tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-154474532024-03-07T03:07:41.446-05:00Mr. Gleck's Five FlavorsJust making it up as I go along.<br>
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The blogger with a placeholder heart; the real one jumped off somewhere in West Virginia.<br>Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-37646671460389172112008-03-09T16:59:00.029-04:002008-05-11T19:23:07.554-04:00How many "sweepstakes" does it take to get to the center of a sucker?<a href="http://talgleck.blogspot.com/2008/01/funeral-for-few-brain-cells.html">Just over two months ago</a>, I entered the latest "Publishers Clearing House" sweepstakes. I didn't buy anything, but that's neither here nor there.<br /><br />I also didn't expect to win one thin dime. Nor one tarnished penny, either. I know there's a better chance that George W. Bush will grow a functioning cerebrum ... Hillary Clinton will grow a functioning heart ... gas prices will go back to beginning with a "1" ... or that we'd get a freeway connector from Rincon into Savannah ... but anyway ...<br /><br />The other day I received in the mail an "official"-looking envelope. The return address read: <span style="font-weight: bold;">SWEEPSTAKES CLEARINGHOUSE</span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">DEPARTMENT OF NOTIFICATIONS</span><br /><br />To the right of the address window read: <span style="font-weight: bold;">"OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION - PLEASE REPLY IN 10 DAYS." </span><br /><br />In the words of Jack Benny, "Well."<br /><br />Did I win? <span style="font-style: italic;">Did I win??</span><br /><br />Holy shitzu on a swiszle, I tore into the contents faster than Puddy into an unattended garbage bag, and had a gander at said envelope's payload.<br /><br />The cover letter -- "Official Prize Award Directive" -- indicated that I, Talmadge Q. Gleck, "have been awarded a consolation prize in the TEN MILLION DOLLAR SWEEPSTAKES CLEARINGHOUSE GIVEAWAY."<br /><br />That's funny, I distinctly remember entering the Publishers Clearing House contest, but not the one for <span style="font-style: italic;">Sweepstakes</span> Clearinghouse.<br /><br />How in cotton-pickin' tarnation can somebody win a contest they <u>did</u> <u>not</u> <u>enter</u>??!!<br /><br />What seems to have happened is that PCH has "sold", "rented" or otherwise "donated" my name to this outfit, which then goes into action notifying people like us that we've "won." There's no other plausible explanation; I haven't gotten these things in a long time. And I hadn't entered PCH (or any other sweepstakes) in a long time, either. The timing here is a little too suspect.<br /><br />In any case, the enclosed letter -- oops, "Directive" -- went on to tell me the prizes I have "won." (I'll explain in a moment) And the 'Directive' ended by stating, "Prizes like this have the power to change people's lives."<br /><br />Great McMahon on a can of Alpo, it sure as heck changed MINE.<br /><br />Included with this letter were several "checks", six in all -- and, true to form, one showed up in the address window, with "PAY TO THE ORDER OF" clearly laid out in order to be visible within the window.<br /><br />"Oooooh, a check!" *squeal*<br /><br />Of course, what doesn't show up are the words to the right of all six of these "pseudo financial instruments": NON-NEGOTIABLE. NOT A CHECK.<br /><br />They're all $400.00 <span style="font-style: italic;">vouchers</span>, good toward purchase of six corresponding items in the mailing.<br /><br />They are, as follows:<br /><ol><li>RCA Home Stereo System with Surround Sound. $579.95 value.<br /><br /></li><li>Dell® Desktop Computer with software and FREE internet. $699.95 value.<br /><br /></li><li>"Masterpiece®" Matching Diamond Watch Set. $469.95 value.<br /><br /></li><li>Dell® Laptop Computer with software and FREE internet. $779.95 value.<br /><br /></li><li>Ultralite® 5-piece Expandable Luggage Collection. $479.95 value.<br /><br /></li><li>DVC™ Megapixel Digital Camcorder Package. $549.95 value.<br /></li></ol>Good Mother Mary on a Marx Big Wheel, Seraphim and I were fixin' to be showered with some mighty quality merchandisin'. I felt like a contestant on <span style="font-style: italic;">Press Your Luck</span>.<br /><br />Only The Whammy was real.<br /><br />Each of these items were represented with the aforementioned "vouchers" which took $400.00 off each of the list prices shown above.<br /><br />Let's do the math:<br /><ul><li>RCA stereo system (curiously, the only brand name listed here without one of the ubiquitous trademark symbols) ... after the $400 voucher, it's being offered to me for <span style="font-weight: bold;">$179.95</span>.<br /><br /></li><li>Dell desktop computer .... after-voucher price: <span style="font-weight: bold;">$299.95</span>.<br /><br /></li><li>"Masterpiece" watch set ... after-voucher price:<span style="font-weight: bold;"> $69.95</span>.<br /><br /></li><li>Dell laptop computer ... after-voucher price: <span style="font-weight: bold;">$379.95</span>.<br /><br /></li><li>Ultralite luggage set ... after-voucher price: <span style="font-weight: bold;">$79.95</span>.<br /><br /></li><li>DVC digital camcorder ... after-voucher price: <span style="font-weight: bold;">$149.95</span>.<br /></li></ul>Now let us review the above pricing. First, the <span style="font-weight: bold;">RCA stereo</span>:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8jKWzdytsB1MUqxA2JRw4volD2o6vPS5K5JMebaP5_4E1tI-R3vEVDgro5yKkjLzK8PC_z8eJMV025d6BWgvMF8hLKgiE-NHddU5Rj7lduBJV28eU-ywmWP4ufW4-PSpm-vn1/s1600-h/rcastereo.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8jKWzdytsB1MUqxA2JRw4volD2o6vPS5K5JMebaP5_4E1tI-R3vEVDgro5yKkjLzK8PC_z8eJMV025d6BWgvMF8hLKgiE-NHddU5Rj7lduBJV28eU-ywmWP4ufW4-PSpm-vn1/s200/rcastereo.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175861109653200802" border="0" /></a>This thing is little more than a "mini-bookshelf" system inside a fake-wood-veneer cabinet. I've seen these cheesy stereos selling for as little as 100 bucks, and the cabinet selling for $50. Go to Big Lots, and you'll probably find both.<br /><br />First, it plays cassettes. What the hell are these "cassettes"? Oh yeah, almost forgot ... they're about the size of iPods, but they're also known for puking brown silly-string when they get sick. No, thanks.<br /><br />The speakers (yeah, they <span style="font-style: italic;">look</span> big, but I'll betcha inside each one is a single cone no bigger than three inches diameter!) promise "full concert hall sound, producing music the way it was meant to be heard."<br /><br />If that's how music is supposed to be heard, then go ahead and drive rusty nails into my ear canals, I wanna be deaf.<br /><br />That RCA system is a descendant of the 1980s "Yorx" stereo systems. You know the ones, they had molded plastic on the front to make it appear like it's a stacked, matched component system. 20 slide controls gave the illusion of a 20-band equalizer. Guess again -- five of the slides are connected ... one for volume, another for balance, then bass and treble. Sucker.<br /><br />And RCA? I mean, come on -- it's a long way from their days pioneering radio and color television. It's no longer a standalone company; today RCA electronics are made by Thomson, and their products don't exactly rate too well in <span style="font-style: italic;">Consumer Reports</span>. Something pesky, like "high repair rate."<br /><br />*********<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8dw2H2S9VXDRSSBleE9LYXKNiPNlmO5Ed2BgAONN5HeYE8_rWehoTcDaj8ws1YV3uzTAXYQArjlt4Ge9e-ZLECquINZxrDzQNmmcmrFksRsKfsMES4q_YEhuwExNTriVb0Fx/s1600-h/watch.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim8dw2H2S9VXDRSSBleE9LYXKNiPNlmO5Ed2BgAONN5HeYE8_rWehoTcDaj8ws1YV3uzTAXYQArjlt4Ge9e-ZLECquINZxrDzQNmmcmrFksRsKfsMES4q_YEhuwExNTriVb0Fx/s200/watch.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175861994416463794" border="0" /></a>Next is the Masterpiece watch set. His 'n' hers with "gold, diamonds and onyx." Oh, my. The fine print says "one-point diamonds." Are we supposed to mistake that for "one-KARAT"? Now I'm no diamond expert, nor am I that much of a watch-geek, but even I know something's not quite right here.<br /><br />And "made of genuine Swiss parts"??!! That's an insult to some of the world's finest people! I wonder just what the good folk of <a href="http://www.helvetiawv.com/">Helvetia, WV</a> would have to say about this.<br /><br />I believe I'll pass. Wal-Mart has better deals on watches by reputed names like Timex, which cost far less than the 70-buck price tag above. And they actually work.<br /><br />*********<br />Then we had the "Ultralite® 5-piece Expandable Luggage Collection." Expandable? Well, DUHHH!! EVERY luggage set is "expandable" -- you just buy more suitcases, genius!<br /><br />And the way it looked in the flyer ... no fancier than the luggage set we bought in 2001 at Office Depot (of all places!) for, I believe, right at - if not less than - the stated net price of $79.95. What's more, our set is still going strong. I somehow doubt this "Masterpiece" set would've gone that distance. (that's a joke, son)<br /><br />"Masterpiece" is an underrated 1973 Temptations hit song. Not a name I think of when I'm entertaining a luggage investment.<br /><br />*********<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj3BAJ1mhAv-UY0Fv1SX8lLBKlDRA1JcjKkBkOQQDxfgjZPSJ8AYwIhuvtRh7NLAD8TYddn7ipoXApDpQs0Dn1yBr6SBHHrEpe9w-FRD-uiqXGTXQt_ssgM7J-7C0crBJpDV61/s1600-h/camcorder.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj3BAJ1mhAv-UY0Fv1SX8lLBKlDRA1JcjKkBkOQQDxfgjZPSJ8AYwIhuvtRh7NLAD8TYddn7ipoXApDpQs0Dn1yBr6SBHHrEpe9w-FRD-uiqXGTXQt_ssgM7J-7C0crBJpDV61/s200/camcorder.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175864077475602370" border="0" /></a>More electronics? You betcha. Here's something sure to swoon the heart of every videophile from Tiger Ridge to Tuscumbia: The DVC™ Megapixel Digital Camcorder Package. Click on the image for a bigger view .... this baby contains the astonishing amount of 32 MEGABYTES of built-in memory. Enough for 320 still images.<br /><br />Ummmm, that does not compute. Inside our 8.3 megapixel Fuji camera is a 2-gig SD card. Big enough to hold just over 500 full-tilt pictures. I'd say 32 MEGAbytes (that's soooo 1999!) will hold maybe eight (8) pictures at 12 MP resolution. Ahhh, but the small print reads "max resolution." Hmmmmm...<br /><br />Something else that does not compute, either: the brand name. I've heard of JVC, of course. But what in sam-hill is this DVC™ -- Diablo Valley College? Disney Vacation Club?<br /><br />Yes, there seems to be a company called <a href="http://www.dvcco.com/">DVC</a>™. "Imaging solutions for science and industry." It appears to be a manufacturer of digital cameras for medical and other professional applications. No wonder I'd never heard of it until I Google'd the name.<br /><br />But what about this "DVC" camcorder? Is it a top-of-the-line "boutique" subsidiary of Coby? Or Broksonic? Names you see all over places like Fred's and Dollar General, places that make Wal-Mart look like a high-end stereo salon.<br /><br />At the price of $150 after the voucher, I'd pass. It claims to be advertised in <span style="font-style: italic;">Popular Photography</span> magazine. I can't vouch for that one, though.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Vouch</span>. Heh heh ... um ... <span style="font-size:78%;">heh?</span><br /><br />Do yourself a favor, and pick up an entry-level brand-name camcorder at Best Buy, which usually start at around $250. Another $100 spent, and you save a lot of heartache and lost video.<br /><br />And the "$400 in software" I don't even want to think about. Most of 'em look like freeware programs, outdated, unsupported versions of established applications, or, worse, "teaseware."<br /><br />*********<br />Then there are the computers. <span style="font-style: italic;">Dude, you're gettin' a démodé Dell.....</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn91XnwPTOL6yVnSoY86rGgHN-EIMpDRtfov46Fvm7BZXjvam9fYjDp5rDY-XzefSu6sBrZMETPgV8c0xjQR3Mhik12QA8GO_U4oyj2lO8P9neGKRl7caqaFKO2qR-9ipisuE4/s1600-h/puters.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn91XnwPTOL6yVnSoY86rGgHN-EIMpDRtfov46Fvm7BZXjvam9fYjDp5rDY-XzefSu6sBrZMETPgV8c0xjQR3Mhik12QA8GO_U4oyj2lO8P9neGKRl7caqaFKO2qR-9ipisuE4/s200/puters.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175870889293733842" border="0" /></a>$300 for a desktop, and $380 for the laptop. A "hither-and-yon" computing package for less than 700 bucks out-of-pocket.<br /><br />Sounds too good to be true, right?<br /><br />Well, it is.<br /><br />These ARE computers. One's a desktop and the other a laptop. (<span style="font-style: italic;">"One of these things is not like the other" / "C is for computer, that's good enough for me"</span>)<br /><br />But, just for grins, let's examine the small-print.<br /><br />For one thing, these are "open stock." Meaning, people have returned 'em. Ahhhhh, but also there's potential lurking in those hard drives .... passwords ... online banking logins .... illicit e-mails the wife sends to her online boyfriend who fathered her chil ..... um, er, anyway ... these are returns. Not new items. But think of the financial/blackmail bonanza that awaits the lucky recepient. [<a href="http://www.ripoffreport.com/searchresults.asp?q5=SWEEPSTAKES+CLEARING&searchtype=0&q1=ALL&q3=&q2=&q7=&q4=&q6=&start=0">provided the recepient actually gets to BE the recepient.....</a>]<br /><br />Now, if all that doesn't faze you, consider the specifications:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4iaCXe7H654UtBrmC-sCiR-soeqBofyznruEvXg_Wcy8aaggRVJsmGI5W0ngBbv1Net044TFrKaivvGuORIG6NDUt2mlZs-gjAH55gpUXi9MF2k8dbPY_wvKThxktRwNKXqi/s1600-h/desktop-close.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm4iaCXe7H654UtBrmC-sCiR-soeqBofyznruEvXg_Wcy8aaggRVJsmGI5W0ngBbv1Net044TFrKaivvGuORIG6NDUt2mlZs-gjAH55gpUXi9MF2k8dbPY_wvKThxktRwNKXqi/s400/desktop-close.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175872607280652258" border="0" /></a>1.6 GHz Pentium-4. If that's not enough retro for you, then you'll just thrill to the 3.5" disk drive (holds an amazing 1.44 MB of data), and -- get ready to have an orgasmic thrill -- A 20 GIGABYTE HARD DRIVE.<br /><br />Good gravy, the computer we bought in 2000 -- eight years ago, for those counting -- had a 30-gig hard drive on it.<br /><br />But the speakers. FULL STEREO SOUND. Folks, I'm drooling ... I'm getting rather fatigued with the "mono reprocessed to simulate stereo" output from this 14-month-old HP Pavilion desktop.<br /><br />And with 256 MB of RAM, you'll be stuttering your way through at least two multitasked processes.<br /><br />Oooooh, then there's also the free internet. Free. Internet. Yeppers, 1,000 hours/45 days of free AOL. Sheyettfahr, I didn't know AOL still offered dialup service for new customers. Good night, and pleasant dreams; that 2 MB picture might be all downloaded when you wake up in the morning.<br /><br />All right, already, here's something positive: it has Windows XP. That beats the fool durn out of Vista (one BIG reason I replaced our desktop a year ago December was the impending release of Vista -- I wanted XP Media Center 2005 while I could still get it. XP MC05 is a surprisingly stable OS for a Micro$oft product).<br /><br />Now, here's the boilerplate for the laptop:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhyphenhyphenGYrTPfzhCtd4nEDDUTBtejlXij66NZtNrWetOglO7Du3tok-JpbpIeim2HABwEuyouq1eweNKjRUt7WHsgnLyY0xKyhXSiIwp4UmgeuDtt19yyzizTKQvIRc3euRHKsSmb/s1600-h/laptop-close.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhyphenhyphenGYrTPfzhCtd4nEDDUTBtejlXij66NZtNrWetOglO7Du3tok-JpbpIeim2HABwEuyouq1eweNKjRUt7WHsgnLyY0xKyhXSiIwp4UmgeuDtt19yyzizTKQvIRc3euRHKsSmb/s400/laptop-close.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5175874011734958066" border="0" /></a>The Toshiba laptop that we got for Seraphim back in August '06 has a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor. This thing has a PENTIUM-3 ... I think they were selling those when I was still living in Troy. And check out the hard drive size on this thing: TEN WHOPPING GIGABYTES. (our laptop has a 120 GB hard drive on it .... and, for that matter, our HP desktop has a 250-gig HD onboard).<br /><br />Both of these things have "CD-ROM included", but nothing is said about a burner. This isn't 1998, people; a CD burner - at the very least - is crucial to a computer system in 2008.<br /><br />You'd be way better off taking your chances with <a href="http://www.bluehippo.com/">Blue Hippo</a>. A scary thought in and of itself.<br /><br />*********<br />Wholly Mozzes, the levels some people will stoop. It's a fishing expedition, and the sobering reality is that there are enough "stupid people" who fall for these things to more than pay the freight of sending all these mailings.<br /><br />One clue to look for, in the event a "stupidperson" happens upon this blog: the postage. It was metered "pre-sorted standard" at a postage rate of 18.5 cents. Contest winners are never notified via pre-sorted mail, people. Get a clue. Buy two vowels, and then guess C and L.<br /><br />This outfit has <a href="http://www.sweepstakesclearinghouse.com/">a website</a>, too. Take a look at some of the "winners." Yeeeeeeesh.<br /><br />I said it recently, and it bears mentioning again: the movie <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/">Idiocracy</a> is getting dangerously close to life imitating art.<br /><br />For some reason, I have a craving for some Carl's, Jr. <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">EXTRA BIG-ASS FRIES!!!!!!</span></span><br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "The sucker stops here" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-88031380065931638092008-01-11T21:00:00.001-05:002008-05-11T19:28:19.412-04:00More from Out West, circa 1977 (XXXI-YAT)<span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 51, 255);">"And away we go, like a herd of turtles!"</span><span style="color: rgb(102, 51, 255);"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 51, 255);">-Dad Gleck</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The Deviled Ham Chronicles", part two</span><br /><br />Continuing with our trip diary from July 1977, we left our no-phone, no-pool, no-pet, but otherwise dandy ol' Kayenta, Arizona Holiday Inn room, and resumed our journey. Our next stop: Four Corners National Monument. It was neat seeing four states coming together in a single spot. The monument itself is an elevated slab of concrete, with a survey marker embedded which marks the exact spot. It's not on the main drag; one has to turn off the highway northward onto a county road. It's about a mile or so away.<br /><br />And yes, there's a picture of me, on all fours, so I could have one appendage in each of the states. Hardly original, but at age 12 I felt like I was so witty.<br /><br />Or something which rhymes with that word.<br /><br />Back on the main slab, we crossed into Colorado, and wound our way back into Utah. We found ourselves on U.S. Highway 666 (why this number was allowed by the National Highway Administration is beyond me!). A stop at Arches National Park was pretty cool, if not the deviled ham sammich consumed therein. We picked up I-15 at Provo, and drove through Salt Lake City at rush hour. Joy.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Night #5:</span> Ogden, Utah. I think it was another Holiday Inn, but I'm not certain. Now that I think about it, perhaps it was a Best Western. Whichever it was, or wasn't, it had a helluva pool. I guess I shouldn't say "hell" -- we're in Utah now. Let me rephrase it:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Gosh! That was one flippin' great swimming pool. But what the fruit was up with the all the klieg lights? Oh, silly me, that's the reflection from the Osmonds' toothy smiles. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Night #6:</span> Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Wagon Wheel Village Motel. Did I mention it too had a black & white television? Rustic, log cabin style living. Yeah, boy.<br /><br />Eh, at least the telly didn't have a coin box attached to it.<br /><br />One very notable event occurred this evening: it was the big NYC blackout of July 13, 1977. I remember this because it caused all the network affiliates to lose their feeds. The TV stations all had to think fast and rack up a fill program. Back in those (good ol') days, when infomercials were verboten, said "fill program" would likely be something watchable. The station we had on plugged in an episode of the game show <span style="font-style: italic;">Break the Bank</span>. Too bad we weren't close enough to <a href="http://talgleck.blogspot.com/2008/01/postcards-from-mind-flyspeck.html">Flyspeck</a> .... *sigh* <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Those</span> people didn't lose network television, y'know.<br /><br />The next day we spent touring Grand Teton and Yellowstone parks. And, at a picnic table somewhere, it was yet another can's worth of <span style="font-style: italic;">Diablus </span><span style="font-style: italic;">Spamibus </span> between slices of Home Pride Butter-Top Bread. (<span style="font-style: italic;">"we add the butter, and let it bake riiiight in"</span>)<br /><br />It was very, very late in the afternoon when we left the Yellowstone area. We stopped in Cody for supper on the run: Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was another 80 mile drive to our next destination ... I ate my three-piece finger-lickin' good box meal as we continued through the Wyoming darkness. Which looks little different from Wyoming daytime. To say, there's not a flippin' thing to look at. (gotta say "flippin" -- Utah isn't that far away)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Night #7:</span> We arrived at Thermopolis, Wyoming about 9:00. Don't remember the name of the motel, but - like back in Gallup - it was old and beginning to show its age.