(Nov 28, 2009)

American conservative commentator and humourist P.J. O'Rourke is really swell when it comes to writing on contemporary war (no one covers a war zone from a bar stool as well as P.J.) and assorted political foolishness.

There's another area of expertise, and he's carried it forward from decades ago and his very first professional magazine assignments -- automotive journalism.

And this isn't the short-form, mainstream work you'd find in The Spectator's Wheels section, but longish, feature-y articles such as How To Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed And Not Spill Your Drink (from the National Lampoon more than 30 years ago). It is ripe and rich with PJisms and remains, to this day, a favourite.

Driving Like Crazy contains 18 articles spanning the decades, and in many O'Rourke provides modern asides that offer canny insights on his earlier work and youthful mindset. In the case of How To Drive Fast On Drugs etc. etc., O'Rourke offers up a modern-day companion piece, How To Drive When The Drugs Are Mostly Lipitor (another six lines of title are omitted here for brevity and clarity) in which he sadly and seemingly recants much of what he (tongue-in) cheekily penned. That's understandable as we can't have his progeny -- known here as Poppet, Muffin and Buster -- sussing that Daddy knew all about how "girls who like motorcycles will do anything, I mean, really, anything you can think of." (As a guy who's driven motorcycles for a quarter century, I can affirm that ... um, well, never mind ...)

In Driving Like Crazy, O'Rourke teams up with former Monkee Mike Nesmith for the Baja 1000, driving the length of that desolate peninsula in specially prepped four-wheel drives; California's Golden Mille (in Juan Fangio's vintage 1932 Chevy coupe), traversing Kyrgyzstan's mountain wilderness in massive Soviet-made seven-ton, six-wheel-drive Zils trucks; immersing himself in the Philippine's love affair with Second World War Jeeps, taking a spin through the most-densely-populated/exotic-car-rich-hilly locale on earth and wallow in the corporate sensibilities of Rent-A-Wreck -- anyone recall the local outlet at Mohawk and Upper James? And one more for the motorcycle nuts among us: an article detailing a lengthy press ride, The Rolling Organ Donors Motorcycle Club, in which a handful of Harleys and one cone-of-the-rocket Suzuki GS1100 have their mettle tested by booze-fuelled, sleep-deprived middle-agers.

As always, O'Rourke is as much travel writer as political commentator, and each of these articles is a sparkling jewel.

For a snootful of clever writing, one man's ruminations on the passage of time, paens to the demise of The American Car (post-Obama), plunk down on that bar stool, tuck away your Lipitor, fondly recall that tube-topped honey in the front seat of the Pontiac Laurentian, and give it up to that prince of pith, P.J.

gcurtis@thespec.com