I bought my last new car the day after the Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series.
For those not Philadelphia fans or baseball enthusiasts, that was 16 years ago.
Today, my Saturn Aura is no longer being made. The electronic gauges have mostly failed, and I’ve had to search for competent mechanics to keep the old car running.
A recent Wall Street Journal article confirmed that I was not alone in my lack of desire to buy a new car.
“It’s not just the political class. America’s fleet of cars and trucks is also getting long in the tooth. Last month a study by S&P Global Mobility reported the average age of vehicles in the U.S. was 12.6 years, up more than 14 months since 2014. Singling out passenger cars, the number jumps to a geriatric 14 years,” Dan Neil wrote recently.
“In the past, the average-age statistic was taken as a sign of transportation’s burden on household budgets. Those burdens remain near all-time highs. The average transaction price of a new vehicle is currently hovering around $47,000. While inflation and interest rates are backing away from recent highs, insurance premiums have soared by double digits in the past year,” Neil added.
Moreover, Neil reported that many buyers don’t like designs that include more technology, particularly electric vehicles. “But lately another, stranger element is showing up in the numbers: a motivated belief among consumers that automakers’ latest and greatest offerings—whether powered by gasoline, batteries or a hybrid system—are inferior to the products they are replacing,” Neil wrote. “I cast a wide net on social media last month, posing this question: Name a new car/truck/SUV that is not as desirable as the design it replaces. I got back a long and distinguished list, a roll call of the compromised: Toyota Land Cruiser; Mini Cooper; Ford Mustang; Toyota Crown (née Avalon); Ford F-150; just about every model of BMW you can think of.”
Thinking of the Boston Red Sox, after watching this version of the team play I’ve decided that they are one of the most interesting teams in the league for two simple reasons:
They have a lot of young players with great futures ahead of them.
They are good enough to beat the best teams on any given day, and also bad enough to lose to the worst team on any given day (They split series with the Braves AND the White Sox who had lost 14 straight.
That means it’s always worth watching because you never know what’s coming up on any given day.
Watching the left go absolutely ape-shit over Israel rescuing four of their hostages has been one of the most interesting spectacles I’ve ever seen. I suspect it has been an eye opener to a lot of folks who didn’t recognize what they had become.
The Obama (oops I mean Biden) administration’s determination to not only save Hamas but to avoid any credit on this point is rather astounding, well given as I said the fact that it’s the Obama team running the show perhaps it’s not.
But all of this makes a great backdrop to Bibi’s speech before congress coming up.
That will be quite a spectacle complete with insurrectioney leftists outside and perhaps inside, who will of course not be prosecuted.
Unexpectedly of course
A long time ago my former radio co-host John Weston told a story about Obama that I won’t repeat without evidence but I will say two things:
All of the actions of this and the first Obama terms are consistent with said story
Just about unthinkable things that has happened in our culture over the last 10 years was predicted by John 15 years ago
If he knew stock futures like he knew America’s future he’d be rich today
Unlike the Redsox the Celtics have been less interesting to watch as they have pretty much rolled over everyone they have played lately.
So far the Boston Celtics have been unstoppable in the finals. Dallas is going to need to go 4-1 against the Celtics over the next five games to take this title.
While this is possible in theory the Celtics have not gone 1-4 or even 2-3 over any five game period this entire season.
At this point the only real danger to the Celtics are themselves and you can see that both Tatum and Brown have bad memories of their last trip to the finals and are determined not to repeat it.
That’s a good sign for the team but bad for talk radio who are running out of things to say.
The fuss about Catlyn Clarke being left off the US Olympic teams has made for an interesting dynamic.
The US woman’s team has won seven straight goal medals at the Olympics in fact their winning streak is seven years older then my 1999 LeSabre. They have not lost a game in the lifetime of my youngest son who was born in 1993.
Given these facts it’s safe to say they are a better bet to win the Gold then the Celtics are to win the NBA title up 2-0 already. The team doesn’t need Clarke to win and I suspect not a woman on that team wants her straight white untattooed ass on the court with them. But Clarke’s omission does create one problem for their team.
With the length of this 32 year winning streak it would be only natural that sooner or later they would drop a game as the rest of the world slowly catches up. Under normal circumstances such a loss on the road to Gold would be no big deal.
But can you imagine what the reaction will be if they finally lose a game the year Clarke is left off the team?
I think the reaction of fans would be humiliating for the team and the coaches and this is going to mean extra pressure for that team to win and win big.
..but at work yesterday a Hispanic Gent who has like me survived all the layoffs came up to me and suddenly volunteered in broken English: “Trump no good, Biden no good I vote Kennedy he good.”
