History Warp (2/20-2/26): Cars & Commies

Of all the family stuff each of the Marx Brothers had to go through — satisfying mama, getting a word in edgewise at the dinner table, trying to be funnier than the sibling stealing your mashed potatoes, getting the mic out of Groucho’s hand, trying to play an instrument as good as Harpo, etc — imagine what it was like for poor Karl?

He never got in one of their flicks. Never even had a cute nickname.

All he had was this book he wrote that a guy named Lenin grabbed a hold of in Russia, of all agrarian places, resulting in, you know, the threat to world peace known as communism.

It was on February 21, 1848, that Karl Marx, along with homie Friedrich Engels, published a short book of moderate political impact, “The Communist Manifesto.”

There are unconfirmed reports that Baz Luhrmann wanted to turn it into a musical movie, but Karl and his brothers were holding out for Scorcese.

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While waiting for my buddies to meet me for lunch the other day at a local fish emporium, I noticed a guy in line, stylin’ in his emblem-festooned Dale Earnhart jacket.

Which reminded me how much American grease monkeys love cars and speed and brew and babes in bikinis who love grease monkeys. At red line rpm, I might add.

Thus we have NASCAR. In a unique twist, the World Series and Super Bowl of stock car racing opens the season, instead of coming at the end.

That would be the Daytona 500, of course. The first of which races was run on February 22, 1959. Lee Petty in his Olds 88 captured the checkered flag by a fender over Johnny Beauchamp.