5.31.06 The Cheapskate's Guide to Buying a New Car

You know those lists ranking the most stressful life events (getting fired, divorced, moving, etc.)? I'm surprised that "buying a new car" never shows up on those charts. It's nerve-wracking, especially so when you've promised your mom that you will secure her a good deal on a new automobile.

I did a ton of research into car-buying when we bought our Prius almost four years ago and figured I would use my knowledge to negotiate the purchase of a new Toyota Corolla for Mom. The most difficult thing about it was that there are only two Toyota dealerships in their town. There are at least a dozen of them in the Bay Area, and I contacted all of them for a quote when I bought the Prius. The best way to handle the purchase of a new car is to stay far away from the species known as Auto salesman americanus, but if you want to test drive the car before making an offer on it, that's pretty much impossible.

Tip: If you're thinking about buying a new car, either test drive it when you're on vacation far from your hometown, or ask around and see if a friend or coworker has the model you want. If you show up at your local dealership, a salesman will attach himself to you, remora-like.

I have two friends who drive only Saturns because of that make's no-haggle policy, but even if negotiating terrifies you, it's entirely possible to make a deal on a car without that annoying back-and-forth "let me check with my manager" bullcrap. Now, I don't pretend to be an expert on the art of car buying, but I can tell you that if you are in the market for an auto, go to Fighting Chance and order the information packet for the model car you'd like to buy. I followed the procedure religiously when I bought the Prius and it worked like a charm. In a nutshell, it involves sending a fax to the fleet managers of all the (in my case) Toyota dealerships in the Bay Area, outlining exactly what kind of car you want to buy and which options you need. You load the fax with the information gleaned from the Fighting Chance packet so the manager knows you've done your research, then just sit back and wait for the calls to roll in.

Tip: Never negotiate using monthly payments (i.e., "We can give you this car for $299 a month"), only the total price of the car. If you really want to save money, your best bet is to secure financing before you start shopping, from your local bank or credit union. You'll probably get a better rate, too.

Once you've made a great deal, you're not finished yet, so don't let down your guard. In my case, since I was stuck working with a salesman, I got to hear about what a remarkable deal I was getting because they were giving me the car for just $X over invoice. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure they can barely afford to feed their families on such a meager payday. I have two words for you: dealer holdback. "Holdbacks enable dealerships to... sell their vehicles at or near invoice and still make hundreds of dollars on the transaction." Just being aware of holdback gives you an extra trump card to play if you need it.

So I managed to negotiate a price I was happy with (by this point, I was back in California, so it took a series of phone calls to do it) and my folks could simply walk into the dealership with a cashier's check. Of course, there were still many opportunities for the salespeople to make extra money, in the form of extended warranties, undercoating, fabric protection, etc. Say no to all of it. You can do the fabric and paint protection yourself for a fraction of the cost by purchasing aftermarket products. If you really think you need a warranty, that too is cheaper if you buy it from an outside source like Warranty Direct.

If you're buying a relatively cheap car like the Corolla, the margins are pretty low to begin with, so it's unlikely you'll be horribly ripped off (Even if I'd used Fighting Chance and contacted all the dealerships within a 250-mile radius, I doubt I could have saved more than a couple extra hundred bucks). The real money is made on expensive vehicles that cost $30,000 and up—why do you think Detroit loves SUVs so much?

Incidentally, the Corolla LE my mom bought gets a robust mpg of 32-40, which is just a tiny bit less than my Prius (2002 models like ours don't get quite as good mileage as the current ones do). When we bought our car, hybrids were nowhere near as hot as they are now, probably because gas was still under $2 a gallon. If you don't want to pay the premium hybrids command today, models like the Corolla, Honda Civic, the new Toyota Yaris and VW Beetle will give you gas mileage almost equivalent to our '02 hybrid. Learn to drive a stick shift, and you can save even more gas by buying a manual.

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5.30.06 Cold Mountain

Just in case anybody wondered where the heck I've been, I took a little time off to visit friends and family in the Midwest. As I have stated countless times before, I hate flying, so I'm glad to be back on solid ground for a while. I particularly hate the completely useless ritual of having to remove my shoes at airport security, so I always wear sandals and brazenly walk through the detector without taking them off. Usually they let me pass, but the shoe Nazis at the Columbus (OH) Airport made me remove them. That's America in 2006: Homemade bomb components slip through with no problem while screeners are busy examining your Keds.

I had to be back home in time for a wedding on Sunday. The couple are work friends of Joe's; he plays basketball twice a week with the groom, and the bride is his closest colleague. Consequently, he has been privy to their wedding fever for months now. Since Joe and I got married at the Alameda County courthouse in Oakland with a grand total of four guests in attendance, he found the level of planning required fascinating. Unfortunately, there was one crucial fact about the ceremony that he either neglected to tell me about or wasn't clear on—it was to be held outdoors, on top of a mountain.

It was a beautiful, sunny day and the location (a few miles west of San Jose) is usually several degrees warmer than our coastal neighborhood. I had bought a new sleeveless dress for the occasion and figured it, along with a little knit wrap, would be fine. When we finally got up there, a stiff breeze was already blowing; after the ceremony ended, around 6:45 PM, it was downright frigid. Oh joy—the cocktail hour was going to be held outdoors. After about 20 minutes, I literally could not feel my fingers, despite borrowing Joe's suit jacket. I kept thinking about the e-mail I'd gotten from James a few hours earlier, reporting that shortly after I had left Michigan, the temperature had climbed to 101. At that point I would have given anything to be melting in 101-degree weather. Finally I managed to escape indoors to the area where the sit-down dinner was being held. If they had set up tables outside, I don't know what I would have done. Underdressing is the sort of rookie mistake I made all the time when I first moved here, and I thought I was past it. I mean, I'm the kind of person who totes canvas bags full of extra scarves and sweatshirts to baseball games.

As for the happy couple, they're off to Thailand, where it's currently in the 90s with 70% humidity.

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5.16.06 The Most Unhappy Fella

Rick Reynolds is unhappy. Very unhappy. Depressed, even. He's attempted suicide. And now he's crafted a one-man show about his life, titled, ironically, "Happiness." It was described as an extremely funny show about depression, which sounded too intriguing to miss.

The first thing I noticed about Reynolds when he came onstage at The Marsh was that he was wearing a T-shirt and extremely baggy pair of sweatpants. Now, I don't insist that performers dress in formalwear, but c'mon, sweatpants? And ugly sweatpants at that? I think Rick needs a style intervention!

Reynolds discussed the latest research into happiness, such as the theory that everyone has a happiness "set point"—very happy, moderately happy, moderately unhappy, very unhappy. Certain things can raise or lower your happiness level, but sooner or later you'll be right back at your set point. It's been shown that even big-money lottery winners don't have their set points permanently raised when they suddenly become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Reynolds' personal set point is extremely low, but he does experience joy when he's performing, and when he's eating (something he blames for his 40-lb. weight gain in recent years). He especially likes garlic bread and fudge.

If one's happiness set point is established in childhood, it's no wonder Rick is miserable. He had a horrible one—his mother and stepfather were abusive, and young Rick grew up never once having been told that he was loved. ("Happiness" is the first Reynolds show I've seen, but he dealt with his family's dysfunction in an earlier monologue, "Only the Truth is Funny.") Then there were the two failed marriages and the CBS sitcom that only lasted a month, catapulting Reynolds from Next Big Thing back to obscurity and misery.

I know it's hard to believe that a show springing from this material could be funny, but trust me, Reynolds is a hilarious guy. Like his fellow Marsh-ian Brian Copeland, he is an expert at taking the audience from tragedy to comedy and back.

The main problem with the show is that it doesn't have the consistent "through line" of the best one-man shows. I think it could have been tightened a bit; there are a few digressions along the way that don't really move the narrative along. (Tellingly, though, Joe and I disagreed about which parts we felt should be cut.)

One of the anecdotes in the show describes how Reynolds mentioned his affinity for fudge during a performance, and someone sent him 20 pounds of the sugary treat the next day. He ate fudge for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had sort of forgotten about that particular story until I did some research on Reynolds online, and read this 1997 interview in which it is revealed that his benefactor was none other than Steven Spielberg. Man, you talk about getting a gift of fudge and don't mention that the most powerful director in Hollywood was the person who sent it to you? You have to admire that kind of staunch refusal to namedrop.

