Today’s post comes from Wally, proprietor of Wally’s Intimida – Home of the Sherpa!
Whenever I’m feeling down, I look at the latest report from the US Public Interest Research Group to remind myself that there’s a lot further to fall. Yes, I could feel much, much worse. The US PIRG says young people today are doing less and less driving for a lot of different reasons including time and expense. Plus, when they were very little, their mothers and fathers drove them around everywhere they needed to go, inadvertently creating a a generation of lazy travelers who expect to be picked up and taken to their next destination.
In other words, public transit-loving leeches!
This doesn’t bode well for people like me who work in the automotive indulgence industry. Our audience is literally fading away. I have seen young people … young MEN … who are very conversant about bike racks but cannot get excited about a Corvette.
That’s just wrong.
We may be entering a time that will be remembered someday as the dark ages for the personal automobile.
Parked Behind a Small Rock
But in the same way that Irish monks and scribes preserved western civilization by maintaining the culture through the transition from classic Rome to medieval Europe, so Sherpa drivers will allow our car culture to survive thousands of years into the future! It’s up to us to use and maintain the infrastructure. Otherwise our beautiful 8 lane freeways will become 2 car lane and 12 bike lane freeways. Perish the thought!
The Sherpa from Intimida does everything we need to keep our infrastructure in use and up-to-date. As the largest and heaviest passenger car ever made, it chews up the pavement at the same rate as 10 lesser cars. And no vehicle on Earth can match it for gas consumption. That’s great for America, because as our gas production increases (thanks, tracking!) the huge Sherpas of Intimida will be there to burn it!
And the taxes we pay will keep the roads in good repair. Sherpa ownership preserves a way of life, and supports Employment and Infrastructure.
And what about all that carbon dioxide in the air?
The Sherpa Woodsman edition comes complete with a old-growth forest that has been uprooted and surgically pre-planted in the cargo bay. That means your Sherpa is the only car on the road that both pumps CO2 into the air and consumes it at the same time!
Yes, young people think differently. Let them! It’s up to you to pass the consumptive culture that bred you on to some greedy future generation!
Come to Wally’s Intimida and take your proper place in history!
Your far-seeing dealer,
Wally
I told Wally that I’m not in the market for a new car, but in our own way, each of us represents something essential about the times in which we live. His eyes glazed over and I don’t think he heard a word I said after “I’m not in the market for a new car.”
In a Museum of the Future, which exhibit includes an image of you, and what are you doing?
I’ll be in a wax museum as an 85-year old dancing grandma doing a high kick, wearing a sequined mini-dress, and thoroughly displaying head to toe crepe paper (wrinkled) skin 🙂 My likeness will be positioned right next to Tina Turner.
Other than not being able to recall if I’d already updated on the Trail, pretty well! The funny thing here is that I was in complete denial about having a seizure disorder for weeks, then finally surrendered to it. Then, a second opinion that this did not fit my medical picture kicked me back out of acceptance! By mid-June, after a 12-hour EEG, the final conclusion should come to light. Thanks for asking.
i will be trying to figure out hashtags on my twitter account. standing and looking at the new features of the ipod 26. it has aps to show you how to use the aps you already have but dont understand. it can take and send a picture or a movie, record a concert or play, wake me wiht a checklist to start my day, let me dictate my thoughts and take notes prepare mailing labels plan my diet, organize my sock drawer and scold me for forgetting to do my situps again today. watch my ebay acct and pay my bills. now if only i had someone to call, everyone i know responds better to texts and facebook than the telephone.
is there enough room in the old growth forest in the back of the sherpa woodsman to set up a hammock between a couple trees. i think that sounds like a wonderful feature.
Those people who don’t call and only do texting or Facebook will take your call if you keep after them. Maybe I am behind the times. However, I find there are situations when I need to talk to people by phone. I don’t even know how to send text messages using my cell phone. Of course, I do make use of email. I think that email is no substitute for talking directly over the phone to get some things done.
Good morning. I will be in the kitchen making a pot of coffee. This is something I have done almost every day for many years. I was doing this only a few minutes ago. As the early rising person in the house, this is my job. In some way or the other, that is who I am, the guy who gets up and makes the coffee.
And what kind of coffeepot does this feature? Stovetop drip, Mr. Coffee, a high end pot with its own grinder, a 50’s era shiny electric percolator worthy of Mad Men? In a museum this detail would be vital!
I’m just remembering the peculiar sound of a percolator coffee maker blurping and booping on the stovetop. For a coffee-addicted human, struggling to get his or her eyes open, that was sweet music.
