For the last week, I've been besieged by people trying to sell me a Corvette. Given my interest in shows like Top Gear and general fast car ambiance, I'm not completely surprised although still somewhat taken aback...I've commented here that Corvettes are not, shall we say, the AXE's dream vehicle. They have always been good in a straight line, but that's about it. They are incredibly thirsty -- their small V-8 claims 26 to the gallon but that's undoubtedly highway, with the windows up, no AC and coming down a mountain. They were always uncomfortable. I did find one on line that I liked -- it was a 79 Stingray with 80K on the clock. However, it's in Dallas. And, the Quality of Chevys in 1979 makes me think that there's a reason why it only had three owners and 80K on the clock...
One of the sites I look at in the evening is New York Magazine's gliterrati piece, for no good reason except they have an excellent sense of the absurd. They tossed up this piece as a jump ball, and nobody was really able to slap it...or maybe that's an unfortunate analogy. For some incongrous reason, I've always felt that there was a lot of sublimated homosexual stuff going on in the Dukes of Hazard movie. If Ashely Simpson isn't a Marilyn Monroe type, not sure who is. This is from the original, which had a lot of the same stuff going on...And, for some snarky reason, Vanity Fair, home to nude pictures of teenage girls and various other strange stuff, has started a "gay car blog." What the hell are they thinking of you ask? Well, cars are American as eagles, and easier to acquire and almost as expensive to keep. (Note to readers: The AXE does not have an eagle. Honest. I'm not Stephen Colbert.) Why wouldn't they be interested in cars? My kid brother's partner, a classy gentleman named Germaine who does own a bunch of real estate in Beverly Hills including the one housing his salon off Rodeo Drive told me how he had always wanted a Corvette. He finally got one and drove it for about six months, hating the damn thing because of all the things that people who are not brainwashed by the mystique or those who were and bought one point out. He must have had a good week, because he took it in for service and they gave him a loaner -- a Cobolt. Really a crappy cheap car; given that they had about $60K of his cash sitting on the lift leaking and shaking and acting all weird, they should have gotten him something better than that. So, he was driving back to the shop and saw an Acura Dealer...stopped, test-drove a RL and that was all she wrote -- the bill of sale and transfer was done that day.
Most gay folks I know are smart consumers with good taste. A list of the top "gay" cars is actually a good place to go look for possible new rides. As the teaser on NYMAG pointed out, not one is a Mazda Miata. However, the blog has yet to put out the list...but, I think it'll be worth the occasional visit, particularly as the miles go by on the AXE mobile and the balence owed on it goes down. Seriously, smart consumers with good taste. If Consumer Reports and Playboy had their way, we'd all be driving Toyota Corollas. And, Maybachs.
(Note to people who have car loans with interest -- it's not a good idea to buy a new car while you're upside down on your car loan in a tanking economy because you can get 0% financing on approved credit. Seriously. Far better to live on a while, and increase your car payment by some amount to knock off principal quicker and lower the interest paid over the long run. If you happen to not be upside down or have the damn thing paid off and have it still worth some money, then go ahead and trade. If you're not in a favorable position and have absolutely got to get a new car because the ashtrays are full or you just had a flat tire on the brand new tires you bought, I advise you to trade down. Seriously. I traded cars for just those reasons -- I drank a lot in those days --as well as because I thought a Jeep made more sense in Ectopia than the '89 Mustang GT I'd had for a year and I had just quit drinking and wasn't thinking clearly --I traded the Jeep in under a year for a V6 Probe and look at SUVs and shudder..) Anyway, Vanity Fair came up with a list of what they figure is the gay buyers guide. Although snarky in the extreme, there really isn't a bad car on the list except for the one they threw in for bad taste -- the Pinto. I didn't know a lot of gay folk when those things were on the road, but the one's I did know well were lesbians and drove Porsches, Mustangs and a 1969 Opel sports coupe. Which was far superior to the 1979 Corvette, for a quarter of the price. Of course, the dollar was worth something then...
Now, a gay gun blog would be kind of different but why not? The AXE has a strong preference for Colts and Desert Eagle in handguns although I did like shooting the Beretta 9mm and the Glock 10mm is a hell of a gun. I used to own a lot of guns -- the gun is actually not the problem cost wise, by the way. Buying enough shells to get good with it will break your back. If you must own a gun and want a hand gun, I recommend the Springfield Arms collection -- high quality equivalent to Colt or Smith and Wesson, and not quite as pricey. For long guns, if you want to target shoot, there are a lot of great choices. If you want to target shoot only, go low caliber...there is nothing wrong with the .22 longrifle for plinking. If you must get something that has a lot more heft, take some classes first. Shotguns are fairly simple; I owned a semi-auto .20 Gauge Smith and Wesson that I bought from a guy who'd just got a DWI years ago for $125.
Guitars? At present, I have six, which is actually down from...nine. Over the course of my guitar playing life, counting the abortion that was the first axe for AXE, I've had fifteen. My weapon of choice for acoustic guitars has always been Gibson. I have never found a Martin that I liked playing; I've owned three Gibsons and all of them have been great. I've commented before about the Yamaha 12 string I have and love. It's possible to get some great guitars from China, Korea and Taiwan. (Ok, Taiwan is China...and, that's where Yamaha get's their boxes made.) I have no idea what the number one gay guitar is, althought i suspect it's probably a Jimmy Page model SG 12/6 model. Or, a stratocaster. KD Lang used to play a Gibson, as I recall, in the Cow Punk days. I know that a lot of the Gay Community used to like Heart and Joan Jett -- the guitar playing still attracive blonde Wilson sister favors Gibson and Epiphones Les Pauls while Joan Jett has a thing for Gibsons. She's got an autographed custom Melody Maker up on the Gibson site as a contest promotion for her latest album. The Wilson sisters had an Epiphone up on the Epi and Gibson sites as a promotion, the Les Paul Ultra II which is the LP I own. Hell of a guitar. I think Epiphones may be the best buy at the moment in the electric guitar world, although Taylor has a trio of electrics that are really lovely. I almost bought one not so long ago...beautiful AXE with the same pickup configuration ( an acoustic and two humbuckers) as the Ultra II. I have the same attitude toward Taylors that I have toward Martin on the acoustic side, but the electrics are a totally different breed of cat.
Well, everybody has their own favorite bar. Since I quit drinking, I'm no longer an afficiando, of course. In my drinking days, I drank just about anything except Southern Comfort, Vodka, Cream Sherry or Malt Liquor. Yup, got utterly wasted on that stuff and threw up for hours. My preference was Bushmills Black, Courvoissier, Guiness, German Weizen Beer, and Henieken. At the end, I was drinking tons of stuff that I really didn't like at all in an effort to cut down and "control" the drinking. Well, I wasn't thinking clearly...I was drunk.
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