I still enjoy print magazines. Besides, it's a pain to carry my laptop into the bathroom every time I need to, well, you know... Street Rodder has done a great deal for the hobby, and helped create the industry it is today, and that is a good thing. On the one hand it is great to see all of the products and services available, and on the other hand a monthly book with 200 pages of ads each month is tiring. That said, I'm a subscriber, to it and many other auto and aviation publications. But the print media is a diminishing industry. Technology is shrinking it, nothing else. I didn't get the persons letter, and I didn't get the video. I guess I'm just dense. The HAMB is my favorite place to hang out next to hotair, a decidedly non-car site.
Hell, I'm with you fellas. I owe alot to the HAMB. Not just inspiration and entertainment, but anytime I need tech advice I am more than helped out. I still enjoy receiving my monthly magazines but would be lost without my HAMB. I do agree the grammar and search function police should ease up but it isn't a bid deal. If I don't like a thread/post, I simply skip it and go to one that interests or amuses me.
BTW Ryan, I think you have an excellent writing style. I feel more as though I am being spoken to by a friend/pier than reading an instruction manual. You are spreading knowledge and entertainment with a nice slice of humble pie.
Ryan, two sayings that my dad taught me apply to this exchange: "The world is made up of two kinds of people, road builders and those who look for cracks in roads." Ryan you're a road builder! "Remember, people only throw rocks at trees that bare fruit" Loved the video! Ralph
Another point of view... think about all the hot rodders and kustom car guys from abroad... japan, australia, europe (like me)... For us, the HAMB is something like the Hot Rod BIBLE... everything is here. EVERYTHING you need. Technical information, history, information about events, coverage, interesting links... everything. Long live to the HAMB. A hoodlum
Ryan - Make sure and thank Janet if you get the chance. Reading "her" little rant reminded me how much I value this site and how I needed to do my part to make sure it continues to prosper by re-upping my Alliance Membership. One Tech Week is worth more to me that a whole stack of modern mags, so the cost of membership seems small compared to the returns I get. Janet might want to look objectively at why so many folks here have abandoned print media for this hoodlum driven product. Maybe a little introspection on Janet's part would go a long way towards resolving "her" issues. Either way, sleep soundly tonight with the thought that some magazine editor weeps for his future because you have tapped into the core of the Hot Rod universe. Well done!
hmmm i have been getting 20 plus magazines a month and have let some of them drop as they do not give the fun,insight ,retrospective,and tech that the HAMB has done ... dunno i have a laptop now don't know how long before it will replace magazines in the crapper....i know the archive here will take up much less space than the 6 file cabinets the magazines are fillin up.... the greasy wheel gets the squeaks ?????
Many well-considered and well-written responses here. My $.02: -The "fabric of hot rodding" is much more in evidence in the HAMB community than any magazine I've read recently. -Magazines document, propagate and promote the "hot rod world". They didn't create it. Websites now do the same, only more efficiently. -The video montage is great. -Janet may well be a self-absorbed, bitter asshat with a very narrow perspective. Having never met him/her, I can't say for sure... Thank you, Ryan, for having the guts and the passion to create and maintain this place. This little episode has prompted me to get off my butt and spend some of the money I used to spend on magazines on an Alliance membership.
If I like a magazine I buy it, if I like a website I go to it. As far as one influencing my chioce of the other, I think I am smarter than that.
OMG we have become the "TEA PARTY" of the hotrod/custom media.......sounds like janets' TAIL wants to WAG the DOG....
The beauty of a market, is that it is truely flexible. dynamic. evolved into what it needs to be. Print media has suffered greatly at the hands of digital media in the current market, and as such has lost ground to the interweb. By default, we are all cheap and free, is frankly hard to beat. Quality will always be appreciated. We are tactile beings, we like to touch things: carburetors, cold metal, and warm boobs. We like to hear: exhaust notes, screaming tires, and whining power parkers. We feel: hot exhaust, stinging rain, and the pleasure of completion. The HAMB provides a place for the us: the social introverts, the unknown craftsman, the interweb keyboard bully, the men and women who have been there and done it a voice. Here, for the most part we are uncensored, there is no editor to silence us, no format to put us in. This may be terifying to many, especially those who make a living printing at our hobby. I live and breathe a free market, I work on a commodites trading floor and move oil all over the world. For all my bravado and hubris I am awkard, and for the most part anti-social. Above all i crave knowledge, and am perfectly capable of filtering the bull shit from the fact. I am also a huge fan of a really nice pair of legs that go up and make an ass out of themselves. Janet is correct, those magazines gave birth to the HAMB, because a market will always adapt to what it needs. In this case it was a voice. Unabridged, unconfined, and free. Today i am going to go purchase a car rag, one that i have never bought before. I will enjoy something that the HAMB can not, and will never offer: pages to turn under my fingers. -Doug Ogden
I almost bought a car rag the other day but after thumbing thru it and checking out the pictures, yeah I read the articles too, and then flipping back to the cover and looking at the price....I put it back. I guess the only reason I picked it up was because a certain cartoonist hot rod was on the cover. If it weren't for the HAMB I wouldn't have cared about Jeff's rod. Anyway, what else can you say about the HAMB and all it brings to this profession/hobby. Thanks to Ryan.
