Another One Bites the Dust

Ugg Boot

1968, The Who drummer Keith Moon caps a truly bacchanalian 21st birthday bash by driving a Lincoln Continental into the pool at a Holiday Inn in Flint, MI ... also this week, The Beatles release the single "Hey Jude" which eclipses "Like a Rolling Stone" as the longest single to receive airplay by nearly a minute at 7:06 ... it is the first release from newly-formed Apple Records and becomes The Beatles' biggest hit, going to number one in over 12 countries ... the recording took two days and involved a 36-piece orchestra that also clapped and sang the na-na-nahs on the fadeout ... the epic ballad begins with Paul playing the piano and ends with 50 layered instruments, including the symphony...

1970, The Kinks' transvestite-themed single "Lola" is released ... the song, which revived the band's flagging popularity, was inspired by their manager's drunken club experience unknowingly dancing with a she-man ... Ray Davies had to re-record the line "You drink champagne and it tastes just like cherry cola" at the last minute because the BBC refused to play the song with its original, "it tastes just like Coca-Cola," line fearing repercussions from the beverage maker ... Lola reappears in "Paranoia," a later Kinks tune ... also this week, Duane Allman begins sessions as a member of Derek & The Dominos ... Eric Clapton praises Allman as the catalyst in a double-album project that is completed in only 10 days...

1976, Boston releases their self-titled debut album ... it spawns three hit singles and shoots to the top of the charts ... one of the fastest-selling debut albums of all time, it's finally unseated by Whitney Houston's debut in 1986 ... ironically, this is the same year Boston finally releases their third album, their release cycle slowed by guitarist Tom Scholz's momentum-killing perfectionist leanings ... by this time most of the band, including Sib Hashian and his Afro, have left the band in frustration...

1977, three people are nabbed in Memphis for attempting to steal the remains of Elvis ... to prevent such thievery, Elvis is moved from the cemetery to a more secure resting place at Graceland...

1978, art-punk practitioners Television break up just a month after returning to New York from a West Coast tour ... their proto-New Wave approach and unique guitar style sets aside nearly every accepted rule of rock guitar, making them guitar heroes to a legion of young rockers...

1981, some simpering loser whose name we won't mention is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of John Lennon...

1986, Paul Simon releases his landmark Graceland album...

1989, Izzy Stradlin is arrested in Phoenix for causing a public disturbance ... he was on a flight from Los Angeles to Indianapolis when the plane made an unscheduled landing in Phoenix just to dump him off ... he verbally abused a flight attendant, urinated on the floor, and smoked in the non-smoking section of the plane ... Izzy was apparently angry about the potty queue...

1994, Dave Abruzzese quits Pearl Jam ... d'oh!...

1994, Jimmy Buffett loses control of his plane on takeoff from Nantucket, MA ... it flips and splashes down in the cold North Atlantic but Buffett is able to swim to safety ... parrot heads everywhere breathe a sigh of relief...

1995, in a landmark rock 'n' roll event, veteran rocker Neil Young headlines the Reading Festival with Seattle's Pearl Jam backing him up....

1996, Issac Hayes, co-writer of the song "Soul Man," writes a letter to senator Bob Dole protesting his use of the song in his presidential campaign that had changed the chorus to "I'm A Dole Man"...

1998, the little sister John Lennon had been told of but was never able to find, materializes in the person of 53-year-old Ingrid Pedersen ... she has been waiting for the death of her adoptive mother before coming forward...

2003, 200 fans are ejected from the Charlotte, North Carolina, Ozzfest for alcohol and drug use ... the show started at around 10AM and the first group of partied-out attendees was ushered out just after noon, proving Ozzy Osbourne fans are not into pacing themselves...

