Chompin' at the Bit

I've got to get out to the garage and start tweaking, tuning, and modding the Fairlane soon. I'm jonesin' for the grease fix.
To hold me for a while, here's a fairly well done montage of Mad Max chase scenes set to one of my favorites Ace of Spades by Motorhead.

And a link to part 1 of a 12 part dice of the whole Mad Max 2/Road Warrior flick. About 9 minutes a day before work to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside...

Dieselpunk

Ok...it seems that anything of a genre now has to have punk embedded in its description to maintain its edgy edge. In the literary sense, punk refers to speculative reality. On might say it is a fiction based on science and technology. A "science fiction" if you will. I guess it's required as the term Science Fiction has been so abused and broadened it means very little now. The fantasy of Star Wars, however good the story is, has very little science in it. You've got Steampunk, Cyberpunk, and now Dieselpunk also know as Atomicpunk. Fair enough. I'm glad I could find a term to group my aesthetics around. Funny thing is, the Wikipedia article actually hits on a lot of aesthetics that I appreciate under the banner of Dieselpunk. I was a punk in the third wave of it (loosely known as the "Hardcore" years, pre-Grunge).
So I'm into Dieselpunk. I favor the post-apocalyptic flavor, but I like to mix the aesthetics from Art Deco to Brutalism to Modernism.
Before anyone goes off on that "label's being confining" jag, I've been thinking about this. There is nothing completely new. Creativity is a conglomeration of prior experience. To express one's self means to attempt to communicate with others. If you speak a language only you understand, then you don't communicate. Expression is approximation.

Some Dieselpunk thematic inspiration:

• Mad Max
• Sin City
• Batman Begins
• V for Vendetta
• 1984
• Metropolis
• Brazil

Wikipedia link to Piecraft/Dieselpunk. While I was expecting a list of Electronica as being the musical representation of the genre, I was pleased to see that the "Music would mostly be defined by the fusion of the popular genres of the time, anthems, jazz and blues, classical and chamber music as well as early rock and experimental or musique concrete."

With that, I've been loosely kicking around ideas for the ride lately. My car is one of my "art" pieces. It's an ongoing creation process to appeal to my aesthetic yet have function at the same time. In it, I'm trying to incorporate a retro muscle rat-rod meets post-apocalyptic/mad max meets WWII armor.
As it is the car was a 1963 Fairlane 500, until I installed a built automatic transmission, disc brake conversion, and a 335hp 351w that came from a wrecked Highway Patrol car. I spent a winter modifying and rebuilding the engine. It moves. I'm also looking to maybe drop a Diesel motor in and see if I can't hot rod a grease car. If you don't know, grease cars are able to burn used cooking oil once they're brought up to temperature.
Lastly, I have to take up welding. It's a vital skill that I haven't managed to acquire yet. I'll be posting more technical discussions regarding the machine as I go.

Some inspirational pics for the ride:

Doctorin' the Tardis

If you've played the music on the right, you may have heard the track on there called Dr. Who (actually it's called Doctorin' the Tardis but I thought I'd keep it simple). The Timelords are actually a British one off from a group called KLF which most frequently stands for Kopyright Liberation Front, which made sense as I mentioned to Blank Maxine that it sounded like there was a bit of Gary Glitter in there. I checked and found that the Timelords/KLF are really a sort of an original mash ups/samplers with more projects than just music. The Timelords where also fronted by Ford Timelord, a Ford Galaxy police car. Really.
My '63 Fairlane's envious.

• Kopyright Liberation Front
• KLF Online

Purpose

My muse is not with me today, so this is going to be a bit terse and matter of fact.
Complex 39 (look it up) is a place where I (Snag) can organize my dispatches regarding the state of the world. "Why the fuck would anyone want to read this, when there's so many other sources of information?" one might ask.
Well, I'm operating on a few principles I think might be unique:

• Complex 39 is an attempt to blend Art, Journalism, and Commentary in a multitude of media types.
• Complex 39 isn't an attempt for the absolute truth. As A. Korzybski has said "The map is not the territory." This is only a map. However, this map is an attempt to rip off the routine of daily existence that have dulled our senses and see the seething, froth of humanity as we apes interface with technology. Hopefully a closer look at the pornography of violence, the ever pervasive agents of social control, the transmogrification of civilization, the underground technological pirates...
• Complex 39's stylistically somewhere between Post-war America and cyberpunk.

So who the hell is Snag?
Hopefully that will be fleshed out overtime. Here's a quick run down to this point:
Born in the industrial north of the U.S. just before Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins made contact with another planet. Born shortly after the Kennedy assassination and cover-up. Born shortly before the Neo-Con's first major criminal enterprise known as the Nixon administration and subsequently Watergate.
I grew up nomadically, moving every couple of years across the U.S. My single mother was always searching for something unknown. Intellectual challenges I suppose. Spiritual quests maybe?
My brother is a drummer in a band and a pretty cool guy. He majored in Art History and works for a prestigious museum in Boston. He would like to move into curations.
I've done everything from roofing to working in an industrial laundry to managing a restaurant to salvaging demolition sites.
I spent 11 years in the U.S. Army. Most of it part-time. First as a medic, then administration, then intelligence/security management. For six years I was an intelligence sergeant with the military police. I was adept at the M16, M60, and grenades. While I served these things happened:

1. The Tanker War - "Operation Earnest Will"
2. U.S. Invasion of Panama
3. Second Persian Gulf War - "Operation Desert Storm"
4. "No-Fly Zone" War
5. U.S. Intervention in Somalia
6. NATO Intervention in Bosnia - "Operation Deliberate Force"
7. U.S. Occupation of Haiti
8. U.S. Embassy bombings and strikes on Afghanistan and Sudan (The bin Laden War)

I've built and raced a 1963 Fairlane 500 with a modified 315 cubic inch "Windsor" motor. I'm self-taught. I'm interested in grease cars. My good friend and the lead singer of the Kings of Nuthin', Torr, has been a big help in my automotive knowledge.
I was a punk rocker/bootboy in my adolescence. I was a fan of Fear, Black Flag, The Exploited, and Dead Kennedys. I drank beer with Colin of G.B.H. around a fire, in a corn field, at a show in Kansas. I spent many years hanging out in a place called the Outhouse.
Along with Schroedinger, Feynman, Heisenberg, et al, Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash are my spiritual advisers.
I'm currently a criminal investigator in the private sector. I'm good at understanding intention from behavior. I can beat people up. I'm good at investigating financial based crimes. I think it's odd and a little depressing that THEY (society...the law...the corporate powers...) allow me to hurt people if needed in the course of my job.
My gal Blank Maxine of twenty years is a brilliant photojournalist (that's her work in sidebar).

Out for now...