Not as sad as the dude who signed up for an anonymous Substack account because he's too much of a pussy to confront a 51-year-old cripple over the Internet. THAT dude is sad! What's HIS deal?
I recently found out that it was the great Bert Berns (the man behind Twist & Shout) who discovered Van Morrision in the UK and brought him to the U.S. to record.
Anyhow, Astral Weeks sits between Moondance and His Band and Street Choir in my CD collection and there it stays most of the time. It's a bit like Pet Sounds to me in that it's supposed to be the man's great work but it leaves me a bit flat. On the other hand, I'll Be Your Lover Too on HB&SC is one of the most achingly beautiful love songs I've heard.
Rory Gallagher is the best thing to have come out of Ireland.
Prompted by a comment here, I've been on a big Who kick lately. Tommy seems a lot darker than when I was a teenager and Pure and Easy just may be a perfect song. Yeah, I know it's on Townshend's "solo" album but the band played it live and it's on the expanded version of Who's Next. Speaking of Who Came First, Sheraton Gibson is also very well done
That would fall under the category of disrespecting the dead, although in which direction? You could make an argument that, adjusted for available time, AiC was the creative equal of The Who.
The response of someone when they read an article dissecting a circle jerk of a profession and the analogies contained therein hit a little too close to home.
The alternative was to take a very educated guess on who the commenter is and say something genuinely unpleasant about how sorry I am he can't get his wife pregnant, then offer to do the job like Denzel in Training Day. "You want a son, let me know. I hit every time!"
Thankfully, I'm not that kind of person and I wish him every success in his attempts to become a parent.
This dude is not at that stage. He's at the stage where most men can get women pregnant by pulling out and shooting onto the pillow they'll sleep on two days from now.
"The difference is that I think they're clowns to be ridiculed, whereas this dweeb probably thinks they're an example of why none of us should even be allowed to own cars."
Most of them are extremely uncomfortable with anyone owning or enjoying something above and beyond what they have. Thirty years from now they'll be killing people for buying first-class bus tickets.
I was a newspaper reporter (not for the Times) sent to Salt Lake City in the run-up to the 2002 Winter Olympics to write about the massive security preparations post 9/11, the mood of the town given the concerns, yada yada, yada. Almost every major paper in the country had someone schlepping around the Wasatch Range chasing the same stories.
Tom Ridge showed up one day for the requisite dog and pony show, so we all gathered in a conference room for the press conference. I was a bit late and had to sit on the floor up front. I turned around and noticed the NYT reporter, who'd crossed his legs in such a way that his shoe was at the same level as my face, was wearing Gucci loafers.
I have that same shower control in my bathroom (different finish) and the mind boggles at how someone can be confused by that. My house ain’t even that nice. What a dipshit.
And that shower control needs a new cartridge but that’s neither here nor there.
The nearly 60 year old shower control here needs some work too but my son, who has worked as a plumber, tells me the only way to get at it is from the back, through a wall in an adjacent closet, so I just deal with it. That shower, by the way, is one of my favorite luxuries. When my parents built this house, they spent money where it mattered to them (central air, a fireplace) but scrimped where it didn't so in the master bath, the shower has what was probably the cheapest, simplest shower head you could source in 1965. The current Federal standard is 2.5gal/min and many municipalities have lower codes. My guess is that el cheapo shower head flows at about 4-5 gal/min.
I have over my career worked at two organizations that reviewed cars; both of them refused the paid junkets, refused the freebies with the sole exception of dinner, and didn't spring for travel to launch events that weren't an easy driving distance away. It limited the number of reveals they could attend and forced them to rely upon press fleet cars, but they maintained a measure of integrity. (Side note: I do wonder if Consumer Reports follows such a policy - does it attend events on its own dime" The company still pays full retail for cars it reviews, yes?)
I recall attending a Yamaha event in NorCal; my employer sent me, since I could pay my own way and get their on my own bike (great fun rolling up to a Yamaha event on a 1995 Ducati 900 SS/SP, that of the Sausage Creature, having ridden it repeatedly on the very roads Yamaha had mapped out, but I digress). Among other things, Yamaha gave away digital cameras (this was before phones had decent cameras) so everyone could snap pics and post them to Facebook (this was before Instagram was ubiquitous). I politely declined, citing my employer's policy against gratuities. A few other journalists looked askance, like, "Dude - take the camera and be quiet," but stayed silent except for one guy who loudly and repeatedly teased me about it over the course of the entire day.
I couldn't help wondering why he seemed so personally offended that I declined the freebies.
Before I started actually getting paid to write about cars I used to get credentialed to auto show media previews to get press kits and swag to sell on eBay. One year I filled the bed of a Ford Ranger with boxes of stuff from the Chicago show. By the time I started working for TTAC and other publishers, though, I had mostly stopped dealing in swag as the elaborate press kits started getting replaced with slip covered CDs and then bar codes for your phone. I think it was at the Detroit show, I was running late that morning, missed a couple of press conferences and went over to the GM media booth to see if they had CDs or thumb drives. A guy who is a macher at MAMA, the midwest autojourno organization, who rewrites press releases for a living, drives a "long term test" vehicle and hasn't seen this side of 300 lbs in decades said to me, "Why don't you go back and get another Hyundai press kit, parasite?"
"I haven't even been over to Hyundai today, but you're welcome to go check the back seat of my car, well, if you can walk that far without getting a coronary. I write for sites that not only are more respected by car guys than yours, I get more traffic than you do."
I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but about half of the comments to my recent piece on Hagerty about a period original hippie painted Citroen 2CV used words like "great". I'm willing to bet that other than an automaker PR person, nobody has ever called anything Mr. 5X5 MAMA has written "great".
“Most people spend the whole time either forgetting which way the track goes or trying desperately to stay in sight of a pace car running at NASA HPDE 1 pace.“
You just described my single experience on a track that wasn’t a quarter mile straight line, when I was called upon to bed in some new pads on Day 2 of a press event. Though to be fair, I’m pretty sure the lead driver hasn’t gone as slow as HPDE 1 pace since he was a young engineer-in-waiting working on the 1987 Dodge Charger Hellcat…
Speaking of that piece, my son and I have decided to model our new Shelby Charger after AA's rendering of the "Hellcat" version. I really liked the blue color scheme, and it needs bodywork and new paint anyways.
My plans don't extend to a 2.5 swap, at least not until I blow up the 2.2.
