Driving Like Crazy: Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending, Celebrating America the Way It's Supposed To Be With an Oi

by P.J. O'Rourke

Driving Like Crazy celebrates cars and author P. J. O’Rourke’s love for them, while chronicling the golden age of the automobile in America. O’Rourke takes us on a whirlwind tour of the world’s most scenic and bumpiest roads in trouble-laden cross-country treks, from a 1978 Florida-to-California escapade in a 1956 special four-door Buick sedan to a 1983 thousand-mile effort across Mexico in the Baja 1000 to a trek through Kyrgyzstan in 2006 on the back of a Soviet army surplus six-wheel-drive truck. For longtime fans of the celebrated humorist, the collection features a host of O’Rourke’s classic pieces on driving, including “How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink,” about the potential misdeeds one might perform in the front (and back) seat of an automobile; “The Rolling Organ Donors Motorcycle Club,” which chronicles a seven-hundred-mile weekend trip through Michigan and Indiana that O’Rourke took on a Harley Davidson alongside Car & Driver publisher David E. Davis, Jr.; his brilliant and funny piece from Rolling Stone on NASCAR and its peculiar culture, recorded during an alcohol-fueled weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 1977; and an hilarious account of a trek from Islamabad to Calcutta in Land Rover’s new Discovery Trek.

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, Cars, Travel, Politics, Essays, Ebooks

267 pages, Paperback

Published May 11, 2010

About the author

Patrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!. Since 2011 O'Rourke has been a columnist at The Daily Beast. In the United Kingdom, he is known as the face of a long-running series of television advertisements for British Airways in the 1990s.

He is the author of 20 books, of which his latest, The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way (And It Wasn’t My Fault) (And I’ll Never Do It Again), was released January 2014. This was preceded on September 21, 2010, by Don't Vote! – It Just Encourages the Bastards, and on September 1, 2009, Driving Like Crazy with a reprint edition published on May 11, 2010. According to a 60 Minutes profile, he is also the most quoted living man in The Penguin Dictionary of Modern Humorous Quotations.

Reviews

[Nancy Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished listening to this audiobook in (where else?) the car. Immensely entertaining, belly laugh evoking book (not a great look while you’re driving alone in your car), with great and usually hysterical accounts of cross country driving adventures (much of it off road, in places like Baja California) and liberally sprinkled with P.J. O’Rourke’s unique brand of pithy wisdom and political wisecracks.
On the auto company bailouts; “What a company that is losing money needs is more money to lose.”
On the Mercedes M Class, “There was zero danger of being called “sensible “ in this. It was a Mercedes. The M Class rode like your boss’s executive office chair, steered like the prize dressage horse owned by your boss’s wife, and stopped faster than your paycheck would if you were caught naked on any of those things.”
On federal funding: “We don’t have too many cars on the road, but we do have too many with lights on their roofs. I blame it on 9/11. After the World Trade Tower attack, Patriot Act largesse was showered on small town police departments. New Hampshire’s small towns used the money for extra traffic patrols in case Osama Bin Laden has one taillight out.”
P.J. O’Rourke was the best. Never knew that aside from writing about politics he was a car journalist and test driver too. Never fails to put a smile on my face.

[Kelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love O'Rourke. It is just that simple. While he is best known for his political writing he has covered a multitude of topics over the years. True O'Rourke fans know he has written for "Car and Driver" over the years and that he loves muscle cars. "Driving Like Crazy" is a collection of automotive essays and adventures. The humor that succeeds so well when describing how Congress doesn't work also succeeds when describing a drive through Baja California with Mike Nesmith.

I give the book a high rating, knowing that it isn't for everyone. It is not a good introduction to PJ O'Rourke, but it is good O'Rourke.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been, and remain a huge fan of P. J. O'Rourke's. I've always liked his PG-13 Gonzo style of writing--a tamer version of Hunter Thompson. Witt, & Cynicism are the accounting firm of O'Rourke's mind, and they are well used here. Part travel book, part car book, with digressions into politics/economics/family life, offer something for everyone. While not my favorite O'Rourke book ("Eat The Rich" retains that honor), it is a nice book to escape into, after watching the evening news or having just tried to replace the wiper blades on your Honda.

[Brooks · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of re-tread material from O'Rourke's magazine articles. Some stuff from the early 1970s. Only 5-10 pages of new material on the current crises. However, still had me giggling.

