Sir Grump Munch

April 11, 2005

Let's Get the Ball Game on the Road

Trying to recall this last month or so...
Big news on the work front is that the Scooterworks website finally launched. Spent some late nights and weekends leading up to that, and it's still very much a work in progress. It doesn't pretend to be anything but an e-commerce store with some other scooter content, whereas before it was vice-versa, and with a dysfunctional and godawful store
., but there will be some new stuff going up in the next week or so (messageboards and stuff), so that's exciting. Also did a flyer for Scooterworks, "tasteless and blatant" was kind of the theme, as usual.

In the world of friends, I got to hang out for an evening with my old boss Paul (from PETA) who was in town for a few days conventioneering. Great to see him, he's living in Seattle and loving it (lucky bastard). I need to get out to the old Pacific Northwest in the next year, gotta see what that's all about. The more I can travel the better, because there's a big world out there and I don't intend to make Chicago my home forever. Gotta get the next place in my sights and work towards it, keep ramblin'. Lots of international travel to be done too, England, Europe, China, Japan, SE Asia, hell, maybe even South America or Mexico. Canadia. Wherever. Lots of good people and good food and good sights out there waiting.

This month I got bored of my music library and bought about 40 songs on the iTunes music store, including such classics as: the nine-minute-plus epic Playboy Short by Too Short, video classic You Played Yourself by Ice T, the incredible Rock Box by Run-DMC, songs by Scarface, Mos Def, Atmosphere, Kool Keith, Danzig, Nas, Townes Van Zandt, Pizzicato Five, and a bunch of Reggae and Dub songs including the adorable original version of Uptown Top Ranking (as well as its predecessor, Three Piece Suit and Thing AND a barren, singer-songwriter girl cover of it by Scout Niblett).

I also ordered a CD by Verdun, Dr. Neal Barnard's band which fuses rock and Vietnamese traditional music in an interesting way. I finally scored a copy of the American Movie DVD and the first season of Chapelle's Show on DVD. Got an armful of kickass books in Madison, including bitter 1960s urban-planning and anti-crass-commercialism/car-culture missive God's Own Junkyard, a brilliant collection of interviews with all kinds of Chicagoans in the late 60s by Studs Terkel called Division Street America, the tactile and useful How to Stay Alive in the Woods, a wonderful little photobook on travel Wanderlust by Troy Litten (Chronicle), and the painfully-cute companion to the Dog Owner's Manual, the Cat Owner's Manual (Quirk). Also got an awesome one called Street Graphics: India, to reminisce on our time there. Quite a bit of consumption this month, should become a monk now and throw it all away.

Vanessa just finished another grueling pledge drive at Chicago Public Radio, lots of long hours and a goodly amount of airtime "pitching" for her this time around. It's amazing what a small percentage of regular listeners give money (something like less than 10% I think) to keep them on the air, despite the relentless pleas over 10 days or so a few times a year.

I spent this last weekend in Cincinnati, OH at the WKRP: Too Hot for TV scooter rally. I'd have to say that this was possibly my favorite rally yet, certainly my favorite "city rally" ever. An amazing turnout of over 200 scooters, really cool people, a ton of free stuff, two sweet scooters raffled off (with all the money raised donated to an arts charity that helps children), beautiful weather and more. Just amazing through and through. I fell in love with Cincinnati, it's an incredible city in a gorgeous setting. Lots of wonderful old buildings and houses, all set on hills, hardly any condos or other lame plagues of modernization outside of the downtown area (and when they existed they tended to be more architecturally sensitive to the context and more interesting than the cinderblock prisons called "condos" in Chicago. Got to see some old friends including Simon and Sondra, a scootering couple of dear friends who moved to NYC last year. They suggested that I make it to the Gotham rally this year, and I may just do that; I have to decide soon though...

We took Friday off work and rode from Chicago to Cincinnati, 11 hours and about 320 miles (all but about 50 of which was in Indiana). Nice ride, great weather, fairly uneventful (which is good in this case). This is the longest ride I've done so far, and it was a great one. Rode with Silent Ron and Big Rye and I was the slow man out on the stock Second Chance Tour Stella with Pinasco exhaust. It was only good for a cruising speed of about 55 (or less if the wind was coming at us, which inexplicably it was, from the East [wtf?] for most of Indiana). I'll probably ride the Stella to Michigan this weekend as I haven't been there since the winter holidays and have some India pictures and souvenirs to share.

While in Cininnati I made a pilgrimage to the former world headquarters of J&H Productions International, a decent but nondescript house on a dead-end street overlooking a highway. More photos and supplimental writeup to follow later this week.

There's probably more to write about but I'm tired; I'll come back and edit this and add more maybe tomorrow.

Posted by pj at April 11, 2005 11:59 PM