STINGRAY!!!

Do you ever have one of those times when a long desired dream finally comes true and it is not all you hoped for, bit of a let down actually. Well not this time cats and kittens.

I had lusted after a banana bike, muscle bike, whatever you grew up calling them since I was a child (can’t say little girl). Unfortunately I was at the tail end of the banana bike craze and ended up with a nice but sensible five speed. And the less said about the pre war (must have been WW I) bone-shaker I had at boarding school the better. A story I will save for another day. 

Growing up on a quiet crescent in Owen Sound I used to trade my roller skates for my friends CCM Mustang muscle bike (a hand me down from his older brother). No speeds, coaster bike with back pedal brakes. The wide rear red line tire meant I could pedal around the block doing extended wheelies and gravel flinging donuts. 

A few years ago Schwinn and other makes including Raleigh (to North American eyes their chopper was weird) came out with replicas of their now super collectible banana bikes. Original Schwinn Krates (Orange, Apple and Lemon Peeler) were selling for thousands. I didn’t buy one fearing I would look foolish.

The banana bike has become the lowriders, rat rod rockabilly guys and gals preferred method of getting around car shows.

The other day coming back through Toronto I spotted an adult female (admittedly) younger than me on a banana bike. Cool, I needed a bike to keep up with the children as the youngest just got her training wheels off. Spotted this early seventies Schwinn Stingray on line, originally from Pennsylvania (don’t think they were sold up here) I bought her for about what it cost new. Original down to the Schwinn nylon tires she has such a great patina I may never polish the chrome. 

Not entirely sure the springer style front end (from the Krates) was available on the Stingray but who cares this bike is boss, right down to the metallic red vinyl seat. Ok technically a boys bike but a pink Schwinn Fair Lady is rather rare.

Within minutes of getting her I was riding around grinning from ear to ear and seeing if I could still do a wheelie….yes but the landing was not pretty. I must have rode for hours, a little self conscious but got “cool bike” from teenage on lookers.

We have so much internal fear to overcome being transsexual, looking  a little eccentric on a vintage bike is all in a days work. Good exercise too, OMG I can feel it in my legs today.

My kids are lucky they have such a cool parent a fact I remind them of often.   

I Never Met a Dead Leopard I Didn’t Like

With apologizes to Will Rogers I love leopard print, glad it came back into fashion (did it ever really go away) I attribute it to my affliction for all things fifties and outré.

Found these very high heels with black and white leopard fur print and they fit! At a local thrift store…score! God knows where or when I will ever wear them but I am sure I will find an occasion. I believe they are at least five inches, as "J" would say F me pumps, I have no idea what she is on about….so much to learn still.

I think I better curtail my leopard obsession otherwise I will start to resemble Edith Prickley on SCTV. A character on the 1976-1984 Canadian comedy show that always wore leopard print.  Edith was the fictional stations manger, described as a  "an amalgam of Rona Barrett, Joan of Arc and Auntie Mame.

Too bad Cadillac never offered a leopard print interior option….oh but April I hear you saying how could you forget the 1950 Cadillac convertible show car dubbed the Debutante. The Cadillac Debutante  featured "Tawny Buff" paint, gold-plated interior hardware, and most importantly leopard skin upholstery….real leopard I bet!

GM Executive, " Chicks dig leopard print, get me the upholstery department stat..."

This blog is a Johnny LaRue Production

Twenty Footer?

Term used here to describe a used car or even collector car that looks great from a distance but up close its myriad faults are clearly visible.

Sunday morning took my freshly washed Seville to pick up middle daughter from a birthday party sleepover.

The gleaming Caddy seemed to make an impression on the male population of the little court. As I exited the Seville an older gentleman called out what year, 1985 I answered, chiding his buddy across the street he says I told you so. 

He replies, "A beautiful car and a beautiful driver", well a double whammy compliment, can't do much better than that! Especially as I had no make up on and was just in jeans and a black sweater.

Only problem we were about twenty feet apart.