[Max · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed PJ O'Rourke as a panelist on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and when part of my library's summer reading challenge was reading a book by a comedian I figured I'd give his writing a go. After all, I revisited Dave Barry a few months ago and had a great time with him. But this book just never quite clicked with me.

I found myself somewhat turned off by O'Rourke's clear right wing political views in the first and last chapters of the book, but did find some good jokes so I figured it might turn out alright. I think part of the problem is that I just don't care about cars, and I also don't have much of an investment in O'Rourke as a person. So I found the chapters about races across Baja California to be tedious and uninteresting, especially since the nominal humor seemed to be more in recounting a situation rather than actually making jokes about it. Those sort of road trip tales generally went on too long and dragged things down.

I did like some of the other chapters where he made funny comments on different aspects of life with cars. The idea of a national park in the form of a roadway for people to go as fast as they want on was amusing. While I didn't care about him racing, I did enjoy the family trip as it's fun to see that sort of experience through an adult's eyes. And there were a number of good lines throughout the book, making me thankful I was reading this on my Kindle so I could highlight them.

In the end, the issue is mostly that there just wasn't enough good stuff here to keep me engaged. I often found it a bit of a slog to get through the chapters, and I mostly made the effort because the summer reading program is almost over. I'm not ruling out reading another O'Rourke book at some point, especially since a lot of my fellow negative reviewers say his stuff on politics is better. But I certainly plan to steer clear of people trying to be funny about cars.

[Gene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this compilation of P.J. O'Rourke's writings about cars, trucks, and motorcycles more than anything else I've ever read of his. He loves cars without being a gear-head or a snob. He explains how American driving really is, and he shows that failures, danger, and the road (or off-road) are all part of the fun. I was in need of something light-hearted and enjoyable, and this was just the thing. He only puts a bit of his politics into the picture, so you don't have to be a libertarian to enjoy it. The humor is very self-deprecating, and it helps us who are not experts at cars or driving feel like the fun is available to us as well. A bit vulgar at times, it may offend those overly insulated from crudeness or swearing, but for most this will not be an impediment. P.J. O'Rourke would have been an ideal road-trip companion. Pick up this book and have him as your hilarious companion for a few fun hours.

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first P.J. O'Rourke book, bought fittingly in the middle of a road trip. I dove right in and quickly realized that I had read one of the stories in here when it appeared in a 2005 anniversary retelling in Car & Driver. Hadn't found it as funny when I was a little kid, but now it was rip-roaring hilarious. Found myself laughing all throughout the book as O'Rourke tells some of his most insane driving stories and makes some really good points about the fun-suckers trying to ruin driving. He leaves nobody excepted from his satire, which makes it especially rewarding to read. Too much humor today has an annoying partisan agenda and notwithstanding O'Rourke's barbs at Obama and other Democrats, his stance was mostly "get the government the hell out of my car and my driving". As somebody whose libertarian streak primarily comes out when it comes to cars, I found myself nodding along between laughs. Not every essay was as entertaining, but almost all were fantastic. We really did lose a lot with P.J. O'Rourke's passing earlier this year. I'm sure he's is up in heaven driving way too fast...

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can't write about P.J. O'Rourke and not put in endless quotes. He is the funniest man writing today. Every night I pray God will turn me into P.J., or at least give me the direct phone number and email addresses of his agent and editor.

Recently I read "Peace Kills," which is a little more somber than I'm used, but then having been written in the shadow of 9/11/01, what else could it be?

Here he's back to his usual irreverent, hilarious self--a collection from his 30 years of automotive writing. These pieces have appeared in all kinds of magazines--Rolling Stone, Esquire, Automotive Week, Car and Driver, and even National Lampoon.

For those of you who are not into the political, this is a perfect book with very few political shots. But just enough to retain his political wonk status.

"It's time to say . . . How shall we put it? . . . sayonara to the American car. The American Automotive industry--GM, Ford, even Chrysler--will live on in some form, a Marley's ghost dragging its corporate chains at taxpayer expense. The fools in the corner offices of Detroit (and the fool officials of Detroit's unions) will retire to their vacation homes (in Palm Beach and St. Pete). They no more deserve our sympathy than the malevolent trolls under the Capitol dome. But pity the poor American car when congress and the White House get through with it--a light-weight, vehicle with a small carbon footprint, using alternative energy and renewable resources to operate in a sustainable way. When I was a kid we called it a Schwinn."

