Greasers

« Greasers without a ride wait for a taxi at the Rock 'n Roll McDonald's. The pompadours, the upturned collar and the boots are perfect. »

Some friends of ours live up by the Rock 'n Roll McDonald's in Helsinki. I suppose I had noticed it before but it just didn't register until I was staring at it and wondering what in the hell such a thing was doing here. I have been in the original one in Chicago before and found it excrutiatingly lame and I'm not surprised to read that they're renovating it next month.

We just happened to go in there after the Brian Setzer concert had finished so it was incredibly surreal to sit down in a cloyingly 50s kitsch dineresque McDonald's filled with greaser dudes in leather jackets and girls in poodle skirts. Even in the US this would seem really odd as it's more American than America itself. It was pretty cool to watch all the people, whom I must say have good taste in music since I love Brian Setzer, dressed up for the concert right down to the vintage cars. I don't know what started the 50s craze in the US in the 70s with Grease, Welcome Back Kotter and Happy Days but I thought that such nostalgia would have jumped the shark by now.

The parking lot was also packed with vintage 50s cruisers with tailfins and no rust anywhere. I've seen more beautiful classic automobiles in Helsinki than I ever did in the US outside of a classic car show. I suppose it's because the winter roads are salted so much back home that most of the cars have just dissolved over the years. On the first Friday of the non-winter months, the classic car people apparently gather at the Rock 'n Roll or the Ice Hall parking lot and proceed to cruise around downtown which certainly confused the hell out of me the first time I saw them. I'm in love with a powder pink Cadillac with giant tailfins but I'd be scared to try to park it within 10km of the city. Before the end of the summer I hope to get there in time to take some pictures and lust after a few of their cars. :)