Yesterday I made a joke on TTAC about how Ed Emeritus Ed has been mooching off his dad his entire life. This caused Paul Niedermeyer to pop up and say that
I’ve heard a number of people who’ve had the pleasure of working with you describe you as a “pathological liar” along with a few other choice words. It certainly reflects my own experience. The single biggest reason I left TTAC was….you.
I admit that I have lied to people in this business. And it’s always been to women in this business, and it’s always been the same lie, and the lie has been, “No! I’m not seeing anyone else!” It’s also possible that I told someone I was ten minutes away from the track when I was actually forty-five minutes away from the track, and I apologize for that.
It’s the times I told the truth that have really caused me trouble in this business. Like when I told Paul he was a snitch.
Paul Niedermeyer’s one big idea in this world has been to walk around the streets where he lives and photograph old cars. If this one big idea sounds familiar, it’s because Murilee Martin had it first. He called it “Down On The Street”. Paul called his copy of it “Curbside Classics”, presumably because “Down On The Curb” wasn’t different enough.
About four years ago, Paul decided to photograph a Land Rover Defender that was, in his words, “forbidden fruit”. Well, duh. It was clearly a Defender that had entered the country using the United States title for a crushed or non-repairable “Series Rover”. This used to happen a lot. You’d export an unfixable old Rover, they’d swap VIN plates onto a Series III or Defender in the UK, and you’d get your truck back. There were dozens of people doing it.
As a member of the Land Rover community since 1997, I knew what Paul had posted. I also knew that the act of posting it could lead to that Defender being seized and crushed. So I temporarily deep-sixed the post, raised the alarm to Bertel, and contacted Paul about it. If I could do it all over again, I’d have just Photoshopped the license plates out, but at the time I thought it was a matter of principle for a car blog to not take actions which were knowingly and deliberately harmful to individual car enthusiasts. After all, if Chris Harris videotaped himself kicking in people’s windshields, would you support that? What about if those people were double-parked, or had just got done speeding, or didn’t have EPA-approved tunes in their ECUs?
Now, the question is: was Paul wrong to snitch this guy out? After all, he probably was breaking the laws of this country, which is generally a bad thing. On the other hand, from a moral perspective he was replacing one Land Rover with another, said Land Rover having been legally imported without fuss until LR decided they didn’t want to keep up with the airbag laws. If somebody out there wants to exchange one Land Rover with no airbag for another Land Rover with no airbag, is that something about which we should notify the Feds?
This led to Paul criticizing me in the comments of articles I wrote, which led to me sending him forthright emails, which led to him sending forthright emails back, which led to me telling him he was a snitch and that I had a mind to whip his ass. To be fair, when I wrote this I thought Paul was about my age or maybe a few years older. Once I realized I was threatening a senior citizen I wound it back. Not that there aren’t senior citizens out there who could totally kick my ass, including my own father, but in retrospect it seemed a bit harsh.
Eventually we settled the hash privately, which was totally fine with me. I didn’t hear much from either the dad or the kid until Ed and Bertel started their Daily Crapcan or whatever it was. Unbeknownst to me, Paul went back to snitching out Rover owners on his own site. Well, nothing I can do about that.
And that’s where the story could rest, except for one thing: it turns out I was right. In a rather staggeringly broad interpretation of “homeland security”, the DHS has begun seizing Land Rovers. If and when the guy rocking the diesel 110 in Portland gets his truck snatched, he probably will have Paul Niedermeyer to thank for that.
It’s always a shame when you can’t be friends with someone, but some friends I can do without.
Bummer , this .
I have imported a number of graymarket cars and the one I kept for my own (1986 Mexican VW Beetle) got caught and I had to take it back across the Border ~ they were only too happy to buy it as I’d foolishly used the correct non DOT compliant VIN .
I still miss that car .
-Nate
Unfortunately, the days when they made you kick the thing back out of the country are long gone. Now they’re seizing first and crushing second and asking questions never.
Now, if you’re going to run all around the country and Instagram your life with an R34 Skyline like some of these dumb kids have done in the past, you probably deserve whatever you get.
“Daily Crapcan.”
Sums it up perfectly.
