Deliciously Soft or Rock Hard?

It's a long and winding road. Or, perhaps, a long and winding drainage culvert where they'll find your mangled body. Luck plays a big part.
Just being morose. Been off my feet--at least one of them--for over a month now, and the more I get used to it, the more I realize it sucks. Oh well, things can always be worse:
My friend Gabe watches Big Trouble in Little China every night before bed. Every fucking night. And why not? We all need something to believe in, some soul food for our spiritual gas tank, if you will. Even Jesus needs a burrito now and again.
It was this type of next level nourishment I had in mind when I saddled up with my friends Josh and Sam and headed to the 3rd Annual Old School BMX Reunion (and tractor pull?) at Woodward West. That whole "saddled up with my friends thing" sounds more gay rodeo than I'd intended. What I mean is we drove Josh's car down. Which is a subcompact, with three dudes, so I guess gay is as gay does.

Would you share an inflatable mattress with these guys?
Lucky I didn't have to.

We headed to Fresno first to ride Mosqueda Bike Park. Of course, had to stop at my spot El Cutija in Los Banos on the way down. We had some tacos y burritos and made sure they came with a Dan Quayle style tomatoe or two.
I didn't get any photos, but Sam and Josh interviewed/video'd some cats for the BMX Riders Organization site, one of them was Kink-sponsored local Chad Osburn, who works at the park. In reality, he fucking owns the place:

I said goddamn!

Turns out the Super 8 (or was it a Motel 6?) that Josh booked right next to the freeway was a hotspot for whoo-urrs. Who knew? Found this empty case of over the counter rock hard boner enhancers in the parking lot:
We had to stop by Target. This dude was out front, so we knew that everything was safe. Captain Fuckin' America is gonna break necks and bust balls on all terrorist motherfuckers:
Check this Mongoose shit bike with a thousand spokes:
My first real BMX was built around a Mongoose Motomag frame. How the mighty have fallen. The thing is, they've always made bike shop quality, workingman's priced bikes. Pacific (since bought by Dorel) pissed in the brand's gene pool when they put the name on tin foil bikes in Wal Mart. (Whereas companies like Murray, Huffy, Next, and Hyper have attempted--with varying degrees of success--to take the opposite route from mass marketed shit to fair to middling.)

The good news is, homeboy Martin Wendt, formerly the guy responsible for keeping Solano Cyclery deep in good BMX stuff, is now the BMX brand manager for Mongoose. He's hooked a few Bay guys up with awesome prototype Goose 24 street bikes. Here's some pics of Trent's:
And now, I come to find out that he's largely responsible for the design/spec/inspiration on the limited edition 2011 Kos Kruiser reproduction.
One of the first legit BMX race cruisers, Jeff Kosmala's Kos Kruiser ruled (and so did Jeff) in the years between souped-up Schwinn beach cruisers and the 24 inch wheel. (Not sure if that was a Mongoose innovation...seems like the TwoFour came awfully early in the process.)

The above kit is the limited Oakley trim. It comes with brand new Oakley B1-B grips (Oakley have been doing limited runs), and these sweet Son Lite Turbo inspired hubs in red anno:
There are only a dozen of this bike in the red/gold trim, and they're all going to be either given away at various vintage events or donated to charity raffles. Which is awesome. The production run will be 20 bikes in chrome/silver/black and another 20 in raw/black. Worldwide.

They've got modern features like integrated head tubes, V-brakes, etc. No, I don't work for Mongoose. Yes, I want one. Hella.

Anyway, I'll let that boner subside and get back to the glories of Fresno. They had this giant warehouse supermarket that reminded me of Wal-E or Idiocracy:
Seriously, look at that fucking place. Doesn't it just scream "Welcome to Costco, I love you"?

We were, of course, there at midnight. Miles of freshly waxed floors with sterile, almost holy fluorescent light shining down on them. The horizon line disappearing with the curvature of the earth, inspiring thoughts of pure, MSG-sodden, nitrate-infused defeat: "I'll never make it that far." And everywhere, pasty white fat people pushing carts into the mist rising off their inevitable, ultimate doom at the hands of too many of these:
They don't even look like food. Thank God they're "Deliciously Soft," though: my teeth are starting to fall out from all this fine livin'.
I don't even remember the name of the store, Crazybrains McClusterfuck's or something like that, but it was definitely a circus. They even had an old fashioned claw game in the front:
Wonder how many babies get stuck in that fucker a month? Probably not too many with those deliciously soft sugar cookies on sale. I long for the days of the honestly dishonest snake oil salesman.

