Much of the nostalgia for degrading work in youth can, I suspect, be ascribed to a sort of attenuated elegy for the monastic discipline by which hard work, strictly regimented, could impart the virtue of humility, and out of that, real human flourishing.
But the Opere Dei of the Benedictines was no more strictly regimented than with respect to prayer -- ora et labora. It was not merely that prayer came alongside labor, but that the two were formally integrated. There was no higher Work of God than the Liturgy of the Hours (by which, incidentally, even very simple men came to know the entire Latin Psalter by heart.)
In due time the extraordinary productivity of this system overflowed into the world, with libraries, breweries, apiculturists, farms, vineyards, carpentry shops, guilds and everything else.
The modern capitalist world, having abandoned Dei, tried to hold on to the enthusiasm for Opere. But without the higher purpose of vocation, the "calling out" to the Work of God, to undergird the productivity, this required stern measures and subtle impostures:
"The ancient workingmen’s guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself." (Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum)
"To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.
"Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life....the working man himself would be among the first to suffer.
"They [the socialists' contentions] are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.
"since it (socialism) only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal.
"By replacing parental authority with state supervision over children and the household, socialists act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home." (Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum)
"The Word became flesh and picked up a hammer. To imitate Christ, we must do the same: integrate the intellectual and the spiritual life with the physical work of man. The union of the head, the heart, and the hands is fundamental to the gospel, as it is the very same integrity that the Son assumed at his incarnation. Christ, who reveals humanity to itself, shows that the humble worker is not merely respectable but is the very archetype of humanity. The world grumbles at this disruptive revelation: 'Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter?' (Mark 6:3)."
I am three months away from my first foray into fatherhood, and have been racking my brain to recall the decisions that led me to upper-middle-class comfort. Feels like a lot of it was just luck, as I almost fell into the retail trap (bicycle shop guy, in my case). Now that I'm hiring & firing for sales roles, I've found mid-30s retail/service industry guys are a mixed bag - some are tremendous talents, others are too bitter & feral to enter the semicivilized world of industrial sales.
On another note, Jack has invited me to share a listing for a ZRX1100 that I'm selling. It's a very nice bike, though it's a well-spec'd rider rather than a museum piece. Happy to offer special ACF pricing to anyone here who may be interested:
The green ZRXs mash EVERY "overfed juvenile delinquent who aged out of the system" button I've got in this busted up old body. The 1100s are fabulous. The 1200s are more.
good god almighty but that bike is gorgeous and appears to be fully and properly sorted. the suspension work alone! did I mention it's a gorgeous bike?
I can't stop looking at this bike. I had a Kerker pipe advert with a Eddie Lawson Replica Z1000 taped on my wall in 1983 or so. I loved the bike in the 80s, I loved it when they reintroduced them. I love them still.
At this point, however, Mrs. Galat would be pretty humorless if I brought one home. In some things, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission... but a screamin' green superbike might be a bridge too far just now. We're still "adjusting" to buying the Acura, even though she loves the car and I had ostensible permission.
Kerker makes nice pipes, my CB750 had their 4-1 system. Didn't have much ground clearance with my lardass on the seat, and made my right ear ring from steady RPM drone, but the wail that bike made on a run up the tach made it worth the trouble.
i am 10 mo in with my first in a similar situation. it was a combination of luck, sacrifice, personality fit, and actually some structural laziness that led me to where i am. luck, picked a small niche that blew up. sacrifice, ive missed bachelor parties, weddings, funerals, vacations, etc. to be what i needed to be to who i needed to be with professionally. personality fit, im just that guy, pal. structural laziness, it was easier to keep grinding at what i was doing than get certs/switch jobs. that special potion got me where i am (i am in my early 30s and somewhat embarrassed by my list of luxuries at times)
baby advice from a 10 mo. father of 1
1) do NOT fall into the baby industry consumerism trap. buy and be gifted strategically and start small
2) DO open a 529 that is tax deductible in your state as soon as you have a SSN for them
3) give your partner, and yourself, endless grace. this is completely new to you both. you will be tired, you will get angry, the baby will not do what you want, ever. your spouse will be the same. give grace and ask to receive it thusly.
4) the first 2-3 months the baby will sleep a lot. use the time wisely. keep your gym routine, let your wife do what she needs to do (hair, nails, whatever). pick a project and finish it.
5) enjoy the time together. you will never be a family of three again, the second one will come and then its a totally different situation.
I don’t have anything to add except: 4.5) buy and build the best home gym you can fit inside your home. I still keep a membership but being able to take 30 minutes for a 20 min workout and ten minute cool down/shower is totally priceless.
Oh and
6)if you are of a late-rising chronotype, first, Hahahahaha, second, that is going to have to change perhaps not immediately (it’s advantageous to be on a different time-rhythm with a new baby as you can help by changing and bottle feeding the newborn while the child’s mom sleeps)
But eventually you will have a full-on kid, hopefully 2, and at that point you will need to be compos mentis when children are in their waking hours (typically, 6/7AM until 7/8PM depending on your kid). It would have done me good to just change to earlier waking earlier. For some people who need good amounts of rest, this probably implies less (or no) drinking, which will always be a better look on a father anyway.
7) sleepbooks. No more than two but you’re gonna study that mfer* until you’re crosseyed. Sleep training does work if you are consistent and intentional about it but it is an art and a science. Feeding is almost certainly a part of it, so if you can't keep the newborn's meals on a very strictly timed regime you will have a harder go of it. Note on sleep: some kids are good (sleep night by 5-7 months), some kids are heavenly (sleep night at 3 months)... and some will wake up every two hours to pound an 8+ ounce bottle of breast milk every two hours until twelve months old. Luck of the draw!
For a father of sons, something like “of boys and men” and or “shop class as soulcraft.” There’s a plethora of these but to grasp what has changed is critical so you can prepare any son to succeed in Cowardly Dishonest Feminineworld™️💅 without getting to bummed out about the ghastly state of affairs. You could also try "Under Saturn's Shadow" by James Hollis as it applies here. At least the first few chapters.
Regardless of what you think about him personally, look into opening one of those Trump Accounts when they come on line in July. I have some TDS addled relatives that are refusing to consider them. It’s “free money”, morons.
Stan - sorry, I just saw your DM. Yessir, it sold (for asking!) about three days after I posted it. That almost never happens on Craigslist/Marketplace, I'm honestly still pretty shocked.
MotoGP brings Marquez mayhem in HERETH (Jerez) Thpain.
Qualification had a shocker with Alex Marquez placing in 5th due to weather conditions, and not because he had the hottest pace in the dry. Marc on pole position, Zarco 2nd (who last did something of note a year ago winning at LeMans in the wet), Digi 3rd, Bez 4th, and Acosta 6th. Jorge Martin is still struggling to put on a great lap on a fresh soft tire with the Aprilia and was a lowly 7th grid position.
In the sprint the Marquez brothers quickly went 1-2 with Marc in the lead. Bez plummeted backward with a tear-off ruining his launch and resulting in massive wheelspin and no drive. The weather soured a short while in and Alex overtook Marc. Conditions continued to worsen until Alex had a brief moment and almost lost the front, and Marc immediately crashed out behind him on the last corner. Marc kept his bike running, waited for traffic to clear, and rode (technically legally and may result in a rules change) a little bit backward to hit pit lane and swap to the wet bike.
The flag to flag was on as some pushed the limits hoping for the rain to subside, and lost out, and others went for quick bike changes. Brad Binder briefly held the lead until he crashed out on rain tires. Bagnaia would take his place, but not for long, as Marc Marquez scythed past him and finished the sprint a full 3s ahead. Alex Marquez crashed before he would swap to his wet bike, Bez crashed as well, along with Mir, and Toprak (who took out Savadori). Jorge Martin retired early with a brake issue which stuck his pads and had his brake disc on one side of the front wheel glowing with heat.
In the race it would again be a swift Marquez 1-2. This time with Alex showing his dominant pace and putting his brother to the test. Marc tried to keep up with little brother, but lost the front and trashed his motorcycle for a zero point race. No one would come close to Alex after that and most of the fighting occurred further down the field.
Bez finished a comfortable second and soothed the pain of his points free DNF from the sprint.
Digi passed the checkered flag a distant third after taking too long to clear traffic and unable to exceed Bez' pace.
Jorge Martin completed the race in fourth and kept the Aprilia 1-2 alive in the championship standings.
A late charging Ogura looked good and, were his qualifying better, would have been a podium threat. He and Raul Fernandez tangled for a time before Ogura's superior pace and a solid pass put him in 5th.
Zarco, of all people, managed to keep his Honda in the top 10 for a good finish.
Enea Bastianini was the top KTM in 8th.
Fermin Aldeguer, still limping after his femur break, finished 9th.
MotoGP runs at LeMans the weekend after this. Will the heavens open and God smile upon Johann Zarco again? Probably not.
As I've said, I've been in an abusive relationship with the CONCEPT of employment since I was 16. My first ten jobs were in retail. AND THEY ALL SUCKED.
If I had children, I'd tell them to steal cars or smuggle sloths or fucking PANHANDLE ("Need hookers and blow. Plz hlp. God bless", "Support the United Negro Pizza Fund", "Hungry hungry hobo") before I'd ever let them work a counter someplace.
Retail fucks up your mind. It poisons your opinion of mankind. It makes you think you yourself are only worth thirty grand a year. Eventually, it makes you hate yourself.
Real work's better, but American Hustle and Genius cultures still make you feel like some inadequate loser if you still need a job after 40.
Who were these people? Why were they qualified for SNAP? Was it a GT3 or a 2004 Cayenne V6?
With notable exception of the lambos and Ferraris, the rest of those makes can be found quite cheap if not, exactly, good. You *can* buy a very cheap Bentley. You also really, really should not do that.
It doesn’t matter. The Porsche could have been an 914. All that matters is that we were giving them a card to buy food, when they could have bought their own food.
These people don’t even buy food with the cards, they trade the SNAP cards for money.
Alas never driven one, I hear they’re great but compared to the 4cyl a little heavier in the nose which is felt at turn in.
Mine is the sport to so has the quad seats brakes wheels. The 280hp esp with xf 8 speed is more than plentky for the road. It does however sound like a diesel taxi at idle.
There is a wall of tq which makes it very driveable in a modern slightly turbo delayed way.
Fair point, but are these all NEW cars, or BHPH specials? Which could bankrupt even those in the know, much less the quintile that would gravitate toward BHPH lots.
Just my guess, these were new or very nice cars. Scammers aren’t going to scam and reward themselves with junk. The scammer mindset is to show off his ill gotten gains.
May be an unpopular opinion, but I think its great that you see the ugly side of people. Retail people get a firsthand look at how people are behind the masks...
I can't accuse you of living in a bubble. I think that's awesome.
Having some drunk guy stomp out of your store at 11:30 on a Sunday night because you have to get the till counted by midnight or the week's sales'll be short a day, he's swearing at you and you tell him point-blank "YOU USE PROFANITY, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU!" is a window into a world I can live without.
It needs to be explained to every youngster that for their entire life they will be paying for and avoiding the bottom quintile, but they don’t need a job at McDonalds to learn that.
They only need to be sat down after they get their first paycheck, and each government deduction on the paystub needs to be highlighted in a different color, then the paystub needs to be framed and hung on the wall where the kid can see it everyday.
Kids definitely see it, but it needs to be pointed out to them what is actually happening, since they are usually not taxpayers when they’re in school.
Public school is a dangerous place. In the bottom quintile zip codes the race war public schools will get your kid killed and the killer will not do time. Even in the best, public schools teach malaise, low effort and encourage precocious sexual immorality. It's a shit choice if there are any other options for you.
There are still pockets of middle America that more closely resemble Mayberry than the concrete jungle. They’re possible to find, but you need to be looking for them.
