Now I know why Americans are so loud: To hear each other over the constant roar of monster trucks.
On Saturday night, in a move entirely unrelated to my recent shift from suits to work-clothes, I attended MONSTER JAM with my yank fiancée.
Never having been to a monster truck rally before, I had no idea what to expect. (Other than crimped hair and bad teeth.) I knew what monster trucks looked like but what do they do?
It turns out that they break.
A lot.
It might be a quality of the event or perhaps the Skydome is as hard on machinery as it was on Troy Glaus’ knees, but it seemed that every race was marred by a breaking truck. The announcer would dutifully get us revved up and then explain why nothing was happening. The show was beset by technical problems.
And usually not the fun kind of technical problems. Not trucks flipping over and exploding while men emerge from the burning rubble like Haitian survivors, imploring us to “Fuckin’ Give Er!” one more time before they collapse, dead, to the ground. Not those kind of technical problems at all.
Problems more like: El Toro Loco is having engine problems. Or Bounty Hunter has a flat tire. And both will no longer be competing.
Boring problems.
Aside from this, MONSTER JAM suffers from a complete lack of narrative. The show is comprised of four acts: A race, a motor cross, a free style and then a demolition derby. But there’s no story holding all of this together. It’s just one thing after another. More like a sport than a show.
Before attending, I tried to figure out what a monster truck rally must be like. Knowing that the trucks had their own personalities and fans, I’d assumed it would be much like professional wrestling. That there’d be a story. You have characters (some with cool names like American Guardian and some with lame names like Cult Energy Activator) so why not have a story?
I pictured a bleak, post-apocalyptic world where trucks have become monsters and men must engage in bloody thunder-dome type competitions to earn respect and, perhaps, to save their tribe from the other monster trucks. Good guys, bad guys, smoke, pyrotechnics and some sort of narrative to the whole event. Smack talk from the drivers about the other drivers. Heroes, villains and costumes.
In a word, Detroit.
Instead, I got a motor-cross guy talking about track conditions, an announcer informing me that another truck had broken when he wasn’t imploring me to cheer. Here’s an idea: Give me something to cheer for, asshole. We’re the ones who paid, maybe you should be cheering for us.
And you drivers, learn a bit a of fucking showmanship. There’s not a Rowdy Randy Piper amongst you. There’s not even a Jake the Snake.
Instead of the tried and true approaches of the wrestling spectacle, MONSTER JAM relies heavily on a quasi-experimental, meta-comment on track conditions and its own technical problems. It shuns a traditional narrative structure only to replace it with a sort of free-form, improvisation. That might play well with the art school, jazz crowd, but I demand a bit more than that. I’m not trying to watch a college student masturbate here. I want to see trucks doing shit that I care about. Like exploding.
Although I can appreciate the underlying symbolism of machines that have become monsters and men who are dependant upon these monsters for respect and prestige, this is a symbolism that is never adequately explored.
As a show, MONSTER JAM is a failure. As a sport, it’s a bore.
With two exceptions: Jurassic Attack and Gravedigger.
Though I heard the people beside me say that they could not take Jurassic Attack seriously, I had to wonder: Who the fuck is taking this seriously? It’s a monster truck! It looks like a monster! What the fuck else do you want? If you want a truck you can take seriously, go look at a practical vehicle with an eye towards gas mileage and trunk space. Think about a minivan.
Besides which, Jurassic Attack never broke down, delivered one of the only two good freestyle performances and came close to tipping but never quite did. That’s suspense. And this whole spectacle needed more of it.
It also needed more Gravedigger.
Gravedigger epitomized the very best of redneck philosophy. Graveigger fuckin’ gave ‘er and was also able to git ‘er dun. (If I was writing Monster Jam, Jurassic Attack would be Gravedigger’s sassy lady friend.)
I can see why Gravedigger is so popular. The truck from Kill Devil Hills North Carolina, driven by the infamous Downtown Randy Brown, is simply in a whole different league than the other monster trucks. Without care for the truck or the person inside, Gravedigger delivered an amazing freestyle that went well over the time limit.
Do you think Gravedigger cares about a time limit? Gravedigger is a maverick. Gravedigger only cares bout one thing: Fuckin’ givin’ er’!
And gave ‘er, it did. Right up until the moment it got ‘er dun.
We all crave a Gravedigger style maverick because, in reality, we’re all the placid slaves of idiotic regulations written by ash-faced bureaucrats at the behest of the ever-panicking plebeians. Even MONSTER JAM, that great bastion of American fuck you-freedom, is no exception. Here, at a monster truck rally, where I am quite literally watching vehicles catch alight and spew poisonous fumes within an enclosed space, it’s still illegal to smoke.
Perhaps it would set a bad example for the children, who might be unable to reconcile the pro-safety message of the demolition derby with the madcap danger of having a cigarette. It’s certainly can’t be a concern about fumes. Because, you know, I’m watching a car that’s on fucking fire.
(But one should be careful not to complain. The likely government solution is not the allowing of smoking but the banning of demolition derbies. )
So while I now know why Americans are so loud, there’s still much that I may never understand about our shared and vibrant cultures. Like how do you take an idea like 10,000 pound machines jumping through the air and make it a disappointing bore? Through safety, I suppose.
At least Gravedigger ignores that shit. And it’s good to know that somewhere in Toronto, for two nights, someone was out there, fuckin’ givin’ ‘er until he gets ‘er dun. Then givin’ ‘er some more. Then standing on his truck.
God Bless America.
