The Flash lives on a high-octane cocktail of testosterone and adrenaline, so he experienced a major energy buzz at last weekend's Cox Communications Air & Motor Spectacular at Williams Gateway Airport.
Jets played chicken and dogfought and blew smoke from their bums. Planes simulated bombing runs and strafing runs and fiery crashes. Stuff was blowing up everywhere. Then monster trucks crushed stuff. Then a garish, rocket-powered limousine went 500 miles per hour. It was all so cool even first-graders were bawling.
Which led the Flash, your redneck Camus, to ponder the gradations of coolness in the arena of people or things blowing up. Is it cooler to see a simulated fiery crash or to see someone performing inches away from a real fiery crash? And when the cheater of death fails in his cheating, i.e., Dale Earnhardt, does sorrow dampen the thrill of a real fiery crash to the point it is less enjoyable than a simulated crash or acts perilously close to a crash?
And at what point is it more exciting to cheat death yourself? Indeed, the Flash had the most fun on Sunday trying to get home without getting T-boned by drunken hillbillies in Cooter Trucks.
The highlight of the show was the Navy's precision flying team, the Blue Angels, who are so exciting because they fly so fast so close to one another. It's a thrill because they are so close to blowing up for real like all the stuff that blew up for fake. The Flash used to think the Blue Angels were awesome because of their amazing precision. They were American technology, training, intellect and will at its best.
But as they flew over Arizona's monster truck and NASCAR demographic, the Flash saw the Blue Angels for what they really are: flying stock cars and jet-powered monster trucks.
And from the boardrooms to the pool halls, we all get off by watching people and machines go fast and cheat death and finally blow up. And that's why we're the Number One country in the world. And that's why everybody is so scared to fight us. And that's why all those other wussies in the world hate us so much.
