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