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David Burge Profile picture
@iowahawkblog
Jun 4, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read • Read on X
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My new favorite movie of all time: High School Confidential (1958). It has EVERYTHING: switchblade fights! Mamie Van Doren! Reefer addicts! Jerry Lee Lewis! Midnight hot rod races! Vampira beatnik poetry! And non-stop hep cat lingo galore, daddy-o! ImageImageImageImage
I literally can't believe I never saw this movie before last night on TCM. Should be available on TCM on demand soon
Plus it has my late great pal Norm Grabowski (uncredited) as one of the Wheeler Dealers, the hoodlum gang that runs the reefer biz at 35-Year Old Student High School Image
And Michael Landon as head honcho of the Rangers, the high school's top hot rod club Image
And Charlie Chaplin Jr as undercover narc busboy at the beatnik jazz club owned by local reefer kingpin "Mr A" played by Jackie Coogan - whose movie career started as child costar of Charlie Chaplin Sr in "The Kid" and later became Uncle Fester on The Addams Family Image
And two chopped lead sled 48 Chevy coupes built by George Barris. Note: no one will be seated during the shocking lead sled flip scene ImageImage
In short: this is not a movie, it is a 1 hour 25 minute xray of my brain
Footnote: here's a Jackie Coogan tangent I went off on, prompted by a car ID request

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More from @iowahawkblog

David Burge Profile picture
Sep 12
There is a difference between people posthumously criticizing his rhetoric and public school employees and medical professionals posting their gleeful touchdown dances on Tik Tok
Remember when "accountability culture" was all the rage? Good times
Turns out "accountability culture" kinda sucks when you are no longer the accountant
Read 7 tweets
David Burge Profile picture
Sep 8
Hot damn, now THAT'S how you Country Music
I hate you
"Honky Tonk." It's an old Hank Williams The First tune. Hank was the Rembrandt of country music. See also Lefty Frizzell, Ernest Tubb, Kitty Wells et al.
Read 6 tweets
David Burge Profile picture
Sep 7
Throroughly clean your quarter window before affixing: today's #DavesCarIDService pays homage to the art of the hot rod window decal!

No longwinded history lecture today, this is more an aesthetic appreciation of fine graphic design applied to selling speed equipment in a competitive market space.

The decals below are from the 1960s-80s high school muscle car era, and many of the logos are still in use today. If you are of that era, you will be be familiar with every product that the logos represent.

If not, the idea was like this: you bought a second hand car, went to a local speed shop, and dropped your hard earned cash for items to hop it up or gussy it up. Then you would display all the decals of the products contained in your heap (usually in its rear quarter windows) as a brag, and warning to anyone who might challenge you to a street race.

Kind of a brilliant ad strategy for the speed equipment biz, and in my opinion some of the best logos ever created. I even sent away $1 for a Hurst sticker to display on my first motorized vehicle, a 4.5 horsepower B&S go-kart, even though it had no shifter at all.Image
Well okay maybe a little longwinded history. As I've aged, the more I've become enamored with the early days of hot rodding, 1930s-50s, when those speed equipment stickers and decals first started appearing. Less clean design-wise, but have a certain vintage oomph. Some of my favorites from that era:Image
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Some of those speed equipment decals are pretty out there: masked executioners, demented racing Albert Einsteins, oil-selling espionage agents, clutch-selling cavemen. What they might lack in sleek design they make up for in pure moxie.

That hot rod sticker/decal aesthetic lives on today in the music scene, and the skate/surf scene. Can't really go to any live music club restroom in Austin without seeing the wall covered in stickers for various bands. In some sense, that whole tradition was actually born in hot rodding.Image
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Read 21 tweets
David Burge Profile picture
Sep 6
Today's Iowa-Iowa State #DavesCarIDService pregame show pays homage to that most Iowan of vehicles, the tractor. And its inventor, John Froelich of Clayton County Iowa.

That requires a little definition of terms; Froelich was the inventor of the gasoline tractor. When 42 year old Froelich rolled it out of his grain elevator in 1892, steam threshers had been around for a while. But those ginormous, locomotive-sized device were incredibly expensive, required a coal source, were dangerous on hill sides, and useful for the most part only at harvest time.

What also had been around for a few years were stationary gasoline engines: big single slug pop-pop-pop engines with a large flywheel, used to power devices but with no wheels. Froelich might've had one in his grain elevator. Whatever the case, he figured out how to mount one on a frame with drive wheels, steering, and forward and reverse gears. Thus the first modern concept of "tractor" was born (seen in #2).

It was light, nimble, and could potential be equipped with implements for plowing, planting, cultivating, etc. And with a potential price point making it affordable to the average Joe Farmer. In some respect John Froelich fed the world.Image
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Froelich only sold a few copies of his invention, but in 1895 sold his company to John Miller of Waterloo, Iowa, who established the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company. Oddly Miller was more interested in making Froelich's engine than in making tractors; but in 1911 WGE rolled out the Waterloo Boy Tractor, which would become the Model T of agriculture.

WGE and the Waterloo Boy was sold to John Deere in 1918. Prior to that Deere was only an implement company, selling plows, planters, etc., and thus the Waterloo Boy became the very first John Deere tractor and is beloved of fanatical John Deere collectors. Waterloo, Iowa remains Deere's primary tractor building location.

Waterloo became sort of the Detroit of tractors; cross-town rivals Interstate Tractor Company produced the red Plow Boy to rival the green Waterloo Boy. By 1920, 1/5 of all tractors in the world were made in Waterloo.Image
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What's my favorite tractor? I grew up on a McCormick-Deering/ International Harvester/ Farmall / Case-IH farm, and it would be a calumny to my ancestors to pick a model from any other brand. So I'm going with the Farmall M.

Just a damn pretty tractor, with a streamline design by Raymond Loewy who also designed all those pretty Studebakers of the early 50s. First thing my grandpa bought after WW2, and we still had it on the farm when I was a boy.

But man, the 1948-52 Oliver 60 is the absolute shiznit when it comes to streamline deco. Sadly the designer of the Oliver 60 is unknown, somebody at their in-house engineering department in Charles City Iowa. And its grille makes a dandy front end for a hot rod.

Don't sleep on the 1938 Minneapolis-Moline UDLX though. The high concept here is that you could take it into the field during the day, and Saturday night put it in highway gear to take Maw to town. Very few were made, and among the most expensive vintage collector tractors today.

And being a Ford car guy, gotta also cite the 1939-52 Ford N series (9N, 2N, 8N). Just a swell little jalopy with the "Ferguson System" 3-point hitch.Image
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Read 23 tweets
David Burge Profile picture
Sep 5
In the worst sports league in the world, this is Mission Accomplished Image
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I like their fervent belief that if only they hospitalize their only cash machine, her popularity will somehow be redistributed to the rest of them
The real winner here is Spirit Airlines
Read 7 tweets
David Burge Profile picture
Sep 2
I would like to note that, according to ISU fans "Iowa State fans went to ISU, and Iowa fans didn't go to Iowa." I think this proves their point
Yeah, and honestly probably half of them, and they're 100% of the biggest shit talkers

I'm not saying you have to be an alumnus of a school to be a "real" fan. You could be a family member of an alumni or student, a donor or benefactor, etc. Otherwise you should probably STFU about dragging other schools or demanding coach firings because of your $45 hoodie
Read 4 tweets

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