Tuesday, June 23, 2009

1st installment


I have an assload of stuff to report on. I can't seem to get over the workload to truckload ratio. I left for California in early June and returned in late June. Time warp. My dear friend Harold McGruther picked me up at John Wayne International Airport and gave me the 10 cent tour. Our first stop was at the offices of Vitalbmx/mx.com for a semi-heated discussion about the ramifications of mega-ramps with media don Brad McDonald. Steve "Guy-B" Giberson heads up the motocross side of Vital and hired me on back in '87 to work with him at Challenge Publications. He came in mid-visit to discuss outdoor MX racing and time machines. His 2009 desk looked remarkably similar to his 1988 desk, which was right next to mine in a cigarette-smoke stained former porn mag publishing house in the Valley. From Vital, we went to S&M bikes and picked up Chris Moeller, went to Starbucks, then to nearby Transworld Media, home of Ride BMX US. No one was there, but we made ourselves at home in Keith Mulligan's office. We went back to S&M to skate the crazy bowl and test ride prototype cruisers:
McGoo and Moeller are two dudes I hold in very high regard and it was great to spend some quality time with them.
The rest of the week was pie charts and ass whoopings. Not really, there aren't really any pie charts at our Etnies meetings, but they did last all day every day. I left at 6:15 PM EST (Michigan time) on Friday and was supposed to be home by midnight. After a small weather dealy and a total mechanicaleation, I rolled in almost exactly 24 hours after I left Orange County--the longest trip home short of the one on my Honda 550 in 1994.
I ventured out to Birdland the night of my return to find my trails ravaged by the tests of weather and time. Between heavy thunderstorms and subsequent sunshine, I found deep ruts and tall weeds. The jumps were worse than after the snow melted. I'm two days into the rebuild and it's going to be bigger and better when it's done. Stay tuned for details on the Endless Summer event...

3 comments:

OrangeWoods said...

I still laugh to myself thinking of the veges incident years ago with Magoo....ed

Harold McGruther said...

refresh my memory…?

OrangeWoods said...

inter-bike maybe 1999, 2000 a very large suite in some fine hotel abrupt waken to screaming. 75 dollar bottle of stoli on room service bill Ben Franklin looking glasses. Long hair