Pontiac Builds Excitement?

Ehh, not so much.  Until the late 50’s, Pontiac was little more than a conservative, boring, upscale version of Chevrolet.  With Bunkie Knudsen, Jim Wangers, and John DeLorean, Pontiac truly did build excitement.  The GTO in 1964, the Firebird in 1967, the 1969 Grand Prix, the Trans Am throughout the 70s (especially with the Screaming Chicken hood bird), the TPI Formula and Trans Am from ’87-92 (and the 1989 20^th Anniversary Trans Am with the turbo Buick 3.8L V6), the LT1 and LS1 Formula and Trans Am, the ’04-06 GTO, and finally the supercharged Grand Prix and Bonneville SSEi.  These were all bad-ass cars.  They really were exciting, far more so than Chevrolet as an aggregate, which has to be all things to all people and is thus nothing to anyone.  Sure they have the Corvette, but the Camaro has always paled compared to its flashier and more interesting Pontiac cousin.

Now what do we have?  The Firebird was killed in 2002.  The GTO was let go after the 2006 model year.  The Solstice doesn’t come with a V8.  There are no plans for a ’09-10 Firebird (despite the Camaro’s return) or a new GTO.  And let’s look at the 2008 model year lineup.

G5.  Coupe and GT version.  Looks like this is the Sunbird >> Sunfire, given the new numerical name (like BMWs and like the idiotic 1000/6000 deal during the 80s).  Even allowing for being the same car, “G5” doesn’t hit me in the nuts like Sunfire does, not that that name is really all that great either (but it does beat Sunbird).

G6.  Coupe, sedan, and convertible.  This is the Grand Am, which has always been a boring car, made even duller by reducing it to a number.  Is a Grand Am convertible really so special?  I don’t think so.

G8.  Formerly the Bonneville – which evokes the image of the high-speed salt flats in Utah – and now just vague number, and now the flagship since the GTO was abandoned after the 2006 model year.  The GT model has the 6.0L V8 putting out 361 HP.  Nice power and balls, but still not as exciting as the Solstice.

Grand Prix.  Not quite 1969 with a 428, but OK.  The sedan gets the 200 HP 3.8L V6 which was the base Firebird engine.  The GXP gets a 303 HP 5.3L V8.  I do like the styling of this one, particularly the GXP.

Torrent.  SUV-type POS.  Who in his or her right mind would buy a Pontiac SUV?  That just boggles the mind.  Why not let GMC make a Solstice variant – a “professional grade” heavy duty work roadster?  Come on.   I guess the idea was that they needed a Montana replacement but felt an SUV was better than a minivan.  But I’m as hardcore a Pontiac loyalist as anyone else, but if a gun was put to my head and I had to buy a minivan or SUV, I can’t see myself justifying a Torrent purchase out of mere loyalty to Pontiac.

Vibe.  Aka the Toyota Matrix.  A station wagon that thinks it’s cool.  No, it’s a station wagon.  I suppose we should be grateful it’s not the Aztek, but that doesn’t say much.  Maybe they thought they’d let the Scion Xb take the prize for ugliest car on the planet.  Advice: UGLY is not a substitute for EXCITING.

Solstice.  The GXP version has a turbo, knocking the I4 up to 260 HP.  Not bad, but according to anyone who’s tried, a V8 slips into a Solstice with no problem.  So why isn’t it offered from the factory with a V8?  One word: CORVETTE.  DeLorean tried to do this back in the 60s, and GM slammed him down and made him adapt the Camaro, which became the Firebird.  DeLorean later admitted that GM was right.  But now, we have no more GTO and no plans to make a Firebird, so giving the Solstice a V8 makes sense.  Come on: Corvette enthusiasts are always going to buy Corvettes; and the market for a V8 Solstice is there, doing so would help Pontiac without hurting Chevrolet.

Next year?  An El Camino variant of the G8 (the “sport truck”); the G8 GXP (essentially the GTO engine dropped into an equally lamely styled G8); and the Solstice Coupe, which gets a targa top, which actually makes sense and looks better than the Solstice convertible with the top up.  Unfortunately the coupe still doesn’t get a V8, and GM claims no plans for a Firebird or GTO for 2009-2010.

