It is an achievement of the human will!
Most artists toil in mediocrity. They have a vision, a spark, some initial drive but it all too easily and all too often gets lost somewhere between idea and reality. This dissonance, though, is what makes great art so great. It is an achievement of the human will. A rare breakthrough. A moment in time that resonates across time and space.
Let’s take for example the Mona Lisa, Beethoven’s 5th, John Kennedy Toole’s The Confederacy of Dunces, Beyonce’s Hold Up. Etc.
And The Inertia‘s Zach Weisberg just reached this plateau. This rarified air. Or rather he reached it a few weeks ago but great art is eternal.
The piece is titled CHEVROLET’S NEW BOLT EV MIGHT BE THE PERFECT ECO-FRIENDLY VEHICLE FOR SURFERS
And thus begins:
I might be the least qualified human to test-drive a new vehicle and speak with any degree of authority about the experience. I know jack about cars. I don’t drive them for performance, racing, sportiness, etc… or understand much about what distinguishes good from great. I never even learned to drive stick. I realize no self-respecting man should never commit that last sentence to print. Or pixel. But it’s true. I grew up in a world of automatics, and for the sake of transparency, felt we should get those formalities out of the way before proceeding further. I’m not an automotive expert.
And then:
…This becomes that much more interesting when framed with the question most relevant to our readership: Will Chevy’s new electric vehicle work for surfers and outdoor enthusiasts?
Which lead to:
And I was curious about this. Does this car actually work for surfers?
In a very complex form of heavy-duty, professional vehicle testing, I put one of Henry’s shortboards in the trunk. It fit! Henry says he also stuffs his 10’ paddle board into the car no problem.
Before ending:
So if you can get to the beach and kill fewer things – like your wallet and your earth – in the process, the Chevy Bolt EV is worth a serious look. Right now, the vehicle is only available in California and Oregon, though it will roll out to the rest of the country this year.
And shit! I mean… shit! Art! We have a man who cannot drive a stick shift, a 10 foot paddle board and an electric-ish car on The Inertia.
SHIT! I mean…
Read the entire monument here.
notice they roll them out only in CA and OR
I promise to write a kick arse review on how great the LandRover 90 Heritage is as the go-to surf vehicle for today’s thinking women if someone gives me one.
seems that way. or to get free bagels from Weisberg…
I don’t know what that means. But I do know that the Bolt is awesome. That car has more torque and more acceleration and is better to drive than most cars on the road that cost less than 50k. It’s also silent and a pleasure to drive. If you love cars, you’d love the Bolt.
Pro surfer Charles Smith only drives his wife’s hand-me-down Porsches.
What goes through ones mind when he decides to strap a surfboard to the roof backwards?
Ahhh the Ozzie ways must prevail… actually in Europe most people strap fins forward mostly because if straps aren’t tightened properly or get loose it’ll be a lot harder for the boards to slip back and off the roof… go figure!
everybody does that in USA too
That just goes to show they’re not all complete morons overthere…
Or able to strap boards onto a car properly.
Please elaborate on propriety of strapping fins backwords (please don’t invoke aesthetic reasons)…
The fins go at the back because the rocker is at the front?
jesus Lizzie, every board built after 1925 has tail rocker
If you need to put the fins first in order to stop the board from sliding under the straps, I reckon you have bigger problems than the aesthetic to deal with. The prosecution rests your honour.
what the hell? are you in aus? do australians put the board on the roof with fins in back? that’s horrifying.
Australians often own cars in which the back seats fold down and you can stick your boards inside the god damn thing
Oh dear now I feel embarrassed for even commenting on this thread.
Right, because elsewhere in the world seats don’t fold down and even when they fold down non-ozzies still prefer wind-drag and time-consuming strapping…
BTW I’d find it more embarrassing owning a SUP…
Surprising the board is on the rack fins forward.
Oh FFS! Please see above..
Chas- since you cannot pass up a good opportunity to blast The Inertia, how on earth have you not written an article pointing out the irony that Rory Parker is back writing for The Inertia? Chas vs. Rory Blood Feud?
Oh it is his heart’s true home and I hope he is very happy there…. I wish nothing but the best!
the Bolt is a badass car. recommend you try one.
The “sub editor / thought leader” (or whatever title Inertia people give themselves) that talked shit about Dane’s Chapter 11 will probably seek one of these that can run on his own farts
my god, the perspicacious cacophony of insights and effervescence redefining literary and artistic achievement. void of pomposity or vacuousness, the “pixel”-ated literary gymnastics weave a symphony, nee a tapestry, of momentous verisimilitude. bravisimo!
Ha!
Was there a complete sentence in there somewhere? just asking… lots of syllables, I guess that’s good… upvote and on to the Pulitzer! Loved your work as the NFL commissioner!
You might need to work on your punctuation and caps, also “pixelated” and “bravissimo” might help you achieve a better artistic cacophony…
thanks for elucidation!
I have a lot of difficulty picturing a 10 foot paddle board fitting in that car but no difficulty in picturing the kook that would fit a 10 foot paddle board in that car.
You mean the kind who puts his leggie on prior to taking the board out of the car?
