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“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 274

Wednesday, December 30th, 2020

Another thing I’m trying to avoid using too much is the “Timeline – World History Documentaries” channel. But this popped up in the feed, and is relevant to my interests:

“How The Germanic Barbarians Annihilated Rome’s Legions”, a semi-short (49 minutes) documentary about the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest.

Episode 55 of “The History of Rome” podcast (which I can’t pull up right now, but you should be able to get it through the podcast app of your choice) covers the Teutoberg Forest. There’s also a book that I’ve read, and liked: The Battle That Stopped Rome: Emperor Augustus, Arminius, and the Slaughter of the Legions in the Teutoburg Forest by Peter S. Wells (affiliate link).

Bonus: To give folks a little variety, here’s a documentary about “The Black Ghost”, a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE with a 426 Hemi that was a street racing legend in Detroit.

I’m not a huge gearhead, and definitely not a big Mopar guy, but I have to say: that is one nice car, with a great story behind it.

Posted in Books, Cars, Food, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 257

Saturday, December 12th, 2020

Today: go fast. Don’t turn.

I’m fascinated by the history of land (and water) speed records.

From the “Scarf and Googles” channel on the ‘Tube: “George Eyston’s Thunderbolt – Land Speed’s Missing Monster”.

Between 1937 and 1939, the competition for the Land Speed Record was between two Englishmen: Captain Eyston and John Cobb. Thunderbolt’s first record was set at 312.00 mph (502.12 km/h) on 19 November 1937 on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Within a year Thunderbolt returned with improved aerodynamics and raised its record to 345.50 mph (556.03 km/h) on 27 August 1938.
This record only stood for a matter of weeks before John Cobb’s Reid-Railton broke the 350 mph (560 km/h) barrier and raised it to 353.30 mph (568.58 km/h) on 15 September 1938, as Eyston watched. This inspired him to take Thunderbolt to a new record of 357.50 mph (575.34 km/h). Cobb had held the record for less than 24 hours.

Bonus #1, from the same channel: “Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons – The Land Speed Battle Of Bonneville”.

Bonus #2: It seems to me like a lot of folks talk about Breedlove and Arfons, and rightly so. But it doesn’t seem like folks remember Gary Gabelich and the “Blue Flame“. I actually do, because the American Gas Association took out full page ads in National Geographic promoting it. At the age of (mumble mumble) I thought a rocket car was incredibly cool.

“Break The Record”.

Bonus #3: Throwing in one more, because these are all short-ish: “The Budweiser Rocket”. Also, this is a little more contemporary than the others.

The vehicle, like its predecessor, was owned by film director Hal Needham, driven by Stan Barrett and designed and built by William Fredrick (Died in 2020). Neither the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme nor the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, the official speed record certifying bodies, recognise the record attempt, the speed purported to have been reached or that the vehicle ever attained supersonic speeds. The original Budweiser Rocket was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and a modified version with a narrower track, is in the Talladega Superspeedway Museum, Alabama. The original is no longer on display and is now in storage at the Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 360, National Museum of American History, Office of Public Affairs and Records.

Posted in Cars, History | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 247

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2020

I’m going to be a little self-indulgent today.

I know I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to post a lot of “Forgotten Weapons” stuff, because I figure if folks are interested, they already subscribe. I’m making an exception here because:

a) This is a pretty recent entry.
II) Smith and Wesson.
3) Australia, Australia, we love you, amen.

Specifically, a Smith and Wesson pistol-carbine made for the South Australian Police.

Bonus #1: I actually thought about posting this yesterday, but couldn’t find it in my recommendations. It popped up again today, and this is some real history: “Hannibal’s Elephant Army – The New Evidence”.

Bonus #2: For some reason, I’ve been getting a lot of car repair videos in my feed. Especially ones from “Precision Transmission”. I thought I’d post this one because I shared it with some other folks privately and it seems like they enjoyed it.

“Nitrous doesn’t play well with others! Especially when you have pretty much stock unit.”

Posted in Cars, Guns, History, Mammals | Comments Closed

Badger Badger Badger Bad…

Monday, November 30th, 2020

…never mind.

