Tagged: Ed Garsten
Retorter’s Notebook: 2016 Detroit Auto Show
The 2016 North American International Auto Show here in Detroit is now in the books for me and I’d like to offer some observations.
1-My company, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, has the best stand. I don’t say that to suck up, since a person of my age group has as much chance of advancing as a possum crossing the Jersey Turnpike, but I actually believe it. Check it out. I’ve made it easy by gratuitously posting the video I produced about the stand.
2-In order to park your car you must do one of the following:
- Work for a company willing to waste its capital on buying up every space in every convenient parking lot, deck or garage. Thankfully I don’t. But I wished I knew someone who did and would slip me his/her pass in exchange for murky promises of free pints of mead.
- Win the Powerball in order to pay extortion in exchange for parking at one of the lots actually opened that’s closer than Toledo. My expense report should be quite amusing.
- Don’t drive at all…and call in sick.
3-It’s a lot of fun mooching free cappuccinos and other free stuff from competitors’ stands while acting indignant and pouting, “what? no shrimp?” I learned that from being a reporter.
4-Indicative of the auto industry’s boffo year in 2015 every company’s stand had lights.
5-It was nice to see everyone in great moods since things are going well and there are so many very cool new vehicles being introduced. During the horrible 2008-9 recession those smiles were attributed to Xanax.
6-Unlike the last election cycle no Presidential candidates toured the floor hoping for some coverage from the 6,000 journalists attending. Perhaps they accurately figured out the reporters were more interested in self-driving vehicles, and not autonomous pandering.
7-One reporter about to conduct an interview with one of our executives actually asked, “Uh, what’s FCA?” I could have had fun with that but took pity on the poor thing who, I’m sure, wonders why acronyms are all caps.
All in all, it was the best Detroit show in recent memory. We’re all feeling good about the business, the new cars and trucks in the pipeline and how great all the displays look. I would have posted this sooner, but I had to find a place to park.
It’s the Auto Show…Bring on the Snow!
We’ve enjoyed an unseasonably warm winter so far, but more powerful than El Nino, able to leap stationary fronts with a single low pressure system, able to bend the patience of steel-minded journalists…it’s the North American International Auto Show! That means snow is on the way, along with torrents of news and a deluge of drivable dreams under the Cobo canopy in downtown Detroit.
Truth be told there aren’t many surprises since the automakers generally give away the news in advance on an embargoed basis so their stories will show up in the morning papers. What’s left to wonder is what kind of swag awaits reporters who will do their best impressions of Ronda Rousey to fight for a free logo-embossed pretzel they can sell on eBay.
I worked the show for four different employers. I spent the longest time with CNN as the Detroit Bureau Chief. For a few consecutive years we produced special programs with the titles of “Route 1992, 1993, 1994, etc.” Production teams would traipse up from Atlanta and spend most of the week crabbing about the cold weather and the fact there wasn’t a Krystal burger joint in site. When one producer who had helmed a couple of these shows was finally re-assigned he got on his knees and..stayed there.
When I was the National Auto Writer for the Associated Press it was me against everyone. I thought I had a scoop when the then head of marketing for one automaker (I won’t say which because I work there) spilled the beans on a new incentive program. I later asked the CEO about that and his face got very red when he sputtered, “well he didn’t clear that with me!” “He” soon cleared out his office.
At the Detroit News, where I was the GM beat writer, I was told I had to come up with a lead story for the next day. We were in one of those hated group sessions with the GM CEO. No one was getting anything so I pulled the trigger asking him to react to the fact that Toyota would soon overtake the automaker as number one in sales. Let’s just say he became very unhappy, but coughed up the quote and I made my nut for that day.
Now that I work for an automaker, my main job is to make sure our stuff wins coverage, particularly from broadcast and digital media. It’s fascinating to be on the other side of the battle lines. I’ve come to appreciate the skills professional PR people need to hone to do their jobs properly, although as a former reporter, I can’t help telling a reporter who asks if they can get an interview regarding the new “Chrysler Impala” the view must be very dark inside their hindquarters.
Indeed, I look forward to the most important auto show of the year…seeing old friends, eating new shrimp and smiling at the nice young ladies offering mints as I tell them, “No thanks. I’ve breathed my last breath.”
Going to School at Paula’s Parties
The boys grew Beatle hair to look cool and hide their pimples. The girls started growing the parts that made the boys act very un-cool and realize how much less mature they were than the girls. We weren’t old enough to drink alcohol but at 13 our bodies and minds were starting to go through the hell called puberty, intoxicating us with thoughts of adult pleasure, or at least a decent makeout session and maybe copping a feel.
It was 1965. We were in Junior High School. Specifically, JHS 172 in Queens, N.Y. It was a rough school in a suburban neighborhood. Every classroom had at least one broken window and for those of us who passed the test in 6th grade allowing us to skip from 7th to 9th grades, we risked getting the crap beat out of us by jealous 8th graders and 9th graders indignant their ranks were poisoned with younger “maggots,” the term used at the time to describe overachieving pre-teens—at least in our neighborhood. Indeed, when the announcement was made on the PA that beloved woodshop teacher Mr. Feuerstein passed away, our science teacher, “Killer” Kowalski deadpanned, “better him than me. Go to Chapter 7.”
There was a girl in our little group named Paula. She was too independent to go steady. Popular, but not snobby. Just cute enough for guys to covet her but not developed enough for the tough guys to hit on.
Paula threw parties in the basement of her house. They were fairly civilized with soda, chips, records playing and a little bit of dancing, although most guys our age were either too shy or clumsy, so the girls mainly danced with each other.
At some point we played a kissing game called “School.” The boys sat in chairs along the wall. The girls got in line and one by one they sat on a boy’s lap and kissed…on the lips! If the boy liked the kiss he’d say “fail” and the girl would have to keep kissing him. If he didn’t, he declared, “pass,” and the girl moved on to the next pimple puss. The problem, besides being very demeaning to the less desirable girls (in the eyes of the idiot boys), was when it was Paula’s turn, none of the guys would let her pass. She was that good a kisser. At some point she would simply tell the horny boy she was dropping out and moved on to the next guy. This really held up the line and the poor girls stuck behind Paula would get pissed off and attempt to “fail” to not only get their fair share of action, but to put some space between them and Paula. Eventually the game ended and so did the party. Most of the guys knew they wouldn’t even get close to kissing a girl on the lips until the next party and the forced lip-locking of “School.” In case you’re wondering, we did not play “Spin the Bottle.” It simply left too much to chance.
I don’t know what pre-teens do at parties today. I’m guessing it’s a lot of texting with everyone’s noses in their smartphones. Maybe video games and tossing down snacks from Trader Joes, washed down with an energy drink. Oh sure, there’s probably some fooling around courtesy some helpful hints from the Internet.
For us, 50 years ago, it was simply enough for our libidos to learn from our dad’s Playboy magazines, dirty jokes….and spending some time at Paula’s parties, when “School” was in session.
If the Ball Drop…Stopped
I’m not one for looking back at the outgoing year and not naïve enough to think I can predict what will happen in the incoming trip around the sun. What I do spend a lot of time thinking about is that 60 second period between the Times Square ball starting its descent and the moment it hits bottom marking the new year. It’s the purgatory of time. I call it New Years Eve-entually. Yeah, sure, the old year is in its final seconds but let’s face it, you said sayonara to that after seeing the first promo for Kathy and Anderson’s Obnoxin’ Eve. The new year isn’t quite there but that’s where your head is. So what thoughts do you cram into those 60 seconds as the old year dies and the new one’s head is popping through?
Here’s my list:
1-I know New Year’s Rockin’ Eve is pre-recorded which makes it more horrifying that someone at the network could view it first and still air the program.