I had a percolator that I used many years ago. I don’t think they are used much these days because they are associated with a time when most people were not very aware of how good coffee can taste if it is well prepared.
I agree that the coffee wasn’t as good as we get now. Ah, but that sound! That was wonderful when you were just hanging on to the breakfast table trying to get your eyes to open for another day!
Someday, I will learn to post youtube videos here. There is one of Mandy Patinkin singing “Coffee in a cardboard cup that would work here, but I can’t figure out how to get it here.
Renee, I added this for you.
When you look at a you tube video, click on the “share” button below the image. A rectangular box will open up with a code inside. Copy the code and paste it in your Trail Baboon comment, and when you save your post the video should appear!
I think the shiny silver percolators are underrated. The fact is, they make excellent coffee if you use high quality beans. We have been collecting percolators from estate sales- the vintage Farberware ones are particularly good. You get the aural effects of the vintage percolator plus good coffee.
I should add, I don’t think that the use of percolators survived to the era of hi quality coffee, so percolator coffee was never associated with good coffee. A quirk of history, I assert.
The main thing is the kind of coffee. I don’t know how that can be shown in a wax museum display. Starbucks french roast is the usual choice, but I think I would use Peace Coffee if I could buy it in this part of the state. Maybe the bag of coffee shown could have a big peace sign out it. I use an ordinary electric drip coffee maker and use both ground coffee and coffee beans that I grind.
I am really torn here–should I feature me in my Farmer McGregor gardening overalls with my very low tech hoe? Or my iPad which has become a near addictive necessity for both business (progress notes, credit card payments, and recording sessions for credentialling) and recreational diversion (Spider Solitaire)? Both seem equal representations of my days as they go by. I also have a cold frame full of late sprouting seedlings that would be quite a novelty to remember once-upon-a-time gardening.
This will be a dilemma all day! How do I remember myself? How do I remember anything?
This morning I received an email from one of my many cousins. My aunt and uncle, ages 76 and 80, just got a laptop and are learning how to email so they can stay in touch with us better. Now that is an optimistic pair!
Could someone from BBC let me know what thenext book selection is and where we will meet? (Always welcome at my house if need be).
I forgot to add that I am filled with admiration of these generations’ attitudes towards cars and towards mass transit. They are so very sensible and have a much different stance towards driving and getting around than my generation. Good for them!
It’s a two-fer next time. “The People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks and/or “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers. VS’s house…Sunday, July 21. 2 p.m.
I could one of two ways. A nice montage of me w/ all my craft stuff around me would be nice, but I think my preference would be in a garden with Teenager and pets, straw bales in the background and a good book in my lap!
There exists a photo of me with my dog taken in 1987, a shot snapped while we rested from walking for hours a vast prairie, hunting shaprtail grouse. I have my hand under Spook’s jaw, stroking him while I kneel in a sea of prairie grass over my head. Spook is panting from exhaustion and the sheer joy of running in a place with no apparent boundaries. I had recently lost a lot of weight and was feeling strong enough to kick my way into a bank vault. I had a fascinating 10-year old daughter and a wife I loved. I don’t know that I’ve ever been happier or felt more at ease with myself than at that moment. It wouldn’t last, but it was a perfect moment that the camera caught and preserved forever.
The exhibit would include me and husband canning and putting up our garden produce, as well as the both of us administering Rorschach Inkblot Tests. Fewer and fewer psychologists are using the test, as it takes too much time to administer and score.
Morning–
We reused some picture frames the other day and I was surprised at the multiple pictures behind the glass. A little time capsule right there. And two of my favorite photos. Kelly and I posing with a favorite calf on one side and a dog on the other. We were so young; not married yet I don’t think. In Kellys’ picture the dog is looking at me and the camera; in my picture the dog is staring at me with a look of devotion you only get from dogs.
I think in my heart I want to be remembered as a farmer… but I’ll probably have to be holding a stage light too. And the cell phone glued to my ear…
What about the Blevin’s Book Club. Will anyone be reading books? I could see an exhibit of Baboons and books and what ever else goes along with the meeting. What about radios? Will public radio listeners be dinaosaurs?
This might sound OT, but is not. There is a fascinating although obscure Japanese film called “After Life.” In the opening shots, people walk out of a mist into some building manned by Japanese civil servants, who then interview them. We gradually come to understand that these are people who have recently died. The civil servants are leading them through a process of adjustment to death and eternity.
The talks are all about the key moments in their lives, which is the connection to Dale’s piece and its question. The recently deceased are asked to identify THE moment in their life of ultimate happiness, the moment they would want most to remember through eternity. That moment is then recreated and photographed. The person’s memory is then obliterated except for that one key moment.