Also not to be missed at CBMcC's was the vending machine with SKULLebrities dead famous people stickers. If you have a low attention span and smoke a fair amount of weed, like me, this type of shit is high-larious:
Who's in the line up, eh?

Let's see, we've got John Lennon:
Jimi Hendrix:
Tupac "Thug Life" Shakur:
Well, the guy on the right is The King, but who's that on the left? A premonition of Johnny Depp (seen here as Captain Jack Sparrow) buying the farm?
Heath Ledger:
At first I thought this was Michael Jackson, but since he's the next one down, I'm going to have to say this is the lost member of Josie and the Pussycats. You know, the original drummer that OD'd and they buried in a shallow grave in the Mojave Desert?
MJ was one fucked up individual. The people named Elvis "the King." MJ dubbed himself "The King of Pop," then fucked the real King's daughter. This shit is Shakespearean, y'all. It's like Hamlet with transsexuals:
He shall rise again:
Woodward felt a little different this year. I hadn't been riding BMX much before I went, working 50+ hours a week, and I felt sketchy as hell. Seeing the OG guys ride was definitely still cool, but it wasn't as nifty as it had been. Once I accepted the fact that my riding had, rather predictably, regressed and not, rather magically, progressed, with my time off the bike, I relaxed and had more fun.

Of course, you know how we do at Woodward:
First day vert ramp action. Think this might be Dominguez:
Coco Zurita:
Simon Tabron:
Jay Eggleston:
The next day they opened the fuckin' Megaramp to anyone foolhardy enough to try it. You needed to have a full face helmet and sign a waiver. The roll in on this is equivalent to a nine story drop. It's followed by a 50 foot gap jump and a 27 foot tall quarter pipe.

The view of the roll in from the quarter deck:
Look at the little tiny people for perspective.

As you might guess, I didn't sign the waiver. However, a few of my friends did and were okay. Lots of guys started on the middle, on the plywood covering the gap. Apparently carving the quarter wasn't that hard, in that the transition is huuuuuuge, so it was somewhat forgiving (though knee-breaking in sheer G force). Next year I will definitely get on it.

Hoffman will be breaking himself off on Megaramps until he's 90, if he lives that long:
Check the fucking mogambo jumps they're building next to it. Look how small the pick up truck is next them--that was a jacked up 4x4"!
This kid is like 11. No shit:
So's his little hesher buddy:Trent plays Jesus on the deck:
Ben Snowden:
Stylee. Think this could be Blyther:
Meaty:
Nyquist:
Let's just say, you hit the gap at speed:
The legendary king of all things gnarly, Hugo Gonzalez, did an ass-plant on the deck and some guy tried to help him up:
Who should be chilling beside the flatbottom but the first guy to successfully land a backflip on a bike, the real Cru Jones, Jose Yanez:
Who immediately took off his shirt to prove that, even in his 50s, he still fuckin' had it. You can't see too well unless you click on the photo to enlarge it, but his tattooed forearm reads "my RAD self":
I happened to be wearing the Vans RAD shirt that day:Blown off the pedals at 35 mph can't be a very "clean underwear" type feeling:
Nyquist topedoes himself down some slick Skatelite:
Only to be redeemed by a huge 360. Yeah, that's the launch you're looking at:
I was a split second too early on this. Fucking Cam Birdwell is a savage. (Soon to be) fully extended Superman seat grab. He also flipped the gap.
Wilkerson was on a custom aluminum Pork with the latest version of his GrooveTech system:
He also had these prototype Lifesaver Lollipop style pedals:
The last day's party is always a fun throwdown. It's a bit of a drag that there are so many kids, because this sausage fest could definitely use a few dozen stripper poles and the talent to use them. More sword fighting here than at a Renaissance Faire. I feel bad for the two girls that work for Woodward--they get hit on non-stop.

Joe with one of his vintage scoots, a candy red Hutch Trick Star:
More of Joe's rides:
Just in case his stunt double weren't real enough for you, Cru Jones alter ego Bill Allen was in effect:
Didn't really talk to him. Seems like a cool enough guy, though. Must be a bit weird to make your living off a cult B-movie that sunk off the radar without a blip and has never been officially released on DVD but is adored by a subculture you aren't a part of. I guess it was either old school BMX reunions or ass sliding conventions.