There’s a few terrific school districts in the Toledo suburbs. They have some issues with stuff on the fringes, like occasional drug stuff in the high schools, but as long as the kids are well-parented and know to stay away from that stuff, they’re good.
It gets there anyways, in a way. As we get older we fall into circles that are more similar in class and disposition as ourselves.
I just think it's good to know what's out there. Otherwise you get these young people that try to lecture me on how there are no bad people. Just bad economic situations...
When I was in HS, the ambitious ones dealt weed, changed ids etc. others excelld at sports, some excelled at everything. Basic salary menial work can teach you to be 100% sure you don't want that and make for some ambition.
The real reason to work at retail or mcdonalds or subway is to realize very quickly you never want to do it again. It's not about learning to "work hard" if anything it's about learning how to look like you're working hard because that is a skill that will get you your next promotion in corporate america
Work is like trying to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, except your crew is comprised of various parts of your self.
The choice feels like between grinding mediocrity or swearing allegiance to some deranged vision of success that involves total domination of your time and attention for the benefit of a cluster B culture created by a broken person whose particular perversions allow them to reap material success and spread their tentacles through the world.
There's a third choice (the other two being grinding mediocrity and completely selling out) -- a Judeo Christian concept called "the Sabbath". I was raised with it, but almost nobody practicing it understands the point. We were told "it's a holy day to remember God and worship". Indeed, that's a small part of it, but it's maybe 5% of the point.
The larger concept is to show me a third road. The Sabbath was commanded in a time when mankind had just emerged from the hunter/gatherer stage of history, and where survival was a 24/7/365 endeavor. Life was cruel and hard and short, and was spent planting and cultivating and harvesting and raising animals to ensure that one and one's family would not starve. It was not unlike the two options you put forward. The Sabbath was an act of faith -- faith that God Almighty sees our need and takes care of His children. It was a way of saying to the entire world, "yeah, I've got SO MUCH that I can do absolutely nothing one day in 7 and still be prosperous".
I was raised with the protestant work ethic -- that hard, grinding, menial work "builds character". Menial work did teach me that sometimes I've got to go through something to get to something better (delayed gratification) for sure, but it also told me that this is all I was good for as well. That's a lie and a trap. It ALSO tells you that if you want more you need to work more, and that's true up to a point -- but people like Mary Barra disprove the universality of the concept the bigger the numbers get. Mary doesn't work 1000x as hard as a Walmart stock clerk. People see that pretty early, and get pretty angry or depressed about it.
The Sabbath teaches that "God's got this". Work hard, yeah -- but your success doesn't depend on selling your soul to "the man" for filthy lucre. It's 100% possible to treat everybody well -- employees, vendors, customers, your family, yourself -- and still be 100% OK financially. It's possible. It takes a while before you know how much is enough, and when it's time to lay down and take a nap, but the nap is a part of it. God's got this.
Good things are not out of reach, a lot of times good things just exceed our faith. We quit on it because we know we don't have it in us.
My first job was working for my dad, and my dad was a hard boss. He came to be my best friend -- but when I started for him (at 12), he told me I was a "dummy" at least 5x/day. My first job for anybody besides my dad was for a place where the owner called me "Shit for Brains". When I showed up for the first time on a union jobsite as a 22 y/o apprentice, the normal jobsite ribbing seemed.... pretty tame. I'd been conditioned to think I was a dummy shit-for-brains worth about $4/hr.
It took a few very key people believing in me and taking a chance on me to flourish personally and professionally -- and the drive I had to work through any problem was hardwired into me by that point. The confidence and drive coalesced to give me a measure of success, as far as that went.
I started a business and it was wildly successful, but it seemed like a flash in the pan, like I couldn't depend on it. I wasn’t working any harder than I ever had, but I was making 3x the money. I couldn’t put my head around it. I didn't have the confidence that it was real or that it would last. I hadn't learned the concept of a Sabbath yet. So I put my head down and worked as hard and fast as I was able (and actually past what I was able). I "made hay while the sun shone", banked money, sold my time, and missed things I shouldn't have missed. I didn't mind -- I was actually pinching myself because I couldn't believe it could last.
But… it did. Days of prosperity became weeks of it, then months, then years. I slowly started figuring out what a Sabbath was really supposed to mean. That I could (and would) go to my kid's tee-ball game, or help my wife put in a garden, or take a vacation -- and that it would be OK. I didn’t always have to get the best deal on things, to maximize my money or time or effort to the most effect. I could loosen my death-grip on the wheel and enjoy the ride.
It wasn't money that made me feel secure, because monetary security is ALWAYS "just a little more", always just out of reach. "God's got me" just kind of settled into me. I relaxed a bit. I stopped hurting myself at work and having spectacular crashes in my work trucks. I stopped missing things -- I made every sporting event my kids participated in, every choral program, every birthday. It took a while, but I eventually hired people, because I began to trust that there was more than enough work for God to feed other people's families through me as well.
I'm imperfect in trusting that I'll always have enough and to spare. But I'm still working on it, still reaching for it, still stretching my tolerance for risk. I'm still probing my limits -- but I'm really coming to trust that God has no limits. I've got a guy working right now on an apartment over my garage while I'm sitting here writing -- the carpentry is something I could do myself, but something that I want to pay for because I want to prove to myself that paying for it is OK. I do this more and more. I want to spread it around -- to be smart about it, sure -- but to spread around what I've been given. Sabbath.
I don't know what you believe or what kind of faith you have. All I'm trying to say is that I've had a long and happy career after swinging to both of the extremes you laid out as the only two options. There is a third way, and I was inexplicably blessed to have found it.
Is the Sabbath about PAYING gigs, crapwork you don't wanna do AT ALL or everything, so you just splatter yourself across the couch and watch car crashes and cops-vs-drunks on YouTube?
I’m really glad it resonated. I was super-worried it would sound like a preachy pollyanna platitude. I don’t need to see myself as a slave to anybody or anything. God is asking all of us to trust that He’s got it.
He really does love all his retarded children— even this one right here.
I know, man. All I can say is, "if a situation is untenable, get away from it as soon as you can". It's a dog eat dog world, but I'd rather not eat dog. I will forever advocate for anybody who tries to write their own ticket.
Or as the great Norm Peterson once remarked when entering “Cheers,” after bartender Woody’s customary greeting: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear!”
Well said. As you suggest, the principle of the Sabbath rest is not confined to the rigid notion of the workweek but expands outward as wider blessing to man, beast and land. It is connected to the Jubilee, which was no trivial matter for the ancient Israelites.
Leviticus 25 commands a Sabbath year -- every seventh -- as well commanding that the year after the seventh Sabbath-year, in other words the fiftieth year, be celebrated as the Jubilee, the great feast of redemption, forgiveness, and release from toil, debt and servitude.
Indeed, the Book of Jubilees makes this connection explicit in Creation itself.
"And on the fourth day He created the sun and the moon and the stars, and set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon all the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and divide the light from the darkness. And God appointed the sun to be a great sign on the earth for days and for sabbaths and for months and for feasts and for years and for sabbaths of years and for jubilees and for all seasons of the years."
When Our Lord returned to his home town of Nazareth, he read from the Prophet Isaiah, whose bold words (Isaiah 61:1-2) echo Leviticus 25 but point to the coming Messiah as the true fulfillment of the Jubilee. Then Jesus began his homily: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Lk 4:21)
That he was claiming to be the Lord of the Jubilee may be obscure to us in the 21st century. It was in no way obscure to his original hearers. In a fury they drove him out and up onto a cliff, "that they might throw him down headlong."
For the Lord of the Jubilee is the Lord of the Sabbath, who can free us and bring rest, not only from the toils and debts of our earthly lives, but also from the eternal debt of our sins.
My problem is, I simply don't have the personality to work a Shit Job.
I got fired from a supermarket in college for running into a woman while bringing a string of 25 shopping carts into the store.
I got canned for maxing out the garage's new shop truck. FYI, late-90s Rangers get real light in the nose over a buck-ten.
I quit the parts store in Chicago after telling my "I-want-my-own-store" boss that the fact I was working there AT ALL meant I had failed at life in some profound way.
On the last day of my two-week notice, I told our biggest account at another parts store he was basically the villain from any random episode of "The A-Team."
I should've been hacking bank accounts or dealing drugs instead. Work sucks.
Tom Magliozzi from Car Talk: “Don’t be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you. I did such a fabulous job of making work afraid of me that it has avoided me my whole life so far.”
Said his brother Tom: “He actually hated working in any world. Later on, when we were doing Car Talk, he would come in late and leave early. We used to warn him that if he left work any earlier, he’d pass himself coming in.”
I didn't realize this was a music Substack - although upon reflection, I have been introduced to some great and good music here - like today. So many awesome items in this particular article and a "Heat" reference to boot!
I never talk about music on here so I'll pitch in:
What we ARE seeing right now is a bit of a renaissance in rock music. Alternative and even heavier rock is making a real push despite the industry despising them now.
Creed/Tremonti, Papa Roach, Evanescence, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Skillet, Korn, P.O.D., Lacey Sturm, Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin... all these bands are touring like crazy now and even putting out new music. It isn't lost on me that these are all OLD BANDS. What it does say to me though is that we're seeing a surge in these guys having settled down and deciding that it isn't just what a big label wants anymore. They're taking risks. Heck, about half of them have given their lives to Christ in some way and gotten back to the grind stone.
Things are changing. The era of the pop-star is dimming... and thank God for it. They aren't selling out stadiums anymore.
they are said to play phenomenally well. I've got a copy of Leviathan, considered the masterpiece, but haven't gotten around to listening to it. it's a strain of metal that I'm not really into. gimme some doom or atmospheric black metal, please.
Oh for sure. There are some that aren't as good at playing, but they at least play. The main issue to me is how over produced much of the pop music industry is. It has always been worked and re-worked, but now it's incredibly overdone. Nevermind using digital tools to add more and more to them.
And for the record, some rock bands are doing the same. Though, it seems far more rare. Rick Beato's interview with Mark Tremonti where they are talking about amps and recording (not that I know a ton about either) was fascinating just from a standpoint of how some of these current older rock groups are working to re-capture a bit of their older tone. It's pretty neat.
There is a hunger for musicians. An issue I still see though is a lack of young people playing like they did when I was younger. It has never been easier to learn to play and put out music to an audience. And yet... people in general are lazy about it.
+1 on Rick Beato's interviews. I just watched one with David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and loved seeing how he made the music that is so iconic now. He (David) seems like a happy fellow and loves doing what he does.
For sure. Is it just me or did many of those artists NOT COME FROM MONEY. Comparatively speaking, someone like Taylor Swift was handed a silver spoon and absolutely was never going to be allowed to fail. Everything is so manufactured.
Pop music is kind of a disgusting industry that has been ruled by pimps for a long time. They program these talented kids from early on to be actors for the rest of their lives.
Plenty of people are handled silver spoons and sell them for pennys. Not fucking up is something. There are millions of upper middle class people trying to buy their kids into fame and 99% of them are failing.
I don’t listen to music very often but when I do it is either 80s alternative or 40s big band. Around 2019 or so I was hopeful that 2020s music would be good thinking the pattern might hold but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
And anyone who tells you different is either stupid or lying. Case in point is tv. Today if a show gets 4-5 million it's just absolutely setting the world on fire. The show WINGS got easily over 20 million viewers an episode back in the early 90s and it wasn't a top 10 show!
Yeah, that is weird. But, I think it is either due to other commitments or their age. I should also note that there are still a ton of people my age that wouldn't do anything but download Metallica music after the ole Napster fiasco. I know that was ages ago so maybe it doesn't matter as much.
Not that I dislike the bands mentioned, but I don't feel much of the new stuff is all the original. I find myself listening to more obscure but popular enough post grunge.