Oh, for sure. But it’s going to be on a time scale measured in years unless I get another promotion at work, get T-boned by a Swift truck, or otherwise fall backwards into some kind of windfall.
Job #1 is getting it safe and reliable enough for a day of coaching…cooling, brakes, leaks, and (hopefully just) shift linkage.
I'm the child of an automotive journalist. Well, an adult child now. My father - who is 82 and still writes about cars every damn day from the comfort of his stair-free patio home in a quiet beach community - began his career in journalism back in the 60s and got in to automotive by the 80s. It was a natural passion of his, along with watches, cycling, women, and many other "Baruthian" hobbies. By the end of the 80s he had a national TV show, several regular feature columns, and enjoyed many, many of these said press trips right through until the early 2000s when he retired from travelling (due, in part, to seeing the travel-miles-odds-game closing in on him when a bird strike caused a partial windshield failure and emergency landing on his CityLine ATR 42 over Hamburg.) These were the perks for him - the stuff that made working for less money than your average sanitation worker worth while. Sure, we sometimes couldn't make the mortgage payment but... pointing out your Casino de Monte-Carlo hotel room in an establishing shot from the latest Bond film? Priceless.
I remember many times where he'd be gone for three, maybe four days at a time to Europe, for weeks on end. The Star Alliance points racked up. The Samsonites wore out. Certainly, the 90s and early 00s was the golden age for this kind of travel, and it's a shame you weren't around just a decade earlier to experience it. PR people were still old school enough to play 'the game,' the flood gates of clueless-but-bubbly communications chicks hadn't yet been opened, and writers knew where their meals came from. It was a more civilized time, like a gentlemen's club of sorts as you say. "Don't shit talk our cars TOO much, and we'll make sure you're on the next one."
Of course, I only got to experience a few press trips myself - rarely did they want the family along for the ride, unless it was something special or the PR guy was a drinking buddy or former journalist who was doing him a favour. I did manage to tag along to Detroit at age 15, and vividly remember sitting with my old man at cigar-bar hospitality suites, rubbing elbows with various execs, eating hand rolled sushi, and witnessing American automotive splendour in all its pre-'08 SUV-fed glory, all before I even had a learner's. Perhaps if I'd been a bit older this would've been a bonding experience, but it was what it was.
He's probably glad he quit taking the trips when he did, and I'm equally glad I wasn't destined to follow precisely in his footsteps - by the time I was old enough to do my own thing, the shine had worn off, and the internet had taken its toll on the entire printed world. Bloggers rushed in. YouTubers rushed in. Realtor wags rushed in. They all saw what was up for grabs, especially the better funded ones who didn't need to run their pens dry trying to make a decent living. The free cars and free trips were no longer "special" to me and the people handing them out weren't so special either. I found a better career, but still manage to dabble in writing and the occasional week in a new car. It's a shame, really, because I very much enjoy writing and I am passionate about the automotive world. I just can't play the insipid Insta-game hard enough to make it look like I Am An Automotive Journalist.
Hagerty really had a chance to turn all of this around, and I think you're right in predicting that nobody ever will. I really love reading your posts because just about every one feels very personal to me, and I'll be sure to share this one with my dad.
We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the business, and all the people necessary to do it, but there was too much cowardice, simping, and wanting to be liked.
It kills me how a company that insures *classic cars* is all in on EVs, like they’re the insurance subsidiary of the WEF. At least a company like Hemmings knows who pays their bills.
I never understood the need to be liked by people who don’t give a shit about you.
They may know who pays their bills but when I was slandered as a racist for the temerity of quoting the name of a Lenny Bruce routine in a discussion of slurs over at TTAC, Hemmings acted cravenly before the mob. I was made persona non grata at a publication that solicited me to apply for an editor's position before they posted it publicly and described my work as awesome. I considered it an honor to be writing for the publication but they didn't act very honorably in my regard.
You can't tell the truth. There is too much money at stake. This situation will continue until some sore of black swan implosion event resets the game, so it can start again.
There's a word in Yiddish, nebech, it means an unfortunate person. It's passed into English here in America as nebbish, though that has taken a different meaning, more like nerd than someone with a dark cloud over them. Many years ago my sister lost her 11 year old daughter, Stacy, to Ewing's cell sarcoma. She once told me that she didn't want people to call her a nebech.
By the way, I saw my sister do something that had I not witnessed it with my own eyes I would have a hard time believing someone could do it. We were sitting shiva (the Jewish week of mourning) for Stacy at my sister's place on Staten Island. A bus pulled up with Stacy's classmates making a condolence call. My sister taught science in NYC junior highs for about 40 years, only retiring when the racist leftists running NYC public schools made it "impossible" for her to teach (and she's never voted for a Republican in her life). In the space of a second, I saw my sister switch from being a grieving mother to being a teacher, comforting Stacy's classmates.
Susie's of that last generation of smart American women who became teachers, before feminism convinced them to be doctors and lawyers.
Jack, the way you abuse your body, there won't be a "need" for a cancer. I don't know about pitying looks, but reading about it does make me shake my head...
I've never quite understood why guys whose wives are horny (or compliant) enough to screw other guys in front of them aren't fucking their brains out. The weirdest part are the ones who think that kissing is off limits because apparently sticking your tongue in her mouth is more intimate than dipping your wick. Humans are strange. Go figure. If anyone asks how I know this stuff, tell them that I'm well read.
This is one thing I wondered about because I understood that it's _her_ decision whom she beds, far too few men think they're in charge there, I tried hard to make sure she didn't feel the urge to go elsewhere .
Never forget : if _you're_ not getting any, someone else is .
I’m so tired of the disclosures by auto writers that piously say “they offered me a branded hat, but I didn’t take it,” as though that makes the rest of the junket ok …
I have a small machine embroidery shop and I was standing in line at a Scion booth during a media preview so I could get a free logo hat. I thought to myself, "Self, this is stupid. You can get the same hat wholesale for less than $3 and put whatever you want on it." Since I like to do silly things it started being a thing with me and I now have piles of baseball hats with various logos on them.
You might be able to buy me with access to a cool car, but a baseball cap?
Just recently (on my trip stateside as it happened) listened to The Intercooler podcast about this very subject. The general gist of it was that Frankel and Prosser would rather spend more time in the cars and less time freeloading, and that for working freelancers being away for three or four days on a press trip for one article was not worth their while - it really only worked for staffers who were getting paid anyway.
