The Ballad of Dave and Eddie

Sometime in the mid-Nineties, NPR played a spoken word recording of a poem (?) called The Ballad of Dave and Eddie, about two friends who took California infrastructure into their own hands. I've never been able to find a copy of that recording, and the only reference I've ever seen to the work at all is in a 1995 back issue of West Coast lit magazine Zyzzyva. I don't even know who the author is. I've reached out to singer/songwriter/poet Dan Bern to see if it's him. If not, I have no clue. I guess the NPR ombudsman is the next stop.

However, I seem to have a copy or transcript in my archives; where I got it, who knows. For posterity, here it is. If I ever find an audio recording, I'll post that, too. It was fantastic.

The ballad of dave and eddie
by Dan Bern
Dave and Eddie
were at Venice Beach
playing their guitars.
They played for 2 hours
and made 6 dollars
and 37 cents
in change.
Then they got in Dave's car
and headed back to Hollywood.
They sat in traffic.
It was slow.
They took the 405
and then the 10
and then la Brea.
It took over an hour
to get home.
"Jeez," said Eddie.
"They need another freeway
In this town."
"Yeah," said Dave.
"From, like Venice Beach
To around Hollywood and Vine."
"Yeah," said Eddie,
"And with an exit at
La Brea and Willoughby."
"Yeah," said Dave,
"And it would hit the
10 and the 405 near the beach
and then rip right through to Hollywood."
"Yeah," said Eddie, "And it
would have an exit by
the Beverly center, and
Another one on Melrose."
"Where on Melrose?" said Dave.
"Oh, maybe around Fairfax," said Eddie.
"Yeah," said Dave, "near farmers market."
"Yeah," said Eddie.
It began informally
on weekends and in their
spare time.
Dave visited the
hardware store for poles
and wire and steel rods, and
Eddie bought several bags of cement powder
at the ready-mix plant.
Dave had a friend with a truck
and they started work a
few days later,
pouring their first path of cement
near Venice boulevard, a
few blocks from the beach.
People stopped to watch. "What’re
you guys doing?" one guy asked.
"Building a freeway to Hollywood,"
said Dave, as Eddie
pounded a steel girder into place.
"Cool," the guy said,
"That’s totally excellent."

As work on the freeway progressed,
Dave and Eddie's
enthusiasm increased.
Dave cut back
his hours at the cassette-
copying place,
and Eddie arranged to
have Thursday and Friday
afternoons off at the
Guitar Center.
"Do you think we should
tell the city about this?"
asked Dave one day while
the assembled an overpass above Sepulveda.
"Let's wait," said Eddie.
"If it's all done,
they can't really say no."

months passed. strain began
to show on Dave and Eddie.
They had a big argument
about where to put an
off-ramp near
Century City. Dave wanted it on
Avenue of the Stars
a few blocks from Santa Monica boulevard. Eddie preferred
a bit south
in Rancho Park, adjacent
to 20th Century Fox.
They didn't speak for
two days, and work was
suspended. Finally, they
compromised and put it on Pico,
Further west. "Right by
McCabe’s guitar shop," said Eddie.
"That'll be great."
Then there was the matter of the freeway's name.
Dave wanted it to be called
the Dave, and Eddie wanted
it to be called the Eddie.
At last they settled
on the Dave and Eddie
Memorial Freeway. They thought
"memorial" had an official, freeway-ish
ring to it.

One Thursday in late January,
they laid the last section of
concrete. It was the off-ramp onto
Franklin and Gower, just a few steps from
the corner of Hollywood and Vine.
"That about wraps it up," said Eddie
as the sludge oozed
onto the ground. "Voila."
It was 13 months since
they had begun the project.
"Dude," said Dave.
"That was something."
they got a 12-pack
of Pabst Blue Ribbon
at Ralph’s and
went over to Dave's
to celebrate the completion
of the Dave and Eddie
Memorial Freeway.
They drank all the
beer, then went out
and rode the freeway
clear to Venice and back,
several times.
Without traffic it took exactly
12 minutes round-trip.
"Totally excellent," said Dave. "And those green
signs we made
are gnarly."