2-If Donald Trump is elected President I’m glad he’s still not married to Marla Maples because that’s an OK name for a Sesame Street character or someone from Vermont, but not for a First Lady
3-Is the guy standing next to me smoking a joint or do his clothes naturally smell like a decomposing stoat?
4-Why don’t they ever make the Times Square ball look like a butt so when it reaches bottom it looks like it’s sitting down?
5-I would like to begin all staff meetings with 3 minutes of thumb wrestling
6-What if the Earth became bored with orbiting the Sun and spent 2016 making the circuit of Bed, Bath and Beyonds? I’d like that because I have about 50 of those 20 percent off coupons.
6a-Will a certain singer take over store chain listed above and change the name to Bed, Bath and Beyonce?
7-If you hug Eminem too tightly, would he melt in your hands?
8-Scientists reveal the syndrome known as “affluenza” is really a strain of “assholyness.”
9-It would be more fun if hurricanes were named after farm animals. Wouldn’t you love to see the headline, “Hurricane Hog Slops Across East Coast.”? “Hurricane Chicken Gooses Bahamas.” ?
10-Time’s almost up. How fun would it be if the ball got stuck an inch from the bottom leaving us temporarily parked between the past and the future meaning we’d live in the “now”, enjoying the “moment,” savoring it, without regrets about what we’ve already done or frets about what’s to come? That’s the way to start a happy new year!
Happy New Year to all of you!
Autonomous Everything
The development of autonomous vehicles…cars and trucks that make a driver a passenger…is all the rage. I’m all for it, especially if it has the effect of moving some horrible drivers from behind the wheel to a warm place in the trunk.
This has me thinking, though, of other things I wish would accomplish everyday tasks without my personal involvement.
The first that comes to mind is the autonomous shirt. I would like nothing better than to walk into my closet, give my shirt of choice a slight nod, then have it jump off the hanger and onto my chest then buttoning itself. If my tie did the same thing, I would be happy forever, except for the fact that I would be wearing a tie.
I never really enjoyed operating a steak knife. Oh, it’s not a difficult task but I’d get a big kick out of watching it cut my sirloin sans my hands. That would leave both hands available to operate the fork, which performs the very important function of placing the meat in my mouth. You may point out there are electric knives which do the hard work of slicing and dicing but you have to hold the thing. My autonomous steak knife would, well, just know to get to work.
Autonomous coins could come in handy especially if you have to flip one. Personally, I’m a flipping failure, so it would be nice to have a coin flip itself and save me the embarrassment.
How about the autonomous politician? Ha. Never gonna happen. I’d really like to see an autonomous horse. You hop in the saddle and instead of pulling the reins in the direction you’d like to ride, the equine just wanders the range until it finds something to graze on, a water source or a mare that wants to make a pony.
I’ll move on to my final autonomous fantasy. That would be a kid. I remember an episode many years ago when one of my friend’s kids was bored and asked him what he should next. Ever the loving dad he replied, “anything that takes you away from me.” Yeah..like that.
The Frittered-away Fortnight Dilemma
When I left my desk Friday, it was the last time I’d do so in 2015. I made sure the wastebasket was emptied, coffee pot unplugged, piles of junk on my desk thinned to a few spare Post-it notes and the last crumbs from all the holiday cookies, cakes, brownies and peanut brittle deftly swept to the nether reaches of my 12×12 cell/office/workspace.
Now comes the hard part. What the hell do I do until I return in two weeks? Normal people relax. I could go on an actual vacation in a warm location where you spend your time broasting your epidermis under the sun and tip anyone who so much as looks at you. Who knows? Maybe they’ll bring you a Jack on the rocks. I understand you don’t have to tip a lifeguard who saves you from drowning, although I value that service more than the bellhop who expects a gratuity for grabbing you a cab that’s already just sitting around awaiting its next fare. Actually, that kind of vacation wouldn’t do me any good since I’d never sit still long enough to cook evenly.
