30 years ago
Now Playing: Joe Lally Mistaken Identity
Moving sucks but the good thing is that you always unearth stuff that you've forgotten about or misplaced. I found a Cub Scout hand book with some photos in it that are pretty crazy.

I know this was taken in the Spring of 1977 and I'm going to say it was probably around March-ish. That's a long time ago. I can tell you that I rode tonight at Modern with Solan, Chris Yankee, Phil Race, Davey and Evan Brawler (that's it!) and it was even more fun than it was back then. I wrote this for a 'zine I did a few years ago.

Kinda corny but true. This guy is just plain awesome:

and Davey Coop goes back to the future with some surfey styley.

The Long Walk Home
Now Playing: Fifteen Petroleum Distillation
What do you do when you really want to work on your non-running motorcycle, but it is a ways away in storage and you don't have a truck or anything? Counting my options on one finger, I decided to walk it...

Davey and I discussed it yesterday and he estimated that it would take about 45 minutes to walk the estimated mile and a half. It was actually 1.6 miles but it only took me 30 minutes. I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoyed it, but it was no big deal at all. I listened to music the whole way and I can never get enough of that. It's not like it's the first time I've pushed this thing. On my big trip to California, I pushed it even further than this, fully loaded with gear, tent, sleeping bag and two weeks worth of supplies, when I ran out of gas coming into Salt Lake City. Pushing an old motorcycle down the sidewalk is nothing compared to hiking through the desert in a foreign country, wearing a hundred pounds of gear and hoping you and your comrades don't get blown up by a mine or shot buy some other guys that you don't know for a War you don't understand. Right? Hippie talk. You can see I'm wearing tye-dye in the photo.
Some friends of mine, McGoo and Bill Bryant (partners in Snafu and Biltwell are setting off on a big motorcycle trip that they put together a year ago, called the El Diablo Run starting tomorrow. I wish them the best of luck and hope I can join them someday on a trip like this.
I rode Modern tonight and it was awesome. Just a handful of dudes with a large contingent of Cobras. In the words of Hatfield, Jason Burton was "killing it!". He was. I brought my Super 8 movie camera out and shot some film. Movie film is not the most efficient or cost effective method of capturing moving pictures but it sure does look cool. I'm shipping off a bunch of movie film to be processed tomorrow, so we'll see just what we have to work with.

caged animals
Now Playing: The Specials Concrete Jungle
Noah and I went to the Zoo on Friday and it was really cool. He was into it. He liked the turtles, penguins, polar bears, butterflies and anteaters, but his favorite animal was the Capybara, the "world's largest rodent". The odds of sneaking a bike into the Detroit Zoo seem slim, but if you did, there is a lot of potential terrain.

Don't you hate when you find kick ass spots that you know you'll never get to ride? One problem I've always had is with following through on ideas. I am better at this than I used to be. Just the fact that Deliverance Clothing has been going for four and a half years is testament to some sort of commitment. Sometimes, though, I'll have an idea, bring it to fruition, then just kind of let it sit there. The Deliverance bar bag is an idea that I was really stoked on and even though I did follow through with a full production run, I haven't followed up on promoting it as I well as I should have. I think the problem was poor timing of the release. They came out last fall, right when the weather here was taking a turn for the worse. The bar bag really shines for street riding. I've been using mine a lot lately and it's everything I wanted it to be. It doesn't flop around, keeps everything handy and you don't even really notice it is on.

Here's Team Green Sean, stoked on his and the idea of adding a secret compartment inside. Dan's Comp has them in stock if you need one. The Westland "Concrete Jungle" cement park is having bike sessions on Sunday afternoon now and I was fired up to ride some 'crete outdoors. Unfortunately, the wind was fired up as well and it was blowing like a motherfucker. I still had a good time but my ears hurt, my eyes were red and leaving the ground was a gamble, as the wind would blow you into the next county. There were a handful of heavies on the scene and shredding ensued regardless of the blustery conditions.

Matt Carmichael was added to the Deliverance team right before I pulled the plug on the whole team idea. He's still an FOD and a bad mamma jamma.

I'm glad Hatfield was there. I rolled into the park and cruised over to say hi to him, doing a lil' curbo endo against the fence to confirm my hello. My new custom Solid bars (see last post) moved all the way down to my front wheel. Yeah guy, maybe tighten up those stem bolts next time. Had Chris not been there I would have rolled into a bowl or something and it would not have been pretty. In fact, it would have been pretty ugly. A couple minutes later Chris was laid out in the flatbottom himself. He has been killing himself lately and I feel bad for him. He is so good but he just takes it sometimes. Chris' partner in crime and full-time FOD Dan Closser is back in Michigan after an extended road trip around the US. >>>I remember when Dillion Bell used to rollerblade at TRP.

He's a come a long way in the time since. Clicked lookback in the deep end.

The legendary Jason Suchan made an apprearance and spun a 360 over the scary/sketchy spine.