Can Am and Jim Wangers.  The August 2008 issue of High Performance Pontiac has an article on the Can Am, which was a 1977-only version of the Le Mans, with two doors, white with red/orange stripes, the Trans Am Shaker Hood, and the Trans Am Pontiac 400 cubic inch 200 horsepower V8 (6.6L) (except for California and high altitude, which got the Oldsmobile 403).  It was a terrific and popular car at a time when performance was almost completely forgotten.  Jim Wangers, frequently associated with the GTO, was also involved in its development, and was even interviewed for the Can Am article.  When asked if Pontiac would make something like that today, his response (echoing my own sentiment): “…You have to understand Pontiac’s marketing philosophy today….As you know you, the way it’s thinking over there now, it doesn’t want anything to do with the heritage of the Wide Track era of the 60s.  There’s no Bonneville, no Grand Prix, no LeMans, no GTO, no Firebird, no Trans Am.  It wants to distance themselves from those wonderful ‘Glory Days.’”

Back to School

May 22, 1993.  On this date I graduated from George Mason University School of Law, and my formal education ended.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, soon to be on the US Supreme Court, gave our commencement address (not that I can remember a word she said, but all such addresses are exactly the same) and I got my diploma, with name correctly spelled, on the spot.

            I had to take the Virginia and Maryland bars before I could be an attorney, but those involved bar review courses, not actual classes.  The end of law school marked the end of education, which had begin in the early 70s with nursery school and kindergarten, continuing in Paris in the early to mid 80s for high school, at University of Maryland for college in the late 80s, and then law school.  Law school, with its assigned seating, corporate track thesis, and Socratic method, was far beyond the laid back, low standards of Huge State Party School.

            After law school it was time for the real world, in the form of my first legal job.  No more summer vacations, but then again, September wasn’t any worse than August.

NOVA.  In 1994 the real world bit me in ass, in the form of a layoff.  Suddenly having a surplus of free time and determined to make productive use of it (aside from looking for a job, which I was determined to do anyway) I studied auto mechanics, a topic I knew nothing about.  From reading a high school auto mechanics textbook, I then took two classes at the Arlington County Adult Education Center, these “intro to auto mechanics” courses for people who know nothing about it and want to know how to change their spare tire, etc.  Most of students in the class were women.

            After having taken both classes and still not satisfied that I’d exhausted my opportunities for practical, hands-on education (as I knew that book smart meant nothing when it comes to turning wrenches and getting dirty, and getting a job as a mechanic was impractical as I had not given up on continuing my legal career) I enrolled at Northern Virginia Community College for classes in auto mechanics.  Although some of the students were NOVA students, 2/3rds of the class members were gas station mechanics and dealer techs, so I knew I was in good company. 

I took classes in fuel systems (carburetor and fuel injection), transmissions (manual and automatic) and engines.  They even let us work on our own cars!  I changed my own oil, transmission fluid, differential fluid, and spark plugs.  I took apart and rebuilt a Rochester Quadrajet.  We took apart and put together two GM TH350 transmissions.

Oddly, I was still working as an attorney during this time.  My boss, Jerry, was gracious enough to allow me to leave work early from Falls Church to attend classes at NOVA in Alexandria, a luxury I haven’t had with any subsequent employer.  Ironically, I now live next to the school, but can no longer fit any of the classes into my work schedule. 

This was school, so it did involve reading and tests, but I was so excited that I devoured the textbook and read it on my own initiative, acing every exam.  My transmission teacher, Sandy, was the shop foreman at Stohlman Oldsmobile, so I could bring my Formula there for service and he’d always fix what was wrong for less than I expected (unfortunately Stohlman is now a Mercedes dealer, so I have to bring the car elsewhere).  I also took, and passed, the ASE exams on Auto Repair, Automatic Transmissions, and Manual Transmissions. 

However, despite all that, I am not a mechanic, have never worked as a mechanic, and cannot fix everything that goes wrong: I know what I don’t know, and I know my limitations.  I don’t try to handle body work; I never took any classes on that – what I know, I know from watching the guy who painted my car 3 times.  Also, no-start conditions and electrical problems still baffle me.  But I can have a normal conversation with a mechanic, and from talking to me they can sense I’m not someone they can fool.  I have the factory service manual for my Formula and it’s falling apart from so much use and review.

