Top 20 General Rules for Successful Relationships

If you want to avoid a whole hell of a lot of misery in your life then print these rules out, staple or tape them up where you can reference them and commit your social life to following them.  If you do, you'll be a lot happier.  Trust me.  Also be aware that while these rules are set in stone the use of excessive alcohol and / or illicit drugs may make these rules (in hindsight) seem flexible, especially while you are under the influence of said alcohol or illicit drugs.  Be warned!  These rules are not flexible.  If you bend them (or worse, break them) then prepare to pay the consequences that come with your decision to do so.

Top 20 General Rules for Successful Relationships

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(learned the hard way from 1984 to 1992)

1.       The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Remember this!  There are very few exceptions to this rule and those exceptions are very far and very few between.  If you think you’ve found the exception to this rule … you haven’t.


2.       Never make someone a priority in your life when you are little more than an option in theirs.


3.       You can’t change a person so don’t try.  What you see is what you will get, now and forever.  Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.


4.       Never give anyone a second chance.  Ever.  It may hurt like hell when it happens but years from now you’ll thank yourself for having a spine, a set of balls and dodging a whole bunch of misery that was heading your way.


5.       Never date anyone who has more emotional baggage than they can carry.  Life is too short to be someone else’s emotional pack mule.


6.       You can’t save everyone so don’t try.  Chances are you'll be lucky to save yourself.


7.       Never take anyone for granted.  Never allow yourself to be taken for granted either.


8.       Avoid women who have more problems than you have.  Financially.  Emotionally.  Intellectually.  Period.

9.       Don’t go slumming.  Ever.  Financially.  Emotionally.  Intellectually.  Ever.  Period.  In other words, use yourself as a benchmark and never accept less than what you are capable of in anyone you intend to spend a good part of your life with let alone plan on spending the rest of your life with.


10.   Avoid women on the rebound.  Life is too short to be someone else’s emotional trampoline that they can jump up and down on until they feel better or until they get their life back in order and decide to move on.


11.   Avoid the immature, the emotionally stunted, the psychos, the medicated, the codependent, the needy and the clingy.  All the makeup in the world can't cover up crazy.  You have been warned.


12.   If she’s willing to leave him for you then she’ll be willing to leave you for him (or for someone else).  Don’t be surprised when this happens.  After all, if he couldn’t trust her to stay when something better came along how can you ever hope to?


13.   If she drinks or smokes more than you, move on.


14.   If she can’t let go of her ex … if she still has feelings for him, feels sorry for him, pines for him, wants to meet with him for lunch or repeatedly talks to him via phone / email / texting then move on and don’t look back.


15.   If she is divorced with kids, tread carefully.  Her kids will come before you.   If they don’t, you’re looking at the wrong kind of woman.  Multiple kids by different men (especially if they were married at the time that they had them) should be your immediate cue to avoid saying anything deeper than “Hi.”.


16.   If she’s materialistic or focuses only on one aspect of your life (your guitar playing, your car, your motorcycle, etc.) … move on.  Fast.


17.   No woman is worth your tears and the woman who is won't make you cry.


18.   If she says any of the following then leave skid marks from your shoes on the pavement when getting away: “I’m not like all the others.”, “I won’t hurt you.” or “I won’t lie to you / cheat on you / leave you.”


19.   Don’t waste time playing silly or stupid games.  Life is too short to play silly or stupid games.  If she wants to play silly or stupid games then let her … with herself and by herself.


20.   If she suddenly walks out on you and what you both have for no really good reason then just remember; she’s someone else’s misery now.  Get on with your life and forget her.

Bonus Rules !!!

21 - Never date a woman who drives a car that you can't afford to replace.  If she drives a car that you can't afford to replace, you're the toy.

22 - Never put your dick into crazy !!!  (Actually this should be rule #1)  I shouldn't have to explain this one and if I do then you're too dumb to be having sex.  Just don't ever, ever do it.  Never, ever, ever.  Period.

“There comes a point in your life when you realize who matters and who never did, who won't anymore and who always will.  So, don't worry about people from your past because there's a really good reason why they didn't make it to your future.” - Unknown

Do want! - NECA ALIENS: Colonial Marines figures

Well, after finally adding NECA's BORDERLANDS "Claptrap" to my collection (it resides on my desk, next to my nameplate, holding up on of my business cards in its pincer hands) and after almost finishing my "Terminator" and "Terminator 2" action figure lineup (all Arnold figures in various states of damage and decay up to (or is that down to) and including the Endoskeleton) I've decided to clear some more space on my shelf for a new wave of somewhat pricey action figure goodness ... namely NECA's "ALIENS: Colonial Marines" series of toys.

Oh, yes.

I've waited for these figures for a very long time, I even wrote NECA an email years ago requesting that they do these figures.  I can't say that they listened to me, I'm not that naive as they probably got thousands of emails requesting ALIENS figures, but irregardless (which I'm told isn't even a real word) the figures are finally here ... or almost here.

The first wave is going to include Hicks, Hudson ("Game over, man!") and a reworked ALIEN.  Hopefully additional waves will include the other characters.  

I think that Armyghy from the Gearboxsoftware forums said it best "With the sheer number of Predators Neca does, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw the entire squad done. Drake, Vasquez, Gorman, Farro and Spunkmeyer would need original treatment, but the majority of the marines would only need head swaps and color differences. And I would buy every last god damn one of them."

HUA!   You and me both.

If NECA ever produces a to-scale Power Loader and / or ALIEN Queen ... well, I've still got two kidneys, you can get by in life with only one and I hear there's a good market for things like that for people who need them.

Soon ... soon.

(UPDATE)!  They are MINE!  Muhahahahahahahahahaha!

The limits of technology

Snapped this the other day ... off the "Laugh USA" channel on XM.  Thanks to the limit of the character display, it made it even funnier.

Life imitates art ...

So I was back on my audio-video detail running siamese coax cable yesterday at one of my scales office (a very old building full of spiders and other not-fun-multi-armed-things) and amid old spiderwebs and dirt-dobber nests I see something … familiar.  