<br /><br />I was so ready to get the hell out of Wyoming ... it makes I-16 look fun and exciting. Our next state was "colorful Colorado."<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Night #8:</span> Estes Park, Colorado. Hobby Horse Motel. Had a really big area in the back, complete with a playground and pond. And geese. One of them decided he didn't like this Talmadge person, and began chasing me all over creation.<br /><br />I hate geese.<br /><br />Mom left her nightgown in the room. That much I remember, too.<br /><br />After a wonderful drive through Rocky Mountain National Park (even thinking about it today, it feels strange to see patches of ice in the middle of July!), we meandered our way back to I-70 to go eastbound. Through Denver and toward Kansas. We turned off of 70 at Oakley to go southbound on US-83 toward Garden City. Our destination was Dodge City -- Festus, Miz Kitty and Matt D. himself, I'm sure.<br /><br />We'd turned back eastward at Garden City, and were no more than 10 miles out of town when, suddenly, <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:180%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">BANG!!</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">-thumpthumpthumpthump....</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span> The left rear tire shed half of its rubber along the hot asphalt of U.S. Highway 50. Nice. Dad got out and put the spare on the car.<br /><br />Then we backtracked into Garden City, where - lucky for us - there was a Sears store, with auto service building out front. And it was still open.<br /><br />After a new <span style="font-style: italic;">tar</span> was procured for our Grand Safari Truckster, we resumed our trek toward the wilds of Dodge City.<br /><br />Once we got the hell into Dodge, we ran smack into a major problem. There was a convention of some sort going on, and most of the motels were booked solid. Was this Karma from Dad's leadfooted passing of that poor family back outside of Kayenta?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Night #9...#9...#9...</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">: </span> One motel had a room available, and it was called The Bel-Air. A simple Google shows it still in business. I remember it being small, and brother is it small -- nine (9) rooms.<br /><br />It still puzzles me how Dad badmouths Motel 6 after experiencing The Bel-Air Motel. It wouldn't be as bad as Bob's Motel. Yeah, Bob's Motel. It's in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and we stayed there one night during our Trip Up North in 1979. Anyhoo, the Bel-Air was nasty. Very, very nasty. As in, the carpet was more animated than a "Tom & Jerry" cartoon. It was the first time I'd ever seen so many cockroaches in my life. Yes, it was that bad.<br /><br />Y'know, I've never seen vermin in any Motel 6 where I've stayed.<br /><br />After that experience, we shook the roach eggs out of our hair and embarked on a tour of Dodge City. I found it lukewarm; this was mostly Dad's thing, him being a big fan of westerns, and all. (I<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>f Marshal Dillon were real, HE would've done something about the bugs in that motel)<br /><br />After a lunch of Underwood deviled ham, Wonder bread and Lay's Potato Chips, with Shasta Cola (*cringe*) to wash it all down, we were back on the road.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Night #10: </span>Fort Smith, Arkansas. In a fit of hysteria and lapsed reason, Dad -- get this -- <span style="font-style: italic;">made a reservation</span>. We had a room waiting for us at the Holiday Inn. Strangely enough, it was located on I-540 .... very out of character for my Dad, I have to say. He hated and hates going one mile out of the way for anything while on a trip. He has no appreciation for anything historical, offbeat or anything ... unless it has something to do with John Wayne, the Old West, or "The War Of Northern Aggression." So why he left I-40 (which skirts Fort Smith to the north) is a mystery to me. Certainly there were motels along I-40 ... I mean, it's not exactly an abandoned two-lane!<br /><br />Well, we checked into the Holiday Inn. It was a second-floor room, and not a "down-and-out'er." We opened the door, and the smell just about knocked Mom clear over the walkway in a backward flip toward the parking lot below.<br /><br />It was m-o-l-d-y ... and the water stains on the ceiling told the story. Swiss cheese roof. Aye-yi-yi.<br /><br />Fortunately, we got another (and better) room in that motel, but that experience was a brutal wake-up call: Kemmons Wilson's great creation was beginning to show the ravages of age. Many of the first-generation Holiday Inns had clearly jumped the shark, and with increased corporate control of the chain, and less hands-on by Kemmons, quality control was going into the toilet. The late '70s marked the decline of Holiday Inn as an institution. Too many properties were allowed to deteriorate without any real accountability.<br /><br />(That's why I love <a href="http://www.druryhotels.com/">Drury Inn</a> so much -- no franchising, and that family wisely knows what happens when you sell your good name for untold fortunes and explosive growth)<br /><br />After we ate supper, Mom picked up one of Holiday Inn's 'comment cards.' In 1977, they used the (ironic) slogan "The best surprise is no surprise." Mom began writing, "Well, you sure surprised us!" She mailed the postcard after we got back home. <br /><br />Unbelievably, we actually ate a real lunch on our last day of traveling. No deviled ham. We stopped outside of Little Rock at a Minute Man - a now-defunct hamburger chain ("When you're hungry, it only takes a Minute Man"). And............<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Night #11</span> -- back home to the salt mine of Tupelo, People's Aryan Republic of Mississippi. Vacation time's over, back on your heads.<br /><br />*********<br />One <u>important</u> lesson I learned, both from this trip, and the Canada vacation two years later, was the wisdom of making reservations. While you give up a bit of spontaneity, there's the peace of mind that comes with knowing 1) where you'll be staying that evening, and 2) that you'll have a room waiting.<br /><br />4,000 Bel-Air cockroaches can't argue with that logic.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Backseat Turtle" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-21311684907151750892008-01-11T19:06:00.002-05:002008-05-11T19:28:37.787-04:00Irrational lampooned vacationTwo posts down, I referred to our stay at Motel 6 in El Paso, Texas. It was part of a big family trip in the Summer of 1977. In family lore, it's come to be known as "The Trip Out West." I was 12, and my brother was 8.<br /><br />Said trip was quite the adventure. It was taken in a 1974 Pontiac Grand Safari station wagon, yellow, with - yes - faux wood grain side panels ... our own Wagon Queen Family Truckster! Clamshell style back gate (with power glass), AM/FM radio with the infamous GM in-windshield antenna (read: piss-poor reception), and power windows. Oh, yeah, and - standard equipment on a typical Degenerate Motors vehicle - an oil leak. ("Where's the drip?", I can hear Dad saying)<br /><br />We picnic'ed at roadside parks for lunch, and every day it was the same golldurned thing: Potato chips and deviled-ham sandwiches. Every golldurned day. And since that trip, I cannot even stand the look, sight or smell of deviled ham. I revile the stuff. I'm feeling queasy just thinking about it, I tell you.<br /><br />More than three decades later, I can still remember the exact route we took, where we spent each night, and - in most cases - the name of the motel.<br /><br />We left Tupelo, Mississippi some time in the afternoon, and headed up US-78 toward Memphis, then I-40 into Arkansas. It was already dark as we left Little Rock, and picked up I-30 toward The Big-Ass State That's Like A Whole 'Nuther Country.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Night #1: </span>The Sands Motel in Dallas, Texas. Outside, I sat on the grassy knoll while my brother Zaprudy ran the Super-8 movie camera. Mom and Dad came along in their Grand Safari Truckster. Mom was wearing a pink dress with pillbox hat, and Dad ....<br /><br />Never mind, that's getting a little too morbid. And does that look like Jack Ruby's ghost coming over here to pistol-whip me?<br /><br />I'd better hurry up and grab my textbooks from this "depository" before they run out of the one for my Antisocial Studies class.<br /><br />ANYway........<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Night #2:</span> After a long haul across Texas (borrrrrrr-innng!), we found ourselves in El Paso, and the tiny confines of our Motel 6 room, coin-op TV and all. The next morning saw us doing a tour of Juarez, Mexico.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Night #3:</span> Gallup, New Mexico. I do not remember the name of the motel, but what I do recall was that it was an older property, a tad bit run down, there was a Texaco station out front, and it was on the left side of the road. The interstate ended on each side of town; Gallup had yet to be bypassed. What I didn't know at the time was that the Gleck family was staying in a <span style="font-style: italic;">gen-ewe-ine</span> Route 66 Motel. Ever the crazed road geek, even then, I had no idea the magnitude of roadside history we were part of. In 1977, US-66 was still a real highway (it would be decommissioned in 1985).<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Night #4:</span> Kayenta, Arizona. After a fun-filled day exploring Meteor Crater, and experiencing the Grand Canyon, we were heading toward Four Corners -- the only spot in the U.S. where four states meet. It was getting dark, and we were on a two-lane desert road, the kind where you can see the town damn near 20 miles away before you actually reach it.<br /><br />There weren't many lodging options in the northeast corner of Arizona, and we had no reservations of any kind. Dad was rocketing along the highway, and passed another car that was slow-pokin' along at a leisurely 80 MPH. This becomes important in a minute.<br /><br />As we got toward Kayenta, we noticed that there wasn't much to this settlement. It was a small junction in the road, with a collection of houses, stores ... and a certain motel. We could see the Holiday Inn "Great Sign" miles away -- THIS, FRIENDS, IS WHY HOLIDAY INN WAS STOOOOPID TO GET RID OF THAT THING!! It was a beacon. Dad began rejoicing! That pulsating Great Sign was functioning as it should: a siren call of the roadside.<br /><br />Dad pulled in and got out to see if any rooms were available. There was one. And only one. "But the phone doesn't work", the clerk told him. Dad replied just as I would have had such a scenario presented itself to me: "I DON'T CARE!"<br /><br />As Dad walked out with the key ("she said give it to me, and I'll unlock the door" -er, um, anyway), the car we'd passed earlier pulled into the breezeway right beside us.<br /><br />Sorry, no room at the inn.<br /><br />Kayenta was a weird one -- it looked like a tiny place, no bigger than 1,000 people ... but by golly they had their own Holiday Inn!<br /><br />Had there been no vacancy, we'd have been on the road for at least another two hours -- Durango, Colorado was the next evidence of civilization. And we would've missed the opportunity to see the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Corners_%28United_States%29">Four Corners</a> monument the next morning.<br /><br />The room was good, the TV worked (if memory serves, it could pick up just one channel), the Holiday Inn restaurant didn't disappoint, and then we all slept nicely.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">* to be continued *</span>Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-49148646758756897432008-01-11T12:17:00.001-05:002008-05-11T19:26:48.038-04:00Flavor #6"From a Buick 6" <span style="font-weight: bold;">-Bob Dylan</span><br />"From a Motel 6" <span style="font-weight: bold;">-Tom Bodett</span><br /><br />A couple of thoughts, as they pertain to Motel 6.<br /><br />1) Motel 6 really came into its own after Tom Bodett was tapped as its spokesman.<br /><br />2) His commercials, which ran in the late '80s and into the '90s, were things of beauty. Another "lost composure" moment on the radio involved one such advert.<br /><br />It was the last commercial coming out of a network newscast. The chain had just begun offering a reservation number (curiously, not toll-free), and Bodett was doing a parody of the singing number jingle popularized by Sheraton and Best Western. Bodett began 'singing' the phone number in his classic monotone, and terribly off-key. His close? Instead of the usual "...we'll leave the light on for you", he said "I'm Tom Bodett for Motel 6, and ...... boy, am I embarrassed." I was already having fits of laughter, but that curve-ball at the end sent me over the edge. Thank all that's holy I didn't have anything live to read, that it was straight out of the newscast, into a legal ID (carted jingle) and then the first record. Phew!<br /><br />3) The 'man' shown in the car from the artwork in that 1977 Motel 6 Directory looks an awful lot like a plumped-out, blond George W. Bush.<br /><br />I'm Talmadge Gleck for Flavors 5, and .... boy, am I sick.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-25822045455918359012008-01-11T00:45:00.001-05:002008-05-11T19:26:26.377-04:00Mr. Bodett didn't kill the lady ... it was his mother.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtmmPKdz0z2733eb8oSMNoLYB_d_PcfU18jHnwkZ9qKdL1MrHoX5rHcNbBl33t21Hvwvq3acNpHXpqyeZgSyTNxhJDdnInlGKNAXdoTfh1eHRm1M6Kao_UNh_TsQ4IQyPCIYT/s1600-h/motel6_1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibtmmPKdz0z2733eb8oSMNoLYB_d_PcfU18jHnwkZ9qKdL1MrHoX5rHcNbBl33t21Hvwvq3acNpHXpqyeZgSyTNxhJDdnInlGKNAXdoTfh1eHRm1M6Kao_UNh_TsQ4IQyPCIYT/s400/motel6_1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154108158763376098" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Motel 6. </span> Budget lodging chain. Perennial punchline. So named because, upon its founding in the early '60s, all rooms went for $6.00 a night. Logical enough, yes?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhs0Swmq8trcsbENTpT62y_jbAwO2CW1YCDRa_EIfDh59NH9LGuxaUZFNjDCoeQ6tkp7p0WSB2fWxyezJZrN4t-QzCYrbWIVwdcD_0lE3-1d2UqNBss9Qw8lvWDSnZGf8iXHR0/s1600-h/motel6_2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhs0Swmq8trcsbENTpT62y_jbAwO2CW1YCDRa_EIfDh59NH9LGuxaUZFNjDCoeQ6tkp7p0WSB2fWxyezJZrN4t-QzCYrbWIVwdcD_0lE3-1d2UqNBss9Qw8lvWDSnZGf8iXHR0/s400/motel6_2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154108231777820146" border="0" /></a>The first time I'd ever stayed in a Motel 6 was during our family trip out west in July of 1977. It was in El Paso, Texas, and by then inflation had caught up with the 6'ers: rooms now went for $8.95 a night ($10.95 double). No credit cards or checks of any kind were honored, either. Cash only.<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span>The above scans are from the 1977 Motel 6 directory, a copy of which I procured while here.<br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span>The two things I remember the most about the room were the TV and the "Magic Fingers" box on the middle table, next to the phone.<br /><br />By the '70s, nearly all motels offered color TVs without extra charge. Never mind that the color on those sets boggled the mind -- we're talking purples where reds should be, oranges where you'd expect a nice yellow shade. I remember seeing a magazine advert for Motel 6 in the late '70s, lampooning the off-kilter nature of the lowly, abused motel color TV. Motel 6 had a novel solution to this problem, too: they didn't have color sets. As late as 1980, Motel 6 had BLACK & WHITE televisions in all of their rooms.<br /><br />But wait, there's more. Mounted to the side of these B/W Admirals was <span style="font-style: italic;">a coin box</span>. And that's why Motel 6 could get away with charging such a low nightly rate. You had to pay to watch the TV (I seem to recall it being 25 cents per half-hour), and unless you wanted to miss the first minutes of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Bob Newhart Show</span>, you had to feed 'er another quarter before the end of <span style="font-style: italic;">Mary Tyler Moore</span>. Dad was <u>not</u> a happy camper.<br /><br />Dad parted with a 25-cent piece, and the TV sprang to life. It was tuned to a station from across the border, and suddenly another language filled our teeny-tiny Bodett Boudoir. I looked up, and saw a commercial for Kent Cigarettes. Obviously, one could still advertise coffin-nails on TV stations in <span style="font-style: italic;">meh-he-coh</span>.<br /><br />I had a quarter on my person, but I was more fixated on the Magic Fingers machine. I wanted to make that bed shake, rattle and roll like two people screwing each other silly as if they were hyperactive weasels in a Cuisinart. But I wanted my brother off the bed before I did that. I might be from Alabama, but I ain't <u>that</u> perverted.<br /><br />I dropped a quarter into the box, anxiously awaiting a fate that would soon befall Clark & Ellen Griswold. The quarter dropped. I heard a hollow <span style="font-style: italic;">*clunk!*</span>, as if it were a piggy bank. That thing had no freakin' innards! So I had to eat my Arby's roast beef sandwich (yes, I remember what we had that night) on a static mattress with more lumps than Wile E. Coyote after an ACME product backfired.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGeiZ99gcpnKLHWH8yTEvBrRiL9CCGHyAErSlb8HbASDE43PaiPeEgCcarspn0IcaAWLatl2chOtMk-fAIOWXMWOP5OUzVSZsm3kptycpd9KLR9Alcqg02Gg6seLqwAZefgepB/s1600-h/Motel6_1977.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGeiZ99gcpnKLHWH8yTEvBrRiL9CCGHyAErSlb8HbASDE43PaiPeEgCcarspn0IcaAWLatl2chOtMk-fAIOWXMWOP5OUzVSZsm3kptycpd9KLR9Alcqg02Gg6seLqwAZefgepB/s400/Motel6_1977.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154098130014739890" border="0" /></a>Here's a picture from the next morning, as we were about to make a side trip into Juarez, Mexico (bought a wooden chess set down there, which I still have ... <span style="font-style: italic;">in a box somewhere</span> ...). I'm the one on the right.<br /><br />Amazingly enough, Motel 6 locations had swimming pools. Although I'm surprised they didn't have coin boxes, either. I think you had to pay 25 cents if you wanted to pee in the pool -- very astute bidness folk these Motel 6 innkeepers, they wanted to cash in on the "pay toilet" craze. How dare you circumvent the regular bathroom rate??<br /><br />Yes, Motel 6. After that experience, Dad refused to go near another one. 31 years later, you can't drag him within two statute miles of a Motel 6 property! It took me awhile myself, but I eventually gave it another chance. In 1990. By then, the TV was color, and there was actually more than one set of towels in the bathroom. Motel 6, indeed, is spartan -- which is the whole point, anyway. When I'm traveling alone, I'm an incredible cheapskate about lodging. I ask of nothing from a motel except a clean bed, a clean shower and a clean set of towels.<br /><br />I must say that I haven't had a bad experience at a Motel 6 in my adult life. And it should be noted that most of 'em are company-owned. Meaning, no corner-cutting by a staff seemingly more interested in brewin' another container of curry than making sure their paying guests are comfortable and happy.<br /><br />*********<br />So, what got me thinking about Motel 6? It was an old e-mail which I found this evening. It's called <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Top 10 failed slogans for MOTEL 6"</span> .... (my favorite is #5). Here we go:<br /><br />10) Because you deserve better than the backseat of a car<br /><br />9) As seen on "COPS"<br /><br />8) If we'd known you were staying all night, we'd have changed the sheets.<br /><br />7) We left off the "9" but you know it's there.<br /><br />6) Sure you could stay at a nicer place, but then you wouldn't have money for the hooker.<br /><br />5) We'll leave the Lysol for ya.<br /><br />4) Not just for nooners any more.<br /><br />3) It's hookerific!!<br /><br />2) Blurring the line between stains and avant-garde sheet art since 1962<br /><br />And the number one failed slogan for Motel 6?<br /><br />1) We put the "HO" in hotel.<br /><br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Light done burned out" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-9810748921062547592007-12-19T20:53:00.002-05:002008-05-11T19:34:44.370-04:00Route 301: Episode 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJMzW2PIVSUyZLtI8UxdsiV6yvKos1kBPEsi0qw4iIE0cum8F2U_bHzEbUDEdei8nXxBTfW16gDovns2ONc0R2NSMfBP7a8xRICO9mNB9N5XMIF9I7zr6VwT8ZuVDtDXmJvOX/s1600-h/301shield.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQJMzW2PIVSUyZLtI8UxdsiV6yvKos1kBPEsi0qw4iIE0cum8F2U_bHzEbUDEdei8nXxBTfW16gDovns2ONc0R2NSMfBP7a8xRICO9mNB9N5XMIF9I7zr6VwT8ZuVDtDXmJvOX/s200/301shield.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145869153064229986" border="0" /></a>A QUEEN FARTIN' PRODUCTION! STARRING TALMADGE GLECK AS "BUZZ", AND SERAPHIM GLECK AS "LIZZ", TWO COMMON FOLK TRAVERSING "THE OTHER MOTHER ROAD" IN A VINYL-TOP '67 AMC AMBASSADOR, GETTING INTO ALL SORTS OF ADVENTURES AND TRYING TO OUTWIT THEIR ARCH-NEMESIS, DEPUTY EARL OF <a href="http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Multimedia.jsp?id=m-8835">LUDOWICI</a>.