One of the myriad of problems of living in Los Angeles is the near-complete dependence on a car. We all know about Southern California being the car economy, perhaps the most dynamic auto market on the planet -- for a variety of reasons that I'm not going to get into here.
What I'm going to get into here is what happens when one's precious auto, goes on the fritz and needs service/repairs. Your options are to go to the dealer, over-pay and perhaps get quality service... although most likely you'll get C- work on your car. Your second option is to find a reliable mechanic... which in a city of getting over on muthafuckas and dicking people out of their hard-earned cash is a difficult proposition to successfully navigate.
I was a little tired of going to the VW dealer, 'cause I noticed that they wouldn't tell me things that were wrong with the car, i.e. an alignment issue. So I had sought out a reliable and respectable mechanic... a few actually, but none really made a strong impression on me except this one Filipino guy out in Reseda and this Armenian who runs a place called Eurowurx in Burbank.
The worst though came last January, when I felt the car needed a little more than a service... perhaps a tune-up, because the engine was strenuous while idling. I was living deep on the westside of the fucking San Fernando Valley and couldn't get to a good mechanic, nor did I know one (as Eurowurx has moved, or so I thought). So went online to www.cartalk.com ('cause I listen to that NPR radio show from time to time on Sunday mornings when I'm too thrashed to get out of bed) and checked out their "Mechanic Recommendation" boards. I came across a shop called Stuart's German Auto Specialist, which was based in Burbank -- near the Disney studios where I was working at that time.
I go in with an appointment to see ths dude named Stuart Schreiber the owner/sole mechanic... explain to him what I want -- oil change, look at the brakes and see if a tune-up is necessary because of the hard idle. Stuart agrees, and then proceeds to TAKE FOUR DAYS to do this so-called minor service. It's costing me daily rental car fees, and I could only guess what the bill was going to be for his labor.
When I finally do get the car, I'm tempted to stop order the check 'cause Stuart Schreiber cost me so much extra cash. Here's were it turns to shit and I bend over and spread my ass cheeks. I pick up the car on a Saturday morning and drive around all weekend. culminating with a smoking hot date with the girl I was just beginning to date... we come back from a party on Sunday night, and due to other stupid ass circumstances, we can't go up into her place to have sex or go to mine ('cause the owner of the house I was staying at had these two ass-bag bulldogs who weren't really housetrained).
Me and my girl are making out in the car in front her apartment, with the engine idling, and we notice steam coming up from the engine. I look at the engine temp guage and it's deep in the red zone! I shut the car off and let it cool down for about 45 minutes, as we continue to do everything but fuck in the front seat of my car.
When it's about 5am, my girl goes inside and I have to drive back from Hollywood to Woodland muthafucking Hills -- the car is overheating the whole time, and I'm stopping to fill the coolant resevoir up with first coolant and then water every three highway exits.
The next day I call Stuart tell him my troubles and he says he'll do any repairs free of charge, if the problem was something he caused or overlooked. I tell him what about the tow!!?! It's going to cost me about $70 to get the car towed to his garage -- even with AAA!!! He agrees to pay for that, too, if it's his fault.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Baghdad Wall
Why did this stupid idea remind me of Berlin in 1952? Or Israel's occupied territories last summer?! Or the Rio Grande border anytime recently?
For some reason people honestly believe that putting up a wall between two opposing factions is actually going to work.
The one thing that this Division Wall in Baghdad proved is that the U.S. Military is the most devisive force there is in Iraq -- Sunni and Shia, factions that have been slitting each others throats for the better part of the War in Iraq, abandoned their mutual hatred for a common external hatred -- that of the US Armed Forces in Iraq.
No doubt the so-called SURGE, has proved to be a futiles as any other effort to qwell the chaos in an arab country (now that could be anywhere)... now why is that?
For some reason people honestly believe that putting up a wall between two opposing factions is actually going to work.
The one thing that this Division Wall in Baghdad proved is that the U.S. Military is the most devisive force there is in Iraq -- Sunni and Shia, factions that have been slitting each others throats for the better part of the War in Iraq, abandoned their mutual hatred for a common external hatred -- that of the US Armed Forces in Iraq.
No doubt the so-called SURGE, has proved to be a futiles as any other effort to qwell the chaos in an arab country (now that could be anywhere)... now why is that?
Toyota bitch-slaps GM!
You knew it was gonna happen this year, I knew it was gonna happen this, and not that it happened what do we think about it?