After reading about all the conflicts and politics, and with you no leaving the site, I think I am done with all of the crap of TTAC and CC. I used to enjoy the stories, but more and more lately I have been annoyed with the comments from both the readers and the writers, the stupid political bent that seems to find it’s way into so many of the articles, and the general lack of fun. Not to mention I waste way too much time on it all!
I think I will stick to just Have You Heard, as Jack is and always has been the reason I started reading TTAC. I just hope you will keep posting the really good stuff you usually post over at TTAC.
I like that you’re posting more here, Jack. And congratulations are certainly in order for the nice job you did in your time as editor at TTAC. The quality of the content during your tenure was certainly higher than before, and the “be yourself but be civil” ethos IRT the comments was really nice.
As far as things go with Mr. and Mr. N, I’m reminded of the immortal words of Homer Simpson: “I don’t mind being called a liar when I’m lying, or about to lie, or just got done lying…but NOT WHEN I’M TELLING THE TRUTH!”
I should also have added that I never understood why they decided to call the thing “Daily Kanban”.
As someone who’s spent sometime in a lean manufacturing environment, it hurts my ears. Kanban is a perpetual, self-renewing system that is by definition and spirit eternal. There’s nothing daily about it, it just is.
I thought the kanban meant that he could still wield the ban hammer as in “I kanban u”.
a guy like BS thinks that because he lives in Japan, he can throw around Japanese terms and concepts even if he doesn’t understand what they mean.
Speaking as someone who did technical work for several transplant assembly lines for a couple of years… his use of the word makes me laugh. Particularly since he hasn’t exactly improved his “process” in the past year.
I find it ironic that he felt the need to step in and defend his son from the accusation that his son has always needed defending.
+1
+2
I’m not sure I’d want to know every little detail, but stuff like this is interesting to read about, all of the internal TTAC politics, etc.
That’s kind of funny. I figured you and Paul would have bonded over how much you both hate Cadillac Sevilles.
Are you kidding? BUSTLE BACK 4 LYFE
dat ass
Dig it .
Snitching is always a bad thing though .
I know of a Domestic Market Honda Civic Coupe right now that was brought into Cali. as a track car but is now tagged and does occasional yeoman duty , being RHD I wonder when that day is coming .
There’s a _lot_ of oddball graymarket cars in So. Cal. .
-Nate
Florida, too. Don’t know why, but in my daily strolls through the pages of eBay, easily 80% of the newer (under 25-year-rule) European cars are in South Florida.
i don’t know why i even read these car blogs. i live in nyc and don’t even own a car. but, i’ve been thinking about this since last night…
it’s both a shame and funny that you and paul are involved in an internet spat. i admire both of your sites for different reasons. yes, it’s true that murilee did it earlier and did it better but paul stuck with it. it’s like comparing a lotus elan to a mazda miata. paul has done it long enough and consistently enough that at this point, it’s rightfully his concept. i owe him a debt of gratitude from what i’ve learned along the way. if he gets a little prickly when people tease his kids that just means he’s a caring father.
on the other hand, you are a way better writer. in fact, you are the best writer of things automotive with the possible exceptions of the aforementioned murilee martin and farago (retired). no, f*ck it. you are the best. your style is exactly the kind of gonzo journalism that farago was desperate to bring to this genre when he created ttac.
For what it’s worth, the Albany, NY fella who had his Rover seized and who talked to Jalopnik got his rig back yesterday. Know hope.
I do have to agree that there has been a bit of troubled water over at CC over the past few months. I am now also contributing to The Brougham Society on Facebook. But I still just write about cars I like, whatever the website.
I’ve heard that PN has been trying to sell the site.
Nope, no such plans.
When Jack ascended to his [temporary] throne at TTAC, I characterized his place in the auto-scribe universe — in a piece titled “No Schmitt, Sherlock,” which might have been a bit much — thusly:
[David E. Davis Jr.] + [track experience] – [tweed] – [discretion]
Of course, David E. had had his face rearranged at the track, which discouraged future experience, but I’m sticking with this description.
Murilee may have been the first on the interwebs, but Collectible Automobile Magazine, with its recurring Readers’ Sightings pages, has been doing the same thing since Iacocca was building “America’s best built, best backed, automobiles”.