<br /><br />TONIGHT'S EPISODE: "LOBSTER TALES"!! ..... BROUGHT TO YOU BY SUPER-CHARGED AND SUPER-LEADED GOOD GULF "NO-NOX" GASOLINE. IF THIS GAS HAD ANY MORE LEAD IN IT, IT'D BE FROM CHINA! PREMIUM-PRICED AT 35 CENTS A GALLON, TOO. ONLY AT YOUR GULF DEALER!<br />= = = = = = = = =<br />The town: Allendale, South Carolina. One of many towns bisected by "Old 301", food and lodging meccas along a thriving "short cut to Florida." The passage of the Interstate Highway Act in 1956 spelled eventual downfall for most small burgs like Allendale which soon would become bypassed when the interstate highways were to be finished. Some towns had the fortune of being along the planned routing of these new highways. Alas, the same could not be said for motels and many restaurants in places like Allendale, Bamberg, Sylvania and Glennville. Their days were numbered.<br /><br />Some towns were cut off as quickly as the late '50s, and began to wither on the vine into the 1960s. Fortunately for 301 (if more inconvenient for travelers who wanted to get to point-B quicker), the completion of I-95 through South Carolina and Georgia was late in coming. Allendale, et al, therefore had a lot more borrowed time, as the last link of 95 wasn't opened until 1978!<br /><br />Shall we take a nice siesta?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8G9dopFE8PejNEl5jMwRnWbcchIYs3obR0y2_ym4ZoszrgaOZp-85-DRAZrrGlC9YKLBm9AdsUgdcRfehU5IFz8n7iqZYCqogdU99ILEss-DtqK-AX42OGz0YvW8xL9UxZ39/s1600-h/SiestaMotel.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-8G9dopFE8PejNEl5jMwRnWbcchIYs3obR0y2_ym4ZoszrgaOZp-85-DRAZrrGlC9YKLBm9AdsUgdcRfehU5IFz8n7iqZYCqogdU99ILEss-DtqK-AX42OGz0YvW8xL9UxZ39/s400/SiestaMotel.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145875883277982866" border="0" /></a>If you were a truck driver, and used 301 as your route to points southward, I'm sure you found the "Interstate Truck Terminal" outside Allendale as an appealing place to have a bite to eat, maybe a refreshing shower, and a tank of Pure "Super Energee" Diesel for your 18-wheeler:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDIz4rOOJ8O4Sbs0SLUlLySej69svYpfJOH0XGlh2C_76OQFOXPRCzmWfg3UUAL8wQW7wyISI9wi9I8MZUiu6rdNXtoHDX5juwHkBpISYEqekjmLYTCSf-RDbOF-g77qASYoK/s1600-h/interstate_purets.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdDIz4rOOJ8O4Sbs0SLUlLySej69svYpfJOH0XGlh2C_76OQFOXPRCzmWfg3UUAL8wQW7wyISI9wi9I8MZUiu6rdNXtoHDX5juwHkBpISYEqekjmLYTCSf-RDbOF-g77qASYoK/s400/interstate_purets.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145877742998822082" border="0" /></a>Above is the aptly-named Interstate truck stop, pictured in a 1963 Pure Oil directory. Nowadays, it doesn't look so good:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSe8wAGBFLFf6J1AYT8tYrsubCaaaI9GrQWfwkIi5yjRjb0J2ch8pUWeso3ARBMa0Qq7pjtxLGuWg48uKvqB6u9Gz0jCVuA92YICdEAu6CQBK0RqQagpyki3XoGkjz3NDXlro/s1600-h/Interstate_today.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtSe8wAGBFLFf6J1AYT8tYrsubCaaaI9GrQWfwkIi5yjRjb0J2ch8pUWeso3ARBMa0Qq7pjtxLGuWg48uKvqB6u9Gz0jCVuA92YICdEAu6CQBK0RqQagpyki3XoGkjz3NDXlro/s400/Interstate_today.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145879177517898962" border="0" /></a>So, what killed this truck stop? What a profoundly sad irony, eh?<br /><br />Just like up the road a piece in <a href="http://talgleck.blogspot.com/2007/06/rotting-places-mournful-faces.html">Santee</a>, the town of Allendale is another "Radiator Springs" overflowing with decaying reminders of an earlier time. It used to have its own Holiday Inn. And the town was home to a certain orange-roofed roadside icon:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTI28-Rs1GydltNPwL5ZKfOEo1o7R16PPa_gzJkEn6MP-BsbLuri2gjd_2pK6g26BIlPYpsWGwoSleVti4f51WRLouDzkgNmDnpollfUdEb_NP0t0wMgAeawPHIhyphenhyphenb24mkbTp/s1600-h/HoJos-60s.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTI28-Rs1GydltNPwL5ZKfOEo1o7R16PPa_gzJkEn6MP-BsbLuri2gjd_2pK6g26BIlPYpsWGwoSleVti4f51WRLouDzkgNmDnpollfUdEb_NP0t0wMgAeawPHIhyphenhyphenb24mkbTp/s400/HoJos-60s.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145877176063138978" border="0" /></a>In 2006, here's how it looked:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLMCwO6DZJkiHaPTfqCj_p18OZKg_OPpu57Mk4IHS_MtNVVRd0KkRyj2nbHWZfPzYX0zt40JqV6oT36orSFjrPoQbLsPKB4wwqlkhfH8IaImkuvEp1U-NqrJnrS2uMs-5zbTsX/s1600-h/HoJos_today.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLMCwO6DZJkiHaPTfqCj_p18OZKg_OPpu57Mk4IHS_MtNVVRd0KkRyj2nbHWZfPzYX0zt40JqV6oT36orSFjrPoQbLsPKB4wwqlkhfH8IaImkuvEp1U-NqrJnrS2uMs-5zbTsX/s400/HoJos_today.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145877506775620786" border="0" /></a>Simple Simon and Pieman have both moved on.<br /><br />* * * * * * * * *<br />Now, you might've been passing through Allendale around mealtime, and found yourself captivated by the really cool neon sign outside of this restaurant:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU2X51Q6IJctFwbwOtmz-dZtZwWWoH5gK4zOE_OjDUCcCV9CRm4YFyWWUoXErVgRLmp4FdiVqPFiCvQwJPcOzt8gMKrxYnruWdbVGpLe0fTKxSgTJLK6HAFi0dlHV8S0MH0FZ4/s1600-h/LobsterHouse-60s.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU2X51Q6IJctFwbwOtmz-dZtZwWWoH5gK4zOE_OjDUCcCV9CRm4YFyWWUoXErVgRLmp4FdiVqPFiCvQwJPcOzt8gMKrxYnruWdbVGpLe0fTKxSgTJLK6HAFi0dlHV8S0MH0FZ4/s400/LobsterHouse-60s.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145880182540246242" border="0" /></a>Approved by AAA and recommended by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Hines">Duncan Hines</a> back in those salad days, the Lobster House provided a good seafood experience as a prelude to what the traveler would find in even greater abundance in Florida.<br /><br />And today?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZvX0phfvz-PCCqCcfurMNoVrdD91GNx5iWOzwR-biEBQMKZfgjTB2lqb-IZTQOnj3hFLYflQqF389_fTZwu1hOXQ6JY3qDdZn-jTCMX2d_qV-P9nqVe1JLGZ_WDVuMVNriIFh/s1600-h/LobsterHouse_today1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZvX0phfvz-PCCqCcfurMNoVrdD91GNx5iWOzwR-biEBQMKZfgjTB2lqb-IZTQOnj3hFLYflQqF389_fTZwu1hOXQ6JY3qDdZn-jTCMX2d_qV-P9nqVe1JLGZ_WDVuMVNriIFh/s400/LobsterHouse_today1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145880762360831218" border="0" /></a>The sign, though weatherbeaten, remains. And although it looked to be closed the day we passed through town, the Lobster House appears to still be in operation, if various online references are any indication (including one "motorcycle club" which meets here).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6E_p_3doLkv3ODkEC_Glk4aqjcBkrCn7gD5cCcwBPVZe8LLAyXIwsVw9au0aPUXmSZkPwjAX2glvMvb1nTtQ94arLSYF8NBSvMldBGdQPHAUzYpqZtXseQLTQyf9Xjt5Gl9ge/s1600-h/LobsterHouse_today2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6E_p_3doLkv3ODkEC_Glk4aqjcBkrCn7gD5cCcwBPVZe8LLAyXIwsVw9au0aPUXmSZkPwjAX2glvMvb1nTtQ94arLSYF8NBSvMldBGdQPHAUzYpqZtXseQLTQyf9Xjt5Gl9ge/s400/LobsterHouse_today2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145882845419969794" border="0" /></a>Note to self: find out for sure ... and if The Lobster House is still in business, it would make for a nice day trip and lunch one Saturday. If so, then it'll be worth the drive, because if the food isn't good, it wouldn't be supported by the only remaining clientele base: the LOCALS.<br /><br />Greetings from the old highway. Having a great time, wish it all were still here.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Retro Wayfarer" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-77345901859071464952007-12-17T21:28:00.001-05:002008-05-11T19:35:18.137-04:001962 A.D., Paradise Restaurant<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>For the benefit of anyone who might have half a curiosity about the picture I'm currently using for the title graphic, it's the abandoned <span style="font-weight: bold;">Paradise Restaurant</span> ... located in south Screven County, Georgia at the intersection of Georgia 17 and U.S. 301. It's one of many, <span style="font-style: italic;">many</span> such empty and decaying relics along what used to be a thriving East coast arterial. And Highway 301, dearfolk, was just as busy and robust as a certain over-commercialized Chicago-to-L.A. corridor we're all familiar with.<br /><br />Well, here's the above picture (which I took in the Spring of 2006) "in the clear", as we in the radio bidness like to say:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgVhlLULwlENxkCVtRuygOoky-8Tt14YvnmoRUS7_o0FbmIIVitgPE0kx6jMM3ZRcbCTMKn3_A3-9Y4ai3RiXtoQJEVhYuN5m61mGb89hyphenhyphen_K-8t8oJXYE9GOsq9UOQUMZP-Mv/s1600-h/Syl-ParadiseRest.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXgVhlLULwlENxkCVtRuygOoky-8Tt14YvnmoRUS7_o0FbmIIVitgPE0kx6jMM3ZRcbCTMKn3_A3-9Y4ai3RiXtoQJEVhYuN5m61mGb89hyphenhyphen_K-8t8oJXYE9GOsq9UOQUMZP-Mv/s400/Syl-ParadiseRest.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145137136018168866" border="0" /></a>The Paradise is located in a pecan grove (and that's pronounced "PEE-can"), adjacent to a motel which also shares this name. In its prime, both served as an oasis of sorts along 301 between the cities of Sylvania and Statesboro. Evidently, this was the second building to house this eatery. Plenty of old, linen postcards abound on the 'net which show the original structure. I'd been looking in vain for one that showed this building. Lo and behold, I finally found one:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3OT-XdIGEn2wxt61GzOtw-qvi0baIHn5kTGn7gtoFlaHAk1EsSm44m9E1Io0qTLwyaE4WY1LpDcRpE3utdZswnoEc2pCV0BbFmqpKCq38DO-x6M64IZt5jd8VevkttlXIz4mq/s1600-h/Paradise1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3OT-XdIGEn2wxt61GzOtw-qvi0baIHn5kTGn7gtoFlaHAk1EsSm44m9E1Io0qTLwyaE4WY1LpDcRpE3utdZswnoEc2pCV0BbFmqpKCq38DO-x6M64IZt5jd8VevkttlXIz4mq/s400/Paradise1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5145139210487372850" border="0" /></a>It's postmarked 1962. Okay, so it still had the old sign. Don't you just love that orange and teal color scheme?? And those hanging light fixtures visible through the plate-glass windows.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span>Yeah, yeah, it's these times when I wish I was 52 instead of 42. To have been able to experience a lot more of real Americana first-hand.<br /><br />Okay, here's the deal: if Seraphim and I win Powerball, we're gonna buy this place and return it to her beautiful original space-age grandeur. That neon sign out front, by gollydurn, is gonna have every last tube restored, and it will again flash a siren call along US-301's roadside.<br /><br />All this time, I've been bitching and moaning about the lack of a good artery-constrictin' Friday night fried seafood buffet around here. Well, I'd make one happen.<br /><br />There might not be as many Florida-bound tourists along this two-lane blacktop, however we'll bring 'em in from Statesboro, Millen, Sylvania, Newington, Springfield, Waynesboro .... if you build it, they will come. I have to know I'm not the only one craving a good Friday night seafood spread.<br /><br />The Paradise will come back to life. And it will become highly-renowned for its cakes, pastries and other baked goods. I happen to know somebody who tinkers a little with cake-makin' on the side. I share a bed with her.<br /><br />And, in the event Nettiemac wants to join us, we'll offer The Paradise Tiki Room in the back.<br /><br />It doesn't hurt to dream. It really doesn't.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> "And so, my friends, we'll say goodnight,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> for time has claimed his prize,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> but tonight can always last,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> as long as we keep alive,</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> the mem'ries of Paradise</span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>"<br />--<span style="font-weight: bold;">Dennis DeYoung</span>, Styx<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Recommended by Duncan Hines" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-84255850178545161662007-11-14T22:11:00.001-05:002008-05-11T19:40:16.925-04:00Nightmare in Studio 54<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsrmT2Ft7ONSs0l1F8E2KZD2Ng6GP3uK4t9mBTkOTPfiBVndWkba0jrV8P8c-_9CEumAeZrxgu526bznkZkWfnQ7X95qkbb1OsMWhpbRShyDXLB8k2EyO3c8CEFeFsdMUwdfxZ/s1600-h/ford_1980demo.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsrmT2Ft7ONSs0l1F8E2KZD2Ng6GP3uK4t9mBTkOTPfiBVndWkba0jrV8P8c-_9CEumAeZrxgu526bznkZkWfnQ7X95qkbb1OsMWhpbRShyDXLB8k2EyO3c8CEFeFsdMUwdfxZ/s400/ford_1980demo.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5132871996994945890" border="0" /></a>And then there was Ford tape #5. It's an RCA sampler, dated 1980, apparently before Big Corporate Interests acknowledged that, yes, contemporary music was here to stay and wouldn't be going away any time soon.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">WARNING:</span><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"> I highly recommend giving any recently-eaten meal ample time for digestion before reading any further. I'm not responsible for any gastric discomfort on a full stomach. </span><br /><br />This is so off-the-chart horrible that it should be repackaged by RHINO for a cousin to its <span style="font-style: italic;">Golden Throats</span> anthologies.<br /><br />Y'ready?<br /><br /><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">PROGRAM ONE</span></u><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span> (man, talk about retro!)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NARRATION -- INTRODUCTION</span> (this will be going to MP3 shortly and distributed to the "inner circle" via standard e-mail)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />NICKELS AND DIMES / Dolly Parton</span><br />In 1977, Dolly had two of the biggest hits on the country chart.<br /><br />Read that again. Slowly.<br /><br />Ahem, no chart action here ... just spare change filler from her 1978 <span style="font-style: italic;">Heartbreaker</span> LP.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />ELEANOR RIGBY / Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops Orchestra</span><br />It was not about the music. It was about the models on the album covers, and nothing else. Any conductor who would <a href="http://i9.ebayimg.com/04/i/000/b6/42/e6f8_1.JPG">wear a "U.S. Olympic Drinking Team" sweatshirt</a> on an album cover should be expected to do the unexpected. He victimized every artist out there, and even The Beatles had to take their lumps, too.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">GREASE / Living Disco</span><br />This was the first I'd ever heard of Living Disco. RCA gave us the sound that killed a million cats when they unveiled The Living Strings ... there was also The Living Guitars ... The Living Voices ... and, I guess, Living Disco. Grease is still the word. This is the version I'm sure Principal McGee would've preferred playing in the hallowed halls of Rydell High.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">WHAT I FEEL IS YOU / Dave & Sugar</span><br />The door is always open ... just hit 'eject' and put in that Styx cassette instead. "What I Feel" was yet another filler cut from what no doubt was a filler LP. From the cut-out bin to your cassette player.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MUSIC BOX DANCER / The Living Strings Plus Two Pianos</span><br />As if Frank Mills' original wasn't MOR enough. Oh yeah, that's right -- Mills recorded for POLYDOR, and this was an RCA collection. Best of all, they added two pie-nanners to all the lushness. Bless their 81-key hearts.<br /><br />By now you're probably wondering, <span style="font-style: italic;">"If this is RCA, then where in bleedin' hay-dees is the Floyd Cramer??"</span> Uh-uh-uh-UH, Nipper -- don't touch that Victrola! We're not halfway through this tape yet.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">TRAGEDY / Living Disco</span><br />No comment.<br /><br />SO no comment.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AMAZING GRACE / Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Poops</span><br />It's better when played on an E-flat Drano can, a/k/a Your basic set of bagpipes. Or if sung with passion and soul by Rod Stewart (<span style="font-style: italic;">Every Picture Tells a Story</span>, 1971)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">UNCLE ALBERT/ADMIRAL HALSEY / Hugo Montenegro & His Orchestra</span><br />"We're so sorry", indeed.<br /><br /><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">PROGRAM TWO</span></u><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ROSSINI: WILLIAM TELL OVERTURE / Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Flops</span><br />Classical music for people not cultured enough to appreciate <u>real</u> classical music.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THANK YOU GOD FOR ONE MORE DAY / Odyssey</span><br />One for the youngsters. Odyssey was a black disco act best-known for their one-hit wonder "Native New Yorker." This song? More filler, sucker. Go buy the album.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MORNING HAS BROKEN / The Living Strings Plus Two Pianos</span><br />We're sorry, but morning has broken. Therefore, we're substituting afternoon. Hopefully we'll have it fixed by dawn tomorrow.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">BOREL-CLERC: LA SORELLA MARCH / Arthur Treacher & The Boston Pisces</span><br />More dumbed-down classical. Longhair music with a "Toni" home perm.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SEASONS IN THE SUN / Floyd Cramer</span><br />What part of "RCA compilation" didn't you get?? Yup, here's Mr. Last Date himself, interpreting a page from the Rod McKuen book of poetry (and I hope that <a href="http://www.mckuen.com/flights/020699.htm">new roof</a> started leaking very quickly!). <span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ORANGE BLOSSOM SPECIAL / Danny Davis & The Nashville Brass</span><br />Yeah, boy. Brass, and, since this is "Nashville", we gotta throw in a banjo or two for credibility. Crank this up in your F-150 and go yee-haw.<br /><br />Why are the farm animals getting so nervous all of a sudden?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SEND IN THE CLOWNS / The Living Strings</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">DON'T BOTHER. THEY'RE HERE. </span><br /><br />"Send in the cats" -- second violin on the fourth row needs another D-string.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">DO YOU WANNA MAKE LOVE / Jim Ed Brown & Helen Cornelius</span><br />Out of all the lightweight '70s pop, I would never have expected this one-hit wonder by Peter McCann to be performed in a C&W setting. (Jim Ed Brown, incidentally, hailed from Pine Bluff, Ark, and his family group The Browns started their career at KCLA radio. Talmadge Gleck also started his adult career working at KCLA. Co-winky-dink? Probably not.)<br /><br />And yes, the song was terrible. I think I'd rather "just fool around"; there's not an Arby's in sight.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I WILL SURVIVE / Living Disco</span><br />My vote for best cover of this Gloria Gaynor disco classic goes to the band <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cake</span>.<br /><br />And that's it. If anyone's interested, e-mail me and I'll see what I can do.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Living Blogger" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-72155136185885777222007-11-14T20:58:00.001-05:002008-05-11T19:39:55.275-04:00Ford has a better musical ideaJust when you thought I'd forgotten about my incredible cassetterriffic find last Saturday at the Salvation Army in Bluffton....<br /><br />There were many Ford "Demonstration Tapes" produced throughout the '80s and into the '90s, most of them 'samplers' put out by the big record label groups, usually part of their 'special products' line. There were even such compilations on 8-track for those leisure-suit'ed souls to shove into that big hole in the dash while driving their new '75 Galaxie Country Squire, faux-woodgrain side panels and all, off the lot.<br /><br />Five such tapes went home with moi. In addition to the first tape which caught my eye ("Stereo for the '80s" -- which deserves a separate post, just you wait!), there were some later-day compilations. Three of 'em are ARISTA samplers. A 1991-era tape reads like a who's-who of Adult Contemporary oatmeal. Taylor Dayne, Hall & Oates, Aretha Franklin, Carly Simon, and -- "one of these things is not like the other" -- a 1982 Alan Parsons album cut from <span style="font-style: italic;">Eye in the Sky</span> ("Mammagamma").<br /><br />All of those later-day tape compilations, including the ca. 1985 tape my grandmother had, were on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loran_%28cassette%29">LORAN</a> cassettes. The tape stock wasn't anything to write home about, but Loran's selling point was its "Lexan Thermoplastic" tape housing, supposedly more resistant to extreme hot temperatures in a car.<br /><br />But -- as always -- I digress. Another of the ARISTA collections, this from 1990, contained Kenny G's "Going Home" (which brought back my own days playing Pine Bluff's midday answer to John Tesh on KOTN) .... plus Lisa Stansfield's "You Can't Deny It." And, in case you can't get enough of Kenny G's house-rockin' saxophone (Delilah and her steely-dan live for it, I'm certain), there's another track: "I'll Never Leave You." That's what I was afraid of.