1. How old were you when you got your driver’s license? Learned to drive a stick shift?
My first car was a family hand-me-down. It was a stick shift with “3 on the tree.” That’s what I learned to drive on when I 15 years old. I wonder why they don’t do the gear shift on the steering column for stick shifts anymore?
2. Who taught you how to drive?
Mostly mom. Dad took me out a few times, but he never had the patience with me. Mom is the one who ended up going around with me the most when I had my driver’s permit. I had driver’s education in school and was actually taught to drive by the father of a minor celebrity. In my memory, it involved lots of yelling and cussing. Although that isn’t actually true, because Mr. C is a rather gentle man with no real cussing vocabulary. Interesting how the mind changes the facts after many, many years.
3. Cars: first, current and pie-in-the-sky future?
Current: The OMC! (Old Man Car) A rather large Ford Taurus. In the Future: Something real sporty – an obscure Japanese thing, perhaps. Or maybe a 1960s muscle car vintage coup of some make/model.
4. Napster/Kazaa/Filesharing: A crime or the Best Thing Ever?
Best Thing Ever! As a result of file share in late 90s and early millennium, I found more artists I had never paid attention to and as a result ended up buy more music than ever before. Now, with most of the P2P gone, I am buying less music. Just goes to show ya.
5. You’ve just inherited $35 million dollars. Show me how you’d spend it.
Pay off Mom and Jim’s ranch, buy a nice big home – one of those fancy ones on 6th Ave. Drop a bunch into long term steady investing . And travel. Many of us have talked at great length of the world tour of food.
To paraphrase Springsteen – “Mister the day the lottery comes, I am flying on jet plane for lunch with Ho Chi Minh.”
1. I was 16 when I received my driver’s license and 17 when my Grandpa taught me how to drive a stick shift in my Dad’s ’88 Ford Ranger. Poor man must have been terrified, but he didn’t show it.
2. As above, Grandpa taught me how to drive manual, but I learned to drive in two cars, our ’59 T-bird and ’67 Fairlane. Mom and Dad took turns teaching me the ropes. After learning on the T-bird, I should have simultaneously received a boating license.
3. First: ’72 Jeep Commando, gold metalflake. Honked when turning right and wouldn’t shift out of low until you hit 35 mph. A humbling vehicle. Current is my 2001 Honda Civic. I love its zippiness. That thing will last forever. Dream car is a 1955 Ford Fairlane. Either Robin’s egg blue or pastille pink.
4. Definitely the best thing ever, as it’s forced Big Music Bidness to reassess their $23 pricetag on a CD that cost $1 to make, from artist’s salary to pressing. I gladly pay full price for independent labels and bands, however. That’s just the right thing to do.
5. $35 m. post taxes, of course? Set up Mom and Dad. Invest, invest, invest. Buy the Doodle Ranch somewhere in Congress Park, as well as a few ‘extra’ properties so that our friends never are without a roof over their heads. And if we get some good returns from our investments, we’re taking a Teens Trip to Amsterdam. Hold on to your hookahs.
!) I received my driver’s license on my 16th birthday (2/12/1992) because Mum & Dot were tired of carting me downtown & picking me up at all hours of the night. I learned on a stick shift & have never looked back. Automatics make me crazy as I am a control freak.
@) My friend Virginia taught me how to drive. Dot took me out once & Mum’s got a lead foot so I wouldn’t let her teach me.
#) My first car was Oxy: 1983 Dodge Omni. My current car is JuJu: 1995 Saturn SL2. My future car is trendy but, I love them so: dark green Mini Cooper with yellow racing stripes & one of those all consuming sunroofs w/ an amazing stereo incorporating an mp3 player.
$) File sharing is the best thing ever as I’ve learned of so many artists who are never mentioned because they aren’t pushed into the mainstream by some record label. I’m buying more music now than ever (& that’s saying something with 1000 CDs currently & countless others already sold for survival).
%) I’d buy my parents’ house, tear it down, treat the soil, then rebuild it to sell whilst purchasing a new house for them in the small Colorado town of their choice. I’d invest a large sum & return to the school of my choice to finalize my degree in music engineering/business. Afterward, I’d build a home studio & create a new indie label to release & promote up & coming musicians.
Mine are posted. I got a bit windy……….
1. The first car I ever learned to drive was a stick shift, so I guess I was 15 ½ when I learned to drive a stick.
2. I too, was taught by the father of a minor celebrity: my dad. Dad was the townÂ’s driverÂ’s education teacher (certainly not a profession he chose, more of a profession that found him). Dad definitely isnÂ’t the most patient person in the world, but I recall him as being surprisingly good-natured and treated me like any other student.
3. First: The worst car ever made, a 1979 Dodge Omni. First car *I* ever bought: A 1987 Honda Accord. I literally drove it into the ground. Current: 2002 Audi TT Roadster. ItÂ’s all right. . .if you like cute, fast cars that handle beautifully. Future: a 1958 Mercedes 190 Roadster. Perhaps the most beautiful car ever built.
4. On the surface, generally a crime. But at a deeper level, itÂ’s a profound way of sharing ideas and information (a lot like getting stoned). Of course IÂ’d never break the law, but I donÂ’t tell others how to live their lives.
5. As IÂ’ve gotten older, IÂ’ve realized that IÂ’m less into wealth than I am into comfort and aesthetics. So IÂ’d probably buy a nice home, fill it with comfortable things, and buy some art. IÂ’d also want to travel. And of course IÂ’d get enough plastic surgery that I could finally look like Diahann Carroll.