Trade Whip-It in for a gas can.

OWWWCH!

let me know when so i can photodocument the ensuing beating!

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
From: Brody Culpepper
Organization: Bigrig Industries
Subject: Album pix

Not knowing ANYTHING about how to design a web page, I would be the last one on gods barren earth to tell you how to improve one. BUT, on your Whip It! E-Bay/Barter pages, you might want to include at least one picture of the Whipped Cream album cover. This would drive the point home to all the hardcore dumb-asses out there who can't conceptualize the idea of the car. You have no idea how many times at Burning Man I had to make people look at the albums pasted on the car right before their eyes to 'get' the whole thing.

Just a dumb idea, brought to you from your pals at:
BIGRIG INDUSTRIES.

Brody.

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
From: Rick Mantler
Subject: How?

How can you bear to part with Whip It? It seems almost inconceivable!

I understand. She is a beautiful thing, though. Is she just turning out to be too expensive of a date? I know what that's like, believe me. If I could afford her and had a place to keep her, I'd buy Ms. Whip right now. So many "Ifs".

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1998
From: Philo Northrup
Subject: Re: disposition (disposal?) of whip it!

Trade Whip it for a PC . . . (I'm frowning and shaking my head) tsk tsk . . .

That's like trading your dog for a lawnmower, or your wife for magic beans. Be careful about karmic repercussions,

Date: Mon, 09 Nov 1998
From: Cynthia Wigginton

Aloha,

No popsicle sticks or burning men...I always seem to be laboring on Labor Day. Hmmm, I think a few years back I had heard tales of Wagner from a friend. I finally came to the site via Retro mag and the article on that Arizonian trailer park (what is that white thing in the foreground?).

Hey! Don't underestimate your claim to fame...or Whip It's. Cubing is so permanent. Sigh. Well then, I wish you many interesting conversations around it and a good, stable foundation.

Sincerely, C

Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998
From: Cliff Davis

as for making it an artcar, why not make an artcar you can tow? best of both worlds. ditch the van five miles off-site and pretend you drove all the way in the artcar, like any real artcar guy would. prank the pranksters!

Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1998
From: Cynthia Wigginton
Subject: Will Whip It go Further?

I say give ol' Ken Kesey a call. He'd know what to do. Yup, the Smithsonian wanted his Further bus and he tried to sell'em on a replica. No dice.

Whip It as a coffee table? Sounds a bit heavy. Do you have downstairs neighbors? Do you like your downstairs neighbors?

Good luck! C

From: Reb
Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998
Subject: Re: Whither Whip It!?

To everything there is a time and a purpose. Quien sabe how much our puny raging silly will has to do with anything? I've chosen to go to the El Tiradito (the castaway, throw away or garbage -- take your pick) shrine in the oldest part of Tucson and say a little prayer for Whip It. El Tiradito is the only shrine dedicated to a sinner in the U.S. which seems pretty silly since Christian tradition says we're all sinners. If that is the case, seems the majority of shrines should be helping out with the cause of all of us sinners. I digress....anyhow lit a big La Mano Mas Poderoso (the most powerful hand) which has a stigmata and a bunch of saints and angels around it so I guess it's a pretty heavy hand. Also made a memorial tape which you should have received. Hopefully you'll be listening to it while Whip It whiskes you across the Sonoran desert, the wind whipping thru what used to be your hair. Phantom hair??? There's a concept.

(funny . . . i actually complained of phantom hair phenomenon after the head-shaving -- usually after rolling the car window down.)

From: chainsaw
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 13:51:53 -0400

I'll give you fifty bucks if you drive/tow Whip It out into the desert and leave it next to the phone booth forever. A fitting final resting place

if it were legal (or at the very least, untraceable), i'd do it in a second.

granting, of course, that i could manage to get it out there

From: Kit Lo

Since Whip It is your pride and joy (and IMHO not to be used in the name of anybody but yourself), I have one word to think of for the fabulous artcar that served you well:

Main Entry: de·com·mis·sion
Pronunciation: "dE-k&-'mi-sh&n
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1922
: to remove (as a ship or nuclear power plant) from service

However, I don't think the junkyard (and in turn the compactor) is a good place to decommission Whip It! either. How about keeping Whip It! drydocked and converted into a shrine to all that is known about your journeys? Let it be known that the car covered with records on top has served you well!

From: John Suchak
Subject: Deuce of Clubs, funny motherfucker and now, media whore.

Dude!

Did you know that you were prominently (well, semi-prominently) featured in the Folio Weekly??? ("North Florida's News and Entertainment Weekly"!) How utterly bizarre to open the paper over breakfast and find, of all things, a whole article about YOU! What gives man? You're getting more press than Janeane Garofalo for chrissake! What's next?!?

