Category Archives: Americana

Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den

Americana, Current Affairs, Uncategorized, , ,

 

When I saw the headline, Gaddafi’s Creepy Love Den in The Dailyt Beast, my first thought was  a remembrance of a Peter Arno cartoon in which a stuffy matron, reading the newspaper that says Mayor caught in love nest and looking up at her equally dignified husband, says “What is a ‘Love Nest’, dear?” Of course,  I remember it because I didn’t know, at about ten, what a Love Nest was either; I’m sure that my mother’s explanation was in good taste.  “Love Nest” is just not a term you hear these days, but – then – neither is “Love Den”. I hope they are both coming back.

When I was at an impressionable age, my family had three joke books that helped shape my sensibilities. There were other books and – I’m sure -other joke books, but the three that stick in my mind are the aforementioned Peter Arno book, a James Thurber book with a name I can’t remember, and Up Front by Bill Maudin. They all three had a sort of whimsical sarcasm that I like to think is in my DNA.

Vintage races @ Laguna Seca 2011 – something for almost anybody

Americana, Cars, Evolution, Uncategorized, , , , ,

The thing about races, is that the people who go are generally car people. So, in addition to the races, there are lots of interesting cars: hot rods, old taxis, just nice old cars in general.

For me it is all sorts of cars, Maseratis – although there were few Maseratis this year – Ferraris – a pretty obvious choice – any little, lithe, sports racing car with a big, honk’n,  427, and Formula Jr.s. Formula Jr.s because they are such a great history lesson. Towards the end of the 50’s, Italian Formula One cars were beating everybody but drivers were being killed at an alarming rate. It was decided to start an international training car class called Formula Jr. to train the replacement drivers. Because the cars were limited to a 1.1 liter production car engine, like the FIAT 1100, Forumla Jr. was sort of Italian weighted. Some of the prettiest were the Stanguellinis which looked like miniature Maserati Formula One race cars. Except of course, the Maseratis had 2.5 liter DOHC engines and the Stanguellinis has little FIAT engines. And they were teeny-tiny.

 

But in Formula Jr. Just like Formula One, the British were changing the game.Frank Costin was designing cars based on aerodynamic lessons learned in WWII, cars like Cooper and Lotus were putting the engines behind the drivers, and – another WWII idea – disk brakes were making the British cars stop much quicker. One of my favorite British Formula Jr. cars was the Lola – as in What ever Lola wants, Lola gets – with it’s cute taperesque nose.

 

And Loti like these:

 

Soon the British took over Formula Jr., then small sports-racing cars with cars like the Lotus Eleven

then, when the Brits discovered downforce and the awesome goodness of the Chevrolet V8, we were graced with McLaren M8D  Can-Ams.

And the outstanding velocity stacks that sat on top of that awesome Chevrolet engine, now enlarged to seven liters.

Ferraris, anon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby Time

Americana, Around home, Art, Current Affairs, Games, Sports,


We went to a Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby meet last Saturday night with almost no preconceived ideas. It was delightful.

I first heard about the revival of Roller Derby in an article titled Revolution on Eight Wheels by Diane “Lady Hulk” Williams – the Lady Hulk part is very important, it turns out – in which she talked about going to a match thinking it might be exploitation and falling in love with the sport and the team. After going to one game, it seems easy to do.

I am fascinated by the way our culture is changing – especially in regard to women and minorities – and I am fascinated by the way that change is reflected back into the culture by our public stories, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know, technically, that Joss Whedon wrote Buffy so it could be called non-public, but Buffy ran for seven season because it resonated with society’s changing image of women. So going to a Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby match? game? roll-off? seemed right up my alley. It was in Oakland and we went with Courtney Gonzalez.

Courtney , Michele, and I met for dinner at a local pizzeria called Pizzaiolo – although calling Pizzaiolo a pizzeria is a little like calling a Bentley a car – and then went over to the Oakland Convention Center to see the B.A.D.’s – B.ay A.rea D.erby girls – All Star team, The Golden Girls, play the Austin Texecutioners _whose colors are black and blood – as part of a Roller Derby tournament. Dinner was slower than I expected and I was getting agitated that we would be too late but we ended up getting to the game just in time. I had expected that we would walk into a packed  house and not even be able to see the track.

