Cheap Tricks

Ok, so, not too many exciting things going on in Oklahoma. I must resort to blogorilla tactics to keep my readership interested. Here is some more nice shiny morsels from my trip in Brazil.

(Ahh, dinner with friends.)

(Check out the sidewalk peace signs. Thought those were cool.)

(My favorite eyes in Brazil.)

(Pretty churches and streets.)

(Dancing on the precipice.)

(My first New Yorken friends. They make me feel so hip, being from a big city and all.)

(Shopping Barra. Probably the most horrendously designed mall in Brazil. First world prices in a third world setting. Gotta love it.)

(Tattoo: the most effective thing one can do to irritate your grandma.)

(Impressive trees deserve climbing.)

(Leo and lions. If it wasn't for their appetite they'd be like family.)

(Imagine that. I never tired of the beautiful beaches.)

Ok. Thats all.

Um...Holla!

Hello you crazy cats of auto customization, you sultry souls of vehicular refinery, welcome to yet another addition of Pimp My Ride. Today, we’re bringing it to you live, not from the L.A. projects or the Big A’s urban sprawl, but from the little known outlands of back alley Oklahoma. It is here, with crescent wrench in hand, that were going to take one man’s sad little Neon, and turn it into a shiny new whip, a “brand new ride”.

So, without further a due, meet your host, mechanic, and recipient of today’s show -- Leo.
Leo hails from a long line of car detailers and traders, who’ve selected and sold such fine vehicles as the Volks Station Wagon, the Cargo Van, the Barby Beach Cruiser, the John Deer Mower, and many other finely listed farm and utility vehicles.

Today, Leo is going to show us what it means to be cool (minus the cool), and how to turn a not so sexy stock car into a formula one roadway fighter. Let’s watch:

First, you need a can of spray paint.
Next, for application purposes, a small roll of duck tape and some cardboard.

Before this, however, it is recommended to give the car a good soak, scrub, wax & wash.

Then, after everything is prepared, you need to stare into a camera and do this:

And this:

$50 dollars and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken later, with a little seat cover, steering wheel mount, and a contact juggling ball, your car can look like this:

Plus some banging speakers and:

Bam!


Your ride is pimped!

I'd just like to take this moment to say, this is what happens when you get bored in Oklahoma.

Um...holla!

Off and Away

Well, I have returned. I sit in the same attic crawlspace from which my journey first began. My last few days in Brazil were incredible—Rio being the finale, and the true icing on the cake. In my final hours, I held hands with a monolithic Christ, I jumped off a nine hundred foot cliff, and I gave way to passion on a stormy beach until the rising of the next day sun. It was just as sweet as I intended it to be.

It is very strange to be back. I could list a thousand things which I notice more acutely now. The cars are so big, the people and the food equally so. Everything seems so clean, so neat, so ordered. It’s nice, to be able to sit back and relax, not having to focus intently on what people are saying or who is going to rob me.

What strikes me as strangest of all, however, is not how different everything is, but just how unchanged life has remained. I was only gone for four months, four measly little months, and yet I feel so different. Everything in Oklahoma, in the States, has remained in its place. My parents are here, the same people, working hard on the same daily things. My stuff lies unaffected, unmoved, if not for a bit of dust now collected on the rim. My car, my life, it is exactly how I left it, trapped in a bubble of static momentum.

And yet, amidst this regularity, amidst this collection of familiar things, I strangely feel somewhat foreign. I feel different than the person that left from this space—more full and more alive, like Dorothy stepping out of the whirlwind wondering where her Kansas had gone. My hair is ruffled, and my clothes torn yet everything else remains unchanged.

But this is a good feeling, and for me it reaffirms the necessity of such a trip. Having lived and breathed OZ, I return excited about my life, and confident in my ability to navigate through it. In less than a month I will be heading off to Washington D.C. I want to start up Kendo again. I want to continue working out at the gym. I want to save up for a motorcycle, get back into school, land myself a good job. I want to live and breathe the randomness of life.

For this adventure, and all that is to come, I am very grateful. For all you people who helped me get there, and who have lived with me on this journey—my heartfelt thanks. As one page ends, another begins, and I hope we continue to travel together on this great adventure.

These pictures speak for themselves: