Tom Magliozzi , RIP

November 4, 2014AmericanaSteve Stern

Tom Magliozzi died Monday morning from complications of Alzheimer’s Disease. Tom, along with his brother Ray, were Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers on NPR’s Car Talk, one of my very favorite programs on my favorite radio network. I loved Car Talk and I don’t think that had as much to do with the fact that it was about cars as it was about humor. Both humor as in comedy and humor as in good humor, in which they abounded. They always seemed to be having fun.

I’ll miss him, I’ll miss Car Talk.

Turns out he wasn’t kidding,” said Ray. “He really couldn’t remember last week’s puzzler.” 1

Baseball, Family, F1, and Lewis Hamilton

October 28, 2014Cars, Sports, Television, UncategorizedSteve Stern

Watching the Giants beating the Kansas City Royals Sunday evening – listening to the Giants beating the Kansas City Royals on TV while doing stuff in the other room would be more accurate – I was struck by the differences in the sports coverage in F1 and Baseball, especially in coverage of the driver’s/player’s family and girlfriends. I know that alot of players wives and girlfriends – here in after referred to as WAGS – travel with the team in baseball, because I have sat near them at games. But the WAGs are almost never shown on television and I don’t think that I have ever seen coverage of, say, a first baseman’s parents during a game.

In F1, the WAGs and parents – and in Hamilton’s case, even his brother – are often shown (one father, driver Jenson Button’s, always wore a trademark pink shirt that was frequently remarked upon; after his father passed away, Jenson even changed his helmet color to pink in honor of his father). One of the reasons is the size, in Formula 1, there are only twenty-two drivers – eleven teams of two drivers each – so the drivers, especially the drivers on the most competitive teams, are covered in more detail than baseball. It is not unusual to see a driver hugging his WAG or family after a race, often when they still have their helmet on. I am not saying that one is better than the other, but the difference is striking.

This may be just be an excuse to post something on Lewis Hamilton who has won four races straight as of last weekend, but I will try to make it as un-Formula One-ish as possible. In Singapore, Hamilton’s car worked flawlessly while his teammate, Nico Rosberg, had a problem with his steering wheel wiring harness that knocked him out of the race.¹Since then, he has won two more races and is now leading in the Championship by 17 points. With three races still to go out of a total of nineteen, this has been an extraordinary season with more racing than any season I can remember. The primary characteristic of the season has been the unreliability of the fastest cars which has often forced drivers into high-risk racing. Both Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton have come from being impossibly far behind to win races. Hamilton, in particular, has driven more than several unforgettable races. After wandering through the wilderness, he is at the top of his career. As the season has gone on, I have become increasingly invested in Hamilton winning and, I think, it is for several reasons that are only slightly related.

Auto racing is expensive on almost every level and that is a major selection factor towards drivers with rich parents. Hamilton is an exception. He came from a family that was far from wealthy and, as racing became a bigger part of his life, it put big strains on the Hamilton family. Hamilton’s parents divorced and his mother didn’t or wouldn’t go to his races. When Hamilton first started racing, his dad was his racing engineer and manager.

Of course, as Hamilton started racing at higher levels he used professional racing engineers, but even when Hamilton started driving in Formula One at McLaren, his dad stayed on as his manager, A couple of years ago, maybe four, Hamilton fired his dad and hired an outside agency. It tore the family apart and his dad eventually sued for back pay.

Shortly thereafter, Hamilton left McLaren, the racing team that had given him his first Formula One job and a Championship. He moved to Mercedes Benz. Now Hamilton is leading the Driver’s World Championship and I think a good part of that is because he has become his own person. As painful as it was, Hamilton had to leave home to grow up.As an adult, he has reconciled with his family, not only his dad but also his mom. Hamilton put it best and I’ll end with a quote from him:

I just feel relaxed, all my family are a real positive beam of light for me at the weekend.

I spoke years ago, when my Dad was my manager, and said I couldn’t wait for the day when he was here just as my Dad. And that’s what you’re seeing. And that’s one of the greatest feelings, having him here. Since the first day I ever got in a kart – I remember the day of my first race – I created a handshake with him. I was eight years old and he was there. That’s one of the most special things. He said today it felt like I was eight years old again attending kart race, when he was watching me.