I’ve never seen a film that leads to more interesting speculation and comments afterward. The key issue for me was that my happiest memories were of moments that turned out to be full of false optimism. Life, as it tends to do, went on past those joyous moments and ultimately crushed the high hopes I felt at one time. So what would you like as your one memory of life? Would you choose a moment of false hope? Or maybe make a different choice?
Your choice is a common one, and for that very reason. Others have trouble accepting a dream that actually turns out badly. And one of the issues that this raises is whether it is better to be foolishly hopeful or sadly wise.
The Chinese often portray the afterlife as a bureaucracy–“Journey to the West” aka “The Monkey King”, which is also massively popular in Japan, being a case in point. I’m delighted that someone did a contemporary take on the concept in live-action film (it features in a number of anime and manga, too, such as “Saiyuki” and “Yami no Matsuei”), and, from your description, a very skillful one.
I often evaluate books or films by studying the appropriate Amazon.com page. Here is the page link for the DVD of this film (which I have just ordered, so I could lend it to someone).
Our large, orange, cat, Ginger with the 7 toes on each front foot and the corkscrew tail, would probably consider this evening the time he would want to remember. He is 10. I never used to let him outside much due to being an anxious pet owner. He has proven to be a stay-in-the-yard cat, so I let him out now. Well, tonight he caught and killed his first bird. It was a clean broken neck. He ran around the yard with it in his mouth, then started meowing in distress and finally dropped it by the back door and ran in the house.
I can’t decide if I would be in the Teaching section or the Dancing section – seems like I’m often in Information Dissemination mode, and there was the bookselling streak… but current passion is dancing, though I see that can’t last forever. Hmmmm..
if i had to freeze in one moment in time and experience it i think i would choose 9th grade. i was so sure of where i was going and how i was going to go about doing it. then i found out that sometimes stuff goes in a different direction and you have to figure out plan b. much of my life since 9th grade has been going with plan b and then realizing plan c may be a good idea as a follow up. i see my ninth grade picture (my daughter keeps it by her bed) and i feel like i remember how cool it felt to be ready to go with no quams , hesitation or thoughts of what if i need a back up plan. youth is wasted on the young. i enjoyed the heck out of youth, i had a pretty good time in the life after youth and the young adulthhod that followed adolescence was good too. then maturity and a departure from the familiar drugs left me in an unfamiliar zone and i have been scrambling ever since.
9th grade was the third year away from catholic school and i dont think i realized life would ever be considered restricitve again. that smile in my 9th grade picture is due in large part to lack of nuns. ahhhh. life without nuns is very very good.
Trail Baboon 
I’ll be in a wax museum as an 85-year old dancing grandma doing a high kick, wearing a sequined mini-dress, and thoroughly displaying head to toe crepe paper (wrinkled) skin 🙂 My likeness will be positioned right next to Tina Turner.
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OT-but how is everything going?
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Other than not being able to recall if I’d already updated on the Trail, pretty well! The funny thing here is that I was in complete denial about having a seizure disorder for weeks, then finally surrendered to it. Then, a second opinion that this did not fit my medical picture kicked me back out of acceptance! By mid-June, after a 12-hour EEG, the final conclusion should come to light. Thanks for asking.
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With no gum-chewing this time, right??
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It is a good thing you got a second opinion. Neurologists can sometimes be way far apart on diagnoses.
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renee can be third opinion
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i will be trying to figure out hashtags on my twitter account. standing and looking at the new features of the ipod 26. it has aps to show you how to use the aps you already have but dont understand. it can take and send a picture or a movie, record a concert or play, wake me wiht a checklist to start my day, let me dictate my thoughts and take notes prepare mailing labels plan my diet, organize my sock drawer and scold me for forgetting to do my situps again today. watch my ebay acct and pay my bills. now if only i had someone to call, everyone i know responds better to texts and facebook than the telephone.
is there enough room in the old growth forest in the back of the sherpa woodsman to set up a hammock between a couple trees. i think that sounds like a wonderful feature.
LikeLike
Those people who don’t call and only do texting or Facebook will take your call if you keep after them. Maybe I am behind the times. However, I find there are situations when I need to talk to people by phone. I don’t even know how to send text messages using my cell phone. Of course, I do make use of email. I think that email is no substitute for talking directly over the phone to get some things done.
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Cave man
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And sometimes talking over the phone is no substitute for meeting in person.
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Yes, I agree.
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Jim, I guess you and I can start a cave man club.
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Good morning. I will be in the kitchen making a pot of coffee. This is something I have done almost every day for many years. I was doing this only a few minutes ago. As the early rising person in the house, this is my job. In some way or the other, that is who I am, the guy who gets up and makes the coffee.