(Nikola’s earlier shenanigans.)

(Mushroom mushroom.)

Posted in Cars, Mammals | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 182

Monday, September 28th, 2020

Today’s historical video is dedicated to Iowahawk and his fans. Iowahawk may already be aware of this one.

“Wonderful World Of Wheels”. According to the YouTube notes, this is a cut-down version of a longer documentary about car culture in the 1960s. Among other things: Fabian racing go-karts, “Big Daddy” Roth and George Barris, John Derek, and narration by Lloyd Bridges (whose lungs were apparently not bursting for air).

Bonus:

Okay, not really. I just threw that in for giggles.

“Rubber For Industry”, a Firestone propaganda film from the 1940s. After all, you can’t have wheels without rubber, can you? (Well, technically, you can, but they have limitations.)

Posted in Cars, History | 2 Comments »

When a drawbridge comes along, you must whippit…

Thursday, September 17th, 2020

Seemingly taking his Dodge Stratus’s “cloud car” nickname literally, the unnamed 26-year-old went airborne and cleared the gap, but managed to burst all four tires and smash his windshield upon landing and crashing on the other side of the bridge.
“Over he went, blew out all four of his tires, and then he crashed into the other gate,” said Locke, who likened the jump to a similar flight by a Dodge Monaco in 1980’s The Blues Brothers. “That’s a first for me.”
Police immediately received a call reporting a car had “Dukes of Hazzard-ed across” the bridge, and on response, found the driver with a canister of nitrous oxide in his car. Known as “whippits” due to its common use as propellant in canned whipped cream, NO2 is a dissociative sometimes inhaled to experience a “floating” sensation, per Australia’s Alcohol and Drug Foundation.

Based on the story, I think the police did try to detect it, but they didn’t have to try very hard.

There is no word so far on the status of the cream.

Posted in Cars, Law, Stupid | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 88

Friday, June 26th, 2020

This isn’t actually a random YouTube recommendation. I ran across this by way of a post from McThag – I thought it was a while back, but apparently it was earlier this year. Time flies when you’re locked down.

I’m not a big car guy, and I was never much of a “Motor Trend” fan. As I’ve written before, “Car and Driver” during that late 1970s – early 1980s period was my jam. “Motor Trend” seemed to be “Who Spent the Most Money On Advertising With Us”, and “Road and Track” was the magazine for 50ish guys who drove MGs painted British Racing Green while wearing tweed jackets and dapper little caps and looking down their nose at the rest of the car world.

But I digress. “Motor Trend” apparently had a YouTube channel. One of their features was “RoadKill”, where, as I understand, the two hosts bought crappy cars, fixed them up to the point where they were minimally driveable, and then went on road trips with them. Hilarity frequently ensued.

This particular video amuses me: in this case, they bought the world’s worst Corvette, with the intention of driving it from Florida to Bowling Green, Kentucky…

…and having the staff of the Corvette Museum drop it into the sinkhole.

I think even my non-car people readers should get some amusement out of this, as the Corvette in question is astonishingly bad. The fact that it doesn’t have a windshield is only the start of the troubles.

Bonus video: according to the person who re-uploaded this video, “Motor Trend” moved their content off of YouTube and on to “Motor Trend On Demand”. But other people have uploaded more “Roadkill” videos, if you find the idea of two guys patching up crappy cars and going on road trips oddly appealing. Here’s a playlist.

Posted in Cars | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 53

Friday, May 22nd, 2020

Here’s something I haven’t done before. Remember the days of auto stunt shows? Guys jumping over cars? Demolition derbies?

“So You Want Thrills!” No, that’s the name of the movie, not a statement of fact. Featuring Jimmy Lynch and his Death Dodgers. And what do the Death Dodgers drive? If you said “Dodge cars”, take two gold stars and advance to the next blue square.

That one is from 1948. Our bonus video is from the early 1980s, and alsp features Chrysler/Dodge cars: “The Hell Driver Formula”.

