I find myself impaled upon the horns of a dilemma. At the same time I find that I am subjecting myself to an uncontrolled social experiment. No, it has nothing to do with tango. It has to do with writing. My problem stems from the fact that, in the dark times we find ourselves in, curiosity is penalized.

Sure, there’s that whole thing about killing the cat which dates back to the 1500s so there is a long history of enjoining against sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. These days however, the penalty for the Seeker of Information is both dire and rapidly meted out.

My dilemma du jour stemmed from some online research I needed to do for my novel Fresh Squeezed which my co-author Bonnie Biafore and I are writing. It is a “crime comedy” novel. This puts several burdens on Bonnie and me as writers. First, it goes without saying, it has to be funny. No mean feet that. Second, the criminal activity has to be completely grounded in the plausible while at the same time end up in the realm of the unbelievable. And third, while dragging our hapless readers through this criminally humorous landscape everything has to feel completely real. The circle is complete and we can ask our readers to suspend disbelief about the crime because everything else seems right.

I was writing a scene wherein a bunch of rednecks (no offense intended) are sitting around plotting out their nefarious deeds. I knew where and when the meeting would be – writers are allowed to make that shit up. I just needed to add some details to make you, the eventual reader, go: Yeah, I know that place. So I added a TV. To give my scene that edge of reality I sought it was not showing HSN to the rednecks (no offense intended), nor The Disney Channel, neither even ESPN or the Golf Channel. It was showing NASCAR. Since I knew when my fictional meeting was taking place I could put the correct race for the day on the TV and thereby force my easily-duped readers into thinking: Well, the NASCAR race is right so everything else must be too. It’s called verisimilitude for the pedantic among you.

So, off I went on my research expedition. I determined at NASCAR.com that, on the date in question, the race was being held at the Richmond International Raceway (RIR) in Virginia. I visited the RIR website to get some key details for my scene and then left. I had no further interest in either Richmond or NASCAR. I’m sure I will not have to revisit either of those sites until the next time I have to write a scene about rednecks (no offense intended).

I now know more about NASCAR than I ever cared to. In my newfound knowledge is the absolute certainty that NASCAR is more about advertising than racing. NASCAR.com features a whole page dedicated to the companies who pay a fortune to be the “Official Whatever of NASCAR”. This list gives a curious look at the NASCAR – the world’s fastest advertising medium – target demographic. And golly bob-howdy Bubba, it ain’t the rednecks.

There is an official beer – Coors, no real surprise there other than it’s not Budweiser. There’s an official auto parts store, tire, motor oil, and car battery – all perfectly reasonable for an automobile race. Then it gets weird. Included in the list – which is too long to burden you with here – are an official “finish” (whatever that means), official “cookie and cracker”, bank, antiperspirant, pet food, candy bar, “health initiative”, “shaving product”, and energy drink. There’s even an official “cheese-filled snack”. There are also several “Official Partners” whose products range from dandruff shampoo, to artificial sweeteners, to yellow sticky-notes. 

It appears that nobody would pony up the megabucks needed to be “the official passenger car” so there are three: Chevy, Dodge, and Toyota. Each now being able to state the irresistible marketing claim of being “an official passenger car of NASCAR”.

All of these advertisers are just for NASCAR; they have nothing to do with the stickers you see on the race cars themselves. So clearly NASCAR is just out to sell something, no matter how absurd it might be. But what really surprised me was what they tried to sell me. After my little research adventure, what NASCAR tried to sell me was NASCAR. Specifically, they tried to sell me the Richmond International Raceway in Virginia. Over and over and over.

In fact, NASCAR wants me to buy the RIR so badly that I am getting advertisements for it and the associated Crown Royal 400 race everywhere I visit on the web. Furthermore, I don’t see just one ad for the RIR per page but in fact have seen up to four – both sides, top, and bottom – at the same time. And these aren’t itty-bitty text ads, they are whopping-big, full-color, fancy ads. Which cost a bunch.

The way I figured it, the Richmond International Raceway set a budget for online advertising and the company that was posting the ads said something along the lines of: “They’re not going to know we’re displaying four ads per page, they’ll just pay the bill. I mean they’re just a bunch of dumb NASCAR rednecks.”

Which might explain why NASCAR doesn’t have an “Official Advertising Agency”.

