Coolest Moped Ever?

Hey! What a cool moped!



Yeah, I never imagined I would say that either...


Cool and moped go together potato chips and peanut butter.

I have developed a distaste for mopeds due to the contingent of SF hipsters who have taken to "modifying" their mopeds, to make them racy and cool.
They fail miserably, the hipsters.


Yet, here is a cool moped.

Perhaps I should hate the hipsters and not the moped.
Perhaps they should make more mopeds that look like this.

Back to Me

The Dutchess and the Duke


They have an album out, you should give it a listen.

Desert Sled

It seems like there should be old dirt bikes leaned against garage walls, all over California.

I rarely see any.

Once and a while I'll hear about one somebody saw, somewhere. Usually at the other end of the state.

So, if you've got one that you have got to get out of the way - I'll take it.

I feel

kind of like this, today.

Phil Collins

Yesterday, a Phil Collins song sent me rambling about how I could really get into Phil Collins if I was wearing a white suit and driving around in a convertible Ferrari.
Nobody was really listening to me babble on about Phil Collins, Tom Wolfe costumes or expensive Italian automobiles, but that never stops me from talking.
Most of my conversational energy is solely for my own enjoyment.
I amuse myself.
Audience participation is not required.


I had a pretty specific vision going in my head, which involved a Ferrari Daytona.
Kind of a Miami Vice thing, only classy, if you know what I mean...

Then today I notice pictures of the new California model.
It could make a pretty decent alternate, in my vision.
It is not exactly svelte, it seems a bit bulky even.

Still, if one was offered up, along with the white suit and Phil Collins CD - I would race around with dramatic purpose and flair, at extreme speeds, at the edge of control.


Note, if you should decide to actualize this vision for me, the car also should be white.
Silver might be acceptable, as well.
White is preferred.
Your choice on the Phil Collins album.

Rodney Mullen

RJD2 meets Rodney Mullen.


If you have ever called yourself a skateboarder, here is some footage to remind you that you were really just some dude standing on a plank with wheels.
This guy bends the rules of physics, links together three or four tricks you could never land and has been doing it for more than twenty years.

We Know Money

I am still a bit stuck on the recent AIG retreat.

I guess it was all planned, prior to the whole bail out package, but it is hard to swallow a $450,000 get-away for AIG staffers after kicking down huge cash to keep them in business.
Really, $24,000 in spa treatments?

Shouldn't somebody have said "Listen, we're plundering taxpayer savings accounts to be here, so skip the massage and sea salt wrap...it will read poorly in tomorrow's paper..."

Didn't the Fed just tell us about how salary caps will scare talent away from the management of this company?
What the hell kind of PR genius is it that I am floating right now?

I am sure they did a risk assessment of how this would all play out. Probably with some really fantastic Powerpoint presentation on how this will reap tremendous rewards with the pampered associates. Perhaps there was a deep analysis of the attrition costs the hotel would bill for a cancellation.


Still, at least fake a frowning face.
Especially if you pop for the rare earth mask.



I'd be more in favor of maintaining peoples salaries, if they did a better job of covering up their indiscretions.

AIG, take a note from your new ownership.
You can lie to the public, just don't let the truth slip out.
We have gotten used to that with our elected representation.
Learn from Congress.

On Any Sunday

So, I am pretty sure that On Any Sunday tops the list of movies I have seen too many times.

I think I have watched this more than I have seen Star Wars. I know the story, the scenes and the nuances.

Bruce Brown did the movie, the surfer movie dude, with the backing of Steve McQueen. It paints a glorious picture of motorcycling which captures the individual nature of the sport at it's hey-day. A synaptic view, which faded almost at the moment it was filmed.


On Any Sunday is a snapshot of time and space.

A simpler time, when a guy might be a national champion through his own efforts. A glimpse of gladiators fighting for their own freedom, their own triumph and individual success.

I presume that the romance comes from the nostalgic goggles with which the content is viewed through, but the strength of personal struggle and triumph shines through all of that. The character of the folks featured cannot be contained in those rose tinted lenses.

Men like Mert Lawill, Dick Mann and even Steve McQueen carry the film, by simply being themselves. By simply expressing their passions, while being filmed.

I am sure I will watch On Any Sunday again, and again...

Only because I hope to attain that air of expression, that moment of purity, in the things that keep me going...

Safety Net

The commission in charge of the management and preservation of the Golden Gate bridge have voted to move forward on the installation of a safety net.

It seems that the number of jumpers, folks who hop the handrail to end it all, weigh too heavily on the administrators hearts - along with a hundred or so mental health professionals, social workers and grief stricken family members who showed up to sway the vote.


So, an architectural icon - a wonder of modern design - will get a safety net installed.
It will attach to the side of the bridge, about 20' below the road surface.
Projected costs are around $40-50 million dollars.



I, rather gloomily, predict that one person will die in the installation of the safety net. The net will be named after that brave construction worker, a memorial to their great effort to keep people from also meeting his/her terrifying fate.

I also forecast that there will be particularly insistent jumpers who will hop down to the safety net - and use it as their jumping off point to the next chapter.



Is a $50 million dollar net really much of an obstacle for a person ready to take action on ending their own life?
Should we only allow placebo sleeping pills be sold?
Perhaps we should only have near-beer and bumper cars?

It could be that I am somewhat callous.
I could be the type of person, who when ready to off myself, would find a safety net a great humorous slap in the face when reviewing the long list of great ways to end it all.

Twin Triple Trike

My compulsion with trikes continues.

How about a trike with twin Kawi 750 two-strokes as a power source?
I mean if you are gonna build something dumb, you might as well go full retard, huh?



This is one of those that I like to puzzle out, in my head.
Some sort of split throttle control, no probably not, but maybe.
Some kind of jack-shaft connecting things, could be.
Something that was pushed off of and on to a trailer, best guess.

Still, stereo triple two strokes has to make a great brain rattling sound.

Don't Tread on Me

Cro-Mags, also from a long time ago...