I've achieved a slight celebrity among a small cadre of honyocks who frequent the Purple Park. They greet me excitedly as Rocket Man. It's not much as fame goes, but if I'm going to bag Maria Sharapova, I've got to take whatever publicity I can get. Because I'm pretty sure Maria is far less aware of me than I am of her.
So after the first launch, the kid who went running hell bent for leather after Mr. Creosote brought him back and asked me the weirdest question.
'Can I keep it?'
No my brother, you must build your own.
Even the other kids seemed surprised that he'd ask such a thing. But the thing is, even after I explained that no, I spent actual money and time on this stuff and didn't bring it to the park to give away to kids I've never even met, he kept at it. He asked if he could take one of the others.
Or if he could keep the next one if he caught it.
As Mo would say, 'No-oh-oh-oh!'
The kid sported a dyed mohawk and was at least eleven or twelve. I almost didn't launch a second rocket because he was so persistent I figured if he got to it first he'd take off running with it since begging hadn't worked. In the end, I let him push the button on the last launch of the evening. I don't think that satisfied him. Maybe I should have told him to buzz off instead.
Hands Off Dope Peddler from Chixulub on Vimeo.
So I wasn't sure which soundtrack to give this video. With all the kids arguing over who was going to catch or retrieve the next rocket, and with the growing number of kids who address me as Rocket Man and start congregating near my car when we show up at the park, I was thinking The Old Dope Peddler. I'm a sick bastard, I know.
But Richard Cheese's take lounge-ified Rock the Casbah seemed a good candidate, too, because when The Clash was big with that song, the one kid in school who wore a mohawk was a genuinely troubled kid who, in this same situation, would probably have smashed Mr. Creosote before handing him back.
Hands Off My Casbah from Chixulub on Vimeo.
If you want, watch both and vote for your favorite. It's the same footage, but I think the effect is very different.
Mo bogarted my club soda and divided it roughly to one part beverage five parts wetting the sidewalk chalk and making a muddy mess of herself. But did she want to take a shower and get clean when she got home?
Untitled from Chixulub on Vimeo.
I'll have to get cracking building another Mr. Creosote. This one's showing some battle scars and won't live forever.
Thor's Candycane and Scribble V are also in need of repair before I fly them again. The mouths of their body tubes have gotten to where the nose cone isn't snug. Since the rest of the rocket has a ton more surface than the nose cone, it has more drag. What's supposed to happen, the motor pushes all at once, then the rocket coasts to apogee. But with a really loose nose cone, you risk drag separation in the coasting phase, meaning you can end up deploying your parachute while the rocket is moving very fast. Which takes your shock chord and zippers the side of the rocket. And/or it breaks your shock chord free and you have a nose cone coming down under canopy and a body tube heading to take a core sample.
And in the case of Thor's Candycane, I'm probably overdue to build his sequel as well.
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