July 2008

Sir, I have a problem. It’s bikes.

Build complete!

A while back I picked up crazy old frame on ebay and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since. This past weekend I put the final(ish) touches on building it up and so far I’m loving it. LOVE. ING. IT.

Build complete!I say finished-ish because i don’t trust my building skills so I need to get someone who actually knows what they are doing to double check my handiwork to make sure i didn’t build a death trap before I’m super confident to ride it around in the streets. Also it’s the first bike I’ve ever ridden with drop bars and I still am not 100% sold on them so we’ll see what happens.

I actually wasn’t planning on building out another fixed gear when I started this project, I was hoping to build out a road bike but found that frame and couldn’t pass it up. Today I decided I’d take it by my friend Mr. Jalopy’s bike shop and show him how it turned out and also let him know that I hadn’t completely forsaken the road bike I’d told him I wanted to build, just pushed it back a bit. That is, until he pulled out this beauty:

Benotto Frame

And I was forced to buy it on the spot. I mean, seriously, look at this cut out on the bottom bracket, how could I say no? So now, minutes after finishing the build of the Masi I’m onto a build of a Benotto. And I’m thinking of taking one of the fixed gears up to SF since I seem to be there a lot and having something to ride would be swank. So yeah, I guess I’m obsessed or something. Fun!

The Endless Quest For Awesome

I’ve been saying for years that LA is my favorite city ever. It’s true, of all the places I’ve lived it’s the first place that ever felt like home and I still feel that rush every time I step off a plane when I return to the city. Of course no city is perfect and even with every thing I love about LA it still has it’s faults, and top of that is that it’s been getting super hot in the summer and I just don’t work well with that. The trouble is there’s no place that’s perfect 100% of the year, so if you want perfect all year around you need to chase the awesome where ever it might be at that point in time. Also, there’s no universal “this is good” agreement on weather or cities so figuring out what is best takes a bit more than a google search. Here’s a few things I like, and a few things I don’t like, if you know a location that is heavy on the like and not so much on the dislike during a certain part of the year, let me know. This is by no means limited to the US.

LIKE:

  • Bikable – lots of flat well paved roads
  • Moderate weather – something between 60-80 is ideal
  • Food – need lots of options especially vegan ones
  • Theaters – good theaters are manditory
  • Culture – the more people from different places the better.
  • English speaking – I speak English and while I dabble in some others, if I’m thinking of spending a lot of time somewhere I need to be able to get around from day one. I do want to learn Spanish and Japanese, but don’t know them yet.
  • Public transport – the more trains the better.
  • Overcast is nice.

DON’T LIKE

  • Rain.
  • Extremely hot weather
  • Snow and ice
  • Humidity
  • One industry cities – you know what I mean, places where the vast majority of people in a city are involved with one specific industry.

I’m sure there’s a lot more that I like and that I don’t, but that’s off the top of my head. Thoughts?

Interview with Jimmy Yu from Judge

There’s a new webzine being written by a bunch of old hardcore kids like myself that has been posting some really fun stuff recently. It’s called Double Cross and by far one of the best things they’ve done is a multi-part interview with Jimmy Yu. If the name doesn’t sound familiar you haven’t been reading the inside of your old Rev 7″s enough recently. Jimmy played in Death Before Dishonor and Judge and then kind of disappeared. (He became a buddhist) This interview is fascinating because it details the formation of those bands, but also about the scene surrounding them. I didn’t realize how similar Florida was to a lot of what was going on in NYC and this bit right here is exactly something I’ve tried to explain to many people for years about how things were in Tampa:

 “As far as the terms “Wolfpack” and “United Blood,” those weren’t like actual crews and it wasn’t how we identified ourselves, at least I don’t think so. Those were just names that Mike gave us looking back when he wrote the Judge lyrics. I don’t remember it being verbalized at the time, like, “Hey, we are the Wolfpack!” But we felt it in our hearts, and those descriptions when applied later by Mike made sense. Because at the time, in those threshold moments, like when Boston came down, and it escalated into becoming physical, in New York it didn’t matter if you were a regular skin, a nazi skin, or what…you just kicked their fucking asses. That’s it. You were New York. And in those moments, it was very clear that you stuck together, everyone. We are New York, and you…you are not. You want to try to rule the floor and try to crack people’s heads? Dude, you’re in the wrong place, man. We just jumped them. In those moments, we were united.”

Anyway I’m loving this series and it’s brought back tons of memories. If any of this is ringing any bells for you, check it out.
Jimmy Yu Interview – Part I
Jimmy Yu Interview – Part II
Jimmy Yu Interview – Part III
Jimmy Yu Interview – Part IV

The thing about hope… it fades.

daretohope800.gif

That lovely design is via Diesel Sweeties and I think says what a lot of people are thinking right now. I have to say I’m pretty amazed at how many of the folks I knew who were rabid Obama supporters 2 weeks ago are completely disappointed with him this week thanks to the FISA thing. It’s been crazy really, I haven’t seen people as up in arms over a candidate as long as I can remember so to see so many of those die hard people change direction so quick has me dizzy. In the last week I’ve seen:

  • A guy in a parking lot at a grocery store pealing off an Obama bumper sticker
  • Another recently removed sticker in a different parking lot.
  • A lady with an Obama pin on her bag ripping an Obama poster off an electric box
  • A whole group of bike riders taking Obama spoke cards off their bikes and throwing them in a near by trashcan.

In an e-mail thread with a few friends, one of which who has been a strong supporter for a while and worked on his campaign since early on said this:

“His approval of the bill doesn’t endear him to most independents/regular folks (who don’t care as much about this issue) — but it is an enormous insult to those of us who backed him from the start (who tend to be really passionate about civil liberties stuff). So he lost on both counts.”

And I think that’s pretty much it. The dude tried to win friends with the wrong approach, and only pissed off his biggest supporters basically telling them all that everything he’s ever said is suspect and possibly a lie at this point. But then again, he’s a politician so I don’t know why this is too shocking for anyone.