I lean closer and there, stuck in an old, torn open spider’s egg sack is something which I can’t identify but which looks totally like … the “Ffffffuuuuu” meme face!  I took the best picture I could because whatever it is that's making the "Fffffffuuuuu" face is pretty small and would fit on the nail of your little finger.  Still, while I was running cable through the ceiling I kept saying “Ffffffuuuu” in my head over and over again and I kept turning every now and then to see that weird little face hanging there in the old torn open egg sack stuck on the awning beside where I stood on the 8 foot tall ladder.

Pontiac Shrine

The wall in my office at work and the Pontiac shrine built there ... 

The big rectangular frame is a custom framed Pontiac ad from 1985 showing a black and gold TA in the same paint scheme and options as my '86 along with a copy of the RPO callout (75 RPO codes!), a dealer postcard from the same year showing a black / gold '85 TA at speed on the highway and a copy of the original window sticker. 

The small picture at the top is supposedly of the last US Pontiac built (a plain vanilla Grand Am destined for a rental fleet). 

The large framed picture is a two page spread from the 1985 Pontiac full-line catalog again showing the black and gold TA. 

Of course there's a 24" by 36" framed "Smokey and the Bandit" movie poster (saw that in the theater when I was 7, along with "Star Wars") and finally the small frame in the middle is my first speeding ticket from 1986 when I was 16 years old. Definitely a keepsake and maybe a rite of passage.

On the shelf behind my desk I have an old TA cap along with a pair of 1:32 scale models, unopened, still shrink-wrapped in the original boxes.  The one on the left is a black and gold 1985 Pontiac Trans Am by Monogram and the one on the right is a 1985 Pontiac Firebird (Trans Am) by MPC.  What's interesting to note about the two kits is that the Monogram kit features a TPI V8 with a manual transmission ... a power train that wasn't available until 1987 due to emissions standards.  The MPC version features a Crossfire Injection V8, a EFI motor that disappeared from the lineup over a year before the new bodystyle was presented.

Whitman's Starstream Comics

As a child I not only haunted the toy section of whatever department store that my parents carried me to but I also haunted the book section as well.  Unless my parents were looking to buy me clothes or shoes, we pretty much had a pact that once we were inside the store I veered off from them heading for the toy department and if they didn't find me there they would find me in the magazine / paperback section where I would be reading the latest Cracked, Mad, Eerie, Creepy or whatever else in that format I could get my hands on.  I was an avid reader and by the age of six I was reading full length novels (by the age of 8, after I was introduced to pron by finding a Playboy in the woods, I really did start reading adult magazines for the articles ...). 

In Hattiesburg there was a chain owned department store called "Rose's" and it was the equivalent to a 1970's version of Walmart ... not the Super Walmart with the grocery section and automotive, just a plain Walmart minus the automotive and garden section.  Today it would probably be the equivalent of a Dollar General or Fred's Dollar Store but back then it was all we had (Walmart wouldn't arrive for another decade) but I digress ...

Rose's had a pretty good toy department, several isles worth ranging from boy toys to girl toys to games and even a decent selection of plastic models ... and surprisingly, there in the back, stuck in with the coloring books and children's story books was a series of books with really interesting covers ... Whitman's "Starstream" comics.  I guess you'd call them trade paperbacks today but back then they were unlike any comic book (or "funny book" like my dad referred to comics) that I had ever seen.

And so, like I usually did when my parents were shopping in a department store, I sat down on the lowest shelf of the book rack, picked up a Starstream and started to read each one from front to back.

Oh, man!

These were some good stories ... no, they were awesome stories and I drank these books in as liquid nourishment for my thirsty imagination.  At the time I didn't realize that the authors of these stories were none other than some of the greatest science fiction authors that ever lived but years later I did realize that.  There were greats like Asimov, Niven and even the first illustrated science fiction story from one of my favorite horror authors, Dean Koontz.


Starstream was an interesting gambit for Whitman comics ... take well known (and some not so well known) science fiction stories from well established giants in the genre and illustrate them in comic book form.  The art was okay and the stories were outstanding.  

Starstream has aged pretty well and while my original issues are long gone in the garage sales of my youth I was lucky enough to acquire all four copies on Ebay a few years ago.  Flipping through them again with a glass of syrupy-sweet iced tea took me on a trip down memory lane.  Once again I experienced some of the joy that I had as a child way back in 1977 when I first sat there on the lower shelf of that wood magazine rack and read to my imagination's content while my parents shopped elsewhere in the store.

Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials

Handy in case of close encounters ...

A friend asked if I still had this ... not only do I have it, I have the 1979 first printing. I bought it a few years ago off of Ebay and I see that some of these are going for upwards of $900 now (I didn't pay anywhere near that ...) and I'm wondering ... if you think you're going to get $900 for this then whatever you're smoking ... if and when they make it available in pill form ... the line to get a 30 day supply starts behind me.

I particularly like getting used books that have notes in them to someone else. Apparently this book was a gift to "Jake" on June 2, 1982 and it was given to him by a woman named "Ruby" who says "It seems to me that I've spotted a number of these characters in your station on occasion. Happy Birthday, Ruby."

I guess "Jake" owned a gas station or worked at a gas station at one time and I know that June 2 is Jake's birthday. Happy belated birthday, Jake, if you're still alive somewhere ... out there. I've got your old book, buddy, and I'm taking real good care of it.

Up, up and away!

Hail Mighty Raydeen!

Here's another cherished childhood toy ... Raydeen.

Shogun Warrior.

And a damn big one at that.

I first met Raydeen sometime in the winter of 1978.  He was placed, just like the picture above, in the widow of a small import / emporium shop located in the strip mall at the corner of Lincoln Road and South 28th Avenue in Hattiesburg, MS.  This was back when that intersection used to be a four way stop instead of an intersection controlled by traffic lights.

The import shop is long gone though the strip mall is still there.  I think the import shop is now a pet supply shop but I can't be sure since it has been a while since I've gone that way let alone paid any attention to the shopping opportunities there.  It's an old part of Hattiesburg, a part that I grew up in but like me, everything there that was at one time familiar has now moved on.  Decades have rolled by and nothing remains the same.

Memories and dust.

I met Raydeen sometime in late October of 1978 and fell in love with him.  I used to ride with my father up to the Shell station on Saturday and Sunday morning to get a newspaper and (for him) a cup of coffee.  We'd sometimes walk up and down the strip mall sidewalk, especially so I could look in the window of Hobby Depot, a plastic model and paint type hobby supply shop that lasted maybe two, maybe three years in that location before folding.  Hobby Depot had some really well built models, real pro stuff, in the windows and I marveled at how models could be painted to be so lifelike.  Someone had even reproduced the crashed Monogram B-17 bomber diorama that Sheppard Paine had made.  

And right next to Hobby Depot was an import shop, the name of which will probably always be lost to me now, and in that import shop's window was Raydeen.

I think that Star Wars had just entered my life but Star Wars toys were still non-existent in my area nor did they have the proliferation that the Kenner line would later enjoy.  As such, in late 1978 I was still playing with G.I. Joes, Legos, building models and playing with my Marx army men and military playsets.

Enter Raydeen.

Shogun Warrior.

Super bad ass robot that was tall like Godzilla and three times as bad (at least back then he was to me).  Shogun Warriors were a new thing for me, something interesting from the land of Japan.  My experience with Japanese toys was limited, same for their comics and cartoons.  I just didn't know very much about toys from the Far East and that intrigued me all the more.  Having just started to watch live action Japanese shows like "Ultra-Man", "Spectraman" and "Space Giants", I had a prepubescent hard-on for giant robots.  

Mattel to the rescue with their Shogun Warriors line of toys.

Mattel marketed and produced the Shogun Warriors but I'm sure, now, that they were just packaged or marketed by Mattel.  Those familiar with the "red Mattel sawblade" logo can see it clearly in the bottom lower left of the package pictured above.

Raydeen was awesome and my imagination worked overtime to add him to my toy collection.  Oh, the things that I would do with Raydeen ... assault the guns of Navarrone.  Use him as an Allied / American super weapon against the Nazis ... my fervent imagination had already taken possession of Raydeen.  I told my dad that I wanted Raydeen and he made the usual parental dodging that all parents do when their kid asks for a fairly expensive toy, especially when they ask for a fairly expensive toy when Jimmy Carter is in office and the economy is tanking all around you.

But then those are the concerns of adults and not of children faced with the dilemma of how to own one of the coolest damn toys they've ever seen.

Raydeen was huge ... easily the biggest toy that would ever be in my collection and he did so much ... I mean, just look at his play features; hawk-missile that shoots from his chest, a shield with a nasty spike on it, and a flying fist with dual ax blades on it that you can launch across the room.  That was a lot more than most of my toys did back then and I was impressed ... I was also 7 years old at the time so ... being impressed with a toy back then probably wasn't as hard to be as I thought it was at the time.

The weeks in November and December stretched by slowly, filled with thoughts of Raydeen.  I took my Legos and built a hangar for Raydeen, and since Raydeen was giant, I used some 1:72 scale ground crew that had come with one of my plastic plane models to prepare things for Raydeen's arrival.  Everything was prepared for Raydeen ... now all I had to do was wait.

Patiently.

And in case you didn't know or can't remember, when you're seven years old, patience, especially when it involves waiting for a toy you really want, is next to impossible.

Christmas day arrived, December 25, 1978, and with it came ... Raydeen.  Jimmy Carter and his bungling of the economy had not prevented Santa from bringing Raydeen to my house.  Raydeen was everything that I had imagined that he would be and I walked around the rest of the day with that giant colorful plastic robot tucked under my arm like a teddy bear.  Oh, the battles we fought that early morning ... the Marx Nazis never knew what hit them and the Americans easily conquered Navarrone Mountain.

Sometime in the spring of 1978 Marvel Comics introduced a "Shogun Warriors" based comic book that I immediately started collecting.  And who was proudly displayed front and center on that comic?

My Raydeen.

The comic ran for 20 issues but to my 7 and 8 year old mind the stories were epic.  I still have a copy of the entire comic series today in my collection but it has aged badly and rereading it did not bring the joy and wonder that it once had.  In fact, it kind of brought about the feeling that I was reading utter crap.

The Shogun Warriors comic starred Raydeen, Combattra and Dangard Ace, all piloted by kidnapped and impressed into service individuals from around the world.  Raydeen was piloted by a stuntman named Richard Carson who had a girlfriend named Deena.  I particularly liked the story arc where Richard Carson has to let Deena in on his secret ... he's Raydeen's pilot / operator.

Raydeen was my favorite but Combattra was a close second mainly because Combattra could break up into several different types of robot vehicles including a fighter made out of the head.  Dangard Ace was boring ... all he could do was launch his rocket fists, fire some missiles from his fingers (IIRC) and his chest panels opened to reveal two big cannons / launchers that shot out some kind of energy bolt / torpedo.  It reminded me a lot of those battery operated robots from years earlier, the ones with the swing open chest doors and the sparkling chest cannons ... Dangard Ace sucked.

Raydeen also changed in the comic ... my Raydeen had a fist with a pair of ax blades on them.  In the comic, Raydeen didn't have a fist like that ... he had the shield with the spike and ... he had a bow!  A giant bow that fired explosive tipped arrows that were loaded from a hatch in his arm / fist.  Of course, that kind of Bo & Luke Duke technology applied to a giant robot seems kind of silly in hindsight but back then it was nothing short of awesome.
 
Each month I would go with my parents to Cloverleaf Mall and I would visit the big metal turn-rack at K&B Drugstore to see if the latest issue of Marvel Comics' "Shogun Warriors" had come in or not.  Each month that issue would get dog eared from heavy reading as I savored the next chapter in the adventures of Raydeen, Combattra and ... that other stupid big robot.