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5.14.06 Chaos Theory

Today: photoblog!

This is what our living room currently looks like (and has, for the past week):

Yes, it's fun, fun, fun to live in the midst of chaos. Hobie is especially annoyed at having two strange men in the house all day—he brazenly went out there while they were working and peed on their dropcloth. For now, he is being kept behind a baby gate and, when he can't be constantly supervised, wearing a wrap. Don't feel too sorry for him, though—on Friday night, we took him out to dinner at In-N-Out Burger. (Hobie and I split a hamburger: he had the meat, I had the bun, lettuce, tomato, onion and spread.)

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5.9.06 Drugged

There's been a lot in the news lately about Rep. Patrick Kennedy and his late-night accident in Washington, D.C. He has now gone into rehab (for the second time in just five months) and the Rhode Island Democratic party has endorsed Rep. Kennedy for reelection at their state convention. "We do not walk away from our friends," said Democratic Party Chairman Bill Lynch.

Please note that Rep. Kennedy is allegedly addicted to prescription drugs, which are treated quite differently in this country. You can bet that if the congressman had been caught driving around the seedier environs of the nation's capital to buy crack, the state Dems would be running away from him at top speed. But because Kennedy's drugs came from a doctor and not a dealer, he is treated with kid gloves.

This is a bipartisan issue, by the way—just look at Rush "Drug users should be thrown into prison" Limbaugh. It's also a class issue; not surprisingly, prescription drug addicts tend to be middle- and upper-middle-class white people while "street drug" users are more likely to be poor folks. (Why risk visiting dicey neighborhoods when you can get your fix at the corner Rite-Aid instead?) Wouldn't it be nice if we were as sympathetic and willing to give second chances to all people who suffer from addiction?

I wonder if there's some truth to this speculation at Observer.com that Rep. Kennedy is "unconsciously... seeking a way out of politics."

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5.8.06 Comic Misery

"Mission: Impossible III" got largely excellent reviews, but every time I found myself thinking, "Hmm, maybe I should go see that," I flashed back to Tom Cruise's tiresome antics over the past year or so. I have occasionally enjoyed Cruise's films (I liked "Minority Report" a lot, and he was good in "Magnolia"), but even back in his pre-Scientology days, he has never been a favorite of mine. There's something kind of smarmy about him. Obviously the general public disagreed with me, since he's been a huge box office star for years and years.

However, this morning comes the news that the massively-hyped "M:I3" was a box office disappointment. It took in $10 million less during its opening weekend than "M:I2" did six years ago, when ticket prices were a buck or two lower. In fact, the "M:I3" opening figure was identical to that of cheapo comedy "Scary Movie 3" in October 2003. Maybe next time he has a big movie opening, Cruise will learn to shut up for a change, and let the film speak for itself.

I don't want to tread on the Comics Curmudgeon's territory, but I have to comment on how depressing the so-called "funnies" have been lately. These three strips appear in very close proximity to one another in my paper, forming a daily trifecta of misery:

For Better or For Worse: Ongoing storyline about a sick baby; also, Elizabeth's friend Anthony has just been dumped by his wife, who left him to raise their young child by himself
Luann: A woman can't stop going back to her violent, abusive boyfriend
Doonesbury: An Iraqi war veteran has flashbacks to the battle in which he lost his limb

I can't wait for Hagar the Horrible to face up to his alcoholism, and Baby Blues to highlight the heartbreak of SIDS.

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5.4.06 A Weekend at SFIFF, Part 2

After "The Silent Holy Stones" (see part 1, below), "Runner's High" was like a shot of adrenaline. The film follows four high school students from gritty East Oakland who train to compete in the L.A. Marathon, with help from a charitable organization called Students Run Oakland. Of course, I wanted to see it because it was a documentary about running a marathon, but I didn't know just how close to home (literally) it would be. For one thing, the students' coach is Team in Training's own Coach Alphonzo! Hearing his aphorisms on film ("Don't let ego override good judgment!") was like a flashback to last year. Plus, the students were running in locations I know very, very well. In one shot, you can actually see the apartment building I live in. How can you not love a movie when your own house appears in it?

