural, agrarian society.

However, it’s easy to see this as an oversimplification as well as inaccurate.  The largest bureaucracy tends to be the military, which is an organization which is not responsive to individual needs and is not geared towards representing individuals.  Quite the contrary: the culture of the military is that the individual is expected to suppress his individuality, interests, and desires for the benefit of the Army, Navy, etc.  Moreover, within the military, at the squad, ship, and squadron level, the soldiers, sailors and pilots ultimately achieve a sense of community – called “camraderie” in this context - with each other, as against and opposed to the force as a whole.  And the same often holds true of individual sections of large companies, not to mention very small firms.  Clearly, trying to distinguish “community” vs. “society” in this sense ultimately becomes nonsensical when you begin looking at it in greater detail.  So much for trying to address the topic in these terms.  We’re better off returning to the “big city” vs. “small town” analysis.

Living in the city.  When I lived in the US before we moved to Paris, we were in Gaithersburg, Montgomery Village.  My parents told us, “when we originally told people we were going to move to Gaithersburg [1970] they asked, ‘ugh, why are you going to move all the way OUT THERE?’”  Then we moved to Paris in 1979, moving to Paris proper in 1984.  At this point we were well and truly IN the city, the 8^th Arrondisement.  Although Villiers and Miromesnil metro stops were close enough, we could walk to the US Embassy at Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysees.  In 1990 we moved back to Gaithersburg.  Every trip to Rio from 2000-2005 was spent in either Copacabana (3 times), Ipanema (once), or Leblon (once), well within the city itself.  As I noted earlier, in late August 1988 we stayed in Manhattan, up on 96^th Street, for about 10 days.  But from 1990 onward I’ve been living in Northern Virginia, definitely suburban territory, and by no means a “roça”. 

The suburbs.  Actually, when we think of suburbs what we think of are BIG CITY PEOPLE who have moved out of the city to seek a SMALL TOWN environment.  But they are still sophisticated, urbane, worldly – especially since most of them still work IN the big city itself.  In a sense, it’s a lifestyle which attempts to merge the best of both worlds, since the suburbs, by their nature, are in close proximity by car or public transportation to the big city.  The funny thing is, the urban, trendy bohemian people who choose to live in the city itself, often look down on the suburbs as essentially rural.

Roça e Buzios.  In January 2003, we visited Buzios, a small town on the coast of Rio de Janeiro state, about 2 hours out of town from the city of Rio de Janeiro itself.  When we returned, the evening of the second day, the sky started getting dark – and we got the horrible sensation, the paranoia, of being isolated out in the “roça” (countryside), a remote, desolate area where no one was around.  Rio, with all its overcrowded masses and crime and vice, was nonetheless hospitable and sheltering compared to the loneliness of the country.  This is where people ARE, this is where things happen (good and bad)…and this is where we want to be.

Bottom Line.  Although I can appreciate Manhattan, Paris, and some parts of DC, I have to say that I prefer the suburbs most of all – developed enough that you have what you want within good distance, but not the parking nightmare that the city is.  I think of the suburbs as the best of both worlds. 

Speed Racer

I grew up watching this show as a kid in the US in the mid 70’s.  Lately I decided to see all 5 seasons worth of episodes, once and for all – partly out of youthful nostalgia.  Although it’s Japanese animation, there are no transforming robots, dragons, scantily clad school girls, etc. – just a bunch of fast cars and exotic locales.  I haven’t yet seen the live action film which recently came out, though I find that cartoons do a poor job of being translated into live action.

Speed Racer  The main character, youthful (undetermined age) though his father “forbids him to race until he has more experience” while recognizing his apparent natural ability.  Above-average looks, but not particularly bright or clever.  His forte seems to be an almost naïve devotion to “winning fair and square”.  From all the fights he gets into, but wins, it’s clear he has some skill in martial arts.

Trixie.  His girlfriend, although this being a children’s show, they are not intimate.  In one episode his code phrase to indicate he’s in trouble is to discuss engagement rings with her.  She typically gets jealous whenever an attractive female shows any interest in Speed – one time she actually disguised herself and came on to him, but he didn’t take the bait.  She can also fly a helicopter.

Pops Racer.  Loud, obnoxious, and aggressive.  He built and developed the Mach 5 (as well as other cars) but his own history doesn’t seem to enter the picture; I seem to recall his background is in engineering and not racing.  He seems to be fairly competent in car design despite a few aspersions thrown that way in some episodes (mainly “The Supersonic Car”).

Mom Racer.  Sounds just like Trixie.  Her job is to worry about Speed, Pops, etc. – and bake cookies for Spritle and Chim-Chim.

