cool article, and i'm currently bandvan shopping right now too.
http://www.zug.com/gab/index.cgi?func=view_thread&sort=active&head=1&thread_id=59111#break
In these times of tumultuos turmoilosity, an unsure and frightened American public needs to embrace and rally around an iconic token of awesomeness. There are five or six wars happening right now, many of which involve scary, difficult to pronounce words like "jihad," and "mujahadeen." A gallon of gas costs one dollar for every octane, and several times a month a hurricane-ravaged tsunami rolls across the heartland, wiping out entire crops of lutefisk and accentless future broadcasters. That is why now, more than ever, America needs to embrace... the van.
There was a shining time in our history, a brief period when mutton chops and gobs of chest hair were half of an equation whose outcome was almost always gettin' it on. The other half of that equation? A tricked-out van. Why waste your time decorating your house with black-light posters, strobe lights, and a stereo-phonic 8-track player, when your house was just going to stay in the same place, day after day? You needed a way to take the funk with you, and that, my friends, could be accomplished quite easily with a Chevy van.
'Cause like a princess she was layin' there
Moonlight dancin' off her hair
She woke up and took me by the hand
She's gonna love me in my Chevy van
And that's all right with me
--Sammy Johns
Now it's well into the NEW MILLENIUM, and things are quite a bit different. When someone wants to trick out a horseless carriage, they buy themselves the smallest car possible, slap a fat tail-pipe on it, a few hundred kanji stickers and maybe an oversized, novelty spoiler, and race it at speeds topping 35 mph! How in the hell did this become popular?
Vans, unfortunately, disappeared from the realm of "what it is," and reappeared in the realm of "what is that?" As aging funkensteins quietly put away their Edgar Winter LPs and became the power-brokers of the 1980's, their vans were put up for sale. The pink-slips changed hands and suddenly pedophiles and murderers were the prevailing demographic of van ownership. I remember as a boy, riding my BMX bicycle up and down Sanford Street in Bangor, ME I was warned of a mysterious black van with no windows. This mysterious black van was the boogey-man of a suburban childhood. The van became known as a rape-mobile, a peddy-wagon, or a murder-death-sex-crime-holocaust device of Satan. Ever since then, vans have been seen as ominous chariots preffered by deviants and ne'er-do-wells. It should be noted, however, that while vans were becoming the staple of creeps everywhere, the greatest van the world has ever seen was speeding a crack commando unit, commited of a crime they didn't commit, around the country helping people with problems no one else could help with. Of course, I speak of the A-Team. The competent driving skills of B.A. Baracus where in stark contrast with the newfound image of the van, but the 80s were a crazy, mixed up time where lots of crazy things happened. Like the release of E.T. for the Atari 2600.
The 1980's also saw the invention of the mini-van, which further hurt the stone-cold image of vans as rolling wagons of sex appeal. Instead of the bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher, the mini-van invoked the screeching whines of suburban middle-class families on outings to Chuck E. Cheese. The popularization of wood-paneling as an option to these automobiles further crushed the dreams of van lovers everywhere. Don't even get me started on high-end conversion vans for upper-middle class jerks who like to put frilly curtains on their tinted windows and take their kids on missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Is there a place in our greedy, mile-a-minute society of selfishness and ever-increasing sunglasses diameters for the van? I think so. Two movies come to mind, the much celebrated "Old School," and the face-melting "School of Rock," both of which featured awesome vans. Vans are easy to find, since most of their previous owners are serving prison terms on various molestation or methamphetamine distribution charges. The technology to trick out automobiles has come a long way since the 1970s, and shag carpeting is at its lowest price in decades. The time is now, ladies and gentleman, to bring back the van from the murky depths of creepiness, and elevate it once again to the status of awesome through the addition of tear-drop side windows and air-brushed underwater scenes of frolicking sea-mammals. Let us bring back the van, even if only in a semi-ironic sense. Thank you.