My problem with all this is that what kind of person enjoys living the life of a high roller without actually being, you know, a high roller? Isn't this like wearing an expensive rented suit or watch and knowing you have to give it back?
I remember Jamie Kitman calling this out years ago when he had a column in Car magazine. He owned, I think at the time a Lotus Cortina and mentioned to someone in Lotus that he was having trouble with hard to find parts. A few weeks later a parcel arrived unsolicited containing said parts. He sent it straight back.
As the owner of an old Lotus (in pieces) and someone who like McLarens I'll admit I'd have a hard time turning either of those things down.
For the record, I paid my own way and arranged lodging at my cousin's place in LA for that McLaren 675LT review. For the little bit that TTAC paid me, I ended up losing more than $500 on the review, particularly because Avis dinged me for smoking in my rental Jeep Patriot. Then I had to fight with the editor to get the piece published because he wouldn't edit it and 'Camry reviews get more clicks than exoticars'. The only way I got paid was because Jack graciously agreed to edit the piece, which was something like 4,000 words. Still, I would have been a schmuck not to do it. It was cheaper than a track day in a far more pedestrian supercar (a mixed metaphor but I like it) would have cost me. I got to drive what is something like McLaren's 3rd fastest car in the canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains, impress the folks at Peter Mullin's Bugatti-filled museum, and style down Rodeo Drive (okay, so it was at 6 AM, but I'm sure the mannequins at Bvlgari were impressed).
Jamie is a weird case to me, because despite being one of the more well-off journos in the biz, he isn’t afraid to cash in. He’s a decent enough writer and is interesting enough he could’ve done his own thing, but lately it seems he’s relegated himself to being first class on the gravy train and hanging out with noted doofus Brett Berk.
Have some compassion. As focused as at least some gay men are on aesthetics and hairless Greek god bodies, it must be tough out there for old queens. I mean, how has Harvey Fierstein ever gotten laid? Must be his sense of humor.
I follow him on FB. I'm not sure how much auto stuff he's doing these days - mainly shares articles that I don't think most posters on this site would agree with.
I find myself wondering how much difference a sudden shift to honest car reviews would actually make to the car buying public. In my experience, as a person who is known to be into cars, when anyone asks advice about buying a car, they have exactly zero actual interest in what your opinion is. They know what they want, and they want your affirmation/praise for that choice. I suspect that's why the automaker PR scheme has gone on for so long, so successfully. People LIKE reading positive reviews about the cars they are planning on buying. I wonder how many years of sustained bad reviews it would take to make a noticeable dent in say, Camry or CRV sales. When it comes to higher end vehicles too, forget it. Most of those are either emotionally-driven or clout chasing purchases - very few actually care that the 3 series in 2022 doesn't hold a candle to an E46 in driving dynamics, they have a _BMW_. Ultimately, it seems like those of us in the enthusiast community may see this as a bigger deal than it actually turns out to be; the reviews are bought and paid for, but it's been going on for so long that it's calcified notions about brands and models in people's minds. I doubt most people go and drive two dozen different cars when trying to decide what to get, like I do, but I was never the target for the 2022 Accord review in Motortrend anyway. I suppose what this has been an extremely long-winded way of saying is that the auto industry has fostered so much cultural inertia with their PR over the decades that even if everyone started being honest, most of the public would probably find a way to justify the purchase anyway.
I have to say, when I came across Jack's review of the first-gen CX-5, I felt pretty good about myself for finding one and buying it a couple of years ago.
Shit I missed that, was it in one of the articles? I have been looking at purchasing a new GR86 and would want to occasionally do local club days with it. I have also heard that a couple of the last body style had popped motors at HPDEs at Lime Rock, so I was already a little nervous even though that was second-hand info.
I'd be willing to bet that Kaylan and Volman contributed to the lyrics. I saw that band at Meadowbrook. Great show. Has anyone written a song about incest as thoughtful as Magdalena? Speaking of Flo & Eddie, I saw that the Turtles are part the Happy Together Tour 2022, headlining an all-star lineup that includes Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, The Association, The Classics IV, The Vogues, and The Cowsills. Shirley Jones, Susan Dey, and Donny Boneduce are still around but I don't think you could do the Partridge Family without David Cassidy. I mean that would be like "The Who" touring without Keith Moon or John Entwhistle.
Totally off-topic, but The Association is certainly on my Spotify most-played list this year. I have an almost year old daughter named Whitney, so naturally every time we are in the car we are singing 'Whitney' to the tune of 'Windy'.
Well ... I can say that I bought my first two cars (back in the '90s) based on the Consumer Reports reliability reviews. And they served me well, one of them being an excellent drive to boot.
I bought my next two cars based on the years of reading Car and Driver. That did not work out so well.
Perhaps I'm too old and cynical, but I do not think that honest car reviews today would make much (any?) difference, because in my experience the vast majority of affordable cars today are just crap.
Given the same amount of money, I'd rather buy something made 15+ years ago that is still in decent shape, and spend the difference rejuvenating it the way Jack did with that Milan.
One of my sisters asked me which Diesel powered American made 3/4 ton truck to buy to tow her two axle horse trailer .
As I didn't know and find them all mostly the same I suggested she rent one of each for two weeks then choose the one she liked best, in the end she bought a GM product and loved it until her hips and knees gave out ending her ability to ride .
She kept it for several more years until the brake pipes rusted out (?!! WTF GM ?!) , apparently this is a thing, I found her a retrofit repair kit but she sold the truck on dirt cheap and still misses it .
So, there are some who listen .
This same sister bought herself a spiffy BMW convertible as a lifetime treat to have survived, everyone else told her not to, she's keeping it garaged and loves driving it top down whenever the weather (Richmond, Virginia) permits .
I have a few family members who asked , not sure if they listed or not though .
"In my experience, as a person who is known to be into cars, when anyone asks advice about buying a car, they have exactly zero actual interest in what your opinion is."
Maybe it's just the kind of people who ask my opinion, but I've pretty much had the exact opposite experience. When I get asked it really is one of two scenarios. The first is the person who knows pretty well what they want and is just looking for confirmation from their friend the car guy that they are not making a horrible mistake. The second is the completely non-car person who has to buy a replacement car. For me these are the fun conversations. Their question is really just what are the options out there in the price range. I almost never recommend a single option, but will generally come up with a list of 5 or so vehicles to try out. They almost always end up buying something off my list.