John Reed moved here from Colorado a couple years ago, then moved back to CO, then back here again. I haven't seen him lately but he was riding the shit outta the big bowl. I love the name "John Reed". Just sounds like a tough kid from school that would sit in the back of the bus and smoke cigs right in front of a teacher or something. >>>After leaving the park, I went on a mission to find a street spot I had been made privy to. I asked Hatfield about it before hand and he said he's ridden it for so long that they called it a "half pike" when he started going there and that it sucked. He went on to say he had ridden it a "zillion" times, so I assumed it must not suck that much.

This is the kind of place I would ride all the time if it were close. I love banks. I love bank to walls too and that aspect of this place wasn't great, but it was rideable. I thought it was awesome. Taking a photo of yourself with a cellphone camera is not easy...

Thanks to the Veterans for the directions.

room with a view

Our son, the big-looking guy on the right, had surgery today for a hernia. Hernias are pretty common in little people and in fact, they are genetic. Noah got his mommy's good looks, but he got the hernia from me. Thanks Daddy! The surgery went well and he is doing great, but damn, that was stressful for all of us. Mommy is about to be a mommy again and this was tough on her. As hard as it was, we are very thankful that it went smoothly and in the big picture of life, it was a pretty minor event. It ain't easy seeing your kid in the hospital, no matter what.
There is a lot going on in our lives right now (obviously!) and riding bikes has been helping to keep me sane. There are some pix on Veteran that make me really happy. The one of Joe Gall, Otto and myself is my favorite. Thanks Matt and Hanaan, for those.
I am extremely fickle when it comes to bike parts. I'm always experimenting but I usually go back to the same set-up when I'm done. These are the same, only different...

They are custom bars that Aaron from Solid Bikes made for me. They are 8" rise, but have a narrower bend so you can actually position your brake lever and have narrower bars. They are awesome and I can't thank Aaron enough for the favor. Perhaps they will become part of the Solid line-up soon.
Davey Coop works with me and he is a big fan of Hunter S Thompson.

He told me I look like him. I'm not sure that is a compliment but the book Hell's Angels is amazing, not to mention Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I guess I just mentioned it. Anyway, Davey has been kicking ass around here and I wanted to give him props...

BEST VIDEO PART EVER
Now Playing: some damn good jazz
YouTube is awesome. Mark Gonzales is the greatest skateboarder of all time and this is his finest video part

coffee achiever
Now Playing: Vandal The Legend of Pat Brown
Coffee is a very addictive substance and not necessarily good for you, but I friggin' love the stuff. I've been trying to cut back a little lately, but it is still an important part of my morning. There is a certain huge, corporate brand of coffee that I get mad at myself for buying, but it is delicious

I take some satisfaction in immature acts such as this. Believe it or not, there are new Deliverance tees in the works. Here's a shot of Noah sporting a vintage prototype.

I discovered a new station on Sirius satellite radio called "Punk". They play mostly old (and a bit of new) punk music. Go figure. This is a new station for Sirius and it is awesome. I guess I'm officially old because my favorite radio station is technically a "classic punk" channel. Weird. Besides great songs from Black Flag, Sham 69, Fugazi and Radio Birdman, they even throw in some oddball/cornball stuff like the Vandals song that was playing when I started this post. Reminds of being in my friend Lew's mom's basement, listening to the latest records we had just bought at Boogie Records. Yeah, I am old.
Speaking of old, a lot of the Cobras have been at the recent Modern sessions and it has been great. The last half hour of the Tuesday session had a few of us in a heated session on the mini that was so much fun. I supposed because the mini is fenced off and you have to make an effort to go ride it, it doesn't see a lot of action during a regular session, but Tuesday was tits. I said it.

NO COMMENT
Now Playing: The Stooges 1970
Under all of these posts is an area to leave comments. In the early days, this feature didn't seem to work, so I kind of forgot about it. Turbo Todd Britton sent me an e mail to let me know he posted a comment after the Rays post. Further inspection reveals that there are quite a few interesting comments from various people about different topics. The one from PJ elaborating about Eddie Gail playing Chuckie and using his little sister's child seat for Driver's Ed. come to mind as stand outs. Go back and check them if you get a chance....
Here's a shot of Crandall, repping the ol' 77. I don't know what I'm going to do when he wears this hoodie out.

modern pix
Now Playing: U2 In the name of Love
Here are some pix that Kris K shot at Modern the other night:

That's Billy, hamming up a no-footer, then asking if it looked awesome.

the legendary Jason Suchen, with a 360 X box game of BMX.

FatAss McGillicutty, trying to impersonate one of my teen idols, John Crews.

