[JPL] Re: First Cars

Sat Feb 28 01:03:04 EST 2009

My First Car: Oh boy, My first car was a 60's era Renault Ondine, which was a plush version of the Dauphine. What a rig! I got it cheap cause it had been rolled, and it looked it. The thing actually had a crank, and if the battery died you could turn it over with the crank. I was living in Madrid at the time and even the Spaniards turned their nose up at it. I loved the damn thing and kept it going until it was going through as much oil as petrol. 
The Dauphine's legacy is largely dominated by its infamously poor performance and bad handling, as well as its poor reliability: in many markets (particularly the United States and the United Kingdom) the car became notorious for mechanical problems. 
In 2002, Car Talk's Click and Clack named the Dauphine the 9th Worst Car Of The Millennium, calling it "truly unencumbered by the engineering process". 
In 2007, Time Magazine named it one of the 50 worst cars of all time, calling it "the most ineffective bit of French engineering since the Maginot Line and noting that it could actually be heard rusting. 
I thought it was kind of neat looking in a sort of bizarre way, and it was well worth the seven mille pesetas ($100) I had to shell out for it. 
My next car was another French ride, a Peugeot 403 diesel, more reliable than the Renault, but ugly and heavy. 

Ken Irwin 
Jazz Music Director and Host of "Java Jazz" 
WMUA - FM 
University of Massachusetts at Amherst 
105 Lincoln Campus Center 
Amherst, MA 01003 

Web: www.wmua.org 
E-mail: jazz at wmua.org, ken-irwin at comcast.net 
Phone: (413) 545-2876 

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dr. Jazz" <drjazz at drjazz.com> 
To: jazzproglist at jazzweek.com 
Sent: Friday, February 27, 2009 2:50:15 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern 
Subject: [JPL] Re: First Cars 

This week's sponsor: JazzWeek Summit -- June 18-20, 2009: http://summit.jazzweek.com/ 

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Arturo mentioned his first car, and it got me thinking about my first 
baby, at brand new 1971 AMC Javelin AMX 401 (401 cubic inch V8). What 
was your first ride? 
-Dr. 

Arturo Gomez wrote: 
> This week's sponsor: JazzWeek Summit -- June 18-20, 2009: http://summit.jazzweek.com/ 
> 
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> 
> 
> As a pre-teen, teenager and young adult in the 1960s and 70s in So Cal, I 
> spent countless hours listening the legendary Wolfman Jack Show. At night 
> I'd slip a transistor radio and earplug under my pillow listening to the 
> innovative patter of the Wolf until I fell asleep-his howls, pounding on the 
> desk, singing along with the songs he liked, his prank phone calls were like 
> a magic elixir to this listener. When I turned 16 and got my first driver's 
> license and car (a 1963 Ford Galaxie 500), I would always have my radio 
> locked on XERB 1090Am out of Tijuana, BC, Mexico and its 100.000 watts 
> clear channel signal that at night was heard as far north as Washington 
> state, Utah, Colorado and to the New Mexico-Texas border to the West. 
> Everyone in my neighborhood , junior high and then high school assumed the 
> Wolf was a Black man, once a group of us went to the Los Angeles business 
> office address of XERB on the Sunset Strip thinking it was the studio only 
> to find a drawing of the Wolfman on the door and a receptionist telling us 
> the studio was south of the border and this was the advertising sales office 
> only. 
> 
> 
> 
> Wolfman was ahead of the curve, he would take live phone calls from listener 
> over the air and turn them into hilarious put ons, he'd call businesses and 
> people on the air pulling their hair, he was out of his mind crazy and 
> extremely entertaining all the while playing the best in soul, funk and 
> oldies not heard on the rest of the commercial outlets. Once American 
> Graffitti came out the cover was blown on Wolfman Jack, we learned he was 
> just a White man from Brooklyn, NY named Bobby Smith and then he went 
> mainstream, all the magic was gone, we saw the wizard behind the curtain and 
> it was never ever close to being the same. 
> 
> 
> 
> Here in Denver a former all sports talk AM station is now KRWZ 950AM Crusin' 
> Oldies, a retro 60s style Top 40 station-all automated of course with 1950s 
> and 60s top 40 hits, many of which are very dated and sound stale but 
> occasionally they play some gems as well, Now on Sunday nights they are 
> playing full length broadcasts of classic 1960s-early 70s Wolfman Jack 
> shows complete with his own commercials and prank calls, they even include 
> his early days when he was with another border station south of Texas. This 
> station which call letters I forget is rumored to have broadcasted at over 
> 200,000 watts, a signal so powerful that a flock of birds flying over the 
> transmission tower were zapped out of the sky like a fly zapper, I don't 
> know if that is possible or not but it sounds horrific. It sure does feel 
> good becoming nostalgic on Sunday nights reliving my teen and young adult 
> years listening to Wolfman Jack whom along with KGFJ's The Magnificent 
> "Burn, Baby, Burn" Montague were my first radio heroes. 
> 
> 
> 
> Arturo 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
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-- 
Dr. Jazz 
Dr. Jazz Operations 
24270 Eastwood 
Oak Park, MI 48237 
(248) 542-7888 
http://www.drjazz.com 
SKYPE: drjazz99 

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