flashback 78, dude, I can't relate
Now Playing: Minutemen Little Man with a Gun in his Hand
I went to Modern tonight and the first rider I saw caused a serious double take. I didn't know the kid, but he had a yellow frame, white forks, blue rims and a blue stem. I thought I was seeing this

I know the bike in the photo has chrome forks, but in 1978, a lot of dudes were running white Red Line Proline forks, kind of like the white Odyssey forks the kid was running tonight. At a glance, the kid's bike looked so much like the Suzuki of my 1978 dreams. There was a kid from Indiana that came to our local track a couple times, David Freshour, who had a yellow Suzuki set up similar to the one in the pic. He also rode for Wakarusa Bike Shop, who had these amazing red, yellow and blue jersies. David Freshour wasn't even that good, but he had style and that Suzuki was amazing to me because it was like the one on the cover of Bicycle Motocross Action (my bible).
Any time you begin a conversation with someone by saying "I hate to bug you", "I don't want to insult you" or in my case tonight "It would take a long time to explain, so I'll spare you the details, but..." I'm big on that last one myself and often find myself trying to explain something completely retarded to some one who could care less. Like tonight. I found myself sitting next to the kid on the yellow bike and started to tell him about how it looked like a Suzuki, "who acutally made BMX bikes in the 70s and..." He gave me a courtesy laugh and looked at me like I was speaking Japanese. Who can blame him? I shouldn't have even brought it up, but I do have a blue Araya 7C (from 1978) on the front of my bike, so I thought that might exemplify what I was talking about. I'm an idiot, but it's okay. Every time I saw that bike tonight it made me really happy. I'm sure the fact that I had still had some of last night's eye make up accentuating my already haggard face didn't make the kid feel any more at ease

It was a fun session and at the end of the night, Dan Closser jumped directly over me. And I mean straight over my head. It was pretty wild.
The big Team Young party was last night and all reports indicate that it was off the charts. A couple people asked me why I wasn't there. It's like this, I am way, way older than every person that was there, as in old enough to be their Father. I'm okay with this age difference while riding bikes at the skatepark or shooting the shit on the deck of the ramp. I kind of see it like a hockey league or going to the gym or any other "sport". On the other hand, I don't feel comfortable and I find it mildly inappropriate (creepy?) for dudes old enough to be the Dad partying with kids half his age at a Halloween house party. I do look forward to seeing all the pix of the insanity on the Team Young site. I'm just glad I wasn't there when the cops came...
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Halloween party that my wife and I went to with Noah (see above) was so incredibly lame I wanted to puke. Before we left, I asked if it was a "kid party" or an "adult party". My wife said it was an "adult party were kids were welcome". Sounds good to me. Besides the lame "farmer" and whatever his wife was supposed to be, my wife and I were the only ones at this party with costumes on. Every one else had their best leather jackets, Tigers sweatshirts and boring every day clothes on. Are they that dull or just so insecure in their own skin that they don't dare step outside their baggy-fit comfort zone? I am socially inept. I can talk to anyone and get along and I'm basically always comfortable around all types of people, but I can't fake a conversation. I don't relate to people like this. I'm like an old kid but even when I was a young kid I could never relate to anyone besides a couple of people that rode bikes or skateboarded. Now I can't even relate to very many people that ride bikes because (with a few great exceptions whom I'm fortunate to have in my life), I am an adult in a kid's world. I understand the kids but I can't hang with them and I can't relate to the boring adults and their mindless lives. I feel like an alien some times but I'll tell you this, when I'm on that bicycle, pretty much no matter what is going on, I feel good and I feel like I'm doing the right thing...