Daily Podcast: Detroit Auto Show Grants TTAC Two Press Passes

Hunter Thompson and Ernest Hemingway are my greatest literary influences. The former taught me that writing is important. The latter taught me to use as few words as humanly possible. I mean, to write concisely. But let's not forget technology. I would never have become a writer without the advent of word processing. As someone who suffers from OCD, pre-WP days were Hell. I'd write a paragraph, start editing it, realize I could hardly read what I'd written, copy it over to a new piece of paper, and then start a second paragraph. Then I'd edit the second paragraph, rip it off from the first, and re-write that paragraph. By the time I had three paragraphs on three separate pieces of paper, I had to copy all three on a new piece of paper. A single page of text could take me an hour. And it still wasn't done. The moment I started writing on an Apple II, I was reborn. I accepted highlight delete as my personal savior. I worshipped at the altar of cut and paste. But I never forgot that Thompson's best work was born of personal conviction, not literary perfection. And I never forgot that Hemingway's skills were the intellectual embodiment of his ill-fated quest for a clean, well-lighted place (which is, for me, TTAC). As we've just heard that the Detroit Auto Dealers Association's has reconsidered– they will grant TTAC two presses for the North American International Auto Show (out of four requested)– this thought occurs: while we're heavily out-gunned, I've been training for this all my life. As have our NAIAS writer/reporters, William C. Montgomery and Sajeev Mehta, and Managing Editor Frank Williams. Watch this space.