Tagged: St. Louis

Tesla / St. Louis

There is no formal association between St. Louis and Tesla Motors . . . yet. Tesla is the maker of two all-electric vehicles, one already on the streets – the Roadster – and one under production – the Model S. The Roadster will set you back around $100,000 but it is one mean beast. The Model S, set to cost under $60,000, is a more practical sedan. $60,000 is not affordable by any stretch of the imagination but it is in line with the costs of equivalent luxury automobiles.

What’s the point of this discussion? I want Tesla to open a showroom in St. Louis. I know, this sounds like a pipe dream given the company only plans to sell 20,000 to 25,000 units worldwide. To date, Tesla has opened showrooms in Los Angeles and Menlo Park, California. The company plans to open other showrooms in Chicago, Manhattan, Miami and Seattle. Other possibilities include Washington D.C., and Munich, Germany. After they finish opening locations in the top U.S. markets, I want their secondary expansion to start in St. Louis.

I’ve spoke with representatives from the company and they do plan on expanding further as delivery of the Model S approaches. Why? Basic maintenance and servicing for one. Also, most electric cars, including Tesla’s models, will include easily replaceable batteries (though they’ll weigh hundreds of pounds). Most electric cars will be sold with short-range batteries, as higher capacity batteries drastically increase costs and aren’t used for their full potential the majority of the time. The base Model S will come with a 160-mile range battery, but the company will also offer 230 and 300-mile batteries. If someone buys the car to commute to work, why should he pay tens of thousands of dollars extra for a long-range battery? Most likely, he wouldn’t. Proponents of electric cars envision a scenario in which an owner would take his car to service station to have his batter temporarily replaced for a longer car trip. To make this scenario a reality, more sales/service locations will be needed than just those on the coasts and one in Chicago. Got it? Good.

So, stay tuned for more updates as I campaign to get enough Tesla’s sold in St. Louis to get a showroom here as well!

Up In The Air

Katie and I spent Tuesday on set as extras in the upcoming George Clooney movie, Up In The Air. I can’t say much about the movie itself given we signed confidentiality agreements but I will say the scene we were in takes place at a conference where Clooney’s character, Ryan Bingham, is giving a speech. That’s all I can offer regarding the film’s content. Sorry.

Movie making is tedious, terribly tedious. We arrived a little after 8am to check in, dressed as conference-goers. We were among 400 others, all playing the same part. The check-in process was well organized but still took hours. Our hair, faces and clothes were checked, and if something didn’t fit the bill, crew were available to help us become camera-ready. We were herded into a conference room packed with tables and chairs, a room we shared with the cast and crew. This is where everyone took breaks and ate. Production assistants periodically came in giving us updates on when we’d be needed and called on a few people who’d been selected for additional scenes. We were given instructions on what to do and how to do it in pieces, but our jobs were pretty easy – sit in a room while Clooney/Bingham delivered his lines.

Two dozen. That’s at least how many takes there were for a scene maybe two minutes long. Different camera angles were tried. Some of the takes included the entire scene while others just focused on Clooney’s character or just on the audience – us. The entire ordeal was impressive. A hundred crew, all focusing on different nuances of the production. Some were involved directly with the shooting while others took care of things behind the scenes. It took hours. We even broke for lunch in the middle, around 2pm.

Most of our time was spent waiting. I almost finished The White Tiger and answered emails for work and pleasure during our down time. We met a bunch of interesting people. Some were nice, some were annoying.

Clooney seemed nice enough. He’s a much smaller man than I thought. He walked right by me when we were lined up for lunch and he’s probably one to two inches shorter than me, so 5′ 10” tops. Can’t weigh more than a buck seventy either. Of course he was impeccably put together and very unassuming. In between takes he joked with the audience but was on his game whenever Jason Reitman yelled, “Action!” He “ate” with the crew, who ate with us. While the extras and the cast and crew were separated by sections, we were in the same conference room for lunch and everyone was fully visible to each other. I put ate in quotes because I’m not sure I ever saw him actually eat anything.

I’m not sure if we’ll make it into the final cut but I’m glad we went.  That being said, I’m not sure I’d do the whole extra thing again. Learning about the production of the film, and being a part of it was very interesting. But, I’m not a hurry up and wait kind of guy and I despise waiting and standing in lines. Maybe I’d try it again if the scene were smaller. There’s a lot of repetition, a lot of waiting, a lot of repetition . . . Our scene being easy also made it a bit boring, from the extras’ perspective at least.