One of the neatest things about Raydeen, that I learned about him in the comic, was the fact that Raydeen could not only fly with rockets in his feet but for real speed he could transform into a hybrid mode, a streamlined robot bird form that was capable of supersonic flight and this form was called the "Firehawk" making Raydeen easily the fastest of the Shogun Warriors able to respond to a crisis.  In fact, in several instances in the comic, Raydeen takes off, converts to the supersonic Firehawk and is the first to show up at a problem with the other two Shogun Warriors eventually showing up long after Raydeen had landed and started handing the bad guys their ass.


How the conversion from Shogun Warrior to supersonic Firehawk took place can only be referred to as "magic" ... or maybe it uses the same technology that the Michael Keaton Batmobile uses for its armor plating when he says "Shields" and all of that plating comes out of nowhere and just covers the Batmobile in armor.

The full size Raydeen was a stiff toy, limited in movement ... in fact, it had no real movement short of its arms swinging up and down or rotating back and forth in a complete circle.  No manipulation, no ability to be posed.  Wheels on the bottom of the feet allowed Raydeen to roll along on smooth surfaces but pretty much this was a toy of pure imagination.  

That summer, for my birthday, I got another Raydeen ... this one was smaller, much smaller and it was made out of metal but it was poseable.  Not only did the face shields open and close but the legs bent and it could transform into the supersonic Firehawk mode.  

This version of Raydeen came with the bow and the spiked shield but it didn't come with any chest missiles.  Both fists, however, were spring loaded and launched.  The only problem was ... that version of Raydeen really had no good play value since I owned no other Shogun Warrior toys.  How I used that smaller Raydeen was much like Jet Jaguar from Godzilla, he was the real size able to interact with my green army men but when the need arose, he could change into the giant sized Raydeen to kick giant sized ass.

Worked for me.

The Shogun Warrior craze never really caught fire with me or my friends.  Together we had a handful of the toys ... I remember a giant Dragun, another had a giant Godzilla and Gaiking and another had a Mazinga (the early version with the removable spaceship in the head).  Together we had three or five of the small Shogun Warriors, there was my mid-size Raydeen and I had the Sky Arrow jet.

One interesting thing to note is that in the diecast toy offering there was the Liabe ... a spaceship which was featured in the Toho sci-fi epic "Message from Space" and a spaceship which has come to be known as the "Millennium Falcon of the Far East".  How it became part of the Shogun Warrior collection is probably an interesting story.

The Shogun Warriors were hot stuff for a while before finally fading away to nothing in 1980.  The toy line didn't have the staying power required to survive in the post-Star Wars era that 1977 to 1980 quickly became.  Toys were quickly changing in the late years of the 1970's.   Electronics were coming and computers were here.  Interactive toys like Milton Bradley's Starbird and Big Trak did amazing things, had flashing lights and sounds that simple toys like the Shogun Warriors simply didn't.   Also, like many other toys of the time, the Shogun Warriors line of toys were plagued with outrageous concerns for child safety based on children acting like total effing retards and shooting the shooty parts into their eyes, into the eyes of other children or shooting the shooty parts down their own throats and subsequently choking to death on the shooty parts (probably while the parents were in the other room playing Bridge or some other socially popular game at the time).  Normally, we would just chalk that up to a good case of Darwin and a bad case of parenting but the outcry was enough from lazy parents that manufacturers had to remove the fun parts of the toys because a few total retards had ruined it for the rest of us kids.  It was just more of the whole retarded liberal mindset that would continue to plague America in the years and decades to come ... the mindset where the needs of the few always outweigh the needs of the many.

If you want to know more about these toys, follow this link.

I no longer have Raydeen but I have some really good memories of that toy.  Even though I don't remember it, I'm sure that Raydeen was eventually decommissioned and sold to a private firm after which I have no idea what happened to him.  And by being decommissioned I mean that he had a dollar fifty price tag stuck to him one Saturday morning at my parents' annual garage sale and Raydeen went home with another child ... hopefully he had a few more adventures in him.  I hope to God he still had some adventures left in him and that he didn't wind up as a frequent, dress wearing guest at some little girl's tea party before he ultimately met the sad fate that most toys of childhood eventually face but for a while Raydeen was mine and while he was mine he was nothing short of awesome!

3rd generation Pontiac Firebird logo found on cheap toy gun set

Now, looking through the toy section of a local "Big Lots" the other day I found this toy gun set and the revolver intrigued me as a cheap find to kitbash a "Slammer" together (the combination revolver / semi-automatic weapon found in Geoff Darrow and Frank Miller's cyberpunk Where's Waldo epic "Hardboiled") ...  When I picked up the toy gun set to look at the revolver I discovered that not only was it way too small for the scale that I was interested in modeling ... but I noticed that it had a third gen Firebird emblem stamped into the plastic near the hammer and cylinder.

You can see the third gen Firebird symbol stamped into the revolver between the trigger and the cylinder release button.  Here's a closeup of the image.

And here's the actual 3rd Generation Firebird logo for comparison ... you be the judge.

My guess is that the toy was made in China or some other country by some cheap manufacturer who wanted to include a "Ruger Redhawk" or "Ruger Blackhawk" revolver in the playset but didn't want to get sued by the Ruger company so they had one of their employees look on the Internet for a bird outline and found this instead.  It's the only reason why I can think that the third generation Firebird logo ever managed to wind up stamped into the side of a cheap toy gun.

Ghosts of the past: bones from long ago.

I spent Thanksgiving with my wife's parents and family and after dinner I went walking in the woods with my soon to be 10 year old daughter.  It wasn't too long, following the cut paths behind my inlaws' house that we found ourselves at the old dairy barn that's more of a ruin than a barn these days.  It's where we used to (and still do, I guess) store large items like trailers, tractor attachments, tractors, building supplies, etc.  

The dirt beneath the tin roof is so fine that it's almost like gray colored powdered sugar, almost like lunar dust ... each step makes a small dust cloud and leaves an imprint that won't be disturbed until something else comes along to disturb it.  Wild animal tracks litter the dust as do the occasional curving track of a king snake or other type of no-shoulder.  Amid rusty chains, bits of tin roof wadded up in the mega-storms of the past decade and old farm equipment like broken shovels, rusting plows, etc. I found a small area that held some personal items from a time that now seems like it was centuries ago but in reality wasn't more than a little over a decade and a half gone by.  Personal items that were just huddled together in a pile ... discarded, broken, but never really thrown away because there's a difference between something that's been discarded and something that has been thrown away; one still lingers ...

