To Finish 45th Out Of 60, First You Must Finish
It was six years ago that my Neon last completed a NASA race. In the time since, I’ve raced everything from the 24 Hours of Lemons to Grand-Am Koni Challenge, Continue Reading →
The Media Will Show You All The Pictures You Need To Have An Opinion
Oh, that crazy Donald Trump. He’s at it again with more racist policies. This time, he’s signing an executive order to double the minimum salary for H-1B workers to $130,000, making it impossible for those poor Indians to come over to America and take all the tech jobs.
Facebook is enraged. Every public post on the subject has said that Trump is a moron/racist/sexist/idiot.Well, he might be all of those things, or none of them. But one thing he certainly is not is a Democratic Congresswoman from California named Zoe Lofgren.
1979 Ford Mustang Ghia: The Personal Luxury Pony Car
Anyone out there remember when there were luxury versions of pony cars? Yes, pony cars. Please don’t call them muscle cars. The term, ‘muscle car’ has been overused to the point of irrelevancy. No, a 460-powered ’72 Thunderbird is NOT a muscle car, and neither is a 1975 Country Squire. Neither is a Maverick or V8-powered Chevy Monza. Yes, I have heard a Maverick-A MAVERICK, for Pete’s sake!-been referred to as a muscle car. Nope. No. Wrong wrong wrong! Now where was I?
Made In The USA: Kirkland Signature Socks
Okay, I admit it. As of late, this “Made In The USA” series has been a little bourgeois. And the items that I have coming up won’t do much to address the criticism that’s been repeated by our readers again and again: namely, that this obsession with American-made products is really just another way to spend too much for things, the same way that the “foodie revolution” occurred because you have all these people in cities earning $250,000 a year who literally don’t have enough room in their apartments for a second bicycle but who still want to indulge in copious displays of economic well-being.
To counter this unfortunate trend of $175 extension cords and the like, I present to you: Kirkland Signature Socks. I paid $8.95 for these at Costco a while back. The best way I could think of to torture-test them was simple: use them for a day at work, then an evening at the skatepark, then another day at work, then 35 minutes on the elliptical machine. That’s not really equivalent to a year’s worth of hard use or anything like that, but it’s enough to cause visible wear in the overseas-made stuff you get from Wal-Mart. As part of this comparison, I would then evaluate the Kirkland socks against my limited-run, American-made Flint&Tinder socks, to see which set was better.
Surprise: The Kirkland Signature socks appear to be just as good as the F&T socks that cost literally ten times as much. But, as with everything, there’s a catch.
Imaginary Cities
No reason not to take a quick break from weightier matters to discuss something more pleasant. Chris Potter is part of Pat Metheny’s Unity Band. Imaginary Cities is a personal project of his. It’s recorded on ECM and if you are a fan of the label’s predisposition towards airy, abstract jazz recordings then you won’t be disappointed. It’s a great album to listen to when you’re trying to get some (mental) work done. More information here.
Nothing Says White Privilege Like A Good Protest
These are interesting, unprecedented times, to be sure. After all, who could have guessed that someday we’d have a president who would put a temporary travel ban on Middle Easterners? Well, I mean other than that time that Obama did it. This president specifically put a ban on seven Muslim countries—unthinkable. Hold on, I forgot about that time that Obama identified those same countries when he removed them from the Visa Waiver Program. But this president wants to indiscriminately prevent all people from an hispanic country from coming here. What? Obama did that, too? Damn. At least he didn’t strand and detain people at the airport…oh, FFS, let’s just move on.
No, the real story here is the sheer volume of protests. I mean, for real. Dude’s been president for, like, a week, and I’m guessing that some people have just been bouncing from protest to protest. And there’s been something interesting about the protests, something that I couldn’t quite put my finger on until today.
“I have learned something this morning,” my friend wrote to me via Facebook Messenger early today. “White people love to protest.”