The next day they
opened up the freeway
and the first cars
started rolling on around
eight-fifteen.
Dave and Eddie stood on the shoulder and watched.
everyone gave them
the thumbs-up sign.
"Looks great!" people shouted.
"Excellent job!" "You guys are
all right!"

The next day was Friday.
Dave got a phone call.
It was a Mrs. Goldfarb
from the mayor's office.
"We need to talk to you,"
she said. Dave said he would
go downtown.

In the mayor's office
Mrs. Goldfarb peered at him sternly.
"Are you the fellow who
built the new freeway?" she demanded.
"Yeah," said Dave. "Me and
my friend Eddie."
"You should have asked first,"
said Mrs. Goldfarb.
"Yes, ma'am," said Dave.
"Well, it's water under the dam,"
said Mrs. Goldfarb, shuffling
some papers. "The city,
under the auspices of the state,
is prepared to make you an offer
on your freeway."
"You mean," said Dave,
"You want to buy it?"
"Of course," said Mrs. Goldfarb,
"You weren’t thinking of
keeping it?"
"Kind of," said Dave. "Nonsense," said Mrs. Goldfarb,
"I’ll need a signature, and
we will pay you three million dollars."
"wow," said Dave. "That's totally a lot.
Can it still be called the
Dave and Eddie memorial freeway?"
"Certainly not," said Mrs. Goldfarb.
"The state assigns a number
to every freeway. Yours has
been designated freeway number 313."
"What if it got called the Dave and Eddie,"
said Dave, "And we got
two million?"
"I’m sorry," said Mrs. Goldfarb, snapping
shut a notebook and placing
a piece of paper in front
of him to sign.
"It's quite impossible. It will
be the 313."
"In that case,"
said Dave, "I won't sign it."
"If you don't," said Mrs. Goldfarb,
"We will seize the freeway
under territorial zoning act
number 67H
paragraph 5."
"Well," said Dave.
He signed the paper
and Mrs. Goldfarb gave
him a check for
three million dollars.

He drove up the 101,
switched over to the 313,
and got off at
Fairfax and Melrose.
"Hey Eddie," said Dave,
walking into the guitar center.
"I had to sell the freeway."
"What?" Eddie croaked.
"How could you sell the freeway?"
"I don't know," said Dave.
"I went downtown and everything was real confusing,
and the next thing I knew, it was gone."
"That's so uncool," said Eddie, "I can't believe it."
"It was weird," said Dave,
"It just sort of happened. We
got three million for it."
"Whoa," said Eddie. "That's a lot, huh?"
"Yeah," said Dave. "I’ll go cash it
and bring you
a million and a half."
"Wait a second," said Eddie.
"I spent 600 bucks
to build it. You
only spent, like, 300."
"Yeah," said Dave. "So?"
"So, like, I invested two times
what you did. I should
get two million."
"Bullshit," said Dave.
"We split it in half."
"All right," said Eddie,
"But you still owe me 300."
"Fine," said Dave. "And I want
my amplifier back."
"You can have that
piece of shit," said Eddie.

The 313 became
very popular as people
sought to decrease their
travel time from Hollywood
to Venice. To Dave and
Eddie's delight, the name "313"
never caught on and people
said, "come north on
the 405 and then take
the Dave and Eddie
until you hit
Beverly center."

Dave and Eddie
still went to
Venice beach every Sunday
and played their guitars.
One day they got
over thirteen dollars
in just over an hour
and a half.
"Wow," said Dave.
"We're getting good."
"Yeah," said Eddie. "Maybe
we should make a record."

They took their guitars
and got into Dave's car
and headed toward Hollywood.
There was so much traffic
on the Dave and Eddie
that Dave and Eddie
took the 405 and the
10 and La Brea instead.