Now I’m figuring that he knows I did some reporting so that’s why he decided to just volunteer this so I dug a little deeper with him and found that of four voters in his family 3 were with Kennedy and one with Trump, but not a single one with Joe Biden.
I have talked to a lot of people at work, and a lot whose first language is Spanish. Four years ago I could find a mix of voters, some for Trump some for Biden. So far I have not found a single person who has a good thing to say about Biden. There are still the folks who like Trump and the folks who don’t but so far those who don’t all seem in the Kennedy camp.
Now this isn’t scientific but I think the Dems made a big mistake booting him from their primary.
Again this might mean nothing but that’s what I’m hearing at work at least so far.
Update: Talked to Jose again and asked him if he knows anyone who likes Biden, he answered: “Biden no good, last time I vote for him, now Bah!”
Then I approached another Hispanic fellow at work younger than Jose (who is mid 60’s) a fellow in his late 20’s early 30’s who also speaks fluent English. I’ve heard him talk politics before and asked him: “Of the people you’ve talked to in Spanish here, does anyone support Joe Biden?” He could not name one, some were for Trump others not but not a one had a good word for Biden.
Now these folks don’t run in white liberal circles so they don’t have to worry about being excluded or shunned if they are not sufficiently in the tank for old Joe and I STRONGLY suspect that this is being repeated in the working class non-white communities.
If my gut is right and this is true, this is going to be a whopper.
And today’s is a good day to get a jump start on great songs about dad. Some of these will be familiar to you, others not, and it’s that last category that will make things interesting, I hope.
Most popular music songs are about relationships. You know, boy meets girl or girl loses boy. XTC, well, not so much. But they recorded some such tunes. XTC’s principal songwriter, Andy Partridge, had a troubled relationship with his mother, but less so with his father. Still, there also was conflict between the male Partridges. He sings here, “This civil war, why are we in it?” Musically, “Hold Me My Daddy” is also a successful leap out of XTC’s comfort zone, it incorporates an Afro Pop style.
The Man is Black’s relationship with his father, Ray, was portrayed in a harsh light in the movie Walk the Line. But the truth between the two is murky. For his Live at San Quentin album, Johnny Cash crooned of a dysfunctional father meeting his son in the Shel Silverstein-penned song, “A Boy Named Sue.”
Often sons–and daughters–seek out their mothers when they need guidance. But automobiles are a dad thing, which is why Chuck Berry speaks to his father about getting a new car. Released in 1965, “Dear Dad” was Berry’s last charting American single until the immature and silly “My Ding-a-Ling,” a number one hit for the legend, seven years later.
Because he has a nasty history of car accidents, Billy Joel is not the type of dad to ask for advice on automobiles, unless, of course, it involves filing an insurance claim. “Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)” was written for his daughter, Alexa Ray, for his 1993 album, River of Dreams, his last collection of new material in the pop music genre.
The best parents make the most out of a challenging situation. Loretta Lynn tells the story about her dad here. And of course, this song was the title of the Hollywood movie about her storied life.
John Hiatt is yet another one of those artists who hasn’t gotten the support he deserves. “The Rest of the Dream” covers fatherhood, childhood, marriage, and fatherhood again. It’s a multi-generational epic that clocks in under five minutes.
Arguably, this is a Mother’s Day song, because “And When I Die” was written by a woman, Laura Nyro. But the best-known version is by Blood, Sweat & Tears. David Clayton-Thomas sings lead here, and the western-movie style instrumentation puts this song on high on my list. Yee-hah! Coincidentally, in 1963, Johnny Cash released an album titled Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
Steve Goodman, best known for his “City of New Orleans,” wrote many other memorable songs. Obviously, “My Old Man” is about his father, a World War II veteran, who died at 58. Sadly, Goodman passed away at a much younger age–he was 36 when cancer claimed him.
Take a peek at these moving lyrics:
I miss my old man tonight And I wish he was here with me With his corny jokes and his cheap cigars He could look you in the eye and sell you a car That’s not an easy thing to do But no one ever knew a more charming creature On this earth than my old man.
Three months ago, here at Da Tech Guy I compiled another musical collection, 13 Great Songs about Getting Old. Cat Stevens, who decades ago changed his name to Yusuf Islam, wrote and sings the only tune that made both of my lists, “Father and Son.” Sometimes the ultimate show of love for a parent is to let a child go.
Cat’s in the Cradle: Harry Chapin.
From Cat Stevens to another Cat. One of music’s all-time great storytellers, Harry Chapin sings about the typical father of the Baby Boom era. A great provider, yes, but many dads then were too busy for their children. Tragically, Chapin never found out if his son would have “grown up just like me,” that is, not having time for him years later. Chapin, like Goodman, died young, at 38, in an automobile accident.
Did I miss a favorite of yours? Probably. Let me know in the comments.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 