Oh for sure. Lots of more obscure stuff to listen to. None of it gets even similar plays though on youtube. Spotify seems to be lowest common denominator still which is why bad bunny, swift, and mumble rap stays flying up it.
Interesting perspective on the summer job, and a question I have been grappling with for my own (still young) children. I grew up in a working-class house where of course it was expected that these jobs build character, and while it did teach me the responsibility of showing up I tend to agree I did not develop many useful skills or habits - really just learned to hate my work, do the bare minimum, bosses are clueless and evil, customers suck, etc.
Later in life I learned that the character-building summer job was one of the middle class traps that the upper class kids avoided. They were busy with activities that polished their resumes for admissions into elite colleges or jobs. If they did "work" it was in a job arranged by a relative / friend in a cushy role for an big-name company or a family member's business. Otherwise they were off starting their own charity or on an exotic vacation masquerading as charity work.
Like you, I have probably come to the conclusion that the typical summer jobs are to be avoided, unless I want my kids to be prepared for a lifetime of wage slavery.
I have a family member who worked in drug company labs for his high school jobs, and that ended up going on successful applications to medical school.
Maybe a kid’s first summer job can be a lark, but every part time job after that needs to have some kind of real purpose and be a valuable use of time.
I went through a phase where I pretended to like the fancy garbage, but then I grew up and realized that a simple lager is a perfect beverage and there isn’t much that can be improved upon there.
My parents worked both full-time when I was in school, so summer jobs were necessary for them having me "covered". I did a stint at McDonalds as a teenager (in the kitchen, not brushing toilets) and I agree with Jack's comments on everyone hating their jobs. The difference was: I was still going to school and knew I'd go further, while they were "stuck" there, and it bettered my pocket money as another plus. So it was okay. Did it build character? In a certain way I think it did, because I learned to appreciate blue collar jobs from a different perspective. My father ran his grandfather's company in the third generation: plumbing, sanitary installations and later swimming pool technology. So we were a blue collar family, too, and certainly in the medium income range. Not poor but far away from rich! I did a couple of summer stints at his company, but since I only had a love for cars, most of the time I spent working at auto repair shops or small dealerships. I was never destined to take our his company, and also never wanted to.
"The difference was: I was still going to school and knew I'd go further, while they were "stuck" there, and it bettered my pocket money as another plus."
I was struggling a bit to compile my thoughts on youth employment but this basically nailed it for me. It was pocket money for better beer and to cover my Ford employee discounted lease payments because I have loved cars since I could walk, talk, and read car magazines, and girls did not swoon over the gifted 1996 Ford Escort I had in HS lol Parents worked full-time, and we were fine, but not rich. They covered my insurance, college, and groceries, but not fun activity money. My wealthier relatives that had businesses gave my cousins their debit cards to buy basically whatever they wanted in college, including bar tabs. I worked, they didn't, and we all basically turned out the same. Moderately successful 30-somethings.
If anything, all I learned was to treat low-wage workers with respect. The 40 something guy with kids flipping burgers at a restaurant, the seasonal landscaping laborers trying to stash away enough money before winter, etc.
Perhaps another unpopular take here, but I welcome Chinese cars if they are worthy products. The qualifier for me is that they should go through the same rigorous regulations that the other car makers have to go through.
The trend I don't like however is that our lawmakers tend to give free passes for certain hand-picked companies. Like, why didn't Uber and Lyft have to deal with the same regulations as the cabbies??
I have a feeling the same will happen with Chinese auto. Someone in DC will just give a free pass to their cars and totally screw over the existing car brands.
I respectfully disagree. They are a military rival. Communists should be excluded from all civil society, including all their products, from a t-shirt to a BYD crap can.
Actually, IF we deem them as a military rival I agree with that view. Are we really enemies though considering we probably built up their entire EV industry and continue to buy so much of everything from them?
Spot on. All of the previous administrations played footsie with the “Nice Panda” Chinese, but now we, and increasingly many other countries, see China as the “Evil Dragon” that they are.
Hey, maybe Carney can import some Chinese wet markets in his next trade deal. If so, please send me a photo of a pangolin on the hood of a Miata. That would be very 21st Century.
They are a military rival of our nominal nation, but the people who call the shots around here don't even believe in nations
Those "people" would love to own a BYD dealership and become more wealthy. SO they will be allowed to be sold here, it's just a matter of who needs to get what favors done for/to him to rubber stamp the process
Far be it from me to prevent the economic precariat from having affordable wheels to go to work or school.
Jack is putting forth what Rob Henderson would call a “Luxury Belief” against those who are less fortunate than him (and don’t own a dozen cars) since he won’t suffer the downsides of not having a cheap car (again, he has many).
Here’s a pretty shocking fact: the only US manufacturer that sells cars starting at less than $30k* is the much-maligned-here GM with the very competent trifecta of Chevy Trax, Buick Envista, and Chevy Trailblazer.
*the Jeep Compass and Ford Maverick technically start under $30k but only before destination charges.
There's no need for any new car in the country to sell for under thirty grand. Affordable wheels means used wheels; a new car is a luxury purchase in and of itself unless you're buying a van or a pickup to start your own plumbing business. And that guy buys used, too, or leases a ProMaster.
“It’s one banana, Michael, how much could it cost? Ten dollars?”
My first car (that I bought for myself) was a used (16 year old) car that cost $28,900; it was a 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera with factory Aerokit and 18” Turbo Twist wheels.
Your first car sounds like a rip-shit-tear-ass ride; good on ya.
My first car, which I used to commute to community college and my JERB, was a 2004 Toyota. Private seller, cash deal, $3,600. That car cost me maybe two grand above fuel and oil over two years and 150k miles.
Five months ago I paid six grand for a 2005 example of the same car, and promptly put 20,000 miles on it. Hasn't cost me shit. My point is, the average bear just needs reliable transportation, and the floor on that is damn low.
My broader point is that while many American consumers say that they would like to “buy American,” what they really mean is that they would slightly prefer to buy a product made in America if it cost the same as a product made in “imported.”
Witness the clothing selection on offer at Walmart. One of the longest lasting Levi’s factories in America was located in my hometown; it closed around the millennium. During the ‘90s, many locals would make the drive toward Atlanta to shop at Walmart (we were bereft of such amenities until 2013) to buy jeans that had been made by people they knew.
Those days are long gone, but there IS a denim factory that persists in my hometown! Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James line makes some of their MiUSA denim in a small factory there. They are not for sale locally, however, because none of the local MAGAts are willing to pay ~$150 for a pair of jeans made by someone in the community. Much better to buy a cheap pair at Walmart.
There are those who buy precisely as you suggest. They tend to be on the poorer side.
And there are those who prefer to buy American when there is an option to do so, but 𝒏𝒐𝒕 when the option entails greater cost *and* reduced quality.
Example: My american denim cost more than chinese, but will last decades and its wear properties are thoughtfully considered to produce an attractive patina over time.
Should a prudent person accept a price delta and a quality downgrade at the same time?
Most cars made after 2012 are never going to be the great used cars that cars made between 1988 and 2012 were. The CAFE regulations implemented at the time meant that new engines and transmissions weren't sufficiently tested before being sold to the public. Also, there is every indication that the Germans hedged their bets on the 'desirability' of the EVs they would need to sell in the future by building finite lives into the cars they've been selling during the time frame. Documents have leaked showing that they knew all along that plastic timing components had useful lives around 62,000 miles. They want this generation of cars off the road as soon as possible to ensure future sales of inferior cars. The Germans got caught, but everyone is using oils that don't protect engines and components that can't withstand age or heat cycles.
The lower tier customers are such a low priority for the larger wallstreet corps that cheaper products are taken off the table. They probably CAN build and sell $25k cars with less features that last forever but the margins just aren't there. I'm guessing that the Chinese companies are willing to sell products at 10% margins. Lot of the American companies target 30% or more and if not it's not worth their time. They'd rather shut doors than take meager products.
If China is deemed a national security threat, then sure, let's take action. But if we are OPENLY trading with them, we will get smashed because we've become a luxury economy as of late.
Of course, the questions of how the government and political executives make decisions on these matters largely does not involve the precariat, who can of course "eat cake" and had better plan to, on this and so many other issues
The deciding factor is: can whichever administration grease its palms by administratively or legally fig-leafing Chinese car sales, and my guess is yes, with a sufficiently funded lobbying effort and a Newsom[snicker] or Vance [wheeze] administration they can definitely get this done.
The Chinese should still be forced to abide warranty and parts-availability considerations that are the law (or rulemaking) of the land, and I am personally excited to see if the compliance with such laws/rules reveals that Chinese cars are crap (as I am informed by people who I tend to trust) or better than sexual intercourse (as I am informed by people who would walk over barbed wire for a free hotel room).
"Like, why didn't Uber and Lyft have to deal with the same regulations as the cabbies??"
They smartly bypassed the cab medallion rentiering system, and then once dominant came back and demanded fair treatment.
The truth of what happened is half techno-utopian dream and half Matt Stoller venture-monopoly-rentier-capitalism nightmare.
The cab medallion bureacracies were their own sort of nightmare. For a time Uber was an improvement. Now they have simply become the new Taxi Medallion agency, except worse.
There may be a lesson in there, but I doubt it.
Cars are totally different. Cabs have many regulations affecting them, cars have VOLUMES of regulations. If the Chinese are allowed to cut through this process via political corruption you are 100% correct.
Didn't Tesla themselves bypass a bunch of regulations to get into the market unfairly? When I get time I will have to dig into this, but off the top of my head, I remember legacy cars being restricted for acceleration which Tesla wasn't affected by.
Ok, I guess the worst of it was that they got some states to relax on the franchise model for carmakers. I suppose this is another one where, if they had relaxed it before, then the other car makers would have probably exercised their option to sell directly too...
The other obvious one is their misleading representation of Autopilot and especially FULL SELF DRIVING. FSD has definitely improved, but it was nowhere near this level of functionality when it was introduced and released to the public! In so many ways, they've been a pretty scammy company. They get a lot of passes, that's for sure.
Many Taxi medallion owners in NYC were plutocrats who rented their mediallions to underpaid immigrants who toiled 12+ hour days. As medallion values climbed into the six figures, owners could repeatedly borrow against them.
This state enforced monopoly grift came crashing down thanks to Uber's hardball tactics.
Do not despair poor people, there is an entire industry that will also let you borrow against your assets too. Do you have a fancy watch? You can borrow against it. A Guitar, You can borrow against it!
When you think of rich people borrowing until they die, they're just pawning shit. At better interest rates.
With regard to cleaning toilets or any menial job, there are people in this world, clearly not a one who is an ACF subscriber, whose native talents and training are suitable for such work. Put another way, not every one is a nuclear physicist or a Tommy Emmanuel.
Be that as it may, it is appropriate for people to have done such work at least at some point for the simple reason that they then understand its nature and can find, to at least some degree, common cause with the people of such work. It is a quick cure for the "my shit doesn't stink" attitude some sport.
Electric chinese cars are turds. No one in the US will buy these turds. But the media who touts them as "bestest in the world durrz!" will not care as long as they get their lucre and Szechuan shrimp.
They won't sell for that when they have to have a parts and repair network at least for the warranty period AFTER they pass all FMVSS and EPA requirements. And I wouldn't trust them to self report.
An ex-Fiat dealer told me he was doing a pretty good business back in 87 and 88 selling Fiat parts to Yugo dealers who couldn’t get parts for customers cars from Yugo. At the time he was still selling Bertone X1/9s along with used cars.
I saw one on FB Marketplace in Detroit for $800 the other day. Runs and drives, even! Very tempting but my wife knows where my CZ is and how to take the safety off so I better let it be.
What pisses me off is that depending on the lawmakers that have the bigger influence, they will give free passes to the Chinese (or anyone they favor) for these standards to give them an unfair entry.
