Blood, Semen, and 35% Meat

Well, it looks like the weather's turned to shit again. It was tits for while here in the city, which was surprising, being only the end of January. Even went on a mini picnic with the better half a couple days ago.

Picnic time with the Minutemen is a happy time.

But as rad as the Minutemen were, they were nothing compared to the feline hardcore powerhouse of Cat Flag:
Haven't been riding a whole lot lately--just to work and back, all of 7 blocks each way. My back is roached lately. It's been crapper ass ever since I drove a cab, and I've officially blown it out twice--once pulling up for a wallride, and once practicing gates at the track. This time, though, it just dipped into the ouch bag all of it's own accord--from the steady lower back ache to, "Oh shit, if I move barely the wrong way...Shit! There it goes again."

Sucks, because I missed V-dogg's birthday celebration at Lake Cunningham. Even if I wasn't riding, it would've been a good time to snap some photos, as can be seen by this picture I poached from Josh Klavir of a certain Ryan Nyquist, x-ed up about 8 or 10 feet out.
I suppose it's a good thing I didn't show--I hate making the youngsters feel inadequate--I usually get 12 feet out of that bowl.

Speaking of showing up the youngsters, Vince Dogg is fuckin' 46 and is still tearing it up. Here's a shot of a newly learned barspin flyout:

Here's a shot of Vince gettin' all Hoffman-ed out in 1985:
Happy Birthday, V-dogg. Many happy returns.

Speaking of back in the day, here's a shot of my old pal Joel throwin' down a Bert in a Fremont ditch when we were in high school. Joel still kills it as well. Despite the fact that he used to ride Tracker Ultralights, he's always been radder than me.

Photo by Adam Mackintosh

After years of extensive study, doctors at Johns Hopkins have discovered that radness may indeed begin in the womb:
And what better way to nurture that radness than a set of knitted Star Wars characters:Lucy Ravenscar not only has an awesome name, but she's hell on knittin' one and pearlin' two. Chewie has to be my favorite:
Though Sammi Resendes has done some amazing work herself, including this super hot--in a crochet kind of way--slave girl Leia. Jabba the hut really knows his dirty outfits, huh?In terms of cool shit on the interwebs, however, you'll have to check out my friend Hyper D's blog, Datajunkie. Lately he's been into saucy sado-machismo-chistic Mexican fotonovellas like Namur:
If you want to see the whole sensacional aventura completa, plus all kinds of digitized pulp from risque alternate yesteryears, you can spend days wigging out on Datajunkie.

Speaking of the internets, Ron Wilkerson, freestyle innovator and all around good guy, has shaken things up at the dusty 2-Hip site, treating it to a redesign plus a new blog, The Hit. In addition to having a penchant for Crocodile Dundee style hats, Ron has come up with a whole line of 2-Hip parts: pedals, sprockets, and a new version of the much-slagged Groovetech system
which looks pretty good.

Best news from 2-Hip by far, at least from my angle, is hooking Tim Knoll up on the flow team. Tim released two of the most mind-melting BMX videos ev-ah last year, including this one with an 8-bit version of War Pigs:

Tim is from Wisconsin and it's a complete understatement to say he has a style all his own. On the one hand, his upside down stuff reminds me of old school CW style cats Ceppie Mays and Dizz Hicks. (You'll recall that Dizz is "the master of upside down insanity. Tricks like the heavy metal maniac's Dizz Flip redefine the term 'radness.'")

On the other hand, his riding is so out there--a combination of flat, street, and gymnastics--that he makes you think he taught himself how to ride on a mountaintop in Tibet. Truly freestyle. I can appreciate your average over-talented kid who rides all day and dropped a web edit on thecomeup, but there's only so many nose manuals and rail variations to 180 I can watch on any given day. I can watch the two above clips every day and still get stoked to ride. Radness, once again redefined, without the added benefit of a BMX Plus! narrator.

Subrosa's Kyle Hart does some redefinin' his own damn self: rum-chugging, bum-jumpin', Misfits pumpin', rear peg grabbin', vert footplantin' stylee:

Finally, everyone over the age of, say, 30, should check out Plus Size BMX/Old Guys Who Ride. Hot action from the geriatric set, including a lot of 24 and 26" wheeled nasty business. It'll either pump you up to ride, or make you feel even more feeble: "Wait, that guy's got 5 years on me and he's doing that?" (See the above pic of Vince).

Or, just take a look at this nice flattie photo of Coloradan Mark Brown I poached from OGWR:
Shralp hard, fellow members of the Geritol generation, shralp hard.

And speaking of shredding and hardness, not to mention Viagra milkshakes and Speedo tumescence, this guy right here is all about "the rippin' and the tearin'," even at his advanced age:

Rick is probably making a lot of fat old rich ladies (i.e. "wild women") very happy.

Remember donuts? The little neoprene grip jobbers that supposedly protected your hands from getting all worn out on the thumb and forefinger from the abrasive action of your rubber grip flange? They were about a sixteenth of an inch thick, and people would stack them up one at a time until they had the optimum amount of silly to go with their Dyno brake guard, checkered padset, and "knee bumper" handlebar pads.

Then Flite one-upped everyone and dropped Jumbo Donuts. I was thinking about the ad for them the other night--they basically took a well-known witticism about fucking fat chicks: "More cushion for heavy pushin!"--and used it to sell needless bike accessories to the parents of 12-year-olds nationwide.
Kudos to you, Flite, for making a generation of chubby chasers while simultaneously protecting them from the "rippin' and the tearin'" of thumb blisters. Their next ad featured the copy: "What do fat chicks, mopeds, and Flite Jumbo Donuts have in common?"

Not that rippin' and tearin' is always a bad thing, of course. You've seen the video, you've seen the dance--clearly it works for the Rickmeister. Rumored hermaphrodite Lady Gaga, of the Ace Frehley exploding nipple bra, has requested her new fragrance smell of blood and semen.
We can only hope she goes with Eau de Rippin' and Tearin' for the name. Once again, not a fan of her music, but a big fan of her weirdness.

Further news from the "stranger than fiction front" will be of special interest for those among us against the corporate harvesting of cows. This doesn't include me, of course--I can't really get to know my meat on a first name, micro-farmed basis, not being as rich as Alice Waters, you know. I'm from the Anthony Bourdain, "tastes like it died screaming" school of cheap hamburgers. The rest of y'all can breathe a little easier knowing that Pepsico is only using 35% beef in their "seasoned beef." The secret seasoning? Soybeans, wheat and oats, and things Alabama lawyer Dee Miles can't pronounce. If God didn't want us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them so tasty. The good news is, they only have to be 35% tasty for Taco Bell to serve 'em up. Maybe they can keep them alive and just cut off the unimportant bits for gorditas. "Try our seasoned beef--now made exclusively with tails and balls." And maybe stomachs, too--who really needs four fuckin' stomachs?

My fellow traveller through the unsavory side of the blogosphere, Stevil Kinevil, posted this photo of a B-47 using RATO, or Rocket Assisted Take-Off, in an entry about a week ago:
Being a bit of a plane geek, I dug around for videos of RATO take-offs, I found this expose on Operation Credible Sport:

Sometimes, things do not go as planned. Especially with rockets, it turns out. But don't worry, kids. As Andre Dubus said, "The times are never so bad." So why the long face?