I could spend the next two weeks binge watching old episodes of a TV show I missed, but then again why would I do that since I apparently didn’t think enough of the show to watch it when it originally aired. Oh, wait, I’m already doing that. Paste the big L on my forehead.
I’m not a member of Costco, otherwise I would graze there all day snarfing down free food samples and snarkily asking people who buy 150 rolls of toilet paper if they have control issues or are they aspiring to become town criers. I’m not sure an unfurled roll of Charmin would make an apt substitute for parchment..but if you have 150 rolls who the hell cares? They were a great deal.
One person suggested I volunteer for something. Well..that would defeat the purpose of the break if I exchanged doing paid work for un-compensated labor. Don’t get snippy. I support several charities from the comfort of my debit card.
My wife has a reasonable list of tasks for me to do which I will complete by turning this into a drinking game. Vacuum the house, drink a beer. Clean the bathrooms, sip a Jack. You see where I’m going with this.
I’m sure by the time I return to the office I’ll wish I had even more time to fritter away by doing things like contemplating which game shows offered the best parting gifts. I always liked the lifetime supply of Spam, which you could use as lunch, or to patch bicycle tires.
When someone asks what I did during the year-end holiday break I’ll puff my lips, shake my head, roll my eyes and complain that I was SO busy I wish I had two MORE weeks. I heard Costco was giving out free cocktail franks.
Season’s Insincerity
Are you suffering from a syndrome I call “Simulated Holiday Amiability Malady,” or SHAM? It manifests itself in several ways, most notably in the workplace.
Here’s SHAM’s progression.For most of the year a person, let’s call him Schmeckel, will avoid you as one would a victim of Swine Flu, or abuse of Old Spice. Schmeckel is pretty sure you’re after his job, his office and premium parking space. It’s not true, but Schmeckel is a schmuck and sits alone in the cafeteria with an extra tray and an empty soup bowl so people will think he actually has a lunch companion who just got up to go to the washroom.
Snap! It’s Thanksgiving and SHAM carriers infect everyone they see with an obnoxious and insidious strain of false sincerity and feigned friendliness. “How you doin’!” Schmeckel may suddenly ask you. “Have a great Thanksgiving? Plans for the holidays?” Your soul tells you to invite him to enjoy a solo honeymoon, but you see, SHAM is terribly contagious. You are now obligated, against your will, to reciprocate the bogus buddy-buddy and reply you had a wonderful turkey with family and have big plans for Chanukah, Christmas, New Years, Groundhog Day and every day on a calendar that Hallmark cashes in on.
The most dangerous venue for contracting SHAM is the office holiday party. You have to attend because the boss will take 25 points off your annual evaluation if you don’t show up reducing your bonus to a Twix bar. For three or four hours you’re stuck in a small space with a large number of people who wish you dead but are all forced to put on happy, insincere faces, toasting, boasting, hugging, mugging, mentally barfing, for the benefit of convincing the boss he/she is lording over a homogeneous workplace, which enhances their chances of scoring a promotion to a position for which they are not qualified.
SHAM’s gestation period expires when the ball drops in Times Square marking the new year and, finally, the end of the holiday season. When you return to work on January 2nd, all of SHAM’s effects are instantly forgotten, its scars completely healed, and until that fourth Thursday the following November, you can return to a relaxing normalcy of honest loathing.
Hanukah Story: Genesis and Confessions
First, on behalf of all Jewish kids I want to thank Christianity for being born around the same time as Hanukah is celebrated. See, Hanukah is pretty much a back-bencher in the pecking order of Jewish holidays, down there with Gefilte Fish Grinding Day and Aggravation Oy Vey Days. There were no presents or decorations. BC Jews celebrated by lighting the candles, mainly because there was no electricity and they needed some sort of illumination in order to balance their books.
