Heavy elctro-blues men The Black Keys know how to construct hooky but rugged tunes that do not get stale because they are not that sweet. “Next Girl” from 2010’s “Brothers” is good example of their gritty but pop-savvy sensibility. Check out the lyrics, wah-wah and thump. And remember, fellas: The look of the cake, it ain’t always the taste…
Plug it into your Pandora or download it from iTunes or Amazon.
OK call me old school but this Gillette Body Grooming commercial kind of pisses me off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXzdbr7HvAc
Let me get this straight: According to Handsome Boy Modeling School there, us guys are supposed to Gillette-style our bodies according the whims of whatever hottie comes along? What if I get tired of the “hairless” chick and make a play for the one who likes the hairy chest (but not the back*)? Guess I’m screwed then, right? Talk about a moving target! I’m gonna have irregular patchy fur all over my body if I listen to this pretty boy’s advice.
Nuh-uh. I don’t give a rat’s ass if that is Kate Upton and Hannah’s hot and Genesis is probably a bit of a freak. “Grooming” my wonderfully hairy bod to please some high maintenance babe ain’t gonna happen. Love the hairy chest rug or leave it, darlin’, and do not even say a word about my legs or I’ll send you back to momma. If a relationship starts with body hair demands, where is it going to end? (Hint: your nuts/her purse.)
Riddle me this, Gillette: are these demanding diva’s gonna make Superman shave his chest, too?
Kal-El ain’t shaving nuthin’, baby!
Yeah, didn’t think so.
*Admittedly, I have yet to meet a woman who “likes” a hairy back–sorry, my wooly friends. But I’m sure she’s out there…she’s just maybe in Turkey or something.
Look, you’re not in college anymore and no one thinks it’s “cute” when you shuffle into work or the bar with clothes that just came off the bedroom floor. You’re a young man trying to make a name for himself in this world. Look the part.
Now you could send everything to the dry cleaners. But that would cut down on beer money. Maybe you have a man servant to take care of such mundane tasks or you send your clothes home to momma? Maybe you have a throwback 1950s June Cleaver wife who will gladly do it for you (yeah, that’ll last). In any case, we here at MFL prefer self-reliance even for the boring stuff.
So unless your work calls for overalls or a hazmat suit, take 5-10 minutes to iron whatever you’re going to wear, even a T-shirt and jeans. If there’s something that’s just too much of a PITA to deal with like linen, then sure, take it to the dry cleaners and have them do it for a few bucks. Same goes for your fancier dress shirts if you’re worried you might burn through them while you’re busy texting. But mostly you’ll do fine, lazybones.
Some helpful hints: Continue reading
The Stingray’s back and coming soon to GM showrooms near you:
And we want one (euro snobs need not read on).
C7 Stingray: 6.2L direct injected small block V8. 0-60 in under 4 secs. 26mpg (believe it when I see it). MSRP $56.5k loaded. Aluminum and carbon fiber up the yin yang and magnetic ride suspension. Sounds like a bargain and I have a feeling it’ll be hard to come by without a wait.
Check out the official site: 2014 Corvette Stingray
And an excellent photo gallery and rundown from the boys at autoevolution.com
Place your orders, muscle car fans. And can we please have some of these in the new United Sports Car Racing series?
Cannot stop wanting to play this damn song, although really the Colin Meloy live version not necessarily this studio version. But this’ll have to do for infecting you all with it, as it’s certainly close enough and I need to share this damn itch.
Plug it into your Pandora or download it from iTunes or Amazon.
Arguably one of the greatest books ever written on auto racing, Robert Daley’s “Cars at Speed” covers the Golden Age of the early to mid 20th century’s grand road races and nascent Formula One scene.
As a correspondent for the New York Times, Daley covered Grand Prix racing in Europe and around the world from 1958 to 1964 and the book was published in 1961, right at the crossover period between front and rear engined Grand Prix machines. Along with Carroll Shelby, Daley is largely credited with helping to introduce the thrills of twisty circuit and street racing to the broader United States’ public, which previously only had interest in Indianapolis 500 and stock car-style events.