I had gone to photograph a car for an article at the shop of a former work colleague. Later when we talked on the phone he says, from twenty feet you are really hot. How is that for a backhanded compliment, and told him so. Laughing he says that is the best he can admit to since he used to know me as a guy. Hmmm I was slightly mollified.

Well I am a work in progress, nothing forty grand in facial surgery won't cure.

Hugs,

April

photo is of a heavily patinaed Mark IV in Detroit. 

Paris, Je t'aime

I Love Paris, no I have not just returned from a trip to the continent (I wish) rather I recently rediscovered the ultimate car movie Rendezvous and the photo book Les Amies de Place Blanche (hat tip to Cyrsti's Transgendered Condo). Both take place in the heart of the city.

I have actually been to the city but it was as a child and again as a teenager. 

The movie by Claude Lelouch is a bumpers eye view of an early morning race through Paris' not quite awake streets. No digital trickery the camera records the whole trip in one take blown red lights and about a million moving violations. 

A Mercedes sedan was used as the camera car and the sounds are from a Ferrari driven on the same route. A Ferrari couldn't have taken the pounding of the cobble stone streets without shaking the camera. Jeez they should have used a Lincoln.

I was lucky enough to see this masterpiece in the cinema on the big screen when still an impressionable youth. Shot in 1976 the film is only ten minutes long ending the steps of the Montmartre. 

If you haven't seen it please see the link below for the most exciting ten minutes you can have in front of a computer.

As any regular reader will know I am fascinated with the transsexual scene in Paris in the late fifties, early sixties, April Ashley, Coccinelle, Bambi and  Amanda Lear. All I believe had their surgery with the pioneering Dr. Georges Burou in Casablanca and all went on to fame of varying degrees.

I am guilty of romanticizing the time and their lives, not all were so lucky or talented to be on stage. Those girls who pursued the seemingly impossible dream of  surgery had little choice but to prostitute themselves. There was no unemployment or social services to rely upon. Unlike the celebrated performers at La Carousal, these women were subject to harassment under Charles de Gaulle's Catholic republic. 

The candid photos by Swedish photographer, Christer Strömholm are at once sad, beautiful and full of hope. In 1959 he moved to the Parisian neighborhood of Pigalle. Christer lived amongst the transsexuals of Place Blanche and was a trusted confident. The mostly night time shots were originally published as Les Amies de Place Blanche, (girlfriends of Place Blanche) in 1983. A new edition has been released with additional photos and reminisances by some of the subjects.

Strömholm wrote in his original foreword, a book "about insecurity… about humiliation… about the quest for self-identity and the right to live". 

Hugs,

April

You Can Go Home Again

My best friend from childhood recently moved back to our old home town of Owen Sound after living the other side of the country and then Ireland. She is an artist and writer of great skill and talent.

The last few years we had reconnected on line we had last seen each other in person (apart from a chance meeting on a bus in suburban Oakville) when we were twelve. In fact we were even younger when I was sent off to boarding school in the UK and had to part.

When I received the e-mail that she was a mere three hours away it was all I could do to prevent myself hopping in one of my cars and driving off to see her that very day. Finally  I able to take a weekend off and drive up highway six to my old home town. I say home town but I only lived there for four years, but it is that Norman Rockwell neighbourhood that is forever associated in my mind as defining childhood.

I was a little apprehensive about visting my friend and seeing childhood landmarks again, worried that it would be an emotional overdose of nostalgia. I was not worried about how she would accept me, beside my family she was one of the first people I told and has been very supportive. One of her close friends is F to M.

I left early on Saturday and made the 120 mile journey (takes three hours as there is no major highway there and #6 passes through many small towns with traffic lights and very low speed limits to contend with). 

Later that morning I met her and her two beautiful daughters. It was like the thirty years apart evaporated and we talked and talked. Later on we drove by our old school, the distance to school and our homes seems to have shrunk with age. The long walk to a child's eye was in reality a few blocks. Everything looked remarkably the same even the old corner store we were forbidden to visit during school hours still stood on the corner. Didn't occur to me then but I should have gone in to buy a Pixy Stix (powdered candy in a paper straw) for old times sake.