But since Christmas came around things became immediately much better for little Jewish yingele. Astute marketers figured if the goyim kids could score major gifts for their holiday, Hanukah was close enough that it should become a big tsimis, including not just one present, but eight presents…one for each night of the holiday. The kids would be happy, the merchants would make some shekels and parents could maintain their comfortable level of aggravation trying to come up with the goods.
This brings me to how it went down in my house. Rather than the eight gift gambit, we could choose one, big, ridiculously idiotic gift. I can think of three in particular. Two, I received, one, I didn’t because I asked the wrong person, which I’ll explain later.
My first was a three-foot long monstrosity called Bop Baseball. 
As you can see in the photo, Bop Baseball was equivalent to the old game of Nok Hockey in that it entailed whacking a wooden puck. The game proceeded depending on which circle the wooden puck landed. There were circles for singles, doubles, triples, home runs and outs. The problems were two-fold. One, the damn thing was so large my poor mother struggled to schlep it from the car to the house. Forget wrapping it. The second problem was the wooden puck was really like a doughnut with a hole in the middle. A couple of good whacks and the puck split in three. Bye, bye Bop Baseball.
My second regrettable choice was something called Shop King. 
This overpriced mistake was made to look like a combination table saw, drill and lathe. But instead of wood, the plastic parts could cut only styrofoam. The problems lay with the fact that Shop King required about a case of batteries which lasted maybe 7 minutes and that the power they provided was so weak the tools barely made pock marks in the styrofoam. Throughly frustrated, I summarily deposed Shop King and banished it to the dungeon below my bed until one day it mysterious disappeared into the kingdom of Dumpster.
Finally, the gift I never received–the Remco Pom Pom Gun. 
It looked very cool in the TV commercials and made enough noise to sufficiently annoy everyone in our 400 square foot apartment in Queens, New York. The glitch here was that was the year my mother decided I should visit Santa Claus at Macy’s in the Roosevelt Field Shopping Center in Westbury, Long Island. Now, I was only 6 at the time and didn’t realize there was no cross-promotional deal between Santa and Hanukah so I took my shot. “What would you like for Christmas?” Santa asked. “Oh,” I replied as honestly as I could. “I don’t want anything for Christmas. I celebrate Hanukah and I’d like a Remco Pom Pom Gun!”
Santa was not amused by this little tow-headed Jewish kid crashing his holiday, and grunted, “yeah, whatever. Next!” and sent me off his knee as fast as whatever projectile the Remco Pom Pom Gun shot.
Despite these traumas I always enjoy Hanukah. My Episcopalian wife makes the best latkes and matzo ball soup, my (grown) kids receive gifts that fit in their pockets (money), and I still remember all three blessings for the lighting of the candles. No matter how close to Christmas Hanukah falls we give it its full due, and always make sure the Christmas tree isn’t too close to the menorah..and burns for eight days.
The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper Cattle Call
The story of D.B. Cooper has always fascinated me and Saturday’s Detroit Free Press, had the best recap yet of the crazy story of a guy wearing a jacket and skinny tie who parachuted out the back of a 737 with a quarter-million stolen dollars strapped to himself and was never seen again. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s living in luxury in Bora Bora. Maybe he’s keeping house in a cleaned-up shipping container in Tacoma.
But where the story really hits home for me is the fact that I once auditioned for a part in the movie recounting the caper–“The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper.” It was quicker than a boy’s first nookie.
I was living in Tucson, Arizona at the time as a graduate student and reporter at the local ABC affiliate, KGUN. They make a lot of movies and TV shows in Tucson because it’s a beautiful place surrounded by mountains and cactus and the Old Tucson old west town and soundstage was just a short drive through Gates Pass, across the Tucson Mountains. Everything was shot there from John Wayne films to Little House on the Prairie episodes.
Word got around the newsroom they were auditioning for two “on the scene news reporters” with one line apiece to appear in the movie. Now I’m no actor and because I can’t remember lines I had to change my undergrad major from Speech and Theater to Radio/TV.
