Sure, San Francisco's Board of Supervisors wants to ban the sale of Michelin's "Scorchers" line of tires. But, apparently, the supervisors haven't considered that, in the name of protecting property values from the threat posed by red, blue, and yellow pavement skid, they may be censoring art.

Guy Overfelt's most notable recent San Francisco project was the "Free Beer" show last year at the Refusalon gallery on Hawthorne, during which gallerygoers consumed 36 kegs of beer. ("That's 6,000 cups of 12-ounce beers," notes the artist. "I'd say it was completely successful.") Of course, there were episodes of vomiting among the patrons -- but then, if we can remain complacent whilst contemplating art, is it really art?

Overfelt has shifted his focus to his car, a 1977 Trans Am with a screaming eagle hood decal and a "plush red interior. It's the full-on Smokey and the Bandit model," he says. The car has been modified for drag racing, with a brake line lock that allows the rear wheels to spin in place before the driver releases the brakes in the front. (Note: The Trans Am was a rear-wheel-drive car, for those of you too sophisticated to be familiar with such an automobile.) Overfelt says the friction "pre-softens" the tires, allowing him to lay down particularly clear markings, which he terms "drawings." He uses two sets of Michelin's Scorchers (in Scorching Yellow and Raging Red) for his works, and has invested in a hydraulic jack so he can switch between the colors more easily.

The "Burnout Project" is "in the lineage of landscape artists like Christo or Richard Long," he explains. Or that guy who makes piles of rocks and then photographs them, Dog Bites suggested, and Overfelt agreed, but neither of us could think of his name. Overfelt's works are, similarly, temporary alterations of the landscape. "It's just particles of loose rubber on asphalt," he says. "The lines just disappear after a time."

In a few months, Overfelt will have a show at New York's AC Project Room, which will feature photos of his pavement drawings, and another show at New York's Bronwyn Keenan Gallery for which he is collaborating with Frank Kozik on a series of soft-porn paintings featuring the Trans Am and various women, modeled on works that appeared in Rally Girl magazine in the 1970s. In the meantime, he says he's trying to grow a mullet. "It's kind of hard," he observes. "You know, you have to get the back long enough, and then getting the top really flat isn't that easy. And I totally want to go to Sears and get my Sears portrait done."

Oh, come on -- isn't this whole project just an ironic comment on suburban culture? "No, I really think it's cool," insists Overfelt.

So in retrospect, which of the pavement burnouts has been, in his opinion, most successful? "I think the Oracle parking lot [drawing] was pretty good," says Overfelt. "Some were straight parallel lines, so they narrowed in the distance and suggested the relationship of the work to the landscape. And some were more ... doughnutlike."

Despite our burning dedication to professionalism, Dog Bites broke down into hysterical laughter at this point, mostly because we recalled that during high school the "Immigrant Song" had been especially inspirational for work in this medium, and the sense memories were almost too much for us. However, Overfelt, who confesses to being a native of San Clemente, wasn't offended. "Or some people call them American crop circles," he volunteered. "You know, they're definitely part of the landscape."