Renata Carmen Writes

     Every week day, at about 4am, a neighbor down the street starts his car up before his morning commute. Under normal circumstances, this wouldn’t be a problem. It would simply be a mundane part of someone else’s routine that would go unnoticed. However, this gent is a gearhead, like many in the neighborhood. One who likes vehicles with exceptionally loud, throaty, large displacement engines. As a fellow speed freak and car lover, I get the affinity for such creations. I’ve worked on Nascar level race cars at Irwindale, and clung to the chain link fence at Pomona while top fuel cars fly by at hundreds of miles per hour. It’s more addictive than sugar, and twice as sweet. What I don’t get is people who feel the need to drive the loudest car in the neighborhood when they’re one of the first to get up. It wouldn’t bother me as much if he didn’t sit there warming it up for at least 20 minutes before heading off. Idle? More like a minor earthquake!    ...

Some very exciting things have been happening here in Renata Land!  First off, a huge shout-out, and massive thanks to The Speed Girls  for featuring me on their website! It's a beautiful feature, and I am incredibly honored to be considered "The Real Deal" next to all those other badass women they have on there! http://www.thespeedgirls.com/renata-carmen.html Second, I have a new, fancy, official website! So, I will no longer be posting to this blog. I will be keeping this site up until I have archived all the old material on here, but from now on, go to  http://www.renatacarmen.com/  to check out future blog posts, and keep up with my myriad of projects and misadventures! Thank you, faithful readers, for your continued support! It means the world to me and I'm just so excited for things to come :) :) :) *Love & Light* Renata Carmen

This post I would like to highlight a personal hero of mine - Neil Young! <3  I've been listening to this dude since the womb (literally) and got to see him perform for the first time recently in Essex for the launch of his Monsanto Years tour.  It was a life changing experience that still brings tears to my eyes when I recall it, but I'll be writing more in detail about that concert later, along with Mr. Young's current fight to aid Vermont as it undergoes a major lawsuit from the shady, scary powerful big corporate alliance known as the " Grocery Manufacturer's Association " - Mansanto and Starbucks being the primary companies within this group currently under his attack.  First, I want to focus on Neil Young as a person - what makes him tick; who/what made him the powerful, loving soul that he his today; how his creative process works. Right before going to see him play up by Lake Champlain, I heard an enlightening interview he did with Howard Stern a...

A fun one I started a while back and finally finished today. I guess you could say I'm in the mood because I'm well enough to go downstairs tomorrow and start restoring the Celica Supra again ;) Yay! Enjoy the Gearhead Poetry! Oh, you rev my engine wear out my starter when I can't take any more you drive me harder thru terrains I never knew you got my alignment all askew runnin' till we see red and blue lights only you know how to move me just right baby let's hit the canyons tonight Thanks for reading! *Love & Light* Renata Carmen "Kaizen" aka "Kiki", our gorgeous 1982 Toyota Celica Supra P-Type 5 Speed <3

Starting something new on the blog! :) Every Friday, I am going to talk about "Bad Mofo's" - people who I find really inspiring.  Today, I would like to draw attention to an amazing woman I can't believe I've never heard of before. I learned about Louise "Landspeed" Noeth recently while catching up on the  Cars Yeah Podcast , where she is described as "a storyteller known for taking complicated subjects and making them entertaining and educational. She founded LandSpeed Productions in 1984 where she provides film and TV consulting, photography, writing, graphic design, and more. Her award-winning works have been published around the world. Dubbed 'LandSpeed Louise', she concentrates on land speed racing and people who do extraordinary feats by designing, building, and driving fast cars, trucks, and motorcycles. She’s one of the few women journalists in the automotive field who’s also comfortable and competent behind the wheel." A few ...

...fucking sleep the gears in my head just won't stop turning yearning for apexes and curves racing the birds towards the heavens embracing the mountains words cannot describe the longing i feel in my soul i feel whole when rubber and steel are at my command embrace the wheel in my hands twisting and turning nature's demands and lady luck are my only concerns discerning my beloved free from thinking all instinct like breathing or blinking chase the sun till its sinking then into the night you try to follow all you see are taillights and im gone smiling at your feeble attempts repeat your rinsed out style is spent long before i've even started so go join the other ricers and dearly departed ill say a prayer for you next time we meet just as soon as i have her back on her feet i anticipate that day like a kid's christmas already have a mile long wish list a never ending process this game we play but i wouldn't have it any other way