California requires EV batteries to have a minimum warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles, with at least 70% capacity retention... I wonder how many Chinese EVs can achieve that? That's an honest question, not a diss on Chinese EVs.
Even then it was a total pos with tiny donut wheels
I’m surprised it passed a crash standards even then. Yet they sold 50k. Imagine how many chores e cars would sell today under 20k. Motor tend just did some sort of review of a 10k Chinese ev. Saw the headlines didnt read what they said
Cant say, I try to avoid shit. the issue is peopel do buy it. Also in the 50's and 60s japanses stuff was known as crap, they got their game on. Possibly China will eb the same. Never count a player out, and China is a player.
We need to protect our domestics from immediate predations, but also they need to get their game on.
I have tried some chinese hifi a few years ago and for one, it really wasn't THAT cheap. Some of the quality is definitely not up to standards of the established hifi brands, but I gotta admit, the sound was quite impressive...
I was looking at buying a new radio for my daughter's car and was tempted by some of the cheap Andriods with giant touch screens but decided against it and went with a more expensive Sony with a couple less features but was designed with more longevity in mind.
Porsche sold 30k in 1986 and 23k in 1987 in the US so Yugo sold around double in 1987 but their margins were tiny. How much can you make on a $4000 car?
I remember talking to this dipstick at a party that had bought two Yugo’s - one for him and one for his wife - because they were such screaming deals. He found out that I had an Alfa Spider and he was ripping in Italian cars as he once owned a FIAT. Then told him his Yugo’s were repackaged FIAT 128’s. He refused to believe me.
Jack, serious question regarding GM. You can’t, as an American citizen and taxpayer, want GM to fail—regardless of how much you might hate the company. We have to be able to build stuff domestically, whether it’s bridges, bulldozers, blenders or Buicks. How do you fix GM? At what point is the corporation just too far gone to rehab? This is sad.
Contrary view. If GM had been allowed to go bankrupt back when they were bankrupt, the parts that would have been sold off would today be worth more collectively than the current GM. Smarter people than current GM management would have unlocked the value that was just sitting there and not being valued by management.
These dumb GM people should be working their fingers to the bone trying to fix their f*cked up company, but no, the lazy execs are being given stress relief options in their office even though it never appears that they’re stressed about the state of their company.
I dunno about GM, but many tech companies in the Bay Area provide all manner of amenities. Employees usually see them as perks, but management sees them as a way of keeping employees from having to leave the premises.
I don’t have time to write much now, but the short and narrow of my shitty job experience is that it’s more of a “scared straight program” while allowing you to have some extremely minuscule pocket money doing so - driving home the idea of making every dollar count.
In fairness it’s probably kept me poor and undervaluing my time for my entire existence. Double edged sword for sure. Also, as noted there is a demographic that relies on these jobs to exist because that encompasses their entire skillset and behavioral traits.
Much of the nostalgia for degrading work in youth can, I suspect, be ascribed to a sort of attenuated elegy for the monastic discipline by which hard work, strictly regimented, could impart the virtue of humility, and out of that, real human flourishing.
But the Opere Dei of the Benedictines was no more strictly regimented than with respect to prayer -- ora et labora. It was not merely that prayer came alongside labor, but that the two were formally integrated. There was no higher Work of God than the Liturgy of the Hours (by which, incidentally, even very simple men came to know the entire Latin Psalter by heart.)
In due time the extraordinary productivity of this system overflowed into the world, with libraries, breweries, apiculturists, farms, vineyards, carpentry shops, guilds and everything else.
The modern capitalist world, having abandoned Dei, tried to hold on to the enthusiasm for Opere. But without the higher purpose of vocation, the "calling out" to the Work of God, to undergird the productivity, this required stern measures and subtle impostures:
"The ancient workingmen’s guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place. Public institutions and the laws set aside the ancient religion. Hence, by degrees it has come to pass that working men have been surrendered, isolated and helpless, to the hardheartedness of employers and the greed of unchecked competition. The mischief has been increased by rapacious usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different guise, but with like injustice, still practiced by covetous and grasping men. To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands of comparatively few; so that a small number of very rich men have been able to lay upon the teeming masses of the laboring poor a yoke little better than that of slavery itself." (Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum)
"To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.
"Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life....the working man himself would be among the first to suffer.
"They [the socialists' contentions] are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.
"since it (socialism) only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal.
"By replacing parental authority with state supervision over children and the household, socialists act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home." (Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum)
As a protestant, I was unaware of Leo XIII. At least as it regards these topics, it would seem that he was a man who had it going on.
Excellent posts, Ronnie and Mr. Threepwood.
It's an impressive document all the way through.
What an EXCELLENT post. Thanks, sir.
On today's Memorial of St. Joseph the Worker (https://www.ncregister.com/cna/the-story-behind-the-feast-of-st-joseph-the-worker) I recalled to mind the very worthy institution, related to our topic here, in eastern Ohio -- the College of St. Joseph the Worker:
https://www.collegeofstjoseph.com/mission-and-vision
"The Word became flesh and picked up a hammer. To imitate Christ, we must do the same: integrate the intellectual and the spiritual life with the physical work of man. The union of the head, the heart, and the hands is fundamental to the gospel, as it is the very same integrity that the Son assumed at his incarnation. Christ, who reveals humanity to itself, shows that the humble worker is not merely respectable but is the very archetype of humanity. The world grumbles at this disruptive revelation: 'Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter?' (Mark 6:3)."
I am three months away from my first foray into fatherhood, and have been racking my brain to recall the decisions that led me to upper-middle-class comfort. Feels like a lot of it was just luck, as I almost fell into the retail trap (bicycle shop guy, in my case). Now that I'm hiring & firing for sales roles, I've found mid-30s retail/service industry guys are a mixed bag - some are tremendous talents, others are too bitter & feral to enter the semicivilized world of industrial sales.
On another note, Jack has invited me to share a listing for a ZRX1100 that I'm selling. It's a very nice bike, though it's a well-spec'd rider rather than a museum piece. Happy to offer special ACF pricing to anyone here who may be interested:
https://houston.craigslist.org/mcy/d/houston-1999-kawasaki-zrx-1100/7930865651.html
Someone should take your avatar and make it into shirts!
Any ACFer who buys this instead of the 2013 Triumph street triple I will sit outside of your house with a boombox!
Goodluck at fatherhood.
Scott, I like you. I like your bike. I just like Jim's bike more. It's green. It's 100% right.
My address is 101 E. Monroe St., Morton, IL. Bring some blues music for the boom box.
Doesn't count unless you buy it!
Stanistan is in Illinois?
It is, in a manner of speaking. We are bordered on all sides by the feudal lands of Lord Jelly Belly Pritzger, Grand Poobah of the State of Hellinois.
Jim, I'm not in the market but just wanted to say that bike is gorgeous!
Thanks! I think it's one of the most handsome production bikes ever made. I just pimped it out a bit.
*(ties himself to the mast)*
Must. Not. Look. At. Jim's. Bike.
DANG! I looked at it again! Sooooo sweet...
Think of how HAPPY it could make you!
Staaaaappp!!!
my first thought was, "it's in Jack's colors..."
its the wrong shade of green, sorry, no sale.
damn that looks cool as hell
The green ZRXs mash EVERY "overfed juvenile delinquent who aged out of the system" button I've got in this busted up old body. The 1100s are fabulous. The 1200s are more.
They're full on retro-awesome.
Top 3 or 4 coolest looking bikes ever in my opinion, and this one in particular is the best I've ever seen
Congrats on fatherhood, it’s a real blessing. Can I dm you about the sales role? Not looking just curious.
Certainly, hit me up. I'll keep an eye on my DMs.
good god almighty but that bike is gorgeous and appears to be fully and properly sorted. the suspension work alone! did I mention it's a gorgeous bike?
Sick bike!
I can't stop looking at this bike. I had a Kerker pipe advert with a Eddie Lawson Replica Z1000 taped on my wall in 1983 or so. I loved the bike in the 80s, I loved it when they reintroduced them. I love them still.
At this point, however, Mrs. Galat would be pretty humorless if I brought one home. In some things, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission... but a screamin' green superbike might be a bridge too far just now. We're still "adjusting" to buying the Acura, even though she loves the car and I had ostensible permission.
Kerker makes nice pipes, my CB750 had their 4-1 system. Didn't have much ground clearance with my lardass on the seat, and made my right ear ring from steady RPM drone, but the wail that bike made on a run up the tach made it worth the trouble.
What a breathtaking bike. Such good taste!
Good luck with the sale, and congrats / good luck with the delivery of your soon-to-be new family member.
i am 10 mo in with my first in a similar situation. it was a combination of luck, sacrifice, personality fit, and actually some structural laziness that led me to where i am. luck, picked a small niche that blew up. sacrifice, ive missed bachelor parties, weddings, funerals, vacations, etc. to be what i needed to be to who i needed to be with professionally. personality fit, im just that guy, pal. structural laziness, it was easier to keep grinding at what i was doing than get certs/switch jobs. that special potion got me where i am (i am in my early 30s and somewhat embarrassed by my list of luxuries at times)
baby advice from a 10 mo. father of 1
1) do NOT fall into the baby industry consumerism trap. buy and be gifted strategically and start small
2) DO open a 529 that is tax deductible in your state as soon as you have a SSN for them
3) give your partner, and yourself, endless grace. this is completely new to you both. you will be tired, you will get angry, the baby will not do what you want, ever. your spouse will be the same. give grace and ask to receive it thusly.
4) the first 2-3 months the baby will sleep a lot. use the time wisely. keep your gym routine, let your wife do what she needs to do (hair, nails, whatever). pick a project and finish it.
5) enjoy the time together. you will never be a family of three again, the second one will come and then its a totally different situation.
Great list.
I don’t have anything to add except: 4.5) buy and build the best home gym you can fit inside your home. I still keep a membership but being able to take 30 minutes for a 20 min workout and ten minute cool down/shower is totally priceless.
Oh and
6)if you are of a late-rising chronotype, first, Hahahahaha, second, that is going to have to change perhaps not immediately (it’s advantageous to be on a different time-rhythm with a new baby as you can help by changing and bottle feeding the newborn while the child’s mom sleeps)
But eventually you will have a full-on kid, hopefully 2, and at that point you will need to be compos mentis when children are in their waking hours (typically, 6/7AM until 7/8PM depending on your kid). It would have done me good to just change to earlier waking earlier. For some people who need good amounts of rest, this probably implies less (or no) drinking, which will always be a better look on a father anyway.
7) sleepbooks. No more than two but you’re gonna study that mfer* until you’re crosseyed. Sleep training does work if you are consistent and intentional about it but it is an art and a science. Feeding is almost certainly a part of it, so if you can't keep the newborn's meals on a very strictly timed regime you will have a harder go of it. Note on sleep: some kids are good (sleep night by 5-7 months), some kids are heavenly (sleep night at 3 months)... and some will wake up every two hours to pound an 8+ ounce bottle of breast milk every two hours until twelve months old. Luck of the draw!
8) general books. Nothing beats the works of Catholic private school founder, James B Stenson, a positively legendary SOB and all time HOF father (https://www.amazon.com/Successful-Fathers-Powerful-Childrens-Characters/dp/1889334375 but he has like 6 books - they can be repetitive but they are all great), but consider many topics:
-discipline (and punishment)
-attachment parenting
-and books focusing on the sex of the kid.
For a father of daughters,
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1596980125/
For a father of sons, something like “of boys and men” and or “shop class as soulcraft.” There’s a plethora of these but to grasp what has changed is critical so you can prepare any son to succeed in Cowardly Dishonest Feminineworld™️💅 without getting to bummed out about the ghastly state of affairs. You could also try "Under Saturn's Shadow" by James Hollis as it applies here. At least the first few chapters.