On NASCAR mechanics:
"There was one ole boy there, hunkered down with all manner of folksy verb tenses. I asked him something about what kind of steel the tube frames are made from. He launched into a Nobel Prize lecture on metallurgy in which, 'molybdenum' was the smallest word I noticed."

P.J. goes to Baja not once, but three times--and that's probably 2 1/2 times too many; he goes to India, Russia, defends the American SUV to the British press, runs all over LA in a beat up Mustang, and several other wild and wooley adventures.

On the Los Angeles automotive scene:
"Contrary to received wisdom, Los Angeles was a tiresome place for an automotive enthusiast to be. Not because of lack of wonderful automobiles but because of an excess. The city was full of desirable, arousing, priapism-inducing cars of every kind: Bugattis, Facel Vegas, Cords, three-wheeled Morgans, SS100 Jaguars, Testarossa Ferraris, Lancias, Aurelias, not to mention bevies of MG TCs and TDs, slews of bug-eyed Sprites, more bathtub Porsches than Germany had bathtubs, and ranks and files of plain vanilla cars-you'd-love-to-own. . . The problem was with the folks who owned the view. . . . The Hollywooden heads would buy a car for almost any purpose except a worthy one. Many automobiles were purchased to attract members of LA's eight or ten opposite sexes. Since the denizens of America's Gomorrah, were incapable of verbalizing any idea more complex than "box office gross," the expensive car served as a substitute for witty come-on and seductive chat. (It should be noted that the persuit of libidinous satisfaction was such a mania in the '80s in LA that if the local citizens had ever performed any normal acts of copulation our country would now be three fathoms deep in twenty-eight-year-olds named after astrological signs.)"

This is fall-down laughing funny, Coca-cola out the nose guffawing hysterical stuff. It almost made me love life again.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

O'Rourke is one of my favorite writers and humorists, so I expected a lot more from this book. In most of the new material, it feels like he's playing a caricature of himself, and in the old material, he hasn't finished sharpening his voice yet. Maybe he just loses something when he's not talking politics. I'm not sure what the root cause is, but this book is very skippable, even for a big P.J. O'Rourke fan.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

You have heard of a book you cannot put down? This is one you CAN put down.
I thought I would go waaaay off course for my reading taste and try it. I suspect if you are a gearhead it might be something to read.

It was an interesting choice after reading Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion. This culture is part of what he was ranting about.
Maybe it's a generational thing. I don't know. I found it uninteresting and unfunny.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

P.J. O'Rourke pulls no punches in this compendium of essays about cars and driving that he wrote over a few decades. O'Rourke is a master of the metaphor, a king of hilarious comparisons, a samurai swordsman of similes. His humor cuts to the bone, spares almost no one and is often as dry as the deserts of the Baja. However, his writing and wry observations are chock full of intelligent witticism, deserved criticism and enlightening wisdom.

O'Rourke's writing has a way of putting the reader smack dab in the driver's seat and the middle of the action through description and familiar comparisons. Whether it's off-road racing with Michael Nesmith (yes, that Michael Nesmith), or barreling down the twisty roads of Southern California in a Mustang from Rent-a-Wreck or riding Harley Davidsons across the midwest, this collection is for certified gearheads and the laid back, part-time car enthusiast. I enjoyed it. Also, as a writer, I learned a lot about metaphor, humor and direct writing. If you write humor or aspire to write humor, there are plenty of great lessons to be learned from this collection.

[Thomas Radigan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, this book is a compilation of past magazine articles, presumably some of which were edited by his older self, as well as newer articles, now that he is a married man with children. Really more amusing if you are a gearhead, but even people who aren't should still enjoy this.

The book talks about how cars have changed over the years and what they can and cannot do, and dispels the myth that cars were better in the old days. It talks about all the headaches of driving off road and into weird places. California, the Baja peninsula (of Mexico), and India are covered, and if you think America is a bad place, try seeing the world outside it. Not deep meaning and will be dated in a few decades, but still a fun read.

[Larry Hostetler · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the more humorous of the O'Rourke books I've read. Covering decades of writings for car magazines, the book nonetheless maintains interest.

Several chapters cover P.J.'s friendship with Michael Nesmith, and the escapades they enjoyed. But the stories go far beyond the subject of those chapters (off-road racing through Baja and the western US.)