I don’t know what Dad thought when we started. I was good but I don’t know if he thought that in 20 years time we’d be winning the Singapore GP. I try to imagine his mentality, getting four jobs to get the money to get a crap kart together, to respray it or try to bend it back to shape because it was the oldest kart in world, trying to get some fuel because we had spent all the money on tyres. Going through all that to now be at the pinnacle of the sport, I’m hugely proud of my family, so it’s really cool for dad to be here. I’ve gotta stop there – I’m getting emotional!

1. As an aside, Formula One car steering wheels are complex and everything is controlled from by them, as the accompanying picture shows. When the wheel has a problem, it is a major problem.

1 BOOST: F1 cars have an electric-hybrid system known as KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) that regenerates braking energy, then boosts acceleration—at the push of a button—via an 80-hp electric motor. Another feature that increases speed is the movable rear wing that flattens to reduce drag. The wing is controlled by a foot pedal. 2 LAP TIME 3 HARVEST : Regulates the amount of energy “harvested” during braking. The regen system can alter the feel of the brakes, and because these guys drive with exacting precision, they’re picky about tactile feedback. This knob lets them customize. 4 DOWNSHIFT PADDLE 5 MIX: Adjusts the engine’s air—fuel mixture to balance power and fuel economy. F1 cars don’t refuel during a race, but economy is still vital—fuel adds weight. 6 BITE POINT: The race start is critical because the cars begin from a stop and the initial sprint is a prime overtaking opportunity. The bite point adjusts how the clutch engages as the drivers release the paddle, so they can execute a perfect launch. 7 BPF During practice starts, the driver uses the “bite point find” to record the clutch behavior. Engineers use the data to instruct the driver where to set the bite point dial. 8 CLUTCH PADDLE. 9 BBAL Displays the front—rear brake balance, a critical adjustment that drivers make to fine-tune the braking performance. Most passes are done in the braking zones. 10 REVERSE GEAR. 11 SHIFT LIGHTS. 12 LIMITER Restricts the car’s speed to the pit-lane limit, 62 mph. 13 ENGINE PARAMETERS. 14 UPSHIFT PADDLE. 15 TORQUE The 2.4-liter V8 revs to 18,000 rpm and delivers north of 700 hp. That’s a handful in a 1400-pound car, so the drivers use this knob to adjust the engine’s torque curve, depending on track conditions. 16 TYRE Teams use roughly half a dozen different tires that vary in construction and diameter. This dial tells the computer which tires are fitted so it can calculate wheel speed. 17 CLUTCH PADDLE. 8 DIFFERENTIAL Thanks to electronic controls, the characteristics of the rear differential can be tailored for corner entry, midpoint and exit—each with 12 settings. Frankly, we’re amazed that the drivers can detect such minute rear-end differences during cornering events that last for maybe a few seconds. But that’s why they’re paid millions.

Three worlds

October 24, 2014Americana, Around homeSteve Stern

Last Sunday, while Michele was in Napa, I went to see Fury with Brad Pitt. It was pretty close to the classic war movie, checking all the appropriate war-movie boxes. And it was pretty good. Actually, the first three-quarters was very good and then it became a little too fanciful. It was a world that felt very familiar, not that I have ever been in combat, but it felt like alot of early 50s war movies that I have seen.

When I got out, it was pretty late so I stopped by El Grullense Grill for some pisole. I figured it would still be open because they have a bar at one end of the restaurant. I ordered my pisole and, while I was waiting for it, a fight started in the bar. I looked over and it seemed like a typical bar fight with a couple of three or four guys sort of inexpertly pushing and shoving with alot of yelling (not that I know anything about bar fights, the last one I saw was at Evy’s Partytimer on the edge of Watts in 1963).

As the fight escalated, the adults who were eating – especially the women – started backing out the front door so that the restaurant side of El Grullense was semi-empty by the time one of the fight participants threw a beer bottle at the bartender (incidentally, for those of you, like me, don’t know what an exploding beer bottle sounds like, it sounds a little like a gun going off).What surprised me, shocked me, actually, was that, when the fight started, all the kids in the restaurant left. Instantly! The was a yell by the back door, a push or a swing, and all the kids got up and ran out the front door.

I grew up in a world in which the kids would have been trying to see what was happening at the other end of the room. A fight after all is intrinsically interesting, in much the same way that an accident by the side of the road is interesting. But, in El Grullense, this time at least, no kid looked to see what was happening, they just all ran for the door. This is not a world I am familiar with.

