15 new vehicles to look forward to for 2010-2011

The recession is technically over and before long, companies might actually start frakkin’ hiring people for jobs again…that is, if this isn’t just a financial bubble prefacing a double-dip recession. Naked short-selling aside, the auto industry is reaching into the future with great abandon, apparently unconcerned enough with the shakiness of the recovery to pump out some new, interesting, and in some cases, downright spellbinding new cars, trucks, and what-have-you. There will be new marques to choose from, as well as new forms of power. Here are fifteen such vehicles I’ve selected that I’m looking forward to. Complications notwithstanding, all of these should be on the road in the next year or two, if they aren’t already.

1. Buick Regal - An old name gets slapped on a new, very German car that is gorgeous and may actually be fun to drive as well. Moreover, it apparently will be powered exclusively by four-bangers. Not only is a high-performance version possible, we may (fingers-crossed) even get a wagon version, which would be awesome and hilarious at the same time: Buick wants younger buyers, so is a relatively big FWD wagon the way to go? For me, maybe.

2. Cadillac CTS Coupe - The latest and perhaps best iteration yet of 21st Century Cadillac zaniness. Art + Science Fiction. And the first hard-roof coupe from Caddy in seventeen years. It looks like nothing else on the road and has that same concept car aura of the new Camaro. Because its a bit smaller than the sedan, it should be faster too…which brings me to the V-series version, which is also coming.

3. Chevy Cruze - Chevy wants a “flawless” unveiling for the replacement for the boring Cobalt and its clone, the Pontiac G5. Looks to get 40+mpg on the highway. GM going small and Direct Injection with engines. Forget the Volt, this thing is important. If Chevy can’t steal some sales away from the Honda Civic and Toyota Corolla with this, all is for naught.

4. Ferrari 458 Italia – A new Ferrari is like a new American fighter jet – really expensive, unobtainable, and almost pointless even – the F450 hasn’t aged a day – but nevertheless more than welcome. It looks and sounds the business, and with tons of F1 tech in it, it will most certainly drive the business too.

5. Ford Fiesta - It’s coming. How much different it will look from the European one isn’t known, but Ford has been without a small car since the Kia-based Aspire, which was pathetic. The Fiesta hopefully begins a trend of “cheap but not rubbish” small cars by American carmakers (unlike the awful Chevy Aveo, the only subcompact any of the Detroit 3 currently sell.)

6. Fiat 500 - Fiat Group bought Chrysler, which is awesome because it means Italian cars that don’t cost six figures will again be sold here soon. In Europe, the 500 is extremely popular, and also re-skinned as a Ford Ka, but in America the Nuovo Topolino will be sold at Chrysler dealerships, giving that sinking ship a badly-needed small car. It should sell well to people who want a car that’s cheaper and cuter than a MINI and fresher and more fun than the aged VW New Beetle. Also, it’s Italian. ‘Nuff said.

7. Lexus LFA - The most interesting Lexus ever. Not saying much, but the amount of labor and attention to detail that went into this taut driving machine cannot be overlooked. Neither can the $375,000+ price tag. Lexus will still lose money on every one they sell. One of only two radial carbon fiber looms in the world weave the A-pillars together. A manically-anal-retentive gearhead’s wet dream, this.

8. Mahindra Pickup - This awkward, dowdy pickup will likely beat the Tata Nano as the first Indian vehicle sold in America. It runs on diesel engines, which I love, and is tough, durable, and no-nonsense (well, except the optional chrome grille.) It should also be cheap. Hopefully the government will permit their sale, because they can do the same farm and labor jobs as much larger American pickups but are far more fuel efficient and take up less space.

9. Mitsubishi Outlander - If there was a Comeback Crossover of the Year category, Outlander would win it hands down. While its European cousins the Peugeot 4008 and Citroen C-Crosser were brought to market with bold, in-your-face looks, The Mitsu was plainer than white bread, and more forgettable too. That ends immediately with a menacing new face with an Evo-inspired grille, more power, upscale-r interior, and very untrucklike road manners. In other words, it’s better in every way.

10. Nissan LEAF - Though being heralded with far less pomp and circumstance than Chevy’s $40,000, four-seat Volt, Nissan’s electric car for everyone will likely beat it to dealers. It also aims to be cheaper and more practical. But yes, it does somewhat resemble a parrotfish.

