New Ride: Lemond Poprad

I bought a new bicycle a few weeks ago. I had been wanting a steel-framed road bike for a while, and have decided my bicycle is the one thing I will keep new-ish in my life filled with broken, vintage, and deteriorating whatnot.

I bought a 2004 Lemond Poprad off of some guy on craigslist. It was made in the USA of Reynolds 853 steel, presumably by one of Trek's bicycle factories in Wisconsin.

I really love this bike. Here are some of the parts:

Drivetrain: Shimano 105 2x9
Front Wheel: Bontrager Race Lite
Rear Wheel: Mavic Aksium
Tires: Continental Touring 28
Stem: Salsa
Brakes: Paul Neo-Retro
Fenders: Planet Bike plastic full fenders

Punk's Not Dead

Oh wow! Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil frontman and CUNY literature professor Blake Schwarzenbach has teamed with the Kerouac of Punk, Aaron Cometbus of Pinhead Gunpowder to form a new band called Thorns of Life.

This has made my day / week. Their sound is superpop/punk with the trademark Jawbreaker heavy / introspective break sections.

Alternative Press Videos on Youtube

Click for hi res image of them playing

Dear US government,

Please just let GM die:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/business/economy/13bankruptcy.html

Sincerely,

me

New LUCKSMITHS album

The Lucksmiths, my favorite band that is still banded together, have a new album. It's entitled "First Frost" and it's hitting my Discman and headphones in November 2008.

http://www.indiepages.com/matinee/catalog.html?id=cd049

The track listing is:

The Town and The Hills
Good Light
A Sobering Thought (Just When One Was Needed)
California In Popular Song
South-East Coastal Rendezvous
The National Mitten Registry
Day Three of Five
Never and Always
Lament of the Chiming Wedgebill
How We Met
Song of the Undersea
Up With The Sun
Pines
Who Turned on the Lights?

The Lucksmiths cheer me up. I can't wait to hear this.

Proposed Wall Street Bailout is Unamerican.

This just in, I agree with a Republican.

Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky states:

"The Paulson proposal is an attempt to do what we so often do in Washington—throw money at a problem.

We cannot make bad mortgages go away. We cannot make the losses that our financial institutions are facing go away. Someone must take those losses. We can either let the people who made bad decisions bear the consequences of their actions, or we can spread that pain to others. And that is exactly what the Secretary proposes to do—take Wall Street's pain and spread it to the taxpayers. The plan has not even passed, and already Americans are paying for it because of the fall in the dollar as a result of all the new debt we will be taking on.

I know there are problems in the financial markets, and I share a lot of the same concerns that our witnesses do. However, the Paulson plan will not fix those problems. The Paulson plan will not help struggling homeowners pay their mortgages. The Paulson plan will not bring a stop to the slide in home prices. But the Paulson plan will spend 700 billion taxpayer dollars to prop up and clean up the balance sheets of Wall Street. This massive bailout is not the solution, it is financial socialism, and it is un-American."

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/the-home-front/2008/09/23/sen-jim-bunning-the-bailout-is-un-american.html

Vintage VW Training for Vintage VWs

Today, this video helped me adjust my Volkswagen.

Renaults

Some of my photos were featured today on my favorite website, Jalopnik.com:

http://jalopnik.com/5042285/citroens-and-fuegos-roam-the-streets-of-portland

Honda Trail 90

On June 3, 2008 Dan and I went to southeast Portland and he bought this baby, a 1965 Honda Trail 90. You meet the nicest people on a Honda.

Of course, my head wraps itself around the Beach Boys' song "Little Honda" at the sight of this "little motorbike." Here is a great video of the original song:



Being an indie rocker, I much prefer Yo La Tengo performing the song:

Lifter Puller - "Nassau Coliseum"

Here is an incredible fan-made video for Lifter Puller's song "Nassau Coliseum." Lifter Puller broke up and sort of reformed as The Hold Steady. Lifter Puller was more noisy and abrasive, while The Hold Steady goes for more of a bar-rock deal in the best possible sense.

This video is incredibly weird, vulgar, and awesome. It should be presented with a South Park style disclaimer that states it absolutely shouldn't be viewed by anyone.

This song was inspired by a Grateful Dead concert at the Nassau Coliseum, on Long Island, NY, where the biggest drug bust in Grateful Dead history took place.

HOLD STEADY

I just stumbled on to this site, an index of Hold Steady lves shows and radio session downloads:

http://holdsteady.blogspot.com/

They even have Lifter Puller stuff.

VW Microbus Best of

Here is a link to some of the best pictures of Pre-1967 Volkswagen Split-Windshield buses, as selected by split window microbus fanatics of TheSamba.com

LINK

This is over 50 message board pages of pictures, but I highly recommend it. It is interesting to see people's perceptions of the car change over time. I believe the original VW Bus is such a subjective piece that people can place very different connotations to it. Hippie vs purely industrial, unsafe vs warm nostalgia; It's a strange psychological mirror of an automobile.

Above: 1. VW Samba as surfing icon, in garage surrounded by quiver of longboards. 2. VW Bus as American road trip icon. 3. VW Bus as chicken coop.

Megasquirt or not?

I have been seriously considering converting my VW to nasty sounding, yet quite non-aggressive Megasquirt Electronic Fuel Injection.

Here, at the Samba, I am discussing it.

Ruckus all over USA.

I came across this story today of some guy riding all over the United States on his Honda Ruckus. I would have met him at Spring Scoot, but he and I both only attended on one day, opposite days. It reminds me of everything I love about riding scooters. There are lots of great pictures in this account of his trip.

LINK

Secret Codes of Volkswagens.

Every old Volkswagen has a little plate riveted to it telling a bit of history of the car. I found mine on my 1971 Bus behind the drivers seat and yesterday decoded it. I used the information found on Type2.com as well as TheSamba.com.

Here are the codes and their meanings:

12 = Unknown, possibly a code meaning 1971 model year
162 = Bumpers with Rubber Moldings
191 = Outer and Center Underfloor Reinforcement Plates (these reinforced the structure of the bus to compensate for the hole in the roof for the camping pop top)
E = Unknown

4747 = Neptune Blue on top and on bottom
51 = Dark Beige Leatherette Upholstery
A02 = USA DOT Specifications
177 = Rear Bench Seat
507 = Vent wings in Cab doors
697 = Rumored to be "Fitted With Continental brand tires"

10 2 = Date of manufacture: either February 10th, 1970 or Tuesday on the 10th Week of 1970
7998 = Unknown, possibly a serial number of production runs at the VW factory
UP = Port of Delivery was Portland, Oregon
2310 = Kombi wwith Sliding door on the right, Left hand drive
21 = Upright cooling 1600cc engine, Manual Transmission

I encourage all Volkswagen owners to use the online resources to discover the meaning of their M Codes.

The Oral History of WGSU

I started a new site to compile the history of Geneseo, New York radio station WGSU, where I used to be a DJ.

http://theoralhistoryofwgsu.blogspot.com/