These items were kept for one reason or the other, that reason now lost to memory and time, and these items were eventually deposited here because it was felt by those who moved them here that I would maybe one day have a need for them again.  Somewhere in all those years these items went from being trash to being nostalgic. 

The people who put these items here were mistaken in their value and the only value that these items have now is in the memories that they bring racing back upon seeing them once again.

At the very top, the round piece of ribbed plastic is part of the air cleaner from my '88 Toyota Turbo Supra.  Moving down we have the right side cowl panel from my '95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R (bought new) after it was replaced when I put the bike down on its side to avoid being T-boned by a driver that wasn't paying any attention to the task of driving.  The round piece to the right of that is the crankshaft cover from the same bike, punctured when it hit a sharp piece of metal embedded in the city street (and from which the hot oil from my engine soon drained).  The ribbed hose tube is the air intake from my '88 Toyota Turbo Supra ... I think. It may be from one of my other high performance toys.  The big white and green piece to the left of that is the front cowling of my '95 Kawi ZX-6R ... the name of the bike still visible over the left side turn signal housing and the headlight cavity as well as the twin snouts of the ram air system.

The front cowling could almost be the skull of the old ZX-6R ... it would be bleached of color were it not for the top cover afforded by the rusty tin roof of the building.  A skull ... of a high performance machine long ago reduced to spare parts and salvage.

Memories.

I purchased the '95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R brand new in June of 1995 ... 9 months after a drunk driver totaled my '93 Honda VFR750F (and almost killed myself and my girlfriend / fiance ... Cindy).  I had just quit Ideal Software and gone back to Magnolia Federal Bank, I was a month away from getting married and I'd been staring at the pictures of the '95 Ninja ZX-6R in a cycle mag for months now.  I finally bought it, as a gift to myself before I got married.  I had a lot of memories on that bike ... especially with Cindy tucked in behind me ... the high revving engine, her chest pressed into my back, her helmet against mine ... chasing sunsets and dreams every time we could.  The Ninja ZX-6R wasn't just a super sport bike, it was an escape pod, built for two.

Three years later, in August of '98, I was sport touring with my riding partner, Julian, and coming out of a bad turn at the Lawrence county / Marion county line, heading to Monticello, I hit a deer at 70mph.  The Ninja went 300 feet in the oncoming lane of traffic (two lane back road) and I went 150 feet in my lane of traffic, destroying my helmet, my gloves, my Ray Bans, my Hein Gerrick "Ninja" leather jacket and taking about a foot of flesh off of my leg.  Oh, and I dislocated my shoulder in the process.  

Fun times.

No, seriously ... fun times.  I look back today and laugh, just like I did when I managed to pick myself up off the pavement just in time to see my Ninja do its last roll and slide to a stop, rear wheel still spinning.  The first thing I asked Julian when he stopped his bike, dismounted and ran over to see if I was okay?

"Was that cool?"

I took six years, shy two months, from that accident to get back around to throwing my legs over a motorcycle and that was when I bought my 2004 Honda CBR600RR for my birthday that June.  Ironically, Kawasaki had designed the ZX-6R to fight Honda's anticipated CBR600RR way back in '95 but when Honda failed to introduce the 600RR, Kawasaki was left with perhaps the best 600cc bike in the world at that time ... and no competition to duke it out with.  The irony comes from the fact that six years later I would buy the very bike that my ZX-6R had been designed to combat but that had been a no show way back then.

The fuel injected Honda CBR600RR is lightyears better than the '95 Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R but I still hold a special place in my heart for that snarling Ninja and its fast revving 600cc carb fed liquid cooled inline four.  Eight years later, I still have the Honda in my garage.  It doesn't get ridden as much as it used to but like the Ninja it replaced the Honda is still an escape pod and every now and then I get to throw my legs over the saddle and pull the loud handle to get away from it all.

I stare back at the front cowl of the '95 ZX-6R.  Just a part now, a physical shard of a memory of a part of my life.  It's moments like that which really make life worth living for.

Flotsam and jetsam.

To some people these pieces of flotsam and jetsam from my life are just that ... flotsam and jetsam ... but to me, seeing these forgotten pieces again after all of these years ... still collecting dust and never again to be used ... seeing this pile of discarded items brought back memories.

The good kind of memories.  

The kind of memories that are unexpected and come back to you in a rush.

I think I'll leave this pile of parts here, kind of a shrine, relics from before, ghosts of the past and bones from long ago.  Every now and then I'll revisit them, having forgotten them, until one day I find myself here and the bones are gone ... finally discarded by someone and all that will remain will be the memories.

Gone but not forgotten ...

 "Acclaimed as one of the most visually stunning cars ever built, the Trans Am's styling will no doubt remain timeless.  ... If you think '57 Chevys still look good, you'll love the Trans Am - even 20 years from now."

                                                                                 - John Baechtel, "Different Strokes" comparison test
                                                                                                              HOT ROD MAGAZINE, August 1986



 Trans Am

     The other cars out there are nothing more than mundane transportation devices, a collection of anonymous and dreary shapes lurching homeward with their anonymous and dreary occupants tired after a long day behind an unappreciative desk in a thankless, meaningless job.

     But yours is not just a mundane transportation device.  It is not anonymous and dreary.  From the wide aluminum spinning wheels that plant fat, sticky rubber to the hot asphalt to the enormous rear spoiler, to the vibrating high output port fuel injected small block V8 under the hood that actually makes the ebony bird seem to come alive with each pulsation ... this is an orgy of image and power, a visceral assault on the senses of all who behold it. 

     It is Trans Am and its thick padded steering wheel feels oh so right under your leather driving gloved hand as you maneuver in and out of traffic like a great bird of prey riding the air currents through a target-rich environment.  It is moments like these that truly make life worth living and the 6 to 5 regime a small daily price to pay to own such a rare machine.

  
 
Well, she's back.

