A Leslie Wong Blog

(left to right) Maggie, Leslie Wong, Charles F. Rose

Intense, relaxed conversation at Wentworth Springs, July 2001.

I thought I’d get an early start on my martini today.

I was in the muffler shop trying to get the down pipes for my Shankle headers straightened. The shop is a one-man operation, and over the years, Robert, the owner, had been working on a Cobra replica. The last time I was there, the car hadn’t been painted. Now it had a beautiful deep, dark metallic silver paint job. He told me he got it painted across the street. I didn’t ask him how much it cost.

Since acquiring it 3 years ago, the paint on our 1972 BMW Bavaria was starting to go.

I bought a Makita 9227C 7-inch polisher, went to the local paint shop, bought a bunch of Meguiars’ medium and fine cut cleaners, glazes, etc. It was labor intensive. I don’t really have it in me. It looked pretty good after I finished but it lasted for about 2 weeks. The paint starts to look dull, like there are cloudy patches in it. I decided to drive over to the restoration shop and see how much it would cost to get it painted.

I guess I should have known as soon as I walked in, being one of the non-moneyed subscribers to Sports Car Market and watching the Barrett-Jackson auctions on Speedvision. I’ve seen the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. I had become inured to seeing a $324,000 1968 Hemi Dodge Dart or a $621,000 1956 Mercedes Benz 300 SL Gullwing.

I parked in the driveway and walked over to the garage doors. There must have been 10 or 15 cars in various states of disassembly. Some guys were working on an XK-120. There was a pontoon Mercedes Benz 220S convertible, the pale yellow color of my ‘59 190 that I had in high school. There was silver 300 SL Gullwing up on jack stands. Further back there was something that looked like a ’30’s Rolls-Royce Phantom III.

I told the shop owner that I wanted to see how much it would cost to paint the car. He walked around the car looking at everything – opening the doors, feeling the drip rails, rockers, the spot welds under the hood. He was doing the math in his head, fabricating metal here and there for rusty panels, describing the process of stripping it to bare metal (it already had a respray), the masking process, primer, paint and everything. The bottom line was $20,000. When he said it, I had to ask him again, twice. What an ignoramus I was.

He went on to explain the work involved in this paint job but showing me an example made it clear. I didn?t even notice what kind of car it was. It was up on a lift covered in paint masking, so the bottom of the rear quarter panel was above my head. All I saw was a deep red fender, an immaculate wheel well and suspension parts that looked brand new.

He complimented me on the job that I had done on the seats; I didn’t say I’d done it with $99 leather World Upholstery covers I bought on eBay. He also said I did a good job on the engine compartment.

I asked him about the paint that was on the car. He said that kind of repaint lasts two years. I told him I used Meguiars Medium Cut, glaze, wax, etc. He said you could do that and it was last for about three hours, given the condition of the paint.

He went in to his office and looked up the value of a Bavaria in the Sports Car Market price guide. I told him that even if they were perfect, they weren’t worth that much. He said the coupes were more desirable. I thought KooPe.

His advice was to sell my car and get another one at an estate sale with decent paint. He had just spent 45 minutes with me, giving me an evaluation and advice. I mumbled about having to ask the missus. I thanked him.

While he was finishing up with me, an immaculate black ‘53 Corvette drove in. The owner looked like one of those old rich guys. He lifted the hood and I did a double take and walked over and asked him, “Is that an LS1?” He nodded. The manager said they had built the car; some guy down south had done the chassis, basically ‘97 Corvette running gear with the ‘53 body. He told me that every year when the guy parks at the Pebble Beach Concours, he gets $500,000 offers for the car. They can build them, but rich guys don’t want to wait for them.

My iPod stopped working while I was riding my bike. The hard disk froze. I tried restoring it. I tried reformatting it (on my PC, Mac and Linux box).

I bought a replacement hard disk from Geeks.com. That didn’t work either. I sent it back. They sent me another one. That didn’t work. They sent me another one.

That didn’t work. I’m a little off on Geeks.com right now. I tried repartioning it on my Macintrash with pdisk. It looked like this:

Partition map (with 512 byte blocks) on ‘/dev/disk1′

1: Apple_partition_map partition map 62 @ 1
2: Apple_MDFW firmware 65536 @ 63 ( 32.0M)
3: Apple_HFS disk 29231920 @ 65599 ( 13.9G)

Device block size=512, Number of Blocks=29297520 (14.0G)
DeviceType=0×0, DeviceId=0×0

I kept getting the message no valid block 1, so I gave up.

I didn’t want to spend $150 for a disk (Toshiba doesn’t make the MK1503GAL disk anymore, so most of the available replacement disks seem to be “refurbished” or pulls from “working” iPods).

What pisses me off is I have this good 3G iPod (except for the hard disk) and it costs half the price of a new one to fix it. Or I could send it to Apple; they’ll fix it for $255.55. I guess I’ll make it into an iPod Super, and break down and get a 5G for carrying around.

The 3G iPod was first released in May 2003, so I’m way behind Steve Jobs new ipod every year theory.

The BBC has a story about an Italian research study that shows that eating pizza reduces the risk of cancer.

I miss the pizza in New York; Freddy and Peppers, specifically. I actually eat Dominos pizza now.

John Hicks passing made me think of all the jazz musicians I’d seen when I lived in New York. If you live in New York for a while, you can listen to jazz.

