Here... or Hair-Ray

Google thinks I live in France. No shit:

I normally never specify a place when I create these sorts of reminders for my calendar (in this case it's a reminder to pay my credit card bill), but this time I entered "here," just for grins and giggles. The above is a screen-shot of the result. And the place is basically In The Middle Of Nowhere, France, as well... in a burg named "Here." I suppose that would be pronounced "Hair-Ray." Or some such.

Heh. Next time I'll specify "There."

Decision Tree

From the latest edition of cigar.com's monthly newsletter/magazine (click for larger):

Now I doubt I'll actually use this chart... as I have my favorite brands... but I thought it was a better decision flow-chart than most others I've seen. Why? Because these are real-world decisions that must be made... e.g., AC/DC or Rolling Stones? Mild or full-bodied single malt? Filet mignon or NY strip? Aston-Martin or Ford pickup? Well, OK... that last is a bit much. Not many of us are in the Aston-Martin class, but I'm sure most of us would like to be (is there anyone who's ever seen a James Bond movie and didn't lust after his DB5? I don't think so...). There's also one other flaw... what if you like both? Then what? Still and even: cute, eh?

By the way... I should buy the Series '68, based upon coffee, smooth, sweet and creamy ==> single malt ==> Full ==> Rolling Stones. But I would smoke Tabasco if I could dry it and roll it. I've smoked stranger stuff.

(Heh. Where's your mind? I meant things like this, of course. And worse... which is to say Turkish Askeri cigarettes, which cost five kurush per pack, back in the day. And Omigawd... the stench. Explanation: 100 kurush = one Turkish Lira; the exchange rate at that time was approximately 20 lira to the dollar. You do the math... those Askeri cigarettes were cheaper than dirt, and about as flavorful.)

A Very Slow Sunday

We're still drinking our morning coffee as the noon hour passes... and we still have two cups to go before the pot is done. Some days I can go almost directly from the morning coffee to Happy Hour. Not all that often, mind you... just occasionally. It looks to be a near-run thing today.

So... thinkin' about Sunday Mornings Past... I found myself wishing I was here:

That would be the front door to my apartment in San Ramon, California, about seven or eight years ago. One of the better things about that apartment was its location, specifically the fact it was but a four minute (or less) walk from that door to the local Starbucks. I used to spend Sunday mornings sitting on the patio of that Starbucks with a couple o' three cups of The Daily Brew and the Sunday New York Times.

(Aside: I never did any of those frou-frou drinks, like "a Soy Caramel Macchiato with a double shot, Barista, if you please." Nope. That ain't me. But I did read a frou-frou paper on the weekends, dontcha know. This being before the WSJ started publishing weekend editions.)

Anyhoo... It took me near forever to read the paper on those sultry Sunday mornings past, coz the people watching was so good. Not up to European cafe standards, but pretty danged close. Especially the women (and this is where the "sultry" adjective comes in) -- there's a reason Brian Wilson and Mike Love wrote "I wish they all could be California Girls." The boys most certainly did have a point.

There have been other Sunday morning places that were every bit the equal of San Ramon, but let's not jog too far down Memory Lane. One should live in the present, no?

―:☺:―

I made my first-ever 911 call in the wee smalls this morning. I'm sitting at my desk around 0130 hrs, watching C-SPAN, windows open, when I hear this crash... followed by a moan and a soft "help me... somebody help me..." I look out my window and see a crumpled body near my neighbor's front door. I know the neighbor isn't home... he works nights. So, I grab my flashlight and my phone and run out the door. This guy is writhing on the ground, semi-coherent, but I make out "I'm a diabetic... I need my medicine." So I dial 911.

I'll make this short... the paramedics took the guy off to the hospital; all seemed to turn out well... here's yet another reason I love P-Ville: there was a cop car on the prem in about three minutes flat, followed by another cop two minutes later with the ambulance right behind, all this in no more than five minutes, total. That would be between the time I dialed 911 and all the arrivals. This is a Good Thing, especially for us geezers.

―:☺:―

Today's Pic: YrHmblScrb inside that apartment in San Ramon... I'm in my work clothes and getting ready to head out for work, believe it or don't. To say the dress code at my place of employment was relaxed is an understatement of massive proportions. And I was "management," too. But, Hey! San Francisco, yanno? It was pretty nice, actually... and one HELLUVA change from EDS (note the coffee mug from my previous life), which was about as uptight a company... dress-wise... as one could find in America, at the time.

I know all this about the photo coz I looked up the day/date, which was a Tuesday in 2001. Further...the pic was shot at 0459 hrs. Ya gotta love EXIF data. It remembers when you can't.

Update, Monday morning: Darryl, in comments, talked about my commute into The City, to which I replied (offline):

Actually... it was south on 680 to Dublin/Pleasanton BART and then into The City. The Montgomery BART station was in the basement of my building (44 Montgomery)... and if I wanted I could go directly from the train to my office and never hit the street, i.e., go outside.

Except on the odd Saturday or two when I went south on 680 to 580 and then west into The City. A slightly longer route but there seemed to be less traffic, thus quicker.

You piqued my curiosity... so I googled the route. And came up with a way-cool street view of 44 Monty (attached). You have NO idea how much money I dropped in this Starbucks store over the course of two-plus years, LOL!

And here's the pic I was talking about (click for larger):

I love Google's Street View! The cool thing is the pan feature in street view. You can also go to full-screen mode and look up... like this:

Heh. I'm such a freakin' geek. That said... the view of The City from the top floor of 44 Monty was just spectacular. Not as good as from the top of the Trans-America Tower, perhaps, but good enough. Speaking of "enough..." we're done with the nostalgia trip.