CLEs.  The second form of post-law school education are Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes.  The Virginia bar requires 12 credits a year, including 2 credits in ethics.  They typically last between 4 and 6 hours and take place in hotel conference rooms.  They’re either live – in which case you can often ask the experts questions – or videotape replays.  You show up in polo shirt and jeans, almost a vacation from the law office and certainly from court.  There are no quizzes or tests, you just listen and take notes.  Hell, you could snooze for the entire time, pick up the materials binder, and then leave, and get as much credit for having taken the class as if you’d eagerly absorbed every word and took copious notes.  Typically a firm will pay for the class so long as you take a relevant topic and take notes for the other lawyers.  I used to take the courses on DUI (drunk driving) and divorce law, and now I take the general civil litigation ones.  They vary from dull snoozefests (especially ethics seminars) to fairly well presented courses with film clips to illustrate various topics.  I also frequently run into lawyers I haven’t seen in awhile, including former GMUSL classmates.  Of course, if you take a course in your line of practice, it’s even better.  Once, I had a DUI case continued because the court date conflicted with a DUI CLE.  I took the CLE, and sure enough what I learned was immensely helpful to me when the case came around. 

The ethics ones used to be the dullest, typically presented by the least engaging lawyers monosyllabically reciting sections of the code of professional responsibility, but in recent years they have improved the quality.  A recent one I took even had a video vignette of a parody of “Dirty Jobs”, called “Dirty Lawyers”, featuring an over-the-top shark of an attorney who really jumped over the ethical rules.  He joked about insulting an opposing party at a deposition, calling her a “slut” and “bimbo” who wasn’t smart enough to know what a restraining order was.  Certainly one of the more entertaining CLEs.

This ethics seminar, unlike most of the CLE’s I’ve been too, was actually at NOVA Annandale, so it really was like going back to school.  But as with all of them, no homework, no tests, just turn in your attendance form and you’re outta there.  Woohoo!

Cold Gin Time Again

Here’s a tribute to alcohol – in various formats.

Beer.  Probably my favorite.  As with most alcoholic beverages it’s an acquired taste.  I was a slow starter, and pretty much made up for being dry in high school by being tanked in college.  “Tanked”, though, is relative.  Compared to others at University of Maryland, I was probably average.  I was “tanked” relative to my virtually nil drinking in high school.  The drinking was never heavy and tapered off after college, and never came close to alcoholism.  I was never a heavy drinker.

Heineken.  This has a special spot for me, for several reasons:

            A.         Back when we returned to Paris on semester break in college – drinking age 14 in Paris, 21 in the US – we’d hit Roscoe’s.  Instead of the Stella Artois on tap, I’d exclusively drink Heineken.  Not sure why, just preferred something more upscale than what was on draft.

            B.         When I’d visit my buddy Ken in New Jersey, our first stop after I finished the 4 hour drive was usually a beer run to the local liquor store, and it was usually Heineken we picked out.  Good memories.

            C.         Not sure why, but Viets seem to drink Heineken or Corona.  They have their own beer, “33”, which is not bad, but not special either.  I’ve never seen a Viet (or anyone else) drink 33 though.  Why do they bother importing it??

            D.         I saw at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, that they have a home tap setup, which keeps the mini-keg cool and keeps track of the quantity.  Very cool, if expensive ($279).  Too bad it only works with Heineken mini-kegs.  I like the idea, but not enough to limit myself to only one brand of beer, as good as it may be.

Types.  I’m more into pilsners, and I can’t stand stouts (like Guinness), ambers (like Killians) or any thick ale.  German beers all have to obey that damn Rheinheitsgebot (or whatever the beer purity law is) which means they have to all taste equally strong and skunky, sort of like the Phil Hartman impression of the German chick on Sprockets (SNL); that goes for Samuel Adams and most microbrews.  I can endure Beck’s or St Pauli Girl, though.  Belgians are famous for their beer, but I never had much more than Stella Artois.  I love Brazilian beer (Brahma, Antarctica or Skol) which seems to blend the skill of German beer – they had plenty of Germans there teaching them how to brew it – without so much of the nasty aftertaste, a good compromise.  Light beer is ok, but Michelob Ultra is a bit TOO thin.  What happened to Michelob Dry and Coors Extra Gold?