Last Tuesday, Michele took me to An Evening with Caroline Casey & Climbing PoeTree – Magnetizing Metaphor into Matter at Oakland’s Impact Hub. Caroline, pictured above with Michele and one of her favorite clients, is hard to describe, she uses astrology as lens to riff about everything, from the Grail Legend to Sufism, from Voodoo to the Kabbala, from Classic Chinese Theatre to Movies. She is always entertaining and insightful. On Tuesday, she was joined by two women who are equally hard to explain, Alixa Garcia and Naima Penniman. They reminded me of a CD I had – probably in the early 90s – by a black woman, whose name escapes me, that – looking back – seems to be a combination of poetry and rap. Rather than even try to explain Climbing Poe Tree, I’ll just embed a performance from Bioneers.

What surprised me was the crowd. Both the familiar and the unfamiliar worlds of the crowd. The crowd was overwhelmingly female. The familiar part was the women my age that I feel I know: they are intellectual and liberal, they are consumers of art and invested in things as they are. They say they want change and, even, recognize the necessity of change. Still, they aren’t – really – doing much about bringing it about except voting. Most of my generation, especially the men of my generation, but including these women, for all their good intentions, have stonewalled progress towards equality and fairness. As an aside, when I say especially the men of my generation, I include women like Dianne Feinstein who seem to be living through their masculine side even though their persona is female. End aside.

The unfamiliar world of the Tuesday night crowd, however, was the majority of it: young women couples. This Impact Hub was started, primarily, by several women of color and is dedicated to change.and this crowd seemed to be living and embracing that change. Even though it was a new world to me, it is a very welcome world.

Age, Ferrari, Brooks Camera, General Motors, and the problem with Capitalism

October 22, 2014Art, Cars, Psychological MusingsSteve Stern

A couple of weeks ago, maybe a month now, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the President of Ferrari, was fired. My first reaction is that it was a good move because the Ferrari Formula One Team is doing miserably and Montezemolo is part of the problem. They need fresh blood. Formula One is a constantly evolving sport and Montezemolo who is 67 doesn’t have any new answers.

Rather than taking a chance with young drivers – and engineers – who are on their way up, like Red Bull, which has won four Championships in a row, Ferrari has hired great drivers and engineers on the way down. When a company is not gambling on the future but trying to safely replicate the past with the people of the past, is can only be mediocre and that is a great description of Ferrari’s Formula One program under Montezemolo. But, according to the F1 gossip, that is not why he was fired. The FIAT Board fired Montezemolo because they want to increase production to increase profits and Montezemolo wants to keep Ferrari exclusive.

In the 60s, 70s, and into the 80s, there was a camera store on the corner of Maiden lane and Kearny, Brooks Camera. Brooks Camera which was started by Julius Bloch – who escaped Nazi Germany in 1936 – was the best camera store on the West Coast, maybe the nation. It was always packed, always! Like 10:00 Tuesday morning packed. It was the kind of place where one could buy a Kodak Brownie, a brand new Nikon, or an obscure camera part (I once stood in line behind a guy who bought, not one, but two Pierre Angenieux lenses for his Bolex movie camera, saying I am on my way to Vietnam here is my NBC account number).

In different ways and at different levels, both Enzo Ferrari and Julius Block had a vision to create a company that was the best at what it did. That is what Capitalism or Entrepreneurship does best, create the money and arena to create new products and better services out of a visionary’s dream. Ferrari or Brooks would not have existed in a Command Economy. However, the new products and better services only continue to be created when there is still a Vision. When Bloch retired, he left Brooks Camera to the employees, but they didn’t care about the vision, all they cared about was making money.

I have no idea what will happen to Ferrari, but Brooks Camera is gone. The employees turned the operation into a series of discount camera stores to increase earnings and the world, apparently, doesn’t need another discount camera store. Still, that is often not the case and that is the problem with Capitalism. Usually, after the founder/visionary leaves the company he or she founded, making money becomes the company’s reason for being. Often, when the company has a large market share, is rich enough, or has a deserved sterling reputation, it can lever that into making lots of money. For years, after Alfred Sloan left General Motors, they made more money with GMAC – General Motors Acceptance Corporation which loaned money for people to buy cars (and, eventually, houses) – than they did in actually building and selling cars.

For General Motors, making money became the goal – the overriding goal – and, in that environment, weighing the cost of replacing millions of ignition switches against the cost of potential lawsuits from criminal negligence, made good sense. When making money becomes the goal, making good products, innovation, or providing good jobs – among other socially desirable goals – becomes secondary, although the companies often do make lots of money. However, they no longer make the world, our world, richer, they only make the shareholders richer.