That is true! I’ve subscribed to CA since 1997.
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Well looky here : http://www.hngn.com/articles/37566/20140730/homeland-security-seizes-womans-car-wont-give-back.htm
Not surprisingly, you’ve got this one all wrong too, Jack. The issue was not about “snitching on LR owners”; the real issues were these: journalistic freedom, editorial policy, and journalistic integrity.
Cars parked on public streets have been photographed and published as long as there have been cars and license plates; look in any old magazines and books. And other web sites do it too. I shoot and post cars because of their intrinsic interest, not because I am taking a side on the rather obscure issue of whether some minute portion of cars on the streets are legal or not. It’s interesting to see cars here that weren’t originally sold here, but I have absolutely no ax to grind.
You had a personal agenda on the issue of the license plate of this LR, and you “censured” my post, and wanted me to stop showing license plates of cars I shot. This is editorial censorship, and was not consistent with TTAC’s policy nor with the general practice of the industry.
It’s not up to publications to make determinations which cars should have their plates shown or not. And it certainly wasn’t your call at TTAC. Speaking of liars, you swore to me in an e-mail that you did not take down the image in that post. I knew you were lying. And now you’ve confirmed it, in this very post of yours, that you took down the image.
You were just a contributor at TTAC at the time, and had no editorial responsibility or authority. It doesn’t matter that you disagreed with the content of my post; that did not give you the right to alter it. What you did, tampering with another writer’s published post, would have gotten you fired at any properly-run publication. Try doing that at RT, and see how they like that!
Unfortunately, my son was inexperienced in these matters at the time, and did not do what he should have done: fire you on the spot, for this blatant ethical breach. But I can assure you he’s lived to regret that.
That blatant violation of trust from a fellow “journalist” confirmed to me what kind of person you really are. It was the single key event to my deciding to leave TTAC. I could not be part of an organization where one fellow writer would do that to another colleague, and get away with it. And then lie to me about it.
No Jack, there was absolutely nothing “right” about you and your involvement in this incident.
And no, my son Ed has not been dependent on me “all of his adult life”. Hardly. He has been utterly independent since he graduated from school. I suggested he try blogging for TTAC, since at the time they were paying $25 per blog post. That’s hardly like “I got him the job there”. Robert Farago saw the potential in him, and nurtured him, and very specifically set it up that Ed would take of as EIC when Farago decided to bail from TTAC. I had zero do with any of that.
Go ahead and keep trying to spin this issue any way you can, but the truth was you were totally out of line, you were dead wrong on the issue of editorial censorship, as well as every other aspect of this affair. The only thing positive about it is that you have finally come clean and admitted taking down my post, and lying to me about for all these years. Congratulations.
No edit function. “censured” = “censored”
Paul, thanks for the wall of text. I’ll take a moment to address your allegations.
“It’s not up to publications to make determinations which cars should have their plates shown or not. And it certainly wasn’t your call at TTAC.”
I notified you that you were doing active harm to the owner of that LR. The practice in this business, by the way, is to protect owners. That’s why you don’t know where James Glickenhaus or Nick Mason store their cars, even though there have been hundreds of reviews of their cars: because revealing the locations where they are garaged put them and their owners at personal risk. In this case, you chose to put the LR owner at personal risk for your personal gain, without his consent.
“Speaking of liars, you swore to me in an e-mail that you did not take down the image in that post. I knew you were lying. And now you’ve confirmed it, in this very post of yours, that you took down the image.”
No, I said that I froze the post, which I did, and you have known that for years. I don’t think you understand the Internet very well.
“That blatant violation of trust from a fellow “journalist” confirmed to me what kind of person you really are. It was the single key event to my deciding to leave TTAC. ”
Nobody’s buying that and you shouldn’t be selling it. What you’re trying to claim is that:
* I did something I shouldn’t have the power to do.
* Because of the incompetence of the EIC, this outrage was allowed to stand.
* And you quit in disgust.
But you and I know the real story: you and your son were locked in a bitter disagreement on some personal matters which I won’t bother to disclose here, and you left in a fit of impotent rage that your son was telling you what to do.
“And no, my son Ed has not been dependent on me “all of his adult life”. Hardly. He has been utterly independent since he graduated from school.”