The kind that wears board shorts over wetsuits.
The kind who puts the board on the roof deck up.
& under
say, what happened to Kolohe’s underwear co.?
omg i saw that recently and whhhhyyyyyyy
The caption on their photo is baffling me: “You might never visit a gas tank again.”
Okay so I get that it’s an EV and that you don’t need gas… but do they mean you’ll never visit the gas tank of a car? Or never visit the gas tank that lies below a gas station where you fill up your car with gas? Do people refer to filling up their car with gas as “visiting a gas tank”, or is that just Inertia kook-speak? Well, I guess this must be true art since it’s giving me more questions than answers.
Also, the guy behind this twitter account summed it up nicely:
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
Full-on Steez’s best work.
At least the marketing photos have been shot at slightly different angles, don’t want to lose that “original content” edge.
Although niche, maybe The Inertia’s caption is target marketing those on death row. Since the restoration of the death penalty in the United States in 1976, eleven executions by gas chamber have been conducted (Wikipedia). Focus groups revealed the word “tank” tested better then “chamber”, hence the substitution. Buy a Chevy Bolt EV and you and/or/as a death row inmate literally “might never visit a gas tank again”. How relieving!
No one’s turning down lucrative advertorial in this game mate. Beachgrit might.. if they ever got offered any… but why dabble in absurdly unlikely hypotheticals
chevy’s not paying anybody for those articles
Yeah, they totally are, with either cash or contra.
With video games?
The total lifetime energy input to build and run electric cars is more than a Hummer (ref Car Magazine September 2008). Also they’re only as green as the type of electricity generation grid they’re hooked up to.
Is your point that we should stop trying to find a better alternative to gasoline powered automobiles and keep burning fossil fuels until we run out?
i think so, yes.
Unfortunately the electric car is basically made of oil.
because of the plastics inside?
Right, an electric vehicle and a traditionally fueled vehicle both need oil products. No one is saying an electric car is a petroleum free product. I’ll never understand the argument that “electric cars still need oil/plastic/etc, and therefore we should write them off.” Can people not see that using less fossil fuels can’t be bad? I’m not even saying its a guaranteed “good” thing, just that using less fossil fuels can’t be a bad thing.
Where do you think they get their electricity from?
Jesus… I understand that. I plainly stated I understand that. Electric grids in my locale are increasingly adding renewable energy sources and becoming less (even if marginally so) dependent on fossil fuels. If an electric vehicle isn’t burning gasoline, and is getting electricity from grids that are beginning to incorporate renewable sources, this is a step in the right direction. Being contrarian is fun, but must be exhausting at times, no?
Just saw this mermanator, so sorry for the late reply. Renewables produce a fraction of US energy, and that is mostly things like hydro electric. Wind turbines are bird blitzers, and solar lights them on fire. Wind and solar are catastrophic for avian populations. Furthermore, energy (in large enough quantities to support a population) doesn’t store, so if it does not get used by the grid immediately, it is wasted. Lastly, renewables as currently conceived are only economically possible through huge govt. subsidies and as such are considerable economic drain. As currently conceived, they come with far more baggage than your rosy picture would indicate. In short, they are an unreliable and expensive way to kill birds.
Hey, at least there will be fewer around to crap on your electric car. And no, it is not exhausting to disagree with a bad, poorly propogandized attempt to gloss over an environmental disaster. At least when oil spills, you can wash the birds. It’s a hell of a lot harder to tape the chopped up ones together!
On the other hand, if something like fusion reactors ever work in a reliable manner, then I’ll buy a Bolt.
Um… nooooo. Not all solar is the same and it’s only solar towers that aren’t good for birds, but yeah, yay fossil fuel!
You’re still burning fossil fuels when you run this car, just one more (energy losing conversion) step in the process. If ever they figure out how to store solar electricity, electric cars would make sense, but until that day, such cars are actually more detrimental to Gaia than the oil smokers.
Not true for countries with mostly non-diesel power plants such as hydroelectric, solar, wind, etc…
Where is this magical country?
Ok, that was a dick comment, but I don’t think that any country runs on hydro, solar, wind . . . unless you mean nuclear, then I think France does that, maybe Japan too. And hey, I’d probably think that a reasonable solution if they could make them safe.
I think there are a few… Portugal comes to mind. No nuclear, lots of hydro, wind and investing in solar as well. Bloody left wing governments always thinking eco. 😉
Ok, thanks for the info.
yeah, but you’re seeing the cracks in your argument aren’t you? just cause we have to run on coal so nobody in WV or WY loses a soot sucking job. you’re making the classic “if its not perfect then its not better” mistake. so we got what, 3 instances of nuclear reactor problems worldwide in 50 years?
Fair enough, I see your point to a degree.
But, with regard to electric cars and generating the electricity to run them, the “not perfect” solution is often worse than the problem. First, do no harm!
nuclear waste/radiation is a nightmare, you’re right about that
But we must talk economies of scale, my friend. Sure, the early adopters may be no better than our small-dicked, gun toting, tasteless asshole friends in an H2, but in the long run the cost plummets. Hooray! Even now, we’ve come a long way since Car Magazine 9 Years Ago.