In “Cars at Speed”, Daley recounts the death defying years before seat belts, fire suits or big money, when men raced for glory and their own strange need to live on the edge and when drivers and spectators died with brutal regularity. In this book, you’ll find stories of Phil Hill & Dan Gurney, Jean Behra and Juan Manuel Fangio, Alfonso de Portago & Stirling Moss and many others. You’ll find tales from the Targa Florio, the Mille Miglia and Le Mans. In this book, you may learn more about the history of road racing than you thought you knew and discover a lifelong passion for motorsports and admiration for the men who take the risks. That’s how it worked out for me, anyway.
In a style heavily indebted to Hemingway, Daley’s wry, brutally honest tales are both funny and horrifying. And always but always exciting and immensely enjoyable. Along with his slightly later, larger photo-centric book “The Cruel Sport”, “Cars at Speed” may go in and out of print but belongs in every racing enthusiast’s library, casual or fanatical.
You can get nearly new copies through used book dealers on Amazon starting at around $4. Not a bad price for a lifetime of enjoyment.
Hot summer days have many good points and one of the best is that they were made for outdoor grilling. And the most fun type of grilling, in my opinion, is slow cooking. Not only does it allow you to drink more beer while you grill longer, which is nice, but it also enables the grillmeister to demonstrate a bit more finesse and technique than a 5-minute steak (not that there’s anything wrong with that either).
One of my favorite semi-slow grilled dishes is classic hickory-smoked chicken. This can be cooked on a standard Webber kettle-type grill (no smoke box required), in about an hour and a half to 2 hours depending on the size of the chicken pieces or whole bird that you’re using. This would be considered a “hot smoking” method and looks like this (this pic was taken closer to the end than the beginning FYI. And yes, that is a kielbasa and yes, I am happy to see you!):
You can see that we’re banking the charcoal to one side and the chicken and kielbasa is actually placed over the area of the grill without the coals, the cool side, so as to receive indirect heat. We don’t have to sear the chicken first with this recipe–it’ll cook just fine anyway with a delicious caramalized skin.
So here’s how we do: Continue reading
A groovy, near 11-minute workout by the Master of the Sax relatively early in his career as a leader, “Dahomey Dance” features an all-star backing ensemble of Eric Dolphy on alto sax, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Art Davis & Reggie Workman on bass and the inimitable Elvin Jones on the backbeat.
Originally released on the “Olé” album in 1961 but also available on the Atlantic Coltrane omnibus “The Heavyweight Champion” (among other compilations), this track is accessible to any listener and, most importantly, really swings with a loping groove and concise solos. It’s long but somehow over before you want it to be. “Dahomey Dance” is what a great mellow jazz tune should be: smooth, full of soul and exhibiting superb collaborative musicianship. You owe it to yourself to check it out.
Plug it into your Pandora or download it from iTunes or Amazon.
Just a (not so) brief primer for the beginners on the kinds of things to think about when you start looking for a vintage watch.
First off, most of the watches that us vintage buffs are into have plastic crystals. This can be alien to a lot of people who are used to modern timepieces with their ultra-hard synthetic sapphire crystals. And yes, acrylic crystals are prone to scratches. But you can polish those out easily with some cotton balls and a neat little product called Polywatch. It’s a light abrasive that will smooth out scuffs & nicks. In a pinch, even toothpaste will do. Once you become accustomed to the warm look of an acrylic crystal you won’t be so hung up about it, I guarantee you.
In fact some watches are so iconic, like this mid-1960s Omega Speedmaster Professional (aka “The Moonwatch”), that the companies still put plastic crystals on them today despite the superior hardness of modern crystals. They know very well: don’t mess with a classic!
Secondly, what to buy? And my answer to this is: buy what you like. Continue reading
No great revelation here: We like the World’s Most Interesting Man in the World campaign. Who doesn’t? Here’s why:
Sure, the beer’s good with Mexican food and in hot weather. But the campaign is better than the brew. It is an all time classic.
Wiki article here: The Most Interesting Man in the World