This is news to me in a couple different ways, but hey, every parent wants to think the best of their kid. You say you’ve never paid his bills since he graduated — I don’t have his W-2 so that’s fine, claim away.
” Robert Farago saw the potential in him, and nurtured him, and very specifically set it up that Ed would take of as EIC when Farago decided to bail from TTAC”
That isn’t the way Robert remembers it, and it isn’t the way he’s described it in public comments, and it isn’t the way I was told it went at the time. We can absolutely run all the way down the rabbit hole but you should talk frankly with your son first so you understand what really happened.
“the truth was you were totally out of line, you were dead wrong on the issue of editorial censorship, as well as every other aspect of this affair. ”
You were wrong to snitch the LR owner out, both times you did it. You did harm to someone for virtually zero reward in return.
You keep using that phrase “editorial censorship.” I do not think it means what you think it means. Nor does it do you a lot of credit to claim that you quit TTAC because your son wasn’t able to deal with me and you were unable, or unwilling, to show him how to do it. If my son got bullied by someone and then I did nothing about it other than run away, I wouldn’t go on other people’s blogs and brag about that.
last sentence removed after some consideration
Jack, I can’t for the life of me figure out why you feel the need to keep saying my name.
My dad corrected one clear factual error (no, please, explain our financial relationship to us) and your response was to attack him here, on every front from grey market cybervigilantism to our relationship as a father and son to his professionalism as a landlord. Why? Because you know of someone who has actually been hurt by my dad’s respected classic car blogging? Because you know anything at all about our personal relationship? Or because you have actually seen the old homes my father saved from destruction, personally restored (at times with my help), and lovingly maintains? Because you care about Love and The Truth? Please.
What you’re really missing here is that you are attacking someone who has been one of your staunchest defenders over the years. Hiring you back after you left was a major priority for me when I took over TTAC. I constantly got pushback and pressure over your work as your editor, and I defended you all the way, every time. I gave you complete editorial freedom at every step and encouraged your expansion into fiction. And, as this latest unseemly little dust-up reveals, I even took *your* side in a head-bangingly pointless conflict (one of so, so many) that *led to my father leaving TTAC*. Hell, just over a year ago Joe Magro of VerticalScope offered me Bertel’s job as EIC… and I told them to give it to you. Believing in you sure has paid off nicely for me, hasn’t it Jack?
For years now I have publicly supported you while excusing your appalling narcissism as the price of talent… the least you can do in return is to stop saying my name. You don’t know me, we have no business together, and I aim to keep it that way. Anyone who has a legitimate concern about any of your various laughable smears against me is welcome to ask me about them directly; I’m not hard to find, my email and Twitter accounts are published on every Bloomberg View post I write.
Hi, Ed.
Thanks for the click. I’ll give you the same courtesy I gave your father — a point-by-point response.
“Jack, I can’t for the life of me figure out why you feel the need to keep saying my name.”
Really? I’m pretty sure you’ve mentioned me on your blog more than I’ve mentioned you. Maybe you’re the one with the name-saying fetish. What a bizarre thing to write. You think you’re Avon Barksdale or something? I’m aware of you being in one fight your entire life and as I recall it didn’t last very long.
2nd para: I have a ton of email from your father which I won’t publish here but it’s flat fucking cowardly of you to rely on the fact that I won’t use it. As far as the actual harm done by your father… when Homeland Security seizes the Defender about which your father wrote, will the two of you make that guy whole? Will you pay his defense costs? Tell you what. How about I find out who he is, you and your dad offer to indemnify him from the effects of your dad’s post, and I’ll never refer to Paul Niedemeyer as anything but “a stand-up guy” again.
3rd para: Ed, I have email from you about your and Magro’s interaction. Do I have permission to publish a list of your demands to return to the site in any capacity? Do I have your permission to detail the compensation you expected even if they hired me and you didn’t return? What about the fact that I did in fact suggest in writing that they meet you at least halfway, for the good of the site?
I think it’s fair to say that you’ve done a lot for me. I think it’s fair to say that I did a lot for you. Most notably, when Robert left and was too kind or classy to tell me the actual details behind his departure and your role in helping that to happen, I supported you as EIC throughout your tenure. Now that I know what really happened, I’m not inclined to show the same support.
