The Legend Continues

The third Saturday of August marks the world’s largest celebration of car culture in Metro Detroit and today marks the 25th anniversary of that celebration, the Woodward Dream Cruise.

They share the date with Cajun and Mr. Cajun who are celebrating their 53rd anniversary today, so celebrations are in order!

The Dream Cruise was started by Nelson House in 1995 and a group of volunteers who wanted to recreate a bit of nostalgic fun associated with the 50s and 60s, “when youth, music and Motor City steel roamed Woodward Avenue, America’s first highway.”

Bob Seger, in case you didn’t recognize him. Local boy.

The first event attracted 250,000 people - ten times the number expected - and the rest, as they say, is history.

It’s now a 16-mile traffic jam, but a traffic jam consisting of more than 40,000 muscle cars, street rods, custom, collector and special interest vehicles. A million spectators line the route of the family friendly spectacle just to look at all the classic vehicles.

You couldn’t pay me enough to go again as the heat and the crowds have become a bit much. But it is awesome if you’ve never been, assuming you love cars, and who doesn’t? Aside from Millennials.

All day and all night there is a constant stream of classic cars cruising the ‘circuit’ with even more on display in pop-up car shows scattered along the route.

In fact, if you live anywhere in the expansive metro-Detroit area you will see classic cars all weekend as they travel to and from the “main stage” on Woodward.

They don’t call us Motown for nuthin’.

So whether you like ‘em big: 

fast,

classic,

or flashy

There’s something for you at the Dream Cruise.

The Great America Car: it’s not just an allegory, it’s a legend. Let the legend continue.

The new mid-engine 2020 Corvette C8, top speed of 194 mph

#Flashback Friday: Nothing Was the Same After Woodstock

It looks like #TBT was a hit. And social media chatter to the contrary I still believe Tucker has simply gone fishing.

Which means it’s still summer, although look out, it’s going fast.

Therefore - as chief blog functionary – I hereby declare today officially a follow-on to #TBT…which is to say, Flashback Friday (#FBF). What’s the difference? Duh, it’s Friday.

Do feel free to discuss the NYT gear-grinding shift out of Russia, Russia, Russia! into Racist, Racist, Racist!! if you like. Or chortle over Israel’s masterful  b***h-slapping of a couple of anti-Semite b*****s if you’re in the mood for a feel good story. Just don’t forget to include the part about Israel’s humanitarian decision to reverse their ban on hate-mongering Rashida after she groveled for permission to visit granny one last time.

But for my last few weeks of summer joy I choose to focus on #FBF fashions. I always looked forward to the yuge August issues of such luminary bibles of back-to-school trends as Seventeen, Glamour, Mademoiselle and Vogue. What a glorious time to be young! And need back-to-school clothes.

Such fabulous fashion from the likes of Garland:

John Meyer of Norway:

Villager:

Ladybug:

This is what coeds wore in the 60’s, a Villager pintucked, belted shirtwaist sheath dress:

But hey, these are cute too, from the 2019 collection:

And not to leave the guys out: men’s fashion in the way-back was fun too:

Behold, the roots of soy-boy

Oy! Something took a wrong turn in the 70s and seemingly never looked back. After the Summer of Love innocent young love never quite seemed the same.

Nor did the cars.

Nothing was the same after Woodstock. Pity, really.

Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler!

You may have noticed, I’m burned out: on news, lies (but I repeat myself), society in general and progressive society in particular. So until further notice feel free to discuss such topics amongst yourselves. I’ve decided to go in a different direction. Specifically…

I understand there are rules, the first of which is “begin your post titles #TBT” which I’ve already broken. Here are the rest:

Again, feel free to break any or all of them. All subjects will be considered eligible, such as:

Art:

From the way-back before artists hated America.

A Corn Street, Boston, 1919, Childe Hassam

The Avenue in the Rain, New York, 1917, Childe Hassam

Technology:

Delivery of one of the first home computers.

Ancestry:

Technology and ancestry:

The Mother of all qwerty boards.