Weirder still, it was mostly pertaining to The Booth. I've always thought The Freedom Project to be much more compelling stuff, but hey, there's an ass for every toilet, eh? (BTW, where'd you get the cool font that you use for your snappy retorts in The Freedom Project section???)

Anyway, continued success on your now-obvious bid for Media Whoredom.

Oh yeah, I say Whip It must live on. To quote Hunter Thompson, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." (Notice please the complete lack of a surrender option in that little pearl from the good doctor...) Slap a junkyard motor in that bitch and lather her the fuck up! Chevy 250's are a dime a dozen, you could do a rebuilt motor for way under a grand I'll bet. Maybe drop a nice small block in it just to expedite those long trips across the desert. I mean, c'mon, Whip It's a *thing* now.. There's no turning back.

From: swainer

What are the specifics, Make Model Mileage general condition of afore mentioned auto?

With ears perked.......
..................>))))'> (the artist formerly known as swainer)

it's a 1962 chevy biscayne. body's real straight (albums come *right* off -- i proved that once already!), engine has a new head, new oil pump, new distributor, rebuilt carb. there's just something out of balance somehow -- an old racing mechanic suggests the harmonic balancer. but, since i'm an automotive nincompoop, i have no clue.

r u in the bay area? whip it!'s parked at pier 26, which is open every day. adrian's the guy who has the space, he's real, real cool.

mileage? no idea. i've only had the car two years. i can tell you i put about 8,000 miles on her myself. the engine's real strong, that pin just keeps wanting to break.

From: Steve Swain

Hmmmm.................
Probably would not be the thing to go X country, would it?

it would have to be tinkered with. if i were mechanical, i'd do it in a heartbeat. i mean, being completely non-mechanical, i've driven it all over the country these past two years -- 8,000 miles worth!

Wagon or sedan? Engine, six or eight?.................>))))'> (tafkas)

4-door sedan, straight six.

From: KipBurrus

Steve-o! You don't know Whip-It??!!??

Hmmm..well, I think it's a '62 Chevy Bel Air with an 8 cyl (283? 350?);

(six cylinder)

What about giving Whip It! to some kid from our clan, like Gaelyn, fer instance? She's approaching driving age! An art-car/beater would be the perfect gift this Xmas for any 16 year old! Hell, I sure woulda wanted one in high school! (I woulda wanted any car, really, so...)

Worse comes to worse, email me back and I'll go get it & park it next to my '53 International Harvester Metro delivery van and my '63 389ci 4bbl dual-exhaust gas guzzlin' all-electric 4-door Bonneville; I got room for one more hunka metal in my driveway....

WAIT! I know! Go park it @ Robert Burkes house and have him turn it into a re-bar & brass trombone mobile or something...

Yours truly (scruptious),
Santa Klown
aka Booking # 7CR80139

From: Rusty

> WAIT! I know! Go park it @ Robert Burkes house and have him turn it into a > re-bar & brass trombone mobile or something...

Yeah, have him give the keys to his friend (without your knowledge) so he can joy ride it around San Francisco and pick up his girlfriend at the San Jose airport. Then this same friend can get an engine fire and rack up all kinds of parking tickets in SF, still unknowing to you. Then this friend can skip town, leaving you with all the parking tickets. But the best part is when the car gets towed permanently to the junkyard by the city and no one tells you. In this time listen to stories that it will be the next carhunt car.

From: Joe

Maybe we could make your little problem...ah...go away, so to speak. We could move her just down the street - next door, in fact - to Pier 26 1/2. You have never heard of it? It is there, between Piers 26 and 27, I assure you. No one would bother her for quite some time, I am sure.

So we could do you 'dis little favor. An' maybe some day, we might ask you to do _us_ a favor in return. And that day may never come, but should it, you would be obliged to do us 'dis favor that we ask of you...

From: Olivia Henderson
Subject: Whip It's Early Demise

It's not like you to give up so easily.

easily? EASILY? have i not broken down in every tiny town between here and houston? and between here and burning man? if you call that EASY, you haven't been paying ATTENTION!!

actually, there *is* an art car museum in houston! (have you forgotten the art car museum / funeral museum tour?)

but there seem to be two camps in the art car world: there's the fine art crowd and there's the just folks crowd. i didn't see any just folks stuff in the museum. although i'd be glad to be the first.

Livi

From: Scott R. Chamberlin

Old bean,

This is a tragedy. Also it is a tragedy that we didn't have two seconds to catch up last month.

What happened?

From: LaPorte, Gene
Subject: Whip it Whipped?

