Years ago I had a large vehicle. This vehicle wasted gas while it saved souls. For this vehicle, you see, was large enough to transport a few French exchange students around the suburban parts of Edina and St. Louis Park as they swore their hearts out into the night.
I was, ostensibly, the “host parent” for one of them. In this position it fell to me to become the taxi driver. Being irresponsible as I tend to be, I not only encouraged the lovely Odele to speak her mind out in the car but to entice her somewhat shy and culturally shell-shocked expatriates to do the same.
The cacophony of cursing that soon followed on those taxi rides is a mellifluous memory I shall never forget. When a young French girl swears back and forth from English to French it is a sound that can melt the hardest heart. Which reminds me that french rap is a good facsimile thereof.
Gangsta seems somehow cultivated in a romance tone.
This site is devoted to soulful materialism. You will find no grist for the political mill here.
Disclaimer aside, we would like to make a observation about political belief. It can be said that the more religious a person becomes, the more religion becomes their politics. Conversely the more secular a person becomes, the more politics becomes their religion. This is a merely an observation that is perhaps worthy of a high school social studies project.
Once we are able to locate a precocious high school student to prove this empirically we will then make our second observation in the form of a parable. We are reminded of a comment made by either a Russian cleric or communist (the symbolism is appropriate) who said this:
“When I see a poor man in the street, I consider this a spiritual problem, not a political problem.”
If we learned anything in college, it is that altruism is metaphysical. For example, does a young man give up his seat for the old lady on the bus out of self-sacrifice or to placate his conscience? The answer, we believe, is that only a spiritual force outside of the physical world can compel a human being to truly sacrifice for others.
Before you think that this makes religion our politics, however, consider what motivates people to take up spiritual things in general. What is to be said of the spiritual healer a few days back who killed three people in a sweat lodge ceremony by confusing vomit with purification?
The new biopic Julie & Julia (more or less) on Julia Child reminds us of what it means to be and not seem. We think she looks rather fetching in this shot as well, don’t you think? With the popularity of this very good movie copies of the cookbook (the one and only) may be hard to come by. We suggest you bide your time by practicing the Art of French Kissing (for which there must surely be a manual) before you grow fat and ugly from all that classic (nouvelle is for nits) french cuisine you should be enjoying soon.
I have to make a confession about the mother of personal makeover shows. If I were ever to have been nominated for “Queer Eye,” they would have exposed a personal habit that is pure fashion sacrilege. I use bar soap to shampoo, and even to shave. While I admit to being suckered into expensive “product” by a pleasant stylist now and them, I usually go back to Irish Spring, Dial or whatever sliver of soap that still lathers up.
Now I see this ad for 3 in 1 shower gel that serves as shampoo, soap and even shaving cream. This soap is from a company with a pleasant french name that conjures up images of Ban De’Soleil, which for a man of a certain age, remains the iconic image for the suave, stylish, and dare I say, groovy life.
3 in 1 shower gel. It could the answer to a prayer I did not even know I had.
So go to h-ll, Carson. And take your friends with you.
Motive is a car webzine that was so phenomenal, it made other car blogs pretty much irrelevant. Seems it was so successful that its Editor was offered a job as Editor in Chief at Car & Driver. Quite the poach job. It was either the photography, the video or perhaps the superb use of online typography.
Motive, sadly, has gone on hiatus. Still you must check the back e-issues out. We continue to wonder who in God’s name finances this kind of online production- you know, cars shot like fashion models with “hot and rich” lighting in impossibly gorgeous locations.
Cash for Clunkers. Now There’s a Story.
If you want the real skinny on the latest in cars, you’ll also enjoy autoblog.com, jalopnik.com (a gawker media website), and our favorite thetruthaboutcars.com. This snappy site has a great story on this misguided “cash for clunkers” program that is making cars fly off lots with fake money (the blog can explain).
P.S. We have discovered that Flyp is financed by a large publishing conglomerate. The same simply had to be true for Motive, as well. (submitted courtesy of RoadRake.com)
The groovyman maxim that “cash alone won’t make you cool” will always apply to buying a car. The new Camaro SS for 31k is the latest example of this principle. The challenge gets trickier, however, when you have less than 20k to spend. The following list should clear up more than a few arguments while saving you dough.
1) Hottest Eco-Mommy-Car. SAAB Sport Combi Wagon. The “hockey puck” window treatment on the back of this bitchin’ ride is reason enough for ownership. Low emissions, very decent economy and a peppy engine only add to its allure. We also like the rubbery feel of the SAAB shifter (although we’re not supposed to.) Best of all, a low mileage, two-year old model goes for around 13-15k.