2004, Queen becomes the first Western rock act to have their music officially released in Iran ... the record is a hits collection carefully combed over by authorities ... the band gets the seal of approval from Iran despite the fact that singer Freddie Mercury was gay and homosexuality is deemed a crime by the Islamic government ... Mercury was of Iranian descent and prior to this release Queen's music was surreptitiously and rampantly bootlegged ... the government-edited album booklet describes "Bohemian Rhapsody" as the story of a young man who accidentally kills someone and sells his soul to the devil to escape punishment, but on the night before his execution he calls out to God in Arabic and so regains his soul from Satan ... riiight...

It's Friday Once Again. Woo Hoo!!!!!

Ugg Boot
Check this one out....

1951 Plymouth Concord Business Coupe
(the wheels are at the shop getting new tires)

No rust at all. Only 5 years worth of dust.

Wow!!!!

Oh My Goodness!!!!

Original all the way.

P22 Straight Six Cylinder

More to come........

This is the week that was in matters musical...

1862, composer Achille-Claude Debussy is born...

1906, the first Victrola, with wind-up drive and its own horn, is marketed by Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, NJ, for $200...

1938, one of the most covered standards ever, "Ain't Misbehavin'" by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks, and Andy Razaf, is recorded by Waller...

1947, in yet another demonstration that fame can get you almost anything, President Truman's daughter Margaret Truman makes her singing debut to an audience of 15,000 at the Hollywood Bowl...

1962, Ringo Starr joins the Beatles onstage for the first time at the Cavern Club in Liverpool after taking over from Pete Best, who was deemed not fab enough to be one of the four...also this week John Lennon marries Cynthia Powell in a quiet civil ceremony with Paul McCartney as best man...in 1968 a more jaded Cynthia files for divorce after coming home from a vacation to find Yoko Ono living in the Lennons' London home...

1964, The Chipmunks Sing the Beatles is reportedly selling 25,000 copies of John and Paul's compositions a DAY...meanwhile, the Fab Four begin their first tour of the U.S. at the Cow Palace in San Francisco...the Righteous Brothers and Jackie DeShannon are also on the bill...

1965, the bobbies show what they think of those unruly rock 'n' roll fans by turning a fire hose on a bunch of Rolling Stones fans gathered at a planned TV taping in Manchester...

1966, the Beatles arrive in New York for a concert at Shea Stadium...a couple of girl fans threaten to jump from their hotel room's 22nd-floor window unless they see the group...they get to see some cops instead and are charged with disorderly conduct...also this week, John Lennon generates more controversy after his recent "Jesus" comments by publicly expressing his admiration for American draft dodgers while the band is in Toronto...still later in the week the lads are pelted with stinky garbage in Memphis by those who take umbrage with John's ill-advised Jesus comparisons...

1967, The New York Times reports on the new noise-reduction system for records and tapes pioneered by Dolby Laboratories...drummers everywhere pan the system as a cymbal killer...

1968, responding to a study reporting damage to the ears of guinea pigs subjected to loud music, New York disco owner, Steve Paul, quips, "Should a major increase in guinea pig attendance occur at The Scene, we'll certainly bear their comfort in mind"...

1969, Frank Zappa's "tired of playing for people who clap for all the wrong reasons," so he breaks up the Mothers of Invention...most of the other Mothers take it very hard since Frank didn't found the band and they have all been putting up with his dictatorial style in order to get to the big time...at the moment they finally arrive, Frank cuts them loose...some of the band members will play in later incarnations of the Mothers, but the original lineup is history...also this week, Mick Jagger, during the filming of Ned Kelly in Bungendore, New South Wales, Australia, is accidentally shot in the hand...he is not injured too badly...this is also the week Miles Davis goes into the studio in New York for the first sessions of the landmark album Bitches Brew with Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Jack DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Benny Maupin, John McLaughlin, Larry Young, Harvey Brooks, Lenny White, Don Alias, and Jumma Santos...this who's who list of nascent fusion greats will be expanded during later recording sessions for the double-album set...in later years the album will be expanded by Columbia Records to a full four-CD set of the complete sessions...