Toyota surpassed GM in sales for the first time in the first quarter of 2007. Toyota’s ascendancy, which many in the auto game had predicted for some time, is another milestone in America’s long decline from unchallenged industrial preeminence. A decline that actually spells, "fuck you, gringo."
G.M. swept past Ford in 1931 in the enormous American car market and in worldwide sales, and barely looked back for seven decades. But a combination of inattention to quality -- the biggest issue with American cars... that and SHITTY-ASS design, strained labor relations, adverse regulatory decisions and a slowness to recognize the potential for small cars eroded G.M.’s seemingly insurmountable lead starting in the mid-1960s.
Emerging from the ashes of Japan’s World War II defeat, thanks in part to American assistance during the Korean War, Toyota established itself through the 1970s and 1980s as the industry’s standard for quality and reliability. It has since built a reputation for technological leadership as well, most notably with the Prius and other hybrid cars. Funny thing is Japanese automakers use techniques developed by dismissed US auto industry players.
Well, I can see Detroit becoming the next Mad Mad wasteland over the next five years and the main industry of that rusting metropolis continues to fail its populace.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Once again the "hip kids" laid the ground work for a youth rampage/massacre... Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were the previous ostricized individuals who decided to become Duke Nuk'em, don militia fatigues and take up arms against their aggressors -- they've been surpassed on the trip down the insane lane by VT Shooter Cho.Cho gets props for using technology to distribute his mayhem manifesto (bigups to QuickTime... as this will surely be the tip of the iceberg for QT rants), because otherwise we wouldn't have actually heard his words or seen his pained face... the FBI would have censored it, or the news media outlets would have only given us the snipets they FELT we should have access to. As I watched clips of Cho's outbursts/rants, it occurred to me... it wasn't a question of what made him snap that fateful Monday -- because obviously he snapped days, if not weeks or months prior -- but how did he keep it together for as long as he did, and why did he choose that Monday to unload his 9mms?
You might be asking why I said the "hip kids" laid the ground work for Cho's impersonatin of Frank Castle aka THE PUNISHER, because it was stated in a background story about Cho that when he moved to the US from South Korea when he was 9, because of his limited mastery of English he became the whipping boy, target of pranks by those kids who think they're too cool for school. Every culture has that same issue with the way young kids interact with "the other" (which is perceived and relative designation) -- some would say it's just part of growing up. However, in a base culture like that of America's where being considered "cool" or part of the "in-crowd" is more important than anything else IN AN ACADEMIC SETTING. The seeds for non-normal social adult life are planted in junior high and high school. If you think back to elementary school, pretty much everybody was on equal ground in terms of the social strucutre... although changes once kids become 10, 11 and 12...
Honestly, I'm surprised that there's not more of these style rampage killings on college campuses and at high schools. Since the repellant rise of Paris Hilton and these new Mean Girl/skank mafia types (Brittany, Lindsay, et al.) over the past three to five years, the pressure to get with a girl to get pussy it EVERYTHING. These days girls are liable to suck a mean dick (see my post on Lipsticking back in Dec. 06) as easily as they would give a peck on the cheek say circa 1999. If you happen to be one of those guys who doesn't falls into the category where your dick can be used in a lipsticking contest or actually get to fuck, then you're going to be mad. Also, if the "in-crowd" does it's best to single you... they become Ego Assassins -- you're going to sink and sink and sink... and ultimately you might rise out of it when you go off to college -- where self-reinvention is staple of the institution -- but the damage has been, and most people don't fully recover... they just fall in to one of those categories that we can all label when it comes to who's who and who's what upon college graduation.
Cho gets no props for what he did, but the pundits and psychologists have an opportunity to indicit the youth culture and sadly they won't. The culture that breads serial killers, now also has the dubious distinction of breading youth rampage killers... that's no accident.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Postscript to Imus Debacle
Here's part of an article from Newsday... My commentary is in bold...
It's more than just Imus
Shaun Powell
SPORTS COLUMNIST
April 12, 2007
In retrospect, outraged people shouldn't have united and screamed "blank you" to Don Imus the last few days. No, instead, we should've stuck out our hand and said, "Thank you."
We should feel indebted to a shriveled, unfunny, insensitive frog for being so ignorant that he actually did us all a favor. He woke society the hell up. He grabbed it by the throat, shook hard and ordered us to take a long, critical look at ourselves and the mess we've made and ignored for much too long. He made us examine the culture and the characters we've created for ourselves, our impressionable young people and our future. The piss-poor pop culture and its icons that have grown out of the so-called equalizing of Blacks throughout the 90s via hip-hop... is one the most extreme lies that have been believed by the masses.