http://www.zug.com/gab/index.cgi?func=view_thread&sort=active&head=1&thread_id=59111#break
In these times of tumultuos turmoilosity, an unsure and frightened American public needs to embrace and rally around an iconic token of awesomeness. There are five or six wars happening right now, many of which involve scary, difficult to pronounce words like "jihad," and "mujahadeen." A gallon of gas costs one dollar for every octane, and several times a month a hurricane-ravaged tsunami rolls across the heartland, wiping out entire crops of lutefisk and accentless future broadcasters. That is why now, more than ever, America needs to embrace... the van.
There was a shining time in our history, a brief period when mutton chops and gobs of chest hair were half of an equation whose outcome was almost always gettin' it on. The other half of that equation? A tricked-out van. Why waste your time decorating your house with black-light posters, strobe lights, and a stereo-phonic 8-track player, when your house was just going to stay in the same place, day after day? You needed a way to take the funk with you, and that, my friends, could be accomplished quite easily with a Chevy van.
'Cause like a princess she was layin' there
Moonlight dancin' off her hair
She woke up and took me by the hand
She's gonna love me in my Chevy van
And that's all right with me
--Sammy Johns
Now it's well into the NEW MILLENIUM, and things are quite a bit different. When someone wants to trick out a horseless carriage, they buy themselves the smallest car possible, slap a fat tail-pipe on it, a few hundred kanji stickers and maybe an oversized, novelty spoiler, and race it at speeds topping 35 mph! How in the hell did this become popular?
Vans, unfortunately, disappeared from the realm of "what it is," and reappeared in the realm of "what is that?" As aging funkensteins quietly put away their Edgar Winter LPs and became the power-brokers of the 1980's, their vans were put up for sale. The pink-slips changed hands and suddenly pedophiles and murderers were the prevailing demographic of van ownership. I remember as a boy, riding my BMX bicycle up and down Sanford Street in Bangor, ME I was warned of a mysterious black van with no windows. This mysterious black van was the boogey-man of a suburban childhood. The van became known as a rape-mobile, a peddy-wagon, or a murder-death-sex-crime-holocaust device of Satan. Ever since then, vans have been seen as ominous chariots preffered by deviants and ne'er-do-wells. It should be noted, however, that while vans were becoming the staple of creeps everywhere, the greatest van the world has ever seen was speeding a crack commando unit, commited of a crime they didn't commit, around the country helping people with problems no one else could help with. Of course, I speak of the A-Team. The competent driving skills of B.A. Baracus where in stark contrast with the newfound image of the van, but the 80s were a crazy, mixed up time where lots of crazy things happened. Like the release of E.T. for the Atari 2600.
The 1980's also saw the invention of the mini-van, which further hurt the stone-cold image of vans as rolling wagons of sex appeal. Instead of the bong-rattling bass of Mel Schacher, the mini-van invoked the screeching whines of suburban middle-class families on outings to Chuck E. Cheese. The popularization of wood-paneling as an option to these automobiles further crushed the dreams of van lovers everywhere. Don't even get me started on high-end conversion vans for upper-middle class jerks who like to put frilly curtains on their tinted windows and take their kids on missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Is there a place in our greedy, mile-a-minute society of selfishness and ever-increasing sunglasses diameters for the van? I think so. Two movies come to mind, the much celebrated "Old School," and the face-melting "School of Rock," both of which featured awesome vans. Vans are easy to find, since most of their previous owners are serving prison terms on various molestation or methamphetamine distribution charges. The technology to trick out automobiles has come a long way since the 1970s, and shag carpeting is at its lowest price in decades. The time is now, ladies and gentleman, to bring back the van from the murky depths of creepiness, and elevate it once again to the status of awesome through the addition of tear-drop side windows and air-brushed underwater scenes of frolicking sea-mammals. Let us bring back the van, even if only in a semi-ironic sense. Thank you.