1977, the Police play their first gig as a threesome after guitar man Henri Padovani leaves the band...also this week, Peter Frampton comes alive in three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden...it's a black day at Graceland when over 75,000 people gather to lay the King to rest...Presley is entombed near his mother in a marble mausoleum in Memphis at Forest Hill Cemetery...the day before the funeral, Florists Transworld Delivery (FTD) sells more flowers than they have for any other single event...

1980, 1,400 Alice Cooper fans in Toronto take umbrage when the original make-up rocker gets sick and can't make the show...they throw a big stinkin' riot in protest...

1992, Courtney Love has Kurt Cobain's baby, Frances Bean...also this week, after 10 years of going steady, Sting and Trudi Styler tie the knot...

1995, Courtney Love blows her cork when the audience at a Hole concert doesn't get ecstatic over her performance on the last night of the Lollapalooza tour in Mountain View, CA....security guards carry her off the stage when she begins to physically fight with audience members...

1997, promoting their upcoming Bridges to Babylon tour, the Rolling Stones show up for a media event at the Brooklyn Bridge in a red '55 Cadillac with Mick at the wheel...

2003, OSHA fines Derco LLC--the company that operated The Station Club--$85,200 for violations that resulted in the fire that killed 100 Great White fans and a band member in February...the band itself is fined $7,000...the OSHA fines are just the tip of the iceberg of legal proceedings against those responsible for the deadly fire...

Buying a New Car

Ugg Boot

Scum of the earth. That's the way I would describe them. Who am I talking about? Car salespeople. If you're a car salesperson, I'm talking about you. Don't give me no lip. This isn't aimed so much at independent used car salesmen. I've never had any kind of problem there. Here's what happened. Saturday was car shopping day. Keep in mind that we searched the internet and found what models we were interested in. We went to three different dealerships.

Dealership #1: Yokem Toyota, Shreveport, La. Pulled into the parking lot. Salesman spots us before we exit the car and heads our way. Wanting to look around a little bit, I didn't acknowledge his presence. I headed for the cars we had studied. Salesperson follows us to the car we're looking at and asks us what we're in the market for. We say Toyota Corolla CE in Blue. He tells us to follow him. We see that exact car and he tells us he'll grab the keys and bring the car up front for us. We wait and wait and wait. Finally, we see a white toyota corolla pull up. I don't know if you know this but white cars are the hardest to sell and have a lower resell value than any other normal colored car. He says the blue one is unavailable. No problem. We test drive the white one. Everythings going good. We ask the price. He gives us a price that's higher than we were quoted online. No problem. No budging on the price at all. Not a bad experience. The best of the day.

Dealership #2 : John Harvey Toyota, Bossier City, La. Pulled into the dealership and of course, salesman came in a near sprint. Saw a Toyota Carolla in the blue that we were looking for. We look it over and notice that it's a used car. Salesman says the new cars are in a different area and tries to aim us in that direction. We ask the price of the used one. He says to come on in and let's see. I ask again. What's the price. He does everything he can not to answer the question. He says he's not sure. I said, go find out and we'll look at it. He comes back with a price that a couple hundred dollars less than the quote we got on the brand new one an hour earlier. We talk on at how good a car this is. I ask about the price on the new ones. He's not sure. He has to go ask his mommy. He comes back and says that the new one is the same price. He thinks that someone made a mistake on the price of the used one. I tell him to get someone to tell me how much it is because there is no possible way that a 1 year old car with 30,000 miles on it is the same price as a brand new one with 0 miles on it. He asks us to come inside. We sit down at his desk. He goes all the way around the world on the pricing of the cars and I ask how they can be priced the same. Finally, he says for me to make him an offer and he'll see if they'll accept it. I said, find out what they'll take for it. After several minutes of this sort of irritated discussion, he takes my offer, which is very fair. He takes it, the waiting begins. After about half an hour, he returns from his mommy's tit and gives me the price. $500 less than the brand new one. What the hell? I ask how on earth they expect to sell a used car at that price? He asks what I'd like to pay. I tell him to come up with a better price than that. He leaves to go to his mommy again. The waiting continues for about another 30 minutes. He returns with no price change. Finally, we ask the price of a new one again. Get that price and ask what the best price is. That all depends on your credit as far as your payments go. Great. Give the credit info. The wait contiues again. After another 30 minutes, this guy can't suck his mommy's tit forever, he returns. The credit bureau is down and has been down all day. This information would have been helpful 30 minutes ago now wouldn't it. Salesman wants to talk some more. I'm done. I tell him to call when they have some information for us. Bullshit.