2) Best automotive appliance.Nissan Cube. We predict that this car will not sell well because it is simply too different. Essentially it is a direct import of the kind of microcars remain the rage in Japan. You can sleep in the Cube while listening to a great built in boom box with groovy ambient lighting. They advertise this vehicle as a “mobile device.” It really is the first such appliance to be groovy.
3) Best pocket rocket.Mazdaspeed 3. Do we need to cross-reference all the magazines that have appluaded this little beast as such or do we simply need to turn your attention the long-term test in the April, 2009 Motor Trend? With the new 3 model on the market the previous generation is an incredible steal.
4) Splurge Car. BMW Z4 M Series Coupe. Talk to our friends at Sears about this one. It’s better looking than the Boxster and kicks the small of your back with a torque wallop than few cars, in any price range, can match. While it remains a handful at the limit, this is what makes it more fun.
5) Family car. Mazda MPV If they still make this mid-mini van you should buy it for your budding family. While no one knows about these cars, they look great, offer four-wheel drive and can be bought for peanuts.
6) Semi-Splurge Car. Cadillac CTS-V Series, first generation. This car has a few problems. It has a ‘ring-finessed suspension that is harsh on corpulent backsides and it suffers from wheel-hop under hard acceleration. Still its hard to find a meaner four door sedan with knife-edged handling for around 20k right now (with low miles). The 8th or 9th generation Mitsubishi Evos are very hard to find and have likely been driven by boy-racers idiots. The Pontiac G8 GXP will eventually replace the CTS-V in our book but it is still a new car and goes for around 30k (M5 level performance for half the price.)
7) Best truck.Toyota Tundra Truck with the 5.7 liter V8. While even the mighty Toyota has not fully fetted this monstrous engine, this beast trumps all comers. The fact that you can buy one brand new with this engine for about mid-20s makes this a Godzilla-sized great buy.
8-10) Best of the rest. Honda S2000, Lincoln Aviator and well, we would personally buy back a 2003-04 Mustang Cobra for around 14k and start pimping it out all over again if we had the money.
Just came across the most lavishly produced media experiment we have seen online, Flyp magazine. It is hard to believe the production graphics are what they are but they are. And just when it seemed that multi-media was a fetish of the web’s first wave.
We are tongue tied.
If you prefer magazines built with atoms instead of bits, there is still nothing like Visionaire, the former Nest or going back a few decades, Flair magazines for over-the-top production value. Nest and Flair both went bust pretty quickly but the balls it took to bring them to market forever holds our respect.
What can replace the scent of fresh ink applied on paper delivered in the morning mail?
This just in. We have discovered that the best place to buy a car today is in…Michigan. Regional pricing differences are profound across the United States for American-made cars. Thanks to many great new GM and Ford products (primarily) American-made no longer means awful or even “uncool-looking.”
In Ann Arbor, for example, dealers are sending new cars off at 60% off sticker. This means you could snap up the phenomenal Pontiac G8 GXP, the Solstice Coupe the Chevrolet Malibu and a range of Chrysler products–including most of their SRT-8 Series cars with Mercedes suspensions, for incredible deals.
You might also shop for the in-demand cars like the new Ford Fusion hybrid (it just beat ALL other imported makes in Motor Trend). This Ford Fusion, when you see it in the metal, is fantastically re-designed.
The Grooviest Car of All-Time
On a completely different note, the British magazine Octane has recently listed the 25 Coolest Cars of All-Time. Interesting that while we are promoting Jaguars on groovyman.com, this great magazine is thinking right up our alley (such phrasing!). The Coolest-Ever Car was the Jaguar XKSS. It was, literally, a LeMans-winning race car that you could buy from the factory minus the rear wind-vane and a few other deleted parts.
Octane chose the XKSS for precisely this reason–that the XKSS was the last pure-bred car one could buy directly from a manufacturer. It was not the most expensive, fastest, or most beautiful ride, but it was, simply the best race car of the 1950s. You could buy one on Sunday and drive it to the Farmers market on Monday. Steven McQueen (pictured) did just that. Any questions?
Talk about ironic. Jaguar, the lion of British automotive libido (Rolls was never called a “Shaguar”), is now owned by the largest car company in India, Tata Motors. We feel this move to be devinely inspired if recent deals on Jaguar XJs are any indication.
