Bitchin' Camaro

As I've previously mentioned, I AM a car freak!Alot of trade publications have made a big deal about the rerelease of GM's touted "Muscle Car" the Camaro. The car had goen through many generations and it was finally yanked from production in the early2000's. But consumer demand for a car that's not front wheel drive and has some ooomph, made them rethink that decision.

I'm using the title by and band called The Dead Milkmen, a semi-punk group from the 1980's for this rant. I don't know why I bother, I don't read other peoples' blogs, so it should come as no surprise that nobody reads mine, but it's a plcace for me to vent my unwanted opinions, so here goes...

When I heard that Chevrolet was bringing back the Camaro, I was sort of psyched. I always liked the car...well not always, but most of the time I thought they were cool looking and had good performance. When early photos of the proposed new version of the muscle machine were leaked, I was a bit more receptive to the idea, because it looked more like the first generation of the pony car. Now that they've been out for a while and I see them on the street, I'm less impressed. They seem to be suffering the same problems as todays youth...obesity! The car doesn't look sleek, it looks like it's packing too many pounds around it's mid-section. It looks bulky and clunky. Looks can be deceiving, because it has good performance statistics, but yet I sure wouldn't want one because of it's look like it needs to go on a diet. Many of the "tuner" cars sport a lot of stuff that looks like it was glued on them, and one of those are these "body kits". For the most part I feel that these kits don't enhance the looks of the vehicle aside from making it look different from what rolled off the factory floor. The new Camaro has that same look, only it's not a body kit, it's the way it was designed. Sure, I'm at the age where I start to whine about how things were different when I was young, but I'm not a complete Luddite, I do like change and seeing things evolve, but I'd like to see them evolve into something that looks better, not worse. I'm going to attempt to post some pictures on this to let you compare and decide which is more visually appealing, to put me in my place if I'm wrong.

American Idiot

Well for once my title is directly related to the topic of my rant. This is the title of an album by Green Day, that I happen to like...ALOT ! It has gotten pretty good reviews and won some Grammy Awards, so it was made into a Broadway Play. As a Christmas Gift, I asked for a ticket to see this production. It happened during a span where Billy Joe Armstrong, the front man, guitarist of Green Day, and writer of the play was appearing in the show. It's been a longgggg time since I saw anything on Broadway, other than taxi cabs and traffic, so this was a big night out for me. First of all, the seating at the St. James Theater was NOT comfortable. Secondly, I shouldn't have had two beers with my dinner because there was no intermission. Those things aside, I really enjoyed the musical, but it wasn't a ten on a scale of one to ten. If you had no idea of what the plot was, it wasn't easy to figure it out. Secondly the choreography was minimal. I'm not sure iof that was intentional, to give it a punk "edge" or just economical, to keep it going for a limited run. In any case, the cast was very good, the music is what made the show, but since there was almost no spoken wording, the story line was not a "gimme" Despite stretches where I wasn't quite sure what was going on, I still enjoyed it thoroughly. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to make it to the encore without emptying my bladder, the trip to the men's room in the basement caused me to miss a couple of segments that were important to the play. The price of $137.00 dollars per ticket is also out of my price range. I can't afford that for a concert, and I know that Broadway shows aren't geared towards the working class, I think more people would take the plunge if they were less expensive. That said, I still enjoyed it alot and would encourage any rock fans to give it a viewing.