Beer Snobs.  A friend of mine (name withheld, lol) recently turned into a beer snob.  Unless it’s some obnoxious microbrew or stout, it’s horse piss to him now, even quality beer we used to drink without a fuss.  To me, though, being a beer snob seems to be trying to have your cake and eat it too: being a snob for alcohol without having the stigma of being pretentious like the wine snobs. Sorry, snob = pretentious.  My only snobbery with regard to beer is refusing to drink cheap beer, such as Schlitz, Miller High Life, Busch, or Milwaukee’s Best, which definitely do taste like cheap, shitty beer.  For some reason, everyone’s 12 year old introduction to beer seems to be with the worst, cheapest beer imaginable.  I tend to buy Michelob or Icehouse these days.  The ice beers do seem to have a stronger kick without tasting any nastier.

Can vs. Bottle.  Screw them both.  I drink only out of a glass.  Something about cans makes beer taste 100x more filling, and even a bottle isn’t that great.  Just pour it into a pint glass.

Ads.  The beer ads for some reason are the most clever – especially during the Super Bowl.  I’m not sure why this should be, but it indoubtedly is.

Malt beverages.  Apparently someone figured out how to make a beer with absolutely no flavor, so they could put whatever taste they want into it and screw around with it with countless different flavors (sorta like schnapps).  I don’t mind these, as they taste pretty good (at least most of them) and are considerably less filling than normal beer – though according to the scientists, they are still beer.  Back on Rio Trip V I waltzed down the Suvaco do Cristo bloco drinking Smirnoff Ices and chomping down mystery meat on a stick dipped in sawdust, topless, before meeting up near the Jockey Clube with minha amiga.  Woohoo!  I think we went to the hippie fair in Ipanema after that, though my memory is somewhat hazy on the details.

Blame Canada.  The beer in Canada is stronger.  Labatt’s Blue, Molson, etc. are stronger in their local forms that what we get in the US (export versions).  I found out the hard way in ’91 when I visited my high school buddies in Ottawa.  I ended up listening to Max Webster’s “Hangover”...on a hangover.

Hard Cider.  This stuff is great.  Woodchuck Granny Smith is my favorite, though I love them all.  Much less filling than beer with even more kick.  My buddy and I went to NYC in June 2001 to see Nebula, and I kicked back 7-8 draft ciders while waiting to see the band.  I could never have done that with beer, at least not in that short frame of time.

Wine is fine but whiskey’s quicker.  I could never get into wine, though by now I know the difference between the different varieties.  To me it’s impossible for a guy to be “into” wine without being pretentious, although Brendan “put it back in the horse” Frasier and John “Monty Python” Cleese come close.  The stupid thing is that most guys who get into wine seem to assume that “getting into it” instantly makes you an expert.  Uh-uh.  It just makes you pretentious.

            Cleese did a remarkable wine-tasting video which demonstrated two interesting facts: most wine enthusiasts (or at least, the 50 or so idiots he found) can neither distinguish between white wine or red wine (without looking at it) or between a $20 wine vs. a $200 wine.  Watch “Sideways” if you think being a wine snob necessarily makes you sophisticated: it doesn’t.

Wine Coolers.  Remarkably, these are still around.  Who is drinking them?  I don’t even see women drinking them anymore.  They seem to have gone out with “Moonlighting” (Bruce Willis with hair – who can remember that??).  Bartles & James is still available at the local stores, even though the ads are long gone.  I suppose the same people drinking this have Dr. Pepper in their fridge.  If you’re having an 80’s party, by all means stock up on these.

Mixed drinks and straight alcohol.  I’m not keen on these, though sex on the beach is my favorite, with a caipirinha being a close second.  Remarkably, the bartenders at the Rio Hotel in Vegas had no idea how to make Rio de Janeiro’s official mixed drink (crushed limes with sugar and cachaça, sugar cane liquor), or even what it was.  Though the buffet included pizza, so I won’t complain too much.  Martinis are – guess what – pretentious, especially since they’re mostly just gin anyway (or vodka, “shhhaken not shhhtirrred”, thank you, Jamesshhh Bond).