It would be a shame if Frank Bacon had to pay tax on those tickets, hotel stays, and outrageous meals, which I think they should under longstanding IRS guidelines.
I'd agree. In that IRS memo I linked, they state the following
"This relief does not apply to travel or other promotional benefits that are converted to cash, to compensation that is paid in the form of travel or other promotional benefits, or in other circumstances where these benefits are used for tax avoidance purposes."
Given the extravagance, personal-use gifts regularly provided to journalists, and over-the-top food/booze/hotel for what is clearly a quid-pro-quo of a favorable review, how would the lifestyle benefits NOT be considered compensation?
This is a lot different than enjoying a decent meal stuck in an airport traveling as part of your W-2 job, or something like what Lotus did releasing the Evora 400, where they just rented a non-F1-grade track, had cold cuts for lunch, and reimbursed mileage to and from the venue.
This may be a dumb question, but how does this work for some slob like me who is offloading hoarded auto/motorcycle parts? More importantly, how do I show a cost basis for something I bought on Craigslist 10+ years ago?
I'm sitting on a stack of car parts that will likely never sell locally, meaning that they will either go on eBay or sell via a Facebook group (meaning Paypal).
Dear lord don't get me started on 1099's. I have to send out at least a half dozen every year. Which means I need to get all sorts of accounting stuff done early and send it to my CPA so THEY can send stuff out.
A lot of people really don't like it when I tell them I need their SS Number. At least these days I can get my accountant to ask them for it. Even then though, some folks are difficult.
At least my cover artist lives in another country!
At the first Chicago Auto Show media preview that I attended, as I walked past the restaurant in the Hilton adjacent to McCormick Place, a Kia rep was handing out $10 phone cards. Staples' Canadian branch was a corporate sponsor of the Toronto Auto Show. That was back in my swag selling days so I grabed a few of every press kit. When I got home I discovered that each of the Staples' press kit had a $10 gift card good at their stores. I had a dozen press kits so I drove over to Windsor and got some office supplies. I'd say that a gift card or phone card is the functional equivalent to cash.
Honest ask: Why would this be taxable income for the individual when other types of company-paid travel for business purposes isn’t? My firm doesn’t add the value of travel I do for them to my W2.
Right, but I think they’d argue the hotel stays/flights aren’t “gifts” but rather necessary accommodations to allow the person to take the trip. To your and Jack’s point, though, these trips are clearly lavish well beyond “necessary” so I could see someone making an argument that some (large?) percentage of the value is a gift. Don’t know; not a tax lawyer.
My wife won a very nice trip to the Bahamas for 2 with work, a President’s trip for sales and sales support (her) who hit certain metrics. A large percentage of the trip was work, but we did get 1099’d for the balance, I think it was $1500 each. Because I’m a man I decided to go with her and fuck her there myself, rather than send some other guy to do it.
When I was a kid my dad would never take free coffee or meals, but he would always take the Mets tickets and signed balls. I wonder if that is taxable now.
you're a sad, sad man.
Not as sad as the dude who signed up for an anonymous Substack account because he's too much of a pussy to confront a 51-year-old cripple over the Internet. THAT dude is sad! What's HIS deal?
Wear it in health!
We get shirts??
This was a warranty replacement for the shirts i sold 8 years ago!
Still proudly wearing my DTTS shirt every time I have a hangover.
He's paying more for this site than AOC doesn't want to pay Elon.
I suspect AOC pays in other ways ...
No one knows what it's like to be the bad man. To be the sad man.
BEHIND BLUE EYES.
- Fred Durst
I thought it was Harry Styles, personally.
As the great Katt Williams once said about silk pillows... "I don't need that shit, but bitches do, so I got it."
I recently found out that it was the great Bert Berns (the man behind Twist & Shout) who discovered Van Morrision in the UK and brought him to the U.S. to record.
Anyhow, Astral Weeks sits between Moondance and His Band and Street Choir in my CD collection and there it stays most of the time. It's a bit like Pet Sounds to me in that it's supposed to be the man's great work but it leaves me a bit flat. On the other hand, I'll Be Your Lover Too on HB&SC is one of the most achingly beautiful love songs I've heard.
Rory Gallagher is the best thing to have come out of Ireland.
Prompted by a comment here, I've been on a big Who kick lately. Tommy seems a lot darker than when I was a teenager and Pure and Easy just may be a perfect song. Yeah, I know it's on Townshend's "solo" album but the band played it live and it's on the expanded version of Who's Next. Speaking of Who Came First, Sheraton Gibson is also very well done
I agree with Pure and Easy - a top-notch song for sure!
I'll say choosing him over another band was purposeful, yes.
Yes but who* did you skip?
* the whom
If he'd attributed it to Layne Staley there'd have been a stiff letter, let me tell you.
That would fall under the category of disrespecting the dead, although in which direction? You could make an argument that, adjusted for available time, AiC was the creative equal of The Who.
The response of someone when they read an article dissecting a circle jerk of a profession and the analogies contained therein hit a little too close to home.
'Pinned'
.
.
*Chef kiss noise*
The alternative was to take a very educated guess on who the commenter is and say something genuinely unpleasant about how sorry I am he can't get his wife pregnant, then offer to do the job like Denzel in Training Day. "You want a son, let me know. I hit every time!"
Thankfully, I'm not that kind of person and I wish him every success in his attempts to become a parent.
This dude is not at that stage. He's at the stage where most men can get women pregnant by pulling out and shooting onto the pillow they'll sleep on two days from now.
The long term negative effects of hormonal birth control and myriad and society puts untold masses of teenaged women on them.
Honk honk.
Jack Murphy is that you?
What a load of Krok
Would you write that crap for a night at the Motel 6 and a half a Popeye's chicken sandwich?
Strawman Johathan "What kind of an autojournalist do you think I am?!?"
We've already established what you are, now we are just negotiating.
Jonathan Lieberman I presume?
"The difference is that I think they're clowns to be ridiculed, whereas this dweeb probably thinks they're an example of why none of us should even be allowed to own cars."
Most of them are extremely uncomfortable with anyone owning or enjoying something above and beyond what they have. Thirty years from now they'll be killing people for buying first-class bus tickets.
NYT reporters make good money.