The General Would Like a Word With You

General Motors workers loaded new Chevrolet Camaros for delivery at the company's facility in Oshawa, Canada, in April. (Photo as captioned in the NYT)

(The post title is an old ad tagline GM used in ads directed at the military back in my day.)

Back in April of this year I wrote glowingly of the new Camaro… describing it as my then-current Lust Object. Well, things haven't changed so much since April; things haven't changed at all, actually. I still think a new Camaro would look mighty fine parked in my driveway. Me and quite a few other people, as it turns out:

DETROIT — Believe it or not, General Motors has a hit car on its hands.

Amid the gloom of bankruptcy and a miserable market for new vehicles, G.M.’s new Chevrolet Camaro muscle car is winning over consumers looking for a little excitement in a bland landscape of look-alike sedans and watered-down sport utilities.

G.M. sold 9,300 Camaros during the month of June — more than either its entire Buick or Cadillac divisions could muster on their own.

[…]

A product renaissance, of course, cannot be led solely by a retro-styled sports car that harks back to the horsepower hysteria of the 1960s. But in its short time on the market, the Camaro has brought some much-needed buzz to G.M. showrooms.

Heh. Leave it to the New York Times to damn something classically American with faint praise. "Horsepower hysteria," my ass. I will admit the car probably has more appeal for those of us "of a certain age," but I'm also betting that any Prius-loving, organic-eating, thirty-something Caspar Milquetoast would change his (or her) mind about the car after a few quick runs up and down a twisty two lane road, throwing in one or two stop-light burnouts just for good measure. Horsepower is FUN! It doesn't hurt that the car is just downright beautiful, with more character in its front quarter panel than that of a fleet of Honda Hybrids. Or Priuses. But your mileage may vary (heh) when it comes to the car's looks. I think it looks like sex on wheels and that's a compliment of the highest order.

Good on GM. But bad for me. I haven't actually been down to the local Chevy House to price one out, but I'm betting my GM Family discount wouldn't apply on a new Camaro. Yet. But then again, I'm not quite ready to part company with The Green Hornet. She's only nine years old, ya know.

Retro

A friend sends along a link that can be a most serious time waster if you let it. It might only be so if you’re “of a certain age.” Or have an eye for the strange and unusual… like these LP covers from 1955 and 1967:

Heh. I’m sure all good Trekkies have the latter… but as for me? I’d be more into Gracious Living… without the apron. But ya know what? I never saw Mom and Dad looking like that, nor did we have such a kitchen. I must have led a deprived life.

So… you are directed to Bills’ Retro World, where there’s more than album covers. There’s TV, movies, and sports, too. And cars! You just know those people above (who were living graciously) had one of these:

And there are more… mostly ad copy from the '50s… but there are some '60s images as well. My parents owned a few of those cars and I owned at least one myself.

Dang. I must be old.

Back to the record covers for further proof:

I remember this one all too well. It was the first record I ever bought with my own money, and I bought my copy in 1957 at the ripe ol' age of 12. This particular gem was released in 1956 but sales were still going strong a year later. Or maybe it's because my Dad was stationed in Ankara, Turkey and we were a year behind the times. Whatevah. "Blue Suede Shoes" was a revelation to my 12-year old mind and probably was what set me off on a life of depravity and dissipation.

But that's another story altogether.

A Little Light Linkage

Something from earlier this week I should have linked, but didn’t: From ReasonOnline… The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years… Mr. Luce's mag does satanism, porn, crack, Pokemon, and more! There are some doozies in there, like this one:

8. August 6, 1984: The Population Curse

Why So Worried? Using an upcoming U.N. conference in Mexico City as its hook, Time engages in some Paul Ehrlich-style doom-mongering about overpopulation.

Cue Ominous Music: "The consequences of a failure to bring the world's population growth under control are frightening. They could include widespread hunger and joblessness, accompanied by environmental devastation and cancerous urban growth. Politically, the outcome could be heightened global instability, violence and authoritarianism."

Oh, Just Settle Down: Since Time's 1984 cover story, the world's population has increased from 4.75 billion to 6.78 billion people. This year, the World Bank's Poverty Analysis reported, "Living standards have risen dramatically over the last decades. The proportion of the developing world's population living in extreme economic poverty...has fallen from 52 percent in 1981 to 26 percent in 2005.... Infant mortality rates in low- and middle-income countries have fallen from 87 per 1,000 live births in 1980 to 54 in 2006. Life expectancy in [low and middle-income] countries has risen from 60 to 66 between 1980 and 2006." According to the peace advocacy group Ploughshares, the number of armed conflicts across the globe has generally been in decline since the mid-1990s (PDF). As for "authoritarianism," with the fall of the Soviet empire, a far greater percentage of the global population lived under such regimes in 1984 than do today. Even the massive population in China is freer (if not actually "free") than it was in 1984.

The format remains the same for the other nine articles, only the crisis du jour changes. Drugs were gonna kill us all on at least two occasions in the past 40 years… the tsunami of porn, also appearing twice… three times if you count the culture being cheapened by profanity… was only slightly less bad. Yet not a word about Islamic fundamentalists. Go figger. And print media wonders why their revenues keep dropping. I guess the answer to that is there aren’t enough waiting rooms in the civilized world to support all those magazines no one reads any longer.

