Posts
i added a new element to the blog today: a playlist of some of the music that has influenced me over the years.
some may find “bobby brown” by frank zappa offensive. but, you need to keep in mind that frank wasn’t singing about his own sexual experiences; this is supposed to be a parody of… well… i don’t know whom. the important things to remember are: frank didn’t care if he offended anyone and i think the song is funny. listen with an open mind and you too may feel the same.
finally had a chance to hook-up with my old friend gary peterson today. we never could come up with a year that we last saw each other; mid-70s was as close as we could get.
i’m very happy to see that gary has done quite well for himself. way to go, dude!
he still looks like the gary i used to know, except (like myself), 35 years older!
for a while i wasn’t sure if we were ever going to be able to get together: if he was free i was busy and if i was free he was busy.
i ran around the polo grounds and golf course yesterday, but never made it out today for concours. i woke up with a headache, tried to get inspired with a couple of triple-lattes and went back to bed for a couple of hours. by the time i got up, i only had time to visit with gary.
oh well! it wasn’t like missing a king crimson concert and i did get a chance to hang with gary for a while and that, in itself, was more important than the cars!
i did get to see a couple of cool cars yesterday.
don’t know if ford’s gonna do anything with any of the concepts, but it looked pretty spiff. i did see an old flathead powered (champ?) car. too big to be a sprinter and not big enough for indy. i saw some people pushing it onto the grounds the other day and could tell from the exhaust that it was a flathead and not an offy since it had pipes on both sides of the boat tail. i haven’t had the pics developed (we’re still using the antiquated film-method-of-photography around here) so i don’t know what shots came out and what didn’t. i tried to get shots of some bronze pieces that were on display: the goldenrod and a few other bonneville/lakes-type vehicles. also took a pic of a piece (not sure of the medium) that was a highboy being pushed out of a 1940s style pit by three guys with a leather helmet-clad driver; the base looked like the surface of el mirage.
speaking of taking pictures: it was so difficult to get a picture of the cars without somebody (usually some synthetic-beauty – which means she was far from beautiful) trying to get in the shot. every time i would frame the shot, somebody would slip in and pose. i guess it was the “media badge” around my neck. since i was shooting on film i didn’t want to waste the shot, so i’d lower the camera, walk around the car, wait for the would-be-model to move, re-frame the shot and she’d be back in the picture. this happened several times.
my patience with pretension was shot by the time i got out of that place.
i overheard a woman ask (i presume) her husband how much a car was worth. he told her: “about 3, or 4-hundred thousand!” without sarcasm, she replied: “oh, is that all?” she was quite serious. like ron would say: “not good enough! you got that?” i’m surprised she didn’t gag onto the asphalt, like she was just told she was eating goat, from having to stand so close to such a classless car. it was a bentley of some sort.
ron’s event last night was, i would have to say, a smashing success! the place was packed and everyone seemed to have a great time. i hope waj gets some new members out of it!
i made some new friends last night, too: maneesh reddy, a very friendly man who sat at our table, and david ray who drives for nissan, who sat next to me. david was driving the pace car this weekend for the monterey historics. i announced that “the cool people” were sitting at our table.
my new friend, jane, came as my guest and looked quite resplendent. she was gracious enough to stick around to give me a ride back to the beach house after i tore-down the paparazzi-backdrop, the projector and the dvd player.
i’d have to say that the meal was the best banquet meal i’ve ever had. i ate filet mignon, medium-rare. it was so tender i wish i had ordered it rare, but didn’t want to take a chance since they were serving about 50 of us. they also served a chicken dish of-some-sort, mushroom ravioli and the most un-edible item the world has ever known: salmon!
a couple of years ago, teri’s mom asked, while we were visiting her up at tahoe, if we’d like to stay for dinner. “we’re having salmon!” she proudly announced. i told her i couldn’t stay but she said they’d throw a steak on the barbecue for me. unfortunately for me, the steak was grilled right next to the salmon. so, i had salmon-flavored steak. i gagged-down a few bites and couldn’t force anymore passed my teeth. we hit burger king (only slightly better than salmon) on the way home; insuring that, not only did i taste salmon for the next 4-hours, but i had heartburn from the burger.
the greatest fear i have is that i’ll be stranded in the wilderness with only salmon to eat!
mm-mmm!