Dealership #3: Elkins Kia, Bossier City, La. Arrived irritated. Thought, water under the bridge. This dealership will be different. We walk to the Kia Rio that we also studied. Turns out, it's a used one with a dent in the drivers side. No problem. They'll fix it. Salesman is very nice. Best yet. Gets us the keys and we start it up. We do the test drive, everything's going good. I ask if they'll fix the dent for us. Immediately in his mind, I'm sure, the price just jumped up. We get back and he has to show us new cars. He shows us everything but a Rio. He's set on showing us a Spectra. The color choice of blue had been decided before the make or model of car. It was settled. We explained that. He asked if we liked silver. Sure, it's okay. It's not blue though. After a little while of hearing how good the Spectra is, I ask, where are the Rio's. That's what we're interested in. He said that they aren't very good cars so we don't usually keep them on the lot. Now where I work, if I told someone that the product I was selling wasn't good enough, I'd be fired. Fine, no problem. You can order us one. He gets us inside. We ask the price of the Rio. He leaves, the waiting starts. 30 minutes later, he returns with prices for the Spectra in silver. That's fine and dandy. What about the price for the Rio. He could get that for us. He once again mentioned how the Spectra got better gas mileage. About a 4 mile per gallon difference. This car was about $5,000 more than the Rio and he can't get it in blue. We ask about payments on the Rio. He explains how to figure it all out and gives us an estimate on monthly payments for the Spectra. This does me no good. We send dude to his mommy to do the credit check. I made sure to let him know that we wanted the credit check done for the Rio. He said, no problem, it'll work for both. I mentioned that I had an appointment that I had to make and I couldn't be there very much longer. He said it wouldn't take but about 5 minutes. He returns to mommy. 30 minutes later he returns to ask the status of income and quickly leaves to return to mommy's tit. He finally returns and says that they are checking the credit. We ask about the price of the Rio again. Never getting a solid answer. He says it may be up to two years before they get a blue Rio in stock. And that's what we call bullshit. He explained how good the silver specta was. He leaves for mommy's tit again. I'm so irritated that my feet can't keep still. He returns and says that they're still working on the credit thing. I've had enough. I say, call when you can help. He said she was just about through and he'll go check. I said, we'll follow you out. Then his mommy came out to meet us and was so sweet. She gave us no information of any use. We leave, having wasted 5 hours with nothing positive coming out of the experience.

I understand the whole concept of car salesmen. Never give price before the test drive. Always say you have to check with someone else on the pricing. Leave and give the party enough time to figure they're budget so they can think of ways to make the payments. Sell the consumer what you want, not what they want. Well, here's how I see it. Of the three dealerships we went to, I'll never return for any reason. I'll never send anyone there. If you want to sell me something, know what you're selling and at what price. If you have to ask someone else what the price is, I don't need to talk to you anymore, I need to talk to that guy. During the time we were alone in the dealerships, I explained it this way. New car $15,000. Used car from $4,000 to $8,000. That leaves atleast $7,000 for repairs. But I want something dependable. You can buy a $60,000 car. It could break down as you leave the lot. But it's under warranty. Have you ever had a dealship work on anything? They're usually the worst mechanics, and you usually have to return several times. Okay, I've nagged enough. Here's what it all boils down to. I can have an American classic car completely restored for the same amount of money. Resell value would stomp the price of anything, and it has something that no new car has.......Character. So car salesmen.......kiss my ass!