Whddup

I saw this sign on the ground on my way home today. Found art ! Profound!

Last night I decided to go for an Assbike ride around town and check out a few places.



No better way to chill out than a death defying ride through the darkness on a bike with no brakes.

I am missing my stolen Pinnarello tho'. It was fast and easy to ride.

I saw some fixies outside the Rhino bar in Parkdale where some messenger-types were drinking and became jealous and have started making plans to replace the Pinn with a another snappy fixed gear bike.

On the way home I spotted my friend Kalen's bike outside Grossman's and stopped to have a drink with him. This on the left is the city's most disgusting vending machine -- in the can at Grossman's -- I think I caught a disease just looking at it.

For today's dose of cuteness here's Greta with her arms around Isbel :



And here's today's Assbike Song. Jon Spencer Blues Explosion -- Flavor :::

Tues.

This morning when I was leaving my place I heard these cries, I freaked a little, because it sounded like a baby or something. I found this little guy in our backyard -- all scrawy and dirty and crying or something. I wasn't really sure what to do. I gave it half a can of tuna and he gobbled it down. I don't think it's a stray since was pretty friendly and wasn't afraid of me.



It ran off, after the meal, but I'm pretty sure it's someone's lost kitten. I posted it on craigslist, but I wasn't sure what else to do.



I don't usually bitch about the conditions for bike riders, since I ride wherever I want and scoff at the Highway Traffic Act anyways, but this is the bike lane on Davenport. The shoulder and bike lane are totally occupied by these trailers and the bike lanes are plyoned off.

What remains of the lane is too narrow for a car to pass a bike. So if you ride along Davenport east of Avenue Rd. you have to ride right in the lane and put up with honking drivers or getting buzzed every 20 seconds.

You would never see a situation where a driver was put into a position that was as dangerous or inconvenient. Riding on the sidewalk is the only safe solution for a lotr of riders in this case. So much for Bike Week.

Oh yeah, the pic at the top of this post is the Queen St. Home for the Terminally Hip, right in hipster hollow, across from the Drake.

Stolen!

Today I went to see the Buzzcocks at Phoenix and when I came out (8:30 -- it was still light out), my Pinnarello was gone! No sign of the lock or anything.

I knew this could happen one day -- this is the whole idea behind the Assbike but I was cavalier and I paid for it.

My mistakes:

-Downtown East of Yonge is waay seedier than the west part, and that part of town is full of lowlifes. I considered taking the shittier bike, but it is not as nice to ride.

-I usually lock my bike outside a bar or something even if I'm going to a movie or show. It gives the impression that the owner could be watching it or be back any second. Instead I was lazy and just locked it outside the concert hall.

I bought that bike when Pinnarello was just another Italian brand, but since then, it's become like the Armani of bikes, and I've had random people complimenting it or begging to buy it.

I wasn't too attached to it, I would sell it for the right price anyday. It hurts because I knew I could always sell it for a quick $400 if I needed to, but hey, that's the price to pay to be able to ride a not-totally-ass bike around town.

Ass Bike Song

Just whe you thought music was going into the toilet and little kids would have to grow up listening to the Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, Lordi wins the Eurovision song contest



and a song so vulgar and immature becomes a major hit, parents are once again concerned about music. Crank it up : Ass Like That (4:25).

Thank god. Long live lurid and vulgar art.

Media Event Binge

There is one free food and booze extravaganza I look forward to every year. To avoid googlation I will not mention it by name, but it has to do with the promotion of a bike race I'm involved with organizing.



Contrary to what you may think most news doesn't just happen and reporters somehow find out about it and report on it. Most news is manufactured in the form of press releases and media events where reporters are boozed up and entertained. That's how you get the press to talk about your business, shop, product, new book or whatever.



This Media Reception was at the Liberty Grand, and as you can see it was a pretty swank setup, and you can't even see the free booze and rows and rows of free food.

At these events there are basically three types of people: business people, media and "entertainers", and of course a few random douchebags. I might seem like only the latter, but I did have an official reason to be there. You can guess where Captain Abs. (below) fit in:



Also the photogs (like Doc Brown in the ballcap) are always the worst looking people at the events, but because they are the raison d'etre for the event itself, they get a free pass. Only the big wigs (who are actually paying for everything you see around you) are higher up on the pecking order (more on this later).

You can tell who's who by how they're dressed, and seeing some of these peeps and teir style was a real eye-opener.

Not to go all Manolo, but this dude's look was perfect. Not too formal, not trying too hard. The jacket was like a freakin' sculpture and not a hair out of place (though he did look like an ex-cop). This is how guys this age should dress.