As always good luck.
Regardless of what you think about him personally, look into opening one of those Trump Accounts when they come on line in July. I have some TDS addled relatives that are refusing to consider them. It’s “free money”, morons.
Not normally into bikes, but that one looks nice, indeed! 😎
I assume that since the Craigslist listing is down, the bike is sold?
Alas, I suspect I was too slow on the trigger.
Stan - sorry, I just saw your DM. Yessir, it sold (for asking!) about three days after I posted it. That almost never happens on Craigslist/Marketplace, I'm honestly still pretty shocked.
MotoGP brings Marquez mayhem in HERETH (Jerez) Thpain.
Qualification had a shocker with Alex Marquez placing in 5th due to weather conditions, and not because he had the hottest pace in the dry. Marc on pole position, Zarco 2nd (who last did something of note a year ago winning at LeMans in the wet), Digi 3rd, Bez 4th, and Acosta 6th. Jorge Martin is still struggling to put on a great lap on a fresh soft tire with the Aprilia and was a lowly 7th grid position.
In the sprint the Marquez brothers quickly went 1-2 with Marc in the lead. Bez plummeted backward with a tear-off ruining his launch and resulting in massive wheelspin and no drive. The weather soured a short while in and Alex overtook Marc. Conditions continued to worsen until Alex had a brief moment and almost lost the front, and Marc immediately crashed out behind him on the last corner. Marc kept his bike running, waited for traffic to clear, and rode (technically legally and may result in a rules change) a little bit backward to hit pit lane and swap to the wet bike.
The flag to flag was on as some pushed the limits hoping for the rain to subside, and lost out, and others went for quick bike changes. Brad Binder briefly held the lead until he crashed out on rain tires. Bagnaia would take his place, but not for long, as Marc Marquez scythed past him and finished the sprint a full 3s ahead. Alex Marquez crashed before he would swap to his wet bike, Bez crashed as well, along with Mir, and Toprak (who took out Savadori). Jorge Martin retired early with a brake issue which stuck his pads and had his brake disc on one side of the front wheel glowing with heat.
In the race it would again be a swift Marquez 1-2. This time with Alex showing his dominant pace and putting his brother to the test. Marc tried to keep up with little brother, but lost the front and trashed his motorcycle for a zero point race. No one would come close to Alex after that and most of the fighting occurred further down the field.
Bez finished a comfortable second and soothed the pain of his points free DNF from the sprint.
Digi passed the checkered flag a distant third after taking too long to clear traffic and unable to exceed Bez' pace.
Jorge Martin completed the race in fourth and kept the Aprilia 1-2 alive in the championship standings.
A late charging Ogura looked good and, were his qualifying better, would have been a podium threat. He and Raul Fernandez tangled for a time before Ogura's superior pace and a solid pass put him in 5th.
Zarco, of all people, managed to keep his Honda in the top 10 for a good finish.
Enea Bastianini was the top KTM in 8th.
Fermin Aldeguer, still limping after his femur break, finished 9th.
MotoGP runs at LeMans the weekend after this. Will the heavens open and God smile upon Johann Zarco again? Probably not.
As I've said, I've been in an abusive relationship with the CONCEPT of employment since I was 16. My first ten jobs were in retail. AND THEY ALL SUCKED.
If I had children, I'd tell them to steal cars or smuggle sloths or fucking PANHANDLE ("Need hookers and blow. Plz hlp. God bless", "Support the United Negro Pizza Fund", "Hungry hungry hobo") before I'd ever let them work a counter someplace.
Retail fucks up your mind. It poisons your opinion of mankind. It makes you think you yourself are only worth thirty grand a year. Eventually, it makes you hate yourself.
Real work's better, but American Hustle and Genius cultures still make you feel like some inadequate loser if you still need a job after 40.
"Retail fucks up your mind. It poisons your opinion of mankind. "
And here the powers that be want EVERYONE to be in the retail or service/delivery industry.
Gross.
Who's going to buy all these six-figure cars and seven-figure houses after AI puts us all out of work?
The people on SNAP who are living the good life. FYI that’s not you and me.
In a review of SNAP beneficiaries cross-checked against vehicle registrations in a red state, 14000 recipients were driving luxury cars, including:
3 Bentleys
3 Ferraris
11 Lamborghinis
59 Maseratis
141 Porsches
244 Alfa Romeos
306 Land Rovers
2098 Teslas
So yes, Teslas are still aspirational vehicles, and inexplicably, the scamsters love Alfa Romeos. I applaud their good taste? https://x.com/SecRollins/status/2049131612835586505
I’d love to know the context here…
Who were these people? Why were they qualified for SNAP? Was it a GT3 or a 2004 Cayenne V6?
With notable exception of the lambos and Ferraris, the rest of those makes can be found quite cheap if not, exactly, good. You *can* buy a very cheap Bentley. You also really, really should not do that.
Oh come on!
You know damn well SNAP'll get you the GT3. You just gotta launder it through enough Lakers tickets and black-market Pepsi.
It doesn’t matter. The Porsche could have been an 914. All that matters is that we were giving them a card to buy food, when they could have bought their own food.
These people don’t even buy food with the cards, they trade the SNAP cards for money.
SUPPLEMENTAL nutrition. EVERYBODY IS FAT!!!! We should pay these people to not eat.
Soylent Green would solve this.
Alfa also turn out to be below the average cost of a new vehicle today, that may work for the scamster, and used theyre really cheap.
Have 2 and imo theyre not only the best car in their class to drive, theyre by far the most affordable.
I need food because I don’t have the money and I just bought the worst Alfa in the USA still don’t go together.
At least the Italians will get a laugh out of it.
Tonale, theyre literally giving them away. A freind leased one for 250 a month.
A used stelvio with some miles can be a 10k car, but is still has a 3 k headlight.
I was at the fish shop the other day and peopel were buying live blue crabs with foodstamps. Something is fishy in Denmark.
"I need food because I don’t have the money and I just bought the worst Alfa in the USA still don’t go together."
This person is pushing 3 bills
You have a 2.0t Giulia right? How is it holding up?
I got a 2020 up to about 40k miles and it had some funky stuff happening. One of the best driving -- and prettiest! -- cars I ever owned though.
Yes a 19 2.0. As you said great driving car. I’ve only gotten to 36k miles,l. The one issue has been the fuel pump.
Some days I think it will last another decade and to give it to my son. Oters i think if
It starts going wrong what to replace it with. At this point it costs me nothing and anything new is 50k++++
What happened with yours
Do you have, or have you driven, the Quadrifohhhlio?
Alas never driven one, I hear they’re great but compared to the 4cyl a little heavier in the nose which is felt at turn in.
Mine is the sport to so has the quad seats brakes wheels. The 280hp esp with xf 8 speed is more than plentky for the road. It does however sound like a diesel taxi at idle.
There is a wall of tq which makes it very driveable in a modern slightly turbo delayed way.
Chris Rock had a bit once about how you could tell if there were drugs someplace.
If there's a Mercedes parked in front of an abandoned building.
If there's a helipad on top of a liquor store.
If you own an old Maserati, you'll also need government help to afford food.
Bottom quintile logic for the win!
Fair point, but are these all NEW cars, or BHPH specials? Which could bankrupt even those in the know, much less the quintile that would gravitate toward BHPH lots.
Just my guess, these were new or very nice cars. Scammers aren’t going to scam and reward themselves with junk. The scammer mindset is to show off his ill gotten gains.
That is a key question. The current mantra is Ai shouldn't put people out of work it should help, people and companies to produce more.
Saw a good one the other day. What happened to bank teller employment when ATM machines became ubiquitous?
They increased. Bank tellers per bank went down, but the banks opened more smaller bank branches everywhere and hired a bunch of new bank tellers.
I love counterintuitive examples like this.
The people who can already afford them.
May be an unpopular opinion, but I think its great that you see the ugly side of people. Retail people get a firsthand look at how people are behind the masks...
I can't accuse you of living in a bubble. I think that's awesome.
Having some drunk guy stomp out of your store at 11:30 on a Sunday night because you have to get the till counted by midnight or the week's sales'll be short a day, he's swearing at you and you tell him point-blank "YOU USE PROFANITY, I DON'T HAVE TO LISTEN TO YOU!" is a window into a world I can live without.
I get it...but you're wiser for it.
Lot of others who haven't been through tough times can just be plain soft.
It needs to be explained to every youngster that for their entire life they will be paying for and avoiding the bottom quintile, but they don’t need a job at McDonalds to learn that.
They only need to be sat down after they get their first paycheck, and each government deduction on the paystub needs to be highlighted in a different color, then the paystub needs to be framed and hung on the wall where the kid can see it everyday.
"for their entire life they will be paying for and avoiding the bottom quintile"
they figure this out in public school
Kids definitely see it, but it needs to be pointed out to them what is actually happening, since they are usually not taxpayers when they’re in school.
By second grade, I could already recognize the kids who didn't have two parents.
Literally the only reason I wanted to take honors and AP classes. I realized the worst people wouldn't be there.
Public school is a dangerous place. In the bottom quintile zip codes the race war public schools will get your kid killed and the killer will not do time. Even in the best, public schools teach malaise, low effort and encourage precocious sexual immorality. It's a shit choice if there are any other options for you.
YMMV of course depending on where you live.
There are still pockets of middle America that more closely resemble Mayberry than the concrete jungle. They’re possible to find, but you need to be looking for them.
as someone who went through it youre completely right
im certainly not suggesting it
There’s a few terrific school districts in the Toledo suburbs. They have some issues with stuff on the fringes, like occasional drug stuff in the high schools, but as long as the kids are well-parented and know to stay away from that stuff, they’re good.
I hope Milton Friedman is burning in hell for withholding tax.
Yeah but he was right about everything else. It was going to happen regardless.
I don't know about that, if your other option is plausibly building a life that doesn't involve those people at all.
It gets there anyways, in a way. As we get older we fall into circles that are more similar in class and disposition as ourselves.
I just think it's good to know what's out there. Otherwise you get these young people that try to lecture me on how there are no bad people. Just bad economic situations...
Hell, you can probably see that just standing near the checkout lines at a grocery store, or a real high-end department store, e.g., Nieman-Marcus.
Or waitaminit!! WAL-MART!!
When I was in HS, the ambitious ones dealt weed, changed ids etc. others excelld at sports, some excelled at everything. Basic salary menial work can teach you to be 100% sure you don't want that and make for some ambition.
Seconded. All in all my high school jobs weren't that bad - slicing lunch meat in a nice grocery store deli, cook in an Applebee's kitchen.
But you can see the exact moment I started making good grades in school was when I entered the unskilled workforce.
The real reason to work at retail or mcdonalds or subway is to realize very quickly you never want to do it again. It's not about learning to "work hard" if anything it's about learning how to look like you're working hard because that is a skill that will get you your next promotion in corporate america
And it is supposed to motivate you to get skills or education or something to avoid having to work those jobs for your entire life.
Maybe women could find men if they didn't have that whole "mile-long list of contradictory requirements" thing going on.
Although in fairness, each sex only wants two things from the other.
Men want "Pretty and not psycho."
Women want "Funny and confident."
Literally everything else is either optional or irrelevant.
Classic but still relevant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pInk1rV2VEg
Ooh! Ooh! Look what I found!
https://daydayday.substack.com/p/why-most-women-are-unloveable-now?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true
well THAT was an epic rant!
It seems like that guy’s got a he-LAVA good thing going on!
Women want: Funny and confident and CAN GIVE ME THINGS UNTIL THE SUN BURNS OUT!
alternate expressions are "until the Sun goes nova" and the ultimate "until the heat death of the universe"
Our sun can't go nova. See "Chandrasekhar limit."*
*Being pedantic again.
