Category: Uncategorized

Ah, The Beat Farmers

Stumbled upon this video today via a link on a news site in my RSS feed (love that Internet whimsy)… The Beat Farmers were one of my favorite bands in the 80s and early 90s. I deeply regret never seeing them live before the death of their key member Country Dick Montana (here on drums) in mid-performance at the Longhorn in Whistler.

Two of their albums “Tales of the New West” and “Van Go” are usually in heavy rotation on my “chuck’s favorites” iTunes playlist. Good times.

Here are two Country Dick Classics for you “Happy Boy” (the only Rock & Roll song to feature a Kazoo & Gargle solo) and “Big Ugly Wheels”

(Bad copy of the original music video here.)

“They are not too big to die, they are too big to survive”

Insightful comments, as always, from the man known as “Bob Cringely“.

I’ve been reading Stephens‘ work for well over 15 years, and have always enjoyed his style, his insight, and his humor. I appreciate his willingness to admit when he’s wrong (which, oftentimes he is) and his accessibility to his audience. We’ve exchanged emails a few times, usually with me calling him a “dipstick” (a legacy term from an old column of his) and correcting an error he’s made on some detail of our industry. He’s always acknowledged the corrections politely and the mistakes rarely, if ever, get repeated.

I like his optimism and his outlook, and really appreciate his comments here about allowing nature to take its course with regard to dying industries, be they financial, or automotive, you’ll note he doesn’t specify.

Car Photo of the Day: Sort of a Gremlin

Seen at the Tulip Rallye a few years back… might as well be a Gremlin. I’m sure it has its share of Gremlins! 😉

BTW, on an administrivia note, I’m clearing out a bunch of “subscribers” to the website today. These are mostly accounts with gibberish-names and gmail or .ru email addresses. I strongly suspect that they are just auto-created by spamming scripts and have no real business here. If I accidentally delete your account, apologies in advance. Next time put a real name in there so it at least appears that a human did the input! If you need to reach me I’m not that hard to find via email or AIM.