PAUL D. MARKS

Rolling Cars at the Hollywood Bowl

You’ve got rock and roll at the Hollywood bowl...*

You might have rock 'n' roll at the Hollywood Bowl, but parking is and always was a nightmare. So whadda ya do when you gotta find a place to park – you park on the residential streets across from the Bowl, especially when you're young and poor all those years ago.

So when my then-girlfriend, my brother and another friend and I headed back to our car after a concert I was a little dismayed to see that my car had been blocked in by another car.

Cars to the left of me, cars to the right of me, stuck in the middle with you....

Wedged in. I was parked legally in a cul de sac. A house in front of me. A car to the left, a cliff on the right. And now a car behind me, blocking me in.

I couldn't back up. I couldn’t go forward into the house, or left or right. And I wasn't about to wait until the stoned jerk got back to his car. I assumed he was another concert goer. Hey, man, be cool, dude. Don't sweat it. Go with the flow. Sit and watch the river flow (no river) and wait till I get back there, dude.

Peace, love, man.

I gently broke into his car's wing window – remember those, like getting mail twice a day or having names for telephone exchanges, a thing of the past. I reached in, unlocked the door and swung it open so hard I broke the spring. The door wouldn't close, which was okay with me as I had other plans for the car anyway.

Jerking it into neutral, I rolled the car back a few feet, just enough, turned the wheel to the right and gave it one good, hard push.

Down the cliff it went, just like in the movies.

My girlfriend was horrified.

I was elated.

My friend was mortified.

I was ecstatic.

My brother was aghast.

I was euphoric. Finally someone received the justice they deserved.

I wasn't quite so elated or ecstatic when my girlfriend wouldn't be with me for a month afterwards.

But to this day, my only regret is that I wasn't there to see the guy's face when he came looking for his car, "Uh, where's my car, man?"

Peace, brother. And thank God for the statute of limitations.

*lyrics from Rock Show by Paul McCartney

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