It hasn't hit the thirty and forty-somethings you see around, but the rule is as you get older you have to dress better. A younger (or just better looking) person can get away with a lot, but an old guy with unwashed hair and stubble just looks like a dirty old man. Unfair I know.

The kind of embarrassing highlight of the show are the bikini girls.

A lot of them are hot, but all of them would stand out in any regular scenario. And not just because of the fake boobs. Everything from the colour of their eyes, skin and hair and their gangly arms and legs makes them look almost alien.

I kinda felt bad for the not-as-hot bikini girls; with the leathery skin and cantalope tits. There you are up there, all exposed, and you only look shiat because 17 yr.old Eva Longoria is next to you, but hell, you're still in better shape than 88% of the population, you'd like to see one of these people get up on stage and prance arond in a swimsuit.

Maybe because they are considered just eye-candy, or maybe because a most of them aren't even 20, but despite being the center of attention, the bikini girls are actually low in the pecking order. A hot chick not in the bikini contest, like a bartender or reporter or something, is almost guaranteed to be higher in the pecking order. The irony.

There were the bikini boys too, but they looked lost without Donatella Versace around.

Anyways, it's annual day to stuff myself with exotic foods and all the Portuguese beer I could (barely) handle. When the bar closed my buddy Jimmy somehow scored 12 cans of unopened beer. I could not stand the thought of two over-40 lawyers outdrinking me (though they each outweight me by 40 lbs.) so the damage continued in the parking lot.

I didn't sober up enough to make it to the bike race that night (but I did make it), though my alcohol dehydrated brain shrivelled into a prune. No side-effects other than a splitting headache for the next 8-12 hrs and feeling totally disgusted with myself. Good times!

Switching gears. We have our first World Cup highlight -- and the tournament hasn't even started yet.

England's Peter Crouch revives the robot dance. brillinat!

See the video HERE (35 sec.).

Art School Confidential

I finally got around to seeing Art School confidential when I happened to see the poster while I was assbiking around downtown (that's also when I took that pic of the side of the Senator).

The flick had it's moments, but was a bit of a disappointment if you were a fan of Ghost World. I'd say it's a cross between a generic school setting (like PCU or Freak and Geeks) and Great Expectations (or John Waters' Pecker); ie. not too original.

And of course the whole thing is ruined by the main characeter's obsession with a totally lame-o girl (G A Y).

Attention Indie-Filmaker Nerds: Having a girlfriend/boyfriend is not the most important thing in the World.



And of course the waay overrated John Malkovitch -- being John Malkovitch. I don't hate him or anything, but everyone kinda assumes it is mandatory to worship him.

The best character was the "mega successful artist"/full-fledged-asshole Marvin Bushmiller.

But afterwards I was inspired to create my own art. A few weeks ago I discovered how oversaturating the colours made a generic pic look all weird:



The pic on the right is the same as the pic on the left except I:
-cranked up the color saturation
-cranked up the contrast
-turned up the brightness and turned down the gamma to compensate

The schtick is: if your picture looks unatural people will be fooled into thinking it's "good".

But making my last post I also discovered the appeal of grafting pics together. I took these pics of break dancers at Yonge-Dundas.

Saddle Re-upholstery

For a while I've had a few saddles that lost their skin, since after all they lead a hard life. This project's been in the works for a whilie, but it didn't get off the ground until my friend Mark gave me a patch of goatskin I could use.

I used Lepage Contact Cement ($6), the non-solvent type, since it don't got tha stink (sorry I photographed the frog side of the tube).
The material is a thin leather, like you'd see gloves made with (I think that's where the term kid gloves comes from !).

Here's a step-by-step of the jobbie :



I cut the skin to size, I used the remnants of old covering as a guide (left pic). I glued up the main part of the saddle and stuck the skin on and pulled the ends (nose and tail) tight (centre pic). The material has to have some stretch to conform to the curve of the seat. Pulling it laterally didn't work. I pulled the excess leather at the nose into a point (right pic)



at the tail I pulled the leather back and glued it down (right pic). I used some masking tape to more or less hold it down (centre pic). I folded the corners in, and it actually looked not todally ass (right pic). It would be better to clamp the skin down, maybe with some clothes-pins, but I just let the glue go tacky (as in sticky, not as in a Liberace pantsuit) and that was enough to hold it in place.

and the final product:



The noticable mark is a crease in the leather that was there from being folded, but the result is acceptable. The skin is a bit loose tho', it would be nice if there was a way to prestretch the leather, so that it shrank and tightened up after it was glued. I guess the use of clamps would've helped in that dept.

It was ass cheap considering I only paid $6 for the tube of glue and 99 cent for the tape; esp. considering the saddle a San Marco Concor Light sells for at least $40.

I love this glue though, and the same way that to kid with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, I've hunting for other shit to glue.