Whenever Picasso would arrive in a town or city he hadn’t been to before he’d always go to the highest point – church steeple, bell tower, hilltop – to see how he was going to conquer it. Well, he wouldn’t have seen me anywhere near there if he arrived in Antibes in ‘85, because I was at the lowest point in town, face down on the pavement, euphemistically speaking, and my life. Or at least the lowest point in my life up until then – even though looking back on it now I can’t help but think that it wasn’t really low at all. At least not compared to where I’ve been since. But that’s another story.

Keith Richards: Some Sympathy for the Devil.

So it’s Saint Patrick’s day and my daughter Cate has been invited to an early afternoon party at her friend Isis’s house and even though she’s missed school that day I’ve decided to let her go for an hour or so just to say hello. At the last minute I threw on a bright green afro wig, just to be a spiv, and we drove over. The first person I see when I walk into the house, in the kitchen, large as life, surrounded by a bunch of beautiful women (where’d they come from?) was Keith Richards. I don’t have to tell you his face is one of the most recognized in the world, but it was weird to see it right there in real suburban mom birthday party life.

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Luke Bantam

This is supposed to be a blog post about hazing, and it will be, but not in the way you’re thinking. Yeah, I’ve had my neck back plenty of times, and spent the better part of a year on corrections table, but the dressing down I’ve been through the past week or so is of another kind, and level of subtlety.

 When Benoit Van Hecke signed up for the Old’s Cool Tour he said he wanted a “dormitory” name like mine, Johnny Mustard, so he chose “Luke Bantam”. He came on the rally with us and everyone knew him as “Luke”. He’s one of these know-it-alls who you’d love to hate, but can’t – he’s incredibly likeable and, well, knows it all. He speaks 6 or 7 languages, well, and was the “Jeopardy!” champion of Belgium. He won $25,000 years ago, but when he got home his mother wasn’t happy: how could he lose to a mailman?

 Find out the whole story here.

Rod gives me the shaft. 

This is true. My friend Bill, Wild Bill, who used to ride a water-smooth silver soft-tail Harley called me up on May 29, 1989 at 188 Walker Street, Atlanta, Georgia and said let’s go out tonight. I said yes, lets. Because I knew his girlfriend Delissa from Chicago was in town and this comely kamikaze crazy was someone I was just dying to meet. So they picked me up in a long black limousine and we went to dinner at Petrus, Peter Gatien of New York Limelight fame’s new place and we, before, during and after did every drug known to weigh hey, blow the man down.

Find out how we soared sky-high and then crashed by clicking here.

Who's the real intern?

"Youth has a kingdom waiting for it." – Oscar Wilde

We always try to manage results at Old’s Cool, not methods, or our own madness.

Yes, we do have a certain way of doing things around here, but we think that the performance paradigm (think win/win) encourages and harnesses the most creative synergy. The best way to maximize effectiveness in our opinion, especially regarding our two new crazy, hungry chimpanzee interns, James and Evan, is to tee the ball up and then let them have at it.

See how they did in captivity by clicking here.

Building cars and character. 

Around here at Old’s Cool Co. we’re convinced you can’t buy character – you have to build it by going out into the world and actually accomplish something, something worthy of your own admiration. And we think wrenching on classic cars is a great way to do this: they’re a fascinating and frustrating and fabulous lifestyle where there’s always something wrong, and broken, and expensive, and fubar, and ugly… but when you ride around in the dream machine you brought back to life with your own two hands on a sunny day spitting fire and eliciting smiles with the wind in your hair, none of that matters a wink.

Do you agree? Then read on, rebel, read on.

Hitler and us.

I think about Hitler a lot. Not in a morbid or pathological way, but because I’m fascinated by the whole mass murder thing and how it happened, could happen, and may well happen again in the future in such a seemingly civilized society such as Germany, or ours for that matter. I’m not talking about the logistics of it, or the actual details of the operation, but in the psychological depravity and absolute malevolence sense that I just can’t wrap my mind around. I guess it's the story of Cain and Abel times 6 million.

Read the rest of the slightly sinister meanderings here.

I don't hate many people.

I mean sure, Matthew Pfeiffer back in elementary school, and Jason I forget his last name in 11th grade, but the list is short. Maybe Hitler is on it. And I'm not too happy about Benedict Arnold either. However, I've got to say without compunction or malice that I hate Michael Delgass. When I met him at Cobb’s Mill Inn for a beer recently on the recommendation of a friend, he shows up with a huge bruise on his face. I ask him about it. Come to find out, he’s an MME fighter, and for real.

But who I really despise is Ed Parker. Find out why.

The Oysterman Cometh.