Marty Barrett: The Flight of the Mavervorl: Honda's sense of snow

As long as I have lived in California - now seven years - I have not physically encountered snow in this state. I have had to travel to other states to see it. Neither has my car ever dealt with snow.

But yesterday, while beginning the arduous process of recording the "All that Jaws" album in the mountain community of Wrightwood (redubbed Great Wrightwood, you know, because of the shark), I enjoyed the dryer lint-sized snowflakes and bone-chilling cold that most closely resembles my soul.

I used to carry two ice scrapers in my car. Now I found myself easing down the street on loafers that do fine on casino carpeting but otherwise were unfit for shoveling out my parking space. I thought, "I deserve to fall and crack my head open in these shoes."

Then I thought, "Who came up with 'Crack your head open'? No one cracks anything shut."

Certain things came back, like waiting for the car to warm up. "Hey, I'll have to wait for the car to warm up."

I also remembered not to pick up any shivering women in Victorian pyjamas on the side of the road, because after I dropped them off, I would stop by an Inn and be told that that's Poor Mary, dead for a hundred years, who lost her baby in the snow. Then I would ask why she was fucking hitchhiking. No wonder she lost her baby.