Large Ray in effect, heckling of course. Not sure who...maybe a photo of Drob's mustache.
Sam, Josh, and Iain in the back of Trent's minivan. Ragin' with Satan:
Hugo on the big screen. Drob wasn't the only one with a mustache:
Shad from Goods, Aaron, and a few other luminaries.
Flatland sesh got underway on the dance floor as usual. Bicycle boogie, bitches!
Nourie turned everything into melted glass:If I invented this move, I'd have called it the "Ice Cream Machine":Jose Yanez with a drunken, grandfatherly--yet eternally rad--megaspin:
Later, he got to breakin':This guy rides the same bike, brakeless, on everything from a 14 foot vert ramp to flatland. And, as you can plainly see, he shreds:
Here's Dennis, taking better pictures than me:
To be honest, flatland progressed way beyond me, well, sometime after the rock walk ceased being cool. That's why I like to make up names for the tricks. I'd call this the Electric Glide or the Slutty Suzie:
This little dude got a bit out of hand:
So someone threw him on the floor and made sweet, orangutan-like gay sex with him. I told you it was a sausage fest. Dan Hubbard has been holding it down for the bicycle source and earning a living doing shows since the day after cherrypickers were invented. (And yeah...that's really the name of this trick.)
Way back:
If this can be a Miami Hopper:Then I think I might call this a fluffernutter:
Matt Hoffman's cane was made out of Skyway T/A ("totally aerodynamic") tubing with an Oakley B1-B as a handle. So rad.
I honestly thought Iain and Dave Nourie were going to make out:
Sam and a fairly lit Ron Wilkerson:
We hit the hangar to say our goodbyes and take a few pics on the last day. Josh Kumli on the vert ramp:
Think this is DMC:

Ron Wilkerson:
Ben Snowden gapping the deck from mini to bowl:
Brian Blyther:
Dennis with a bowl to bowl carve:Trent ragin':
I promise never to ignore you again:
Long live the new blood:
Sam and a mustache-less Drob give a salty salute before the drive home. Until next year, fuckos:
And now for the randumbs. Check this vintage Mountain Goat in front of the Buck, locked up with what appears to be a plastic chain. The ever popular reverse bar end set up. I wish I would've beaten this dude to the garage sale:
47. I don't care you fatuous cunt:This is without a doubt the worst fucking tag I've ever seen. Seriously. And I've lived in a major metropolitan city for the last 20 some odd years. Please, give up and go die:
Gonna have a soul shakedown party, tonight:
Made it to the casting ponds a day too late:
Well, it's late and I've gotta work in the morning. Into the void.

I Have Transcended Both Pain and Fashion

I haven't been much of a Freak Magnet lately--more like a worker ant. Two jobs, ten to twelve shifts a week, 50-60 hours, plus trying to sell/fix bikes out of the house. Trying to put on my big boy pants and be a grown-up, I guess.

This is basically where I work for one of the jobs, so it can't be all bad:

And the delicate strains of the world's tiniest violin waft gently through the firmament.

The key is, to not let it get to you. I've never been in Guantanamo Bay, but I imagine if I were stuck there like those other hapless assholes, I'd ultimately have to come to an understanding: "How can I not make this suck so much? How can I be happy in this moment, as fucked as it is?"

In addition to hanging themselves, the luckless few wasting away at Guantanamo because they once lit OBL's cigarette (he's dead, BTW) or threw a rock at an Lynndie England or something, well...in addition to hanging themselves these nowhere men, humble creatures of Limbo such as they are, like to pray. Five times a day, ass to the west and head to Mecca. This is meant to show fanaticism to Americans. Who actually fucking prays? On their knees, even? On their very faces? Good lord, how gauche. Jesus, that shit went out with macrame tube tops and brown nail polish.

Well, what the fuck would you do? In the words of Black Flag in "No More": "No, I won't believe that this is all/ I'm not happy, I'm not free." If you're sitting in a tropical chicken coop, marinating in your own juices, you'd better get your mind on that next level, if you can't step up with the corporeal self. Even if you're convinced it's a delusion. Especially if you're convinced it's a delusion.

Fox News loves to show Muslims praying: it highlights their unimaginable piety next to our weekend football game Bud Light Catholic guilt Sunday rituals. It makes them other, it stamps them FANATIC.

"What kind of a lunatic would pray five times a fuckin' day?"