The supporting links in the various items make for some good reading. I know I killed about an hour with this article.

―:☺:―

As you might expect, hockey fans are being overwhelmed with reading material (and videos!) on the eve of Game Seven. The three hockey blogs I follow… Puck Daddy, Snapshots, and Kukla’s Korner… have been instrumental in keeping me up to the minute, but MOST especially George Malik of Snapshots. The man is a veritable Red Wings information-gathering MACHINE. He was still posting stuff at 0315 hrs this morning. And I was awake to read it, as well. Both of us are jes a lil bit crazy.

The winner in the “most different take” category has to be the Wall Street Journal’s profile of the Red Wings… which draws parallels between the team, the city of Detroit, and the plight of auto industry. The lede grafs:

As the ailing Motor City rallies around the Detroit Red Wings, who face the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, there is one tiny bit of irony: Michigan’s top team is powered more than ever by European imports.

Less than half the Red Wings’ roster comes from North America. The rest, and most of the team’s top talent, hails from Sweden, the Czech Republic, Russia and Finland. In all, five players are from the U.S.

Years ago, when the Big Three auto makers were allowing overseas competitors to pull ahead, the world was getting flat inside Joe Louis Arena. Starting in the 1980s, the Red Wings began building a dynasty by recruiting talent from Russia and adopting a new, European style of hockey.

The Red Wings’ success—they have won four Stanley Cups since 1997–paved the way for the rest of the league to follow. Today 30% of the NHL’s players hail from outside North America. The Red Wings are still the most international team, with 54% of their players hailing from overseas. This season, more than 80% of the Red Wings’ goals were scored by players born outside North America, up from 41.5% in the 1996-1997 season.

At the same time, the pool of available talent at home seems to be thinning. In Michigan, one of the nation’s top junior-hockey states, the struggling economy—and the high cost of junior hockey—is taking a toll on participation. USA Hockey says youth participation in the state has fallen 14% in the past three seasons.

It’s really a good article… the perfect read for the combination of Bid’niz Guy, Automotive Division and hockey fan. Who’d a thunk it?

―:☺:―

Today is The Second Mrs. Pennington’s birthday. She’s 53 today, and I have no compunctions about publishing her age. Real Women are proud of their age… the experience it brings and both the inner and outer beauty of maturity. I think TSMP falls into that camp. Or strides resolutely into it… whatevah.

So… in honor of the birthday girl… here’s a pic from the Way-Back; March of 1998, to be exact:

Happy birthday, Paula.

―:☺:―

Oh! One more thing…

GO WINGS!

Yet Another PSA... But Serious This Time

From left, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young and Pegi Young perform in the second half of the concert for the film Neil Young: Heart of Gold by Jonathan Demme. This photo was released to the press for promotional purposes by Paramount Classics and Paramount Home Entertainment.
(Image and caption from Wikipedia)

Ex-hippie alert… tomorrow night on PBS (check local listings, as they say… it’s on at 2030 hrs here in P-Ville):

Neil Young
Don't Be Denied

A resolutely private artist who seldom looks back, Neil Young has never before unfolded his career on camera. With unprecedented access to one of the world’s renowned music legends, American Masters presents Neil Young: Don’t Be Denied premiering nationally Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). The film explores how Young’s unbending dedication to the muse has created an awe-inspiring body of work and bruised a few egos along the way.

Told in Young’s own words, the film weaves hours of exclusive interview, shot in New York and California, with previously unseen performance footage from the star’s own extensive collection. The documentary also features long-time collaborators Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, David Crosby, Nils Lofgren and James Taylor.

“There’s no denying Neil Young as music’s most uncompromising rock royalty,” says Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of American Masters, a six-time winner of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. “He’s an irreverent poet with a rock and roll heart. His music embodies the arc of American experience, challenges authoritative views, defies industry pigeon-holing and continues to have an impact on musicians and fans worldwide.”

Charting Young’s musical journey from his suburban Canadian childhood to his Hollywood superstardom, an intimate camera captures the critical benchmarks and personal pitfalls of the godfather of grunge. In the late 60s, he achieved early acclaim with the short-lived yet influential psychedelic garage band, Buffalo Springfield, which launched his solo career. During this creative streak, he founded Crazy Horse and collaborated with Crosby, Stills and Nash. Adding fuel to his already rising success, these bands also shot to meteoric fame. The intensity of mega-stardom, mixed with frequent bouts of artistic differences, led to Young’s departure from both groups. He later explained his anti-star status, “I didn’t spend 10 years in the 60s and 70s creating something so I could be a prisoner of it … You know if you’re trying to stay in the favor of the public, you’re a loser – you’ll never get there.”

I dunno if you’ve ever watched any of PBS’ American Masters series, Gentle Reader, but I think they’re VERY well done and highly recommend any and all them. I’ve yet to see a clinker in any of the episodes I’ve watched… they’re phenomenal, each and every one. It’s with that in mind that I’ll be in front of my teevee tomorrow night, thankful there’s not a hockey game on at the same time.

Neil Young is a long-time favorite of mine, going all the way back to the ‘60s. A quick search reveals I’ve mentioned him and his music in seven different posts here at EIP, and here’s an excerpt from one such:

In the beginning…during our courtship… The Second Mrs. Pennington and I spent a lot of time at this little coffee shop not far from her apartment in Musashi-Koganei (a Tokyo suburb). Like most Tokyo coffee shops at the time, this one had a really excellent, state-of-the art stereo system and a huge collection of albums. Patrons were encouraged, and I mean encouraged…it was almost demanded…to let the owners know their preferences in music. It was customary for the shop to play an entire album side of whichever artist you requested. Early on…within hours, if not minutes…TSMP and I discovered we both had a mutual love and admiration for Neil Young. And the help at “our” coffee shop learned this pretty quickly, as well. From about our third or fourth visit it became standard procedure for the help to put Neil’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” (side one) on as soon as we walked in, no questions asked. With big smiles all around, especially from us.

