Warlocks, Electric Cars Strike Out

It must have occurred to Charlie Sheen somewhere along the line that he can’t dance, sing, juggle, tell jokes, perform magic nor write. What exactly it was he proposed to do for “an act” remained a mystery until last night. Well… the answer is in: he didn’t think it that far the way through. Maybe he thought for $150.00 a crack, the people who came to see him would just sort of mingle, maybe buy him a beer? Or maybe he could have bought them a beer? After a few hits of whatever, I’m sure Charlie is the life of the party. Sadly, theater, at least in these United States, involves a bit more than that.

Mark Twain used to do a one man show. (At times he did it from his house.) Our recent profile in Pulpness Anthony Norvell essentially supported himself doing one man shows, also mostly from his own house. Will Rodgers, Don Rickels, George Carlin have had whole second careers doing one man shows, either on tour or on Broadway. There is a key, however: you kind of have to do something. You have to have a talent which somehow translates into something people would like to see for 105 minutes. That’s kind of hard to do when you DON’T dance, play an instrument, sing, juggle, tell jokes, perform magic or write. Even Sonja Henie ice skated. Ester Williams swam.

There’s always the smashing a watermelon with a big mallet act. I understand that guy is dead. Or his brother stole the act or something like that. You could do the “You might be a redneck” joke or the “Get her done” joke, since both of those guys seem comfortably retired. You could get the rights to perform that play about how men lose the remotes. That toured for years and was a franchise. The problem is, you’ve already booked the room. Most people have an act before they do that.

Wait. I know! You could do a take off on the “You might be a redneck” joke. Instead of that, just start every sentence with “You might be a drug addict if” and then recount the events of your past few days, hours, first thoughts that come to mind. That may kill like ten minutes. No doubt about it, you are going to need the mallet and the watermelons. And wear a funny hat, like Carmen Miranda did. Unfortunately, Carmen Miranda could sing and dance, too. You could have the goddesses invite in garage bands. It may be a bit late for that, but you could go out on twitter and put the word out. Or people could bring scripts for you to read aloud from. That should be good enough, at least on such short notice.

By the way: Good job, Warlock.



My Electicar

I have to confess that I haven’t seen one yet. I’ve seen a few high end hybrids, but no Nissan Leafs or other electricars. I live in Chicago, so my chances of ever seeing one here at any time before full adoption (when the price drops to 20K) is pretty low. So far the news hasn’t been all that wonderful. There is a problem in upscaling the battery production and the whole running out of juice on the road question seems to be hampering sales. But light is shining, if this report is anything more than electric car industry planted babble. (Which would depress me, if that turns out to be the case. Rest assured, Hil-Gle is not normally a paid blogger.)

From the March 24 edition of The Economist:

ENGINEERS have long dreamed of shortening the time it takes to recharge batteries. Currently, that can be hours. For applications like motor vehicles it really needs to be reduced to minutes. Now Paul Braun and his colleagues at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, have succeeded in building prototype batteries which do just that. Their most successful attempt can be recharged almost fully in a mere two minutes…

…(I)t would allow electric cars to be recharged on the road in the same amount of time that a driver now spends putting petrol in his tank. And at that point the other advantages of electric motors (mechanical simplicity, huge acceleration and silent running) would probably trump the old-fashioned internal-combustion engine in the minds of most motorists, and the long-promised revolution of electric motoring might finally come to pass.

The Economist is apparently not bought off, since in the same issue they also reported:

Any enthusiasm over BYD’s conventional cars paled next to the excitement over its plans for electric ones—the reason, it was thought, for Berkshire’s interest. Two years ago Scott Laprise of CLSA, a stockbroker, was so wowed by a test run of the F3DM, a hybrid that could switch from petrol to electric power at the flip of a switch, that he immediately placed an order.

Mr Laprise is still waiting for delivery; and BYD has announced a series of delays to another hybrid, intended for the American market. Meanwhile, in the hypercompetitive Chinese market, the F3 is suddenly an old model. Geely, another Chinese manufacturer, has an equally inexpensive but more modern car that is this year’s flavour. “Chinese buyers are proving to be more loyal to features than brands,” says Mr Laprise. “When something nicer comes along, they buy it.”

Next: What Happened to The Story Paper (and what the heck are the often historically referred to Story Papers in the first place.) Be here. Aloha.