My research continued. The book is a crime novel. So somebody has to get killed or something needs to get stolen or something needs to get blown up. My co-author and I – being new to the genre – decided to hedge our bets and cover all the bases. So I, in my capacity as a writer, needed to blow the living bejeezus out of something – the surprise of what I will not spoil here. I started researching dynamite and the various techniques used for detonating it. I called the folks at Dyno Nobel – the inventors of TNT, the proceeds from which ironically fund the Nobel Peace Prize among others – and talked with one of their reps. I identified myself and asked if it was possible to detonate dynamite using a fuse and a match like in the movies. “Nope. Click.” was his Homeland Security inspired answer. Not easily discouraged I researched further and found that, indeed, non-electric fuse ignition was a widely used method for blowing things to kingdom come. Particularly in the military and, coincidentally enough, in “rural applications” (no offense intended).

But now I am on The List. I have typed “dynamite”, “detonation”, and “fuse” into the Google search box so many times that I am sure there’s a little red light flashing in a Homeland Security office someplace or another. I fully expect The Knock to come at my door any minute followed by the entry of some black-suited commandos rappelling into my basement apartment. These, in turn, will be followed by people in dark suits wearing sunglasses and tossing out accusing questions like: “What are you doing googling about dynamite?” I’d explain about the book and how I needed to blow up a █████████████████ so I needed the information. The arresting agent would reach for her handcuffs and I would shout “But I’m a scientist”, and point at my Geology diploma on the wall. The invading divisions would sweep up the broken glass, write me a check for the bother, and be on their way.

Because that’s the way it’s always been. I’d just leave out the part about already knowing how to blow things up.

In my youth, my friend George – who is a regular reader of this page and is right now trying to decide whether to first call his wife or a defense attorney – and I became quite skilled at blowing things up. We were able to acquire these skills – which were highly illegal even in those simpler times – because we were going to grow up to be “scientists”. We could walk into the pharmacy and ask for two pounds of potassium nitrate and a jar of powdered sulfur and be told: “You boys have fun. That’ll be a dollar sixty-two.” We had smoke bombs that smelled like somebody just set a litter box on fire, we had incendiaries that could melt concrete, we had compact explosives that could blow a crater that we’d have a hard time jumping across. And we had rockets. Of course, we had rockets.

This was in the midst of the Space Race so all good scientists were rocketscientists. Since NASA had blown up so many rockets while they were trying to figure how to make them go up everybody figured that George’s and my exploding rockets were just us going through the same learning phase that NASA had, just a few years earlier. One memorable time we were going to “study” the “technical feasibility” of a tube-launched missile. We wheeled our launcher, which was a really big toy cannon known as the “Mighty Mo”, out onto George’s driveway. We set it up at point-blank range aimed at a hardwood dining table turned on its side. (Of course we could get our hands on a dining table. We were scientists.) For further safety the whole thing was backed up by some impenetrable woods, beyond which was the Warneke’s house.

The Warneke’s were German. In hindsight they were probably liberated from postwar Germany because Mr. Warneke was a rocket scientist or something. From my youth what I remember most was that they were kind, quiet, and had a beagle. George and I made two mistakes that day. First, we knew nothing about aerodynamics. Second, we lit the fuse. (Of course we could get fuse. We were scientists.)

When the fuse burned down the rocket motor ignited and the rocket popped out of the tube at about three miles per hour instead of the three hundred miles per hour we had hoped for. The result was that the fins didn’t have enough airflow over them, the engine-heavy end of the rocket dropped and the rocket, freed from the friction of the tube, launched nearly vertically into the air. At about 300 miles per hour. It went over our target table. It went over the woods. Then it plunged Earthward and crashed onto the Warneke’s roof where, as we planned, it exploded. George and I rushed over to the Warneke’s and banged on the door. We explained what had happened and borrowed their ladder to extinguish our burning missile. Fortunately, there was no damage so they just patted us on the heads and in their thick accents told us: “Go have fun, boys. But point that thing someplace else.”

The point of all that being – that no matter if you made a childhood mistake, are poking fun at rednecks, laughing at the idiots at NASCAR, or dealing with the Feds after using Google to try to figure out how to blow up a █████████████████ – it is always easier to get forgiveness than permission.