LikeLike
And what kind of coffeepot does this feature? Stovetop drip, Mr. Coffee, a high end pot with its own grinder, a 50’s era shiny electric percolator worthy of Mad Men? In a museum this detail would be vital!
LikeLike
I’m just remembering the peculiar sound of a percolator coffee maker blurping and booping on the stovetop. For a coffee-addicted human, struggling to get his or her eyes open, that was sweet music.
LikeLike
I had a percolator that I used many years ago. I don’t think they are used much these days because they are associated with a time when most people were not very aware of how good coffee can taste if it is well prepared.
LikeLike
I agree that the coffee wasn’t as good as we get now. Ah, but that sound! That was wonderful when you were just hanging on to the breakfast table trying to get your eyes to open for another day!
LikeLike
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Someday, I will learn to post youtube videos here. There is one of Mandy Patinkin singing “Coffee in a cardboard cup that would work here, but I can’t figure out how to get it here.
Renee, I added this for you.
When you look at a you tube video, click on the “share” button below the image. A rectangular box will open up with a code inside. Copy the code and paste it in your Trail Baboon comment, and when you save your post the video should appear!
– DC
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I think the shiny silver percolators are underrated. The fact is, they make excellent coffee if you use high quality beans. We have been collecting percolators from estate sales- the vintage Farberware ones are particularly good. You get the aural effects of the vintage percolator plus good coffee.
LikeLike
I should add, I don’t think that the use of percolators survived to the era of hi quality coffee, so percolator coffee was never associated with good coffee. A quirk of history, I assert.
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good point bill
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The main thing is the kind of coffee. I don’t know how that can be shown in a wax museum display. Starbucks french roast is the usual choice, but I think I would use Peace Coffee if I could buy it in this part of the state. Maybe the bag of coffee shown could have a big peace sign out it. I use an ordinary electric drip coffee maker and use both ground coffee and coffee beans that I grind.
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I love guys who get up and make the coffee.
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Wonderful and all too rare. 🙂
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if they want coffee and they are the ones who are awake its a no brainer
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I am really torn here–should I feature me in my Farmer McGregor gardening overalls with my very low tech hoe? Or my iPad which has become a near addictive necessity for both business (progress notes, credit card payments, and recording sessions for credentialling) and recreational diversion (Spider Solitaire)? Both seem equal representations of my days as they go by. I also have a cold frame full of late sprouting seedlings that would be quite a novelty to remember once-upon-a-time gardening.
This will be a dilemma all day! How do I remember myself? How do I remember anything?
This morning I received an email from one of my many cousins. My aunt and uncle, ages 76 and 80, just got a laptop and are learning how to email so they can stay in touch with us better. Now that is an optimistic pair!
Could someone from BBC let me know what thenext book selection is and where we will meet? (Always welcome at my house if need be).
LikeLike
I forgot to add that I am filled with admiration of these generations’ attitudes towards cars and towards mass transit. They are so very sensible and have a much different stance towards driving and getting around than my generation. Good for them!
LikeLike
It’s a two-fer next time. “The People of the Book” by Geraldine Brooks and/or “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers. VS’s house…Sunday, July 21. 2 p.m.
LikeLike
Morning all!
I could one of two ways. A nice montage of me w/ all my craft stuff around me would be nice, but I think my preference would be in a garden with Teenager and pets, straw bales in the background and a good book in my lap!
LikeLike
There exists a photo of me with my dog taken in 1987, a shot snapped while we rested from walking for hours a vast prairie, hunting shaprtail grouse. I have my hand under Spook’s jaw, stroking him while I kneel in a sea of prairie grass over my head. Spook is panting from exhaustion and the sheer joy of running in a place with no apparent boundaries. I had recently lost a lot of weight and was feeling strong enough to kick my way into a bank vault. I had a fascinating 10-year old daughter and a wife I loved. I don’t know that I’ve ever been happier or felt more at ease with myself than at that moment. It wouldn’t last, but it was a perfect moment that the camera caught and preserved forever.
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That sounds nice Steve.
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Oops,
That was me–
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The exhibit would include me and husband canning and putting up our garden produce, as well as the both of us administering Rorschach Inkblot Tests. Fewer and fewer psychologists are using the test, as it takes too much time to administer and score.
LikeLike
Morning–
We reused some picture frames the other day and I was surprised at the multiple pictures behind the glass. A little time capsule right there. And two of my favorite photos. Kelly and I posing with a favorite calf on one side and a dog on the other. We were so young; not married yet I don’t think. In Kellys’ picture the dog is looking at me and the camera; in my picture the dog is staring at me with a look of devotion you only get from dogs.