The first chapter was a bit unsettling as it glorified drunk driving, and afterward O'Rourke explained it in part as the stupidity of youth. Other than that, it was enjoyable and educational reading. But because of that I could not give it five stars.

A quick read, with a variety of stories to interest anyone who drives.

[Trever · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining and at times hugely funny, but also disjointed and largely composed of material I'd already read in Car & Driver. There's PJ's usual streak of conservative politics laced throughout which will probably put off or offend some readers, but I enjoyed his observations even when I didn't agree with some of them. (I enjoy reading considered opinions that challenge my own preconceptions - I'm weird that way) At its best, it's a rousing series of car adventure stories that will have you laughing out loud; at its worst, it becomes a jumbled bunch of disconnected vignettes that often don't really go anywhere and then just sort of 'end'.

[Damian Solorzano · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now, a remembrance.

O'Rourke passed in February '22, a shock to everyone; cancer has a way of doing that. He was, along with the other writers from Car and Driver of the 80s and 90s, formative for me. Returning to his work, we clearly see that he was of his time and class, but just when you think he's gonna go full `Murrican, he'll surprise you with an egalitarian twist. Cars were just one subject that he wrote on, politics and travel and variations on all three formed his work. Despite his acerbic and jaded outlook on the page, personally he was remembered by his colleagues as a genuine, kind person. I don't think we'll see his kind again.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full title:
"Driving like crazy : thirty years of vehicular hell-bending, celebrating America the way it's supposed to be--with an oil well in every backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in every carport, and the chairman of the Federal Reserve mowing our lawn"

No real memory of the book, but great title!

[Harry Proctor · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up. I generally like PJ O’Rourke notwithstanding his politics. This book was a waste of time, paper and ink. Bogged down with too much technical detail and just wasn’t interesting or funny.

[Marge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although both trip through Baja were unbelievable tales (and confirms I never want to go there) and his relationship with Mike Nesmith was an interesting fact, in an effort to be funny, sometimes the writing was almost hard to understand.

[MikeBy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice collection of PJ O'Rourke essays, with comments about the older ones by the author especially fun to read.

[Dad · Rating 4 out of 5]

P.J. o’Rourke is always funny. And he knows cars.

[Paul McC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining read for anyone who enjoys cars and good stories. Very well written and funny, would definitely recommend. Also not too long.

[Jacob Hunt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew!

This one lives up to its title and then some. A wild ride around the world, through time and a car guy's head.

[Clint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this a few years ago. Fun book if you like driving and P.J. O’Rourke’s style. I used to enjoy his articles in Car and Driver many years ago.

[Artie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A low four. Gets a bit tedious by the end.

[Jim Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny read

I haven’t read P.J.’s stuff in a long time. This brought back memories
of my own experiences with cars and travel.

[Navraj · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny, bringing up mechanical and fixable auto failures that are hard to imagine. Goes off the rails a little at the end with his anti-India and political rants, that no longer seem timely.

[James Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collage of previously written articles, some of which have been updated. There is much to be found that is amusing and sometimes even laugh outloud, but some of the material shows its age.

[Paul Sand · Rating 3 out of 5]

[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]

Here at Pun Salad World Headquarters, any book P. J. O'Rourke writes is a must-buy-in-hardcover, and it gets plunked right on top of the To-Be-Read Pile.

The subtitle is too small to read in the picture, and deserves quoting in full:

Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-bending, Celebrating America the Way It's Supposed To Be — With an Oil Well in Every Backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in Every Carport, and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Mowing Our Lawn

It's a collection of P. J.'s automotive journalism, although you don't have to be a Car Guy to enjoy the book; I'm not. Relatively little is actually about the vehicles themselves: most often, the pieces are about the misadventures of taking said vehicles to strange foreign places they really weren't meant to go, driving them in ways they shouldn't be driven, often in the company of people who might or might not be under the influence of substances licit or illicit.

The earliest piece is one I remember reading in the old National Lampoon magazine: "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink"; it's still guaranteed to send members of MADD, NOW, and DARE into a quick swoon. (In fact, me just typing the title might be a valid entry in R. Stacy McCain's National Offend A Feminist Week link collection, although that's his call.) Better yet, there's a contemporary followup essay on the same issues; the title is even longer, and contains the phrase "the Drugs Are Mostly Lipitor".