She who has taken my money, my time and my heart for so very long.  Ever since I first saw her in that magazine spread all those years ago, way back in 1985 I knew that one day I would have her.  I would track her down and make her mine.

It took me 21 years to find her and after 6 long years of ownership (most of that time being either kept in a rental storage unit or taking up space in my garage and in one stage or another of disassembly) I finally got off my ass, pushed some money around and restored the 1986 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that I've owned since 2006.  You can find the link to the good stuff over there on the right ... it's the link labeled "Project Car".

I can't believe how well this TA turned out ...  After six years I can't believe that I have in my garage one of my dream cars.  When I was a teenager, I saw the one page advertisement for this car and fell in love with it.   Patience is the most important thing you can have in life.  Patience is the most important thing that you can teach a child in life because patience will get you through bad times like nothing else will.  Six years is a long time, especially for a project car to just sit up and go unused but patience has a way of making six years seem like six days, at least in hindsight.  In hindsight, it seems like just last week that I bought the TA off of Ebay, flew to Greenville, North Carolina, picked her up and drove her back home.

And now she's restored.  26 years of use and abuse have been cosmetically erased and she's been returned to her glory days, to a time when she first rolled off the Norwood, Ohio assembly line way back in late 1985 as the flagship of the Pontiac performance line and as a clear example of the "We build excitement" creed that Pontiac had adopted.  I got the TA back last Tuesday and I've been having a blast driving her.  She's the car now that I wanted her to be 6 years ago.  Her exhaust growls as she prowls the city streets.  Her 5.0 liter Tuned Port Injected small block V8 engine screams through its powerband.  Her four speed automatic bangs through each gear with authority and she'll break rubber loose from first to second gear with an authoritative bark of the tires.  The thick leather wrapped steering wheel feels good in my gloved hand, allowing me to translate the TA into any maneuver that I need to, any maneuver that I want to, with the flick of a wrist and the response of a quick ratio power steering unit which has two and a half turns lock to lock.  The WS6 optioned suspension setup makes for a ride like a Sherman tank, I feel every irregularity, telegraphing the condition of the road to me and giving me a control over my TA that few other cars can lay claim to.  When darkness comes, her driving lights snap on and her headlights flip up with the whir of now ancient electric motors.  Her dash and interior are illuminated in a soft reddish orange glow inspired by fighter aircraft and still she prowls ... and I love every single minute of it.

Patience. 

Patience pays, maybe not now but later on, oh, it pays.  Make your plans, stick to them, and just be patient.  It's all on the wheel because it all comes around eventually.

Looking back now I told you 6 years ago in this very blog that life was too short to drive mediocre cars and I stand by that statement.  The automobile industry has become homogenized these days ... Mind numbingly homogenized.  Cars and trucks have given up muscle, individuality, character and performance for stereotypical styling, bland design, improved fuel economy and all with a nod towards being environmental friendly.  Cars and trucks today have no charisma, no personality ... they're just transportation and they're built around social engineering, that is, forcing you to behave a certain way by putting up restrictions and obstacles to behaving any other way.  Factors like economy, emissions, comfort and design are forced on you limiting your choices through artificial means.  I'm not advocating acting like a hooligan with a car or using it to ruin the environment but cars and trucks today tend to emulate, even broadcast, the emerging social trends and the social trends I see in the cars and trucks built and sold today are boring. ... we're so serious about the environment that we've forgotten how to have fun.  Junk pseudo-religion based scientific nonsense like Global Warming has robbed us of our ability to have fun.  If you want to know where this insanity has taken us, just look at decible limits at race tracks ... you can get booted off the track if your car is too loud ... at a race track!  The 1960's were full of high performance, something that died a slow, painful death in the 1970's and only began to come back around in the 1980's.  This TA is an example of that rebirth ... when suspension and handling was superior to the 1960's offerings and where the power of computer controlled, high tech fuel injected engines could nearly match the performance of their big cube predecessors.

I remember the 1970's ... I remember the OPEC Oil Embargo.  I remember lines of cars at the gas stations.  I remember the crappy cars that GM, Ford and Mopar pedaled off on the consumer ... crap like the biodegradable ever rustworthy Chevy Vega and the highly explosive Ford Pinto where economy and corporate profit was considered forefront to driver and occupant safety.  I remember speedometers that only went to 85 miles per hour by federal government mandate.  I remember choking emissions equipment, seatbelts that prevented cars from starting unless they were fastened, the forced phase-in of unleaded gas, the phasing out of leaded gas and the dreaded catayltic converter.  The 1970's were the dark ages of high performance and only one car company kept the light of high performance not only burning but burning bright, like a beacon in the darkness, all alone in the night (cue epic Babylon 5 music).

Pontiac.

The 1980's were a Renaissance in high performance.  Computer controlled fuel injection, emissions that weren't restrictive, four speed automatic transmissions with overdrive, five speed manual transmissions with overdrive, deep rear gears, sixteen inch factory wheels with V rated tires that were stickier than anything seen in the previous two decades, and compact turbocharged and intercooled engines.  Hell, even the Japanese jumped on board and began deploying Far Eastern sport coupes to our shores.  Seeing the turbocharged four cylinder engines from Mopar and the tremendous work that Buick did on their SFI turbocharged and intercooled 3.8 liter V6 was nothing short of inspirational.  When a Dodge Omni GLH-S (which looked like crap) beat the snot out of a Shelby GT350 Mustang from the 1960's, enthusiasts were outraged ... and amazed.  The  use of technology to go faster wasn't something to be ignored.  The 1980's saw an ever increasing climb in performance, a climb out of the mire and muck that had been the 1970's.  As computers took more and more charge of what was going on under the hood, more and more power could be squeezed out of smaller and smaller engines all the while maintaining both emissions and economy.  The fact that although emissions and economy standards got tighter almost every year yet horsepower and performance also increased each year was a testement to the march of high technology through the decade.