I think in my heart I want to be remembered as a farmer… but I’ll probably have to be holding a stage light too. And the cell phone glued to my ear…
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with sleeveless shirt and baseball cap (how else would we find you i guess though huh?)
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Yep,
Of course a sleeveless shirt.
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What about the Blevin’s Book Club. Will anyone be reading books? I could see an exhibit of Baboons and books and what ever else goes along with the meeting. What about radios? Will public radio listeners be dinaosaurs?
LikeLike
If we have an exhibit of Baboons then we would definitely need to add eating — it seems to be a main component of all congresses!
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eating music and the arts
good premise for a group
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This might sound OT, but is not. There is a fascinating although obscure Japanese film called “After Life.” In the opening shots, people walk out of a mist into some building manned by Japanese civil servants, who then interview them. We gradually come to understand that these are people who have recently died. The civil servants are leading them through a process of adjustment to death and eternity.
The talks are all about the key moments in their lives, which is the connection to Dale’s piece and its question. The recently deceased are asked to identify THE moment in their life of ultimate happiness, the moment they would want most to remember through eternity. That moment is then recreated and photographed. The person’s memory is then obliterated except for that one key moment.
I’ve never seen a film that leads to more interesting speculation and comments afterward. The key issue for me was that my happiest memories were of moments that turned out to be full of false optimism. Life, as it tends to do, went on past those joyous moments and ultimately crushed the high hopes I felt at one time. So what would you like as your one memory of life? Would you choose a moment of false hope? Or maybe make a different choice?
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If it’s the one memory you get to get through eternity, then you won’t ever know that it was false hope. So maybe that’s a good one to go with!
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Your choice is a common one, and for that very reason. Others have trouble accepting a dream that actually turns out badly. And one of the issues that this raises is whether it is better to be foolishly hopeful or sadly wise.
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Steve, your comment reminded me of this tune.
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The Chinese often portray the afterlife as a bureaucracy–“Journey to the West” aka “The Monkey King”, which is also massively popular in Japan, being a case in point. I’m delighted that someone did a contemporary take on the concept in live-action film (it features in a number of anime and manga, too, such as “Saiyuki” and “Yami no Matsuei”), and, from your description, a very skillful one.
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I couldn’t possibly make the choice.
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I often evaluate books or films by studying the appropriate Amazon.com page. Here is the page link for the DVD of this film (which I have just ordered, so I could lend it to someone).
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Another good movie about the afterlife is “Defending Your Life” with Meryl Streep, Albert Brooks and Rip Torn.
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Our large, orange, cat, Ginger with the 7 toes on each front foot and the corkscrew tail, would probably consider this evening the time he would want to remember. He is 10. I never used to let him outside much due to being an anxious pet owner. He has proven to be a stay-in-the-yard cat, so I let him out now. Well, tonight he caught and killed his first bird. It was a clean broken neck. He ran around the yard with it in his mouth, then started meowing in distress and finally dropped it by the back door and ran in the house.
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if thats not the best watch out what you wish for story i ever heard i dont know what is
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Tiger, Tiger, burning bright.
Killing thrushes in the night!
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The loss of innocence.
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Well put!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUa8mbgKex8
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For the percolator conversation earlier:
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I can’t decide if I would be in the Teaching section or the Dancing section – seems like I’m often in Information Dissemination mode, and there was the bookselling streak… but current passion is dancing, though I see that can’t last forever. Hmmmm..
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The image would probably have to be me walking a cat.
As hard as I’ve tried, though, I’m having a difficult time picturing this museum.
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if i had to freeze in one moment in time and experience it i think i would choose 9th grade. i was so sure of where i was going and how i was going to go about doing it. then i found out that sometimes stuff goes in a different direction and you have to figure out plan b. much of my life since 9th grade has been going with plan b and then realizing plan c may be a good idea as a follow up. i see my ninth grade picture (my daughter keeps it by her bed) and i feel like i remember how cool it felt to be ready to go with no quams , hesitation or thoughts of what if i need a back up plan. youth is wasted on the young. i enjoyed the heck out of youth, i had a pretty good time in the life after youth and the young adulthhod that followed adolescence was good too. then maturity and a departure from the familiar drugs left me in an unfamiliar zone and i have been scrambling ever since.
9th grade was the third year away from catholic school and i dont think i realized life would ever be considered restricitve again. that smile in my 9th grade picture is due in large part to lack of nuns. ahhhh. life without nuns is very very good.
LikeLike