Yup. Ol’ Neil’s very, very special to me… and a few million others.

―:☺:―

A host of Red Wings and Penguins crash the net for a failed goal shot attempt by Detroit's Johan Franzen during the final seconds of the third period of Game 6 between the Detroit Red Wings and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the Stanley Cup Finals, Tuesday June 9, 2009 at Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh.
(ANDRE JACKSON/DFP)

The oh-so-brief hockey update: there will be a Game Seven this Friday night. The Beloved Wings lost to the Flightless Birds last night, 2-1. Broke my frickin’ heart, that did… and SN1’s, too. We were both rather despondent in our post-game telephone wrap-up. But it’s only a brief sort of heartbreak, yanno? I fully expect the Wings will be triumphant Friday. The loss last night only adds to the drama of the series, which has been one of the best Finals in recent memory.

Enough about that.

Still More Random Notes

So. Yesterday… being close to the first of the month… was filled with the banal yet essential trivialities of life. Bills were paid. I completed the bi-monthly commissary and beer run with minimal drama and maximum efficiency. I got my quarterly haircut. So on and so forth.

The usual, customary, and reasonable Happy Hour was my reward for completing the necessary tasks but with the advent of warm weather we’re deprived of our soundtrack, seeing as how we keep El Casa Móvil De Pennington buttoned up tight when the AC is running. Our neighbors doubtlessly appreciate that… even though I try to keep the music at a level that’s sufficient for my ears only. We do live in close quarters here in Beautiful La Hacienda Trailer Park, though.

―:☺:―

I always get my hair cut out at the base barbershop (of late… more on that below), which tends to be more economical than the civilian shops in the area. There is a downside, though, as employee turnover is high out at the base and I’ve never quite understood why that is. I have theories… well, one theory. Most of the barbers, and they are ALL female, are probably married to GIs… and when the GIs leave, so does the help. I don’t like that. I prefer to go to the same person each and every time for my four-times-a-year barbering experience. Build a relationship, and all that. But if that’s what I TRULY wanted, I’d go local… as the barbers in the old shop I patronized a few years back were steady in their employment… being owner-operated.

Still and even… I wish there were establishments that provided services such as this in my neck o’ the woods. I’d pay good money for this…seeing as how it only happens four times a year:

We then walked down an alley and into a barber shop. There waiting for us was an old man, the barber, and two young Japanese maidens, all three smiling broadly. The old man waved me into one of the barber chairs, and I dutifully sat. The old man reclined the barber chair and I stretched out, fully supine. One of the girls then proceeded to take off my shoes and socks, while the other fetched a large handful of steaming towels from a container. She artfully wrapped my entire head in those towels, leaving a small space for me to breathe through. All the while this is going on, the other girl is washing my feet. After a few minutes, the second girl unwraps my face and the barber proceeds to shave me. The first girl is still working on my feet, giving me a pedicure and ending up with a prolonged and wonderful foot massage. After the barber finished shaving me I was escorted to a wash stand where the first girl washed and towel-dried my hair. Then it was back to the barber chair for the actual haircut while the two girls gave me a manicure. The whole experience ended with both girls massaging my entire upper body. I walked out of that place feeling like a million bucks, and I’ve never had a “haircut” like that, ever again.

Ah… but that was in Japan, in the ‘70s, and all that was had for the princely sum of around 15 Yankee Dollars, if memory serves. But the haircut was a birthday present and I didn’t pick up the tab. It could have been more, but I doubt it. (You’ll also note, if you follow the link and read the whole thing, that I was “going local” when that piece was written a few years back. We’ve since changed our habits.)

―:☺:―

Blog-Bud Kris is back from her cruise vacation and has posted interesting narrative and pics of the experience. Some of the pics she’s posted are of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor… which resulted in me posting the following in her comments:

Seeing the Statue of Liberty at this level is awe-inspiring. People go mad taking pictures - myself included - and there typically isn't alot of conversation. Respect for this iconic image is obvious - the experience is treated with reverence by everyone.

The family spent five consecutive years overseas when I was a child... with no trips home... and we returned to the US via sea (the ol' Military Sea Transport Service, out of bid'niz now that everyone goes to and fro by air). The ONE thing among many I'll never forget about that trip... and it was epic, as we embarked in Istanbul and made many port calls in the Med on the two week journey home... is my Mom bursting into tears when the Statue of Liberty came into full view as we sailed into New York harbor. It was a defining moment for me, and something I'll NEVER forget.

So... I know exactly where you're coming from with this.

S’true, that. I’ve spent some time today remembering that experience… of standing on the ship’s rail in the morning’s summer sunshine, watching the coastline get steadily larger… from the thinnest of thin lines on the horizon to the point where it began to fill our view, further enlarging to the point where one could make out buildings and such… and then my Mom’s hand gripping mine so hard it hurt when Lady Liberty came into glorious full view. It was then I was going to say “Mom!” when I looked over and saw the tears streaming down her face and my father’s arm around her shoulder. Things just don’t get any more poignant than that, Gentle Reader. I was 13 years old at the time.

