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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
Other glitterati rumored to be participating this year are four former Playboy Playmates of the Year, wilting Hollywood machismo embodiments Nick Cage and Matt Dillon, tarnished waif Kate Moss, Caucasian soul-manufacturers Jamiroquoi and Fatboy Slim, and trend-spigot Spike Jonze, who is filming the whole thing for a feature film to be released next year, that more of the Great Unwashed might view the rarefied majesty of a bunch of superrich speed-worshipping douche bags gluttonously overgratifying their selfish and citizen-endangering urges, for no charitable cause or altruistic aim whatsoever.
This year's Gumball began Thursday, April 25, at 7 p.m. Eastern time, as gazillions of dollars' worth of priapic speed machinery roared out of the garage of the posh Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. The grotesquely indulge-o-tronic caravan will avoid as many speeding tickets as possible (and painlessly throw sweaty bricks of cash at the unavoidable ones) while openly flouting traffic laws and cruising their über-priced land jets at speeds exceeding 200 mph on its way to tomorrow's checkpoint in Washington, D.C. (The Web site piously says, "The 'Gumball 3000' rally is not a race, and if you break the speed limits you are likely to end up in jail!!!" "Har har har! Worry not your tiny blond head, Brigitta, everyone knows that only Negroes go to jail. Now part your thighs so I can see the windshield.")
They will then careen toward Graceland, threaten roads from there to the Grand Ol' Opry, then press hazardously on to the Santa Fe Desert Hotel, partying heedlessly all the while. From there, they hurtle en masse to a party with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, then squeal off to a subsequent party in Las Vegas at one of Billy Richardson's hotels, before hopping back in their potentially child-killing machines to burn rubber, now half-blind with alcohol poisoning and sexual exhaustion, to the finish line at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, where they will collapse into a collective pile of cold sores, gout and other afflictions caused by ceaseless excess at the Hollywood Renaissance hotel. The after-party celebration is reportedly being held at the Playboy mansion.
We can only guess how many will die en route; how many daughters will be impregnated and hurled out of Bentley windows; how many empty Dom Perignon bottles will be flung with tittering derision at the jaws of befuddled state troopers, and how many Guns N' Roses-style hotel-room befoulings these millionaires will wreak on frightened and exhausted service personnel nationwide, who must clean up their dreadful and unsanitary messes for $6.50 an hour to provide milk and used blankets for their children.
I spoke to one of the participants at their launch party last night at the club "Lotus" in Manhattan's hip meat-packing district, while leaning against a Ferrari formula something-or-other that looked very important, with a lot of racing-type stickers on it. Doug Bauer, who holds some unspecified position of importance in the Legg Mason investment firm, is the driver of "the only Ruf R-Turbo One in the nation, probably." Bauer, who at 32 has the kind of glowing, innocent and walleyed child's face-on-a-man's-body that only the vampirically rich seem to have, says his car (which at $160,000 is the equivalent price of 8,000 child slaves on the black market) goes from zero to 60 in three seconds, and can get up to 225 mph. He believes he may be a contender for the "All Out Speed" competition to be held in the desert later in the race.
"Got a girl in the car with you?" I asked.
"One in every city," he remarked slyly, before excusing himself graciously to slide into a long black stretch limousine.
We can only hope that bright, rich young men like Doug and his ilk will have a compassionate awakening toward those less privileged than themselves, and eventually be driven to dedicate the Gumball to fund-raising for the diseased and palsied orphan infants of the world. Until then, I suppose we will have to content ourselves with the knowledge that these intrepid racers will extend every effort to provide temporary transportation for the topless hitchhiking schoolgirls of America.