11. Saab 9-5 - The first all-new Saab seemingly ever, the new 9-5 flagship will go on sale when new sort-of owner Koenigsegg, figures out exactly how they’re going to make it. While there’s nothing groundbreaking here, the new 9-5 marks a return to more of that Saab quirkiness that was mostly lost during GM rule, when marketers thought comparing a TrailBlazer clone to a fighter jet would make people want to buy the 9-7x.

12. Scion iQ - While not a 100% sure thing, it is likely Toyota’s teeny-tiny iQ will come to America as a Scion, since they’d prefer young, hip people buy it than the average Toyota customer, who is about 75. While perhaps not as miniscule as a Smart, the iQ is better packaged, has at least one back seat, doesn’t look as stupid, carries Toyota’s vaunted reputation for quality along with it, and won’t be quite as overpriced. Hopefully its axles won’t rust away after three years!

13. Suzuki Kisashi – Suzuki’s had a bit of a raw deal in the U.S. as purveyors of stretched Equinox clones and dull-as-paste, chintzy Daewoos. The homebuilt SX4 shook things up, being the cheapest AWD car as well as the cheapest with satnav standard. They take it up a notchwith the very Japanesey Kisashi, a smart, Jetta-sized sedan that bucks the more-is-more trend and goes instead for driver involvement and all-around quality. Suzuki’s marketing sucks, but hopefully this will sell well, because it looks to be a fine car and a bargain to boot.

14. Toyota/Subaru Compact Sports Coupe - Pretty much nobody needs a sporty coupe more than Toyota, except for maybe Subaru, so the two decided to save some time and develop one jointly. I’m looking forward to their final results. So far we’ve only seen the Toyota version in concept form (and monkey-butt red metallic paint.) The Subaru will likely be larger and of course feature standard AWD. The last Subaru coupe was the epic-but-pricey SVX, while Toyota’s Celica died a slow death. Here’s hoping they have better luck with what will be far superior machines.

15. VW Golf TDI - What was the Rabbit became the Golf then the Rabbit again and now the Golf again. Golf Mark VI is more refined and mature Golf ever, and so is the TDI’s diesel engine. Not only that, the TDI is fun. Fun to dart around in. Which means even if you have to drive a little further to find a diesel pump, you’ll be grateful. And it gets 30 mpg in the city and 40 mpg on the highway.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The Mercedes SLS AMG.
Gullwings = WIN.
Q.E.D.

Renaissance Road V – the repaving

Not content to begin the week venting dourly on such a dark topic as healthcare, I have decided to release the fifth and newest incarnation of my website, Renaissance Road (styled as RENAISSANCE ROAD.) The release is premature; due to freelance projects that take priority (and lack of motivation) progress up until now has been slow and much of the site is still under construction. However, prior to last week, there hadn’t been a major modification to the site in more than a year, which is, well, frankly ridiculous.

This new version tones down the look to a muted palette of grays with green spot color, letting gallery items take visual center stage. Logical organization remains, with navigation paths being built at the top of each section as you dig deeper into the site (a site map and footer are coming as well.) A projects page lists all of my…projects, while an art page lists a bunch of galleries with different kinds of…art. The music page, strangely, lists music. Like I said, logical.

And unlike the old page, which, while pretty, was all in flash and a bitch to quickly update, I’ve employed templates, scripts, and style sheets that will make updates quick and easy, which means hopefully I’ll be better at actually making them. I’m glad a gust of wind came out of nowhere and motivated me to pull the trigger; there isn’t much up now but stay tuned, as this will be the best re-paving yet. And no sinkholes.

Spending more on the past than the future

New York Senator Chuck Shumer made a very good point to opponents of the health care plan’s public option, specifically, that they should allow a plan that lets conservative states opt out. His argument is this: its all well and good if you – as a senator representing a red state – believe you’re serving your constituents well by saying “thanks but no thanks” to the public option (you may be wrong, btw, since many of the poorest states are red.) Regardless, they elected you to represent them, and if your judgment tells you that the public option is a bad idea, opt your state out of it. However, a senator is overreaching a bit when he makes the case that the public option is a bad idea for the entire country.

No single senator or pair of senators from a single state should have the power to deprive other states from a public option. The argument that allowing any states access to a public option would be too expensive is a scurrilous one, because this country cannot currently afford health care and medicare costs anyway. The amount medicare pays out for end-of-life coverage totalled $50 billion last year, more than the budgets of either the Dept. of Education or Homeland Security. That’s just money being spent artificially keeping people alive who typically will never recover from their condition (in other words, money spent trying to deny that we are mortal and that every person’s time comes.)