I think you get the picture. So carry on and…

Please Take a Few Moments…

This is interesting; did you know that Mexico has specific financial criteria for obtaining residency? 

If you plan to live, work, or retire in Mexico, Mexican Immigration Law stipulates that applicants for residency must fulfill certain criteria, including financial criteria.  The financial criteria are intended to ensure that people applying for residency have the means to sustain themselves in Mexico.

Seems reasonable enough: the financial criteria are intended to ensure that people applying for residency have the means to sustain themselves in Mexico, rather than live off the benevolence of the people of Mexico. Reasonable of course unless Trump applies that same criteria to U.S. policy.

The Trump administration announced Monday that it is moving ahead with one of its most aggressive steps to restrict legal immigration, denying green cards to many immigrants who use Medicaid, food stamps, housing vouchers or other forms of public assistance.

“We want to see people coming to this country who are self-sufficient,” Cuccinelli said. “That’s a core principle of the American dream. It’s deeply embedded in our history, and particularly our history related to legal immigration.” – NPR

In that case of course it’s racist. Because Orange Man Bad…and racist.

NPC training treat dispenser

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“(fill-in-the-blank), Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.”

August is perhaps the most dangerous month. It ushers in the dog days of summer when, as we first learned from Barack Hussein Obama, “everyone in Washington gets all 'wee-weed' up.” I’m still not completely certain what that means.

We Weed Up!

But I do know that if it’s August it’s going to be hot. And sure enough, the New York Times is all over this perennial story - Summer in the City Is Hot, but Some Neighborhoods Suffer More. I love the NYT writers, they are so committed to saving the planet they even recycle headlines. And hands down this is best of their evergreen screamers: “(fill-in-the-blank), Women and Minorities Hardest Hit.”

As the United States suffers through a summer of record-breaking heat, new research shows that temperatures on a scorching summer day can vary as much as 20 degrees across different parts of the same city, with poor or minority neighborhoods often bearing the brunt of that heat… As climate change makes summers hotter, the health risks associated with these hyperlocal heat islands will grow.

Of course, it’s Trump’s fault. Because he wants the Federal Reserve to drop interest rates even further to make us competitive with the rest of the civilized world which would in turn expand the American economy even more. Imagine that, he wants to strengthen the only economic system that has ever produced a rising tide that “raises all boats.” Meanwhile the Democrats’ presidential hopefuls are falling all over each other in the race to transform the country into a socialist paradise. A nightmare that has never once ended well.

Oh, but I forgot: this time it’s going to be Democratic Socialism!

As I said, it’s August. People are crazy. Hang in there, September will be here soon enough.

Too Sexy For My Shirt

Unlike his assumed hero, Colin Kaepernick, Olympic fencer Race Imoden has a pretty good lock on his career: he has a day job as a super man-child model.

Race Imoden’s publicity photo for the Wilhelmina Agency

Why do you care? You probably don’t but Race (who names their kid “Race” – weenie liberal parents, that’s who) is the Olympic fencer who took a knee on the podium last week after his team won gold at the Pan Am games.

Then used the opportunity to tweet his feeble mind:

Never mind that he signed a statement promising to refrain from demonstrations that are political in nature. And in his real world, modeling, such antics are certain to be a resume enhancer thus giving lie to the ‘sacrifie’ he made.

I have nothing to add to former United States Navy SEAL officer and U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw’s tweet:

Although I would like to suggest that sports writers should also sign an agreement to not “make remarks or release propaganda of political, religious or racial nature” during the Games just like the athletes do. This acorn comes to you via Nancy Armour, USA TODAY sports reporter:

Also, athletes who have criticized President Donald Trump have felt the wrath of his sycophant followers, while those who have engaged in peaceful protest, that most fundamental of American rights, have found themselves ostracized or blackballed.

But this country, already badly wounded by partisan divide and hate mongering, seems to have reached a tipping point in the past week. Are we going to continue to bury our heads along with our dead from yet another mass shooting? Are we going to allow President Donald Trump to put our fellow citizens in further danger with his racism and bigotry? Are we going to let Trump and all those who bleat about loving America dismantle our rules of law and democratic traditions?