It’s a simple fact that Jaguars have become perenially groovy since 2004. This is the year that Jaguars passed from sexy but unreliable to sexy and more reliable than a Lexus. The XJ Series, in fact recently scored #1 in J.D. Powers latest reliability ratings for luxury cars. You can Google Jaguar to give you the details.
Strange, therefore, that this model continues to sell in very low numbers relative to other luxury marques. This can work to your advantage, as the time has never been better to buy a classic-looking XJ Series Jag (before they re-design it). We will paraphrase a recent owner on how to buy this magnificent feline beast.
Prices:
04’s, depending on mileage, are now priced in the high teens to low twenties. Models:
There is a standard length chassis, then the Vanden Plas and Portfolio which have seven or eight extra inches in the back seat. These models are pricier and you pay a little gas mileage penalty with the Portfolio (which is an XJR turbocharged model.) Deals on the Lot?
Recently a Jaguar dealer in Minneapolis, Minnesota had four or five XJ’s in the used car lot. If you are interested, we have a strategy for getting an even better deal from a no-negotiation dealer that worked well for this car. (In a nutshell, find a car that is not sold by a Jaguar dealer–a non-negotiation dealer–then take that price back to the Jaguar lot and haggle.) Other Stuff:
Since Tata bought Jaguar and Land Rover, they have been offering good 1.9% deals on financing and ridiculous warranty coverage. A recent purchase of an 2004 XJ with 19,000 miles came with a bumper to bumper up to 100,000 mile warranty for example (age/model independent). XJs also come with air suspension and drive like smaller, more nimble rides due to an advanced aluminum body and frame. This aluminum space frame (new in 2004) is as advanced as that in an Audi A8.
Which, come to think of it, cannot touch the 2004-2009 XJ in the J.D. Powers Survey ratings.
I don’t know what the weather’s like where you are, but here it’s damn hot. Ninety degrees the past couple of days and it’s just May, for God’s sake. It was hot like Puerto Rico hot, or like Cuba hot. That’s why you need a nice cold rum drink–like a mojito. If it was good enough to be Papa Hemingway’s favorite drink, it’s certainly good enough for you.
People make mojitos in many different ways–mostly wrong. Here’s the right way.
First, go to the garden store and buy yourself some mint. Plant it somewhere in your yard, or in a pot on your balcony if you don’t have a yard. It’s basically a weed so you don’t have to do much to it except water it. Don’t forget and you’ll have enough for the whole summer of mojitos.
After you’ve done that, and it’s grown in nice and thick, grab a handful and throw it into the bottom of a tall glass. (We like those blue-rimmed Mexican glasses.) Take a flat ended stick or the back of a wooden spoon and smash the hell out of it. This releases the oils that actually have the flavor. If you don’t do this step, you may as well be throwing dandelions into the thing.
Second, take the refrigerated simple syrup you’ve made and drop two or three tablespoons of it into the glass. (By the way, you make a simple syrup by mixing equal amounts of sugar and water in a saucepan over heat until the sugar dissolves. Refrigerate it for as long as you like and dip into it whenever the mojito urge strikes.) Do not just throw a couple spoons of sugar into the glass. It won’t dissolve and it will make the mojito too sweet anyway.
Follow the simple syrup with a jigger or so of white rum. Don’t use the spiced stuff, even if you do like the commercials. We’re going for at least a modicum of subtlety here.
Now, take two limes out of the huge bag of limes you bought at Costco and cut them in half. Juice three halves and pour the pulpy goodness out of your hand juicer into the glass. Throw in one of the juiced halves, too. Save the fourth half for your next mojito. (In case the math is confusing you, 3 limes = 2 mojitos.)
Now, fill the glass with cracked ice. The best way to do this is to smack the ice cubes from your freezer with the handle of a heavy knife. Don’t crush it. Crack it. Do it in your hand, not on the counter.
Add a nice sparkling water to fill the glass. Club soda will do if it’s not too salty. We like San Pellegrino ourselves and we can buy it by the case at Costco, too. Do not use Sprite or any other soft drink. That’s for high school kids and crappy sports bars in Midwestern small towns.
I don’t know what the weather’s like where you are, but here it’s damn hot. Ninety degrees the past couple of days and it’s just May, for God’s sake. It was hot like Puerto Rico hot, or like Cuba hot. That’s why you need a nice cold rum drink–like a mojito. If it was good enough to be Papa Hemingway’s favorite drink, it’s certainly good enough for you.