I was a newspaper reporter (not for the Times) sent to Salt Lake City in the run-up to the 2002 Winter Olympics to write about the massive security preparations post 9/11, the mood of the town given the concerns, yada yada, yada. Almost every major paper in the country had someone schlepping around the Wasatch Range chasing the same stories.
Tom Ridge showed up one day for the requisite dog and pony show, so we all gathered in a conference room for the press conference. I was a bit late and had to sit on the floor up front. I turned around and noticed the NYT reporter, who'd crossed his legs in such a way that his shoe was at the same level as my face, was wearing Gucci loafers.
I'm a dolt. Re-reading the joke, I get it now.
Did you see how much the do-nothing make-work employees at Twitter were making?
Enough to pay $44B for the company! Hey-oh!
You either die an ethical hero, or live long enough to have Alanis King making up stories about racing in China.
Did you read my obituary for him?
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2011/03/rip-david-e-davis-jr/
I think he always dreamed of the day when he would be better than other people. That's a surprisingly common dream.
I suppose that's better than thinking he was already better than other people.
My goals are more modest, I'd like to think that I'm at least as decent as the average person.
The FTX dude gave $45m to McConnell and the other dude even as he was paying off Biden for protection.
This article was free!
Sucker!
You, sir, are my brother from another mother.
I have that same shower control in my bathroom (different finish) and the mind boggles at how someone can be confused by that. My house ain’t even that nice. What a dipshit.
And that shower control needs a new cartridge but that’s neither here nor there.
This is precisely the response I expected -- no, HOPED FOR -- from my readers. I figured SOMEONE would know all about it.
The nearly 60 year old shower control here needs some work too but my son, who has worked as a plumber, tells me the only way to get at it is from the back, through a wall in an adjacent closet, so I just deal with it. That shower, by the way, is one of my favorite luxuries. When my parents built this house, they spent money where it mattered to them (central air, a fireplace) but scrimped where it didn't so in the master bath, the shower has what was probably the cheapest, simplest shower head you could source in 1965. The current Federal standard is 2.5gal/min and many municipalities have lower codes. My guess is that el cheapo shower head flows at about 4-5 gal/min.
Nothing an appropriately sized drill bit can't take care of in most cases. :-)
I have over my career worked at two organizations that reviewed cars; both of them refused the paid junkets, refused the freebies with the sole exception of dinner, and didn't spring for travel to launch events that weren't an easy driving distance away. It limited the number of reveals they could attend and forced them to rely upon press fleet cars, but they maintained a measure of integrity. (Side note: I do wonder if Consumer Reports follows such a policy - does it attend events on its own dime" The company still pays full retail for cars it reviews, yes?)
I recall attending a Yamaha event in NorCal; my employer sent me, since I could pay my own way and get their on my own bike (great fun rolling up to a Yamaha event on a 1995 Ducati 900 SS/SP, that of the Sausage Creature, having ridden it repeatedly on the very roads Yamaha had mapped out, but I digress). Among other things, Yamaha gave away digital cameras (this was before phones had decent cameras) so everyone could snap pics and post them to Facebook (this was before Instagram was ubiquitous). I politely declined, citing my employer's policy against gratuities. A few other journalists looked askance, like, "Dude - take the camera and be quiet," but stayed silent except for one guy who loudly and repeatedly teased me about it over the course of the entire day.
I couldn't help wondering why he seemed so personally offended that I declined the freebies.
A few other journalists looked askance, like, "Dude - take the camera and be quiet,".
It's exactly like the clean cop in movies/novels/comics who won't tale a bribe. He's spoiling it for the guys who do.
"You see it's like this, Jake. You gotta have a little dirt on you so people can trust you!" -- Detective Alonzo
I went old-school with Serpico. You went mid-school with Training Day. nice.
that was me - the Frank Serpico of reviewers. lol
Before I started actually getting paid to write about cars I used to get credentialed to auto show media previews to get press kits and swag to sell on eBay. One year I filled the bed of a Ford Ranger with boxes of stuff from the Chicago show. By the time I started working for TTAC and other publishers, though, I had mostly stopped dealing in swag as the elaborate press kits started getting replaced with slip covered CDs and then bar codes for your phone. I think it was at the Detroit show, I was running late that morning, missed a couple of press conferences and went over to the GM media booth to see if they had CDs or thumb drives. A guy who is a macher at MAMA, the midwest autojourno organization, who rewrites press releases for a living, drives a "long term test" vehicle and hasn't seen this side of 300 lbs in decades said to me, "Why don't you go back and get another Hyundai press kit, parasite?"
"I haven't even been over to Hyundai today, but you're welcome to go check the back seat of my car, well, if you can walk that far without getting a coronary. I write for sites that not only are more respected by car guys than yours, I get more traffic than you do."
I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but about half of the comments to my recent piece on Hagerty about a period original hippie painted Citroen 2CV used words like "great". I'm willing to bet that other than an automaker PR person, nobody has ever called anything Mr. 5X5 MAMA has written "great".
I’ll bet this shill would also like to educate us on other topics as well. Gell-Mann Effect everywhere!
I don't know who to trust anymore.
No one. Well, except Jack. Maybe.
Sometimes.
I can confirm this is mostly true when it comes to PR trips.
“Most people spend the whole time either forgetting which way the track goes or trying desperately to stay in sight of a pace car running at NASA HPDE 1 pace.“
You just described my single experience on a track that wasn’t a quarter mile straight line, when I was called upon to bed in some new pads on Day 2 of a press event. Though to be fair, I’m pretty sure the lead driver hasn’t gone as slow as HPDE 1 pace since he was a young engineer-in-waiting working on the 1987 Dodge Charger Hellcat…
That guy is a piece of shit who builds cheater Neons such as the one we raced together in ChampCar!
I'm completely lost. Someone please clue me in.
Erich Heuschele, the fellow who engineered big parts of every SRT car. I put him in a 1987 "what if" as a joke.
Speaking of that piece, my son and I have decided to model our new Shelby Charger after AA's rendering of the "Hellcat" version. I really liked the blue color scheme, and it needs bodywork and new paint anyways.
My plans don't extend to a 2.5 swap, at least not until I blow up the 2.2.
Send me photos when you're done so I can share them with Abimelec!
Oh, for sure. But it’s going to be on a time scale measured in years unless I get another promotion at work, get T-boned by a Swift truck, or otherwise fall backwards into some kind of windfall.
Job #1 is getting it safe and reliable enough for a day of coaching…cooling, brakes, leaks, and (hopefully just) shift linkage.