Although technically a humor writer, P. J. does not do a lot of jokes, relying on his sharp powers of observation, and his Chandleresque ability to nail colorful metaphors. Michael Nesmith (yes, the ex-Monkee) is a participant in a number of chapters, and he actually gets the best joke in the book, at the end of a story about off-road truck racing in Baja California:

The only thing I couldn't understand is why anyone would do it. "Well," Nesmith said, "I like the big trucks and I like the people. But there's something else. I don't know if you'll know what I'm talking about. But I grew up poor in West Texas. There wasn't much to do. Sometimes one kid would say to another, 'Come on over to my house—we're gonna jump off the roof.'"

In opening and closing chapters, P. J. mulls the demise of the American car industry. He declines blaming the usual suspects (management, unions), instead pointing his finger right at the folks he calls the "Fun Suckers"; and now, of course, the Fun Suckers are in charge.

[thewestchestarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Often hilarious, sometimes droll but for a limited audience. Last year after smoking marijuana at a Westchester County campsite, a woman loaded several children and a bottle of vodka into her minivan and after the equivalent of 10 drinks drove for 2 miles the wrong way down the Saw Mill Parkway North eventually killing herself, the children and two unlucky men in a Chevy Trailblazer. With this story in mind read P.J. O’Rourke’s tales of 30 years of frequently drunken vehicular shenanigans across the U.S., Baja Mexico and India and his often hilarious stories take on a bit of a dark humor tinge. The conservative Republican O’Rourke is on par with the best in the satirist trade equal to Russell Baker, Art Buchwald and Andy Rooney and this collection of 30 years of mostly car magazine pieces demonstrates that he bring more than just politics to the party. The vignettes can be divided into travel pieces including 2 trips down Mexico’s Baja peninsula with ex-Monkey Mike Nesmith, a trip across the U.S. in a ’56 Buick and trip through California in a 1930’s Chevrolet. Although fully readable and often laugh out loud funny, these, like the road trips they describe, can go on beyond the point when they are still entertaining. More enjoyable are his musings on cars and their place in society. As the too lengthy subtitle suggests, O’Rourke likes his SUV (he owns a Land Rover Discovery II and his wife a Suburban) mammoth, his gas cheap and, if he is to be believed, his speeds death-defying. His rationalizing on why these things are no inherently evil makes for fascinating “devil’s advocate” argument particularly a piece for a British publication which both defends and admits that his home country maybe has a consumption problem: beer, gas, land for 8 lane interstate highways, metal, rubber for tiles and sometimes all of these at once. Now in his 50s with a wife and three children and with a minivan test-drive piece under his belt, he admits that some of his automotive-based tours of bars when he was younger may have been ill-advised but he stops well short of siding with those he terms “funsuckers” whose DUI laws, he claims, are taking all the fun out of life. Although more than just politically incorrect but actually morally incorrect some of the stories are very humorous and well worth the read.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 3 out of 5]

P. J. O'Rourke's writing style, when applied to a serious topic like politics and the economy (see On The Wealth of Nations (Books That Changed the World)), actually works better than it does here when applied in mostly and decidedly non-serious style, to cars. The shock of O'Rourke's ribald and manic humor actually enlivens that potentially dead subject, while here reads too much like a fawning student of the Hunter S. Thompson school of writing.

Not that "Driving Like Crazy" is bad, just that much of it seems too much a product of its time and place--the70s and early 80s when O' Rourke made much of his living writing features for car magazines like Car and Driver. His accounts of running the Baja 1000 in a customized truck with Mike Nesmith (parents: yes, the Monkee's Mike Nesmith. Kids: ask your parents) then later with a couple of company-provided Jeep vehicles take up a big chunk of the book, and serve as a fascinating word-picture of a wrecked (literally) landscape (no actual pictures provided, more's the pity). The tour across India in a pair of Land Rovers is also fun reading, and I wish we had politicians with the moxie and political (and tax) capital to take seriously O'Rourke's call for a drivers' national park: "a road, or network of roads, where we can drive the way we'll be allowed to drive in heaven after we succumb to apoplexy caused by being stuck for six hours on I-95 when a Prius full of vegans swerves in front of a livestock truck and an oil tanker, causing America's least wanted barbecue to be hosted at the off-ramp to the Washington beltway." (p. 229)

But the writing style can be tedious, and the glorification of drugs and drunken driving, even when tongue-in-cheek, just isn't funny any more. Sorry, O'Rourke, I guess I've become one of "them."