I'm mad as hell and I'm going to continue to take it.

Some of my friends have been on a campaign to unfriend the many closet racists who have popped up in the last few months. I've had the urge myself and was just about to start when I had a kind of revelation: It's exactly the wrong thing to do.

It is by now obvious to all of us that many Americans live entirely in environments of like-minded people, so compartmentalized and isolated from other people's problems that it can seem as though they don't exist. It is devastatingly easy to surround yourself in a cocoon of talk radio and Fox news and never be exposed to any experience outside that.

But this is a two-way street. It is equally easy to spend your time reading The Atlantic and reading Bernie Sanders quotes and dismissing what Ted Cruz is saying. The Liberal way isn't any less blind and rigid than the Conservative.

Unfriending people contributes to that. You, the unfriender, are closing your eyes to something that angers and hurts you. But that doesn't make it go away; it's the opposite. You're making your environment conform more closely to your worldview, not to the actual world.

What's worse, you're contributing to exactly the same thing in your ex-friend's world. Your voice is now missing from their conversation and it's an important conversation to be having.

Surround yourself with opinions you don't like. Listen to the people you hate and try to understand what they are saying and why. That doesn't mean you're agreeing with them, but understanding diffuses hate and hate accomplishes nothing. You can hate the opinion but it's far too easy for that to turn into ad hominem hate of the person, and it's easier still when you can't even be bothered to listen.

My conservative friends know I'm a liberal, and when they disagree with things I post, I cherish the opportunity to hear a dissenting voice that pulls me out of my comfort zones and challenges my assumptions.

And when I see a politically offensive, or even racist or homophobic post, I read that, too. I may hate it but it helps me broaden my understanding of just what exactly is going on in this fucked-up country of ours.

We're all here together. It's hard and it's painful to hear things that are contrary to your worldview. But you have to. The other way doesn't accomplish anything, either here or anywhere else, including Congress. Other people's opinions and experience is what America IS. That's the whole goddamn point.

Surrounding yourself with ideologues, no matter how just your fight, makes it not a fight but a war. It doesn't even leave you the option to have anything other than a war, because you only hear one kind of words. You can be angry as hell in your struggle, but if only one side listens then nothing can be accomplished, because it's all or nothing, which is what a war is.

I am not saying accommodate. I am not saying capitulate. I am not saying back down, back off, be humble, settle for less or be quiet. What we CANNOT do is make people understand us and our causes if we do not at least try to understand them, no matter how hard it is to hear what they are saying.

I believe there is hope for everyone. I have seen with my own eyes, I have seen people turned around to face the truth and I have seen the light of understanding come into them. It can be done and it must be done. If someone is lying down and grovelling in mud and filth and degradation then sometimes we have to get down into that pit with them if we want to try to lift them out. Anyone full of anger and fear is hurting and it is our job as human beings to care and to try to help, however small the hand we offer, when we see someone hurting.

Words of intolerance come from fear and if we turn our backs on the people uttering them then that fear can only turn to hate. We have to have the courage to look at the things that repel us and not be afraid ourselves. If there is any hope for this country ever to heal then it must begin with an outstretched hand and an open mind and a clear heart.

I am not saying that dialogue is the only answer; activism, sometimes in extreme forms, is often not only the right course but the only course. But we are in danger as a society, with broken institutions and harmful traditions that alienate and oppress people and if we declare war on them, then war is a means of breaking things, not fixing them. I am not saying we have to be peaceful but if we are hateful, then our path can only lead to destruction.

Miss America Scholarships

There's a lot of discussion on and praise for the John Oliver piece on Miss America Scholarships, and with good reason.

But what I haven't seen is the actual scholarship amount awarded. It turns out that's an easy number to calculate, because Miss America lists the names and amounts of all their scholarship winners. It was $323,000 in 2013 (for 2012 contestants).