That’s something I wish I could have seen when I was younger. Unfortunately, there really weren’t any tracks in the Houston area where a team could do this kind of driving. They did do a stunt show/demolition derby in the Astrodome when I was young, and I remember going to that at least once: the high point for me was the guy who sealed himself in a coffin and blew himself up. There was also a car jump involved, as I recall, but (odd as it may seem) space in the Astrodome didn’t allow for a truly epic long car jump.

(They were doing these shows in the Astrodome at least up until 1985: a Wikipedia search reminded me that Karel Soucek, a “Canadian daredevil” who went over Niagra Falls in a barrel, was killed during one of those shows.)

Oh, what the hell, one more: “Paul Riddell’s Imperial Hell Drivers”. I think this is from Canada, eh? Oh, wait, I’m sorry: I checked Wikipedia, and it is actually from a show in Quebec. Apologies to both the Canadians and the Québécois in my audience.

Posted in Cars, History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: April 12, 2020.

Sunday, April 12th, 2020

Stirling Moss died “quietly on Sunday at his home in London”. He was 90. McThag beat me on the tribute watch.

“To race a car through a turn at maximum possible speed when there is a great lawn to all sides is difficult,” he said in an interview with The New York Times Magazine in 1961, “but to race a car at maximum speed through a turn when there is a brick wall on one side and a precipice on the other — ah, that’s an achievement!”
He raced for 14 years, won 212 of his 529 races in events that included Grand Prix, sports cars and long-distance rallying, in 107 different types of car.
He set the world land speed record on the salt flats of Utah in 1957. He won more than 40 percent of the races he entered, including 16 Grand Prix. For four consecutive years, 1955-58, he finished second in the world Grand Prix championship. And in each of the next three years, he placed third.

The man was a class act. And I don’t mean in terms of style (although he apparently was rather stylish):

He came closest in 1958, but testified on behalf of another driver, Mike Hawthorn, who was accused of an infraction in the Portugal Grand Prix. Hawthorn, as a result, was not disqualified. When the season ended, Hawthorn had 42 points, which are given for factors like fastest lap as well as finishing position. Moss — though he had four Grand Prix wins to Hawthorn’s one — finished second with 41 points.

…

In 1962 at the Goodwood Circuit racetrack in England’s West Sussex County, a plume of fire shot from his Lotus 18/21 car. The crowd gasped. As Moss tried to pass Graham Hill, his car veered and slammed into an eight-foot-high earthen bank.
It took more than a half-hour to free Moss from the wreckage. His left eye and cheekbone were shattered, his left arm broken and his left leg broken in two places.
An X-ray revealed a far worse injury. The right side of his brain was detached from his skull. He was in a coma for 38 days, and paralyzed on one side of his body for six months. He remembered nothing of the disaster. He considered hypnosis to recover the memory, but a psychiatrist said that might cause the paralysis to return.
When he left the hospital, he took all 11 nurses who had treated him to dinner, followed by a trip to the theater. A year later, he returned to Goodwood and pushed a Lotus to 145 m.p.h. on a wet track. He realized he was no longer unconsciously making the right moves. He said he felt like he had lost his page in a book.
Though he believed he remained a better driver than all but 10 or 12 in the world, that was not good enough. He retired at 33.
Moss was more than his talent. He was a beautiful name, one that still connotes high style a half-century after his crash, evoking an era of blazers and cravats, of dance bands and cigarette holders. One legend had him driving hundreds of miles in a vain effort to introduce himself to Miss Italy the night before a big race. His 16 books cemented his legend.

…

Stirling grew up excelling at horsemanship, but said he gave it up because horses were hard to steer.

…

…for a couple of generations, British traffic cops sneeringly asked speeding motorists, “Who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?” (Moss, who had been knighted, was once asked that question, and answered, “Sir Stirling, please.”)

Lawrence emailed an obit for Tim Brooke-Taylor, British comedian:

Brooke-Taylor was reunited with Cleese and Chapman on ITV’s At Last The 1948 Show, another collection of sketches and quick-fire repartee.
The first episode featured The Four Yorkshiremen sketch, co-written by Brooke-Taylor, which would later be revived by the Monty Python team.