This kind of spending doesn’t make any kind of sense, nor does it make healthy Americans any healthier, but we don’t deprive people of this coverage. Any senator who would try to do so would face an angry, scared mob at every turn, and likely face electoral defeat. In America, we simply don’t pull the plug; not without consent of the patient or family…as long as medicare covers them, of course. And medicare seemingly covers everyone.

Many of us fear death so much, we wish for it to never come, and when it does, it must be as peaceful and comfortable as technology allows, damn the cost. Maybe deep down Americans think they should be immortal, and so do everything they can to make that a reality. And then there are always miracles; unexplainable happenings that result in recovery from death’s door. But miracles don’t come to everyone, and the human mortality rate remains a steady 100.00%, just as it always has since the dawn of man.

And let me reiterate; that total medicare sum on end-of-life care alone is greater than the total sum the federal government spends keeping us safe from terrorism and worse, more than it spends on educating our youth. We spend more on the past than the future. At what point does damning the cost damn ourselves, and our future? So there’s a double standard – as well as an overreaching of power – on the part of public option opponents. They allow such unbridled spending on the dying – which will increase as our population grows older – yet won’t allow healthy people to be insured the only way they can: by a public option.

Sorry, but you can’t hold both views and be taken seriously. One of the reasons Obama was elected was to make progress on health care reform, something that could have been fixed earlier and cheaper had previous congresses not sat on their hands so long doing absolutely nothing while insurance and drug companies ruthlessly shook down the American people and built such a strong precident for doing so, that even minute reform would elicit a big stink from them. It’s not the job of a red senator to deprive a blue senator from providing for their constituents, or vice versa. Reform must contain a public option that can either be opted out or opted in on. Further delay will only cost more lives…and bank accounts.

And however all this pans out, we spend more on the past than the future at our peril. I guarantee you, our strategic rivals around the world are spending more on the future. They know they’re mortal…and so are we.

Revolving around nothing in particular

I usually review new films on this blog, but I passed on a chance to see “Pirate Radio” this weekend, and with good reason: “Almost Famous” was barely tolerable, so the idea of “Almost Famous on a Boat” seemed a bit too precious. Whether or not it was that is irrelevant; even moviegoers in its native England stayed away in droves. If a film on such a small budget with such a big cast and such good music can’t make a profit, beware. Besides, I find rock movies in general a bit too hard to swallow as legitimate entertainment.

Anyway, I decided to lay out my first impression of the 2007 American cut of Guy Ritchie’s post-Snatch film “Revolver.” To be delicate, I’ll borrow a phrase from Richard Hammond: “Ambitious but Rubbish.” To be not-so-delicate: It made our heads hurt, and after what seemed like four hours we had to turn it off before they repeated the “formula” for the umpteenth time.

To paraphrase Ian Malcolm, Guy Ritchie seems bent on wielding the concepts and ideas of Kabbalah like a kid who’s found his dad’s gun. It’s fine to borrow religious concepts; Pi did a fine job of it; in only 84 minutes it was able to at least appear profound and mystique-y and dredge up questions. Revolver has no such success, because it doesn’t care if the audience is confused, and seems to relish their confusion Also, the film itself seems to be as confused as we are, so shows us Turkish going through a windshield backwards really slowly. I also don’t see why Guy Ritchie had to make a third film about professional criminals, especially one that was far worse than the other two.

And why did Jason Statham have to narrate this film as well? The whole time it sounded like Snatch with all the good bits removed and replaced with seemingly infinite number of scenes featuring Ray Liotta in various states of undress trying too hard to express his anger and frustration to his unflappable lieutenant, followed by a seemingly infinite number of scenes of Andre 3000 (dressed as…Andre 3000) apparently reading cue cards in monotone, punctuated by variations of “Shut the Fuck up” from Vincent Pastore. Again and again, Turkish tries to get an explanation out of these guys, and hits a wall. So do we. Interest is rapidly lost.

Yeah, there’s a white masculine pillar, feminine black pillar, and the Turkish green pillar in the middle, and chess has 32 pieces, ooooooooooo, so mystical. Too bad it all feels cheap and irrelevant and futile amongst all the horrible acting, longwinded musical interludes, and lack of direction. It feels, empty; hollow; a bunch of overly-styled nothing.

Maybe i just need to give it another watch, as is typical of Ritchie films, but to be frank, I and everyone watching wished we had stopped it a bit sooner, since there was still a half-hour of the stuff left to watch and we were already turned off of it. A rewatch sound like and even bigger waste of time.

I have no doubt Sherlock Holmes will be better (if for no other reason than Downey Jr.,) But after two very good and very watchable crime capers and one absolute stinker, my confidence in Guy Ritchie was definitely shaken. And he was with Madonna, who just looks wierd nowadays. Not so easy on the eyes anymore.

So yeah, I played Russian Roulette with “Revolver” and lost, badly. We had to watch “La Jetee” afterwards just to get the bad taste out of our mouths. Now that’s a movie…and only 28 minutes long.

Fall TV watchlist

With baseball season over I’m not watching any network TV with the exception of Sunday football games on FOX, CBS and NBC. But I am watching TV, it’s just all anime. Here are my impressions, with ratings out of 4 stars; 4 being Excellent. (click a title for a show’s wiki page):

1. Darker than Black – Ryousei no Gemini (Bones) – Stong story with lots of mystery; intriguing new characters; some new takes on the old ones; creative action, spot-on character design/animation; bangin’ soundtrack…and a little Russo-Japanese girl with an enormous gun. Don’t Miss. 3 1/2 out of 4.

2. Spice & Wolf II (Brain’s Base) – (from Summer ‘09 season) Absorbing main characters; intricate world full of richly-detailed landscapes, towns, and cities; great sense of scale; clever banter; off-beaten-track concentration on commerce rather than combat/magic. Soothingly addictive. 3 1/2 out of 4.

3. White Album (Seven Arcs) – (Summer ‘09 season completed, now watching current winter season) – Straightforward romance-drama taking place in the 80s; effectively portrays the heartache of having an idol for a girlfriend; the male lead is satisfactorily flawed;  female lead avoids being too annoying; the five(!) other potential female love interests all have distinct personalities and motivations; lack of cell phones/e-mail a bit overused as a plot device (but then it did seem harder to get ahold of people back then...good down-to-earth, real-world drama. 3 1/2 out of 4.

4. Armed Librarians – The Book of Bantorra (David Production) – Imaginative setting/mythos; eclectic costumes; unpredictable plot; different character focus in each episode (so far); steadily improving animation; powerful score. Strange enough to hold my interest. 3 out of 4.

5. Kimi ni Todoke (Production I.G.)  - Vibrant animation; characters have a unique look; neurotic female lead; angsty inner dialogue; a bit of an overreliance on chibi cuts, and a will-they-won’t-they holding pattern; enjoyble. 2 1/2 out of 4.

6. Sasameki Koto (AIC) - Probably a typical Yuri series with another will-they-won’t-they holding pattern; but characters are liekable enough; enjoyable. 2 1/2 out of 4.

7. A Certain Scientific Railgun (J.C. STAFF)  – Didn’t see Index, the first season; a slight teenagers-better-than-adults complex; brief but enjoyable action scenes; watchable. So this season there’s a railgun girl and a enormous sniper gun girl. Interesting. 2 1/2 out of 4.

8.The Sacred Blacksmith (manglobe) – Fairly standard fantasy piece; better-than-decent animation and some story potential; nothing special but watchable (for now). 2 1/2 out of 4.

2009 Phillies Afterword

When I arrived in Philly to make the city my new home on November 5, 2007, the Red Sox were already World Champions, having swept the Rockies who swept the Phillies. The season was over, and I hadn’t given rooting for the local baseball team any thought whatsoever (though an Eagles game was on the night I moved in, I had already decided I would never be anything other than a Ravens fan, blackouts be damned.)

I had no idea that in a year, the Billy Penn curse would be but a memory, the Phillies would be World Champions of baseball, and Barack Obama would be elected president. It was a truly exhilarating time, in a good way. Better still, the Phillies followed up their championship run with a brilliant 2009 season in which they proved they were no flukes. I certainly didn’t expect Harry Kalas, the legendary voice of the Phils, to pass away so suddenly during the season. Now whenever I watch a Phillies game, I think about how much better and less bland it would be if he was the one doing the play-by-play.

Throughout the year this remained a tight-knit team of players who did a good job projecting the fun they were having playing the sport, and I had fun watching them and even going to two games at the Bank (one a loss to the Orioles, which wasn’t too bad, and one a win over the Nats, complete with a Werth Grand Slam.) They may not have repeated as we all would have liked (even expected) but they go into 2010 as defending Champions of the National league, and while the team is rather old, most of it will return intact, and hopefully with offseason transactions will return stronger than ever.

So I thank the Phils for putting up a valiant fight against the formidable opposition. The two best teams in the league played, and the most expensive one in the most expensive stadium in the most expensive city won. I can live with that. My disappointment will dissipate in time. And now I, like millions of Fightin’ Phils fans out there, look towards the future.

97 days and counting till spring training.

Of wagons and Webers

In the auto industry, sometimes focus groups, micromanaging, and blurring of classifications can result in Frankenstein-like vehicular abominations. The loathsome Pontiac Aztek is one of the more blatant examples of this. From a functional standpoint it was a terrific vehicle and a crossover far ahead of its time. The problem was, it was built on the cheap and, most importantly, looked horrendous.

Like the Aztek, Chrysler’s Pacifica started out as a dashing concept; but once it came to market, Pacifica was watered-down, ludicrously overpriced, dull, and ugly to boot. Even with big discounts, buyers stayed away for the most part. Mercedes R-Class isn’t altogether unattractive, but a huge wagon with only six seats isn’t what most people are looking for, so it sales are slow as sap on a chilly March morning in Maine.

Some, I feel, get away with it. the CLS 4-door coupe is, in photos and in person, one of if not the most beautiful non-Italian vehicles. It just won’t fit tall people in back. The BMW X6 “sport activity coupe” (or SAC) is so bizarre and cheeky, it’s actually growing on me, but it simply won’t work off-road. Oftentimes, then, trying to blend two vehicles results in a vehicle that does things two vehicles can do, but neither as well as the source material. A 4-door can never be as sexy as a 2-door; a crossover can never be as spacious as a minivan.

One of the newer cases in point is the laughably stupid-looking Honda Accord Crosstour. First of all, I consider the current Accord a mistake. It is way too huge and shiny to carry a name normally reserved for, well, reserved, compact family sedans that are fun to drive. It’s still fun, due to all the excessive power, and it’s safe and roomy, but it’s impossible to park, or to see out of. I would prefer if we had the Euro Accord instead. While still bigger than it was in the nineties, the Euro version remains pleasantly petite and is sportier and more fun to drive as a result, which is why it’s sold here as the Acura TSX, albeit with excessive bling and useless bells and whistles to justify higher price.

I would have preferred if our big-ass Accord had some other name. Toyota has their Avalon, so the Camry never has to grow too big. It’s sacrilege not just to slap the Accord name on such a whale, but on its hideous Frankenstein whale wagon version, the aforementioned Crosstour. Let’s forget that “Crosstour” is in and of itself an awful name. The car looks are far awful-er. When Honda set up a Facebook account to snag potential buyers, the vast majority of comments decried the looks so mercilessly as to force them to change replace the pictures, to no avail; it was still ugly. I will reserve final judgment until I see it in person at the auto show early next year, but it has to be one of the all-time least photogenic vehicles in history, approaching Weber levels of ghastliness.

The Crosstour is another vehicle no one asked for that was made not because anyone needs or wants it, but because the company says the consumer needs or wants it, which is a very different matter. Fortunately, Honda has apparently heard the outcry and will be selling a counterpoint to the hideous Crosstour, the Euro Honda Tourer (wagon) as the Acura TSX sport wagon sometime next year. While such a move was always in the cards, was the Crosstour outrage a catalyst? I definitely think so. The sad thing is, the average American’s taste in automobiles is so poor, the homely Crosstour will likely outsell the awesome euro-wagon. Then again, maybe not. They categorically rejected the Aztek and Pacifica, after all.

Create jobs, stamp out fraud – yes we can

As a young man who hasn’t been to the doctor in more than three years and doesn’t even remember the last prescription he was prescribed, I am in no danger of having my Medicare defrauded by a shady temporary company with my name and medicare code. Many healthy seniors, however, are falling victim to just that, and I had no idea how successful the frauds are: billing Medicare 60 billion dollars in phony charges last year, or over $1000 per Medicare member.