I'm the child of an automotive journalist. Well, an adult child now. My father - who is 82 and still writes about cars every damn day from the comfort of his stair-free patio home in a quiet beach community - began his career in journalism back in the 60s and got in to automotive by the 80s. It was a natural passion of his, along with watches, cycling, women, and many other "Baruthian" hobbies. By the end of the 80s he had a national TV show, several regular feature columns, and enjoyed many, many of these said press trips right through until the early 2000s when he retired from travelling (due, in part, to seeing the travel-miles-odds-game closing in on him when a bird strike caused a partial windshield failure and emergency landing on his CityLine ATR 42 over Hamburg.) These were the perks for him - the stuff that made working for less money than your average sanitation worker worth while. Sure, we sometimes couldn't make the mortgage payment but... pointing out your Casino de Monte-Carlo hotel room in an establishing shot from the latest Bond film? Priceless.
I remember many times where he'd be gone for three, maybe four days at a time to Europe, for weeks on end. The Star Alliance points racked up. The Samsonites wore out. Certainly, the 90s and early 00s was the golden age for this kind of travel, and it's a shame you weren't around just a decade earlier to experience it. PR people were still old school enough to play 'the game,' the flood gates of clueless-but-bubbly communications chicks hadn't yet been opened, and writers knew where their meals came from. It was a more civilized time, like a gentlemen's club of sorts as you say. "Don't shit talk our cars TOO much, and we'll make sure you're on the next one."
Of course, I only got to experience a few press trips myself - rarely did they want the family along for the ride, unless it was something special or the PR guy was a drinking buddy or former journalist who was doing him a favour. I did manage to tag along to Detroit at age 15, and vividly remember sitting with my old man at cigar-bar hospitality suites, rubbing elbows with various execs, eating hand rolled sushi, and witnessing American automotive splendour in all its pre-'08 SUV-fed glory, all before I even had a learner's. Perhaps if I'd been a bit older this would've been a bonding experience, but it was what it was.
He's probably glad he quit taking the trips when he did, and I'm equally glad I wasn't destined to follow precisely in his footsteps - by the time I was old enough to do my own thing, the shine had worn off, and the internet had taken its toll on the entire printed world. Bloggers rushed in. YouTubers rushed in. Realtor wags rushed in. They all saw what was up for grabs, especially the better funded ones who didn't need to run their pens dry trying to make a decent living. The free cars and free trips were no longer "special" to me and the people handing them out weren't so special either. I found a better career, but still manage to dabble in writing and the occasional week in a new car. It's a shame, really, because I very much enjoy writing and I am passionate about the automotive world. I just can't play the insipid Insta-game hard enough to make it look like I Am An Automotive Journalist.
Hagerty really had a chance to turn all of this around, and I think you're right in predicting that nobody ever will. I really love reading your posts because just about every one feels very personal to me, and I'll be sure to share this one with my dad.
We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the business, and all the people necessary to do it, but there was too much cowardice, simping, and wanting to be liked.
It kills me how a company that insures *classic cars* is all in on EVs, like they’re the insurance subsidiary of the WEF. At least a company like Hemmings knows who pays their bills.
I never understood the need to be liked by people who don’t give a shit about you.
"I never understood the need to be liked by people who don’t give a shit about you."
Because you're a grown man.
What's my excuse ? .
-Nate
You're an old softie!
You say the sweetest things Jack =8-) .
-Nate
Occam's Razor Take: Taking cars off of the road means less in payouts for collision damage.
A bonus is that it means fewer proles mucking up the scenic getaways.
They may know who pays their bills but when I was slandered as a racist for the temerity of quoting the name of a Lenny Bruce routine in a discussion of slurs over at TTAC, Hemmings acted cravenly before the mob. I was made persona non grata at a publication that solicited me to apply for an editor's position before they posted it publicly and described my work as awesome. I considered it an honor to be writing for the publication but they didn't act very honorably in my regard.
Agree 100%. The hagerty EV propaganda just went berserk and it makes me ill.
You could take that statement and carry it directly over to a description of the Federal Government.
You can't tell the truth. There is too much money at stake. This situation will continue until some sore of black swan implosion event resets the game, so it can start again.
"Apparently he owns a VW Jetta wagon, shared with his wife."
What else does he share his wife with? BA-DUM-TSHH
"...rich scent of “Hoppe’s Number Nine” wafting from our freshly revealed undercarriage..."
This is why I use WeaponShield: smells great, and nothing gets a lady going like an olfactory mystery.
Half of the dudes in this business would let someone fuck their wives. At least one of them made a business out of it.
Why?
Because brewing craft beer one glass a time didn't pay the bills?
As a paying subscriber I feel I can demand that we hear this story!
I think Rodney should investigate and guest post.
I'm saving the nastiest stuff for when I get diagnosed with cancer, just to make sure I avoid those pitying looks.
Speaking of cancer and pitying looks...
There's a word in Yiddish, nebech, it means an unfortunate person. It's passed into English here in America as nebbish, though that has taken a different meaning, more like nerd than someone with a dark cloud over them. Many years ago my sister lost her 11 year old daughter, Stacy, to Ewing's cell sarcoma. She once told me that she didn't want people to call her a nebech.
By the way, I saw my sister do something that had I not witnessed it with my own eyes I would have a hard time believing someone could do it. We were sitting shiva (the Jewish week of mourning) for Stacy at my sister's place on Staten Island. A bus pulled up with Stacy's classmates making a condolence call. My sister taught science in NYC junior highs for about 40 years, only retiring when the racist leftists running NYC public schools made it "impossible" for her to teach (and she's never voted for a Republican in her life). In the space of a second, I saw my sister switch from being a grieving mother to being a teacher, comforting Stacy's classmates.
Susie's of that last generation of smart American women who became teachers, before feminism convinced them to be doctors and lawyers.
Jack, the way you abuse your body, there won't be a "need" for a cancer. I don't know about pitying looks, but reading about it does make me shake my head...
I've never quite understood why guys whose wives are horny (or compliant) enough to screw other guys in front of them aren't fucking their brains out. The weirdest part are the ones who think that kissing is off limits because apparently sticking your tongue in her mouth is more intimate than dipping your wick. Humans are strange. Go figure. If anyone asks how I know this stuff, tell them that I'm well read.
! YIKES ! .