We stopped at the house my father had built on a quiet crescent. It was a great street to grow up on as there were lots of other children the same age. The crescent was quiet and our playground, bike races, roller skates, late night games of hide n' seek and in the winter elaborate snow forts and pitched snow ball fights. I had already started to notice cars, a friends older bother had a modified Corvair, a neighbour a Corvette Stingray. The night everyone on the street came out to see a neighbour bring home their new Thunderbird. 

We pulled up to house in my Seville, I asked the couple gardening out front if I could take a picture as "I used to live here." Well you must be a Chadwick how is your father does he still have the Rileys!  Come on in and have a look at your old room! I was stunned! Turned out I was talking to the daughter of the people who bought the house from my father. The house was very much as I remember it though my room had shrunk…weird that.

In the photo you can see right hand window, which was my room, somewhere there is a photo from the local newspaper of Susanne and I looking out that window at the record high( touching the second story window) sun flower my mother grew. 

We talked for a while and found out that there were still some families left from when we were there, including the parents of my good friend David. I knocked on the door and introduced myself as an old friend of David and his sister. They remembered my family but I could see they were thinking didn't they have two sons…don't remember a daughter. They were very nice and asked me in for tea. It seemed like I had only been away a month, time ceased to have any meaning.

I was exhausted after the visit to my old neighbourhood, too many emotions. Back at Susanne's we took it easy and talked, amazing each other at the commonality of our taste in movies, books, cars  and other esoteric interests. Sunday was spent exploring downtown and seeing which stores were still in operation from our childhood. Enjoying a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen, a new experience for her girls as apparently DQ has not made inroads into Ireland. 

Despite our long periods of separation there is a special friendship that distance and time has been unable to diminish.

I became quite emotional on leaving, I did not want to say goodbye for another two to three decades, an irrational fear, we made plans to visit again in the summer perhaps me bringing up my daughters as well.

Johnny Horton singing, Comin' Home and a TV ad for the new Thunderbird:

Wanted Playboy Millionaire Crime Fighter

Journeyed to a secret location this morning to photograph the Black Beauty, a 64 Imperial with such useful optional extras as forward and reverse rocket launchers, hood mounted machine guns and a flame thrower. Now that is one ride ready for your morning commute.

Have to finish the story for the Canadian magazine World of Wheels by the end of the month. Check your local news stands, well in this happy Dominion that is.

Unfortunately eligible bachelor Britt Reid was nowhere to be found. Now girls isn't, Plan B land a rich husband, who am I kidding that is Plan A!

Plus he has a really cool car.

Reality

So far things have not been too bad, I am still at home, bills are paid, mortgage renegotiated, thanks to "J".

I have got paid for some articles, there is unemployment (won't last forever) I take care of the children so there is no child care or after school expenses. I make dinner and the children's lunches.

My blog posts are mostly sunny, cars, family outings, successes at passing.

Ah but is that reality, no I am afraid that is only a partial picture. Reality hit home this evening as I checked my e-mail to find a note from the company I interviewed with recently. Despite what I thought was a great interview and a positive response to my follow up I didn't get the job. There were vague promises of future consulting positions, which seemed worse than a flat out rejection.

I cannot afford in every meaning of the word to wait around for hollow promises.

Even before I had read the entire e-mail I burst into tears, no one sends an e-mail to tell you that you got the job. I retreated to bed and sobbed myself to sleep, thank god I passed out as the pain of my own thoughts was too great.

Depressing thoughts swirled in my head like phantoms, " they read you from the beginning, you were never really in the running, they would be embarrassed to have you represent the company, you cannot even get a marketing job below your old position, you are useless".

Did they call an old boss who didn't know, or harbours a grudge?

My head hurts, I know others have had worse experiences, "J' counsels that they treated me respectfully and to move on and not give up. I feel like a wimp for complaining but thanks for listening and letting me pour out my heart .

April

Here is a cute little movie from my go to band for music to listen to while depressed but don't let stop you watching: