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Mar. 31st, 2007 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bliumchikI just got back from watching a Russian concert with my dad at Bondi Pavillion. It was cunningly situated in the next room over from a Capuera demonstration, which involves a lot of loud rhythmic drumming. So we had some involuntary percussion. However, Aleksei Ivasshenko is officially awesome. His guitar is amazing and he's really funny. In between songs he told anecdotes, generally as context for the next song. I've translated a particularly funny anecdote for your amusement, as follows beneath the cut:
All right, this next song is dedicated to everyone who's ever owned a [model something].
...
...from the overwhelming response I guess you've all been spared. Well, this is a car I owned a few decades ago - a Fiat, I believe. Those Italians make beautiful cars. Unfortunately this one was made in the USSR, so it was scrap metal on wheels.
Anyway, one day I was waiting at a crossing, and when the lights changed the thing just would not start. Every time I turned the key it would just sputter and die. And behind me everyone was honking their horns, so eventually I pushed the car over to the side of the road. Meanwhile the noise had attracted a crowd of curious bystanders, each with a different diagnosis and each positive that their solution would work. Of course I ignored them all and found a payphone (this was before mobile phones) to call a friend of mine that had worked extensively in the automobile industry. He'd actually spent a few months selling this particular model in Australia - I don't know who bought it. Probably the Aborigines, as if they haven't suffered enough already. So I called him up, and the conversation goes like this:
"Yeah?"
"Thank god! Listen my car died and I'm late and all these randoms are yelling at me-"
"No time. Symptoms?"
So I told him everything, and then he says:
"Right. I don't have the time to explain right now, so you're just going to have to do exactly as I say. First, open the driver's side door."
"What?"
"Just trust me. Open the driver's door, there's a panel down the bottom with four screws. Unscrew one of them. Then open up the hood and find the distributer."
"That's the... thing with the... things?"
"Yeah, that. Get the screw and screw it into one of the holes in the distributer."
"...which hole?"
"Doesn't matter. If you get the wrong one the screw won't fit."
"Okay, and then what?"
"That's it. Call me tomorrow."
And he hung up. So, what was I to do? I went back to the crowd of self-proclaimed mechanics and I opened the car door. And I removed a screw from the panel And I found the distributer, and I found the right hole and I screwed in the screw, amid much scepticism from the crowd. And then, before their bewildered eyes, i got in the car and drove away.
So the next day, I called up my friend, and I said:
"My god, what was wrong with the car?"
"Well, several runs of that model have a dodgy spark plate. It doesn't align properly, it shifts around, so you can't get a spark out of it sometimes."
"And the screw?"
"It just so happens that there's a panel in the driver's door that's screwed in with the same type of screw as you need to temporarily secure the spark plate."
"That's absurd!"
"That's not absurd, I'll tell you what's absurd. Most European used car salesmen know about this little trick, so seasoned buyers always open the driver's door and count the screws. If there's one missing, it's in the distributer, so don't buy the car."
"That's amazing!"
"Nah, what was amazing is when I did this in front of a troup of NRMA guys in Australia. They spent the next three months clapping me on the back and calling me the Russian Magician."
Ironically, we got a lift home in a car with one dodgy seatbelt. My dad was wrestling with it most of the way, as it had a nasty habit of tightening around his neck whenever we went round a bend. Misha, owner of the car, says: "What's the matter with it?"
Dad: It won't loosen.
Misha: Well, why don't you just leave it then?
Dad: Because I like breathing, thank you very much. And it keeps pulling tighter.
Misha: Well, I don't know, I never ride in the back seat. My family's never complained about it...
Dad: That's probably because they couldn't get enough breath to speak!
Me: Maybe we should stick a screw from the driver's door in it.
Other Guy (I forget his name): The funny thing is I had a car like that back in the day. The distributer was also faulty, broke after a month, and when I went in to get a replacement they said "We're all out, come back in a month." What am I supposed to come back in, I ask you? Then it turns out that if I get the distributer replaced, the new one will be the same kind... so it'll just break in another month. So I have to get an expensive one sent in from Japan, which I did.
Misha: Did it fix the problem?
Other guy: Oh, yeah, well, it fixed that problem. Except all the other parts were dodgy too. I'd have had to get a few tonnes of replacements from Japan.
Dad: You may as well get the whole car from Japan and save the effort.
We bought a CD (and got it signed) so, as it is much easier to lj an anecdote than a style of music, I'm uploading one song from the album as a sample: Here.
And with that, I bid thee good night.
All right, this next song is dedicated to everyone who's ever owned a [model something].
...
...from the overwhelming response I guess you've all been spared. Well, this is a car I owned a few decades ago - a Fiat, I believe. Those Italians make beautiful cars. Unfortunately this one was made in the USSR, so it was scrap metal on wheels.
Anyway, one day I was waiting at a crossing, and when the lights changed the thing just would not start. Every time I turned the key it would just sputter and die. And behind me everyone was honking their horns, so eventually I pushed the car over to the side of the road. Meanwhile the noise had attracted a crowd of curious bystanders, each with a different diagnosis and each positive that their solution would work. Of course I ignored them all and found a payphone (this was before mobile phones) to call a friend of mine that had worked extensively in the automobile industry. He'd actually spent a few months selling this particular model in Australia - I don't know who bought it. Probably the Aborigines, as if they haven't suffered enough already. So I called him up, and the conversation goes like this:
"Yeah?"
"Thank god! Listen my car died and I'm late and all these randoms are yelling at me-"
"No time. Symptoms?"
So I told him everything, and then he says:
"Right. I don't have the time to explain right now, so you're just going to have to do exactly as I say. First, open the driver's side door."
"What?"
"Just trust me. Open the driver's door, there's a panel down the bottom with four screws. Unscrew one of them. Then open up the hood and find the distributer."
"That's the... thing with the... things?"
"Yeah, that. Get the screw and screw it into one of the holes in the distributer."
"...which hole?"
"Doesn't matter. If you get the wrong one the screw won't fit."
"Okay, and then what?"
"That's it. Call me tomorrow."
And he hung up. So, what was I to do? I went back to the crowd of self-proclaimed mechanics and I opened the car door. And I removed a screw from the panel And I found the distributer, and I found the right hole and I screwed in the screw, amid much scepticism from the crowd. And then, before their bewildered eyes, i got in the car and drove away.
So the next day, I called up my friend, and I said:
"My god, what was wrong with the car?"
"Well, several runs of that model have a dodgy spark plate. It doesn't align properly, it shifts around, so you can't get a spark out of it sometimes."
"And the screw?"
"It just so happens that there's a panel in the driver's door that's screwed in with the same type of screw as you need to temporarily secure the spark plate."
"That's absurd!"
"That's not absurd, I'll tell you what's absurd. Most European used car salesmen know about this little trick, so seasoned buyers always open the driver's door and count the screws. If there's one missing, it's in the distributer, so don't buy the car."
"That's amazing!"
"Nah, what was amazing is when I did this in front of a troup of NRMA guys in Australia. They spent the next three months clapping me on the back and calling me the Russian Magician."
Ironically, we got a lift home in a car with one dodgy seatbelt. My dad was wrestling with it most of the way, as it had a nasty habit of tightening around his neck whenever we went round a bend. Misha, owner of the car, says: "What's the matter with it?"
Dad: It won't loosen.
Misha: Well, why don't you just leave it then?
Dad: Because I like breathing, thank you very much. And it keeps pulling tighter.
Misha: Well, I don't know, I never ride in the back seat. My family's never complained about it...
Dad: That's probably because they couldn't get enough breath to speak!
Me: Maybe we should stick a screw from the driver's door in it.
Other Guy (I forget his name): The funny thing is I had a car like that back in the day. The distributer was also faulty, broke after a month, and when I went in to get a replacement they said "We're all out, come back in a month." What am I supposed to come back in, I ask you? Then it turns out that if I get the distributer replaced, the new one will be the same kind... so it'll just break in another month. So I have to get an expensive one sent in from Japan, which I did.
Misha: Did it fix the problem?
Other guy: Oh, yeah, well, it fixed that problem. Except all the other parts were dodgy too. I'd have had to get a few tonnes of replacements from Japan.
Dad: You may as well get the whole car from Japan and save the effort.
We bought a CD (and got it signed) so, as it is much easier to lj an anecdote than a style of music, I'm uploading one song from the album as a sample: Here.
And with that, I bid thee good night.