<br /><br />That tape was from <span style="font-style: italic;">Ford Electronics: Technology With a Purpose.</span> Ya don't say. If there's anything I cannot stand, it's technology without any kind of rationale behind it. On the spine, it reads <span style="font-weight: bold;">"Music System Reference Standard."</span> Yeah, sure. Look, people, it wasn't a high-end Nakamichi or Alpine deck you were listening on, it was a stock Ford OEM factory receiver. Stick it there, and listen to the lo-fi sound while running down the battery in your Tempo as you're on the side of the interstate waiting ... patiently ... patiently? ... for AAA. Seriously, Ford could've put their demo tapes on 3-for-99¢ "Concertapes", and the average Joe Schmo listening on his sputtering '91 Tore-Ups--um, Taurus would be none the wiser.<br /><br />Back to the point at hand, here's another ARISTA tape, circa 1988. This was the kind of eclectic mix I remember from my grandmother's tape. "Back to the Future" by The Outatime Orchestra. And remember the '88 olympics and Twitney Houston's "One Moment in Time"? I wish I could still forget. Well, it's on here. Also, more Kenny G (I'll pause while the soccer-moms all faint and swoon behind the wheels of their minivans -- Ford Aerostars, of course). Other curios: "Jamaica, Jamaica" by Special EFX ... "In the Mood" by The Cincinnati Pops Orchestra/Erich Kunzel (sorry, no chickens) ... Satchmo's "What a Wonderful World" ... and, for the youngsters on our <span style="font-style: italic;">rrrrrrrreally big shew</span>, Swing Out Sister's 1987 fluff-pop hit "Breakout."<br /><br />Had enough of ARISTA? Me, too. I'll close this post with the lineup from a 1987 Ford demo tape from CBS Special Products.<br /><br /><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">SIDE A</span></u><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SOMEWHERE / Barbra Streisand</span><br />...is that tow truck. I've counted the number of button-copy reflectors in that big green sign in front of me. Twice.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">HEADED FOR THE FUTURE / Neil Diamond</span><br />....thanks to being witnessed by Brother Love. Hal-lay-lew-ah.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I GOT LOST IN HER ARMS / Tony Bennett</span><br />Can't go wrong with Tony.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU DON'T WANT ME / Rosanne Cash</span><br />That's what the Tempo kept asking me in 1993, when I was car shopping.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">LIVING IN THE PROMISELAND / Willie Nelson</span><br />A reliable Tempo? Or in a false sense of security that the jackbooted IRS thugs won't find him?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FOOLISH HEART / Steve Perry</span><br />A true 1984 adult contemporary flashback!<br /><br /><u><span style="font-weight: bold;">SIDE B</span></u><span style="font-weight: bold;">:</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FOREVER / Kenny Loggins</span><br />That was Jim Messina's answer when Kenny asked how long he'd keep Kenny's balls?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OH SHERRIE / Steve Perry</span><br />No, this does not have baggage. You-know-who <u>d-e-t-e-s-t-e-d</u> this song. All it took to make the woman apoplectic was to say, <span style="font-style: italic;">"Y'shoulda been gooooone!" </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">VOICES CARRY / Til Tuesday</span><br />I've always loved this song. A great '80s piece of power pop.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">COURTSHIP / Bob James</span><br />In an '88 Taurus, broken down on the side of a lonely country road, just think of how much "courtship" can take place. Horsey sauce, anyone?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">RESTHATHERIAN - THEME FROM <span style="font-style: italic;">THE COSBY SHOW</span> / Grover Washington</span><br />Thursday night already? Damn, that tow truck is takin' forever......<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">OLYMPIC FANFARE AND THEME / John Williams</span><br />Ford Audio Systems. The official punch-line of the 1988 Olympics.<br /><br />Comin' up ... a long distance dedication from Harvey, in a stalled Mercury Topaz outside of Inez, Kentucky, to Reuben at Wildcat Texaco in Paintsville ... <span style="font-style: italic;">"put down that ALE-8-1 and come give me a tow!"</span><br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Tempo Tapeworm" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-27467456966362229922007-11-10T20:04:00.002-05:002008-05-11T19:38:59.337-04:00Talmadge's Thrifty Treasure Trawl - TwoAhhhhh, Saturday. What to do?<br /><br />Easy. Seraphim and I made a sojourn across the river to Hardeeville to get Kitt's oil changed (the dealer does the first one free). Hard to believe it's already been nearly 4,000 miles we've traveled in her ... no, wait. That's about normal. We put lots of miles on our two carriages.<br /><br />Well, after Kitt's crankcase enema, we took advantage of our proximity to Bluffton's Golden Corral -- far better than the mediocre GC we have in Savannah. There's rumor of Rincon getting one. We can only hope. Now, if only we can get a @#$%ing IHOP in our neighborhood. Please?<br /><br />And after a most satisfying lunch, the two of us made a little side trip to the Salvation Army thrift store just down 278 from the 'Corral. Not much to speak of here, except for some curios I found in a cassette rack. For one:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtskUM-1v37M8IEKBTdMEfnoegyhn_ztNmMs0R0DiHdGLwQydbS_Cs5_BYbwheMLcwz-7wlTpExXGb5D36sNKsBni4k_CPj2kTUTh9XCSZ69Q3jMGgVW9Lvk-xfqty8NsEcaVp/s1600-h/ford_80s_spine.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtskUM-1v37M8IEKBTdMEfnoegyhn_ztNmMs0R0DiHdGLwQydbS_Cs5_BYbwheMLcwz-7wlTpExXGb5D36sNKsBni4k_CPj2kTUTh9XCSZ69Q3jMGgVW9Lvk-xfqty8NsEcaVp/s400/ford_80s_spine.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131384480777816946" border="0" /></a>It spoke to me. And I heard its voice. It said <span style="font-style: italic;">"Taaaaaaalmadge. Saaaaave me. Rescue me from this salvatory purgatory." </span><br /><br />I looked further. And I found a total of five (5) such Ford cassette (pronounce: CASS-ette) tapes.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9KFAAk_nAmyLEPJYtjHOYav3jWThBwAxUZJsspqvDWUPbibrefB6m3QB2NQFHf3a4oLW1S9-N8rxBFRkQqeYEYL-xIOebjvT_3-6zmbTl7RI1lzU4KrgFpOlcRTCfbwAJK7c7/s1600-h/cassette_pile2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9KFAAk_nAmyLEPJYtjHOYav3jWThBwAxUZJsspqvDWUPbibrefB6m3QB2NQFHf3a4oLW1S9-N8rxBFRkQqeYEYL-xIOebjvT_3-6zmbTl7RI1lzU4KrgFpOlcRTCfbwAJK7c7/s400/cassette_pile2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131385056303434626" border="0" /></a>You remember cassettes ... don't you? They were about the size of your average iPod, except for being analog, storing far less amounts of music, and its uncanny ability to occasionally puke brown ribbons of retarded silly string whenever they got sick.<br /><br />Somebody from the area (could it have been that goat from the O.C. Welch commercials?) dropped off these "demonstration" tapes at the Salvation Army. And I decided, at the price of 25 cents per each, they were all going home with Talmadge. (PS to Bolivar: <span style="font-style: italic;">"That one's going home with Franklin!"</span>)<br /><br />Ford included these tapes with all new cars which had cassette decks installed. I remember one which Gran Lera had in her '86 Crown Vic station wagon (a/k/a "The Q.E. II"). Evidently other automakers did the same thing. Seraphim told me one came with her Hyundai Excel years ago. What I remember about the one GL had was that it contained samples of everything from classical to hard rock.<br /><br />So, what about the cassette-equipped Ford head units? You know, the contraption containing the rectangular orifice into which you inserted the tape.........<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQnlwEuizbJUwOhYFy8ROymLVE5Uws6hycLKHWX7WfLPEK9P2N1wUzCKeIL6rnO27ktVknJGOwU971-plXzEkO2yCIcVtNAEsk9ykL3mL_YX52B5YrcqD6tdiWK3UK8EBG2bBu/s1600-h/pos_ford_oem.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQnlwEuizbJUwOhYFy8ROymLVE5Uws6hycLKHWX7WfLPEK9P2N1wUzCKeIL6rnO27ktVknJGOwU971-plXzEkO2yCIcVtNAEsk9ykL3mL_YX52B5YrcqD6tdiWK3UK8EBG2bBu/s400/pos_ford_oem.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131385245281995666" border="0" /></a>Above is Ford's basic stereo radio/cassette deck, circa 1984-1992. A/K/A <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFWbHs419qo">"KICKIN' SOUND SYSTEM!"</a> And, having experienced this very model on a couple of different occasions, I can tell you that were you to have pulled it out and replaced it with the cheapest aftermarket unit you could find (rhymes with "Craig"), you'd be making a dramatic improvement in your sound experience.<br /><br />And the frequency display on Mom's '86 T-bird and Dad's '87 Bronco -- both with the same type of factory unit seen above -- eventually burned out! <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />"So what station are we listenin' to again, Bubba?"</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"I dunno. Our luck, it's that commie NPR stuff."</span><br /><br />The tape deck's range was pathetic ... middling high-end, and hardly any bass. Trust me. I bought LPs back then (CDs beginning in 1986), and dubbed 'em onto <a href="http://www.2ndrec.com/blog/2005/10/24/cassettes/">TDK "SA"</a> or Maxell "XL-II" chrome tapes, the Coke & Pepsi dual standard, for listening while in the car. Both tapes offered far superior dynamic range, even recording with a budget-line Realistic component tape deck, to the laughably horrid tape stock found on prerecorded tape albums.<br /><br />The TDK and Maxell tapes (I leaned Maxell) shined in my car's Pioneer SuperTuner-III deck. Boy, that thing was a beauty. Great radio reception, too.<br /><br />But those same tapes didn't sound so well when played in my mother's Thunderbird. Dad, though, was driving an '84 GMC Jimmy prior to buying the Bronco. The Delco tape deck in the Jimmy was quite good. GM radios, in general, could hold their own. Dunno about Chrysler. But Ford's radios from the late '70s into the 1990s were awful.<br /><br />Fortunately, it appears that FoMoCo got on the ball. I rather like the audio system in our '08 Escape.<br /><br />*********<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8eBIUcia55wF9MEukNm3A8iXVOKk1Mn3olJ74uMpj8P1PXgDJYg7Ku1PZXPQTSd959H4etGu6G7sfHIjl5tQLBJaE7fLXqT0o2cYhf30UBKXJEE8KyUrNwu3Pxq_WUwzSGkpb/s1600-h/cass_2pack.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8eBIUcia55wF9MEukNm3A8iXVOKk1Mn3olJ74uMpj8P1PXgDJYg7Ku1PZXPQTSd959H4etGu6G7sfHIjl5tQLBJaE7fLXqT0o2cYhf30UBKXJEE8KyUrNwu3Pxq_WUwzSGkpb/s200/cass_2pack.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5131385417080687522" border="0" /></a>Oh, and look what else I bought!<br /><br />The original price tag for this two-pack of BASF tapes: <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1.90.</span><br /><br />Salvation Army Value Price: <span style="font-weight: bold;">25 cents</span>.<br /><br />Net savings from circa-1992 asking price: <span style="font-weight: bold;">$1.65.</span><br /><br />The confidence I'll sleep with tonight, knowing that my ass is covered just in case CD/Rs go out of style and the cassette tape becomes the in thing again: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Priceless.<br /><br /></span><br />Hey, you never know when you'll need old-school blank recording media!<br /><br />I'll dig into those Ford tapes and give the lowdown on the rundown in a future post, or two.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Have you listened to a cassette ... lately?" Gleck<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-330231600212761952007-10-09T23:11:00.002-04:002008-05-11T19:49:51.537-04:00Traces of roads, long ago<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil69hgjcBdo3nK6qy_jnau1K4TxR-FIaUsAFfEYin8Kykayv_a2xIXPxd0LZQDQwXHb76pQ9d3Jp7h_sLvAqwmTm0-rOQIQnaVsZA0Ir64V_1xOClQElH9kSckBA5gsAkmAElH/s1600-h/ntp-logo.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil69hgjcBdo3nK6qy_jnau1K4TxR-FIaUsAFfEYin8Kykayv_a2xIXPxd0LZQDQwXHb76pQ9d3Jp7h_sLvAqwmTm0-rOQIQnaVsZA0Ir64V_1xOClQElH9kSckBA5gsAkmAElH/s320/ntp-logo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119540924915063426" border="0" /></a>Last week, during my Birmingham junket (or, to be more precise, east Walker County), I made a daylong trip over to the tortured wilds of Tupelo, Miss., and from there I went over to Madison, Ala. before dropping southward back to the motel. I called this trip "the triangle", as my path kinda resembled one.<br /><br />With a new and better camera, I wanted to take some improved shots of what I previously had in low-fi digital form. I also longed to take a nice, leisurely joyride ... so that's what I did.<br /><br />As much as I love making roadtrips with Luvuhmylife Seraphim, I just as much enjoy making the occasional trip by myself. Driving and reflecting. Or "D&R" for short.<br /><br />It was one for the surreal book, that's for sure. From Tupelo to Madison on the same day. That's like visiting Satan and then going immediately upstairs to break bread with Yahweh.<br /><br />Yes, Satan. Because only the Devil would've caused an awesome roast beef sandwich to become nearly extinct. Tupelo is home to one of the few remaining Danver's locations.<br /><br />*********<br />Tupelo, Mississippi is also the headquarters for the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/natr">Natchez Trace Parkway</a>, a two-lane 'national parkway' of some 443 miles. Or thereabouts. (Amazingly enough, the other NPS roadway - the Blue Ridge Parkway - is longer than "The Trace"; I only learned this fact the other day!!)<br /><br />The Natchez Trace visitor center is located north of the city nearby where the parkway intersects with Miss. 145 (a/k/a Old US 45). During my years in Tupelo, this roadway was as much a part of the area's culture as a certain jelly doughnut-swilling favorite son. Plenty of memories arose from the Chickasaw Village site, along the parkway ... there's a cool hiking and "interpretive nature" trail, with plenty of trees. And that's where I learned how Tupelo got its name.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHo_jvEfEWGeC4VBUOVsLhnuU_scUJQ-dbn1E2uSxdNRowcJk-6R_qL_IRPcuCtRY_gHiNIO_z9AYtB2Cvl7-wQ45vtviaA2XkMOFXuRsV9gAwv1vgXFgK95kPWLoDowK2JsPY/s1600-h/Natchez+Trace+06+-+still+more+road.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHo_jvEfEWGeC4VBUOVsLhnuU_scUJQ-dbn1E2uSxdNRowcJk-6R_qL_IRPcuCtRY_gHiNIO_z9AYtB2Cvl7-wQ45vtviaA2XkMOFXuRsV9gAwv1vgXFgK95kPWLoDowK2JsPY/s320/Natchez+Trace+06+-+still+more+road.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119547277171694226" border="0" /></a>I hadn't done very much traveling of this parkway through my driving years. At least until last week. After leaving Tupelo -- and still wolfing down the last of my Danver's booty -- I drove north on Miss. 145 and picked up the Trace, heading northeastward toward Alabama, where I'd get off on US-72 going east toward Tuscumbia, Decatur and Madison.<br /><br />When I was little, I found the NTP to be a mite boring. Nothing but trees to look at. As much fun for a roadgeek as watching paint dry.<br /><br />At age 42, it was different. After, ohhhhh, a handful of miles, I quickly found my groove on the Trace. It's a long National Park ... complete with the brown guide signs, in distinctive "clarendon" font, a speed limit of 50 MPH, and trucks and commercial vehicles of any kind are verboten from traveling the parkway. Billboards are also contraband. Ditto for any roadside commerce. It's a 'limited access' roadway, with overpasses and access ramps to get to and from "civilian" roads.<br /><br />The Natchez Trace Parkway is a 100% commercial-free zone. It's a nice alternative to the clutter, hustle and bustle of interstates and regular highways. The speed limit might be lower, but you're enjoying the slower pace.<br /><br />The radio was tuned to AM 580 out of Tupelo, WELO. The Music of Your Life. Sinatra, Clooney and other 'pop standards' made a splendid soundtrack. And being a weekday, I damn near had this roadway to myself. I don't think I saw more than half a dozen cars.<br /><br />I loved it. And I was so disappointed when I reached US-72, where I had to exit the parkway. I almost changed my plans and kept northward to the Trace's north terminus outside of Nashville.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkdacbJux5GkNd4d9kt7jwA8ZIb1XRKbTeO3hFjN5nRnyMoQ_-FzoJBMIrrW7qwf03X0yrSFzf5OX1NRGQXW75D4zujDTRjei5iHH-pykU0McecvwJnr6gpc5EmeD53RYICO-3/s1600-h/Natchez+Trace+09+-+Entering+Alabama+closeup.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkdacbJux5GkNd4d9kt7jwA8ZIb1XRKbTeO3hFjN5nRnyMoQ_-FzoJBMIrrW7qwf03X0yrSFzf5OX1NRGQXW75D4zujDTRjei5iHH-pykU0McecvwJnr6gpc5EmeD53RYICO-3/s320/Natchez+Trace+09+-+Entering+Alabama+closeup.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119549789727562418" border="0" /></a>Even such roadside drama as state lines are incredibly subdued on the Natchez Trace. No big green "Welcome To Alabama The Beautiful ... Bob Riley, Governor", or gigantic signs screaming "Mississippi Welcomes You." Here it's just a simple "Entering [state]."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUhZvGWBIbx5-5dzCY-F3KuwM-_bo48opVVH2jHKmZkornYLXnAr6s-gOK7ixft6_Zo3BVFC_g-69uRQjS00ZdsJy5_eQtxZggmykbgq2htywb85AcJowIYmbOALit4EXnqFq/s1600-h/Natchez+Trace+12+-+straddling+the+state+line+.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUhZvGWBIbx5-5dzCY-F3KuwM-_bo48opVVH2jHKmZkornYLXnAr6s-gOK7ixft6_Zo3BVFC_g-69uRQjS00ZdsJy5_eQtxZggmykbgq2htywb85AcJowIYmbOALit4EXnqFq/s320/Natchez+Trace+12+-+straddling+the+state+line+.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119550653015988930" border="0" /></a>In the above picture, I'm straddling the line. I'm Alasippi-ing. Or is that Missi-bama?<br /><br />The dominant motif along the parkway is the arrowhead. It's the shape used for all the historical marker approaches, and for the entrance signs for the various pull-offs.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3pTHGFIVBMUyvHOsBv3EWOw8NeyBBIspP7SIgqWlq7xxlqt0NI6c1yAi06wFbcLHNXfuxPdx-3gEFbk6ioOmoJwoscwXtss8IFthVk2NbqHEurS2PnmK1_eREepjBtBT9S1q/s1600-h/Natchez+Trace+13+-+Buzzard+Roost+-+at+US+72.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3pTHGFIVBMUyvHOsBv3EWOw8NeyBBIspP7SIgqWlq7xxlqt0NI6c1yAi06wFbcLHNXfuxPdx-3gEFbk6ioOmoJwoscwXtss8IFthVk2NbqHEurS2PnmK1_eREepjBtBT9S1q/s400/Natchez+Trace+13+-+Buzzard+Roost+-+at+US+72.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5153962172824984978" border="0" /></a>One should not press their luck while driving this slab -- speeding on this, or any NPS roadway, is a Federal offense. Me, I set the cruise control for exactly 50 M.P.H. and just enjoyed the ride.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvv89tWssTaqkVOPSEjQJUtpT1MRE6q4BfuiZjzU1FTThRCqMltGUflLl4LgQgfYw7shdeDvX5t6uAjrgohtgXdlUqSu4rkGQZvQ0_Yt32bhIv5ek0JpYw6u0ByUbQ5h6H5ehZ/s1600-h/SUV+hypermiling+-+Natchez+Trace.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvv89tWssTaqkVOPSEjQJUtpT1MRE6q4BfuiZjzU1FTThRCqMltGUflLl4LgQgfYw7shdeDvX5t6uAjrgohtgXdlUqSu4rkGQZvQ0_Yt32bhIv5ek0JpYw6u0ByUbQ5h6H5ehZ/s320/SUV+hypermiling+-+Natchez+Trace.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5119553723917605618" border="0" /></a>And I found out something really cool:<br /><br />Driving at that rate of speed does wonders for the ol' gas mileage! Check out the 'trip computer' -- when is the last time anyone achieved 30 MPG in a friggin SUV??!!<br /><br />Seriously, I filled up in Tupelo and the needle didn't budge from "F" until I was past the Alabama line.<br /><br />I realized something else, too.<br /><br />The Natchez Trace Parkway is a thoroughfare maintained by government interests, without any commercial traffic, businesses, billboards or anything resembling the conduct of free enterprise.<br /><br />In addition to its purpose honoring an early pioneer trail, the Trace also serves as an alternative route to get from Tupelo to Nashville or to Jackson.<br /><br />It's very low-key. It's dignified. It's scenic. It's full of substance in a world where other highways are cluttered and bottlenecked eyesores.<br /><br />I dare say the Natchez Trace Parkway is the Public Radio of highways.<br /><br />And I so much want to drive this thing from beginning to end. Seraphim and I shall do just that one of these days.<br /><br />Isn't it nice to know that roads like this exist?<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Proud to have his tax dollars funding it" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-31958181514796267232007-10-09T00:10:00.002-04:002008-05-11T19:50:32.741-04:00Circles of life.....<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" >"Take your time, it wont be long now</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:verdana;" > Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down."</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:verdana;" > --Joni Mitchell</span><br /></span><br />I'm back from my annual retreat to Birmingham. All told, a fun time -- as usual -- but these trips are always full of deep introspection, wistful reflection and a process of "mental defragging."<br /><br />I wish I could make more frequent visits up there. Perhaps after my son enters college and starts a life of his own, I can. Meanwhile I enjoy it there whenever I'm able. There's a profound comfort I feel whenever I first see all the TV towers along Red Mountain, overlooking the city, and then the city's iconic Vulcan statue.