Lord Kelvin slides into her DMs.
I've been around for you
Been up and down for you
But I just can't get any relief
I've swallowed my pride for you
I've lived and lied for you
But you still make me feel like a thief
You got me stealing your love away
'Cause you never give it
Peeling the years away
And we can't relive it
Oh, I make you laugh
And you make me cry
I believe it's time for me to fly
You said we'd work it out
You said that you had no doubt
That deep down we were really in love
Oh, but I'm tired of holding on
To a feeling I know is gone
I do believe that I've had enough
I've had enough of the falseness
Of a worn-out relation
Enough of the jealousy
And the intoleration
Oh, I make you laugh
And you make me cry
I believe it's time for me to fly
Time for me to fly
Oh, I've got to set myself free
(Time for me to fly)
And that's just how it's got to be
I know it hurts to say goodbye
But it's time for me to fly
Oh, don't you know it's time for me to fly
Oh, I've got to set myself free
(Time for me to fly)
Oh, babe, that's just how it's got to be
I know it hurts to say goodbye
But it's time for me to fly
It's time for me to fly
It's time for me to fly
(It's time for me to fly)
It's time for me to fly
(It's time for me to fly)
It's time for me to fly
(It's time for me to fly)
It's time for me to fly
And unfortunately, we have so many boys and men who are neither funny nor confident!
Ooh! Ooh! Me! Right here!
Yeah, it's great being me.
Women aren't attracted to funny men. women find attractive men funny. If she's laughing at your jokes, she likes you.
funny, and confident, and rich, and doesnt work long hours, and lots of friends, and frequent vacations, and...
not listed: good looking, because an ugly man is not even considered human to foids
hoe math speaks of this
👍
Work is like trying to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, except your crew is comprised of various parts of your self.
The choice feels like between grinding mediocrity or swearing allegiance to some deranged vision of success that involves total domination of your time and attention for the benefit of a cluster B culture created by a broken person whose particular perversions allow them to reap material success and spread their tentacles through the world.
Or maybe I need a nap.
Employment is just respectable prostitution.
Except whores get to negotiate the final price for each transaction.
I think you need a nap. Literally.
There's a third choice (the other two being grinding mediocrity and completely selling out) -- a Judeo Christian concept called "the Sabbath". I was raised with it, but almost nobody practicing it understands the point. We were told "it's a holy day to remember God and worship". Indeed, that's a small part of it, but it's maybe 5% of the point.
The larger concept is to show me a third road. The Sabbath was commanded in a time when mankind had just emerged from the hunter/gatherer stage of history, and where survival was a 24/7/365 endeavor. Life was cruel and hard and short, and was spent planting and cultivating and harvesting and raising animals to ensure that one and one's family would not starve. It was not unlike the two options you put forward. The Sabbath was an act of faith -- faith that God Almighty sees our need and takes care of His children. It was a way of saying to the entire world, "yeah, I've got SO MUCH that I can do absolutely nothing one day in 7 and still be prosperous".
I was raised with the protestant work ethic -- that hard, grinding, menial work "builds character". Menial work did teach me that sometimes I've got to go through something to get to something better (delayed gratification) for sure, but it also told me that this is all I was good for as well. That's a lie and a trap. It ALSO tells you that if you want more you need to work more, and that's true up to a point -- but people like Mary Barra disprove the universality of the concept the bigger the numbers get. Mary doesn't work 1000x as hard as a Walmart stock clerk. People see that pretty early, and get pretty angry or depressed about it.
The Sabbath teaches that "God's got this". Work hard, yeah -- but your success doesn't depend on selling your soul to "the man" for filthy lucre. It's 100% possible to treat everybody well -- employees, vendors, customers, your family, yourself -- and still be 100% OK financially. It's possible. It takes a while before you know how much is enough, and when it's time to lay down and take a nap, but the nap is a part of it. God's got this.
Good things are not out of reach, a lot of times good things just exceed our faith. We quit on it because we know we don't have it in us.
My first job was working for my dad, and my dad was a hard boss. He came to be my best friend -- but when I started for him (at 12), he told me I was a "dummy" at least 5x/day. My first job for anybody besides my dad was for a place where the owner called me "Shit for Brains". When I showed up for the first time on a union jobsite as a 22 y/o apprentice, the normal jobsite ribbing seemed.... pretty tame. I'd been conditioned to think I was a dummy shit-for-brains worth about $4/hr.
It took a few very key people believing in me and taking a chance on me to flourish personally and professionally -- and the drive I had to work through any problem was hardwired into me by that point. The confidence and drive coalesced to give me a measure of success, as far as that went.
I started a business and it was wildly successful, but it seemed like a flash in the pan, like I couldn't depend on it. I wasn’t working any harder than I ever had, but I was making 3x the money. I couldn’t put my head around it. I didn't have the confidence that it was real or that it would last. I hadn't learned the concept of a Sabbath yet. So I put my head down and worked as hard and fast as I was able (and actually past what I was able). I "made hay while the sun shone", banked money, sold my time, and missed things I shouldn't have missed. I didn't mind -- I was actually pinching myself because I couldn't believe it could last.
But… it did. Days of prosperity became weeks of it, then months, then years. I slowly started figuring out what a Sabbath was really supposed to mean. That I could (and would) go to my kid's tee-ball game, or help my wife put in a garden, or take a vacation -- and that it would be OK. I didn’t always have to get the best deal on things, to maximize my money or time or effort to the most effect. I could loosen my death-grip on the wheel and enjoy the ride.
It wasn't money that made me feel secure, because monetary security is ALWAYS "just a little more", always just out of reach. "God's got me" just kind of settled into me. I relaxed a bit. I stopped hurting myself at work and having spectacular crashes in my work trucks. I stopped missing things -- I made every sporting event my kids participated in, every choral program, every birthday. It took a while, but I eventually hired people, because I began to trust that there was more than enough work for God to feed other people's families through me as well.
I'm imperfect in trusting that I'll always have enough and to spare. But I'm still working on it, still reaching for it, still stretching my tolerance for risk. I'm still probing my limits -- but I'm really coming to trust that God has no limits. I've got a guy working right now on an apartment over my garage while I'm sitting here writing -- the carpentry is something I could do myself, but something that I want to pay for because I want to prove to myself that paying for it is OK. I do this more and more. I want to spread it around -- to be smart about it, sure -- but to spread around what I've been given. Sabbath.
I don't know what you believe or what kind of faith you have. All I'm trying to say is that I've had a long and happy career after swinging to both of the extremes you laid out as the only two options. There is a third way, and I was inexplicably blessed to have found it.
Is the Sabbath about PAYING gigs, crapwork you don't wanna do AT ALL or everything, so you just splatter yourself across the couch and watch car crashes and cops-vs-drunks on YouTube?
It’s a state of mind, friend. It’s not just a day.
“Good things are not out of reach, a lot of times good things just exceed our faith. We quit on it because we know we don't have it in us.”
Thanks. I needed to hear this today
I’m really glad it resonated. I was super-worried it would sound like a preachy pollyanna platitude. I don’t need to see myself as a slave to anybody or anything. God is asking all of us to trust that He’s got it.
He really does love all his retarded children— even this one right here.
Here’s a good one I just saw today:
“Anxiety is the greatest evil that can befall a soul except sin. God commands you to pray, but He forbids you to worry.”
St. Francis de Sales
Talk about balm for the soul!
Amen, brother. Francis de Sales rocks.
"Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care."
You’re too good! I just read the sparrow quotes from the Bible this week.
Great book in the neighborhood:
Ryken, Leland _Redeeming the Time: A Christian Approach to Work and Leisure_ ISBN 080105169X
More and more of us have to report to managers who don't believe in this or any other Judeo-Christian principle.
I know, man. All I can say is, "if a situation is untenable, get away from it as soon as you can". It's a dog eat dog world, but I'd rather not eat dog. I will forever advocate for anybody who tries to write their own ticket.
Or as the great Norm Peterson once remarked when entering “Cheers,” after bartender Woody’s customary greeting: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world, and I’m wearing Milk-Bone underwear!”
Well said. As you suggest, the principle of the Sabbath rest is not confined to the rigid notion of the workweek but expands outward as wider blessing to man, beast and land. It is connected to the Jubilee, which was no trivial matter for the ancient Israelites.
Leviticus 25 commands a Sabbath year -- every seventh -- as well commanding that the year after the seventh Sabbath-year, in other words the fiftieth year, be celebrated as the Jubilee, the great feast of redemption, forgiveness, and release from toil, debt and servitude.
Indeed, the Book of Jubilees makes this connection explicit in Creation itself.
"And on the fourth day He created the sun and the moon and the stars, and set them in the firmament of the heaven, to give light upon all the earth, and to rule over the day and the night, and divide the light from the darkness. And God appointed the sun to be a great sign on the earth for days and for sabbaths and for months and for feasts and for years and for sabbaths of years and for jubilees and for all seasons of the years."
When Our Lord returned to his home town of Nazareth, he read from the Prophet Isaiah, whose bold words (Isaiah 61:1-2) echo Leviticus 25 but point to the coming Messiah as the true fulfillment of the Jubilee. Then Jesus began his homily: "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." (Lk 4:21)
That he was claiming to be the Lord of the Jubilee may be obscure to us in the 21st century. It was in no way obscure to his original hearers. In a fury they drove him out and up onto a cliff, "that they might throw him down headlong."
For the Lord of the Jubilee is the Lord of the Sabbath, who can free us and bring rest, not only from the toils and debts of our earthly lives, but also from the eternal debt of our sins.
I know almost nothing of the Apocrypha, but I wish I could give this a thousand likes. Maybe more. Thanks.
Step back gentlemen -- the man's ON FIRE!
So much to dive into here. I'll be back later to dip my toe into it, but for now: well done, Jack.
My problem is, I simply don't have the personality to work a Shit Job.
I got fired from a supermarket in college for running into a woman while bringing a string of 25 shopping carts into the store.
I got canned for maxing out the garage's new shop truck. FYI, late-90s Rangers get real light in the nose over a buck-ten.
I quit the parts store in Chicago after telling my "I-want-my-own-store" boss that the fact I was working there AT ALL meant I had failed at life in some profound way.
On the last day of my two-week notice, I told our biggest account at another parts store he was basically the villain from any random episode of "The A-Team."
I should've been hacking bank accounts or dealing drugs instead. Work sucks.
Tom Magliozzi from Car Talk: “Don’t be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you. I did such a fabulous job of making work afraid of me that it has avoided me my whole life so far.”
Said his brother Tom: “He actually hated working in any world. Later on, when we were doing Car Talk, he would come in late and leave early. We used to warn him that if he left work any earlier, he’d pass himself coming in.”
They had a bit once where they pondered how there are always parts left over when you rebuild stuff.
So theoretically, if you took a carburetor apart and put it back together enough times, would you have enough parts to make TWO carburetors?
That’s a zen koan.
I'm almost curious enough to buy you a carburetor just to find out.
I didn't realize this was a music Substack - although upon reflection, I have been introduced to some great and good music here - like today. So many awesome items in this particular article and a "Heat" reference to boot!
I never talk about music on here so I'll pitch in:
What we ARE seeing right now is a bit of a renaissance in rock music. Alternative and even heavier rock is making a real push despite the industry despising them now.
Creed/Tremonti, Papa Roach, Evanescence, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Skillet, Korn, P.O.D., Lacey Sturm, Chevelle, Breaking Benjamin... all these bands are touring like crazy now and even putting out new music. It isn't lost on me that these are all OLD BANDS. What it does say to me though is that we're seeing a surge in these guys having settled down and deciding that it isn't just what a big label wants anymore. They're taking risks. Heck, about half of them have given their lives to Christ in some way and gotten back to the grind stone.