I apologize for the quality. But: this is (according to YouTube) actually from “At Last the 1948 Show”.

Posted in Cars, Obits | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 7

Monday, April 6th, 2020

Time for something a little lighter.

Mike the Musicologist pointed out to me the other day the most 70s thing ever, at least according to MeTV:

(That reminds me: Hi, Saturday Dining Conspiracy regular who shall remain anonymous but likes “Xanadu”! Hope you guys are doing okay!)

Now, I will concede that this is probably the high-water mark of the 1970s: as Hunter S. Thompson said about the 1960s, “that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.” But here’s another vintage slice of peak 70s for you.

If you’re unemployed, it might even help you find a job…selling cars to women.

On a historical note, this may explain why Chrysler needed that bail out…

Today’s bonus video, which actually might be suitable for those of you who are homeschooling your children: how does an oil refinery work?

Posted in 1970s, Cars, TV | Comments Closed

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…

Tuesday, March 31st, 2020

…I’m gonna go have me some fun!
And what do you consider fun?
Fun, natural fun!”
–Tom Tom Club, “Genius of Love”

Now that I’m on indefinite home confinement (like the rest of Travis County) I’ve found myself not just reading more, but also watching more crap on YouTube.

“Crap” may not actually be fair. I’ve enjoyed the USCSB videos for a while now. AOPA’s Air Safety Institute videos are educational as well. And, yes, I’ve been watching my share of Ian’s videos in these times of struggle. Shamefully, I’ve also been watching clips from “Bar Rescue”.

My point, and I do have one, is: some interesting things have been showing up in my YouTube recommendations, and I thought I’d start highlighting those. At least, until the crisis passes.

Rules: I want to keep them short, and ideally want to pick ones that people haven’t heard of. So no “Surviving Edged Weapons”, because that’s close to an hour and half and has been highlighted on Red Letter Media. But I think at least some of these will be vintage police training videos…

…let’s start with this one, “Vehicle Ambush: Counterattacks”. If for no other reason than that awesome 1970’s wakka jawakka opening soundtrack.

Tomorrow: I’m trying to decide if I want to go with Jack Webb (although I don’t think the video quality is all that great) or possibly a vintage US Navy training film. (Nothing about VD, though.)

Posted in Cars, Cops, Guns, Law | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: March 25, 2020.

Wednesday, March 25th, 2020

Terrence McNally, noted playwright.

Mr. McNally’s Tony Awards attest to his versatility. Two were for books for musicals, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” (1993) and “Ragtime” (1998), and two were for plays, and vastly different ones: “Love! Valour! Compassion!” (1995), about gay men who share a vacation house, and “Master Class” (1996), in which the opera diva Maria Callas reflects on her career.
And those prize winners were only a small part of his oeuvre. With some three dozen plays to his credit, as well as the books for 10 musicals, the librettos for four operas and a handful of screenplays for film and television, Mr. McNally was a remarkably prolific and consistent dramatist.

Hattip on this to Lawrence, who also pointed out that Mr. McNally did a guest shot on “The Greatest American Hero”. He actually did guest shots on a small hand full of TV shows, including “Salvage I” (that sounds like a “blink and you’d miss it” appearance), “CHiPs”, and “The Young and the Restless”.

Speaking of hattips, great and good FOTB Borepatch sent over an obit for Albert Uderzo, co-creator (with the late René Goscinny) of Asterix and Obelix.

Edited to add: NYT obit.

A followup from “The Drive” that I’ve been meaning to post for a couple of days: Kenny Rogers, dirt racer.

Rogers paired up with Sprint Car Hall of Famer C.K. Spurlock and campaigned his own team for several years before the two formed Gambler Chassis Company. Taking its name from Rogers’ famous song The Gambler, this project was anything but a gimmick. The company would go on to win races with stars like Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell, and Doug Wolfgang behind the wheel. Simply put, Gambler cars were consistently some of the fastest in the United States, taking victories at primetime events like the Knoxville Nationals.

Posted in 1970s, Cars, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

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