Two Wheeled Silliness

So as far as I'm concerned, there were two great movies made in the 80's - Goonies and Rad.

I don't need to explain Goonies, but for those of you unfortunate enough to have missed Rad the basic story is as follows: Big corporate BMX race comes to town, local bike riding kid wants to get in but isn't sponsored by a factory and isn't allowed to. Kid figures out a way to get around the rules, and falls in love with a girl BMX rider.

And at one point, they're both at the high school dance on their bikes, and they freestyle ride together to Real Life's "Send Me An Angel." It's pretty goofy now, but at the time, it was AWESOME.



Really, though, it was THAT SONG that made the whole movie awesome.

So when I was looking for the video above, I found THIS video, which is completely wrong in exactly the right way. I nearly wet my pants laughing at these two, and I hope you all will find it as amusing as I did.

Mighty Roar of the Vespa

I hate to point this out to all of you living in colder climes, but the weather here was just fantastic yesterday.

After Lady Luck and I got back from eating outside at one of the fine local taco establishments, she took her scooter out for a ride. I stayed home to work on the VX800 (curse that infernal machine).

Since the other scooter, a 2004 Vespa ET4, hasn't sold yet due to my lack of effort, I thought it would be wise to fire it up and putter around our little neighborhood a bit.

I am really very, very impressed with Vespa. The little bike fired right up after sitting for a month or so and settled into it's aggressive-sounding little idle as if I had started it the day before.

Incidentally, anybody want to buy a Vespa ET4? It's just peachy keen, and only has like 2,450 miles on it.

Please buy it. It's been teasing the Speed Four, and I can't take the constant racket from the garage anymore.

Not ONE Elvis Impersonator

I keep forgetting to post about the trip Lady Luck and I took to Las Vegas. I've got a mess of pictures on the camera I've been too lazy to upload.

In the meantime, here's my lightning quick summary:

1. Fremont Street (old Vegas) is cooler than the strip by far


2. The Pinball Hall of Fame absolutely rocks


3. Smoking inside is WAY better than smoking outside.

While we were there, I ran into these two weird guys who said they were big fans of my blog.* One was really loud, and the other didn't talk at all:

* no, not really

Stupid, or Apathetic?

As I was tooling down the road on Sunday morning, I noticed some dude in his driveway doing... something... with a gas-operated power tool of some kind.

When I was close enough to see what he was doing, it was too late to avoid the barrage of little rocks and grit his turned-90-degrees weedwacker was pitching into the road.

Getting hit with little rocks and high velocity dirt sucks. And it sucks even if you're in a car - little rocks aren't known for their paint-enhancing qualities.

I was torn between stopping and rending unto the tool-operator (emphasis on tool), and continuing on my merry way. I chose the latter option, since I've learned that confronting a jerk is like heaving a bowling ball onto a trampoline - the actual results are never the desired results.

I'm not sure if this is a problem everywhere, or just here in the desert, but I've been peppered with road-detritus by more jerks with leaf-blowers and other obnoxious devices than I can count.

How hard is it to stop blowing crap around when you see a biker? I know most of them have seen me - in a lot of cases, we've made eye contact.

So are these people stupid, apathetic, or willful asshats?

The Great Motorcycle Zombie-Avoidance Tour?

Last night, Lady Luck and I arrived home and found our neighborhood swarming with police officers.

The street to our driveway was blocked, so we parked as close as we could, and got out to walk to our house. We were met by an officer who told us they were looking for a guy with a shaved head, white t-shirt and blue jeans.

I thought, but did not say, "Shit, that describes half the people I know."

Anyway, I let one of the officers check our garage. Then Lady Luck and I went in our house and I checked for zombies. I went out to our back yard, which is walled in, looked around, said "Any weirdos out here?" and went back in the house.

I went upstairs to our balcony to have a look into my neighbors' yards. I stood out there a minute, saw an officer in one of the other yards, and then HOLY SHIT THERE'S A WEIRDO IN MY NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR FRED'S* YARD!!

Before I had a chance to wave at the cop and point, I heard Fred's back door open and a whole lot of officers yelling, then saw them swarm into the yard with their guns drawn on the guy.

I decided it would be prudent to get my ass back in the house then.

So, over the next half hour or so, we learned that this guy had been stopped in his car, and an officer found a very large stash of drugs. Being a dumbass, the guy ran into our neighborhood, which is next door to a police station. He must have tried all the front doors until he found one which was open.

Fred thinks he might have left his keys in the door that day. He'd been upstairs, and heard his door slam. He went downstairs and found his keys on the floor, and thought maybe I'd found them and just tossed them into his house.

So then he found this guy hiding out in his downstairs bathroom.