-This was featured in the July issue of 2010. For those who aren't familiar with this mag (http://www.autorestorermagazine.com/ar/), Auto Restorer is a low budget monthly periodical that is geared towards the old school domestic crowd. It's filled with wonderful how to's, tips, tricks, and other such information. Anyways, my article is slated for a series they have been running called "Gearheads Under 30", where young mechanics submit bios and pictures of their work.  I hope you enjoy this article. Huge thanks to Jason Simons for his tireless assistance with the editing! Before I tell you about myself I would like to take a few moments to introduce you to my car—she is far more important anyhow; without her I am but a lowly ape that happens to possess a modest tool collection. How does one begin to describe the enigma known as the Toyota MR2? Well, one way to start is by examining the specs and history of the vehicle. There are three main gener...

This was written several years ago, on a day spent with some very influential gearheads in my life at that time. I just came across this and laughed, because its true: “So I have discovered a new addiction: Cars. I have become bitten by the bug. Now, don’t get me wrong I have always loved cars, I work on them, I read about them, and until this very moment considered myself to be a “gearhead”. But today I hung out with kids my own age or younger who are actually living, eating, breathing, dreaming it. Working in garages on their Corollas and Hatches. Spending their time scraping money together for parts and track time and tires. Yeah, they party, but that is not their primary goal from day to day. I have spent the last 10 years chasing one rave, one party, to the next.... And I could have been spending my time running canyons and building motors instead. People bitch about living in this shithole Antelope valley, and yes it is not the most exciting place to live. But if you...

"my car is like my own personal universe she's my drug and it only takes 12 bucks to fill 'er up and in my galaxy there ain't no room for earth so i'm leavin it cuz i can feel my oil pressure building up turning over the ignition of my solar system check the gauges, push in the tape put my foot on the brake shift existence, light my cigarette and take it state to state until i crash into my fate..." -slug (atmosphere) it doesn't matter what may have happened during the day, i know that The Mountain will always be there for me. i hit the streets in the direction of my favorite local peak, feeling relief at just the thought of traversing its glorious twists and turns. a pang of excitement runs thru me like electricity as it comes into view. regardless of how many times i have been up here, i get the butterflies as i enter the canyon and accelerate into the great abyss. all my problems dissipate as i turn into the apex. i feel the stress and...

circa 2008 "my car is like my own personal universe she's my drug and it only takes 12 bucks to fill 'er up and in my galaxy there ain't no room for earth so i'm leavin it cuz i can feel my oil pressure building up turning over the ignition of my solar system check the gauges, push in the tape put my foot on the brake shift existence, light my cigarette and take it state to state until i crash into my fate..." -slug it doesn't matter what may have happened during the day, i know that The Mountain will always be there for me. i hit the streets in the direction of my favorite local peak, feeling relief at just the thought of traversing its glorious twists and turns. and then, a pang of excitement as it comes into view. regardless of how many times i have been up here, i get the butterflies as i enter the canyon and accelerate into the great abyss. all my problems dissipate as i turn into the apex. i feel the stress and negative energy drain from my body, and...

(March 2009) ...fucking sleep the gears in my head just won't stop turning yearning for apexes and curves racing the birds towards the heavens embracing the mountains words cannot describe the longing i feel in my soul i feel whole when rubber and steel are at my command embrace the wheel in my hands twisting and turning nature's demands and lady luck are my only concerns discerning my beloved free from thinking all instinct like breathing or blinking chase the sun till its sinking then into the night you try to follow all you see are taillights and im gone smiling at your feeble attempts repeat your rinsed out style is spent long before i've even started so go join the other ricers and dearly departed ill say a prayer for you next time we meet just as soon as i have her back on her feet i anticipate that day like a kid's christmas already have a mile long wish list a never ending process this game we play but i wouldn't have it any other way

"my car is like my own personal universe she's my drug and it only takes 12 bucks to fill 'er up and in my galaxy there ain't no room for earth so i'm leavin it cuz i can feel my oil pressure building up turning over the ignition of my solar system check the gauges, push in the tape put my foot on the brake shift existence, light my cigarette and take it state to state until i crash into my fate..." -slug (atmosphere) it doesn't matter what may have happened during the day, i know that The Mountain will always be there for me. i hit the streets in the direction of my favorite local peak, feeling relief at just the thought of traversing its glorious twists and turns. a pang of excitement runs thru me like electricity as it comes into view. regardless of how many times i have been up here, i get the butterflies as i enter the canyon and accelerate into the great abyss. all my problems dissipate as i turn into the apex. i feel the stress and neg...