<br /><br />It's rooted, I'm certain, in all the change that's been part of my life over the years. In the middle of it all, there has always been Birmingham. Some things in the city have stayed constant over the many years, such as the <a href="http://flickr.com/photos/dystopos/8168521/">giant red neon "WBRC" sign</a> behind their studios atop Red Mountain, a landmark for more than 50 years.<br /><br />And next-door neighbor Channel 13 - an NBC affiliate - has recently put up a giant backlit peacock behind its building to add to the mountaintop decor.<br /><br />I was born in a hospital on the north side of Red Mountain. From its parking lot, one can look upward for a good view of the WBRC sign.<br /><br />For years I've said the same joke: Ask me what sign I was born under, and I'll tell you "WBRC."<br /><br />Last Wednesday, after I got into town, I made a beeline for my great aunt's house, where we had a nice visit. From there it was to see "Miz Eve", a woman whom I've always considered "kinfolk", although she was merely a close neighbor to my grandparents. Her husband, "Mr. Jim", who passed away in the early '80s, was an audiophile's audiophile, and had the most awesome audio system one could ever want. His circa-1970 Sony tuner/amp is still set up in her house, along with his Garrard turntable, although they're hardly used anymore. They still work, though. I'd give so much to have it all someday. So much.<br /><br />You see, it was this gentleman who got me started on the road toward appreciating the fine art of music and a lot of his audiophilic tendencies rubbed off on me. I can still remember the day as if it were last week. I was nine years old, visiting my grandparents for Spring break, and we were eating dinner at their house. That afternoon we were at Eastwood Mall, and I'd bought a 45 at Newberry's. I wanted to play that record on his <span style="font-style: italic;">[pause to catch my breath]</span> AUDIO SYSTEM. Mr. Jim said I could, and what happened after I took the record out of its sleeve became a major event in my life.<br /><br />You see, I committed the ultimate cardinal sin.<br /><br />I had my fingers on the grooves of that record as I was taking it out, eager to hear the opening notes of Steve Miller Band's "The Joker."<br /><br />And Mr. Jim was horrified. He didn't love my peaches, but boy did he shake my tree. He told me in no uncertain terms that I was never again to touch the grooves of a vinyl record. Did I understand??<br /><br />Yes sir, Mr. Jim. Never again.<br /><br />From him I learned proper record care. I also learned what it was like to hear music on good equipment. And my life was forever altered. I might not have been able to ride a bike at age nine, but by golly the records I bought after that fateful dinner were as immaculate as Jesus' conception.<br /><br />[Of course Mr. Jim would've been horrified if he saw me at home -- I didn't touch the grooves of the records I bought, but after seeing what DJs did to 'em at radio stations, I started imitating 'em. I was, I'm sure, the only ten-year-old who CUED his records before playing them.]<br /><br />I always think about that evening each time I lay eyes on The Audio System, still set up as it was 25 years ago. And I got another gander last Wednesday when I paid a visit to Miz Eve. It was the first time I'd seen her since 2004. It was a bit strange and unsettling looking next door at my grandparents' old house on Saulter Road, but it was looking good. The people who bought it from my family have kept it up faithfully.<br /><br />In 2004, Miz Eve was as peppy and upbeat and full of life as I'd always remembered her. Given that she was 88 years old at the time, that's no small feat. Today, she's 91. And my aunt gave me a heads-up that she was now having trouble with walking. Still, Miz Eve gave word to my aunt that she wanted to see me. So I did.<br /><br />I almost wish I hadn't. What my aunt didn't know was that it was more than walking Miz Eve was having trouble with; the grand lady's mind was beginning to give out, too. I think Alzheimer's, or some form of dementia, has taken root. Evidently Miz Eve was far more 'lucid' the day she talked with my aunt. My grandfather was the same way -- some days the brain was operating on more cylinders than others. Good days, and bad days.<br /><br />My luck, I caught her on a bad day. She didn't even know who I was. Her 'caretaker' -- who did some work with my grandmother in her final days -- reminded her of who I was. "He's 'Agatha's' grandson." Her reply still gives me chills: "How is she?"<br /><br />It was, suffice to say, the most awkward ten minutes I've ever had as a houseguest, and I cut the visit short, and walked down the hill toward the backyard of my grandparents' old house.<br /><br />I saw the broken remains of an old steel rod mounted between two trees which for years held a swing. It wasn't broken the last time I saw it.<br /><br />I got the hell out of there, post haste, because I was fixin' to lose it.<br /><br />The familiar -- oh, so familiar -- landmarks along Saulter Road closed in on me. Something as ephemeral as the steel towers of the power lines paralleling a part of the street unleashed so much pent up inside me. Miz Eve ..... holy shit, this was Big John all over again!!!!!<br /><br />I thought back to when my grandfather was alive. And back to when I was five years old. Those power lines meant one thing once upon a time: We were getting near Kmart!! Suddenly my mind morphed the street into 1969. The way the houses looked, the street signs, even the dashboard of Big John's car. I felt him with me. I heard him call me "Buddy."<br /><br />*********<br />Seraphim said something about "the circle of life." Well, I don't have a whole helluvalot of 'middle circles', and the outer ones -- the familiar, the relatively few loved ones who were major parts of my life -- are going fast. When those rings fall away, my circle is going to get tiny in a big hurry.<br /><br />It's the familiar refrain of everything dying around me. Now my aunt ... she's doing well. Of course, she's far from pushing 90 (she's in her late 60s). My uncle is in good health as well, but he's always in Florida and Birmingham to him now is little more than a maildrop.<br /><br />I have cousins on both sides of the family, but I'm in little contact with them. Just one, if you wanna know the truth. And he's in Australia!!<br /><br />Some day, and last Wednesday I was reminded that it's coming up sooner than I think, some day I'm afraid I might have little around me except for Seraphim and Tiger.<br /><br />But maybe not. I've recently reestablished contact with my Aunt Cindy outside of Augusta and hopefully we can make a day trip in that direction before long. I haven't seen her in many years. There's a lot to say about her, and I'll save that for after the visit.<br /><br />I was, shall we say, more than a little bothered as I drove around Birmingham, killing time before I was to meet a friend of mine for supper. I knew I'd bounce back over the BBQ and his comraderie, but that was still a couple of hours away.<br /><br />*********<br />Things indeed looked up later that evening. And ditto for the rest of the trip. But that afternoon was a cruel reminder that I am getting close to my mid 40s. Youth was a long time ago.<br /><br />If you have an older relative in your life, especially one who is into their 80s -- i.e. past standard life expectancy -- and they're in good health, count your blessings. Nothing lasts forever. Enjoy them every minute, because you're not guaranteed another one like it.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Dizzy from all dem circles" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-79973569588471869912007-09-18T23:23:00.004-04:002008-05-19T11:28:21.147-04:00Here in my blog, I feel safest of allPicking up where we left off, we're now at September 2000. I'm looking to trade in the '97 Nissan Altima for a new ride. Seeing as how I'm making at least one monthly trip to Alabama, I wanted a vehicle that was within warranty. (The Corsica experience has cast some long shadows; today I don't like driving a car outside of any covered breakdowns)<br /><br />After moving to Savannah, I had a pretty decent change of salary. No longer was I making ramen noodle pay at Troy "State" University; now I was flying high on a Kraft Mac & Cheese budget! Yeah, boy!!<br /><br />I had my eyes set on a Toyota Camry -- I liked how it looked, it was a bit larger than the Altima, and it was a solid, dependable and reliable auto. I looked first at Savannah Toyota, just around the corner from the apartment where we were living. And I got my first dose of The Toyota Games. They wore me down, but I didn't give 'em the pleasure of pulling my credit report. I'm sure F&I would've had the same reaction as I did when I first laid eyes on Seraphim nine years ago. 20% subprime interest, and it's all mine. All. Mine. <span style="font-style: italic;">Swoon.</span><br /><br />I walked. And went straight to the other Toyota dealership, at the time a small and unassuming place called Harbortown Toyota in Garden City. There weren't many games here, I have to say. But I could see the writing on the wall. When I was there buying the car, they were holding training sessions for about two dozen new salespeople. They were building a new building at the intersection of Chatham Parkway and I-16. In 2001, Harbortown would move and become Chatham Parkway Toyota/Lexus. Pretension doesn't even begin to cover it. And, you guessed it, the building is a humongous monument to mind games. They've since become worse than Savannah Toyota. And probably gaining on Stokes-Brown.<br /><br />Anyway, that is now. This was then. The salesperson at Harbortown was nice and down-to-earth. I told him about the situation with my credit, and hoped they could work something out which wouldn't leave me completely raped -- just .... partially so.<br /><br />Southeast Toyota Finance gave the green light. But I had to list my Dad as a co-signer (which he graciously did). Even then, my interest rate was a whopping 14.9%. "Cost of rebuilding credit," I told myself. So, on September 19, 2000, I said goodbye to Goldie and hello to my next car:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">2000 Toyota Camry LE.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Mississippi Imperial Wizard White. </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Nicknames</u>: White Bird; It's NOT An "Old Persons' Car", Seraphim!; Deer Slayer</span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: September 20</span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">00 - September 2004.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrzpmKmxwj5f6DX1yzcGSN4Ou16-n_fl6U9F9nxPJJD-8S303Ni06suQIaZzCnsKcIX9uyfM_G9OV_Rtj-b_-nUocCtTCnqvzO2HdtaUOb3Mt8lQbY9vDSuFK8PbE7Ph4d8w8/s1600-h/getaway_car2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrzpmKmxwj5f6DX1yzcGSN4Ou16-n_fl6U9F9nxPJJD-8S303Ni06suQIaZzCnsKcIX9uyfM_G9OV_Rtj-b_-nUocCtTCnqvzO2HdtaUOb3Mt8lQbY9vDSuFK8PbE7Ph4d8w8/s320/getaway_car2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5112090141825158978" border="0" /></a>The Camry served as our 'getaway car' after the wedding reception in January of 2001. As you can see, no shoe polish was harmed in the defacing of the car; everybody instead covered the vehicle with sticky-notes. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"Warranty's over, you can't return her"</span> is one message I remember (Not that I'd even want to think about it).<br /><br />It also marked a return to having a CD player. The Altima had a basic AM/FM/cassette stock receiver. I would've put in the Panasonic CD deck I'd taken out of the Corsica before they took it away, ha-haaaa, but replacing the radio would've involved a great deal of taking-apart of the dash (a/k/a "off-the-chart expensive labor"). So I bought a cassette adapter and Discman unit and was digitally serenaded as such. The Camry had both CD and cassette, so I was well-set. That is, until the cassette deck's pinch rollers started deforming. And the CD player would start skipping when the heater was going and the dash began getting hot. Toyota radios, I soon learned, were crap. Oh well, at least the car was reliable.<br /><br />It took me through a number of years and miles. The ride was almost as 'floaty' as my old '89 Celebrity. It did very well on the interstate. The worst thing to happen to her was early one morning in April 2003. It was about 5:30, I was on the way to work and I encountered three (3) deer in the road. I tried moving to the left in order to scare 'em off the pavement. Wasn't working. There was no stopping, so I had to brace myself and hit one of 'em. And I chose bachelor number 1. <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Bam!</span><br /><br />It could've been worse. The airbag didn't deploy, and I still had both headlights. Mostly; the right high-beam wasn't working. I could hear the bumper scraping the road as I continued. Shaken, and stirred. As I reached the driveway toward my workplace, the bumper finally came off. Damage: bumper was toast. Hood was slightly buckled. Grille was gone. Right high-beam needed replacing. That was about it. Fortunately, the car was still driveable, so I kept it until there was an opening at the body shop.<br /><br />And Bambi died for her sins. Serves her right. (Sorry, but I am very much in favor of eliminating all limits for deer hunters. They should be allowed to jacklight to their hearts' content. Deer should be mass-killed; they're a clear and present danger to the roads. End of hyper-conservative rant.)<br /><br />*********<br />Now, we're to a different dynamic. It was time to retire Seraphim's ride, the one she brought into our marriage. Her name was "Henryetta" and it was a '95 Hyundai Accent. Forest green. As 2002 began, it was time to car-shop again. Credit was improved, but I wasn't there yet. At least I had about 18 months' worth of prompt and timely payments to Toyota on my side.<br /><br />To the tune of 11.9% APR, we financed Henryetta's successor:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">2003 Toyota Corolla S</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Silver, dammit! SILVER, SILVER,<span style="font-style: italic;"> SILVER!!!!!!! </span><br />(Toyota called it "Lunar Mist") </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Nicknames</u>: Luna the Moon Buggy, then shortened to just "Luna.</span></span>"<br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: March 2003 - August 2005.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br />We bought Luna on St. Patrick's Day. If you're familiar with Savannah life, you know full well why we wanted to be as far away from that place as we could. Our destination was .... Stokes-Brown Toyota in Beaufort, S.C. Again, a smaller and less-pretentious dealership (today, they're in a cathedral along US-278! Wi-fi hot spot. Coffee bar. Wow. Somebody's got to pay for all those extras. Lowball trades, anyone?)<br /><br />The Corolla was a new version of an old favorite -- it was a sported-up "S" model, and the 2003 redesign had barely been out a week before we bought it. It drove beautifully for a small car, the gas mileage was superb (36-37 on the highway), and the radio/CD combo was a piece of schitt. Yup, typical Toyota.<br /><br />Seriously, we loved ol' Luna. And at the beginning, it turned heads. People commented on how the new Corollas looked, and they were all impressed.<br /><br />So, for the next 2-1/2 years, the Glecks were an all-Toyota family.<br /><br />As the Summer of 2004 drew to a close, we were looking to trade the '00 Camry. What we both were seeking was a small SUV, so Seraphim could more easily tote around cakes she was now baking on the side. We had two models in mind: the Toyota RAV4 and the Honda CR-V.<br /><br />Stop #1: We test-drove the 2004 Toyota RAV4 at Chatham Parkway Toyota. The salesman who'd sold me the Camry four years earlier was still there, and once we got into his 'man cave', I could see that he'd been drinking the Cathedral Kool-Aid. My guard was down. And faster than you can say "What's it gonna take?", I'd been roped into the four-square sheet trick. And they gave me a lowball trade-in value for the Camry.<br /><br />Hah! You think I'm gonna take that for a trade, especially after I had a maintenance paper-trail to prove how good it was?? He then implied that if we walked out that door, the Camry was gonna break down any day. I said, "You have faith in your Toyotas, don't you pal?" And I then continued, "You all have turned into Savannah Toyota!"<br /><br />The look on the man's face was friggin' priceless. I think I hurt his feelings. He replied, "That's low." Sorry, but that's the truth. We walked.<br /><br />There's nothing like Toyota dealers to remind me of how much of a wimp I can be sometimes.<br /><br />Up the road we went to Grainger Honda, where we looked at the CR-V. They had a few 2004 models left, and everything about it had our name on it. That is, until we got in to test drive. Holy crap on a swiszle stick, it was tighter up front than the Corolla!!<br /><br />Scratch the CR-V. But the salesperson at Grainger asked if we'd looked at the other SUV they had in the same price range. No, we hadn't. He took us to one of two 2004s they had left. One was a hideous shade of phlegm green, and the other was blue. Color aside, I said my first impression out loud to him, "That's the most butt-ugly thing I've ever seen in my life!" (and that's coming from a guy who started out driving life behind the wheel of a golldurned AMC Pacer!) He asked us to test-drive it. So we did. We both liked how it felt, and how it drove. The turning radius was awesome. Seriously. That thing could turn around in our driveway without leaving the concrete.<br /><br />Everything about that SUV was good, except for the look. I just wasn't cottonin' to it. But I'll never forget the salesman's remark: "C'mon, Elements need love too." Okay, I had to say my ear's heart was beginning to go 'hubba!' over the sound system. 270 watts. And AN AUXILIARY JACK. It's becoming very common today, but that was the first I'd heard of 'em in 2004. "Hmmmm, I've thought about taking the MP3 player plunge one of these days," I said to myself. Maybe I could look past this Neo-AMC hideous thing and concentrate on all her amenities. Seraphim, on the other hand, seemed to be less repulsed.<br /><br />With my Chapter 7 even further behind me, and more of a history of Johnny-on-the-spot car payments, Honda Finance approved us for the promotional rate they were running for the '04 Elements. 2.9%! That, and they were very, very generous in trade-in for the Camry.<br /><br />2.9 percent??!! Shit, where's that pen??? We took it. Even though I remain convinced to this day that Honda employed the old R&D team from American Motors to design the Element, I was elated that I could again be approved for a 'real' car note, and not one from a subprime bottom-feeder. The date was September 11, 2004. And we had our first SUV:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">2004 Honda Element</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Blue/Gray ("Border State Brother Against Brother") </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Nicknames</u>:</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">The Psychedelic Milk Truck; The P.M.T.; AMC's Design Department Refuses To Die</span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: September 2004 - August 2007.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br />On the CAR TALK website, they made a reference to the Element resembling something they termed a "Psychedelic Milk Truck." And that's what we took to calling it. It would become "The PMT."<br /><br />People at gas pumps asked me about it. Admittedly, I was a bit self-conscious about the Element at first. That's what driving a Pacer will do to a person. I eventually got used to it, but as my manager later said, "You never became one with that Element, did you?"<br /><br />I'm afraid I didn't. Hate to say. It drove wonderfully (except for the road noise), and the audio system was awesome. We took it to Arkansas in 2006 and to West Virginia early in 2007, and it proved a hardy and loyal companion.<br /><br />*********<br />A year later, I began wondering out loud about hybrid cars, thinking it might be just what the doctor ordered for a couple of people who were making daily trips from Rincon into Savannah. 45 MPG on Abercorn Street was music to my ears, that's for damn sure. So we started looking at 'em. Besides, it was time to retire Luna .... and another thing was driving my desire: I felt that my credit had built up enough that I could now qualify for something better than subprime. That said, I wanted desperately out of that double-digit car note on the Corolla. It's all psychology, friends. That's all it is.<br /><br />We had two options: 1) The Toyota Prius, and 2) The Honda Civic Hybrid. The Prius was out. Not just because of the Toyota dealer games®, but because the Priuses were on back order -- it was tough finding 'em in 2005, and those that did pop up were selling for thousands above sticker. Oh, and there was the small matter of the Prius looking, shall we say, hideous. The last damn thing I wanted was another ugly car in our driveway.<br /><br />So the Honda Civic Hybrid it was. We made a beeline to Grainger, where the same salesperson made the deal happen. We tested out the one model they had, a navy-blue 2005 model, and after the appraisal on Luna (again, good and well above what we owed on it), the Honda Finance Gods approved us for 5.5 percent on:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">2005 Honda Civic Hybrid</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Dark blue.