Had Imus not called a bunch of proud and innocent young women "nappy-headed hos," would we be as ashamed of what we see as we are today?
Or, to quote Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer: "Have we really lost our moral fiber?"
And our minds as well?
I'm not sure if the last few days will serve as a watershed moment for this MTV, middle-finger, screw-you generation. Probably not, according to my hunch. A short time from now, the hysteria will turn to vapor, folks will settle back into their routines, somebody will pump up the volume on the latest poison produced by hip-hop while Al Sharpton and the other racial ambulance chasers will find other guilt-ridden white folks to shake for fame and cash. How does Al Sharpton make his living anyway? He ran for president in 2004, so he's obviously make some illegit cash... only I can't figure it out... I mean yeah, he is a Reverend, so he' s liable to be skimming from the church he fronts. In five minutes, the entire episode of Imus and his strange idea of humor will be older than his hairstyle. Lessons learned will be lessons forgotten.
I wish I were wrong about that last part. But I doubt it, because any minute now, black people will resume calling themselves bitches and hos and the N-word and in the ultimate sign of hypocrisy, neither Rutgers nor anyone else will call a news conference about that.
Because when we really get to the root of the problem, this isn't about Imus. This is about a culture we -- meaning black folks -- created and condoned and packaged for white power brokers to sell and shock jocks like Imus to exploit. Can we talk? The pre-packaging of the worst of Black culture for white power brokers and financiers to cull more money than modern-day adjusted slavery reparations would be worth
Tell me: Where did an old white guy like Imus learn the word "ho"?
Was that always part of his vocabulary? Or did he borrow it from Jay-Z and Dave Chappelle and Snoop Dogg?have to say that he borrowed it, like damn near everything else considered "pop"
What really disappointed me about that exhausting Rutgers news conference, which was slyly used as a recruiting pitch by Stringer, was the absence of the truth and the lack of backbone and courage. Black women had the perfect opportunity to lash out at their most dangerous oppressors -- black men -- and yet they kept the focus on a white guy.This is the god's honest true... Black men oppress each other and Black women on a level that is highly inappropriate and continues to the be race's Achilles' Heel.
It was a tremendous letdown for me, personally and professionally. I wanted Stringer, and especially her players, many of whom listen to rap and hip-hop, to take Nelly to task. Or BET. Or MTV. Or the gangsta culture that is suffocating our kids. They had the ear and eye of the nation trained upon them, and yet these women didn't get to the point and the root of the matter. They danced around it, and I guess I should've known better, because black people still refuse to lash out against those black people who are doing harm to us all.Sad thing about Stringer and her charges is that no one was there to "coach" them the way Imus was obviously coached, and the way you need coaching in today's PR'd and Spin Rx culture... and with Al Sharpton rallying the troops, at least a deeper social message could have and should have been said. Granted it is hard to be the one Black who points fingers, because the term "Uncle Tom" I believe has no equivalent in any other ethnographic grouping.
Honestly, I wasn't holding my breath for Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, a pair of phony and self-appointed leaders, because they have their agendas and financial stakes. I was hoping 10 young women, who have nothing on the line, who are members of a young culture, would train their attention to within the race, name names and say enough is enough. But they didn't, and I was crushed.
You should walk around the playground and the elementary and high schools today and listen to how young black people speak to each other, treat each other and tease each other. You'd be ashamed.The cycle of self-hate continues unabated, in fact enhanced by the lack of financial freedom that the majority of Blacks suffer from, the inability to cast a wider net on what is consider socially accetpable, i.e. "what it means to be black?" and by the images pushed by the media... a media that no Black has the ability to even guide their image.
Next, sample some of their CDs and look at the video games they're playing. And while you're at it, blame yourself for funding this garbage, for allowing your kids to support these companies and for not taking a stand against it or the so-called artists making it happen.
Black folks, for whatever reason, can be their own worst enemy. The criminal beauty of slavery is the Niggas ARE and WILL ALWAYS BE their own worst ankle-cutters... the crabs in a barrel concept isn't something that's misladenThe last several days, the media had us believe it was Don Imus. But deep down, we know better.
It's more than just Imus
Shaun Powell
SPORTS COLUMNIST
April 12, 2007
In retrospect, outraged people shouldn't have united and screamed "blank you" to Don Imus the last few days. No, instead, we should've stuck out our hand and said, "Thank you."