The guy said he'd been in a fight, and had been chased. Fred told him he should go to the police across the street. The dude didn't want to go, so Fred gave him a glass of water and told him to hang out on his patio. Fred also told him there were officers outside and he was going to go get one and tell him what had happened to this guy.

And then he locked the guy in his backyard. Fred is awesome.

Fred went out, told the police, took them through his house and they arrested the guy.

So, based on the increasing number of zombie incidents in my neighborhood**, we're going to start keeping the front door locked when we're home. Which sucks. I hate locking the house up. I feel like I'm keeping me in, not keeping others out, if you can dig it.



*Obviously, not his real name

**My bicycle stolen, a handicapped neighbor's driver was held up, the zombie hooker incident, gasoline stolen out of cars...

We'll Never See the Likes of Him Again

Ed Grothus, proprietor of the Black Hole of Los Alamos, died at home last night.

I made it out to Los Alamos twice last year, and talked a bit with Ed both times. He was the kind of eccentric old man we should all aspire to be someday. The world is a less interesting place without him in it.

I hope the Black Hole will remain in business, and I hope his Doomsday Stones will finally be erected.

Lightning Quick Moto Movie Review

If you like Neil Gaiman, you must go see Coraline. It's really, really good.

Blast from the Past

Lady Luck and I went to the grocery store Saturday night to pick up a few essentials. While we were there, we saw the zombie hooker again.

We had already checked out and I noticed her walking right next to us.

I said to Lady Luck,"Hang on a second," and stopped walking. The zombie hooker also stopped, and gave me a panicky look. I didn't want to stare (or worse, converse with her), so I dug around in my pockets briefly and said to Lady Luck, "my keys were digging in."

I know, just call me Mr. Smooth.

Anyway, we left the grocery store and went out to the Mustang. The zombie hooker and her zombie gentleman companion left the store just as we were pulling out. I kept an eye on her in the mirror, and she watched our car all the way out of the lot.

It was kind of weird.

Daring to Dream

You might have gathered from a few of my posts that I am sick of Arizona. To be more accurate, I'm sick of Phoenix and have no real desire to live anywhere else in Arizona.

Instead, Lady Luck and I have been dreaming of living in Oregon for, oh, three years now. Last year we made it up there and realized the state was even better than we'd hoped. Right now we're in the countdown to no contractual obligation to stay in Arizona. And we're getting a little twitchy, if you know what I mean.

So, to elevate my mood, I decided to check and see what there was in the way of pizza in Yachats. I mean, why move somewhere if I don't know all the amenities, right? The last time I did that, I wound up in the stinking desert surrounded by people who don't know enough to ride all year long. [I know there are a few like-minded souls around here. This does not apply to them.]

Where was I? Oh, right, pizza near my current fantasy home.

There is no pizza parlor in Yachats.

The closest pizza joint, according to google maps, is in Waldport, OR. That's like ten minutes away. TEN MINUTES. I don't know about you, but ten minutes to pizza is ten minutes too long.

Now, a lesser man might run screaming from such a town, but I've realized it is my calling to bring pizza to Yachats. Yachats, prepare for ultimate pizza flavor.

In my imaginary pizza parlor, we will cater to the locals as well as the lucky tourists smart enough to call for motorcycle-delivered pizza. The walls of my pizza parlor will be covered with the darkest of wood panelling, and the booths will be the finest tufted red vinyl. We'll have a selection of Oregon's finest bottled beers, and pitchers of PBR will be a quarter with the order of a large pizza. The jukebox will be crammed with Dio, Elvis, George Thorogood, and other fine pizza music.

My God, it'll be beautiful.

So that's what I'm going to be dreaming about this weekend if I get distracted from motorcycles.

Still Kicking.

Anybody still reading? Sorry for the prolonged absence - I've been contending with a cold, residual sleepiness, and a lack of anything to say.

Lady Luck and I made a trip to a new restaurant for the first pizza review of 2009. With any luck, this will not be the ONLY review for 2009, but long time readers know the operative word in my blog's name is "Motorcycle."

In other news, it's disgustingly warm down here. I guess this is a good thing, since my hunt for a thin ski mask to wear under my helmet was entirely fruitless.

Incidentally, anybody know a good place on the internet to buy a thin ski mask? Bonus points if the seller will embroider "We Are The Good Guys" on the forehead for me.

Anyway, I don't have much else to say, so here's a picture of the project I spent all my time on last weekend - a Gen-U-Wine cigar box guitar. It's wired up for amplification, but most folks probably just can't handle that much awesomeness so I've been playing it unplugged. Cigars and slide blues both come out of this thing tasting fresh and sassy.

Also, it's easily carried on a motorcycle.