{"id":5211,"date":"2011-04-12T16:37:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T16:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/life\/opinion-you-really-don-t-like-the-grand-prix-really\/"},"modified":"2011-04-12T16:37:00","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T16:37:00","slug":"opinion-you-really-don-t-like-the-grand-prix-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/opinion-you-really-don-t-like-the-grand-prix-really","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: You Really Don’t Like the Grand Prix? Really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The 2010 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Photo by Samuel Lippke. <\/em>
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12:45pm |<\/strong> Listen, I don’t give any more of a damn about auto racing than you do. I didn’t care a farthing about cars even back when I drove one. I’m hypersensitive to loud noise. I like clean air. I don’t know my Pennzoil from my Dura Lube.<\/span> <\/p>\n

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But I love the Grand Prix. Love it. Not because of the racing, not because of that thing where the cars skid out and somehow they get judged on the skidding (swoopie, it’s called? Something like that), but because of spectacle, the sheer madness of the mass of humanity that descends on Long Beach in all its super-sized Middle American (vain)glory.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Wanna watch people carrying home used tires as souvenirs? You’ll see that on Friday and Saturday. Want to see belly shirts on all shapes and sizes? This is the weekend for you. Dying to watch men line up 100 deep to get the autographs of the Tecate Girls? Man, are you in luck!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Sure, you can argue that the noise is insufferable, but walk around the perimeter of the event and listen to the way the engine noise bounces off the buildings of downtown. Until you get reincarnated as a bat, it’s about as good a chance as you’ll ever get to experience the mechanics of echolocation.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Speaking of sound, the jet flyover that immediately precedes the start of the big race on Sunday is pretty neat. It’s probably a ridiculous waste of money, but if they’re gonna waste it, we may as well enjoy it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Speaking of money, let’s face it: Long Beach needs the business. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the economy \u2014 pick your poison: federal, state, local \u2014 has sucked big-time over the past few years. Needless to say, we need every penny we can get. So if you’re annoyed at the crowds, just remember: bodies = dollars.<\/span><\/p>\n

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It’s weird, it’s wild, it sounds like more gigantic mosquitoes than you can shake a stick at \u2014 and it’s free entertainment that walks through your civic front door. Instead of hiding away until it passes or leaving town for the weekend, come out and do some people-watching. You don’t have to be Teo Fabi \u2014 nor even know who that is \u2014 to dig it.<\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/title> <meta name=\"Generator\" content=\"Cocoa HTML Writer\"> <meta name=\"CocoaVersion\" content=\"949.54\"> <\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><em><span style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">Festivities for the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach begin with Tecate Thunder Thursday at 6 p.m. on Pine Avenue. For more information, visit <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gplb.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">GPLB.com<\/a><span style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS';\">.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><meta charset=\"utf-8\"><span style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Arial; line-height: normal; \"><em style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; \"><span>The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints<\/span><strong><span> <\/span><\/strong>expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints of the <\/em><span style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; \">Long Beach Post<\/span><em style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; \"> or the official policies of the <\/em><span style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; \">Long Beach Post<\/span><em style=\"font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; \">.<\/em><\/span> <\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Listen, I don’t give any more of a damn about auto racing than you do. I didn’t care a farthing about cars even back when I drove one. I’m hypersensitive to loud noise. I like clean air. I don’t know my Pennzoil from my Dura Lube. But I love the Grand Prix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":70039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hi-lo","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5211"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5211"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}