Just as a short digression… I’ve also wondered a bit this morning about the navigation skills of the master and crew of the ship… and just how they managed to end a two week voyage across the Mediterranean Sea and Atlantic Ocean so as to arrive in New York in the morning daylight… not to mention to facilitate the disembarking process in a manner that would allow all aboard to either make other transportation connections or get to their hotels in a timely manner. A small miracle that was.

But… let us return to our reminiscing… Five years is a long time to be away from home. Our consecutive tours in Paris… three years, followed by a two-year stint in Ankara, Turkey… were probably a LOT harder on my parents, particularly my Mom, than they were on my sister and I. Keep in mind this was in the 1950s, and we went five years with no TV and no telephone, just for starters. My family went entirely without a lot of the things we take for granted today… like fresh iceberg lettuce… for an extended period of time. While the experience was wonderful for my sister and me it was doubtless much less so for Mom. The support mechanisms our troops take for granted today… big-ass commissaries and base exchanges, just to name two… existed only in rudimentary form “back in the day.”

Another memory I have of our return is what Mom ordered for dinner our first night home. She instructed the waiter in the restaurant to cut a full head of lettuce into quarters and bring her a bowl FULL of Thousand Island dressing. And that was IT… all she had for dinner, period, full-stop. I remember that very well, as it became part of the family lore… a tale told and retold throughout the remainder of my childhood whenever the subject of homecomings came up.

I suppose you hadda be there. I'm glad I was.

The CBC and Hockey

One of the things I miss terribly about not living in Detroit any longer is the CBC (Channel 9 in Windsor, just across the river), which all Detroiters get as part of their basic cable packages. NO one does hockey better than the Canadian Broadcasting Company, aka the CBC. Both Versus AND NBC should have their executives, play-by-play guys, and color commentators watching tape of each and every CBC airing of the SCF... or even run-of-the-mill broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada. A lot could be learned there and the American networks certainly NEED schooling when it comes to broadcasting hockey.

Part and parcel of CBC's brilliant hockey coverage is commentary from the quirky (heh... at best!) Don Cherry, who's a legend throughout Canada and in certain parts of these United States. Did I say quirky? Well, yes I did. Here's Coach Cherry's entrance into The Joe just before Game Two this past Sunday:



Heh. Apologies to the Dos Equis people, indeed. Cherry has a whole helluva lot more credibility as "the most interesting man in the world" than the actor hired to flog that second-rate beer, or the persona the actor is supposed to project. (Just in case you've never seen the Dos Equis ads... two [among many] are here and here.)

More CBC stuff... here's the intro they did for Game Two, the first 1:30 of which features some GREAT highlights from SCF Game One set to an amusing soundtrack provided by Creedence Clearwater Revival ("Just got home from Illinois/ Locked the front door/ Oh Boy""... OMG!):



Now do you see why I miss 'em?

(h/t: George Malik, who's becoming my Go-To Guy for all things Red Wings)

On GM

And so it's come to pass... the largest industrial bankruptcy filing in American history went down today, as dreaded and expected. I can't come close to expressing my sorrow and dismay over this horrible, terrible turn of events... so I'll let P.J. O'Rourke speak for me. Here are the first few grafs from a piece he wrote in the WSJ last week:

The phrase “bankrupt General Motors,” which we expect to hear uttered on Monday, leaves Americans my age in economic shock. The words are as melodramatic as “Mom’s nude photos.” And, indeed, if we want to understand what doomed the American automobile, we should give up on economics and turn to melodrama.
Politicians, journalists, financial analysts and other purveyors of banality have been looking at cars as if a convertible were a business. Fire the MBAs and hire a poet. The fate of Detroit isn’t a matter of financial crisis, foreign competition, corporate greed, union intransigence, energy costs or measuring the shoe size of the footprints in the carbon. It’s a tragic romance—unleashed passions, titanic clashes, lost love and wild horses.
Foremost are the horses. Cars can’t be comprehended without them. A hundred and some years ago Rudyard Kipling wrote “The Ballad of the King’s Jest,” in which an Afghan tribesman avers: Four things greater than all things are,—Women and Horses and Power and War.
Insert another “power” after the horse and the verse was as true in the suburbs of my 1950s boyhood as it was in the Khyber Pass.
Horsepower is not a quaint leftover of linguistics or a vague metaphoric anachronism. James Watt, father of the steam engine and progenitor of the industrial revolution, lacked a measurement for the movement of weight over distance in time—what we call energy. (What we call energy wasn’t even an intellectual concept in the late 18th century—in case you think the recent collapse of global capitalism was history’s most transformative moment.) Mr. Watt did research using draft animals and found that, under optimal conditions, a dray horse could lift 33,000 pounds one foot off the ground in one minute. Mr. Watt—the eponymous watt not yet existing—called this unit of energy “1 horse-power.”
In 1970 a Pontiac GTO (may the brand name rest in peace) had horsepower to the number of 370. In the time of one minute, for the space of one foot, it could move 12,210,000 pounds. And it could move those pounds down every foot of every mile of all the roads to the ends of the earth for every minute of every hour until the driver nodded off at the wheel. Forty years ago the pimply kid down the block, using $3,500 in saved-up soda-jerking money, procured might and main beyond the wildest dreams of Genghis Khan, whose hordes went forth to pillage mounted upon less oomph than is in a modern leaf blower.