Bill Evans used to be at the Village Vanguard so often, I used to think I can always see him next time. The last time I saw him there I was sitting against the far wall and I almost tripped him when he walked past me to the piano. When he died, I started thinking about mortality.

This is a list of the jazz musicians I’ve seen perform. That’s a lot of scotch, cognac and cigars.

Betty Carter, Tommy Flanagan, Art Blakey, Bill Evans, Red Garland, Pharoah Sanders, Cecil Taylor, Dizzy Gillespie, Roy Eldridge, Freddie Cole, Joe Henderson, John Hicks, Cootie Williams, Benny Green, Kirk Lightsey, Pharaoh Sanders, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Richie Beirach, Sonny Rollins, Ella Fitzgerald, George Coleman, Eddie Harris, Johnny Hartman, Joanne Brackeen, Sonny Stitt, Al Haig, Fred Hersh, Pepper Adams, Paul Desmond, Barry Harris, Abdullah Ibrahim, Jimmy Garrison, Nat Adderley, Tete Montoliu, Art Farmer, Al Cohn, Zoot Sims, Jimmy Cobb, Bobby Enriquez, Gary Bartz, Bill Mays, Urbie Green, Kai Winding, Gerry Mulligan, Milton Naciemento, Gilberto Gil, Ahmad Jamal, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Astrud Gilberto, Mulgrew Miller, Hilton Ruiz, Tony Bennett, Tony Williams, Johnny Griffin, Ramsey Lewis, Art Pepper, Shirley Scott, Milt Jackson, Hank Mobley, Reggie Workman, Harry Connick, Jr, Gary Burton, Slide Hampton, Roy Haynes, Lou Donaldson, Terrence Blanchard, Alberta Hunter, Rashied Ali, Stanley Turrentine, Herbie Hancock, Steve Turre, Teddy Wilson, Christian McBride, Kenny Clarke, Mel Torme, Cedar Walton, Grady Tate, Ray Barretto, James Williams, Wynton Marsalis, Gil Evans, Ronnie Mathews, Stan Getz, James Moody, Joe Zawinul, Percy Heath, Eubie Blake, Lee Konitz, Alberta Hunter, Harold Land, Chuck Mangione, Randy Weston, Oliver Jones, Phil Woods, Sarah Vaughn, McCoy Tyner, Roy Hargrove, Shelly Manne, Jackie McLean, Carlos Valdes, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Ornette Coleman, Anita O’Day, Kenny Werner, Curly Russell, Leon Thomas, Billy Taylor, Cal Tjader, Ron Carter, Albert Heath, David Sanchez, Thad Jones, Leroy Vinnegar, Mel Lewis, Toots Thielemans, Gil Scott-Heron, Horace Silver, Tito Puente, George Duvivier, Renee Rosnes, Eddie Gomez, Marty Rivera, Count Basie, Chick Corea, Les McCann, Earl Hines, Donald Byrd, Charles Mingus, Billy Higgins, Clark Terry, Kenny Burrell, Russell Malone, Steve Kuhn, Bobby Watson, Rufus Reid, Jay Leonhart, Red Mitchell, Wayne Shorter, Woody Shaw, Curtis Fuller, Chucho Valdes, Kenny Kirkland, Wynton Kelly, Al Di Meola, Joe Farrell, Albert Ayler, Chico Freeman, Candido, Miles Davis, Joe Williams, Sun Ra, Abbey Lincoln, Hank Jones, Carmen McRae, Jack McDuff, Airto Moreira, Eddie Davis, Vince Guaraldi, Jack DeJohnette, Mike LeDonne, Arturo Sandoval, Eddie Palmieri, Oscar Peterson, Lester Bowie, Joey DeFrancesco, Branford Marsalis, Joe Pass, Blossom Dearie, Paquito D’Rivera, Mary Lou Williams, Danilo Perez, Mal Waldron, Nancy Wilson, Ellis Larkins, Stanley Clarke, Al Foster, Harry Edison, Ray Brown, Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, Jo Jones, Ray Drummond, Lionel Hampton, Red Rodney, Junior Mance, Milt Hinton, Bobby Hutcherson, The Youngbloods, Curtis Lundy, Cecil McBee, Peter Washington, George Mraz, Art Davis, Jon Faddis, Yusef Lateef, Joe Locke, Hugh Masakela, Idris Muhammad, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, Ray Barretto, John Lewis, Jacky Terrasson, Quincy Jones, Slam Stewart, Illinois Jacquet. Michel Camilo, Ellis Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Buster Williams, Art Farmer, Marian McPartland, Art Taylor, Tom Harrell, Nicholas Payton, Bob Brookmeyer, Michel Petrucciani, Benny Carter, Max Roach, Stefon Harris, Diana Krall, Dexter Gordon, Jimmy Smith, Richard Holmes, Eddy Vinson, Kenny Barron.

One of my favorite pianists, John Hicks, died May 10th. I was fortunate to see him play frequently at Bradley’s and other clubs around New York. I remember first seeing him play in Betty Carter’s band. He was spiritual when he played with Pharoah Sanders. I always went to see him when he played in town. His music brought joy to my life.

Stanley Crouch has the best remembrance of him in the New York Daily News. All About Jazz has an obituary. An extensive list and samples of his recordings are at his website with Elise Woods.

A Flash tool to create your own Jackson Pollock-esque “painting,” without standing over the floor.

Read about Jackson Pollock on Wikipedia.

digg story