We ask, indignant, an army of armchair quarterbacks, a battalion in La-Z-Boys, where we sit and feast, wearing the colors of our Sunday blood tribes, screaming at grown men in tights as they play war games in some faraway land.

I'm no apologist. I'd have killed the motherfucker myself--with my thumbs--if I could have. But really, what an afterthought. A let down. Parade him through New York in stocks or let me yawn already. It's the same game we've played since the fucking Crusades. Do you know what those bastards are doing? They're desecrating everything we hold dear: They're shitting on the Chevrolet, the apple pie, and your mom. We gonna let 'em get away with that, boys? Put on your jocks, team, it's time to saddle up and sodomize.

Help me: I'm fuckin' bored.

So yeah. Don't get wound up, man. Hate to sound like a flaccid old hippie, but sometimes it helps to sit on a bench, look at the waves, and smoke a bowl or two. Meditate. Take a step laterally instead of marching down the grid iron. Put your mind in a different jar, if only for a second. I'm not against traveling the world, seeing what version of meat and bread is popular in the Outermost Cusp of Eternal Bumfuck Nowhere, but it really is true: wherever you go, there you are. Stuck, motherfucker. So you can be a bitch and suffer, or you can smile and say, "well, at least I got the other leg." In the words of Ram Dass: "Be here now."

This is known. This is science: a motherfucker can take shit too seriously.

It might be time to laaaaaay back. Have a couple beers with the guys before you go home. Smoke a bowl sittin' on the dock of the Bay, ride up that monster hill without stopping while listening to Closing Time. With your mind off your money and your money off your mind.

Don't have a meltdown here, Mr. Man. Stand tall as the world turns to a lump of mushy shit with Glenn Beck planting a flag atop it. Just know when to blow off a little steam:

Or maybe blow a little smoke, if that's your get down:

Do what you've gotta do to get loose, just be loose:

Real loose. Walk to the edge and let the wind blow through you. But know when to step back:

Rise above. Hit it on that next level. Transcend, if you will:

Take yourself from a 10 to a 25 within seconds.

Ask yourself: What Would Lemmy Do?
Props to Michael Madfes for the above image, which is available for a nominal fee by clicking on the last link, along with some other randomly awesome and awesomely random goodies.

As for me, I've had so time to stop and smell the flowers, provided they smell like bad breath and reruns of the Streets of San Francisco. You can't deny Maulden any more than you can deny the steamroller of wah-wah driven funk of a good Quinn Martin intro:

8 screws, 1 plate, and 22 staples later:
So I broke my ankle working at the bar. Tried to take a guy down, and ended up taking myself out. Ten minutes before last call. The night before I was supposed to head off to Boggs Mountain to go camping and mountain biking with my lady, followed by a couple days fishing in Clearlake. To celebrate my birthday. My 40th birthday.

I think I'm hearing that violin again.

This is right after I broke it, in the ambulance:
And here's my friend Brett, who just happened to be at work that night, just in time to hook me up with a swell dose of morphine.
He seems to be saying, "Just slide on off to La La land...gonna be a smooth landing."

Here's what my ankle looked like 10 days later, when the splint came off:
These are called "fracture blisters." They appear opposite the break, which is the side of the most soft tissue damage. In the words of Dr. Deng: "Imagine a knife sitting on piece of meat." It's the same thing with a broken bone on soft tissue, and if you don't get something stabilized soon enough, a non-compound break can become an open wound. The blisters are caused by swelling: the fluid has to find somewhere to go, so ultimately it seeps through the skin. The top blister was popped before my new cast went on.

That'll put you right off your fuckin' lunch, looking at that thing.

I've done some other things besides break myself off, but I think I'm going to try to filter that through a few posts. No use trying to slam it all in one mega-post. Who's got the time?

Here are a few random pics, starting with the view from the Saratoga Gap trail:
We took Shanti riding. He was a fuckin' trooper, though he did eat shit in the first 75 feet of the trail. Here he is looking like he's going faster than he really is:
Ocean Beach graffiti. My friend Tomek shot this:
Last weekend there was an old school show at Lake Cunningham skate park. There were some beautiful bikes--I'll post pictures within the next 6 months. Maybe.

Remember though, the '80s weren't entirely a golden age for BMX:
Fuck, who am I kidding? BMX robots were raping bitches all over the wasteland.

New blogs forthwith at a more reasonable pace.

Stay gold, Pony Girls and Pony Boys.