Spritle & Chim-Chim.  Count on the kid brother to hide in the Mach 5’s trunk along with Chim-Chim, and find some way to save the day with a slingshot, in exchange for his favorite reward, candy.  For all their mischief they’re often as valuable as anyone else.  In a two-part episode, Spritle is mistaken for a  prince of a kingdom, they are switched, and a “Prince & The Pauper” scenario develops.

Sparky.  The mechanic, who usually gets the raw deal, often knocked out as navigator in favor of Trixie.  Dependable and competent, however.

Racer X.  Yes, we all know that Racer X is really…Rex Racer, who ran away from home as a young, arrogant racer.  Now he’s a mysterious man of intrigue, dabbling in international espionage, looking over Speed and saving his ass in the most convenient way (“you gave your gas away to the cute chick competing against you?  No problem, here’s another tank.”).  In “The Trick Race” Speed finally gets a clue, but by the following episode he’s forgotten already and gone back to being merely suspicious.  Like Speed he drives a sports car (the yellow Shooting Star) which doubles as a sports car and a race car.

The Mach 5.  Speed’s implausibly versatile – but equally cool - car!  Not only is it a street car, it’s also competitive in Formula One racing against dedicated race cars.  Its many features:

            1.         Jacks spring out underneath it, allowing it to jump over ravines and obstacles;

            2.         Mountain tires allow it to grip rocky surfaces and scale almost sheer cliffs;

            3.         Razor saws allow it to cut through trees in forests instantaneously – fortunately for Speed, those trees invariably fall AWAY from the Mach 5 and not ON IT;

            4.         Its glass bubble allows it to become waterproof so the Mach 5 can travel underwater, with a modest oxygen supply (at issue when he found himself at the bottom of Niagara Falls);

            5.         It must have something similar to KITT’s “molecular bonded shell”, as it is bulletproof;

            6.         Homing pigeon which can deliver a message or piss off bad guys;

            7.         The engine is never described in any detail.  V8?  I6?  Rotary?  Supercharged?  Diesel?  Who knows.  For a car so fast, though, you’d think at some point someone would describe its engine in detail.  Too bad they couldn’t drop in the GR-X;

            8.         White with red interior, two seats, no A/C or stereo – or even windshield wipers.  A big red M on the hood (Mifune Motors), and a yellow 5 on red circle on the doors.  Supposedly this was the 5^th of Pop Racer’s designs (Rex Racer smashed an earlier one);

            9.         According to Acey Deucy, it can be faithfully copied in less than an hour – though for a price in clams;

            10.        As a kid I wanted a toy of this, but they didn’t make one, which I considered – even then – to be a huge marketing failure.  Hot Wheels made one called “Second Wind”, which I got, but it wasn’t a large car, which I thought was more appropriate.  Visiting a department store in Rio de Janeiro, sometime in 2000, I found exactly that toy, only by then I was 30 something and too old for it.  Thanks.

            Plots.  Actually, as an adult I found them to be somewhat simplistic and unrealistic, but entertaining nonetheless.  They’re really more on a kid’s level.  It’s unclear where he’s from, as he goes practically everywhere, including Japan, Africa, South America, Paris, the US, without any clear indication of what his home base is.  In a sense, he’s from anywhere and everywhere, so children from around the world can identify with him and share the magic, so to speak, without having to attribute him to any other country than their own. 

            There are always villains, and Speed always acts with courage, honor, and integrity.  Cheating in races is the exclusive province of villains, whereas Speed insists on winning any race “fair & square”.  Sometimes his rivals tend to be cocky and arrogant, but he helps them out anyway – and usually manages to win anyway.  Many of the villains are undone by their own pranks and stunts, so a sense of justice and karma pervades the series.  So not only are the shows fun to watch, but they also teach some good moral values.  Speed never drinks, smokes, or does drugs, and he’s consistently faithful to Trixie, although he’s frequently tempted to stray.  This is why I say, not only is the car cool, and the episodes simple enough in plot, but the value judgments and ethics of the show are appropriate for children.

Favorite episodes: I actually don’t have very many favorite episodes, as too many of them have the same plot over and over again.  Only three jump out at me:  (A) the one with the GR-X, the fastest car in the world.  It’s so fast, the driver has to be sprayed with a substance which makes him unbearable thirsty, yet if he drinks anything, he becomes terrified of driving.  The car itself was so fast, it sounded like a jet plane (awesome sound), (B) the one with the X3/Melange, the remote-driven dark purple car designed to wipe out the Three Roses team; and (C) the Trick Race, featuring the return of Captain Terror and the Car Acrobatic Team...and Racer X.