after a few spits of wood glue, and a small amount of wire bending, the AssTone is back and ready to slaughter everything in its path.

Shogun Warrior, check. Hot Wheels, check. Star Wars Han Solo laser pistol, CHECK!

The Magnet has a purty good retrospective of the 80s Minneapolis music scene, focusing on Hüsker Dü and The Replacements… it’s an awesome read if you have 20 minutes of spare time…

Here: A Tale Of Twin Cities: Hüsker Dü, The Replacements And The Rise And Fall Of The ’80s Minneapolis Scene

I blew my mind . . .

More on the Albatross about my neck was hung

okay, maybe i post too much (too much meaning twice already) about Harvey Milk, but that’s okay. verbally, i declare quite often that this is the greatest album title of all time: “My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment Of What My Love Could Be” . . . but that’s the first time i ever blogged it, so there. I should also mention that it’s still a great album after all these dark, dark, dark, dark, dark years… probably in my top twenty, following closely behind “Duty Now For the Future” by Devo – Penetration In The Centrefold is maybe the best song ever,  and after all these long, long, long, long years it’s still ahead of its time. Which reminds me, I’ve got a rhyme that sounds like a riddle . . .

Many years ago, seBADoh took us along on a few of their US tours. It was awesome fun opening for them, and they were super nice guys and easy to get along with. A few times a week, I’d hang out with Lou in the dressing room and we’d mostly talk about theoretical BMX tricks that’d be awesome, but impossible, to do. Well, it’s like 13 years later and I’m super stoked to see Lou nailing a bunch of those theoretical stunts in the latest video from Dinosaur Jr. heh.

found this at FBM.

i saw this on the sidewalk the other day…

After some random web surfing this afternoon, I came across a couple blogs that had various posts regarding new city-built skateparks that don’t allow bikes. I seriously can not believe this is still an issue. I guess since I don’t ride skateparks anymore, I kind of forgot that this kinda discrimination still exists. 

Several years ago, when I lived in Port Angeles, Washington, there was rad (although wonky) skatepark in the town 15 miles away, Sequim. The Sequim skatepark didn’t allow bikes, but that didn’t stop me and several other people from riding there several times a week. Suddenly, after a year or so, cops started showing up ALL THE TIME and giving us tickets and/or confiscating our bikes for weeks at a time. It eventually got to be a serious headache, and it just didn’t make sense to me, so I decided to do something about it.

I got a few people together, both BMXers and skaters, and started going to City Council meetings, and worked really hard to promote our ideals. Long story short; 4 months later, and 2 weeks after I moved back to New Orleans, the city ordinance was changed and bicycles were finally allowed to ride the Sequim skatepark legally and hassle-free. Awesome. We totally won. I never did get to ride that park legally…

Anyway, here’s some advice if your local skatepark doesn’t allow bikes, and obviously this only applies to city parks, not privately-owned parks (they can do what they want):

- Go to City Council meetings and SIGN IN. Usually at the end of these meetings they’ll go down the list of people that signed-in and let them speak. Say what you gotta say and be polite, almost like you’re at court. Most likely they won’t do anything and will ask you to come back for the next session.

- Keep going to the meetings. I think this is where most people screw up the hardest… don’t give up easily if nothing happens. This shit takes serious time, and city stuff goes in slow motion…

- Dress nicely, like you would for a job interview. You don’t hafta wear a suit or anything.

- Be polite, articulate, and keep your “speech” short and to the point. These peeps wanna get outa there and go home.

- Learn the council people’s names, and look for them in the local paper, etc. This one helped me a bunch… I ran into one of the dudes at the Albertson’s one time and said “hello Mister so-and-so…” and reintroduced myself, made light conversation for a minute, and then left him alone. At the next meeting he gave me a dude-nod. 

- I hafta stress articulation again… nobody is gonna listen to someone who’s fumbling their words all over the place. Prepare yourself for questions you think they might ask, and never, ever get irate or stupid. 

- Pick a leader, a person that’s going to be your voice. Sorry kids, but have an adult take this role. Council people want one person to deal with. Always bring your nicely dressed posse with you, however.

- Make online and printed petitions, but don’t make comments available for Council members to look at. There’s always gonna be “fuck this” and “fuck that”, and you don’t want that association. But, just so you know, in our case anyway, the petition was the weakest tool we had at our disposal… they totally didn’t care…

- Make a website, and do it well. There’s tons of nice looking WordPress templates, so making a nice website shouldn’t be hard.

- Make “friends” with the cop or cops that bust you the most… I found out that they’re equally as annoyed, so there ya go… I eventually asked our local sesh-buster to come to a meeting with us, and he totally helped our cause… For him it was a waste of time going to the park to bust us. 

there’s more, i know… if I think of more stuff I’ll post it the comments, or create a new post… but, after the jump there’s copy that I wrote several years ago — TAKE IT and EDIT IT as you see fit, if you think any of it would benefit your situation. 

Radical.

More on A Tremor in the Force

not that it hasn’t been busy, because it’s been a purty packed week, but i can’t believe it’s only thursday, and only like almost 5:00. it feels like it should be 10pm some day next week, or something.

Tunney posted an interesting question on his Facebook page, and on the ESPN blog, Lost and Found ”…ever had a trick you could do at one point and then lost some time after? What was the trick and why do you think you lost it?“ It reminded me that i was gonna take some time this week and write a sorta similar entry about having certain skills (bmx, photography, drums, design, etc), but losing them either temporarily [or permanently], and how challenging it can be to regain those skills. 

I liked his “concept of impossibility” theory, where at a young age we perceived something as being impossible, but when that impossibility becomes a possibility, or conquered, our brains still see it as something that can’t be done because it has spent a much greater time dwelling on the impossibleness (i *think* that’s a word… if it’s not, it should be) of the trick or skill. for me, this definitely relates to bmx and drumming. years ago when i started riding again, i had a really hard time learning 360s — real 360s, not the spin the last 180 on the rear tire kind of 360 we old peeps learned in the 80s. I finally learned em legit, had them solid for about a month, and then lost them. i’d either do the old-school half-ass 360, or i’d WAY OVER-rotate. 

i used to watch my friend, Scott (RIP), and listen to the Melvins (Lord Crover) or Led Zeppelin (Sir Bonham) and be totally jealous of their super fast, loud and smooth triplets. it seemed impossible! i’d practice em at times, albeit not too much cuz playing drums by yourself is boring, but i could never get em. a couple years ago i finally got em after like a year of not trying them. it just happened… and i felt like i conquered the impossible. well, now i can’t do em to save my life unless i have a few drinks in my gut, and then it’s short-lived and sketchy.