And Mr. O'Rourke continues on in a manner that I cannot even come close to duplicating. Except perhaps for the same sort of sadness bordering on despair that I think we share. I'm older than Mr. O'Rourke, but not by a whole helluva lot (a mere two years, actually). Mr. O'Rourke... at the risk of giving away the entire thrust of his most-excellent piece... argues that America fell out of love with the automobile, and that's what killed the automotive industry. Not the credit crunch. Not the "bad" cars GM-cum-Detroit made all those many dismal years after the first gas-crisis. Not the bean counters. Not the Japanese, and now the Koreans. Us. You and me.

Well, you, maybe. I never lost my love for cars... in that I never bought an econo-box, a minivan, or a "practical" car. Nope... all my purchases have been affairs of the heart, with only one or two exceptions... which were driven (heh) entirely by financial circumstance. If I had the wherewithal I'd be Jay Leno II... and I'd need a warehouse to shelter all the rip-roaring automotive goodness I'd own. But I'm an anomaly... an exception to the modern day automotive zeitgeist. And more's the pity.

I rarely use this tone of voice... read as: attitude... in my postings, but I can't help but think GM would still be a going concern if there were more like me out there. Make of that what you will and feel free to call me any sort of name you choose. Or even posit a rational counter-argument if you feel the need. But this ain't about rationality, Gentle Reader... this is nothing but pure, raw emotion.

I mourn.

(h/t for the WSJ article: Gordon)

Trendy... Or, What Goes Around Comes Around

We all have our quirks, habits, and a certain way of doing things. One of my quirks/habits is the fact I've worn only Levi's jeans since I was in my teens, and only Levi's 501s for about the last 25 years or so. I also did that Dr. Hook kinda thing back in the early ‘70s… which is to say:

I've got a freaky old lady name o' Cocaine Katy
Who embroiders on my jeans

Except there wasn’t a Cocaine Katy in my life (well, there wasn’t one who did embroidery work, anyway)… I did my own stuff for the most part, and it was less embroidery and more patching… with different colored swatches in paisleys, bright red, green, or whatever sort of rag was lying around. And hip store-bought patches too. My jeans needed patching, as I kept them until they were literally falling apart. But I came by all the holes, worn spots, rips, tears, and the like honestly. “Stone washed” and “aged” denim hadn’t appeared on the market… yet.

So… I’ve been known to buy my jeans direct from Mr. Strauss’ company out in SFO and I’m on their mailing list as a result. Here are a couple of shots from an ad in this morning’s in-box:

Heh. Commercially-provided age... complete with rips and tears… all yours, for a price. And note the frickin’ price in the second shot! One hundred eighty-five Yankee Dollars for “Tokyo Worn” jeans. By contrast, here’s a pic of “Portales Worn” jeans, which cost substantially less:

I think I’ll stay with the above. Alternatively… if you’d like to give me $185.00 for ‘em (size: 28x30), drop me a comment and let’s talk. I might could be persuaded.

A Question...

Just in from Happy Hour... and there was a slight deviation from our normal practice, which is to say I listened to a soundtrack provided from our personal music collection, as opposed to the normal (for these days, lately) soundtrack as provided via Pandora.

Which got me to thinking... Why is it I'll defer to someone else's choice in music, as opposed to my own? I don't ever walk into a bar and say..."whatever you think is right" when it comes to ordering beer, nor do I let someone else choose the cigar I'll enjoy during Happy Hour, yet I always seem to defer to the music provided by Pandora or Bill... of late.

Is it simply convenience? Am I just too lazy to dive into and select appropriate music from my personal collection... which is extensive... albeit not as extensive as that owned by Pandora or Bill? All that said, it was good to listen to Keith Richards... followed up with Sticky Fingers... on a slightly gray day here on the High Plains of New Mexico. And it got me to thinking... how is it with YOU, Gentle Reader, do you tend to defer to others when it comes to your listening habits, which is to say the radio or another source? Or do you listen to your personal music more often than not? Enquiring Minds^TM wanna know...

In the mean time... part of today's soundtrack. Here's Keith doing "Eileen Hate It When You Leave..."



Ooooh... Good, innit?

Heh

From the new-to-me blog "This Is Ridiculous," by way of Chap... "Pac Man Gone Wild!"



As the original post sez: "These are the kinds of things you really wish happened in your own town."

Yup. But I just don't SEE this happening in P-Ville... ever.

Strange Days

Strange Days... That's a nod and a wink to The Doors, ya know. But... that said, today has been the strangest of strange days. It all began at oh-dark-thirty, when I rolled out of bed around five-ish. Two cups of coffee later and I began thinking "this isn't such a good ideer..." so it was back to bed, with the alarm set for 0945, given as how I had a dentist's appointment scheduled for 1100. I got up (again) around 0915... checked e-mail and had a brief chat with a friend on Facebook. Hit the shower, saddled up and headed out to what I thought was a regularly-scheduled cleaning appointment with my hygienist.

Wrong, Bucko!

I checked in at the dentist's and sat for a couple of CAT scans, followed with a consultation with Dr. Thompson. Lo and Behold... we are now scheduled for the next step in our Adventures in Modern Dentistry, which began exactly one year ago today.

Yep, in a couple of weeks time... March 3rd, to be exact... we'll sit for the first step in our implantations, which is the begining of the end. To say I'm ecstatic is an understatement of massive proportions. I've not had a steak in over one year's time... and there's BEEF at the end of our tunnel, Gentle Reader. Huge, massive slabs of rare, bleeding, tender beef! Oh, my... oh MY!

