"Lets Just Drive" (lets-just-drive)
02/10/2015 at 23:24 • Filed to: None
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"Lets Just Drive" (lets-just-drive)
02/10/2015 at 23:24 • Filed to: None | 1
| 1 |
Original article can be found @
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I'm a groupie.
Bands and musicians have groupies. Actors and athletes also have groupies. Groupies are the zombies of fandom.
There is another grouping of groupie and it is into this group: me. I'm a car-guy groupie and I would like to tell you about a few of my favorite things.
The Smoking Tire
There really isn't any point in denying it; Matt Farah is The Smoking Tire. Credit where due, a lot of great people have contributed over the years but the brand belongs to (and maybe is) Matt Farah. It is difficult to discuss one without the other. Yes, TST is also a car blog and yes, there are many contributors but The Smoking Tire without Farah is like the Trump family without Donald, leaderless. I'm getting off track.
I listen to the podcast with the religious fervor of a devotee. That's my problem, but you should probably listen in too. Farah always has amazing guests and his regular co-hosts (is that the right word?) help make the show worth listening to; Zack Kaplan, Chris Hayes and Thad Brown to name just three. Recent guests include Spike Feresten, Jack Baruth and the guys from Everyday Driver (more on Paul and Todd elsewhere) and if you don't know any of those names you probably suck. The guest roster is easily one of the most attractive parts of the 'cast. If you are 'in to' automotive journalism (which is like a subculture of car culture) The Smoking Tire Podcast will suit your fancy. Mike Musto from Big Muscle, Aaron Gold of CarCast, Bucky Lasek of generally kicking ass (all of whom are worth following on their various feeds/sources), the list just goes on. Honestly, I cannot recommend the podcast highly enough.
And the podcast is only a small part of what The Smoking Tire does. Their YouTube channel is literally an inescapable rabbit hole of car videos. Farah has produced some staggeringly high quality movies, easily digestible "One Take" shorts and virtually everything in between. The true beauty of YouTube is that you, the viewer, can go back and acquaint yourself with so much material time and again.
Take a moment and go a bit further, however; the Car Show will be your reward. Now cancelled, the unfortunately short lived series featured Farah, Adam Corolla some other people and, in my personal opinion, was largely watchable. Go back, check it out but try not to get caught up because Farah is back on the boob tube.
Matt Farah is fat, bald and rich (the internet thinks) and bound to have a few detractors but if you can ignore the loudmouth idiots (and aren't also one) you'll find a quality guy creating quality content and (leaving the /Drive+ debacle as water over the dam) doing it for you, for free.
Find The Smoking Tire (and Mr. Farah) on the internet at TheSmokingTire.com and on YouTube at YouTube/TheSmokingTire.com or on social media like Twitter @TheSmokingTire and on Facebook/TheSmokingTire
Hooniverse
I adore the Hooniverse and you will too.
Jeff Glucker and Blake Rong make the podcast worth listening to (which is good considering they make it) but there is just so much more. The Hooniverse is a car blog in much the same way that Jalopnik is a car blog – a core group of authors write the damn thing and we read it. This isn't brain science. Rocket surgery. This isn't complicated. Much like Jalopnik, the Hooniverse brings together some amazingly talented people. I happen to enjoy both for very different reasons.
Jeff Glucker is probably every bit as inseparable, as indistinguishable from the Hooneverse as Matt Farah is to The Smoking Tire. The same is likely true of Blake Rong.
If you don't read Hooniverse or listen to the podcast, you should. You really, really should.
(Top secret shout-out to Chris Hayes at ShoutEngine for giving the podcast community a rock solid option – get your own damn podcast)
Tavarish @ Jalopnik
Tavarish (names and locations have been changed to protect the innocent) and I met about two years ago on a lazy Sunday. He, a dapper young gentleman with a razor wit and rakish good looks, happened upon my favorite café – a little French establishment run by a sweet old man and his well meaning, buxom daughter – while I sat contemplating my morning news over a hot Americano (and no, dear reader, I do not traipse lightly in the land of innuendo). Ordering his café as I do my own, with all the pomp and circumstance befitting a Sunday morning brew along the broad street boulevard, I happened to catch his lightly affected accent like the soft tones of bird song and find myself searching out its source. Never before had I beheld such a raw talent so pure in its beauty I dared not blink out of fear I may weep. In that moment I knew it to be true and, more than my next breath, I needed to know him. Boldly, I introduced myself while, subtle as the creeping frost, fingering his Porsche branded leather jacket. Indicating my Cadillac-sneakers, I asked, "What is your name?"