Things are changing. The era of the pop-star is dimming... and thank God for it. They aren't selling out stadiums anymore.
Seriously... look at this lineup!
https://i0.wp.com/www.melodicmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/louder-than-life-2026.jpg?w=1080&quality=89&ssl=1
"Mastodon" is a great name for a band!
they are said to play phenomenally well. I've got a copy of Leviathan, considered the masterpiece, but haven't gotten around to listening to it. it's a strain of metal that I'm not really into. gimme some doom or atmospheric black metal, please.
And actual musicians. I don't believe today's "Stars" know how to play music at all.
Oh for sure. There are some that aren't as good at playing, but they at least play. The main issue to me is how over produced much of the pop music industry is. It has always been worked and re-worked, but now it's incredibly overdone. Nevermind using digital tools to add more and more to them.
And for the record, some rock bands are doing the same. Though, it seems far more rare. Rick Beato's interview with Mark Tremonti where they are talking about amps and recording (not that I know a ton about either) was fascinating just from a standpoint of how some of these current older rock groups are working to re-capture a bit of their older tone. It's pretty neat.
There is a hunger for musicians. An issue I still see though is a lack of young people playing like they did when I was younger. It has never been easier to learn to play and put out music to an audience. And yet... people in general are lazy about it.
+1 on Rick Beato's interviews. I just watched one with David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) and loved seeing how he made the music that is so iconic now. He (David) seems like a happy fellow and loves doing what he does.
For sure. Is it just me or did many of those artists NOT COME FROM MONEY. Comparatively speaking, someone like Taylor Swift was handed a silver spoon and absolutely was never going to be allowed to fail. Everything is so manufactured.
Pop music is kind of a disgusting industry that has been ruled by pimps for a long time. They program these talented kids from early on to be actors for the rest of their lives.
The music industry is a long shallow plastic trench where good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.
Dr Hunter S Thompson circa 1970 or so
Plenty of people are handled silver spoons and sell them for pennys. Not fucking up is something. There are millions of upper middle class people trying to buy their kids into fame and 99% of them are failing.
True. Remember Rebecca Black? Man, peak "let's make our kid a star" for early youtube.
I think about this a lot.
I grew up on 80s heavy metal and pop. My sons, now 20 and 22, love it and it's probably 75% of their music diet.
That would be the equivalent to me bonding with my father over music from the 1940s, which absolutely did not happen.
What music being produced today will still inspire fathers and sons 40 years hence?
I think it comes down to this:
Music used to primarily be art. Now it's primarily a managed product. Ephemeral. Disposable.
I don’t listen to music very often but when I do it is either 80s alternative or 40s big band. Around 2019 or so I was hopeful that 2020s music would be good thinking the pattern might hold but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
It's McDonalds. Manufactured to look like food and taste like food. But, it rarely satisfies in the same way.
If by "Stars" you mean rappers, oh yeah.
I wouldn’t call most of that particular genre’s modern filth “music!”
Quite right!
all these bands are touring like crazy now and even putting out new music. It isn't lost on me that these are all OLD BANDS
https://imgflip.com/i/aqhsek
I'm tellin' you, man.... if Creed played the Super Bowl...
I think we're going to see a cultural moment like that sooner than later. The pop music empire isn't making them money the way they pretend it is.
And anyone who tells you different is either stupid or lying. Case in point is tv. Today if a show gets 4-5 million it's just absolutely setting the world on fire. The show WINGS got easily over 20 million viewers an episode back in the early 90s and it wasn't a top 10 show!
That was a great little show!
NBC had the best shows from the ‘80s through the 2000s. Then the bottom fell out.
NBC went whole hog on the woke stuff. They also got to a point where they were simply sold and re-sold over and over again as part of a media empire.
I'm actually a bit surprised Metallica hasn't been invited to play. I think it's the only venue they _haven't_ played.
Yeah, that is weird. But, I think it is either due to other commitments or their age. I should also note that there are still a ton of people my age that wouldn't do anything but download Metallica music after the ole Napster fiasco. I know that was ages ago so maybe it doesn't matter as much.
Not that I dislike the bands mentioned, but I don't feel much of the new stuff is all the original. I find myself listening to more obscure but popular enough post grunge.
Oh for sure. Lots of more obscure stuff to listen to. None of it gets even similar plays though on youtube. Spotify seems to be lowest common denominator still which is why bad bunny, swift, and mumble rap stays flying up it.
Interesting perspective on the summer job, and a question I have been grappling with for my own (still young) children. I grew up in a working-class house where of course it was expected that these jobs build character, and while it did teach me the responsibility of showing up I tend to agree I did not develop many useful skills or habits - really just learned to hate my work, do the bare minimum, bosses are clueless and evil, customers suck, etc.
Later in life I learned that the character-building summer job was one of the middle class traps that the upper class kids avoided. They were busy with activities that polished their resumes for admissions into elite colleges or jobs. If they did "work" it was in a job arranged by a relative / friend in a cushy role for an big-name company or a family member's business. Otherwise they were off starting their own charity or on an exotic vacation masquerading as charity work.
Like you, I have probably come to the conclusion that the typical summer jobs are to be avoided, unless I want my kids to be prepared for a lifetime of wage slavery.
I have a family member who worked in drug company labs for his high school jobs, and that ended up going on successful applications to medical school.
Maybe a kid’s first summer job can be a lark, but every part time job after that needs to have some kind of real purpose and be a valuable use of time.
Bingo. The upper class parents use connections to use that time to pad their kids' resumes and make their own connections.
The point of a summer job is to earn enough money so you can convince a bum to buy you a 12 pack of mickeys and some camel lights.
Mickeys...good God. We favored Steel Reserve in those days, or Old English.
I can't remember the last time I had mickeys but I remember liking it. Nostalgia of youth most likely.
Can’t speak to a Mickeys, but as a shit beer connoisseur, they are probably better than you remember.
Shit I had Busch light, natty light, and natty boh all somewhat recently and they were nothing short of totally fine.
This fits my greater philosophy that Miller High Life and Guinness are the only ones I could ever truly want. Anything else is just luxury.
I probably would. Most of the only stuff I don't like is the fancy stuff that tries to do too much. Mickeys is a fine malt liquor
Same!
I went through a phase where I pretended to like the fancy garbage, but then I grew up and realized that a simple lager is a perfect beverage and there isn’t much that can be improved upon there.
Or in my case - earn enough $$ so I could pay my college expenses for the next year.
Or in my case - earn enough $$ so I could pay my college expenses for the next year.
My parents worked both full-time when I was in school, so summer jobs were necessary for them having me "covered". I did a stint at McDonalds as a teenager (in the kitchen, not brushing toilets) and I agree with Jack's comments on everyone hating their jobs. The difference was: I was still going to school and knew I'd go further, while they were "stuck" there, and it bettered my pocket money as another plus. So it was okay. Did it build character? In a certain way I think it did, because I learned to appreciate blue collar jobs from a different perspective. My father ran his grandfather's company in the third generation: plumbing, sanitary installations and later swimming pool technology. So we were a blue collar family, too, and certainly in the medium income range. Not poor but far away from rich! I did a couple of summer stints at his company, but since I only had a love for cars, most of the time I spent working at auto repair shops or small dealerships. I was never destined to take our his company, and also never wanted to.
"The difference was: I was still going to school and knew I'd go further, while they were "stuck" there, and it bettered my pocket money as another plus."
I was struggling a bit to compile my thoughts on youth employment but this basically nailed it for me. It was pocket money for better beer and to cover my Ford employee discounted lease payments because I have loved cars since I could walk, talk, and read car magazines, and girls did not swoon over the gifted 1996 Ford Escort I had in HS lol Parents worked full-time, and we were fine, but not rich. They covered my insurance, college, and groceries, but not fun activity money. My wealthier relatives that had businesses gave my cousins their debit cards to buy basically whatever they wanted in college, including bar tabs. I worked, they didn't, and we all basically turned out the same. Moderately successful 30-somethings.
If anything, all I learned was to treat low-wage workers with respect. The 40 something guy with kids flipping burgers at a restaurant, the seasonal landscaping laborers trying to stash away enough money before winter, etc.
Perhaps another unpopular take here, but I welcome Chinese cars if they are worthy products. The qualifier for me is that they should go through the same rigorous regulations that the other car makers have to go through.
The trend I don't like however is that our lawmakers tend to give free passes for certain hand-picked companies. Like, why didn't Uber and Lyft have to deal with the same regulations as the cabbies??
I have a feeling the same will happen with Chinese auto. Someone in DC will just give a free pass to their cars and totally screw over the existing car brands.
I respectfully disagree. They are a military rival. Communists should be excluded from all civil society, including all their products, from a t-shirt to a BYD crap can.
Actually, IF we deem them as a military rival I agree with that view. Are we really enemies though considering we probably built up their entire EV industry and continue to buy so much of everything from them?
still enemies but the us govt made a stupid decision
theyre not thankful at all
Spot on. All of the previous administrations played footsie with the “Nice Panda” Chinese, but now we, and increasingly many other countries, see China as the “Evil Dragon” that they are.
who knew that the communists that eat dogs and pollute everywhere might not be exactly on our level morally
Wait until you hear what they do with bats!
Hey, maybe Carney can import some Chinese wet markets in his next trade deal. If so, please send me a photo of a pangolin on the hood of a Miata. That would be very 21st Century.
Yes, we are. They are playing the long game.
And remember what happened in Korea in 1950.
Seems like the common folk understand this, but the top level capitalists are not patriotic so they don't care if they build up the enemy or not.
globalized oligarchy all focused on "value"
THIS is the correct take
They are a military rival of our nominal nation, but the people who call the shots around here don't even believe in nations
Those "people" would love to own a BYD dealership and become more wealthy. SO they will be allowed to be sold here, it's just a matter of who needs to get what favors done for/to him to rubber stamp the process
I would have bought a Tatra or Skoda during the cold war...
Lada sold well in Canada. Also: https://youtu.be/07vdtBMG4Kg
Far be it from me to prevent the economic precariat from having affordable wheels to go to work or school.
Jack is putting forth what Rob Henderson would call a “Luxury Belief” against those who are less fortunate than him (and don’t own a dozen cars) since he won’t suffer the downsides of not having a cheap car (again, he has many).
Here’s a pretty shocking fact: the only US manufacturer that sells cars starting at less than $30k* is the much-maligned-here GM with the very competent trifecta of Chevy Trax, Buick Envista, and Chevy Trailblazer.
*the Jeep Compass and Ford Maverick technically start under $30k but only before destination charges.
Chevy Trax, Buick Envista, and Chevy Trailblazer - all of which are imported from Korea.
Indeed!
Cheapest domestically produced car from an American manufacturer might actually be the Mustang?
There's no need for any new car in the country to sell for under thirty grand. Affordable wheels means used wheels; a new car is a luxury purchase in and of itself unless you're buying a van or a pickup to start your own plumbing business. And that guy buys used, too, or leases a ProMaster.
You might as well say:
“It’s one banana, Michael, how much could it cost? Ten dollars?”
My first car (that I bought for myself) was a used (16 year old) car that cost $28,900; it was a 1996 Porsche 911 Carrera with factory Aerokit and 18” Turbo Twist wheels.
Your first car sounds like a rip-shit-tear-ass ride; good on ya.
My first car, which I used to commute to community college and my JERB, was a 2004 Toyota. Private seller, cash deal, $3,600. That car cost me maybe two grand above fuel and oil over two years and 150k miles.
Five months ago I paid six grand for a 2005 example of the same car, and promptly put 20,000 miles on it. Hasn't cost me shit. My point is, the average bear just needs reliable transportation, and the floor on that is damn low.
My broader point is that while many American consumers say that they would like to “buy American,” what they really mean is that they would slightly prefer to buy a product made in America if it cost the same as a product made in “imported.”