We should feel indebted to a shriveled, unfunny, insensitive frog for being so ignorant that he actually did us all a favor. He woke society the hell up. He grabbed it by the throat, shook hard and ordered us to take a long, critical look at ourselves and the mess we've made and ignored for much too long. He made us examine the culture and the characters we've created for ourselves, our impressionable young people and our future. The piss-poor pop culture and its icons that have grown out of the so-called equalizing of Blacks throughout the 90s via hip-hop... is one the most extreme lies that have been believed by the masses.
Had Imus not called a bunch of proud and innocent young women "nappy-headed hos," would we be as ashamed of what we see as we are today?
Or, to quote Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer: "Have we really lost our moral fiber?"
And our minds as well?
I'm not sure if the last few days will serve as a watershed moment for this MTV, middle-finger, screw-you generation. Probably not, according to my hunch. A short time from now, the hysteria will turn to vapor, folks will settle back into their routines, somebody will pump up the volume on the latest poison produced by hip-hop while Al Sharpton and the other racial ambulance chasers will find other guilt-ridden white folks to shake for fame and cash. How does Al Sharpton make his living anyway? He ran for president in 2004, so he's obviously make some illegit cash... only I can't figure it out... I mean yeah, he is a Reverend, so he' s liable to be skimming from the church he fronts. In five minutes, the entire episode of Imus and his strange idea of humor will be older than his hairstyle. Lessons learned will be lessons forgotten.
I wish I were wrong about that last part. But I doubt it, because any minute now, black people will resume calling themselves bitches and hos and the N-word and in the ultimate sign of hypocrisy, neither Rutgers nor anyone else will call a news conference about that.
Because when we really get to the root of the problem, this isn't about Imus. This is about a culture we -- meaning black folks -- created and condoned and packaged for white power brokers to sell and shock jocks like Imus to exploit. Can we talk? The pre-packaging of the worst of Black culture for white power brokers and financiers to cull more money than modern-day adjusted slavery reparations would be worth
Tell me: Where did an old white guy like Imus learn the word "ho"?
Was that always part of his vocabulary? Or did he borrow it from Jay-Z and Dave Chappelle and Snoop Dogg?have to say that he borrowed it, like damn near everything else considered "pop"
What really disappointed me about that exhausting Rutgers news conference, which was slyly used as a recruiting pitch by Stringer, was the absence of the truth and the lack of backbone and courage. Black women had the perfect opportunity to lash out at their most dangerous oppressors -- black men -- and yet they kept the focus on a white guy.This is the god's honest true... Black men oppress each other and Black women on a level that is highly inappropriate and continues to the be race's Achilles' Heel.
It was a tremendous letdown for me, personally and professionally. I wanted Stringer, and especially her players, many of whom listen to rap and hip-hop, to take Nelly to task. Or BET. Or MTV. Or the gangsta culture that is suffocating our kids. They had the ear and eye of the nation trained upon them, and yet these women didn't get to the point and the root of the matter. They danced around it, and I guess I should've known better, because black people still refuse to lash out against those black people who are doing harm to us all.Sad thing about Stringer and her charges is that no one was there to "coach" them the way Imus was obviously coached, and the way you need coaching in today's PR'd and Spin Rx culture... and with Al Sharpton rallying the troops, at least a deeper social message could have and should have been said. Granted it is hard to be the one Black who points fingers, because the term "Uncle Tom" I believe has no equivalent in any other ethnographic grouping.
Honestly, I wasn't holding my breath for Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, a pair of phony and self-appointed leaders, because they have their agendas and financial stakes. I was hoping 10 young women, who have nothing on the line, who are members of a young culture, would train their attention to within the race, name names and say enough is enough. But they didn't, and I was crushed.
You should walk around the playground and the elementary and high schools today and listen to how young black people speak to each other, treat each other and tease each other. You'd be ashamed.The cycle of self-hate continues unabated, in fact enhanced by the lack of financial freedom that the majority of Blacks suffer from, the inability to cast a wider net on what is consider socially accetpable, i.e. "what it means to be black?" and by the images pushed by the media... a media that no Black has the ability to even guide their image.
Next, sample some of their CDs and look at the video games they're playing. And while you're at it, blame yourself for funding this garbage, for allowing your kids to support these companies and for not taking a stand against it or the so-called artists making it happen.