As an aside, Ferrari still makes wonderful cars – great cars – but they are no longer the reflection of Enzo Ferrari, il Commendatore. If you want a car that is the reflection of one man’s vision, you would have to buy something like a Pagani Huayra, the creation of Horacio Pagani, with its stunning exterior and spectacular steampunk interior. End aside.

Hiking – to use the term loosely – out of Coyote Gulch

October 18, 2014Camping, Travel, UtahSteve Stern

We spent the second night on a sandy bench under a huge wall on the outside of a meander with the sky trying to clear. After our morning toilette,
and instant oatmeal with dry fruit for breakfast, we wandered around the area for a few minutes. Up until now, we have been walking through Navajo Sandstone, but, now, the creek – brook? stream? – has carved its way down into another layer or, more accurately, down into multi-layers; and the canyon starts to take on a different character.

Today we walk under Coyote Bridge, following the stream, and nobody is around. Yesterday, we walked by Jacob Hamblin Arch, probably the most famous – using the term famous relatively – place in Coyote Gulch, but there were two large parties camped there, so we kept on walking. For the most part, we are hiking alone, although we do run into people going the other way or going faster (we don’t pass anybody who is walking slower than me). The first time I came here, we didn’t see anybody and now there are probably thirty people spread out along the thirteen mile canyon.

We are in an official park, the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument but this is land that is administered by the Bureau of Land Management rather than The Park Service. It is the BLM, to anybody who lives in the Rural West. The BLM which administers over 245 million surface acres and 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights. The BLM: giver of grazing and mining permits, regulator – over regulator or under regulator depending on you point of view – of fracking. Normally they do not administer parks and I really don’t remember the political reasons that brought this on except that the Monument was set-up under Clinton/Gore and Gingrich was running the House at the time.

What ever the reason, the BLM is much less formal than the Park service. In Zion National Park, many of the trails are paved, even in the Yosemite highcountry, some of the trails have wooden boardwalks and, in The Valley, some have guard rails. In Coyote, there are no trails, there is only the way (as in this way may go through, or this way is better, or no way!). Sometimes the way is over a sandy bench covered in wild grasses, sometimes the way is in the river, sometimes it is through Gamble Oaks and Willows, but the way is always down into the canyon.

Sometimes we take a break, just to bathe in the beauty, the wildness,
but the way always takes us deeper into the canyon.

After a small waterfall, we ran into a slickrock section that required help from a stick that Courtney found. I kept thinking, I have been both down this section and back up, it is very doable. But I am older and stiffer and more brittle and, looking down at the landing zone, I realized that I would not make it without the stick. We slid halfway down on our butts, scooched to stage right, and then slid off the ledge to the solid sand landing zone. It was one of those places that is physically pretty easy, psychologically scary, and takes lots of time-consuming discussion.

The last night in the canyon, we camp in a huge alcove. Alcoves are not my favorite place to camp because they seem so well used, maybe overused. I know that the Anasazi must have stopped here because they like alcoves, but they abandoned their major cities like Mesa Verde and Chaco near the end of the 13th century, and this is far from those cities. The magic, if it ever existed, is gone, wiped clean by years of ranchers and cowboys using this place.
After our morning meditation, we hike the last couple of miles of Coyote Gulch,

Coyote Gulch ends at the Escalante River at just about the place that the Escalante River, itself, ends at Lake Powell. It is as deep as we can go. But there is a way out – a long walk up a sand dune, just before the end – that leads to the Crack In The Wall. This sand dune has been a major worry for me, it is steep, sandy, and doesn’t have any shade, so Michele and I started while Gina and Courtney explored downstream. The hike up the sand dune is much worse – and much shorter – than I remembered it and my tactic becomes look up the trail, pick out a destination 15 to 20 feet ahead – like an Opuntia – then hike to that point to take a break and catch my breath. I repeat it about 50 times.

Finally, we get to the Crack and it is much narrower than I remember – I am almost too fat – but I am able to squeeze through, only to be stopped by a block that has to be climbed.
At this point, the only way out is to go up, going back is a two-day slog, at best. With Courtney directing my feet and Gina pulling, I get above it and then scramble to the top of the plateau and, shazam!, we are out (with only a tiring, flat, walk back to the car). That night, we have a delicious dinner at the Hell’s Backbone Grill.