$323,000 is not the amount actually distributed, however. For instance, MIss Vermont Chelsea Ingram was awarded $3,000, but she was (and still is) a college graduate with a full time job and according to the scholarship rules, unless she's enrolled in at least 9 credit hours a semester, she won't receive anything. Lop off Miss Illinois Megan Ervin's $8,000, too, and keep working your way down the list.

By my unscientific sampling, then, at least 15% of the scholarships weren't used, so generously, they awarded $275,000 in scholarships.

Even John Oliver got it wrong. At $275,000 Miss America is not the largest provider of scholarships for women in America. The Society of Women Engineers, which was called out in the Oliver piece, disbursed over $700,000 in scholarships so far this year. And unlike Miss America, I don't think they're lying.



If you're doing the math, by the way, Miss America's $45 million claim is exaggerated by 6,363.7%

The Road Home is in trouble.

Two years ago, I had the rare privilege of seeing a dream come to life, when The Road Home was launched. This 501(c)(3) nonprofit is dedicated to finding social, vocational and employment opportunities for post-9/11 veterans in automotive restoration shops through short-term internships. With the help of a generous sponsorship, we've been able to help veterans, as well as do our little bit to create a new generation of collector car enthusiasts.

But with the sale of American Collectors Insurance to NSM last month, The Road Home USA is losing its charter sponsor. This means huge challenges ahead if I want to keep the lights on--more than just paying the bills, American Collectors covered all the back end legal and accounting work.

While I am willing to take (back) on the overall outreach and management work, I do not have the time, money or expertise to handle everything on my own. The only way to keep this running is to find a new sponsor.

The good news is that TRH is no longer limited by existing commitments and requirements in sponsorship; and it won't take a huge dollar amount to keep the project alive. Probably only enough to pay for accounting; legal help in relocating the organization (we're incorporated in New Jersey; I'min Vermont and would probably want to operate as a Foreign Entity here); and expenses like the website (http://www.theroadhomeusa.org/) and phone.

SO IF YOU KNOW any one or any company who would like to have their name associated with The Road Home, please send my contact information along--I can be emailed at dave@proscriptus.com; or call 786-273-7468 (786 APE RIOT). The need for The Road Home hasn't gone away--let's not let the program die.

An open letter to my former boss, Jim Menneto.

Dear Jim,

For the eight years I worked at Hemmings, you made it painfully obvious that if I wasn't sitting at my desk with a Word document open, you didn't think I was working. You and Rich Lentinello showed me over and over and again that you felt any time spent out of the office was too long, that a full day was too much time for a feature photo shoot three hours away; and you repeatedly publicly belittled those of us who sometimes "only" worked 8-5. The ludicrous, if informal, "three stories/day" rule for travel served only to generate a great number of truly terrible stories, none of which were ever rejected.

Since quitting, I've written just as much as I did while working full time. But with the luxury of being able to do some actual research, the quality of my work has improved. And when I don't have anything pressing, I'll stop and read a book, or go for a walk, or play a game, or watch a movie, or just stay home.

Because writing isn't an assembly line. If I'm not there pressing the keys, the factory doesn't stop. There weren't investors walking through the editorial department saying, "You run a tight ship here, Menneto." Maybe someone in the head office in Charlotte once gave you grief, but if so your job was not to make us conform to someone else's vision, it was to stand up for us.

I can write a six page feature story in four hours, but to do so requires another 40 hours in my head, Everyone's process looks different, but it's generally messy, and sometimes its invisible. That doesn't mean it isn't happening, just that it's happening in a way you don't like. Yes, you've demonstrated you can attempt to make people fit into your idea of how writers should act, but you've seen the results--crushing morale, high attrition and poor quality. Treating people like factory workers has created a factory product--bland, unimaginative and devoid of promise.

To quote Craig yet again, "They took what should've been a fun, engaging, interesting career and turned it into a soul-crushing experience." Congratulations--you're Henry Ford. Now go ship your 10 millionth magazine.