I’m very happy St. Louis is attracting big budget film production. Thank you Missouri Film Production Tax Credit. This movie is the first by a major studio in decades to film the majority of its scenes in STL. But, I wrote some 15 months ago in a piece called Acting A Fool that movie production is horribly unsustainable and abusive to the environment. Clooney even got some props in that piece. Of course it was in reference to him mating with Al Gore but props is props. Here’s to more movies being filmed in my hometown, I just hope the productions become more sustainable.

Smoke-Free St. Louis: Letter to the Editor

I sent the following letter to the editor to all the major local publications this morning:

To the editor,

A recent study by the City of Houston, Texas examined the effects of its smoke-free bar and restaurant law and found the ordinance did not have a negative impact on business.

As St. Louis debates the merits of becoming smoke-free, false fears of economic loss seem to plague progress. The only unbiased, accurate means to measure economic impact is to compare sales tax receipts for years before the smoke-free law, with all quarters after the law is enacted. Houston, along with hundreds of other communities, has conducted these studies and they all show the same thing – no adverse impact on business.

St. Louis and its leaders have fallen victim to predictions of economic doom and that’s a shame. This myth originated with the tobacco industry and its public relations firms in the 1980s. David Laufer of Philip Morris said it best in 1994, “The economic arguments often used by the industry to scare off smoking ban activity were no longer working, if indeed they ever did. These arguments simply had no credibility with the public, which isn’t surprising when you consider that our dire predictions in the past rarely came true.”

Despite the fact that these declines have never come to pass in any community in the country, the opposition has not stopped trying to use this myth to divert attention away from the health-basis of smoke-free air laws.


Let’s try to keep our eye on the ball, St. Louis. For those few who didn’t know it already, the U.S. Surgeon General, numerous scientists and doctors have confirmed that secondhand smoke causes cancer, heart disease and serious lung problems. It’s a no brainer to protect all patrons and employees from the carcinogenic smoke that lurks in St. Louis bars and restaurants.


Sincerely,


Vihar Sheth

St. Louis City Resident

I haven’t been involved in the Smoke-Free St. Louis effort to the extent I would have liked but every little bit counts, right? Hopefully at least one of the publications will pick this up. I can feel the momentum building for a regionwide smoke-free law. If you would like to see St. Louis become smoke-free, send your own letter!

One Cancer Stick At A Time

I can feel the momentum! It appears as though a smoke-free St. Louis may be plausible after all. In today’s newspaper (they still have those?) an article outlines plans for Clayton, Missouri to go smoke-free. Nothing has been settled yet but holy cigarette Batman! would this be great news. For those of you who don’t know, Clayton is downtown St. Louis’ more homogeneous but relatively (sub) urban little sister. It’s where the law firms move when the City can’t pay the firms’ partners their dowry. In all honesty, some times it works the other way too.

One of the biggest problems with making a city smoke-free has been the attitude that everyone needs to be in “this” together or some businesses will suffer while others won’t. That’s mostly hogwash, and the municipalities in the metro area with bigger sacks decided years ago to make their public places smoke-free. Kudos to them. Looks like some of the more sizable ones are coming around.

I’m working with a coalition, Smoke-Free St. Louis City, to make the City of St. Louis smoke-free. The City is not quite where Clayton is in its thinking but a smoke-free Clayton would go a long way in influencing other major parts of town to mimic the behavior. This would also help reach a critical mass of influence with politicians, all of whom claim they don’t want to go at it alone; on the Missouri side of the Muddy Mississippi, St. Louis’ population is concentrated mostly in three counties, St. Louis City, St. Louis County, St. Charles County. The leaders of all three have said they won’t jump off the bridge unless their comrades do the same. The hour is nigh!

I was bowling with friends last night at a laid-back, blue-collar establishment that sits within the borders of St. Louis County. Fun was had by all, though I bowled like a guy who’d lost his primary bowling arm. But, by the time I left, my hair smelled like smoke, my clothes smelled like smoke and my eyes were burning. At least my sister-in-law wore a Smoke-Free St. Louis City t-shirt in silent protest.

Making public places smoke-free is about protecting people’s health, and only about protecting people’s health. These efforts aren’t about restricting rights or shoving more government down your throat. Smoke-free means clean air for everyone, especially the people who work at places that currently allow smoking, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

FYI – Filtration systems don’t work and the studies that say second-hand smoke doesn’t kill are done by the same ilk of people that brought you studies claiming climate change is a hoax and the “theory” of evolution is wrong. Oh, maybe they’re Holocaust deniers too! If you believe those studies let me know, I’ll buy you a pack of cigarettes.