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span> </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Nicknames</u>:</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"The Hybrid"; Our Blue "Green" Car; Gas Stations? We Don't Need No Steenkin' Gas Stations; Looking For Mr. Aamco. </span></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: August 2005 - September 2007.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br />We closed the deal literally days before Katrina tore into Mississippi and New Orleans, and gas prices spiked well past $3.00 a gallon. Talk about good timing!<br /><br />Overall, the mileage was 40 in town, and about 38 or so on the road. And we got a decent little tax deduction off of our 2005 taxes. Not too bad, considering. It was a reliable ride, until hints of transmission failure began lapping at our feet.<br /><br />Which takes us to the present day. In the course of less than one month (!!), we went from being an all-Honda family to - in a technical sense - being all-Ford. Who'd a thunk?<br /><br />Today, it's a 2008 Escape and a 2007 Mazda3. Kitt and Rupert. They formally met for the first time tonight, and I think I'd better check up on 'em, to make sure there aren't any untold stains in the driveway from automotive passion.<br /><br />Yeah, I know that was a sick and gross way to close this post, but just deal with it.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "I don't want to go near a car showroom for a long time!" Gleck<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-8628904157058603502007-09-17T21:19:00.004-04:002010-10-11T01:22:29.192-04:00'I can lock all my doors / It's the only way to live'All this thinking about vehicles has started me on a nostalgic tangent.<br /><br />[The Peanut Gallery can just shut up now; I know a bunch of wise-asses when I hear 'em. Perish the very thought of Talmadge getting all nostalgic on everyone. Never happens. Uh uh.]<br /><br />I've had quite a few cars to call my own over the 26-1/2 years I've held a drivers' license. I didn't get my first car, however, until after I turned 18. But I did get something for my 16th birthday, lucky lucky me:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">1976 AMC Pacer.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Whatta Maroon. </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Nicknames</u>: Pisser; Bubble Machine; Butt-Ugly Laughingstock.</span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: February 1981 - March 1983.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span><br />The person who designed this piece of skunk vomit should've been strapped to the gas tank of a Ford Pinto ahead of a car with malfunctioning brakes. My maternal grandparents gave me this thing for my birthday, and I had to endure a buttload of grief from other kids. You've seen what a Pacer looks like. It's so over-the-top, even for 1970s sensibilities. And I was driving a Pacer nearly 10 years before Wayne and Garth 'legitimized' it ... not to mention <a href="http://www.pacerfarm.org/goof1f.jpg">Goofy</a>.<br /><br />It was a source of some family tension. My Dad, years later, tipped his hand as to exactly how often he had to bite his tongue. It was his wife's parents, after all, who chose it.<br /><br />Fortunately, the Pisser began falling apart well into my senior year, and Dad picked out something else for me:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">1982 Mercury Capri.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Silver & black.<br /><u>Nicknames</u>: Silver Bullet; Love Stains? No, That's Just Horsey Sauce; My First Car.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: March 1983 - September 1987. </span><br />The Capri - not to be confused with the '90s reincarnation - was Mercury's twin to the Ford Mustang. It looked good. And, despite a few problems of its own, was a great car. The backseat folded down, implying opportunities aplenty for moral turpitude. And I bought a wonderful stereo to go in it -- a Pioneer SuperTuner III cassette deck, complete with Clarion speakers.<br /><br />"The Silver Bullet" took me from 18,000 miles in March of 1982 all the way to 97,000 miles as I began my last semester in college. In September 1987, I was given a choice of cars as a semi-present for college graduation. A 1988 Mustang, but that one was at a Ford dealership a little farther away ... and for some retarded reason I wanted a trunk instead of a hatchback, which I had with the Capri and the Pisser before that.<br /><br />So I went with the car closer at hand. I drove my Capri -- which by then was beginning to shake worse than our dog when we take her to the vet -- from Pine Bluff, Ark. to Arkadelphia to take the wheel of my next car:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">1987 Mercury Topaz.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: <a href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0215129/">Kyle Edwards</a> Powder Blue. </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> <u>Nicknames</u>: The Tope; The Grand Mal Seizure; Proto-Corsica Piece of Raccoon Feces.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: September 1987 - March 1991.<br /></span> Well, it had a trunk. It also had an aftermarket Sony stereo installed in there. Sorry, but it was a cheapest model and the Ford people who wired the speakers were total <span style="font-style: italic;">Dee d'DEE</span>s. Left and Right are supposed to be on each side of the car, using the fader to control "front L/R" and "back L/R." Not in this car ... both left channels were on both front speakers while the right channel was in the rear deck.<br /><br />I remember getting my beloved Pioneer SuperTuner III out of the Capri, and had it installed in the Topaz. It was at a small car stereo garage off Bridge Street in Jonesboro. Bolivar followed me there, and while they went to work correcting the inbred stereo miswiring, we went to Burger King for supper. I remember we were listening to the new Yes album, <span style="font-style: italic;">Big Generator</span>.<br /><br />The Topaz is the only car in which I've had a real accident. My fault. I changed lanes on a one-way street in Pine Bluff, not noticing the '72 Ford Maverick that was coming up the left lane. I sideswiped it ... and tore off the entire front end and banged up the left-front fender too. And the damage to the '72 Sherman Tank--um, I mean Maverick? It mangled some of the decorative chrome trim, but that's about it. The body had next to no damage!!!<br /><br />It earned its sub-nickname Grand Mal Seizure because the fuel injector crapped out on it, and every time I was at an intersection it would begin vibrating something fierce. Gas mileage plummeted to something like 15 on the highway. Eventually that was fixed.<br /><br />Then the alternator went. And, finally, the A/C. By then, I was in Troy, Alabama, and was beginning to drink the Kool-Aid. My grandparents mercifully offered to take that clunker off my hands, and trade it in for their next car. In return, they'd give me their current car which they bought, not realizing it was a step down from their usual Buicks. In March 1991, with a mere 74,000 miles on it, I retired the Topaz and began driving my grandparents' car, which at the time had logged just 17,000 miles:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">1989 Chevrolet Celebrity.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Navy Blue. </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> <u>Nicknames</u>: Mr. Midnight; The Un-Pacer.</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: March 1991 - November 1993.<br /></span>I was more than a little leery about taking on a GM car. My Dad has had nothing but trouble with the few he'd ever owned. Every one of 'em had oil leak problems .... the first thing out of Dad's mouth when he sees a GM car: "Where's the drip?"<br /><br />The engine had more oomph than the plastic four-banger in The Tope. It also drove as if the highway was a continuous cloud. But I wasn't that fond of the bench seat up front, though.<br /><br />Except for a radiator fan going south at 27,000 miles and the alternator no longer alternating at 81k, it was a pretty reliable car -- as far as GMs go. But after the alternator, I started having visions of this car disintegrating before my eyes (my Dad's experiences with GM were vividly clear ... my family had a '74 Pontiac Grand Safari station wagon, our own "Wagonqueen Family Truckster").<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>So I went car shopping. The back of my mind was yelling out "Honda! ... Toyota! ... Japanese! ... Japanese!" But I ignored it. And the first car I bought on my own would prove to be a doozy.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">1993 Chevrolet Corsica.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Silver & Black. </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> <u>Nicknames</u>: Son of Silver Bullet; Son of a Bitch; The Car That Personifies Most Which is Evil About Detroit; Country Time.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: November 1993 - November 17, 1997!</span><br />It was comfortable. Honestly, it was. The seat felt right. The (V6) engine had pickup. The whole layout seemed to be calling my name. And the color scheme ... identical to that of my old Capri. It was a combination guaranteed to make Talmadge Gleck sign on the dotted line. It was a "program car" - an Avis rental - and it had 16,500 miles when we took delivery.<br /><br />And the people who drove that car when it was under Avis' ownership must've driven it hard. Either that, or else the Mexicans who built it were .25 BAC full of tequila.<br /><br />It was a lemon and I could write an entire post about how often this car left me stranded. The cooling system had to be rebuilt twice. It went through two A/C replacements. Something like two radiators. Two alternators. A starter. A fuel pump. A couple of water pumps.<br /><br />My son has indelible memories of this car, as we were both on the side of the road one day north of Montgomery. <span style="font-style: italic;">"Dad, why is green stuff coming out of our car?" </span><br /><br />From 1993 through 1997, I drove a lemon while my then-"wife" drove her 1992 Geo Metro, which had very little trouble about it. Those little Briggs & Stratton three-lung engines do quite well ... until about 75,000 miles. By then, it was the Spring of 1997, and it began sprouting lemons worse than the Corshitca ... only this time, the engine died while Josiebelle was in Pensacola one weekend.<br /><br />We salvaged the Metro, managed to get enough for it to buy a supersized combo for Tiger, and in May 1997 -- vowing never again to go near Detroit -- we bought our first "Japanese" car:<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-weight: bold;">1997 1/2 Nissan Altima.</span> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 153);font-size:130%;" > </span><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Color</u>: Gold. </span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> <u>Nicknames</u>: The Solid Gold Wagon; Goldie; My Friend And Companion Through The Biggest Transitions Of My Life.</span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><u>Owned</u>: May 1997 - September 2000.</span><br />Bought it brand new and it was a solid puppy. I loved it from mile one.<br /><br />Less than six months later, its two owners would divorce. The decision as to who got which car turned out to be such a no-brainer. Okay, Josie, do you want a car (Corsica) with only nine more payments of $245 .... or one (Altima) with 57 more payments of $331?<br /><br />I reminded her how often she bitched and moaned about having to drive an automatic because I was "too stubborn" and "too afraid" to drive a stick. I never learned how, and frankly at this point I see no need to. As Lewis Grizzard once said, "I'm secure enough to have my gears shifted for me." I said she could trade in the Corsica for a car of her own choosing ... one with a stick! The woman loved driving a standard. Every car she'd had up to the Metro had manual transmissions. <br /><br />Yes, she took the Corsica. Amusingly enough, the car she got soon after (a '93 Ford Escort) and what she drives today (a '99 Escort) are both AUTOMATICS.<br /><br />*********<br />Back to the Altima ... it was a great car. It got me to and from Columbus, Georgia hundreds (if not thousands) of times during my courtship with Seraphim. And when we both moved to Savannah in the Summer of 2000, it was the Altima which got me there.<br /><br />But by then Goldie had 81,000 miles on her, and I set out to take a chance on seeing whether I could get a new car financed with a Chapter 7 just 2.5 years in my past.<br /><br />To be continued....<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "When the image breaks down, will you visit me please?" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1162953456266173312006-11-05T22:07:00.003-05:002010-10-11T01:26:04.990-04:00Musings from the Warrior River Motel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/1600/WRMotel_fromhwy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/320/WRMotel_fromhwy.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">LYNN'S PARK, Alabama </span>— For starters, it’s kinda ironic that I’m writing this blog entry on a laptop while immersed in nostalgia ... ranging from the kind of music I’ve been listening to (mainly pop standards / middle-of-the-road), to all I’ve been doing today - visiting some amazing people and seeing some old sights, right down to the classic motel where I’m staying. The Warrior River Motel is a 1955-vintage property on US 78 nearby Jasper in east Walker County, Alabama.<br /><br />It’s a spartan room which definitely shows its age. The bathroom fixtures are the original 1955 beauties, right down to the faucet handles. There’s still a hole where the original “third tap” used to be ... from which you could draw “circulating ice water”, an amenity advertised on the WRM’s original neon sign. The sign was discarded some time in the ‘80s in favor of a more sedate, backlit roadside herald. But the ice water, I’m certain, stopped circulating long before that.<br /><br />The shower is the size of a phone booth. There’s no wireless internet here. (I’m typing this in WordPerfect to paste into the blog tomorrow when I’m at a wi-fi spot and can access the ‘net). And the TV gets fewer than 20 channels ... heck, it doesn’t even have what my son used to call “color codes” — the A/V inputs one sees nowadays on most sets.<br /><br />Am I complaining? Hell, no!! First of all, the rooms are a nicely economical $29.00 a night. Second, I’m enjoying this “technology holiday” (he says as he types on a freakin’ LAPTOP!!) The bathroom is decked out in beautiful shiny 1955-vintage black and white tile. And, like a wistful cherry atop a nostalgic sundae, the floor pattern is identical to the upstairs bathroom at my late grandparents’ house in Homewood. Identical, at least, in tile pattern; theirs was a purplish blue and white while it’s black and white here at the WRM. Who cares ... my eyes just “discarded color information” (lordy, I’ve been using waaaay too much “PhotoShop”!) and enjoyed looking downward as if it were an unassuming <span style="font-style: italic;">mouvement d'bowel</span> taken anywhere between potty-training age (ca. 1967-68) and 2002.<br /><br />Last night I saw a sight that pretty much set the tone for this entire trip: the Homewood star. It hangs over a hill overlooking “the curve” in downtown Homewood. It’s right next to Sike’s Shoes, where all my early childhood Buster Browns came from. It’s another great memory of my growing up years, memories of Christmastime visits to Birmingham. And I was looking at it again, as beautiful in 2006 as it was in 1971. In a world where everything is changing, and not always for the better, seeing things like lit stars unchanged from 35+ years ago is to my nostalgic heart as beautiful a sight as my wife.<br /><br />I got to the motel, and checked into Room 11 – the same place I’ve laid my head on two of my three previous visits here. Then I went into Jasper to find some supper ... ah, more retro for Mr. Gleck: I went back-back-back to Jack-Jack-Jack’s for more-more-more. Never mind that “big bacon” was NOT on the 1968 Jack’s menu, I had one. Although were it 1968, I would’ve gone for a Fish-On-Bun and a thick vanilla shake. Then hurried back to the motel along two-lane 78, where I could catch the 10:00 news on channel 6 on the Admiral B/W telly. Joe Langston, Harry Mabry and Pat Gray giving me more info in 15 minutes than most so-called anchors today could give me in 60 with color.<br /><br />I sit here listening to music on an MP3 player and typing on a laptop computer ... while at the same time imagining if these Warrior River Motel walls could talk. Wondering about all the conversations taking place in this room 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago. The travelers my grandparents’ age. Wondering where their travels were taking them. Wondering if they had a good meal next door to the motel, where Saxon’s (an Alabama-based candy store/restaurant chain similar in feel to Stuckey’s) had a store. At 41, I’m barely old enough to be riding over the old iron bridge across the Mulberry branch of the Black Warrior River to be greeted by that tall candy cane sign Saxon’s used for most of its locations. And looking over to see the dignified, sprawling one-story Warrior River Motel.<br /><br />Yes, Virginia, there’s a reason I love staying here. The bridge was replaced about five years ago. Saxon’s, long gone, is an empty junk-filled building. But the WRM — God bless all 25 of her $29.00 rooms — is still hanging in, offering an inexpensive room to anyone open-minded enough to dispense with the crazy notions of wireless internet, in-room coffee, 57 channels (nothin’ on), and a “Hampton Bed.”<br /><br />A clean and decently comfortable bed, although too big without my Seraphim next to me, clean towels and a clean - if old - room. Clean is the operative word here, friends. I like it. Very much.<br /><br />*********<br /><br />Yesterday I also made a side trip to <a href="http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;hl=en&tab=wl&q=">Cordova</a>, located about 7 miles off highway 78. It’s a town of amazing size (roughly 2,500) considering not a single U.S. or state route goes through it. Just three county roads visit Cordova, period. I also find it surprising that a lot of folks still live here because downtown Cordova is the most depressing sight I think I’ve ever seen. Six blocks of near-total emptiness. There’s a high school (Blue Devils) and a couple of convenience stores on her outskirts. Downtown there’s a meat-and-three café hugging the hill where the old Frisco railroad still passes through, and a small Piggly Wiggly operates on Cordova’s commercial perimeter. That’s it, folks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/1600/Cordova-old_western_auto.2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/200/Cordova-old_western_auto.0.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The most heartbreaking thing I see is an empty storefront for the old <span style="font-weight: bold;">Western Auto</span> store, for many years a staple in every small town (there’s still one in my domicile of Rincon, Ga.). The backlit white sign with faded red letters remains. My mind wonders how many toy displays once graced its two front windows, Cordova kids entranced by all their potential booty and counting the days until Christmas.<br /><br />There was probably even a Ford and a Chevy dealership once upon a time, too. Every small town had ‘em.<br /><br />Were I five years younger ... or, like my younger brother, not really observant of roadside ephemera, Cordova today wouldn’t faze me. Alas, I’m older. And observant. Very, very observant. I remember the 1970s, when Cordova was still a thriving little Mayberry-like hamlet. Several traffic lights, too — the <span style="font-weight: bold;">OOOLD</span> style, without yellow! Just red and green. That’s what I remember the most about old Cordova.<br /><br />While pondering this civic void, I cannot let go of a profound thought: that of Cordova being a metaphor for all that is dying around me. The aunts and uncles who used to be big presences in my life are, one by one, all dying off. I have no grandparents left. I have one aunt on my Mom’s side who still lives in Birmingham, and – like the café – hangs in stubbornly. But all that’s left ... a meaningless Dollar General located several miles outside the heart of Cordova, and two convenience stores ... I compare with what’s left of my family: a lot of cousins, most of who - I have to say - I have little contact with, and have never been terribly close to.<br /><br />My Mom and Dad and brother? That’s easy. They’re the four-lane US 78, speeding through seven miles to the north, completely oblivious to any nostalgic value of a small town. <span style="font-style: italic;">"65 MPH, and y’better have a bladder as big as mine because we ain’t stoppin’ till Memphis!"</span><br /><br />Where the hell am I going with this?? I don’t know. It’s now 10:00 Central time, and this is when my various mental states come at one another in a high-stakes game of ‘chicken.’ I enjoy the mental defragging these solo visits provide. The day I spent today with a friend of mine from nearby Dora, yet another ghost town in Walker County. However, as I sit here, the nostalgic locusts are swarming amidst this 1955 motel room. The free-range my mind is given comes back with all sorts of memories and remembrances. I miss so many things. I miss all the sights and sounds and smells and stores and roadsides of my childhood so much now. Can I go back to Cordova and look at a two-color traffic light again, after walking the aisles of Western Auto with Big John? Just for an hour? Please?