This is one thing I wondered about because I understood that it's _her_ decision whom she beds, far too few men think they're in charge there, I tried hard to make sure she didn't feel the urge to go elsewhere .
Never forget : if _you're_ not getting any, someone else is .
-Nate
Wife? there's a wife?
No points for guessing who runs that household.
Hoppes isn’t supposed to be used for cleaning that kind of a gun.
Explains the rash
An astounding number of the young guys at work have had an STD. Old ones, like gonorrhea or syphilis.
I didn’t know anyone who’d had either one in my youth.
I've heard that every woman in NYC has herpes nowadays because the bed-hopping rate is so intense. Who knows?
I’m so tired of the disclosures by auto writers that piously say “they offered me a branded hat, but I didn’t take it,” as though that makes the rest of the junket ok …
I don't think you're wrong, particularly with Jalopnik et al.
I have a small machine embroidery shop and I was standing in line at a Scion booth during a media preview so I could get a free logo hat. I thought to myself, "Self, this is stupid. You can get the same hat wholesale for less than $3 and put whatever you want on it." Since I like to do silly things it started being a thing with me and I now have piles of baseball hats with various logos on them.
You might be able to buy me with access to a cool car, but a baseball cap?
Just recently (on my trip stateside as it happened) listened to The Intercooler podcast about this very subject. The general gist of it was that Frankel and Prosser would rather spend more time in the cars and less time freeloading, and that for working freelancers being away for three or four days on a press trip for one article was not worth their while - it really only worked for staffers who were getting paid anyway.
My problem with all this is that what kind of person enjoys living the life of a high roller without actually being, you know, a high roller? Isn't this like wearing an expensive rented suit or watch and knowing you have to give it back?
I remember Jamie Kitman calling this out years ago when he had a column in Car magazine. He owned, I think at the time a Lotus Cortina and mentioned to someone in Lotus that he was having trouble with hard to find parts. A few weeks later a parcel arrived unsolicited containing said parts. He sent it straight back.
And yet he cheerfully accepted a McLaren to drive cross-country on a vacation.
"They drove a dump truck full of money up to my house! I'm not made of stone!"
My Insulin!
So long dental plan!
"He hasn't been seen since he promised to clean up the union."
As the owner of an old Lotus (in pieces) and someone who like McLarens I'll admit I'd have a hard time turning either of those things down.
For the record, I paid my own way and arranged lodging at my cousin's place in LA for that McLaren 675LT review. For the little bit that TTAC paid me, I ended up losing more than $500 on the review, particularly because Avis dinged me for smoking in my rental Jeep Patriot. Then I had to fight with the editor to get the piece published because he wouldn't edit it and 'Camry reviews get more clicks than exoticars'. The only way I got paid was because Jack graciously agreed to edit the piece, which was something like 4,000 words. Still, I would have been a schmuck not to do it. It was cheaper than a track day in a far more pedestrian supercar (a mixed metaphor but I like it) would have cost me. I got to drive what is something like McLaren's 3rd fastest car in the canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains, impress the folks at Peter Mullin's Bugatti-filled museum, and style down Rodeo Drive (okay, so it was at 6 AM, but I'm sure the mannequins at Bvlgari were impressed).
Jamie is a weird case to me, because despite being one of the more well-off journos in the biz, he isn’t afraid to cash in. He’s a decent enough writer and is interesting enough he could’ve done his own thing, but lately it seems he’s relegated himself to being first class on the gravy train and hanging out with noted doofus Brett Berk.
Turkey Berk, the chickenhawk with wattles who loves to take photographs with young boys and $199 sportcoats!
Have some compassion. As focused as at least some gay men are on aesthetics and hairless Greek god bodies, it must be tough out there for old queens. I mean, how has Harvey Fierstein ever gotten laid? Must be his sense of humor.
I used to enjoy his columns what happened to him? I'm not a curious guy, haven't read a thing by Kitman since Automobile mag days.
I follow him on FB. I'm not sure how much auto stuff he's doing these days - mainly shares articles that I don't think most posters on this site would agree with.
True case of TDR with him.
inverted morality. keep the stuff and tell everybody how nice lotus is to you. jeepers!
I find myself wondering how much difference a sudden shift to honest car reviews would actually make to the car buying public. In my experience, as a person who is known to be into cars, when anyone asks advice about buying a car, they have exactly zero actual interest in what your opinion is. They know what they want, and they want your affirmation/praise for that choice. I suspect that's why the automaker PR scheme has gone on for so long, so successfully. People LIKE reading positive reviews about the cars they are planning on buying. I wonder how many years of sustained bad reviews it would take to make a noticeable dent in say, Camry or CRV sales. When it comes to higher end vehicles too, forget it. Most of those are either emotionally-driven or clout chasing purchases - very few actually care that the 3 series in 2022 doesn't hold a candle to an E46 in driving dynamics, they have a _BMW_. Ultimately, it seems like those of us in the enthusiast community may see this as a bigger deal than it actually turns out to be; the reviews are bought and paid for, but it's been going on for so long that it's calcified notions about brands and models in people's minds. I doubt most people go and drive two dozen different cars when trying to decide what to get, like I do, but I was never the target for the 2022 Accord review in Motortrend anyway. I suppose what this has been an extremely long-winded way of saying is that the auto industry has fostered so much cultural inertia with their PR over the decades that even if everyone started being honest, most of the public would probably find a way to justify the purchase anyway.
I have to say, when I came across Jack's review of the first-gen CX-5, I felt pretty good about myself for finding one and buying it a couple of years ago.
It needs to be a Project Farm typa dude in order to make any difference.
I'm shocked a channel as virtuous as Project Farm would have a video all about vices!
Silent, booooo
U R WELCOME
You've also inadvertently hit upon the original handle behind the concatenation.
Damn big words Jack .
-Nate
"if everyone started being honest, most of the public would probably find a way to justify the purchase anyway."
I can tell you that your recent comments on the reliability of the F86 platform drained any interest I had in acquiring one for a track toy.
Shit I missed that, was it in one of the articles? I have been looking at purchasing a new GR86 and would want to occasionally do local club days with it. I have also heard that a couple of the last body style had popped motors at HPDEs at Lime Rock, so I was already a little nervous even though that was second-hand info.
Do you like my new car?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTqb8ndLe0k
The master at work.