Why don’t we do this: anybody who wants to hear about your opinion of me can ask you, and anybody who wants to hear about Robert’s opinion of you can ask Robert.
You and Bertel did your best to smear me after he left TTAC. Really, Ed, you must think that people don’t talk to me about things. Do you have any idea how many people have talked to me about this book of yours?
I’ll send the rest of my thoughts to you via e-mail. You’re correct when you say you aren’t hard to find. Until then, why don’t you go back to writing analysis pieces about an industry in which you’ve never truly worked and on which you have no insight beyond what’s fed to you. If you’re feeling short on inspiration, you can do what you normally do and just rephrase Robert in less elegant fashion.
There takes an undeniable strength of character to run your own web page AND allow your detractors to post their own unfiltered point of view.
Well done Jack.
Kind of reminds me of the time De Lorenzo and Farago went at it on Autoline Afterhours.
TTAC has been the center of sooo many controversies, and only hints and vague passive aggressive comments giving any clues about what happened. I think I’m not the only person that would be interested to read a series of articles on TTATTAC.
In general, Lucas, it’s been a case of people doing some really vile things behind closed doors then pleading innocence in the public eye.
The departure of Robert Farago was engineered. It didn’t just happen.
I think everybody understands why Bertel was canned; if not, ask me and I’ll tell you.
I’m no longer EIC for a simple reason: the people at VS don’t want the same future for the site as I do. They own it, so they get to choose.
Okay, I’ll bite…
Uh, why was Bertel canned?
0. He repeatedly posted non-work-safe content “above the fold”.
1. He inflicted his sexual fetishes on the readers.
2. He used a word to refer to lesbians that offends lesbians and their allies.
3. With the exception of Derek, he was universally despised by his writers.
There’s probably more, but that was enough.
I assumed offending the LGBT community was enough. I mean the guy has a right to his opinion (free speech and all), even if I think that opinion makes him an ass. But he used his position as the EIC of an automotive website to post as his soapbox for his personal hangups, which I think is a bridge too far, and certainly hurt the website and the business. On his own blog it probably wouldn’t have mattered, but then the people he wanted to see it probably wouldn’t have. I’m more curious about what happened to Robert, Ed, Jack, and the other regular contributors that just disappeared one day after writing so many fantastic articles… those aren’t as easy to figure out.
While this soap opera is kinda entertaining, it would’ve been more professional of everyone involved if they kept their grudges vs. each other out of the public eye.
If you’re looking for professional behavior, low-paid hobby blogging should be your last stop.
I have to admit, Pauls ‘Curbside Classics’ was what led me to TTAC in the first place, and one of the reasons I kept coming back were your (Jacks) stories and submissions(and I still read both Curbside classics, and here I am on this blog too). I childishly hope that you can both get over your differences because I love reading most of what both of you write, especially about the american car business and its history, allthough I can see that the communications you have had through emails and behind the curtains may make that impossible. As for the case that started it all, I really don’t want to choose sides. You are both wrong and both right. The Land Rover case in question is very similar to a situation here in Norway that unfortunately led the authorities to ban body swaps in general, so I don’t approve of people who abuse regulations to get cars they aren’t really allowed to have, as it affects other enthusiasts in the end. On the other hand, Paul did not have to ‘snitch’ out the car owner when it was quite simple to juet cover up the license plate of the car in question.
PS: From the articles you have both posted I sense a lot of eerily similar opinions about cars, and epsecially the american car industry, and you have both recently bought Hondas(Acuras) so I think you may be more alike each other than any of you would ever admit.
Well, that’s the benefit of the Internet, it allows you to subdivide on the smallest level. It’s like the old Emo Philips routine about two people who meet in the street and find out that they are members of the same faith, the same denomination, the same region, the same schism, but they believe in two different council rulings, so they’re enemies for life.
As the older brother of one of the leaders in Club Honda Norway, I have heard the discussions between Honda S2000 AP1 and AP2 owners (and I have seen many variations over the Emo Phillips routine), so I certainly get your point 😉
I hope you can at least still enjoy reading each others work from time to time.