<br /><br />I also miss the arms of Seraphim. She doesn’t accompany me on these trips partly because, honestly, she’d be bored. She knows it and I know it. Plus, I sometimes enjoy flying solo. Sometimes. Even the best marriages need that ‘alone time.’ The difference, of course, is 10 years ago I would dread the end of the solo time because that would mean returning to the cold and distant arms of Josiebelle. Tuesday I’ll be returning to Rincon, and fully ready to share my space again. And Seraphim’s arms will be as warm as Main Street in Cordova, circa 1973.<br /><br />Oh well, it’s time for bed, and dreams. Maybe I can go back to these places tonight. The sandman, Big John and Western Auto await.........<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />–Talmadge “County Road 22” GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1161393928551444502006-10-20T21:10:00.001-04:002008-05-19T11:35:41.245-04:00How to have a deep conversation in 1.2 milesThat's the distance from Movie Gallery to our house. After emerging with two videos (<span style="font-style: italic;">Mothman Prophecies</span> -- which we've been wanting to see since our pit stop in Point Pleasant W.Va. recently -- and <span style="font-style: italic;">Click</span>), and getting into the car, Seraphim asked me a question about the lyrics to KISS' hit song "Rock and Roll All Nite": Is it <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"I wanna rock and roll all nite / and part of every day"</span>, or is it <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"...party every day."</span><br /><br />After assuring my dearest love of my life that it indeed is "PARTY every day", she then wondered why it isn't "part of every day", since a human being does need sleep -- and if you're rock and rolling all night, it can be ass/u/me'd that you slice off some Zs during daylight.<br /><br />I then rebutted something to the effect of, what if they're rock and rolling all night WHILE sleeping part of the time (e.g. the radio playing a classic rock station while asleep) and, perhaps, get tired of listening to just one thing ... and for the remaining "part of every day" they listen to, say, easy listening ... country ... hip hop ... or, maybe, classical. How about polka?<br /><br />Or, maybe, "rock and roll" doesn't necessarily refer to the genre of music bearing that name, and instead implies its original meaning, drawing from early 20th century black slang: to passionately make love like two crazed weasels in a Cuisinart. And you don't have to listen to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or - gawd forbid - KISS in order to make the bed squeak. People HAVE been known to consummate affairs while listening to The Carpenters. Maybe half-awake, but still trying.<br /><br />Whoops, kill that. After a nice spin in the Cuisinart, you'll probably be all nice and worn out, so you'll sleep at least "part of every day."<br /><br />So, we're back to square one. Rock and roll all night, fine. But partying every day on top of that would suggest a person either A) has an incredible superhuman ability to need zero sleep, or B) is so doped up on "No-Doz" that he/she/it would present a danger to other drivers if behind the wheel.<br /><br />But maybe a person rocks and rolls while sleeping. Okay. What about the part of every day? Is that roughly 12 hours spent listening to stupid and pointless right-wing talk radio?<br /><br />And by that time Seraphim and I were already in our driveway.<br /><br />Y'know, maybe "Beth" was better off with the boys playing all night.<br /><br />Eh, screw this. I'm gonna go watch a movie.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "4-F deferment from KISS Army" Gleck<br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wsvh.org/mmarchive.htm"></a>Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1159936475157761912006-10-03T19:42:00.001-04:002008-05-19T11:33:34.953-04:00Subterranean Freeway BluesWe're home.<br /><br />Monday at exactly 950 PM, Talmadge and Seraphim arrived back in Rincon, Georgia, completing their fun-filled little junket to Pittsburgh.<br /><br />Sunday, October 1, my former colleague Deb took me on a "dime tour" of Pittsburgh, truly a one-of-a-kind city. I don't think I've seen that many bridges in a single line of sight in my entire life! Downtown sits at the fork of two rivers - well, actually three; the Alleghany and the Monongahela merge to form the Ohio River. Deb showed me her beloved city in a way no "Gray Line" hack could ever match.<br /><br />Oh, and she treated me to lunch at a Pittsburgh institution called <a href="http://www.primantibrothers.com/">Primanti Brothers</a>. I don't think I've ever had a sandwich that has the fries IN it, not on the side as is usual. The perfect food if you're in a hurry -- jam it all between two toasted slices of thick bread, and eat. There's a mural along one of the walls where caricatures of notable Pittsburgh natives are shown: Andy Warhol, Andrew Carnegie, Stephen Foster (y'learn something new every day....), and of course, the immortal Fred Rogers.<br /><br />Can you say "fun"?<br /><br />From there it was downtown, where I was given the grand tour of where she works. I imagine Deb was stifling many rolled eyes off to the side as this radio geek was damn near starry-eyed. For, you see, I was in the master control room of KDKA, just the oldest radio station in the history of western civilization, that's all.<br /><br />And then I was taken on one of the 'incline trains' (the city has two). Gotta tell you, folks - the one at Chattanooga doesn't hold a candle.<br /><br />A nickname I heard used for Pittsburgh was "Iron City" -- talk about a heavy sense of <span style="font-style: italic;">deja vu</span>! Birmingham, Ala. -- which made its name for its steel industry in the early 20th century -- has also been referred to by that nickname. Among its many other affectionate names is "Pittsburgh of the South." After Sunday, I could see why.<br /><br />Both cities' former industries weren't the only similiarity; driving around parts of the city on Saturday, and riding with Deb on Sunday, a lot of what I saw - from 40% incline residental streets to house architecture to the basic feel of the smaller neighborhoods, to their love of sports, even to such ephemera as the style of road signs and signals, reminded me so much of parts of the 'Ham. In short, Pittsburgh struck me as a bigger version of my native city.<br /><br />*********<br /><br />However, Pittsburgh has one huge feature to its infrastructure that Birmingham doesn't: TUNNELS. One in particular is the Fort Pitt. Deb took me through that one; when you emerge from the Fort Pitt Tunnel, the whole skyline of Pittsburgh suddenly jumps out at you. Truly awe-inspiring.<br /><br />About the closest thing Birmingham has to anything tunnel-esque is that quasi bridge/tunnel like thing on Red Mountain Expressway. Or that man-made "tunnel" at the Palisades shopping center. Of course, Alabanana doesn't have mountains too high or challenging to cut through. The only real tunnels the state has are both in Mobile. The <a href="http://www.southeastroads.com/alabama001/i-010_wb_exit_026b_02.jpg">George C. Wallace tunnel</a> and older <a href="http://www.southeastroads.com/alabama070/us-098_wb_at_bankhead_tunnel_01.jpg">Bankhead Tunnel</a> burrow underneath the Mobile River, the shipping lane into the city's port facilities.<br /><br />I love tunnels. I've always been fascinated by 'em, and this trip gave me a "tunnel overload" I won't soon forget. We drove the Chesapeke Bay Bridge/Tunnel back in '03, we did the I-540 tunnel between Fayetteville and Fort Smith, Ark. earlier this year, but there ain't nothing like the tubes that allow you to pass through some of the more rugged mountains of Appalachia.<br /><br />*********<br /><br />After Seraphim finished with her last session on Sunday, we hit the turnpike and headed south into the beautiful state of West Virginia, the fifth time we entered the state on our trip. Our destination was Fairmont, W.Va., where its Red Roof Inn was a beacon atop a hill overlooking the hustle and bustle of I-79.<br /><br />After three nights of glorious luxury at the Hampton Inn (farm fresh "eggs" notwithstanding), it was hard getting used to the very spartan surroundings of our Red Roof Room. That room was barely large enough to hold the king size bed. There was no Wi-Fi available. But the room was clean, there was a functioning TV (with a good movie on HBO at the time - <span style="font-style: italic;">Walk the Line</span>), and the motel staff was as friendly as could be. Who could pick nits? The room was $42.99 .... compared to the Hampton room setting us back $119.00 a night! The Red Roof had no breakfast, "farm fresh" or otherwise. Just a single coffee machine and some cups in the lobby. And on that particular morning, their Mr. Coffee was <span style="font-style: italic;">all tore-up</span>.<br /><br />Again, we didn't complain. There was a Hardee's just down the way, so we grabbed some breakfast biscuits and drinks and hit I-79 southbound. Rincon, Georgia wasn't exactly down the street, ya know.<br /><br />We stopped at the New River Gorge visitor center before crossing the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/neri/planyourvisit/nrgbridge.htm">New River Gorge bridge</a>, the world's second longest single-arch bridge. We exercised off our Hardee's vittles as we plodded down the boardwalk to the lower platform, where we viewed the bridge and surrounding beauty in its awesome splendor.<br /><br />US-19 linked up with I-77 and the West Virginia Turnpike, and the Mountain State gave us an unforgettable farewell token by presenting us with the <a href="http://www.vahighways.com/va-ends/interstate/i077_nt.jpg">East River Mountain Tunnel</a>. What's really cool about this one is that it crosses the line between W.Va. and Virginia. You go in one state, and come out another.<br /><br />One more tunnel (Big Walker Mountain) awaited us, and soon after we crossed into North Carolina, the beautiful Appalachian mountains became mere rolling hills before transitioning into the familiar coastal plains of home as I-77 terminated in Columbia, S.C., about two miles from what is positively the best barbecue in the world: <a href="http://www.mauricesbbq.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Maurice's</span></a>. Love him or hate him, the man has a way with pigs. Since having my first experience in 2005, all I had learned about 'cue in Alabama went flying out the window. I am now a devotee of mustard-based BBQ sauce.<br /><br />I don't think you'll have any trouble guessing just <span style="font-style: italic;">where</span> we ate supper.<br /><br />The remaining ~150 miles were largely anti-climactic. I-26 to I-95 to Ga. 21 to home.<br /><br />And on that note, I'm going to bed. Some further comments will have to wait for another time. It's late, and this thing is long enough already.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Tunnel Vision" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1159714908928128632006-10-01T10:40:00.001-04:002008-05-19T11:34:28.788-04:00The incredibly inedible "egg"It's morning on day #3 of our pleasurably pusillanimous Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania powder.<br /><br />Seraphim is finishing up her Cake Summit next door at the Holiday Inn, and everything (exceptin' for the laptop, duhhhh) is packed and ready to go. Check-out time is 12 noon.<br /><br />Deb's picking me up at noon and will be taking me on "the grand tour" of Pittsburgh, to while away the afternoon before my wife is finished up at 530.<br /><br />Meanwhile I'm left pondering a deep subject: Chicken embryos. You know, those things many of us are fond of consuming for the breakfast meal (or on a late weekend night at IHOP. If only we could get one of those @#$%ing things close to Rincon....).<br /><br />And the thought of the almighty egg gets me thinking about one of the well-known perks of Hampton Inn, and that's their hot breakfast. Now most of your motels tend to offer a bare-bones free breakfast, ranging from the classic "continental breakfast" to something a little more upscale, such as doughnuts or bagels or cereal - usually stale from being in those dispensers.<br /><br />In any case, playing the lead role in the hot breakfast downstairs at this Hampton is something they call FARM FRESH EGGS. Okay, I wish they had bacon on the menu, but eggs I could live with.<br /><br />I open the cover of the hot dish, only to find .... well, it <span style="font-style: italic;">looks</span> like a fried egg. I mean, it has the yellow in the middle and it's surrounded by white. But it's perfectly circular, about 1/4 inch high, and there's no convex, bubble-like middle where the yolk is supposed to be. Jeezuz Cripes, this is what I'd expect to find served at McDonald's. This isn't real egg, it's ... it's ... pre-fabricated, processed, fried egg-like product.<br /><br />If this is "farm fresh", I wanna know which farm these things came from, so I can avoid it. I'll bet the hogs they slaughter yield massive amounts of Spam (the "lunch meat", not that other kind).<br /><br />Seraphim liked 'em okay. She can do so for both of us. Yeccccccch. I partook of what the menu described as HOT, FLUFFY BISCUITS.<br /><br />Biscuits? Yup.<br />Hot? No, lukewarm.<br />Fluffy? As Calista Flockhart.<br /><br />But at least the orange juice was good and pulp-free. It beats nothing.<br /><br />This is why I never consider the free breakfast amenity in a motel. If it's just myself, I don't even think about 'em. I scan the lobby - if there's something good, I eat it. If not, nothing lost.<br /><br />After all, it's why God invented the International House of Pancakes anyway.<br /><br />Which leads me to my closing point. I'll bet those "farm-fresh 'eggs'" are virgins.<br /><br />They don't get laid.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Ahem.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "I want some bacon. Real, please." GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1159674295438565892006-09-30T21:59:00.002-04:002008-05-13T22:27:33.743-04:00For whom we pay tollsDay #2 in Pittsburgh, Pa. Talmadge almost gets lost, eats a middling lunch, and scores a handful of vinyl reckids.<br /><br />But first, let's back up to day #1. After dropping off Seraphim at her Wilton Cake Summit, I was on my own to create all sorts of mirth, mayhem and moral breakdown in Allegheny County. What did I do? I went back to the hotel and took a small nap. Yeah, boy.<br /><br />After waking up, I called a friend of mine who works in radio here. She used to be my boss, and is the lady who rescued me from a cesspool known as Troy, Alabama. For that noble deed, she will forever have a place in my professional heart. I love Deb. SHE is the reason I was able to create a new life for myself, marry Seraphim, and leave an ugly past behind.<br /><br />Well, anyhoo, she and I made plans for the three of us to have dinner. Which then left me free and clear 'till 530, when I'd have to be back to fetch the missus.<br /><br />What to do? Good thing I did my homework. I fired up the Sonata, and took a small roadtrip to a nearby town, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Greensburg</span>, which had a specimen of a <a href="http://www.oldcountrybuffet.com/">restaurant chain I truly miss</a>. The fried chicken at this Old Country Buffet was good as it ever was. OCB's fried chicken just might be my favorite ever. And best of all, they were having a lunch special: $5.99 ... <a href="http://talgleck.blogspot.com/2006/06/old-country-buffet.html">and that also includes </a><a href="http://talgleck.blogspot.com/2006/06/old-country-buffet.html">drink!</a><br /><br />I can't bitch.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/1600/pennpike.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/200/pennpike.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>To get to Greensburg from Monroeville involved taking <a href="http://www.paturnpike.com/">The Pennsylvania Turnpike</a>. Traversing the portion to get me there would set me back all of $1.25 ..... okay, no big thing. I entered the 'pike (I just love those big green signs they have at the entrance!!), thinking this was just another toll road, such as the Florida Turnpike or "Georgia 400" in Atlanta.<br /><br />Boy, was I wrong. Where do I start? Narrow medians, narrow shoulders, crazy curves, and, after the middle interchange on my route (which I later found was the west terminus of the original route), a couple of beautiful overpasses. These were o-l-d suckers, a single archway over the road, without a center support. Many of the roadsides had curbs, too. Holy crap, this was like a timewarp.<br /><br />The "service plaza" I passed, a Mickey D's and Sunoco gas station, was housed in the original stone structure ... originally built to house the restaurant contracted to operate all the service plazas along the turnpike: Howard Johnson's. As I passed it, my mind's eye morphed the building into its original orange roof, small palladium, and ESSO gas pumps out front. Those were the times I wish I were driving a '55 Studebaker and listening to Arthur Godfrey on the radio, as I pull in for a pit stop -- some HoJo's for the tummy and a 29-cent-a-gallon tiger for the tank.<br /><br />After eating said $5.99 lunch, I returned to the room, where I fired up the laptop and immediately began Google'ing for historical info on the Pa. Turnpike. What I found out just blew my mind: I was driving on a portion of the first ever "superhighway" to be built in the United States. The Greensburg to Harrisburg section of the turnpike opened in ... 1940! Can you believe that? Somehow the idea of listening to Jack Benny, <span style="font-style: italic;">Inner Sanctum</span>, or Edward R. Murrow's news reports from London while speeding on a proto-interstate at 70+ MPH just seems a bit too weird to ponder. But folks did.<br /><br />And the other portion of the turnpike, that which I can look to my left and see right this very moment? That's the newest section to open. It was completed in 1951.<br /><br />I still cannot get those overpasses out of my mind, though.<br /><br />Anyhoo, Deb came over to the hotel that night, and we had supper at the adjoining Outback Steakhouse. The company couldn't be beat. The conversation was wonderful. The food, alas, was a bit middling. Oh well...<br /><br />*********<br /><br />Today, I started looking for something a little less 'weird' than old highways: the ever-lovin' used record store! I found two ... one of them in a little suburb called Squirrel Hill, where I got more than a little turned around a couple of times. Not lost, just ... turned around. I found my beaten path, and headed back toward Monroeville. Had lunch today at A&W just down the way from the room. A&W, in case you may not be aware, stands for (A)mburgers (&) (W)oot Beer.<br /><br />The burger? See "middling" comment above. I've had worse, but I've had much better. Sharing space with this A&W was a Long John Silver's. Ecch. Their fish is much like you'd have imagined Captain Hook's Fish-N-Chips (of <span style="font-style: italic;">Fast Times</span> fame) to taste. Heck, it makes Captain D's look like a fine seafood restaurant.<br /><br />Annnnnnnnnnnnyway, supper tonight saw Seraphim and me heading back to Greensburg and the Old Country Buffet, where I ate fried chicken, and my wife had a great salad (she's a fan of the OCB salad bar -- so eating there isn't a big burden for her to bear, unlike rolling tape on the Turnpike, capturing some of that great '40s roadside motif, heh heh).<br /><br />As I sit here thinking about all this history, a big thought occurs to me. Today is September 30 ... my grandfather's birthday. Big John would have been 90 today. Suddenly my fun nostalgic mood becomes dark and melancholy. These are the times I so wish my grandfather were here, so I could ask him if he'd ever traveled any part of the Pa. Turnpike (it wouldn't have surprised me; the man loved roadtrips and took many in his day), and if so what it was like.<br /><br />I'm so glad I could've traveled such an old, historic road on his birthday.<br /><br />Right now I'd give anything short of my wife or son to go back to 1955 and enjoy all that glory in its prime. Or at least to have traveled that roadway much later with Big John.<br /><br />*********<br /><br />All in all, a nice time so far. Tomorrow is our last day up here, and while Seraphim is wrapping up her seminar, I'll be Deb's guest as she takes me on a tour of Pittsburgh. Promises to be fun.<br />As soon as possible after 530, we'll be bound back for the wilds of coastal Georgia, stopping for the night in West Virginia (the fifth time we'll have entered the state), before getting home late Monday.<br /><br />Good night, and Happy Birthday, Big John. You look great up there.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Exact Change" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1159503921416098312006-09-28T23:35:00.004-04:002008-05-19T11:31:53.274-04:00A room with a view!<span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 102, 0);"> (Or: "Gee, I wonder if there's a Bob Evans restaurant around here somewhere!")</span><br /><br />Hola, and greetings from the plush environs of our sixth floor room at the Hampton Inn of Monroeville, Pennsylania. (it's just east of Pittsburgh, right on the turnpike).