SQUIDFRY 05.11.17: Fear and Loathing…

FEAR AND LOATHING… The First Amendment, tentacles down, is Squid’s favorite. It protects freedom of the press, of speech, and the right to practice whatever religion one chooses. Considering Squid’s religion is shrimp-flavored popcorn, Squid also appreciates that it lays the foundation for what Thomas Jefferson called “a wall of separation between church and state.”

That wall was nowhere to be seen at the May 4 Seaside City Council meeting, which happened to fall on the National Day of Prayer. Seaside, like a handful of local cities, begins its meetings with a prayer. They’re usually short, innocuous recitations. Not on May 4. It was led by Jim Nelson, a pastor at Monterey-based Pass the Word Ministry, who read a prayer written by Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Jimmy Graham. Addressing God, Nelson said, “You alone are our help for the future. If we as a nation do not get right with you, no one… can reverse the downward moral and spiritual spiral that has become a free fall… We approach you now with fear and trembling as we confess our national sins… We turn to you with tears of shame and a heart of fear for the judgment we are provoking… ”

Geez. Can’t Squid just watch a council meeting without being threatened with hellfire? Not in Seaside.

REAL DEAL… Considering the barely-functional state of Squid’s jalopy, it’s hard for Squid to relate, but Squid appreciates car enthusiasts like Blue Nelson and Robb Talbott. They’re the kind of people who spend hours scouring junkyards, then restoring old Porsches they find in those junkyards. Or they skip that step and attend auctions, paying six figures.

Take Talbott, for instance, who shelled out $300,000 (including $10,000 in shipping alone; Squid can’t imagine licking all those stamps) for what he thought was an “authentic, genuine, prize-winning motorcycle,” according to a lawsuit he filed on May 8 in Monterey County Superior Court. He thought he was getting a shiny new (old?) toy, but what he got instead was, allegedly, a bad deal from Nelson. Talbott claims that parts of the motorcycle have been “fabricated” and the motorcycle was just an “imitation.”

For his part, Nelson is something of a hotshot in the vintage car world; he and his collection were profiled by the New York Times Magazine. Talbott is similarly big-time, in his own way: His Moto Talbott, a motorcycle museum in Carmel Valley, is just a short motorbike ride away from the tasting room for Talbott Vineyards, and a not much further from the Monterey tie factory for the eponymous clothing label.

“There is no logic to the Talbott collection,” the Moto Talbott website states. Nor is there logic, it seems, to the price-negotiating habits of rich motorcycle collectors.