I'd be willing to bet that Kaylan and Volman contributed to the lyrics. I saw that band at Meadowbrook. Great show. Has anyone written a song about incest as thoughtful as Magdalena? Speaking of Flo & Eddie, I saw that the Turtles are part the Happy Together Tour 2022, headlining an all-star lineup that includes Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, The Association, The Classics IV, The Vogues, and The Cowsills. Shirley Jones, Susan Dey, and Donny Boneduce are still around but I don't think you could do the Partridge Family without David Cassidy. I mean that would be like "The Who" touring without Keith Moon or John Entwhistle.
Totally off-topic, but The Association is certainly on my Spotify most-played list this year. I have an almost year old daughter named Whitney, so naturally every time we are in the car we are singing 'Whitney' to the tune of 'Windy'.
Well ... I can say that I bought my first two cars (back in the '90s) based on the Consumer Reports reliability reviews. And they served me well, one of them being an excellent drive to boot.
I bought my next two cars based on the years of reading Car and Driver. That did not work out so well.
Perhaps I'm too old and cynical, but I do not think that honest car reviews today would make much (any?) difference, because in my experience the vast majority of affordable cars today are just crap.
Given the same amount of money, I'd rather buy something made 15+ years ago that is still in decent shape, and spend the difference rejuvenating it the way Jack did with that Milan.
One never knows, Steve ;
One of my sisters asked me which Diesel powered American made 3/4 ton truck to buy to tow her two axle horse trailer .
As I didn't know and find them all mostly the same I suggested she rent one of each for two weeks then choose the one she liked best, in the end she bought a GM product and loved it until her hips and knees gave out ending her ability to ride .
She kept it for several more years until the brake pipes rusted out (?!! WTF GM ?!) , apparently this is a thing, I found her a retrofit repair kit but she sold the truck on dirt cheap and still misses it .
So, there are some who listen .
This same sister bought herself a spiffy BMW convertible as a lifetime treat to have survived, everyone else told her not to, she's keeping it garaged and loves driving it top down whenever the weather (Richmond, Virginia) permits .
I have a few family members who asked , not sure if they listed or not though .
-Nate
"In my experience, as a person who is known to be into cars, when anyone asks advice about buying a car, they have exactly zero actual interest in what your opinion is."
Maybe it's just the kind of people who ask my opinion, but I've pretty much had the exact opposite experience. When I get asked it really is one of two scenarios. The first is the person who knows pretty well what they want and is just looking for confirmation from their friend the car guy that they are not making a horrible mistake. The second is the completely non-car person who has to buy a replacement car. For me these are the fun conversations. Their question is really just what are the options out there in the price range. I almost never recommend a single option, but will generally come up with a list of 5 or so vehicles to try out. They almost always end up buying something off my list.
It would be a shame if Frank Bacon had to pay tax on those tickets, hotel stays, and outrageous meals, which I think they should under longstanding IRS guidelines.
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/a-02-18.pdf
I'd agree. In that IRS memo I linked, they state the following
"This relief does not apply to travel or other promotional benefits that are converted to cash, to compensation that is paid in the form of travel or other promotional benefits, or in other circumstances where these benefits are used for tax avoidance purposes."
Given the extravagance, personal-use gifts regularly provided to journalists, and over-the-top food/booze/hotel for what is clearly a quid-pro-quo of a favorable review, how would the lifestyle benefits NOT be considered compensation?
This is a lot different than enjoying a decent meal stuck in an airport traveling as part of your W-2 job, or something like what Lotus did releasing the Evora 400, where they just rented a non-F1-grade track, had cold cuts for lunch, and reimbursed mileage to and from the venue.
That's the opinion of Danger Girl, who works in an industry where every single thing is disclosed to the Feds.
(She's an OnlyFans ho.)
Dude, eBay and Reverb send 1099s now for shit you sell online, and you gotta show a cost basis. Thank our President for that.
This may be a dumb question, but how does this work for some slob like me who is offloading hoarded auto/motorcycle parts? More importantly, how do I show a cost basis for something I bought on Craigslist 10+ years ago?
I'm sitting on a stack of car parts that will likely never sell locally, meaning that they will either go on eBay or sell via a Facebook group (meaning Paypal).
Dear lord don't get me started on 1099's. I have to send out at least a half dozen every year. Which means I need to get all sorts of accounting stuff done early and send it to my CPA so THEY can send stuff out.
A lot of people really don't like it when I tell them I need their SS Number. At least these days I can get my accountant to ask them for it. Even then though, some folks are difficult.
At least my cover artist lives in another country!
Isn't that EVERY industry?
It sure as hell isn't autowriting, where people are regularly given gifts over the threshold. The gifting of iPads was common for a while.
Do these "gifts" come in old shoeboxes?
I have never heard a credible tale of a cash bribe in autowriting. It's always STUFF and travel.
If they tried you'd have a bunch of autojournos looking up "launder" in the dictionary.
At the first Chicago Auto Show media preview that I attended, as I walked past the restaurant in the Hilton adjacent to McCormick Place, a Kia rep was handing out $10 phone cards. Staples' Canadian branch was a corporate sponsor of the Toronto Auto Show. That was back in my swag selling days so I grabed a few of every press kit. When I got home I discovered that each of the Staples' press kit had a $10 gift card good at their stores. I had a dozen press kits so I drove over to Windsor and got some office supplies. I'd say that a gift card or phone card is the functional equivalent to cash.
wait... what? OnlyFans?
I'm kidding. Dating one stripper was enough for me!
lol. I figured as much, but in this day and age, who knows?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu0-HIMyfvc
Honest ask: Why would this be taxable income for the individual when other types of company-paid travel for business purposes isn’t? My firm doesn’t add the value of travel I do for them to my W2.
Right, but I think they’d argue the hotel stays/flights aren’t “gifts” but rather necessary accommodations to allow the person to take the trip. To your and Jack’s point, though, these trips are clearly lavish well beyond “necessary” so I could see someone making an argument that some (large?) percentage of the value is a gift. Don’t know; not a tax lawyer.
My wife won a very nice trip to the Bahamas for 2 with work, a President’s trip for sales and sales support (her) who hit certain metrics. A large percentage of the trip was work, but we did get 1099’d for the balance, I think it was $1500 each. Because I’m a man I decided to go with her and fuck her there myself, rather than send some other guy to do it.
When I was a kid my dad would never take free coffee or meals, but he would always take the Mets tickets and signed balls. I wonder if that is taxable now.