As membership swells with our aging population, it will probably get worse unless drastic action is taken. It’s a tremendously lucrative crime, apparently; an industry in and of itself, and one that has been fairly easy to pull off. That this kind of rampant fraud can go on does not bode well for a public insurance option. Of course, Medicare isn’t going anywhere…but up, and even with advances in technology and a crackdown by the Justice Department, the chances of a rapidly expanding bureaucracy whose job is to reimburse healthcare providers being able to keep fraud under control seems like a foregone conclusion in the negative.

If President Obama is looking for areas to create jobs, I have a suggestion: hire more people to audit providers and weed out the fraud and system-gaming. All Medicare needs is more manpower, and training can’t possibly be that hard. Tens of thousands of people if not more are involved in actively cleaning up off of Medicare fraud, and the taxpayers are paying for it. Yet the people responsible for stopping that fraud probably number in the dozens. That’s a recipe for disaster, to the tune of more than $60 billion.

The ten-year cost of healthcare reform is around $1 trillion. Medicare fraud alone over that period could exceed $600 billion, or most of the cost of that reform. That’s money out of our pockets and into the bank accounts of criminals, plain and simple. I don’t see why we can’t create hundreds if not thousands of jobs and stamp out some of this horrific fraud at the same time.

The majority must have veto power over the military

I’m glad the guy I voted for is doing what I want him to do: hold his horses. Yes, the Defense Department and General McChrystal and a lot of other voices are saying there’s no time to wait for Afghan legitimacy, but I’m not certain these people thought before they spoke. Without a legitimate government, the hearts and minds of the people are in disarray, without a strong cause to rally around.

The results of a significant increase in military presence cannot be predicted. Will things turn around because of 40,000 more troops, even if they don’t know when and if an Afghan government coalesces? I kinda doubt it. A country without a legitimate government or leader is a very delicate thing, even in America. Everyone is on edge between presidents; they want someone in charge. Well, here’s the crux of the matter: Obama is the C-in-C, and when it comes to military matters, his word is scripture, and all of those below him, regardless of experience or expertise, must defer to him. The bellyaching and mildly insubordinate chatter must cease.

If the parties who are itching to put a bigger Amerian footprint in Afghanistan can’t respect Obama’s authority, how do they expect him to respect them? There seems to be this divide between “what needs to be done” and “what is popular,” but this is just an illusion, created throughout history by those whose job it is to make war. All that matters is what the majority of Americans want. Politics exist not to undermine the military, but to keep it on a leash and protect blood and treasure the military is all too willing to squander at the drop of a hat.

This is not an autocracy; the President and everyone below him have an obligation to listen to that majority, even if they think they know better. And if that majority is sick and tired of babysitting Afghanistan and wants the army to pack up and leave, then doggone it, that’s what we should do. If they want to try a bit longer to set things right there, we should do that. One thing is for certain; if the generals had their way 100% of the time, there would never be any peace.

Étude de paella

I often try to blend disperate items of the day or week into a single visual “Paella” that attempts to find connections that weren’t immediately apparent. I started in 2007, and am trying to get back into it since we live in such a colorful interesting world full of…stuff.

Case(s) in point: What does the Heene Hoax Balloon, the Black Taco, and Carol the Wild Thing have in common? Not much, admittedly. HOWEVER, if you go a step beyond the rational, the Balloon Boy, had he in face boarded the balloon, would have embarked on a journey not unlike Max’s in Where the Wild Things Are, a film I saw last weekend (which was fantastic, by the way.)

The odd balloon itself resembles a flying saucer, but doggone it, I can’t help but see Taco Bell’s Black Jack Taco as it’s own kind of spaceship. When young Falcon vomited on live TV – twice – he was almost non-verbally voicing his disgust not only in his father’s greed and insanity, but also the 24-hour news cycle media circus that descended upon him, despite his own sizable role. All he’s missing is a wolf suit with whiskers.

From licorice Twizzlers to Silky Bantam meat and Squid Ink pasta, black food has a tawdry but fascinating history. The unusual but striking images of a fancy-boy male model with a black eye using Blue Steel, and a black sheep (with black tongue) combined with the stark, construct-like white void of the taco commercial’s setting drive one major point home: this is no ordinary taco.

I have yet to sample it, but mark my works, if a Taco Bell should cross my path during its existence, I shall. So there you have it. More paella to come.