<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/1600/DSC00053.0.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/200/DSC00053.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Want proof? Check out this marvelous, scenic view from our window! What an old, decrepit sign ... the shield is faded, and the whole thing is of the old-style with reflector dots embedded in the letters and borders. They even have a name: "button copy." They don't make those anymore, so it's like retro eye-candy to "road geek" freaks like myself.<br /><br />We left Rincon, Georgia yesterday morning, and spent the night in Ashland, Kentucky. One could not have asked for a more perfect day for driving. Lunch was spent in Greenville, S.C., where we broke bread (and plenty of BBQ pork therein) with Nettiemac. Filled with a fantastic lunch (what is about South Carolina and awesome barbecue??), we started north ... topping off our tank at the Wal-Mart Supercenter just north of Greenville in - I love this name - Travelers Rest. How could we not; we were so mesmerized by what the price sign read: $1.87/9! Maaaaaan.<br /><br />The Hyundai Sonata we rented for this trip has driven very beautifully. Gas mileage wasn't what I'd hoped (average: 25), but it's better than what we get in our '04 Element.<br /><br />We ate supper at the Bob Evans restaurant adjacent to our motel in Ashland. Bob Evans has a special significance in our lives, because our first meal as a married couple was at a Bob Evans in Lake City, Fla.<br /><br />This morning, however, wasn't so good. What was giveth yesterday was taketh away -- it rained buckets this morning. Lucky for us, the worst of it was while putting away breakfast at IHOP. Still, it was very wet, dank and yucky for the first half of our day's driving.<br /><br />Things got gradually better by the afternoon as the cold front passed through, and then the temperature started to drop. By 3:00 it was in the mid 50s outside. Yeah, baby.<br /><br />Found some more starts-with-a-"1" petrol at a place on I-70 in Ohio, just west of Wheeling, W.Va. Barely, at that ($1.99/9), but who's beeyotchin'.....<br /><br />We got here at about 9:00, and then started finding a place to eat supper. We ended up dining at a 'retro' themed eatery called the Park Diner. Lots of chrome, '50s-style fonts, and classic '50s & '60s music playing in the background. Our server's name was - I swear on a stack of 45s - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Peggy Sue</span>, and she whipped up some awesome homemade milkshakes for Seraphim and me.<br /><br />We'll be here until Sunday afternoon ... in the meantime, I'll leave you with some random thoughts gleaned thus far from this trip:<br /><br /><ul> <li>The states of West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania have all perfectly synchronized the placement of Bob Evans restaurants along their interstates. I came up with an average of one every 1.32 exits along I-64, I-77 and I-70 alone.<br /></li> <li>I tried the legendary Kentucky soft drink Ale-8-1. Both Seraphim and I had the same opinion: it tasted like watered down ginger ale. I was especially disappointed, because I was expecting something with some real 'bite' to it, like Buffalo Rock (a dark ginger-ale indigenous to my native Alabama). Oh well.</li> <li>I had two hard-to-find drinks flowing through my patience-of-Job kidneys today: DOUBLE COLA, and my most favoritest drink in the world, SQUIRT.</li> <li>We crossed the Ohio River four (4) times today.<br /></li> <li>I wish West Virginia or Pennsylvania would consider giving us just one of their Bob Evans restaurants. We could use a good breakfast place nearby where we live.<br /></li> </ul> More news as it happens. When news breaks out, Gleck breaks in. News at :55, bulletins at any time.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Keystone Krackpot" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1159323098793729652006-09-26T23:15:00.001-04:002008-05-19T11:31:08.526-04:00Sonata in B-sharpOr, Talmadge and Seraphim have their hot little rental car all ready for The Great Cake Junket to Pittsburgh, Pa. Your blog host and spouse will be driving a silver* '07 Hyundai Sonata ... with what my wife calls a "Mafia trunk" (read: I don't think we'll have problems fitting all her cake paraphernalia, the laptop, portable DVD player and .... anything else I forg--? Oh yeah, clothes!)<br /><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);font-family:arial;font-size:78%;" >* = It's SILVER, dear. SIL-VER. Not "Lunar Mist" or any of those other weird quasi-colors car makers like to use. It says "SILVER" on the Hertz keytag, so it must be true. </span><br /><br />And there appears to be enough room to hold the digital camera and cap <a href="http://nettiemac.blogspot.com/">a certain weekend visitor</a> left behind. We'll be passing through Nettiemac's neighborhood, and we'll be eating lunch at a BBQ place in Greenville, S.C. -- looking very forward to it. Geez, I haven't seen her in ... how many hours? ;-)<br /><br />Watch this space for updates. Seraphim has a laptop, so we'll be taking advantage of free wi-fi at the hotels where we'll be staying.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Next stop, northeast Kentucky!" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1159327820078072782006-09-26T22:19:00.004-04:002008-05-11T21:34:34.616-04:009-1/2 for Victorrrrrrr!!!<blockquote style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><u>NOTE</u>: If you have not seen the 1982 film </span><span style="font-style: italic;">The Last American Virgin</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">, do not read any further because this post is full of spoilers. Of course, if you have no desire to see this movie, then go ahead and read on. Or don't. See if I care. <span style="font-size:78%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">-TG</span></span></span></blockquote>Over the previous weekend, Seraphim and I were host to two of the coolest people trodding this Earth: Bolivar and Nettiemac. We didn't get to do the music trivia game we had hoped, but that's why God invented a little thing called "future visits."<br /><br />One thing we DID do is watch movies. Quite a few, in fact. One of 'em was a truly underrated film, <a href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0084234"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Last American Virgin</span></a>. Not to be confused with the more recent Steve Carell hit movie <span style="font-style: italic;">The 40-Year-Old Virgin</span> (yes, we watched that one too).<br /><br />Anyone who graduated high school in the 1980s (myself = 1983; Seraphim = 1987 - ditto for Nettiemac; Bolivar = 1986) can relate to the whole feel of the movie ... this puppy is chock full of memorable early '80s pop hits, like the Quincy Jones song "Just Once" .... not to mention Journey's "Open Arms", U2's first single "I Will Follow", "I Know What Boys Like" by The Waitresses (a song that just oozes 1980s) ... and much, much more.<br /><br />Synopsis: Gary is the aforementioned "last American virgin." Not shy in a nerdy sense, mind you; he wasn't the target of ridicule or taunting. Lawrence Monoson played the role of Gary in such a way as to evoke a very disturbing sense of familiarity in a lot of us with a Y chromosome. Gary's two best friends -- David (the fat one) and Rick (the stud) -- form a threesome who, for much of the first half of this movie, are in an endless quest for sex ... from picking up three girls at the fast-food hangout, to patronizing a "lady of the night", to getting it on with a Charo-like nympho.<br /><br />Complicating matters is a new student, Karen (played by Diane Franklin -- who was best-known for her role as Monique in the movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Better Off Dead</span>). Gary falls for her. And I mean falls. But he's too shy and awkward to make a good impression. Unfortunately, Rick swoops in and takes her. They hit it off, which makes Gary apoplectic. A triangle is formed. Things get interesting.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Gary tries to get laid. His virginity was erased by a prostitute ... a viciously mean one, at that. After an episode like that, it's a wonder he would ever want to make a bed squeak again.<br /><br />What sets TLAV apart, though, is the big picture. Toward the middle, the film changes gears in a big way -- it goes from your typical "American Pie"-type teens-getting-laid flick, to a starkly dramatic turn of events which allow the characters to really develop. Gary wants sex, but deep inside you know he's seeking out more. He wants love. He wants Karen. Rick is your typical "male jerk" -- the typical wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am kind of guy.<br /><br />In the middle is plump, fun-loving David (who maintains a detailed track of all his expenses -- a funny side-note involves his keeping a running 'tab' on his friends). David is something of the comic relief in this movie. Some of his lines are the funniest -- <span style="font-style: italic;">"Money -- now we're talking! Everybody put in a dollar ... the one with the biggest tool, he's the one who wins the pool!"</span><br /><br />Basically, Rick deflowers Karen (in their school's football pressbox, of all places), knocks her up, and Rick dumps her. Gary to the rescue. Gary pawns his stereo (HORRORS!!), borrows money from his boss, raids the petty-cash pot at his late grandmother's house, and cobbles together enough money to cover Karen's abortion (this came out BEFORE <span style="font-style: italic;">Fast Times</span>, mind you).<br /><br />Karen expresses her sincerest appreciation to Gary. Gary professes his love for Karen. Karen invites Gary to her birthday party. Gary goes to a jewelry store to buy Karen a present: a locket inscribed with a message of love (how he had enough $ to buy this after liquidating much of his worldly possessions is a big mystery).<br /><br />Gary shows up at Karen's house, where the party is going full-tilt. Gary finds Karen. She's in the kitchen .....<br /><br />.....and Karen runs toward Gary, embracing him, where they exchange passionate "I love yous." Gary finally gets the brass ring. Both are happy, and settle in for what will be a long, serious relationship.<br /><br />No, sorry. You were expecting the typical Hollywood ending? You won't find it here, I'm afraid.<br /><br />What happens is, Gary shows up at Karen's house, where the party is going full-tilt. Gary finds Karen. She's in the kitchen ..... with RICK, and they're smooching. Both turn and look at Gary, who is very shocked, his smile having instantly evaporated. Rick's look says <span style="font-style: italic;">"Ha ha, sucker ... thanks for cleaning up behind me!" </span>And "sweet" Karen? She's clearly embarrassed, but stays embraced with Rick. A tear falls down her cheek. But she says nothing.<br /><br />Gary bolts out of the house, while "Just Once" plays ... gets into his station wagon (more on that in a second), and drives off. Gary starts crying. The music gets louder. The credits begin rolling. End of movie.<br /><br />Back when I first saw this movie, I hated this ending. <span style="font-style: italic;">Hated</span> it. I wanted Gary to get the girl. However, as I became an adult, and logged a lot of 40-mile stretches of bad road, I began seeing this ending for what it is: REALITY.<br /><br />I like this movie more for the nostalgia factor than anything else. But also for the powerful lessons it conveys. To name several:<br /><br />1) For starters, the obvious ... NICE GUYS FINISH LAST. Guys like Rick usually end up with the girl. Girls seem to like the jerks much more than the nice guys. I know that's a sweeping generalization, but that's what my own experience showed. I got lucky when I found Seraphim, but it took forever for that to happen.<br /><br />2) Guys who drive their bosses' vehicles around, especially when they're pink station wagons with a his employer's logo on top (The Pink Pizza), should expect to have trouble getting any action. Which begs the question, why come Gary's parking this pizza delivery vehicle, logo plain as day, in front of the fast-food hangout ... which, arguably, represents competition???<br /><br />3) This movie should've done for prostitutes what you'd think <span style="font-style: italic;">Fatal Attraction</span> would've done for males dabbling with adultery on the side. "Ruby" was played with such ugliness by Nancy Brock. (I loved her response to David's awkward small-talk: <span style="font-style: italic;">"Are you here to interview me, or to f*ck me???"</span>)<br /><br />4) Getting crabs from Ruby really sucked. There's a big moral somewhere in that one, eh? (Another favorite line: when David, Rick and Gary are trying - awkwardly - to convey their little 'problem' to the local druggist, he figures it out, leans toward 'em and asks, softly, <span style="font-style: italic;">"Your BALLS itch??!!"</span>)<br /><br />*********<br /><br />We also watched another favorite of mine, the 1999 movie <span style="font-style: italic;">Election</span>. Good stuff, although very disturbing with its realistic portrayal of teachers having sex with students, betraying trust students place in them, and the consequences of same.<br /><br />What else? Oh yeah, <span style="font-style: italic;">Pass The Ammo</span> - a very hard-to-find 1987 flick filmed in the Arkansas city of Eureka Springs ... the infamous <span style="font-style: italic;">Napoleon Dynamite</span> ... and more.<br /><br />Movies are great things. Even better when shared among friends.<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "A Warner Brothers First National Picture" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1150261791935997862006-06-14T01:06:00.001-04:002008-05-11T21:28:50.834-04:00...and here's YOUR credit card, little lady.Found while looking through my old gas station road map collection for information about a long-gone roadside chain:<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/1600/skelly_ladiescard.jpg"><br /><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7791/1430/320/skelly_ladiescard.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">SKELLY</span> was the name of a regional gasoline brand which marketed in the Midwest states (I vaguely remember seeing some in Missouri and Arkansas once upon a time). Like most other "earl" companies, Skelly also had its own credit card program, which it pitched on the back of their road maps (oh, for the days when gas stations gave those things out for free).<br /><br />[Side thought: I wonder if Skelly had a grudge against Michigan and Ohio ... they seem to be missing from the U.S. image above.]<br /><br />Skelly, though, had to be different. Unlike Shell, Texaco, Chevron, et petrolius al, Skelly issued not just one credit card. No, siree. Our Fine Skelsters had<span style="font-style: italic;"> two</span> of 'em up their corporate sleeve! First was their "regular" card, but evidently that one was available only upon proof of a functioning penis.<br /><br />But what if you weren't talliwackily equipped? Fear not, Miz Running-On-Empty! Should this have been the case, Skelly would bestow the <u>other</u> card on you. It was called, as you can see above, the <span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-weight: bold;">Ladies' Credit Card</span></span>. It even appeared in a faux-elegant script style font, too. How ... feminine?<br /><br />My question is, WHY? Were the Skelly people sexist little oinks? Or were they forerunners of the current-day Southern Baptist Convention ("Women, be graciously submissive to your husbands.") Heck, it makes me wonder if Skelly didn't also issue a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Skelly Colored Peoples' Card</span> back in the '50s? "Honored only if The Man lets you use it."<br /><br />What if a lady drove over the ding-ding hose out front in her '71 Plymouth Fury Station Wagon, the attendant came out and pumped 15 gallons of Skelly Premium into her car, and - upon time to settle up - she whipped out .... the <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">REGULAR</span> Skelly card? *GASP!!!*<br /><br />Would the entire gas station fall more silent than an E.F. Hutton commercial? Whispers aplenty --- <span style="color: rgb(192, 192, 192); font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"she used a MAN'S card." "What a dyke." "What kind of man is her husband? He oughta set her straight!" "How DARE she?" "Next thing you know, the dame's gonna want to vote." </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span><br /><br />I wonder if the interest rate was higher or lower on the Ladies' Credit Card? (Probably higher. Much higher. This was the early '70s, after all. I don't think women were even allowed to be out after 5:00 p.m. yet) Did all the bills go to the Family Patriarch to scrutinize?<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Hey, June, explain this one - $4.72 on March 4th. Almost FIVE DOLLARS!!"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Ward, I let The Beaver, Larry and Whitey each have a Coke when I stopped for gas." </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Not on the Ladies' Credit Card. Don't let that happen again, you understand?" </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Yes, sir."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Now go put on your pearls and chiffon dress and fix me some supper."</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Gee, Dad, you were a little hard on the Mom, weren't you?" </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"SHUT UP, Wally."</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">********* </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"DONALD! My very own Skelly Ladies' Credit Card." </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Yes, Ann. Now don't go gassing up in one place."</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"I promise, Donald. I don't even own a car." </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">*********</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Aw, cheez, Edit' ... stifle yourself and go get gas in the '62 Dart." </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"But Ah-chee ... you have the Skelly card." </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Why can't she have a card of her own, Archie??"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Because women can't handle real credit cards, Meathead!" </span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"THAT'S NOT TRUE, DADDY!!!"</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">"Now little girl, you give the dames real cards, then it doesn't stop there. Next, they'll be voting for McGovern. Burning their bras. Practicing lesbianism, witchcraft and leaving their husbands. All because they couldn't take their Ladies' Credit Card and stay in the kitchen." </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">*********</span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Today, on </span><span style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">The 700 Club</span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> ... Pat Robertson traces the downfall of American civilization to the day Skelly discontinued the Ladies' Credit Card. It was the reason Skelly disappeared from the roadside. And it's the reason women have become 'uppity.' </span><br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">*********</span><br /><br />In all seriousness, I have a feeling my best friend, soulmate and sweet wifely one Seraphim would gladly accept a "Ladies' Credit Card" if it would mean she could gas up at 1972 prices. 12 gallons to fill up the Element at 32.9¢ a gallon .... $3.94! If only!<br /><br />Ciao for niao.<br /><br />--Talmadge "Don't forget my S&H Green Stamps and candy box with fill-up!" GleckTalmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15447453.post-1124164016253763192005-08-15T23:40:00.000-04:002005-08-17T14:16:35.120-04:00Talmadge 101No, it's not the latest radio station format craze. It's the first entry of what could well be a haphazard, erratic and off-kilter contribution to the blogosphere. It might last forever and ever, amen. Or be canceled quicker than a good network TV show.<br /><br />After some thought, I've taken the dive and now I have a blog of my own. Yippee! I now feel validated as a citizen. Webpages are so .... 20th century. My teenage son, illustrious Goth-In-Training, just started one at Xanga.com; I suppose that gave me the nudge I needed.<br /><br />Okay, some of you have wondered: "Who's this Talmadge Gleck person?" Wonder no more. Talmadge Gleck is an 'alter ego' name I coined back in the abyss of high school; literally so, as the name came to life in a basement classroom at a high school in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It was a typical 1981 school day, and I thought of a really outlandish name for a fictional character. It just came out. Talmadge Gleck. A famous name was born.<br /><br />The name Talmadge Gleck would occasionally surface over the years, often as a generic fictional name if I needed it for, say, a piece of writing.<br /><br />And, here in August 2005, Talmadge Quirkius Gleck now has his own blog. Look for thoughts, ponderings, reflections, ruminations, et pluribus al, in this space. <br /><br />And there you have it. Talmadge 101. Better keep those notes, as there might be a pop quiz tomorrow.<br /><br />Okay, I'm going to go back to watching Letterman before I hit the hay. Ciao for niao.Talmadgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02398182312942014436noreply@blogger.com0