The muscle cars of the 1960's could still out power a 1980's sports car on the straight away, especially in the first part of the decade, but the 1980's machinery was far superior in handling and economy not to mention comfort and ease of ownership.  The 1980's held so much promise ... it was the Woodstock of high performance and it lasted all decade long, coming on strong in the first to mid part of the 1980's and then starting to peter out towards the end of the decade but while it lasted it was glorious to live through, especially for a red blooded American teenager like myself.  I got my driver's license in 1984 ... just two years after the third generation F-bodies debuted and I got to see these cars grow from their start to their finish in 1992.  At the time they were considered some of the best handling and best performing cars in America if not the world as attributed in magazine article after magazine article and road test or comparison after road test and comparison.  The Trans Am was compared to imports like the Porsche 911 and the Mazda RX-7, both highly competitive cars and both well respected.  In fact, short of the Chevy Corvette, the WS6 equipped Pontiac Trans Am may have been the best handler of GM's offerings.

So much has changed since the 1980's ...

Cars and trucks are not tough today, no, they're cute and apologetic ... neutered and spayed direct from the factory and that's the problem.  Somewhere along the line we forgot how much fun it is to drive, to really drive, to drive hard, to drive fast, to experience the thrill of acceleration, the ecstacy of winning a race, how it feels for your body to be strapped tight into a form fitting seat as you dance on pedals and row through the gears, making the car bend to your will.  We've forgotten what it's like for the wind to be in our face and the engine to be howling under the hood as the needles on the dash spin in their crazy arcs.  Look at how many cars are offered with manual transmissions today ... only a small percentage.  Automatics are the norm on most cars.  Where once transmissions were built for overkill and you could mod an engine to throw any kind of power at a Muncie four speed or a TurboHydraMatic 400 three speed automatic today when you mod cars, that is, if you can mod them, it's usually the transmission which is the first thing to give up the ghost.  I learned that while playing with my 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix GTP.  The L69 supercharged 3.8 liter V6 was a capable engine and could be modded fairly easily but the transmission behind that motor was a piece of crap and couldn't take much more than what the L69 was putting out stock.  Any major mods to the L69 in the GTP and you had better be planning on replacing the stock transmission with an aftermarket pro-built unit.  Today, cars are designed to do so much and not a lot more ... I guess this makes them more easily disposable and ultimately, much more forgettable.

Driving fast.

Driving hard.

Of course, some people never got to experience these feelings, these emotions, these raw, visceral examples of what it is like to be alive.  No, their experience with cars was limited to some lackluster example of one breed or another, a gutless econobox designed to get from Point A to Point B or where ever else you wanted to go.  Their experience was based on some wannabe car whose only claim to high performance was some fake hood scoop, a bolt on spoiler and a stripe and decal package to make it look sporty without ever actually having anything to back that image up.  I don't understand why the government wants to use tax money to pay for birth control for women ... they already do that with what rolls out of Detroit.  One look at the new cars on the dealer lot today and sex is the last thing that crosses your mind.  In fact, just about any vehicle made in America after 2002 can be considered a rolling form of birth control ... and a general IQ decreaser.

Oh, there was a time when cars were art, art forms, forms of art and rolling works of art.  Cars were sculpted, hand built and they were built with pride.  Today they're built by robots while over paid union members sit around earning a paycheck for doing nothing and whining about not being paid enough.  Have you seen what is rolling out of Detroit these days?  The unions should be paying US, the American consumer, to drive their crap ... not the other way around.

I guess I'm different.

I guess I've always been different.

I love cars ... I love sports cars.

I love performance.

I love high performance.

I love high performance American sports cars.

I think that flowing body lines are sexy ... that aerodynamics are poetry in motion and that the sound of a high performance engine screaming through its power band is an orchestra if not an aphrodisiac in and of itself.  Cars have never been something that I considered mundane or utilitarian in nature.  Cars were members of the family rather than property.

"... the TA's handling is about as close as most people would want to get to an honest-to-God racing platform.  ... The TA's chassis is extremely stiff, and its front and rear roll characteristics are well balanced and tuned to each other.  With near-neutral handling characteristics at the limit of adhesion, and just a trace of understeer that easily transfers into controllable oversteer, the TA ... is a blast to hustle through corners.  It makes good drivers better drivers, and instantly transfers a feeling of confidence to the novice.  It is a car whose handling and acceleration are guaranteed to transform a bored rush-hour commuter into a wide-eyed and grinning enthusiast.  This is a fun car."

                                                                                                     - John Hanson, Motor Trend, April 1986.

Yes, this is a fun car to drive.

No.

Forget that.

The 1986 Pontiac Trans Am is one hell of a fun car to drive because it reminds you that at one time, a time not that very long ago, there was a car company called "Pontiac" and Pontiac built excitement.  Raw, unmitigated, unapologetic, brazen excitement that was accompanied with the rumble of powerful V8s that could plant you firmly back in your seat and easily do twice the maximum legal posted US speed limit (and then some).  It was a time when performance wasn't something that made you feel bad about yourself and performance didn't require you to apologize to anyone for having it let alone enjoying it.

Take the T-tops off, turn the key in the ignition, let the rumble of the 5.0 liter port fuel injected V8 under the hood offer up a continual thump the likes of which the jacked sky-high, stupid ass paint scheme colored Chevy Impala next to you can't hope to match and you've got a certified time machine.  I remember a time when cars thumped because of what they had under the hood, not because of what they had in the trunk.  One of my T-shirts I used to sell had a simple slogan on it: "There's a big difference between being fast and powerful or just being loud and annoying."  That opinion applies even more so today than it ever did before.  When your car has more watts than horsepower, when your speakers are wider than your tires, when the color of your paint is the wildest thing about your car, when ugly design is used as a substitute  ...

Where did it all go wrong?

Cars today have no guts ... which is why people take a $500 piece of crap car, put $6000 worth of jacked up wheels on it, put a $6000 paint job on it copied from some corporate logo scheme or product and fill it with $10,000 worth of stereo equipment ... and they still have a gutless, neutered $500 piece of crap car ... it's got $22,000 worth of bling on it, but it's still a $500 piece of crap car underneath.  It's all part of the "Look at me!  Look at me!" crowd, you know, the mediocre people who drive mediocre cars that you wouldn't look twice at (car or driver) if they didn't jack slap your personal enjoyment with their thump-thump-thump and vulgar lyrics blasted out of speakers that seem to be aimed directly at your car in traffic.  They ride around on 26" inch or larger rims that make their mediocre cars look like misplaced farm equipment.  These mediocre people want you to look at them, to notice them, and usually when they see you looking at them their first words to you are "What are you looking at?!"

