A brief note on marketing, smoking crack and stealing cars

Before you can understand how my car was stolen and how it was recovered in a high speed chase in Hillsboro, TX this weekend, you first have to understand how crack-cocaine came to be. You see, some unethical, would-be marketing genius started peddling cocaine in tiny little quantities around his local scene in the early 1980’s. But, this guy (or girl…let’s be PC) was just a nobody with little start-up money and unlike the larger cats in town, he never got the pick of the liter, so he ended up selling half-ass powder to the sewer rats of the drug user community.

Well, as you can imagine, these sewer rats didn’t have the highest paying jobs, so they could only buy our little guy’s blow in really small quantities and that was hardly enough to keep them coming back with a strong, lasting addiction. So, our little guy on the totem pole saw a market opportunity and took it. If he could find a way to make a stronger high for a cheaper price, he could start offering a product to the masses, instead of having to build long term relationships with the upper-eschelon of the cocaine snorting community.

He went to his laboratory, which consisted of nothing more than a few rusty pans, a three year old box of baking soda from the refridgerator and a Holly Hobbie Bake Oven. Using a local burnout as his focus group, he was very quickly able to concoct a watered down drug. Cut with baking soda he could nearly double his profits, while lowering the cost to the consumer significantly. It also provided a much more intense high initially, albeit much shorter in the long run. The kicker was that his new product was SO addictive that once you started smoking it, the high immediately dissipated, so you had to instantly smoke more of it to retain that same high. Now, our drug marketer friend had a line out the door and his product spread the world. The Crack Corporation was born.

But then, one day, this evil product was purchased and smoked repeatedly in Austin, TX by a couple of crackheads who happened to stumble into a downtown parking garage. Unbeknown to the patrons of this garage, the fiends were carrying a baseball bat and wide eyed for a little fun. So, they swung at the first car they saw and pillaged through the few belongings they found. With nothing of interest and no gas, they swung at the next car, CRASH the window went, spilling shards of glass across the driver’s side seat.

“AH HA!” The first crackhead said to his friend, “a lighter!” And the two tweaks were at it again. A hit off their makeshift light bulb pipe gave them renewed strength and wit. And that’s when they ran across a Silver Nissan Xterra with a full tank of gas. Excited, they dug out the steering console and started that car. “Let’s drive ‘cross town and ditch all this stuff,” said Crackhead 1 to Crackhead 2. And they drove by all the cameras in the parking garage and went across town to another parking garage. After they had driven by the cameras in that garage twice and ditched all of the miscellaneous gear in the vehicle, these baseheads were ready for a joy ride and some more good ol’ crack. But sadly, their dealer lived in San Antonio.

The crackheads walked out of Crack Corporation, S.A. with a tote bag full of goodies and a “How-to get away with stealing a car manual” which came with all orders of crack purchased from the window of a stolen vehicle. Cheap black spray paint? Check. Painter’s tape? Check. Ammonia Windex? Check. Razor blades for removing inspection and registration stickers? Check. Fake out-of-state license plates? Check. Hideous rap music that only crackheads could enjoy? Check. This is the part of our story where Crackhead 1, the artist of the two, decides to paint the under belly, alloy wheels and other racing style decals onto his new vehicle. And the joy ride begins!

As our crackhead friends head North on I35, back in Austin, the vehicle owners are trying to make sense of the mess in the parking garage. The police are called, car reported stolen, evidence collected and the APB (All Points Bulletin) for a stolen vehicle is live throughout the state. The vehicle owner has to laugh because, honestly, who gets a car stolen? That’s just in movies with Nicolas Cage, isn’t it?

Now northern bound, rocking an eclectic mix of underground rap, our junkie buddies swerve this way and that, bumping and grinding while hitting that crack pipe between down beats. At one point, there was talk of some booty popping on the handstand, but it was labeled as dangerous and inappropriate for the genre of rap they were currently listening.

And THAT’s when it happened! Those red, white and blue lights blasted up behind our, now frightened rock smokers with a siren that roared out in a deep, but screeching voice, “Your ass is going to jail crackheads!” Now crackheads are known for being fast, so much as most of the time you just find them running for no particular reason. They love fast and so with another hit off the light bulb, they sprung into action and floored the gas as hard as they could. You would have thought that both tweaks’ heads were going to explode because, even though only one of them was driving, they were both pushing as hard as they could into that floorboard. But, they had Texas police officers hot in pursuit and even more than Washington Redskins, Texas cops HATE crackheads.

But, in Hillsboro, TX the stolen vehicle took a deadly turn, nearly killing both passengers, but alas, it made it without toppling and was able to throw the police off their trail. Without time to think, the stolen vehicle was ditched in a dark Texas field and each smoked a cow patty sized rock so quickly that both went blind for what seemed like 6 days, but was really only a half a second. And they sprinted and they sprinted and they ran faster than crackheads have ever run (which is really freaking fast). And to this storytellers knowledge, they are still running and hopefully their lungs will collapse and they’ll be found on the side of the road, still living, but tired from being up for 13 days straight.

Because even though we got our car back and they lost all of their belongings (including their beloved crack pipe, which they stored in a fake Ray-Ban sunglasses case, because crackheads can’t afford real things), it would make this storyteller very happy to see them rot in prison, where they can drink toilet wine and reflect on what huge losers they have become.

In the meantime, I’ll be driving around town in the car that looks like it was painted by a 2-year old with no talent. If you have any information on the whereabouts of our main characters, feel free to comment on this blog or contact your local authorities and if you are the main characters in this story, the Hillsboro Police have all of your things, even your Jordache jeans and triple XL jersey. And as for the guy who thought creating crack cocaine was a good idea, I hope someone steals your car radio every day for the rest of your life. Because, let’s face it, that’s just annoying.
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Yes, I did intend on telling people how to make and market crack, all while giving details on how to steal a car. So, please don’t ask, because it was intended.
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Just trying out some new types of writing to those who read this far. Apparently, I’m a writer now, so that means I have to find a voice, supposedly. Feel free to tell me exactly how you felt about this style, story, content, etc., which I guess is kind of a children’s book storyteller rant for adults, chronicling an actual event that happened to me. Hurt my feelings if you want, I just need the feedback.

And no, I did not smoke crack before writing this, nor have I ever, but I am writing up a business plan for a local street client looking to get into the drug game. ;)

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Tagged as: actual event, feedback, find a voice, literary style, Marketing/PR, rant, something, storyteller, twenty, twenty-something, Writing