"Tavarish," he replied melting my very core. "I know about cars."
We spoke for hours taking our lunch in what would become 'our' café. Ignorant of our bliss the sun rose and fell while we whiled away the day lost in talk of displacement and chassis codes. It was not until the old man, with his daughter clicking her tongue behind him, reminded us how late the hour that we left our shared company. On the curb, in the light of the harvest moon, we shared one last parting look which haunts me to this day and though we have remained fast friends I often find myself wondering what could have been had we not let the night die so young.
Allow me to tell you about Tavarish, as you know him. Employed as a writer for the infamous publication, Jalopnik he pens columns such as "The Art of the Filp" and authors a subsection of the Jalopnik brand – Car Buying. In capturing still images of the highest quality Tavarish has proven himself a capable photographer though his skill with a wrench is to be marveled at. Demonstrating that profits can be had in the pre-owned automobile market, buying low and adding value before selling high, his credentials speak for themselves. I have watched in bewildered awe with utter wonderment as Tavarish has seamlessly become part of an impressive network of similarly impressive people. Whether building his own brand or contributing to others, including an epic journey as part of the saga of the million mile Lexus, Tavarish is the embodiment of a self starter, a self-made man.
A worthy mind might follow him on Jalopnik (at Jalopnik.com) and APiDAonline.com or, as one does, on Twitter @APiDAonline and you should because, and doubt me at your own risk, there will be so much more to come.
Everyday Driver
Everyday Driver is Paul Schmucker and Todd Deeken. It's a podcast called "Car Debates" on iTunes, Stitcher and (of course) ShoutEngine. It's a website posting reviews and commentaries. Primarily, however; it's a car porn production warehouse.
Excuse my hyperbole but Paul and Todd are literally on fire. Never in the history of man or god has there been such a pairing. Fate designed them to come together and create the most beautiful, stunning car reviews which the masses might enjoy. A million distant stars exploded to create enough star stuff to forge their immortal souls from the very essence of the universe. The chorus of singing angles, heralding their arrival, caused the death of a thousand small birds. In Egypt they are known as Corfufu and Corfifi, or God and Godder of Cars. Proud pontiffs pronounce their presence where ever they may travel and even the most elite of the elite of the motoring press part like the Red Sea as they pass.
Everyday Driver will change the way you look at cars forever.
Find them on literally everything online simply with the addition /EverydayDriver and don't be a dick, turn off your Adblock and give a click. They do it for free, for him, you and me, and it's a pretty douche move to see that they lose that bit of add revenue generated by you.
The Rest and Thank You For Clicking
Just like you, I love car media in all its forms because I'm one of those guys who is into cars. In all honesty, I cannot recall the last time I purchased anything in print so I'll go ahead and recommend Motor Trend as a YouTube channel and that both Carlos Lago (@carloslago on Twitter) and Jonny Lieberman (@mt_loverman on Twitter) are completely worth the Twitter clicker. Of course Jay Leno, who we all know as car guy first and everything else second, is always putting out great videos to watch – often dealing with the strange and obscure from the world of motoring current and past. I've discovered some amazing folk, like Brendan McAleer (@brendan_mcaleer) through my obsession with automotive journalism and journalists (I'm counting you self-described bloggers in the same illustrious company, with or without credentials) and I would welcome your suggestions in the comments.
With-a-G is back to not having anything written after his username
> Lets Just Drive
02/10/2015 at 23:37 |
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I promise to check out "Everyday Driver" if you give " Axis of Oversteer " a gander. It's very motorsport-centric, but the authors are (perhaps gentleman ) racers in some BMW & Porsche classes and know their stuff.