Nothing.

The truth is ... nothing. 

You're looking at nothing. 

Absolutely nothing. 

You know it and they know it which is why they drive a mediocre car.  Bling Bling is just God's way of saying He's sorry your car doesn't have any balls or personality to it whatsoever, that He's sorry that you had to spend $22,000 on a piece of crap car just to get people to notice you but it's not you that they're noticing, it's your piece of crap car with all the ridiculous bling bling on it.  If they notice you at all they're not thinking that you're rich or lucky ... they're thinking that you've got to be the biggest idiot in the world for driving something like that.

And what happened to all of the cool car names? 

I mean, how seriously do you think someone is going to take you if you tell them that you drive a Plymouth Neon Expresso?  If you drive a Plymouth Neon Expresso, chances are that you're not a Marine Corps Drill Instructor or a hard rock guitarist ... you're either an interior decorator or a florist.

Remember when cars had cool names?  Barracuda.  The Judge.  Stingray.

Today we have cars with names like Expresso, Backpack, and Aveo.

Cute, meaningless names.

I'm still waiting on the Dodge Tampon, the Chevy Enema and the Ford Little Douche Coupe to appear in dealer showrooms.  I mean, are we really running out of imagination and originality that much that we have to introduce a car named after a type of coffee or something that we use to carry our stuff when we go hiking?  I guess so.  I blame car names on the very problem that we've been talking about ... cars have no guts.  Do you think that Ferrari would ever produce a model called the "Expresso"?

I doubt it.

We've lost something along the way ... in the years since we've lost the edge that cars once had ... the edge that separated cars from being just ... cars ... just transportation.  That's what so much of what is on the road today is ... just ... basic transportation.  Gutless, soul sucking, mind numbing transportation.  It's comfortable, reliable, economical transportation with no guts but a great stereo and some wild paint color guaranteed to be right out of a twelve year old girl's locker ... or diary. 

When you pull up in something real, in something with some guts, it's nothing short of amazing.  It's like being a great white shark swimming with a bunch of guppies.  When you drive something like this TA other lesser cars part away in front of you.  Hemp adorned Environmental Whackos in their beat up, oil burning turbo Volvo station wagon rubber neck as you go by and the Obama supporters in their Prius just loathe and stare.  Kids on the school bus press their faces against the bus windows as you slowly pass them on the side.  Old guys at parts stores and gas stations come out to look at your car and talk shop, happy for the diversion.  People your age reminisce openly telling you how they or their friend or their brother had a Trans Am, sometimes one just like this one and they brag on performance figures you know are false and untrue but you nod your head and smile anyway.

And that's why I don't drive mediocre cars.

Life is too short to drive mediocre cars. 

Life is too short to drive something mundane and boring, something that you see five times going to work and eight times coming home from work because not only can anyone buy a car just like yours but everyone has a car just like yours.  Life is too short to drive what everyone else is driving.  If you want to be different, you've got to drive something different and that isn't always an easy thing to do.

Individuality doesn't come easy.  I guess that's why I've always loved Pontiacs because Pontiacs were the rebels of GM.  In the 1960's they led the muscle car charge with the Pontiac GTO, a midsize offering with a big engine that went head to head against the Ford Mustang for GM's share of the rapidly emerging youth market.  Later, in 1967 the Firbird appeared and then the Trans Am did as well in 1969.  During the 1970's when everyone in Detroit was running away from high performance like it was the Black Plaque, Pontiac was building cars like it was the late 1960's all over again.  Through the darkest times in Detroit it was Pontiac and Pontiac alone which kept the performance fires burning at GM.  When every other make and model of high performance muscle car had become extinct, when only the Corvette was left and even that was in diminshed form, when the Z28 had been killed off and then resurrected as a mostly decal and spoiler copy of the Pontiac Trans Am, Pontiac was still throwing 455 and 400 cubic inch V8 engines under the hoods of its Firebirds right up until the end of the 1970's.

Maybe it was dedication to a cause or maybe it was just that, out of all of the divisions at General Motors and out of all the other manufacturers, Pontiac just got it.  Pontiac understood performance, probably more than any other GM division, probably more than any other automaker in the world because with Pontiac high performance became more than a cause ... it became a passion and maybe even an obsession.

This Trans Am is more than just a high performance American artifact from a long gone age, it's a symbol of what cars once were when performance wasn't something to be ashamed of and when having a fuel guzzling V8 wasn't considered heresey to the pseudo-religious beliefs of the whack jobs on the political Left.  The death of the Firebird was long prophesied throughout the late 1970's and 1980's and it eventually came true only much later than anyone else would have thought.  That in and of itself is both worthy of note and amazing.  The Firebird and the Trans Am were survivors who went through the worst and best of American automotive times ... their deaths were ultimately handed out not by competition or dwindling fossil fuels but by useless bean counters who put short term corporate profit over priceless, non-purchasable things like heritage, legacy and legend.  Things that had to be earned over time, not bought with capital outlays.

 "Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling, by the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore." - Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven"

Standing here, now, next to this beguiling bird I have to say that I still find fault, real fault, with GM for killing the F-body.  Pontiac understood, moreso with the Trans Am than with any other model, that you don't kill off a legacy vehicle full of heritage and history just because it starts to become somewhat inconvenient to produce.

Pontiac understood this.

It was business.

It was passion.

They got it.

GM didn't and in truth, probably never will understand what Pontiac stood for or what it meant to so many which is why a lot of us who own classic Pontiacs now also own Fords and Hondas and Toyotas and won't be buying any more General Motors products for a very, very long time ... if ever again.  GM betrayed our loyalty for their own greed.  

Never again.

RIP Pontiac (1926 to 2009).

Gone but not forgotten.