Why can’t we all just get along? Oh wait, I know: it’s because of unchecked white privilege isn’t it? Granted, some use it for the common good…

while others exploit it for shameful self-promotion. And that’s the difference between ‘sacrifie’ and Semper Fi.

“I’m too sexy for my shirt”

“The One With the Apothecary Table”

Today’s Open thread Sunday, as I continue my weekend vacation, is a suggestion from Blonde Gator proposed after linking an article bemoaning yet another Millennial dilemma: their inability to afford “ethical” furniture. BG posted it along with this comment: “These mean little dumb-ass millennials will attack most viciously anything they don't (or WON'T) understand. Read the article....here is your BEVERAGE alert.” So consider yourself warned.

The budget furniture dilemma: As companies like Wayfair face criticism, is buying from them the right thing to do?

BG suggested that since everyone of *ahem* a certain age has gone junkin’ for wonderful furniture finds that this would make a wonderful open thread topic :

I'm sure that like most of you, my fellow MOTI, that you all have many pieces, collected over a lifetime, gifted, inherited, carefully shopped (my "china cabinet" is an imported solid mahogany bookshelf with glass sides and doors (7' panels of glass),6 shelves tall, into which I put multiple mini-spot lights…

Sorry, I'm rambling, but I find it terribly difficult to understand these SJW twits and their priorities. Where's the FUN in that? I know how much fun my friends & I had combing 2nd hand shops, antique shops, (we used to call one place the Bump N' Dent) and even Junkin' Day (garage sales)....never knowing what cool piece we'd find.

I knew the MOTI all would find it amusing and have stories to tell about particular pieces, treasure hunts, recycled stuff made into perfection, etc.

So have at it. For my 2 cents I’ll just note that this isn’t a new problem, Phoebe Buffet was dealing with it on the cusp of the Millennium.

From "The One with the Apothecary Table"

Gone Fishing.

Raj and I are off for the weekend to visit friends at the beach – or “to the shore” as they say on the Eastern seaboard. 

And shore may be more accurate than beach this year as Lake Michigan - like all the Great Lakes - is near all time record high water levels. As a result even the largest beaches at the State parks are smaller this year and places with smaller beaches to start with have virtually no beach at all.  The water laps at the very base of the bluff and erodes it away.

The stairway to beach access at Orchard Beach State Park near Manistee remains closed for the season. High water levels in Lake Michigan caused erosion and eliminated the beach area.

Orchard Beach during happier times

Where you could once easily walk for miles along the beach you will now run into impediments that will make it unnavigable on foot.

Millennials will of course be in a panic, thinking the world is coming to an end. Old-timers like Raj and me know that like nearly everything else in life this too shall pass. We learned this in the early 80’s, the last time lake levels were nearly this high. A particularly fierce August storm hammered the bluff at our Lake Huron cabin so badly that when morning came – bright, windy, sunny and cool – the lower half of our stone and concrete stairs leading down the 40 foot bluff to the beach had become unmoored and tumbled into the lake. Worse, the boat Raj had painstakingly built the year before was also ripped from where it had been winched a quarter of the way up the bluff and tied to a tree. Gone, except for the transom that was still tied to the tree. But that’s another story altogether.

Back to the history-began-the-day-I-was-born kids: of course they believe it is global warming, what else could it be? Poor dears never heard of sun spots and I know they’ll be sorry they insisted on getting rid of fossil fuels in order to save the planet when the next little ice age arrives. The focus of their urgency will quickly shift to the need to save themselves.  Perhaps they’ll end up emigrating someplace warmer, like Mexico.

But I digress…the point is I’m gone. On a vacation of sorts. Not even taking my computer. I’m scheduling this posting to go up Saturday morning and will also have an open thread scheduled for Sunday morning. So do behave, that way you do. I may check in via my phone, but probably not.

Have a wonderful weekend and I’ll see you all back here on Monday. Unless I decide to run away from home permanently.