that's what made baskerville so great! he wrote in a personal and unconventional style. (btw, PHR was the industry leader in mispeling and choppy editing)
Janet and her ilk were used to ridin' dirty back in the day with all those raunchy publisher parties with a girl in a cake, flowing booze, and who knows what else, but times have changed for us all and them especially. Parties' over, and it's only human to look for an easy explanation, I.E. scapegoat, to pin it on. I still subscribe to a few magazines that I like, but the number dwindles yearly. It's funny how they send me all these frantic renewal notices - when the subscription still has over two years left. Janet and his buddies fear for their jobs right now, things are bad in the print world. In my latest issue of Hemmings Classic Car, the editor points out that their circulation is growing (great product + fair price = success) but that numerous other titles have gone out of business in just the last year. These include: Chevy Rumble Street Rod Builder Super Rod Truck Builder Auto Aficionado Car Collector Cars & Parts Mopar Enthusiast Pontiac Enthusiast Corvette Enthusiast Camaro Enthusiast Mustang Enthusiast Musclecar Enthusiast And several boat titles. There is rumor that the Enthusiast titles may all band together into one magazine, but no guarantee. Blaming the Internet for this is like blaming it for improperly raising your kids - silly, and people see right through it. Change is inevitable in every area, and guys like Janet seem determined to get left behind rather than adapt. I'm having a hard time caring about this. -KK
Very good points made on this thread!!!! Bottom line....... TECHNOLOGY... its here and happing all around us I myself am a subsriber to many rod&custom mags and still enjoy them but.. sad but true just dont cover what the h.a.m.b has to offer period end of story!!! To Janet,,,,,u better get on board...... tha train is leaving..... if u cant beat them join them Ryan,u tha man......u came up with something here that many of us would only dream about,and look at what its done.I personally just want to say thanks bro for passion and effort for putting this great place together we call the h.a.m.b.
I just picked up an issue of Mud Life... never heard of it, but it was informative and looks to be like an independent. It has heart. www.mudlifemagazine.com Doesn't really have an impact on Janet, unless she wants to try to get a job somewhere else after the HAMB destroys the big magazines. Magazines used to have soul.
This qoute made me think of the late great Allan Staniforth, who wrote books crammed full of Info for the home built race car builders. "The critical thing is achieving required objectives in the suspension within reasonable limits rather than the wrong ones with total accuracy" Following that logic... I'd rather read usable info with some spelling mistakes, than the ramblings in flawless English from somebody who has nothing usefull to say.
thanks ryan , hope janet is going to survive , im sure you are . thanks again love the ham and all conected
She is free to NOT read the HAMB. Sounds like her main reason for being upset is that the HAMB is very popular and has a good size influence in the old car hobby and she doesn't like the style of cars people here like. Boo hoo! Ignore criticism like this, I'd worry more about any criticism of your web layout skills (doubt you have any criticism there...) or something else like that. People love cars because there is a car for everyone out there, but at the same time there are even more cars that one doesn't like......
TO Doug Ogdon, You have a way with words that makes your response to this situation seem like poetry, and your perception is right on. As "car shooter" and long time contributer to many of the "rags" still on the racks, the new technology has hurt my income, but though some of the comments seen daily here tick me off a bit, this place we have gravitated to seems like a home, and deals with old hot rods like I grew up with. We have to move on and learn the new technologies as they come and use them to our advantage. I have read Rod & Custom for many moons, and still like to sit in my old garage and soak up the images and the pros that I have for so long admired. Hopefully we can enjoy this once a month happiness for a few more moons to come. Da Flash
When I'm at shows and people ask what my hamb plate means I'm directing them to this video....says it all...thanks Ryan..