Omni-present local, Jeffrey Tabb. JT is awesome. I love that kid.

dedication or disgust?
Now Playing: Jay-Z 99 problems
I rode flatland tonight. It's been a long time and it felt good. My flatland bike is light and nimble and easy to manuever, even though my flatland skills are novice at best. I was stoked that the few things I've done in the past came back pretty quickly. I started trying whiplashes and they were coming really close. I say "whiplashes", but technically they really aren't. I'm riding into them but stopping halfway through. That's more like just a regular tailwhip from the pegs. Whatever. They are fun and hard and I decided I wasn't leaving until I pulled at least one, straight to the pedals. I had to pee really badly. I usually ride flat at this church near my house and there is no where to go sneak a piss or anything. It's pretty much out in the open. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I went to get my Deliverance Bar Bag (TM) and as I was putting it on, dancing around, it hit me "I'm about to pee my pants, for real". I'm not talking about the little pee bullet that shoots out, I'm saying I full-on pissed my pants. I just gave up. I stood there in the church parking lot with pee running down my leg and onto my shoes, the whole deal. I had a puddle going. I started to leave but said "fuck it". I pulled the whiplash three tries later.

Here's a photo of me skating the bowl at Modern GR to make up for my incompetence. Or is it incontinence? Photo by Mark Flipowicz.

"You're dealing with an Expert, Dude"
Now Playing: Built To Spill Broken Chairs

Sometimes I take a while to post on here because I don't have a lot to say, sometimes I'm busy and once in awhile, I'm so overwhelmed by what has gone on that I have to save up energy to proceed. The latter was the case for this one. Last thursday, over twenty of us made the trek to Rays MTN bike park in Cleveland for what was to be one of the most memorable days of my BMX life. Twelve of us from Michigan, four dudes from New York and Cleveland locals like Pat Schreader, Jim Hill and Lurch made the scene and it was incredible. A lot of the Cobras had never been to Rays and were just blown away. Naturally, the New York contingent hadn't been there yet, but Kelly Baker, Jeff Collins, K-Mart and Snake went right to work. I still can't believe all of these people were in one place in one time. Some of my best friends, old and new, all in one amazing skatepark, hanging out and riding bikes. On the way in, some of us stopped to see Ken Schneider. His shop is literally around the corner from Rays and it was great to see him. By coincidence, our visit came just within a day of the one year mark of when he was violently attacked. He has come a long way in his recovery and was happy to meet the crew. Ken is awesome. The vibe at Ray's was amazing. It was like a bunch of little kids cut loose in a toy store. We were all over the place. Phil Race was flipping into the foam. Todd Britton was landing on his head in the foam. Davey Coop 360ed the Red Bull box that most of us were barely clearing. Chris Yankee was in full ninja mode, going as high and riding as well as I ever seen him. I can't remember ever seeing Solan so happy about anything (and he's a positive guy!). It was apeshit. We all started getting hungry and ordered a bunch of Pizzas. Most of us were standing around eating and I will clearly remember the following sequence of events for the rest of my life. I was thinking, "This is so fucking awesome! This Pizza is awesome and after I eat it I'm going to go back out there and it's going to be awesome". Just as that thought was ringing through my head, Davey came riding up and said "You have to come here right now!" At first I thought he was excited to show me something, but no: "Kelly is really hurt. He hit his head and he's bleeding like crazy. I think we need to call an ambulance". As awesome as Rays is, it's an old building and has some flaws, like low-hanging beams and rafters. Kelly actually hit his head mid-trick and broke his helmet, which cut his head open and caused him to bleed all over the place. It was gnarly and scary and one of those moments of panic where you don't know what to do next. Fortunately, it was the toughest guy in the building who got hurt and he was more or less unphased. We went outside for a bit and he was saying how he was bummed about breaking his helmet. I knew what he meant--he was bummed because he didn't have a helmet to continue riding with. Bad ass. Afro Pat gave him one to use and after donning a tee shirt around his head and under his helmet, he looked like a wounded soldier and commenced to ride like nothing ever happened. Saving Private Kelly. We all kind of calmed down after that and continued the session. I know I wasn't the only one that started feeling my best at about ten o'clock, five hours into the session. The energy was ever-flowing. At the end of the night we all locked into seek and find mode to locate some missing keys that weren't really missing, said our good byes and headed for home. Pretty much a six hour session with a time out for Pizza and Kelly's drama (always gotta steal the show, don't you Baker!). We got back to Detroit around two AM. Kelly and crew hammered it all the way back to Central New York and got home before the rooster crowed.
On Friday I was totally depressed. I almost felt like I should just quit riding after that. It was too good. Too much fun. Too many good people all together at once. One of those days that you know isn't going to happen again any time soon. It was truly an amazing day. Here's a slide show of pix, taken mostly by James Brichard. You can click on the photos to read the captions. Kelly has a piece about the day on his site too.

Besides that monumental day in Deliverance/Cobras/Master Blasters history, some FODs scored new rides. King Crimson Crandall is rolling tough on 1100cc of Japanese steel

while Noah Simon Towne is super stoked on his first two wheeler, courtesy of his uncle Kelly Baker.

The quote at the beginning of this post is from Chris Yankee...