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Jenny And Johnny Are Having Fun With: Vin Diesel?

With I’m Having Fun Now (Warner Bros.), Jenny And Johnny are following in the grand tradition of girl/boy singing duos, a select conga line that stretches as far back as Sonny & Cher and X’s Exene Cervenka & John Doe to more recent warbling tandems like Mates Of State and She & Him. Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice are living proof the trend is still on the boil. Lewis cut her teeth in L.A.-based combo Rilo Kiley and has recently released two exciting solo efforts. Rice, a Scotsman transplanted to America as a teenager, has also issued a pair of solo albums and produced Lewis’ sophomore release, Acid Tongue, before teaming up with her for what could turn out to be the gold standard of indie-rock duos. Jenny And Johnny will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with Rice.

Jenny: At one time in my life, I was the proud owner of a 1964 Chevy Malibu SS. I bought it in a parking lot after emerging from a bar in Hollywood in the mid-’90s.
It was a beautiful machine, and my mother happened to be dating a guy called Radio Bob who owned an auto-body shop out in the San Fernando Valley. He offered to paint the car for free. When I finally got it back after some time, Radio Bob informed me that he had painted it “cinnamon sunset” after the color of my hair.
It was beautiful! It was fast! It turned heads!
I drove it for many years until I couldn’t afford to drive it any more. I had switched careers, trading in the residuals of my youth for the T-shirt-selling, on-the-floor-sleeping, coast-to-coast-schlepping indie-rock-band life.
It was either sing for my supper and pay my rent or sell my muscle car. So, it had to go.
I listed it for $3,500 in the Auto Trader. I received more than 50 calls on it. I should’ve known then that the listing was too low.
A family showed up to buy this beautiful machine. The father and I both wept a little as I walked him down the carport to greet cinnamon sunset.
He knew he was getting a great deal, and I knew I was making a huge mistake.
We all piled in the car. I decided to sit in the back, as I never had before. It seemed fitting for the last ride.
The father drove, his wife in the front, and I sat next to their two-year-old kid in the back.
We drove around Silverlake. And as we turned back onto the street where I lived, the kid, who had been silent up until this point, looked at me and said, “Vin Diesel!” His parents turned around in disbelief. Apparently, those were the kids’ first words.
”Vin Diesel “
Right there in the back of my Malibu.
Well, their Malibu.

Video after the jump.