Dave

Tennis

IVOR LARSSEN:

TENNIS PRO

            Smash!  Grunt!  “30-Love!” calls the umpire.  Ivor takes a couple new balls from the ball girl, Linda, he thinks her name is.  He tries to learn all their names, but with over 30 tournaments in a normal season, and half-a-dozen or more matches in a good tournament, it’s hard.  Bounce, bounce, toss…Whack!  Damn.  Let.  The crowd whistles with the Cyclops and the umpire calls for silence.  OK, still first serve.  Bounce, bounce, bounce, toss…Whack!  That one feels good from the moment he reaches up, a high kicker at the corner.  But Joseba “Joe” Zulaika, the Basque great currently ranked in the top 30 in the world, has read Ivor’s motion and is ready with a backhand down the line.  Ivor comes up to the net following his serve and cuts it off, slicing it hard to the other side.  “40-Love!” call the umpire.   Set point for Ivor, to win this best of three match 2-1.

The crowd of Spanish fans here at the Olympic stadium in Barcelona doesn’t know who to cheer for—their Basque neighbor, or the ex-Norwegian pro, a man without a country.  In the end, the excitement of the match carries every one away and they cheer for every point, lost in the excitement of the game.  The Umpire has to call for silencia again.  As Ivor walks slowly back to the line, buying an extra moment or two to breathe, he looks up in the stands and catches the eye of his coach, the Englishman James MacGruder, and sees the confidence in his gaze.  Ivor is ready.  He takes another ball from the ball girl, not thinking about her name this time, knowing that Joe will notice that he only took one.  A deep breath…bounce, bounce, toss…Whack!  And Ivor’s running toward the line, racket already half cocked but Joe lets it go by.  Ivor pulls up short and heads back toward the line, but suddenly the noise from the crowd comes through and he realizes that Joe didn’t let it go by.  Ace!  Game, set, match.  As Ivor heads back to the net to shake the hand of the ruefully grinning Zulaika, it starts to dawn on him that he won.  He allows himself a moment to enjoy the feeling while he and Joe share the few words they have in common, before starting to look forward to tomorrow’s semifinal match, and the strength he’ll need then.  As hard as the last 75 minutes had been, tomorrow will be harder. 

Ford Contour: Looking Back at Six Billion Dollars of Used Car

2000 Ford Contour Sport

It is an unloved, small American car today, but the Ford Contour was designed to be revolutionary. It was designed to be the first new World Car in 50 years.

For some carmakers, the phrase “world car” has a frighteningly compelling ring. Like perpetual motion machines, squaring the circle or mysterious black helicopters, in some minds it can be an obsession that drives you mad, and, if you’re Ford, to the brink of ruin.

Standing next to a first (US) generation Contour today, your first reaction is “So what? It’s a used Ford.” Your second, if someone reminds you of the numbers, is: “This thing cost six billion dollars? Didn’t I rent one of these once? Did they actually sell any?”

The answer is complicated. If we’re generous, we can call US sales one million (peaking in ‘98 with about 260,000 combined Contour/Mystique). But let’s not forget, this is a World Car, so we can add sales of the foreign market Mondeo (which was comprehensively reworked by 1996). That’s a total of 3.5 million sales during the first twelve years in, according to Ford, 60 markets).

Development costs were at least $6 billion for the US version, and another billion dollars to get to the 1993 launch of the Mondeo in Europe. That’s 2Gs per car to break even. Figuring a worldwide average of $250 million per year for model maintenance and updates through 2003 and we end up with around $3,000 in development costs per car for this little jellybean to bear, and average sales of about 5,000 units per country per year. Sheesh! Little wonder that by 2005 Ford of Europe was seeing earnings decline on the order of $100 million a year.