Witness the clothing selection on offer at Walmart. One of the longest lasting Levi’s factories in America was located in my hometown; it closed around the millennium. During the ‘90s, many locals would make the drive toward Atlanta to shop at Walmart (we were bereft of such amenities until 2013) to buy jeans that had been made by people they knew.
Those days are long gone, but there IS a denim factory that persists in my hometown! Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James line makes some of their MiUSA denim in a small factory there. They are not for sale locally, however, because none of the local MAGAts are willing to pay ~$150 for a pair of jeans made by someone in the community. Much better to buy a cheap pair at Walmart.
The same applies to cars.
Can I revise your attestation?
There are those who buy precisely as you suggest. They tend to be on the poorer side.
And there are those who prefer to buy American when there is an option to do so, but 𝒏𝒐𝒕 when the option entails greater cost *and* reduced quality.
Example: My american denim cost more than chinese, but will last decades and its wear properties are thoughtfully considered to produce an attractive patina over time.
Should a prudent person accept a price delta and a quality downgrade at the same time?
I can't find fault with much here; it's a shame, but it's the truth.
Most cars made after 2012 are never going to be the great used cars that cars made between 1988 and 2012 were. The CAFE regulations implemented at the time meant that new engines and transmissions weren't sufficiently tested before being sold to the public. Also, there is every indication that the Germans hedged their bets on the 'desirability' of the EVs they would need to sell in the future by building finite lives into the cars they've been selling during the time frame. Documents have leaked showing that they knew all along that plastic timing components had useful lives around 62,000 miles. They want this generation of cars off the road as soon as possible to ensure future sales of inferior cars. The Germans got caught, but everyone is using oils that don't protect engines and components that can't withstand age or heat cycles.
CJ, aren't you in the industry, too?
This is grim.
DO you have an article on the engine / transmission thing?
Or article where the Germans got caught ? Shouldn't that result in a lawsuit?
The lower tier customers are such a low priority for the larger wallstreet corps that cheaper products are taken off the table. They probably CAN build and sell $25k cars with less features that last forever but the margins just aren't there. I'm guessing that the Chinese companies are willing to sell products at 10% margins. Lot of the American companies target 30% or more and if not it's not worth their time. They'd rather shut doors than take meager products.
If China is deemed a national security threat, then sure, let's take action. But if we are OPENLY trading with them, we will get smashed because we've become a luxury economy as of late.
The gadflight today is correct.
Of course, the questions of how the government and political executives make decisions on these matters largely does not involve the precariat, who can of course "eat cake" and had better plan to, on this and so many other issues
The deciding factor is: can whichever administration grease its palms by administratively or legally fig-leafing Chinese car sales, and my guess is yes, with a sufficiently funded lobbying effort and a Newsom[snicker] or Vance [wheeze] administration they can definitely get this done.
The Chinese should still be forced to abide warranty and parts-availability considerations that are the law (or rulemaking) of the land, and I am personally excited to see if the compliance with such laws/rules reveals that Chinese cars are crap (as I am informed by people who I tend to trust) or better than sexual intercourse (as I am informed by people who would walk over barbed wire for a free hotel room).
"Like, why didn't Uber and Lyft have to deal with the same regulations as the cabbies??"
They smartly bypassed the cab medallion rentiering system, and then once dominant came back and demanded fair treatment.
The truth of what happened is half techno-utopian dream and half Matt Stoller venture-monopoly-rentier-capitalism nightmare.
The cab medallion bureacracies were their own sort of nightmare. For a time Uber was an improvement. Now they have simply become the new Taxi Medallion agency, except worse.
There may be a lesson in there, but I doubt it.
Cars are totally different. Cabs have many regulations affecting them, cars have VOLUMES of regulations. If the Chinese are allowed to cut through this process via political corruption you are 100% correct.
Didn't Tesla themselves bypass a bunch of regulations to get into the market unfairly? When I get time I will have to dig into this, but off the top of my head, I remember legacy cars being restricted for acceleration which Tesla wasn't affected by.
I dont recall this, and just got done with the Walt Isaacson bio-slash-hagiography, which omits a lot (of which this could be one of many elements.)
But would love to hear more if you find it !
Ok, I guess the worst of it was that they got some states to relax on the franchise model for carmakers. I suppose this is another one where, if they had relaxed it before, then the other car makers would have probably exercised their option to sell directly too...
The other obvious one is their misleading representation of Autopilot and especially FULL SELF DRIVING. FSD has definitely improved, but it was nowhere near this level of functionality when it was introduced and released to the public! In so many ways, they've been a pretty scammy company. They get a lot of passes, that's for sure.
Many Taxi medallion owners in NYC were plutocrats who rented their mediallions to underpaid immigrants who toiled 12+ hour days. As medallion values climbed into the six figures, owners could repeatedly borrow against them.
This state enforced monopoly grift came crashing down thanks to Uber's hardball tactics.
Do not despair poor people, there is an entire industry that will also let you borrow against your assets too. Do you have a fancy watch? You can borrow against it. A Guitar, You can borrow against it!
When you think of rich people borrowing until they die, they're just pawning shit. At better interest rates.
With regard to cleaning toilets or any menial job, there are people in this world, clearly not a one who is an ACF subscriber, whose native talents and training are suitable for such work. Put another way, not every one is a nuclear physicist or a Tommy Emmanuel.
Be that as it may, it is appropriate for people to have done such work at least at some point for the simple reason that they then understand its nature and can find, to at least some degree, common cause with the people of such work. It is a quick cure for the "my shit doesn't stink" attitude some sport.
Electric chinese cars are turds. No one in the US will buy these turds. But the media who touts them as "bestest in the world durrz!" will not care as long as they get their lucre and Szechuan shrimp.
The yugo sold on pure price. At 10-20K the chinese could sell a lot of cars.
They won't sell for that when they have to have a parts and repair network at least for the warranty period AFTER they pass all FMVSS and EPA requirements. And I wouldn't trust them to self report.
Ok let’s even throw in a tarrif. If we’re not worried then about price what’s the fear.
All
I know is in Africa these cars the ice versions have proliferated based on price and they’re not bad. In Europe
They appear to be a more threat.
Let’s assume the quality sucks Lots of people
Lease new shit without regard. Not as though you want to own an Audi after warranty.
Jim
Farley seems to admire his xiomi.
We just gotta keep them out our market for now. If
They’re doing something better we can copy that in due course.
Not to mention US crash standards. And I haven't seen any Yugo dealerships lately, lol.
An ex-Fiat dealer told me he was doing a pretty good business back in 87 and 88 selling Fiat parts to Yugo dealers who couldn’t get parts for customers cars from Yugo. At the time he was still selling Bertone X1/9s along with used cars.
/homervoice mmmmmm X1/9 /endhomervoice
friend of mine now has two
they are interestingly built
I saw one on FB Marketplace in Detroit for $800 the other day. Runs and drives, even! Very tempting but my wife knows where my CZ is and how to take the safety off so I better let it be.
https://www.facebook.com/share/18Nji8L9iN/
What pisses me off is that depending on the lawmakers that have the bigger influence, they will give free passes to the Chinese (or anyone they favor) for these standards to give them an unfair entry.
California requires EV batteries to have a minimum warranty of 8 years or 100,000 miles, with at least 70% capacity retention... I wonder how many Chinese EVs can achieve that? That's an honest question, not a diss on Chinese EVs.
Yugo didn’t really sell that many cars in the US, their best year didn’t even hit 50k.
Even then it was a total pos with tiny donut wheels
I’m surprised it passed a crash standards even then. Yet they sold 50k. Imagine how many chores e cars would sell today under 20k. Motor tend just did some sort of review of a 10k Chinese ev. Saw the headlines didnt read what they said
Malcolm Bricklin was a master salesman
I imagine a cheap Chinese EV would perform about as well as all the cheap junk Chinese electronics on eBay do.
Cant say, I try to avoid shit. the issue is peopel do buy it. Also in the 50's and 60s japanses stuff was known as crap, they got their game on. Possibly China will eb the same. Never count a player out, and China is a player.
We need to protect our domestics from immediate predations, but also they need to get their game on.
I don’t think Japan has Chabuduo culture.
I have tried some chinese hifi a few years ago and for one, it really wasn't THAT cheap. Some of the quality is definitely not up to standards of the established hifi brands, but I gotta admit, the sound was quite impressive...
I was looking at buying a new radio for my daughter's car and was tempted by some of the cheap Andriods with giant touch screens but decided against it and went with a more expensive Sony with a couple less features but was designed with more longevity in mind.
so you're saying it sold about as many as Porsche did at that time
Porsche sold 30k in 1986 and 23k in 1987 in the US so Yugo sold around double in 1987 but their margins were tiny. How much can you make on a $4000 car?
Not much, but that wasn't the point of my joke. I was simply cracking wise on 50k not being that many cars.
Saab sold around 48k in 1986 and close to that in 1987. Peugeot sold about 9k and Alfa Romeo sales were up to over 8,000 in 1987.
So no, Yugo was never much of a player in the US market.
I remember talking to this dipstick at a party that had bought two Yugo’s - one for him and one for his wife - because they were such screaming deals. He found out that I had an Alfa Spider and he was ripping in Italian cars as he once owned a FIAT. Then told him his Yugo’s were repackaged FIAT 128’s. He refused to believe me.
It sounds like that dumb ass deserved two Yugos!
I wonder how long after that she filed papers? 😂😂
"It's a Fiat--but worse!" *rim shot*
Twenty year old Fiat technology combined with Soviet block precision manufacturing know-how and focus on quality, what could possibly go wrong?
I’m sure FIAT probably sold them the nearly worn out tooling too.
Jack, serious question regarding GM. You can’t, as an American citizen and taxpayer, want GM to fail—regardless of how much you might hate the company. We have to be able to build stuff domestically, whether it’s bridges, bulldozers, blenders or Buicks. How do you fix GM? At what point is the corporation just too far gone to rehab? This is sad.
It is but one talented president away from being fixed. But the board will never appoint such a person.
Right. Somehow it's actually more profitable, sorry, "valuable," to not make good cars people actually want. Clown world.
In the short or medium term yes, the. You get the bailout.
Or you could be Toyota but that is a very different culture with longer term commitments
Contrary view. If GM had been allowed to go bankrupt back when they were bankrupt, the parts that would have been sold off would today be worth more collectively than the current GM. Smarter people than current GM management would have unlocked the value that was just sitting there and not being valued by management.
Still pissed about the post 9/11 airline bailout, for just this reason.
Allow me to point out that we don't want big American companies to FAIL, we want them to be FUNCTIONAL
GM is still functional as a health insurance middleman with light industrial processes on the side.
Let’s not forget the new pickleball court at the new GM HQ.
wait... really?
Even a sarcastic jerk like me couldn’t make that up.
There’s even a photo in this article about halfway down. https://www.dailydetroit.com/first-inside-detroits-newest-office-building-at-hudsons/
These dumb GM people should be working their fingers to the bone trying to fix their f*cked up company, but no, the lazy execs are being given stress relief options in their office even though it never appears that they’re stressed about the state of their company.
I dunno about GM, but many tech companies in the Bay Area provide all manner of amenities. Employees usually see them as perks, but management sees them as a way of keeping employees from having to leave the premises.
The use the sign in list at the pickle ball courts as the first people to RIF
But if they’re not functional I want them to fail and have capital deployed elsewhere.
I don’t have time to write much now, but the short and narrow of my shitty job experience is that it’s more of a “scared straight program” while allowing you to have some extremely minuscule pocket money doing so - driving home the idea of making every dollar count.
In fairness it’s probably kept me poor and undervaluing my time for my entire existence. Double edged sword for sure. Also, as noted there is a demographic that relies on these jobs to exist because that encompasses their entire skillset and behavioral traits.