So... we came home and celebrated with two 2-Belows, followed by two Fat Tires. It was a great good thing the weather was in a cooperative mood, what with 65 degree temps and crystal clear skies. I fired up one of those wonderful Acids (a Ming, second from left in the image to the left) recently delivered to my door and took the air.

We're only just back inside and are waiting for SN3 to ring us up to discuss the finer points of cigar boxes and "Planet Earth," which constituted the sum total of his birthday gift... which The Second Mrs. Pennington advises me arrived intact and on-time... yesterday.

And we were entertained with the usual soundtrack... illustrated at the top of this post. It don't get a whole helluva lot better than this, Gentle Reader. Unless there are large slabs of rare beef involved... which there will be. Soon.

Apropos of Nothing...

I was doing some poking around in the archives, looking for something specific (which I found) and came across this... which I think is deserving of a re-run:

Merchandise YOU Can Use. Maybe.

An occasional correspondent sends this along, and I thought you might find some of these products useful…

Like this:

Just the thing if you find yourself in a hot ‘n’ heavy political discussion with a ‘bat. Or maybe your mother-in-law. Pull this out, offer ‘em a piece…and things should be all over but the shouting, eh? Well, discounting the possibility of a beating about your head and shoulders, if the discussion you're attempting to end is really with your M-I-L.

―:☺:―

This lil item on your immediate left, on the other hand, is something I have little or no use for these days. Assuming, of course, the product is meant to be a shared experience, as the packaging would seem to indicate.

You, Gentle Reader, are probably in a much different boat (and arguably a much better boat) than I.

―:☺:―

I might could change my…ummm… situation, were I to buy a ton of this stuff on the right.

Ya think?

Nah. Probably not. I probably would just get the sh!t slapped out of me, were I to offer a piece of "Get Lucky" gum to some unsuspecting sweet young older thang.

―:☺:―

And finally, I have absolutely NO use for the product on the left, nor do I know anyone (nowadays) that would. You have to squint to read it, but the gum comes in "Fresh Fruit Flavor." Heh.

I used to know folks that would buy a ton of this stuff, not that there's anything inherently wrong with that. But I left SFO five years ago… ya know?

All this merchandise and much, much more...available here.

Really.

Update: ...later that same evening. Dunno how I missed this, but I did. And I just had to rectify the oversight, of course. I might get one or two of these non-permanent tattoos. They're right up my alley.

Gnarly. Yes.

Re-runs are about all I have the motivation and/or energy for at the moment. I'm semi-preoccupied with watching the Dow Jones Industrials in free-fall mode (down 362, as I type... not as bad as -380, earlier) and wondering if my 401(k) will evaporate like a puddle after a New Mexico summer rain. The prospect of spending my dotage in penury isn't exactly appealing... yanno?

Cold Earth, GoogleEarth, and Unearthed

From the January 8^th Daily Mail…The fountains in Trafalgar Square had frozen over this morning due to the freezing cold temperatures in London.

Lord Nelson looks pretty danged cold, doesn’t he? But that was last month, as noted. In case you hadn’t heard, London was paralyzed by about a foot of snow yesterday and this past weekend (two-minute video and story at the link).

Photo credit: The Guardian (UK)

I’ve been in London during a heavy snowfall and it ain’t pretty. Well, check that… it IS pretty in a purely aesthetic sense. But getting around? Ug-leee. The Brits just aren’t equipped to handle snow in any substantial amount, defined (as near as I can tell) as about five inches or more. Things just STOP while the authorities… and everyone else… waits for it to melt. OTOH… any snow at all results in a snow day. And that’s not a bad thing at all, once every ten years or so.

There are 45 photos of the recent snowstorm at the Guardian’s web site; still more at the Beeb. All of the Brit papers have pictorials (and more than a few American news outlets do, as well)… just go to Google News and type in “London snow 2009.” Or click the link… I’ve made it easy for ya, Gentle Reader.

―:☺:―

Speaking of our friends at the Googleplex… There’s some pretty cool new features in GoogleEarth… and here’s a short (1:38) video highlighting the new stuff:

I like the historical imagery feature and I think that’s the thing I’ll use the most. The ocean stuff looks interesting but it might be a “one time use” feature where I’m concerned. All that said… Jeez. I’ve become a shill for Google. As if they needed one…

―:☺:―

We’re heavy on video today… but I just could NOT resist this two-minute 1981 teevee news bit about how the San Francisco Examiner was developing the first on-line edition of the newspaper… hosted in Columbus, Ohio (!). Here’s “1981 primitive Internet report on KRON.”

I liked this bit especially: “… it takes over two hours to receive the entire text of the newspaper over the phone and with an hourly use charge of five dollars…” Note there’s no mention of graphics… just text. And five bucks an hour? Yowza!

See how good you have it, Gentle Reader? Text and pictures. Video. Links to major foreign news sources. All right here, right now... at your fingertips... assembled by an old geezer in New Mexico. And we take all this for granted!

Progress. It’s what’s for dinner… and breakfast and lunch, too.

Heh

Fresh out of both time and ideas, but Blog-Bud Barry and YouTube come to my (emotional) rescue:



Hey... this was Austin. And I've heard there really ARE zombies there. On Sixth Street. I've even seen a few likely suspects just after 0200 hrs.

More here... including this blurb:

Before leaving, the vandals reset the password so the city could not easily change the sign. The sign's humorous warning stayed up for several hours before the manufacturer of the computer could reset the password.

The password re-set was a nice touch, dontcha think?

A Marx-ism

55 seconds or so.