Initially launched here with either Ford’s venerable Duratec 2.5 SOHC iron-block V6 or a more modern 2.0 DOHC Zetec I-4, the Contour always had power (and a 5-speed!) available on the option sheet. While the greatly appreciated 170-horse V-6/5-speed combination in the ‘95-‘96 SE (Sport) yielded a respectable eight-second dash to 60 and a 16.3 second ¼ mile at 87MPH, a 125-horse 2-liter with Ford’s optional 4-speed automatic in the GL or LX gives a tepid 10.3-second slog to 60, and a milquetoast 17.6-second quarter at 80. A high speed merge is a challenge as you enter the willing little engine’s thrashy upper ranges to get at it’s 5,000RPM horsepower peak. Torque maxed out at 127 lb-ft @ 3000 RPM in the I-4, giving decent grunt from a standing start.

Ride and handling characteristics for all trim levels were very good, and they should be, since this is where a huge chunk of that development money was spent, reflecting the attempt by Ford to engineer a platform acceptable to Europeans. The big news came in 1998 with the freshened second-generation Contour, available partway through the year as a 1998.5 model (shades of the Mustang, maybe?) in SVT trim. While the rest of the model line had undergone severe decontenting in an attempt to offset losses from the poor sales, the SVT was loaded with every single available feature except the sunroof and CD player, and was graced with a 195-horse SVT gem. Featuring a larger throttle body, lighter flywheel, conical air filter, larger radiator, oil cooler and a bump in compression to 10.0:1 from the 9.7:1 in the base V-6, this may have been the best $23,000 you could spend on an American car in 1998. Available only with the 5-speed and R-rated 215/50 16-inch tires, 0-60 drops to somewhere near 7.4 seconds, and the SVT Contour-only uprated suspension and brakes keep it planted at an estimated top speed of 143 MPH. Over the short 2½ years of its lifespan, the SVT Contour gained another five ponies to bring it to an even 200 by 1999, due to use of the extrude hone process in the intake. By that time, trim levels had shrunk from the four available in 1997 (Base, GL, LX and SE) to three in 1998 (LX, SE, SVT) to just the SVT and the SE Sport, which lost a slight amount of displacement in the standard 2.5 V-6 and gained a minor bump in compression. SE sales that final year were mostly to fleet users, with the automatic and I-4 combo predominating.

At the start, interiors were one of the Contour’s strong points, with soft-touch plastics and good interior panel fit marred only by a smattering of Ford parts-bin switches. Cost-cutting quickly took its toll, however, and by 1997 traction control was no longer available, body-colored mirrors became composite black and the original buckets were replaced with Ford’s notorious penalty-box, un-ergonomic seats.

A major freshening in 1998 saw the consolidation of the model line into the LX, SE and SVT. The LX was taken downwards to the old GL trim level, the SE to the old LX and an SE Sport introduced which roughly equaled the former SE trim. Glove box, underhood and door lighting were discontinued, and split/folding rear seats disappeared from all but SE trims. Two years later, leather seats and variable wipers were gone, as was Contour in North America.

By any empirical standard, the Contour could have been a resounding success. The words Ford used to talk themselves into the project can be very compelling—“We’re going to build an American car to European standards and everyone will drive it and love it and buy it.” And indeed, every now and then lightning does strike and a VW Beetle comes along. But as we all know, being struck by lightning is a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

Perhaps if the Contour had been introduced when it was originally scheduled to debut in the spring of 1993, it would have in the right place. Hard on the heels of the dramatic and successful LH sedans from Chrysler, it could have appeared as the next logical step in American car design. The Contour was supposed to replace the Tempo, one of the worst lumps of iron ever to disgrace our roads.

Or maybe it was too early, since we’re now seeing Cadillacs competing on the BMW field, and the Chinese are buying Buicks by the boatload. Perhaps it was contaminated by the specter of the Tempo, or maybe it just looked too much like a 7/8th-scale Taurus.

But it didn’t appear two years earlier, or ten years later. It appeared in 1995 and whether it was the wait, or persistent quality control problems and regular decontenting, or a lack of corporate support and dealer understanding that doomed it to the rental fleets of history, we will never know. Ford Contour, we hardly knew you.