 

It turns out that Flat Track Women’s Roller derby is not packing in the crowds…yet. But it will. It has everything, sexily dressed women, real hard-driving athletic competition, high scoring, and a warm family outing sort of atmosphere. Oh! and it is very casual: for example, each player, of course, has a number, but the numbers have no rhyme or reason. The San Francisco numbers are 11, 101, 666, 1619,16, Ohh, 170c, and so on. And each player has a stage name? porn name? Some of my favorites were Astronaughty, Ivy Profane, Huck Sinn, and Aunti Christ on the San Francisco team and Lucille Brawl, The Killa Sal Monella, Belle Starr – her number is 1889, the year of Belle Starr’s death – and Vicious Van GoGo on the Austin team.

The persona of Women’s Roller Derby – flat track, atleast – is of tough, maybe even nasty, women. It is anything but. Maybe because the teams are owned by the players, which means women, or maybe it is for some other reason, but the atmosphere is nonthreatening. Very nonthreatening in a counter culture way. It is as if they pretended to be  tough to hide their tender, vulnerable, welcoming selves. But the games are rough and tough. Women get knocked down, they get hurt, they get knocked out of the game.

Scoring is based on – very roughly – a jammer starting behind the scrum – for lack of a better name – fighting through the scrum, going around the track and catching up with the scrum, and then getting one point for each opposing player the jammer passes. Here are a few shots:

 

 

 

 

The Golden girls won by a landslide – the first time they have beaten the Austin Team.

 

 

 

 

 

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In defense of Obama or the advantage of being crazy

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, Psychological Musings,

Yesterday – maybe the day before that, by now – James Fallows who is usually a voice of reason, answered his question about President Obama’s negotiating stance during the (unnecessary and abusive) debt-ceiling “showdown.” Was he thinking eight steps ahead of the opposition, playing multi-dimensional chess while they were playing tic-tac-toe? Or was he a fatal step or two behind, playing patty-cake while they were playing Mixed Martial Arts? Chess master? Or pawn?”

I think we know the answer, at least about this encounter. Pawn, and captured pawn at that.

It has been very discouraging, it just seems like Obama has been head faked out of his jock. My big complaint, I think most of my fellow lefty’s big complaint, is that he should have seen this coming. Additionally,  he seems to always start the negotiation by giving the Republicans half of what he thinks they want.  He is a little like Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football, except in this case, he is pulling the football out first to try and placate them.

In Obama’s defense, the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party just seems to be crazy. The advantage of being crazy is that the sane people have to do all the accommodating. Something like twenty five years ago – I remember it like it was only five years ago – I was waiting in the ten items or less line, when I realized the person two or three people in front of me had an over-full cart being pushed by a crazy looking teenager. Just then, her mother came running over very embarrassed saying something like Oh! no, dear; it is not nice to put a full cart in this line. The crazy teenager just looked at us like somebody yelling in the street and said They don’t care. She probably wasn’t drolling but I do remember as looking slightly dangerous in a ready to go berserk way.  We all looked at our feet, including the checker, and she went ahead.

If it looks like the other person is nuttier than a fruitcake and could do something really dangerous like shut the government down, then they have all the power. Especially with somebody like Obama whose persona is the cool, calm, sane, only adult in the room. That is great that he is the only adult in the room except he has no power. The Tea Party is getting its way by being crazy.

That actually doesn’t sound too crazy to me.

 

 

“60 Awesome Portraits Of Gay Couples Just Married In New York State”

Americana, Current Affairs, Psychological Musings

 

The title is ripped off the website  BuzzFeed and so are these two pictures. The full 60 -actually, 59 – pictures are there, also. Check it out! It is more than 59 wedding pictures, it is 59 pictures of people who have just been told they are as good as anybody else.