Black folks, for whatever reason, can be their own worst enemy. The criminal beauty of slavery is the Niggas ARE and WILL ALWAYS BE their own worst ankle-cutters... the crabs in a barrel concept isn't something that's misladenThe last several days, the media had us believe it was Don Imus. But deep down, we know better.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Lynching Imus
So Don Imus got his nuts sliced off today. Too bad... not because I like the guy or loathe him, but because it's free speech being curtailed in an era of corporate control of the media. CBS just showed that they have no balls, no freedom because they're enslaved by those groups that boycott huge corporations when ever somebody says something objectionable and that someone is being sponsored by some NASDAQ-listed company who wears a chain and collar that leads all the way over to Madison Avenue.
Imus didn't say anything that white people (and other non-Blacks) say amongst themselves when microphones and n*ggers aren't around. I'm not saying that all white people trip out and drop racial bombs all the time, but it does happen -- who doesn't say wild outlandish from time to time. Frustration will cause racial hated -- the bete noir that has no expiration date for Americans -- to boil up and
As a shock-jock similar to Howard Stern, Imus was known for being offensive, bigot and misogynist -- his poison lyrics made him and CBS radio millions of dollars over the years. However, as the 21st Century marches on and Americanism loses its prominence, off-the-cuff "keep a nigga down" remarks or ANY kind of ethno-hate speech 'causes the kind uproar that refuses to allow cowardly advertising dollars from backing a stance that our country claims to have as a founding principal.
You might say, "well, Ramses, why should Gm or Procter & Gamble fund the vitriol that spews out of Imus' piehole?" How 'bout they back the rest of the bullshit images, messages and concepts that continue to have acting like sheep. It's only when act is so base, so harsh to the core (i.e. Michael Richards' outburst) do people sit up and notice. When Budweiser is trying to get you to suck down as much of its suds as it can with it's really subliminal life-style advertising. Now that is the true crime!
The problem with this is corporate lynching of past his prime court jester is that, people are NOT going to like certain groups that are different, particularly when the difference bread an entire lingua franca of degradation. I mean a few weeks ago, the lunatic president of Iran was claiming that the filmmakers behind the hit movie 300 were trying to disparage Persians -- as if the Battle of Thermopalye was some made up shit that didn't happen or that the Persians beat the Greeks into submission at that trully epic battle!!! I was like, and this man thinks it's ok to have nuclear bombs at his finger tips?
FUCK!
ME!
Imus' ability to say whatever the hell he wanted to say (within the FCC) is why he was successful, why he got stiff-ass white people to relax and speak candidly.
So just like cable TV vs. Network TV, broadcast radio has lost out -- questionable if it lost a talent, but it lost its relevance, its independence -- if had any left, once the news divisions of the networks were forced to make a profit.
Imus didn't say anything that white people (and other non-Blacks) say amongst themselves when microphones and n*ggers aren't around. I'm not saying that all white people trip out and drop racial bombs all the time, but it does happen -- who doesn't say wild outlandish from time to time. Frustration will cause racial hated -- the bete noir that has no expiration date for Americans -- to boil up and
As a shock-jock similar to Howard Stern, Imus was known for being offensive, bigot and misogynist -- his poison lyrics made him and CBS radio millions of dollars over the years. However, as the 21st Century marches on and Americanism loses its prominence, off-the-cuff "keep a nigga down" remarks or ANY kind of ethno-hate speech 'causes the kind uproar that refuses to allow cowardly advertising dollars from backing a stance that our country claims to have as a founding principal.
You might say, "well, Ramses, why should Gm or Procter & Gamble fund the vitriol that spews out of Imus' piehole?" How 'bout they back the rest of the bullshit images, messages and concepts that continue to have acting like sheep. It's only when act is so base, so harsh to the core (i.e. Michael Richards' outburst) do people sit up and notice. When Budweiser is trying to get you to suck down as much of its suds as it can with it's really subliminal life-style advertising. Now that is the true crime!
The problem with this is corporate lynching of past his prime court jester is that, people are NOT going to like certain groups that are different, particularly when the difference bread an entire lingua franca of degradation. I mean a few weeks ago, the lunatic president of Iran was claiming that the filmmakers behind the hit movie 300 were trying to disparage Persians -- as if the Battle of Thermopalye was some made up shit that didn't happen or that the Persians beat the Greeks into submission at that trully epic battle!!! I was like, and this man thinks it's ok to have nuclear bombs at his finger tips?
FUCK!
ME!
Imus' ability to say whatever the hell he wanted to say (within the FCC) is why he was successful, why he got stiff-ass white people to relax and speak candidly.
So just like cable TV vs. Network TV, broadcast radio has lost out -- questionable if it lost a talent, but it lost its relevance, its independence -- if had any left, once the news divisions of the networks were forced to make a profit.
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