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Saturday, June 11, 2011
A whole 'nuther reason I'll never buy a Chrysler product ever again
My first-ever car, in the mid-1970s, was a used Oldsmobile Cutlass, and I put a solid 100k miles on it over a seven-year period before I sold it. And in the 1990s, my family owned, and enjoyed, a Chrysler minivan that met our needs very nicely indeed.
I was disgusted, however, with the Obama Administration's thuggish suppression of the rule of law in both the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies, and as a matter of principle I'll never again buy a product manufactured by the post-Chapter 11 successors of either.
If I needed any help sticking to that resolution, though, I just heard it in a commercial for a Dodge Ram truck.
I'm generally a fan of actor Sam Elliott, who did the voiceover for this particular commercial. I like him in no small part because his deep, rumbly, and twangy voice sounds authentically western to me. He's not a Texan, and perhaps his accent is affected rather than natural, but he could probably pass for a Texan in most towns here.
So I was just jarred — and very, very disappointed — to hear him just now say, "Talkin' a big game about your enjin' is one thang. Havin' thuh proven history that kin back it up is uh whole other story."
Oh, that's just so wrong. That last phrase has to be written, and said, as "uh whole 'nuther story."
I mean, there he was, with a dramatic sound-track and tough-looking trucks on the screen, sounding all rough and rugged and ready to take on something muddy and difficult, maybe even patriotic — and suddenly, by the shift in his voice, a whole corn cob must have been teleported about eight inches up his lower bowel.
I'm going to choose, with absolutely no evidence either way, to assume that Mr. Elliott almost got into a fist-fight over his deep-set objections to delivering the line that way, but he finally backed down because he was donating the proceeds to European orphans made destitute by the organic beansprout food-poisoning epidemic. I choose to so believe so that I won't dislike him forever, because if I dislike Sam Elliott forever, I will no longer be able to maintain my belief that the Dude abides, which would disappoint me.
But as for whoever insisted that the line be read as "whole other," I have just one word:
Poser.
Posted by Beldar at 09:16 PM in Humor, Obama, Technology/products | Permalink
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Comments
(1) Paul_In_Houston made the following comment | Jun 11, 2011 10:38:46 PM | Permalink
Sam is one of my all time favorites. When he plays a cowboy, he looks as if he stepped right out of a Frederic Remington painting.
But, I hear you.
In his defense, in these times, I suppose he has to make a living somehow. :(
As for Chrysler products, someday I may write a post on my blog about a 1994 Dodge Intrepid I bought new because I was seduced by its looks, considering it (at the time) as an American Jaguar.
That car was the most snake-bit vehicle I've ever owned, and when it was repossessed during a period of unemployment a few years later, my feelings were a mixture of "OMG! Now what am I going to do?!!!" and relief that "It ain't my problem anymore.".
(When I bought it, in late 1994, it had a pretty good rating with Consumer Reports, from whom I've generally gotten very good info. About six months later, their members began reporting various electrical and transmission problems and its rating went down considerably, by which time I was already stuck with the thing.)
"Snake-bit" would probably be an apt title for that post, if I ever get around to writing it. It's a term I've heard just about forever in engineering, equivalent to "cursed".
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(2) Daryl Herbert made the following comment | Jun 12, 2011 3:24:05 AM | Permalink
How does Chrysler have the "history" to back up anything?
It's only like 1 or 2 years old!
The old Chrysler is dead, along with Chrysler's debts, much of its pension liabilities, and tort liability.
There is no history. It's a whole new, fly-by-night company that could disappear at any moment and leave other people holding the bag.
I will never, ever buy a bailoutmobile. It's not okay.
(3) The Drill SGT made the following comment | Jun 12, 2011 5:54:41 PM | Permalink
Sam's from Sacramento, CA, my hometown. I think he was classic in "We were Soldiers"
(4) Dafydd ab Hugh made the following comment | Jun 14, 2011 12:09:14 AM | Permalink
Anybody here remember "I be got no weapon!"
Dafydd
(5) LibertyAtStake made the following comment | Jun 14, 2011 11:50:00 AM | Permalink
Looks like a 'Pander Fail' for Gub'ment Motors. There will be many more such fails from Team NWO Barry as we hurdle toward 'Shellacking II'
d(^_^)b
http://libertyatstake.blogspot.com/
“Because the Only Good Progressive is a Failed Progressive”
(6) Beldar made the following comment | Jun 14, 2011 5:40:16 PM | Permalink
Regular reader and commenter Mike Myers emails to say he couldn't get this comment past TypePad's mysterious filters, for whatever reason:
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Ah Chysler and Sam Elliott--and Fix It Alla Time as in Fix It Again Tony. What a witches brew.
First for Sam Elliott--a great voice, and a great look--and could pass for a Western hero. But he was born in Sacramento--or so I'm told. So no real Texan bona fides there.
I read a biography of Walter Chrysler. He got his start as a railroad machinist in Kansas. His abilities to organize men around mechanical projects (maintaining locomotives--the virtual technological space shuttles of the day) soon became apparent.
He rose to be the Chief Engineer (as in maintaining the rolling stock) of several midwestern railroads. He then headed off to the nascent automobile industry and was an early head of Buick. Then off to found his eponymous car company. Engineering was a big deal at the early Chrysler company. These days not so much.
Since I'm a retired transactional lawyer--and have a great deal of respect for certainty in the legal process--and despise the Obama governments trashing of bankruptcy law--I'll never buy a Chrysler product post 2008.
As for Elliott's boast--or at least the ad copy's boast--about the engineering on the pickup truck? Any automative product that has Fiat in its industrial genes is a mechanical breakdown waiting to happen. They've worked on a reputation for unreliability--built over decades--that's well and truly earned. Even Lucas, the well known "Prince of Darkness" is more reliable than Fiat.
(7) Stephen made the following comment | Jun 14, 2011 8:43:53 PM | Permalink
You can take the boy out of Lamesa ...
(8) Beldar made the following comment | Jun 15, 2011 3:14:01 PM | Permalink
Stephen (#7), that's very true, and it's no knock on Houston to confess that I actually work hard to hang on to all of the "Lamesa" that's still in me.
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