But aside from all that, "Runner's High" provides an uplifting, fun and satisfying movie experience. If you've never run a marathon before, the doc provides a pretty good look at what it's like. And who knows, afterward, you might feel like doing it yourself. I wasn't wearing my running shoes, but I did get out and walk a couple miles after the screening.

On Sunday morning, we went to the members' screening, which, like Saturday's Talk Cinema, is an unknown quantity. Not such a nice surprise this time, though. The film we viewed was "Swimmers," which played at Sundance in 2005. It takes place on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; Robert Knott plays waterman Will Tyler, who is eking out a living catching oysters and crabs. Then one day, his youngest child, Emma (the remarkable Tara Devon Gallagher), needs an expensive operation to save the hearing in one of her ears. Of course, the family has no medical insurance and has to come up with a huge amount of money. This causes tension between Will, who spends far too much of his meager earnings on booze, and his wife Julia (Cherry Jones, whom I saw on Broadway last year in "Doubt").

Now, "Swimmers" is a well-made and -acted film and the characters are realistic and well-drawn, but like "In the Bedroom," it is just such a colossal downer. Call me superficial but I found it too depressing. Also, the film has annoying "wise beyond her years" voiceover narration by young Emma throughout. "Swimmers" has played at about a zillion different film festivals, but seems unlikely to get a theatrical release since it lacks any big-name stars. I hope it does make it to DVD, though, so Gallagher and Jones's performances can be seen by more people; besides, its intimate dysfunctional-family story would probably play well on the small screen. Plus, a DVD would be an ideal venue for a public service announcement by the nonprofit group Cover the Uninsured. (Did you know that this week happens to be Cover the Uninsured Week? Well, it is!)

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5.1.06 A Weekend at SFIFF, Part 1

I felt awful about having let so much of the San Francisco International Film Festival pass me by—not only is SFFS one of my favorite local arts organizations, I've had so many great experiences at past fests. So I decided that I would try to make up for my absence over the weekend by seeing several films in a short period of time.

Who doesn't love a surprise? I bought tickets for a Saturday morning screening called Talk Cinema. The idea is that you don't know what you're going to see until you show up. "We don't tell you what you are going to see until you arrive, and that is part of the fun," says the organization's web site. "Imagine going to the movie theatre and not knowing in advance what movie will be playing. It's like going to a fine restaurant and saying to the maitre d', 'I'm the adventurous sort. Please, I want you to surprise me!'"

Since I love going into a movie knowing as little as possible about it, this was right up my alley. I just hoped the maitre d' would present me with an artichoke risotto cake instead of an overcooked bowl of cauliflower. Luckily for me, I absolutely loved the film, "The Illusionist." It's magical in more ways than one—the always excellent Edward Norton portrays Eisenheim, who is either an absolute wizard at doing magic tricks, or has supernatural powers. The movie, which debuted at Sundance this winter, is lavish-looking, with Prague filling in for turn of the century Vienna. It's romantic, suspenseful, and will keep you guessing. Paul Giamatti is wonderful as the policeman in the pocket of the Crown Prince who is suspicious of Eisenheim's abilities. "The Illusionist" is going to be released on Aug. 18, the same weekend "Snakes on a Plane" finally comes out. Sure, we're all dying to see "Snakes," but be sure not to let "The Illusionist" disappear from theaters (ha ha) before you see it.

After that, I went to see "The Silent Holy Stones," a Chinese/Tibetan film about a young lama. "Stones" is sort of a slice of life piece—there isn't a lot of drama in it. The basic premise is that the lama, who appears to be in his early teens, discovers TV, which has some comic potential, but the shows he watches (newscasts, historical programs, and the like) aren't exactly threatening to his belief system. I will admit to nodding off a couple times, which I almost never do at movies. It was sort of interesting to see what life is really like in Tibet (the cast is largely made up of nonprofessionals), but I think you have to be a lot more fascinated by Buddhism and the life of monks than I am to get much out of it. Plus, the subtitles were awful. I'm a very fast reader, but sometimes they flashed onscreen so quickly that I didn't make it to the end of a sentence before a new subtitle appeared. This movie has about as much chance of getting a general release as Tara Reid has of winning an Oscar, but it seems to be making the film festival rounds, so if you're fascinated by day to day life in Tibet, by all means, check it out.

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