Vignette: In Which The Author Is Mistaken For A Homeless Honda Salesman
This past weekend, I went to the motorcycle show in Cleveland. After years on the auto-show circuit I’ve somewhat lost my enthusiasm for the bread and circuses of Detroit/Chicago/NYC press days, but this public-entry bike show impressed me with both the enthusiasm of the crowd and the presence of every bike I’d hoped to see. The new BMW line including the RnineT Racer, the Kawasaki Z900/H2 Carbon/ZX-10RR Winter Livery, the XSR900 and FZ-07 in the new metallic blue, and so on.
One bike I did not expect to see: the revised-for-2017 Honda CB1100EX. Yet there it was, banished to a back corner next to the Groms. I immediately hopped on to check it out. The new tank has more fuel capacity (good) but it’s from the modern wide-wing school. About fifty percent of the “vintage” feel disappears with that tank; you might as well be on an XSR900. There were two old dudes standing next to me discussing what the CB1100 was probably like to ride, so I chimed in.
Weekly Roundup: Maybe There Really Was A Reason Why I Used To Keep My Hair Short Edition
The last time I was riding skateparks with any frequency was in 2003. My hair was quarter-inch buzz-cut. After being repeatedly and unexpectedly blinded at “Skate Naked” on Friday night, I’m thinking that perhaps there was some logic to that choice.
Friday night was a big night for “progression” around our house. On his third trip to a park ever, John managed to “drop in” to the small bowl. He got within two feet or so of the coping on the middlin’ half-pipe you see above. And he did his first “roll-in” down a steep ramp to a pyramid box. As for Dad? Well, I wasn’t exactly pulling Matt-Hoffman-style air but I also didn’t injure myself. At 45, that’s success, right?
Click the jump for this week’s contributions and a statement on a recent controversy.
Made In The USA: Shinola x General Electric
“Can’t believe that you, of all people, buy into the Shinola hype.” That’s what a commenter wrote on my Instagram page yesterday. I think that’s a compliment. And while my opinion on Shinola is, I hope, reasonably hype-free, I also can’t say that I’m immune to the brand’s charms.
I stopped by their Ann Arbor store late last night. This is, it has to be said, a profoundly satisfying place. The ground floor is designed around a selection of natural materials and carefully spot-lit to cast a flattering glow on everything from their boxes of traditional wooden pencils (that I bought for my son) to the handsome Runwell, Bixby, and Detroit Arrow bicycles.
The basement, reached down a set of wrought-iron-and-rough-wood stairs, is an authentic marvel. Brick-lined, with a fourteen-foot ceiling and that same careful accent lightning. A gloss-red bicycle sits between small, private alcoves for conversation. There’s a bar, tended during my visit by a painfully earnest and ruggedly handsome beard-and-suspenders fellow who cleaned glasses with the precise amount of vintage, authentic effort displayed by the android bartender in Passengers, where you can buy soda and baked goods. Beneath another soft spotlight, there’s a pair of bookshelf speakers and a selection of usual-suspect records (What’s Going On, Rubber Soul, Physical Graffiti, that sort of thing) for you to play on their stunning new Shinola (by VPI) turntable. A great place to write a novel, meet your future wife, or just relax with a made-in-Detroit Shinola soda. At only $1.00, the twelve-ounce glass-bottled cola is probably the only genuine deal the brand offers.
1956 Cadillac Eldorado Seville: Everything But The Kitchen Sink!
There’s just something about 1950s Cadillacs. It really was their decade. Depending on the era, there’s always that gotta have it vehicle. In the ’30s it was a Duesenberg, in the ’40s most likely a Packard, but in the ’50s a Caddy was the American Dream on four whitewalls. Harley Earl, the head of GM Design back then, did whatever the hell he wanted. And usually, it worked. Take, for instance, the 1956 Cadillac lineup.
That Moment When You Realize That You’re Fine With Being A Soccer Dad
In recent days, there’s been much discussion among my fans/haters (who are really just fans under a different name) comparing my dear brother and me. Frankly, this is a stupid comparison, and it wouldn’t exist if we didn’t share both a name and a blog. We have had remarkably different lives, separated by six years, eight grades in school (Jack skipped two grades, and when the school wanted to do the same with me, my parents declined, with my father saying that advancing Jack was the “greatest mistake of his life”), and nearly completely different interests.
In fact, there are only four things in which we’ve ever shared an interest.