The same pretentiousness applies to any doofus going on about a 100 point whiskey (or whisky).  Where is it written that if you’re hammered out of your skull, and cradling the porcelain companion after a technicolor yawn, on Patron (tequila) or some 1000 year old wine, that it makes you better than the idiot in the next stall puking out all the Budweiser he’s been drinking all night?  Drunk is drunk, and Dudley Moore is as much an idiot as any stupid frat rat.  Enough.

Absinthe.  Honorable mention for the liquor of choice of turn-of-the-century impressionists.  Mix it 50/50 with water (as you would anti-freeze) and add some sugar, and you have a pale green liquid that tastes like...licorice.  I have a bottle of the real stuff, but never saw the green fairy.  So far as I can tell it’s overrated.  I haven’t had enough of the Deer (aka Jagermeister) to complain or comment on how it compares, but no one I know has gotten visuals from it.  I trust James Hetfield is long past that phase.

Music.  As the title indicates, there is no shortage of musical tributes to various forms of alcohol and excessive consumption thereof.  A few of my favorites: “Cold Gin” (KISS), “Have a Drink On Me” (AC/DC), “High’n’Dry” (Def Leppard), “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer” (George Thorogood); “Suicide Solution” (Ozzy) (I’m not thrilled with “Demon Alcohol”).  I’m sure there are plenty more, which I’m forgetting (!) or which I simply don’t care for.

Impact.  Alcohol is probably the drug with the most notoriously negative impact on society.  Even marijuana, which has grown more acceptable within mainstream society, still doesn’t have the reach and depth of impact that alcohol does.  A majority of broken marriages, domestic disputes, wife battering, child abuse, traffic accidents due to drunk driving, and so on are caused not by marijuana, nicotine, caffeine, LSD, valium, sleeping pills, heroin, cocaine, etc. but by alcohol.  Bon Scott (AC/DC), John Bonham (Led Zeppelin), and Steve Clark (Def Leppard) all owe their demises to alcohol.  Prohibition (1919-1933) proved that alcohol use cannot be eliminated even if it is outlawed, and Prohibition itself can plausibly be blamed for the rise in organized crime in the US.  No other drug comes close – we’re stuck with it, whether we like it or not.

Bee Movie v. Ratatouille

Time for another movie comparison, this time about two animated movies about animals.  I liked one better than the other.  Take a guess which.

Bee Movie.  This marks Jerry Seinfeld’s return to mainstream media since his show, “Seinfeld”, ended.  No sign of Jason Alexander, Michael Richards, or Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Patrick “Puddy” Warburton was the only other Seinfeld cast member here).  Too bad.  This is yet another one of those “alternate worlds” we were already dosed with in “Monsters, Inc.”, “Robots”, and “A Bug’s Life” among many, many others.  Plus, I’m not keen on bees and can’t stand yellow.  Too clever for its own good.  And they topped it off with this idiotic lawsuit against humans for stealing honey.  Give me a break. 

            The best thing about the film, though, was this.  The bees, upon reaching maturity, choose a particular bee job from a menu, like ordering at a fast food joint, and have to keep that job for the rest of their lives, with not a single day off.  Barry is reluctant to do so, yet somehow he’s the only one who feels that way.  Renee Zellweger plays the human girl he befriends, and Chris Rock plays an ebonic-speaking mosquito.

Ratatouille.  Ahh, beaucoup mieux.  The rats are rats!  They scurry along the gutters and between the cracks in the walls, and don’t pretend to be an advanced civilization of their own.  Aside from talking – and being able to cook – they act like rats.  Remy, the rat who can cook, finds himself allied with Linguini, the chef Gusteau’s long-lost son.  Their nemesis: Anton Ego (the insufferable restaurant critic who is unbelievably arrogant and impossible to impress) and Skinner, the sous-chef who stands to win ownership of the restaurant if he can only keep Linguini out of the picture long enough.  The love interest is a cute chick Colette who also works at the restaurant.  Of course we know the hero will win and get Colette, but how the trip proceeds is nonetheless worth watching and enjoying.  And it’s PARIS!  Not nearly as annoying as “Moulin Rouge” and all the other Paris films which give us a heavy dose of pretentiousness (and that idiotic accordion music) as the price of seeing Paris again on the screen.