Hey, my man, Gene from Long Beach here. Sorry to hear about the tentative status of Whippit (makes me feel sort of special for having gotten to ride in it at the Salton Sea thing). No solutions on the present predicament for you as of yet.

Sorry I didn't run into you at Burning Man. I haven't had time to visit your website too much recently so I haven't been able to keep up on your doings. I'm pretty sure you made it to the man though.

From: Bubba Kornfield

what about donating it to the kidney foundation? they'd probably just part-it-out but you never know!

From: Elizabeth

This may be oh-so-obvious, but have you gotten in touch with Harrod Blank about Whip It!'s current situation? If he can't or won't buy it, seems to me he'd know someone else who would.

harrod already weighed in (see next message)

From: Harrod Blank

hEY I WOULD TRY ACE AUTO WRECKING IN SF TO EITHER DONATE CAR OR TRY YOUR CRUSHING IDEA. THEY ARE REALLY INTO ART CARS THERE. WHAT IS WRONG WITH IT - YOU CAN'T FIX? GOOD LUCK - WHAT A DRAG. Harrod

From: Bob Sokol
Subject: Good auspices

Does it still run at all? Is it the distributor yet again; that one final straw?

distributor pin sheared again on the way to sf from burning man. got that fixed in reno, drove to oakland & left whip it! there until artcarfest, when i came back (ca. 3 weeks later), whip it! wouldn't start. the guy in reno said he thought the rebuilt carb was crappy. but the engine's not shot, it's strong as ever. just needs to be tinkered with.

(casablanca street merchant voice: "for friends of bob, we have a special-a discount-a!")

From: Lisa Doyle

I was admiring that sassy whipped-cream-girl car early on at BM in the neighbarhood (remember me?).

Awwww... Whip it! is seeing some sort of demise. 8*(

How about the Smithsonian Institute?

There's got to be a twisted enough museum out there somewhere...

From: David Lewis/Jan Elftmann
Subject: Sorry about Whip It

Hey. So sorry to hear about Your car Whip It. I love the idea of turning the car into a caoffee table. Good luck.

Jan Elftmann of the Cork Truck

From: evan w. lewis

Greetings from the Bay Area. Sorry to hear about Whip It!, tis a shame. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of suggestions of what to do with her. Perhaps make her into a pay phone booth in the Haight?

From: Krishna

Brainstorming idea only, so don't hit me over the head:

Contact one of them Monster Truck Rallies and use Whip It! as one of the cars them big boys drive over.

From: Philo Northrup

Scott Alan has pics of WHip it arriving to the Fest on a tow truck and he'll send you JPGs

Hope to see you soon!

Philo

PS - I understand your pain. I've made and lost three ArtCars before old Truck in Flux

From: Scout

Alas, I am saddened! I only owned her for a trip across the bay, but I feel like I've known her a lifetime. Philo mentioned an auto wrecker who would crush her into a cube, but I can't remember who it was. And even if you managed to crush it, how many people would it take to get it into somebody's living room?

From: Kelly Lyles

I'm CRUSHED (no pun intended)! Forwarded yr mssg to 40 or so friends,if I was closer I'd take a hunk (in my dreams).U know car was always one of my 4 or 5 favourites,right up there w/skull,mad cad,camera van & Virgin.

From: Pete Forbes
Subject: Whip It & Elvis

Could there be a connection?

Elvis is gone now but Whip it has a chance to ride again. Even a low rider is better than a no rider.

Hey! great pic of "Whip cream.. " in a cube

From: Timothy W. Hansen

I still think paying someone a couple G's to drop a new or rebuilt Chevy 350 and TH400 trans into it is the best option...don't give up on the old girl so easy! In fact, let me consult the Internet Demolition Derby Association mailing list to see if anyone would like to help.

If not, I'd search high and low for a successive owner to maintain it mechanically and visually, perhaps with an airbrushed recreation of the album covers in place of the paper?

Horror of horrors, crushing/junking it is not an option! There are far too few old cars left!

From: Bob Sokol

Damn! I'll buy you a new distributor! Junk her??? You must be thinking about the next project already. Or did you buy something with air conditioning already?

From: Cliff Davis

we asked a bunch of people what could be causing the mystery pin-shear. no concrete answers but one oldtimer (a specialist in racing american straight-six motors) said things like this happen when the engine is out of balance. the harmonic balancer on the front of the crankshaft (immediately behind the fanbelt pulley) may have stopped doing its job. that's all we could come up with.

From: Kelly Lyles

So sad,she's one of my all-time faves.Can't we have a "rent"party/campaign to raise enuf for new engine?