It came from beyond the Silver Age of Comics

Apropos Comics--All yer favourite superheroes, now with added funny. [via the 'fi]

He painted on the hundred dollar guitar

So, pretty much my first attempt at actually pinstriping something, rather than just practicing on an old computer case. I couldn't get a good closeup--my camera batteries were dying, and I didn't use macro mode for the closeup I did get--but, composition-wise, I'm kinda diggin' it. Technique-wise, not so much. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, etc etc.

It came from beyond the gay marriage debate

So they went and passed the you-know-what so all the you know whos can get joined in holy you-know-whatchimony. I expect the world to end soon, and chaos to ensue. You know, like in Denmark.

I got stripes

So I've been playing around a little bit with hot rod pinstriping for, oh, the past twenty minutes or so. On some subliminal level I blame Juxtapoz magazine and their hot rod-influenced view of outsider art, but my real inspiration is pretty much lurking on Volksrods and seeing Pistol Pete's jaw-dropping work. Checked out the Volksrods pinstriping thread, which led me to the Yahoo Pinstriperspage group and probably the best, if least organized, collection of info on the net. I couldn't find anybody in town who carries Mack brushes, so I've got a couple Heinz-Jordan dagger brushes for now, and laying down a consistent line seems kinda easy. Keeping it straight or curving it cleanly for the mad Von Dutch abstractness ain't so easy, but I plan to keep fartin' around laying paint on the inside of my PC case 'till I make something I'm not horribly unhappy with, and then... look out world, here I come. First victim needs to be my bike, next the ceramic cattle skull on my wall, and after that--anybody got a Karmann Ghia they wanna let go criminally cheap?

Ultimately, it's L. Ron Hubbard's fault, innit?

I really don't expect this sort of shocking antic on daytime television. Well, maybe if they're showing Question Period or something. Anyway, I blame Scientology.

Positive Ape Index: Gremmie Out Of Control!

Item! Spending the three bucks on a new shifter cable for yr (well, mine) ten speed masquerading as a cruiser: Totally worth it. Those ten gears are now MINE, ALL MINE!

Item! Starting lists of random crap with the word Item! like that underinformed gossip column guy in the Onion (seriously, no link 'cause pretty much everybody on the Internerd knows what I mean) is vaguely amusing to me today!

Item! Exclamation points are totally in this week! LOLKTHXBYE!

Item! Nouvelle Vague's self titled CD is, rather than the tired ironic gimmickfest that you'd think from the concept (mostly dour early '80s postpunk/new wave anthems covered in a sunny, sultry samba/bossa stylee), actually pretty nifty. I'd spin some line of bullshit here about some tendril of reconstructed Brasilliana in alt-rock running from Arto "No Relation" Lindsay's roots output through Stereolab's Moogs, Marxism and moonshots hijacking of Sergio Mendes all the way to Calgary's own Leslie Feist and her journey from '90s punk to '00s acoustic downtempo lusciousness, but hell, even I wouldn't believe that, would I? Still, good schtuff. You wouldn't think the Dead Kennedy's "Too Drunk to Fuck" could sound this sexy, but it does.

However, it's not the greatest album ever. This is, it's official. Heads up to Coop for the tip.

Bolts to fly, curses to throw... the next Monster Bicycle challenge is JUST! AROUND! THE CORNER!!

So maybe it's all the fault of the Discovery Channel, and how they seem to feature dudes with welders more often than dudes with microscopes. Or maybe it goes back to a youth spent worshipping ZZ Top, reading CarTOONS magazine (George Trosley, represent!) and Frankensteining one useable ten-speed out of a pile of garage-sale junkers, but I've been feeling the need for a bad-ass pedal powered hot rod of late. You know the drill: laid-back seat, low slung stance, pedals pushed forward and a long springer fork topped by a big ol' set of ape hangers. (Metalflake paint and some bad ass pinstriping would be the icing on the cake.

Problem is, I haven't got a welder (or the knowledge to use it--however, a friend just returned from BC with a welding ticket, so I might have someone's brains to pick on that score) and I'm too cheap to drop $500+ on an Electra or the like. Hell, I'm even too cheap to drop $200 on one of those new school choppers like the Schwinn OCC Stingray, West Coast Choppers bike or the others--not knowing that I'm gonna have to tear the whole thing apart and reassemble it myself properly*, and then sink some coin into customising it so it reflects me and not some corporate focus group. Fahgeddaboutit.

So, unless and until I can weld & fab my own frames (and there's the lazy thing there to contend with...), I'm sorta looking for a good deal on an old-school Schwinn cruiser or similar. Until then, though, I've picked up an old Apollo Dee-Lite 10 speed. Came with chrome fenders (oooh, shiny!) and a nifty analog speedo. Nice patina, good example of vintage speed, and in spite of the quite frankly horrible shape of the tires, it takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'. So I rewarded the old girl--the "El Rattletrap Special", as I think of her--with some chrome goodies today.

Item one: Any job like this, requires the sacrifice of at least one small tool and/or bolt to the Lawn Gods. One of these days, I'm gonna need to actually get proper screwdrivers rather than these dinky-ass screwdriver bits for my El Cheapo pawnshop cordless socket driver.

Item two: Getting it apart is always easier than putting it back together.

Item three: All the "mechanics for dummies" books in the world can't stress enough the importance of properly sorting and labelling all the little bits that come off something you're disassembling. I say they can't emphasise this enough because, well, they *haven't*. Seriously, dudes, I still ain't doin' that, and it's gonna take a whole lot more bold print to change my foolish ways.

Item four: With the ape hangers installed, and my fork lying in pieces as I scratch my head over how to install my new springer, which has a. too big of a diameter tubing for my headset and b. no threads to screw it together, my roommate arrives.

He: "What's goin' on?"
Me: "I bought some ape hangers and a springer fork for my bike. Can't figure the fork out, but the ape hangers are gonna look BAD ASS."
He: "Uh... yeah. Looks, uh, good." (While, no doubt, thinking: "Dork." Guilty as charged, boyeee.)

I should point out, *his* two wheeled paragon of rolling koolness (a Harley FXR Lowrider) has a multi-million dollar industry devoted solely to making them look shinier and more outlandish, but hey, they cost more, so they're cooler, right?

Item four: Ahh, screw the springers, put the stock fork on and Get 'R Done. Funny how one simple piece of bent metal can make a bike feel so different. She rides great, though.

[*] Next time you're at Wally World, take a look at how many display bikes have handlebars on loose, fenders misaligned, etc., and then tell me "free assembly" is a good deal...

Quirk City

Dear Blogger powers-that-be:

The 'Blog This' bookmarklet uses a slightly different editor widget than normal blogposting. Uh, why?

In 8-bit terms, this is what it's all about


10 PRINT "HELLO, WORLD!"
20 GOTO 20

Some of you may remember me from my old blog, hundreddollarguitar.com, a.k.a. One Million Monkeys. 'Tain't no more, on account of I ran out of ambition around the same time my hosting contract came up. One of these days, I'm gonna square up with my old hosting company, but until then, you're gonna find me here. Anyway, Blogger's fancypants web-based posting just might sit a little better with my semi-lazy nature than the old Rube Goldbergian mess of string, glue, duct tape, Blosxom, Del.icio.us and chewing gum that used to transmit my occasional thoughts to an audience who came looking for either that infomercial dude, or the real skinny on Geraldine and Ricky. I promise I'll get to the bottom of that one someday... and by "promise", I mean "pretty much highly doubt".