Cardinal Car Series (from Weathers)

(The picture - elaborating some obvious point or another - is from one of my car books. All those books started with the Cardinal Car Series.)

Wm P's recent post resulted in a star burst of neural activity. In no particular order, and with no particular attempt at artistry...

• When we started the car series I didn't know shit about how cars worked. I mean I really didn't know shit. I had to learn about coils while we did the the electrical testing programs.
  
• Because none of us knew shit, we did some stupid things. We were going to do one unit that required the student to remove the distributor from the test car (and remember this was all hands on training with a student doing the work live). Something happened and a screwdriver got dropped down the distributor shaft. I recall that it hit the oil pan with a wet thunk.
• A photographer named Massey shot some of the first units. He showed up with a cardboard box full of Nikons and Hasselbads (or at least one Hasselblad).
• I procured cars from local car dealers for some of the units. They never asked questions, just gave me new cars for God knows what.
• My best procurement was the 400cc Yamaha trail bike that I got from the local Yamaha dealer to illustrate something in the Wankel series. Slick Eddie and I kept the bike for a weekend, riding it across vacant lots and back alleys all over Charlotte.
• One picture in the Wankel unit showed a hand holding a can of oil near the gas filler cap of the test car (was it Wm P's Wankel powered Mazda?). I don't remember the point I was trying to make, but McGaughey got really mad because the picture implied that you were supposed to mix oil with the gas - which would have ruined the engine.
• Claud H and I traveled to New Jersey to investigate using model airplane Wankel engines in the automotive series. It was in the middle 1970's. Claud wore a pastel leisure suit and I wore my father's hand-me-down polyester suit (maybe plaid). The waiter in the airport restaurant corrected my pronunciation of the "filet mignon".
• On another trip to New Jersey I met one of the Cardinal sales guys in Newark and we drove over to the North American headquarters of Mercedes Benz. They wanted Cardinal to develop a library of training units for repairing old, classic MBs. It looked very good but when I got back to Charlotte McGaughey killed the deal because the work violated Cardinal/DART principles. This still makes me cringe.
• Although nothing ever came of the idea to use model airplane Wankels I jealously guarded the little jewel-like engine that the guy gave us and when I left Cardinal the engine left with me.
• I also made it home with a variety of Sun Electric test equipment (timing light and volt tester) but gave it all back when the Sun deal fell through.
  
• Shuman the Human and I went to Roseville Mn to investigate doing work with Marquette Test equipment. At night we went to a cavernous bar where a lovely Norwegian chanteuse entranced us with her rendition of "Jerimah is a Bullfrog."
  
• I don't remember exactly how it happened but one day Claud, our technical advisor, said he had been approached by Little Brown to do some text books but that he didn't want the bother. I said, then or not long after, well I'll do the writing. Over the next 15 years or so, he and I did those five books. Weird.
  

Tune-Up Relic #1 (from Moore)

Who's under the hood? I would think it must be Tom W.

I think the testing machine might be Sun Electric's stuff.

Many of us, if not all, got our hands dirty with the car programs. That's a saga unto itself.

For the Marquette Emissions Tester lessons, I recall going on location at a test shop with another Cardinal writer, Harriet R (aka "Squeaky"). We made jokes about sticking the probe into the exhaust pipe. Midway into shooting the storyboard, the fumes got pretty bad, and both of us felt dizzy. So we went outside and smoked a few cigarettes to make us feel better.

McGaughey's Obituary (from Weathers)

This is from the files of Don A. who, as McGaughey's Lieutenant, ran the place in the early 1970's.

I heard the Tokyo story when McGaughey and I were flying to Chicago to visit Sun Electric - I think it was my first week at Cardinal. That trip is described in a post in the Writers' Stories blog.

Notice that only one paragraph is devoted to Cardinal/Phoenix.

(Click picture to enlarge.)

Lloyd Rose and Tax Sale News Clips (from Weathers)

Jones sometimes sent news clips.

The one at the top refers to Lloyd Rose. A talented and handsome woman, she was a minor recurring character in our mythology. I knew her at UNC-Charlotte. I think Wm P knew her (or knew of her anyway) through W, one of his mythical friends. The last I heard, she was doing movie reviews for some big newspaper on the East Coast. And I think that she wrote an episode of "Homicide Life on the Streets".

The other clip says that Cardinal stuff is being sold by the IRS to pay off 25,000 in back taxes. Apparently 40,000 was owed to other creditors. Jones, like many of us, had a morbid fascination in the decline of the company. I don't know who the fish-like character at the bottom is. Might have been M, one of the principals. I heard that he ended up working nights on a loading dock trying to pay off debts, while still trying to find customers during the day. I remember him wandering through the Moorehead Street building one day asking , "Does anyone know McGeorge Bundy?" M thought that Bundy could somehow advance our cause.

(Click picture to enlarge.)

Seth Ellis Allusion (from Weathers)

Noticed a feral odor coming from the desk drawer where I've stuck this stuff, and a little scurrying mouse noise. Maybe Jones has become one of those meme things, using Wm P and me for his own dead ends.

I'm the guy with the empty pipe that makes the spitting, "spoit" noise. I'm reading one of the books that Jones recommended (which I never did real in real life).

Spiral-eyed Slick Eddie is being hen-pecked by his oddly elegant and large girl friend.

Wm P wonders.

I think the guy at the bottom is Seth Ellis ("Theth"). He was an English Prof from UNC-Charlotte who Jones used to drink with somewhere along the Plaza. Both my sister ("thither") and I had classes from him.

Jones Opera Afternoon: The Final Cut

Jones' Typical Day at Sanford's Tavern (from Moore)

Wanda the barmaid used to work at the Why Not downtown, where a lot of us hung out. Eventually she moved to Sanford's on the north end. I went to Sanford's only once with Jones. The scene was almost exactly as pictured. Earl the shit-kicking talker dominated the bar (driving us to a table). The jukebox was blaring something by Jim Reeves or Hank Williams, and Wanda took maternal care of the ol' Perfesser.

Red Haired Woman (from Weathers)

Mythical earth-mother lust figure who apparently reminded Mark The Beast of a real person (famous then in local circles) - whose name I have blanked out of the picture.

Jones & Mark at Home (from Moore)

Mark the Beast was a patient guy to put up with Jone's opera binges. Meanwhile, he was always on the prowl. Or at least thinking about it.

- drawing from Salamander Comix

(click on picture to expand)

Jones & Mark: Gerontophilia & Cuckoldry

Cast (L to R): The guy with the horns (unidentified, maybe named Lannis); Slick Eddie; Bucky from Duke Power; Mark the Beast (The Perpetrator); Jones; and Wanda the Angela Lansbury of Barmaids.

Location: Sanfords Tavern, Hwy 49 N. Charlotte

Beer Brands: Treehouse, Nouvelle Orleans, Nuclear Power, Merry Wives of Windsor, Masters & Johnson, and Peterbilt.

Jones Depicting ?? as Tristan (from Moore)

The mortally wounded Tristan... whoizzit?

I've a person in mind, but only Jones the artist knew for sure.



(click on drawing to expand)

Cardinal's Draw a McBeard Contest

I wasn't at Cardinal when this event occured. Had I been there, I would've cast my vote for W.R. (Wade?)'s version, which is labeled as Santa Claus, but really looks like Big Daddy as The Divinity. (from Moore)

Jones Overcooked by "Siegfried" (from Moore)

Found this among the pages of "Salamander Comix" and figured it kind of fits with the Jones dialog-with-self drawings.

The old guy had just finished one of his opera marathons in Mark the Beast's walk-in closet. (more of "Salamander Comix" down the line).



(click on drawing to expand)

Jones Dialogs as Video (from Weathers)

In an experiment I put on my best Southern voice and narrate the Jonesian dialog from the previous post. (As I recall, Jones' gravelly voice was rather elegant - unlike mine.)

Jones Dialogs (from Weathers)

This is Jones having a discussion (with various aspects of himself?) about what reality is or isn't, whether to go on living, and how he is both Faust and Mephistopheles. In Jones' view "Ole Meph" was a creature who denied everything and in the end could not give Faust the one thing he was willing to sell his soul for. The dialogs conclude with a reference to the study of dark souls.

Jones' Hard Times Meatloaf (from Moore)

Jones appears to be in a buoyant mood, listening to Puccini's Tosca. The scene is probably from Mark the Beast's apartment rather than his "office home" on Morehead Street.

Special detail: use of Maurice Bessinger's Piggy Park BBQ sauce.

(click on any drawing to enlarge)

Jones Keeping Me Up to Date (from Weathers)

After I left the company in 1974, Jones kept me up to date with the coming and going (mostly going) of the people who remained at Cardinal.

Jones' Version of The Day The Earth Stood Still (from Weathers)

Jones only liked classic science fiction. He didn't like Star Wars at all. And although I try to find deep meaning in his stuff, a lot of what he did was simply for fun. He liked to indulge his knowledge and his intellect. Although he enjoyed having readers, I am not sure if he cared too much whether we "got" what he was doing. But maybe I'll change my mind as I post more of his material.