Heh. This could very well be my theme song.

Apropos of this post... I happen to be watching "Make 'Em Laugh" on PBS and the above ran not five minutes ago. Ya just gotta love YouTube. No ifs, ands, or buts. Love.

Let's Begin With a Memory or Three

As captioned in the NYT: Russo and Steele managed to get $49,000 for a 1961 Triumph TR3A.

I might not have read the article in the New York Times on collectible cars at auction (from whence the pic above was taken) had it not been for that TR-3 you see above. Well, that’s not entirely true… as I’ll read most anything automotive, most especially about sports cars, muscle cars, and other such automotive erotica. But I loves me some Triumphs!

I have a soft spot in my heart for TR-3s, as the second car I owned was a beautiful 1957 model TR… which differs slightly from the ‘61 pictured above. My father and I spent many a weekend working on my TR. I exaggerate more than slightly when I say “my father and I,” because it was HIM and one of his buddies who did the lion’s share of the work. I helped whenever I could, usually — always — on weekends when I wasn’t working and could catch a ride from Vandenberg AFB down to the ancestral home in El-Eh to help out. The car was finally finished and in reasonable condition (albeit without a heater, working or otherwise) sometime during the summer of 1965 when I took it “home” to Vandenberg. There are no surviving pictures of the car, alas.

(Side note: Here’s a GREAT pic of a 1957 TR-3. Mine was identical to this one, down to the mirrors on the front fenders and the pressed steel wheels… no “wires” for me. And mine wasn’t white/cream… it was painted 1964 Falcon Gold, a rather flashy color available on 1964 Ford Falcons that went quite well with the (stock) blue leather interior.

Apropos of something… Jay Leno owns one, too.)

I have lots of good…no, GREAT… memories of that car and two very bad ones. First the good: I met The First Mrs. Pennington while dragging Main Street (Ocean Avenue, actually) in Lompoc, California in that car. Briefly: I had an old desk phone sitting on the transmission tunnel in the car. One evening while a buddy of mine and I were “doing the cruise” I pulled up next to The First Mrs. Pennington and a gaggle of her friends at a red light, with the phone up to my ear. I looked over at her, took the phone away from my ear, held it out and said “it’s for you.” She took the receiver without thinking… not realizing (a) the phone didn’t work and (b) that was about as tacky a come-on line as there ever was. But it worked, Gentle Reader. The rest, as it’s said, is history. (Keep in mind… this was in 1965 when only the VERY rich had car phones. As a young airman with only two stripes on his sleeve I was barely in the “solvent” category, let alone rich.)

The bad: I threw the car off a 50-foot embankment one frosty morning in January of 1966 when I hit a sheet of ice on my way up the mountain to work. I rolled it three times, once laterally and twice end-over-end. The TR was totaled; I walked away with only a scratch on the little finger of my left hand… that from maintaining a death-grip on the steering wheel while flying through the air and down the embankment. Wrecking the car was bad enough… but having to call my father to tell him I’d wrecked it was probably worse, as he loved that car as much (if not more) than I did. He got over it, though… as did I. I walked for the next few months until The First Mrs. Pennington and I were married. But Dang! That car sure was fun… while it lasted.

―:☺:―

Good news for us caffeine junkies coffee drinkers:

After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less. People who drank more than five cups a day also were at reduced risk of dementia, the researchers said, but there were not enough people in this group to draw statistically significant conclusions.

Dr. Miia Kivipelto, an associate professor of neurology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and lead author of the study, does not as yet advocate drinking coffee as a preventive health measure. “This is an observational study,” she said. “We have no evidence that for people who are not drinking coffee, taking up drinking will have a protective effect.”

Well, I suppose the news is sorta good, as there wasn’t a category for people who drink ten to 12 cups a day. That would be me, Gentle Reader. That’s been my habit for almost longer than I can remember… going back to at least 1964, when I first hit “the field” in the Air Force. I hope there’s no “excess” effect… but then again, is there such a thing as “excess” when it comes to coffee? I think not… not for YrHmblScrb, anyway.

―:☺:―

Remember earlier this week I remarked on just how quickly the White House web site changed? And how a lot of people, myself included, wondered what happened to the “old” WhiteHouse-dot-gov? Wonder no more. You can access the old White House site through the George W. Bush Presidential Library site. There is a disclaimer, though:

To preserve the historical record of the George W. Bush administration's presence on the web, the White House took a "snapshot" of the Whitehouse.gov web site. This is historical material, "frozen in time." The web site is no longer updated and links to external web sites and some internal pages will not work.

Well, yeah. We kinda figured that would be the case… but it IS nice to know the information has been preserved. And where to get it.

More Blatant Thievery

Stolen from a commenter at Daphne's place... oh-so-real social comment on men being sick (1:25):



Yeah... like that. Well, it used to be like that. These days we suffer alone and in silence when we're ill. Can I get a "poor BABY?"

(I'm not sick, btw. Just sayin'.) (and there's more rilly cool vids at the link [ed: clarification... there are more cool vids at the YouTube site where these came from, NOT at Daphne's place. Sorry for the confusion, if any.]... follow any link titled "Man Stroke Woman" and you will be mightily entertained! Some of 'em are pretty racy but I like that in short films, ya know. YMMV.)

Update: Oh, my. I have a feeling I'm gonna be here for a LOT more than just a while. Does this ring a bell, Gentle Reader? I'll not indulge in self-incrimination, but... (1:25)



Heh. I have a couple o' tee shirts that look an awful lot like this one.