So what the hell. A female colleague and I decided to go for it and we showed up at the Tucson Holiday Inn, with about 300 other people to audition for various bit parts.
Such things bring out all sorts of characters.
Among the impossibly good looking Hollywood wannabees and freaky neverwillbees, a handsome dude with blonde hair, perfectly coiffed hair and a full set of teeth walks up to me, smiles, and says, “Ed! Remember me?” I hadn’t the foggiest notion who this guy was. My blank look gave it away, so he bailed me out.
“Ha! I knew you wouldn’t recognize me. I look a lot different from the last time we met. I’m Ron White, the mule skinner. You don’t make shit skinning mules, so I get a good haircut, some nice clothes and pop in my teeth to audition,” he explained while laughing his mule skinning butt off.
Indeed, I had shot a profile of him, which included one of the most regrettable standups I had ever done…on a mule. Hey..it was early in my career. Mistakes were made! Here it is…seen for the first time publicly since 1979.
After getting over that shock a big bald guy walked up to us while we were waiting and boomed, “know who I am?” Um. No. “You will when you hear this!” he boomed even louder. “Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum. Big Bubbles. No Troubles!!!” Ah. So THAT was the guy. We acted duly impressed enough so he gave us a satisfied look then moved on to the next unsuspecting clump of hopeful souls awaiting their turn to be rejected.
Finally, after a couple of hours, we were ushered into a tiny motel room where the assistant to the assistant to the associate-assistant apologized the casting director was late because “he’s been auditioning nudes all day and he’s very tired.”
After resting his eyes from epidermal overdose I was finally granted an audience with an older guy with over-tanned reptilian skin, bad perm in his thinning grey hair, gold chains and open shirt sprouting a field of scraggly grey chest hair.
“Who’re you gonna be?” he yawned .
“Uh, Ron Gardner, reporter,” I stammered.
“OK…Give him to me,” he yawned again.
“OK! Here we go,” I stammer again as I hold a pen as a lame substitute for a microphone and say my line: “I’m Ron Gardner on the scene. Where D.B. Cooper is, no one yet knows. Will the mystery be solved?”
“Thanks,” he yawned one more time, and that was it. So much for my Hollywood career.
My female colleague got one step further. He snapped a Polaroid of her before she was dismissed.
We must have made quite an impression though, or the casting director was duly traumatized by our anemic performances. Both roles were cut from the movie…maybe that’s why the movie tanked..and D.B. Cooper was never found.
The Barber of Civil
Went for a haircut today. What do you call it? A “styling?” During my TV years I called it that because the places I frequented for my tonsorial trims charged inflated prices for the privilege even though they performed the same service as the much lower priced haircut places. Basically, you come out of both with less hair and less money, with the only difference being how much less money.
I’ve been going to the same chain place for 15 years. It’s in a strip mall that lost its anchor store long ago leaving a few lonely active storefronts scattered along the walkway. There’s a coney restaurant, Eurasian restaurant, dentist, and my haircutting place. In between, an empty hulk where the supermarket once was.
Most of the haircutters at my place are Russian women. There’s one American guy but he talks too much. That’s what “stylists” do. They want to act like they’re your friend. A friend wouldn’t use a sharp instrument to remove part of my body…at any price.
The Russian women don’t screw around. They cut your hair and then it’s out-ski. Typical conversation:
Russian haircutter (RC): “It nice outside.”
Me: “It IS! Beautiful!”
RC: “Dat’s rrrrright!”
They don’t ask what you do, if you’ve had a nice day or how your family is. It’s just snip-snip-snip, cash out, tip and scram.
I found some old photos of when I was on TV and had my hair cut by expensive stylists and compared it with how I look today after being shorn by a chain chopper. No difference. Still have a face for radio.
I think if I ever went back to television I’d still go to the same place to get my hair cut, coughing up 12 bucks each time plus tip. If forced, I’ll just hyperbolize, if asked where I get my hair done, and say FABULOUS Sams. That would just be fantastic.
edLINES 