Father-Son Bonding via the Medium of Lynyrd Skynyrd

I used to be quite the Lynyrd Skynrd fan, starting around the age of 15.  I still am, I suppose.  They go over the same sort of material, with the same sound, multiple times.  Some might even say that they made essentially the same record several times over.  Maybe, but it is a very good record.

I had either forgotten or underestimated, however, how much of a Skynyrd fan my 17-year-old son is.  We were tooling northward up through Kentucky when this gem came on the radio, and we both loved it, grooving on the great guitar work:



What a great track.  Yes, the worldview leaves something to be desired, buy my son and I are precisely agreed about that, too.

We talked about the group some more, and then it occurred to me to tell him how when I lived in NYC, I had this exact Lynyrd Skynyrd belt buckle. The photo really does not do justice to it; it absolutely sparkled, like a red glass taillamp lens on a shoebox Ford.

Kinda wish I had not thrown it away.  I would have liked to hand it over to my son as some kind of Rite of Passage:

Son, I bestow upon you this Lynyrd Skynyrd belt buckle.  I pronounce and declare you to be now a man!

Boycotting Berea.

Over this past weekend, my son and I made a quick trip down to North Carolina to pick up this motor and transmission which we had purchased on ebay last week. 

Most of the weekend was great, including the driving.  But coming back through Kentucky, we had a very annoying experience.  We were trying to make good time back to Michigan, and so we were pleased that the pace of the Kentucky drivers was brisk.

We decided to stop at this Travelers' Center at Berea, to use the restrooms.  I had a good feeling about it, since they correctly place the apostrophe on the sign.

But the good feeling didn't last long.  The city of Berea in all their wisdom, decided to make us go on a 2-mile tour of their town to reach the Travelers' Center, just so we could see how great their town was.  The thing is, we were in kind of a hurry.  They sent us off at Exit 77 rather than Exit 76, which was much closer to the Travelers' Center.

But the great offense was yet to come.  The place was CLOSED!  Totally locked up!  No access to the restrooms!  As a courtesy, they might have thought to put on the sign:  CLOSED on Sundays.

It was about 50 miles to the next rest area.  And now we knew why everyone drives so fast in Kentucky:  They are trying to get into Ohio or Tennessee, so they can pee.

The one redeeming feature of Berea (which I am officially boycotting for their lack of hospitality!) was this space-age looking High School:

The Automotive Art of Lawrence Gardinier

The other day, I featured the automotive art of Ed Tillrock.

Today, I'd like to show you the work of another artist we met at the 2012 Detroit Autorama, Lawrence Gardinier.  His stuff is exquisite.  He works in acrylics, and I got to talk to him about his technique.  He uses very small brushes, and magnifying lenses to see what he is doing.  He also mentioned that he is, like myself, self-taught.

The results are spectacular!  It is not often that I see a painter's work and think:  "Wow, I wish I had painted that!"  But Larry's work does that to me.  Well done, sir!

Kodachrome - on the Mourning of the Loss of Film

An artist friend posted a question about film vs digital on her blog, and this was my reply:

Oh, ABSOLUTELY!

I have two nephews who are incredible photographers both, and who bemoan the loss of film. I have a feeling that they will be buying and freezing (or otherwise preserving) film and using it for a long time.

The amount of information captured, and the continuous-vs-discrete thing just makes film totally own digital. I find this so emblematic of what is wrong with the world that I started to write a song about it. We have done what is necessary to allow EVERYONE to be a "pretty good" photographer, while disallowing the best of the best to produce their optimal work. Or, if not "disallowed", then at least "discouraged".

Along those same lines, one of my nephews got a gig as a photographer in Africa for several months on the strength of a "Frankenstein" camera he built with a modern digital body and a coveted 1968 Minolta lens.

Why use a lens created in 1968? Because back then, they didn't know how to make the lenses perfect, and there was some natural distortion to the shape of the lens which makes stunningly beautiful shapes in the out-of-focus portions of short depth-of-field photographs. Now, manufacturers know how to make the lenses perfect, and something has been loss.

The world is crazy. I miss film.

 This song now appears to have been prophetic!

Vinsetta Garage - The Restaurant

When Woodward's legendary Vinsetta Garage closed its doors a little while back, it was a sad day for me.

But making a cool restaurant out of it seems as good a thing to do with the space as anything.

It's only about 2 miles from my house, so I'm sure I will get a chance to eat there after it opens!

Read about it here.

Atheists and Spaghetti

I am puzzled and amused about the fixation of Atheists with spaghetti.

Of course, their references to the Flying Spaghetti Monster are legion.

Just yesterday, an Atheist on facebook "proved" to me that God is a bowl of spaghetti.

Given the logical equivalence of believing in the two, you would think they'd be puzzled by the huge number of people who worship God, and the miniscule (i.e., zero) number who worship spaghetti.  But I guess Atheism just makes you stupid.

A Blog I Will Be Following - Heather Policky.

I've just (re)discovered the blog of IFBB Professional Bodybuilder Heather Marie (Armbrust) Policky.

It is rare that anyone is so transparent as Heather is in this entry.

Check it out!