Spinderella, Cut It Up One Time

Remember the line from the Secret Service, I-see-you-standing-over-the-body-of-another-dead-President movie, "In the Line of Fire" where Clint Eastwood says, "I know things about pigeons, Lilly"?

Well, I know things about cars. Lilly.

Not only do I know things about cars-- things that, generally, the vast majority of the population couldn't give a steamier shit about, but I also notice things about cars. Things that, likewise, nobody else cares about. When I was a kid, and just developing this automotive fetish, I didn't exactly get that my knowledge of vehicular minutae was uninteresting to 98.7% of the world's population, and I can vividly recall once trying to impress a girl I liked by letting her know that I could differentiate a 1977-1978 Plymouth Fury from its virtually-identical sister car, the 1977-1978 Dodge Monaco because the rear taillight assembly on the Fury was completely red and the Monaco contained a separate amber portion for the turn signals.

And we no longer have to bother ourselves wondering why I didn't undulate against anything more glamorous and/or animate than my pillow until college.

Because I am such an astute knower/noticer of all things automobilia, I took keen interest when, in the late 1990's-early 2000's, the trend of "Spinners" took the nation's more economically-challenged areas by storm.

You remember spinners, right?

Fucking cool!

They frequently festooned Cadillac Escalades and Pontiac Grand Prix's and let's not forget about those beat up Ford Crown Victoria ex-police cars that young, gangsta-ass pimp dawgs seem to love tooling around the streets of Funky North Philly in. I routinely used to love cruising up and down the Roosevelt Boulevard on my way to and from work checking out the latest hoopty piece of shit to bear a set of shining, brilliant, intricate spinners that, in many cases, probably cost more than the car upon which they were spinning was worth.

We have American inventor J.D. Gragg to thank for the Spinner. It's hard for me to believe that a man who hails from Tulsa, Oklahoma invented some ghetto-ass shit like the Spinner, but, there are crazier things in this world, I suppose. I wonder if Gragg tried them out on a tractor or a donkey during the initial, pre-patent testing phase.

I wonder, too, if Mr. Gragg could have ever dreamed, back when he was toying around with wheels that move after the tire has stopped, that his invention would be immortalized in the form of music produced by some of this nation's finest composers, such as T.I., Nelly, Lloyd Banks, Chingy, Jadakiss, G-Unit, 50 Cent, Master P, DJ Quik, Redman, Baby, Twista, Dem Franchize Boyz, and Big Tymers-- to name a few, you know, off the top of my head.

I had thought, a few years ago, that Spinners would be here to stay, as they had seemed to have established a firm following in the seedy underworld of urbanity. However, and admittedly, I've only anecdotal evidence here-- it seems that they were just a fad after all. Where have all the Spinners gone? I thought this would really catch on and maybe even go mainstream, with caucasian soccer-moms buzzing around in Honda Odysseys and Toyota Siennas with rotating, chrome rims. I thought that there was a distinct possiblity that one day, a Cadillac hearse bearing my emaciated, twisted little body to some unpronouncable Jewish cemetery would be doing so on huge, 22-inch spinning DUBS.

But I guess not. I suppose this was just not to be. I'm sure J.D. Gragg made off with this thirty pieces of silver, though. And I doubt he knows anything about the taillamp pattern of the 1977-1978 Plymouth Fury either.