If this is the taste of selling out then , yum .

I've never actually bought a beverage from Starbucks ® until today , like for myself . I've given Amy $5 to go grab a coffee or some shit like that , or had the occasional tea bought for me by someone else , ( it was never this good BTW ) but up until today I've never actually thought to myself " damn I want to go into a Starbucks ® and buy something to drink " .

Well they have this black tea , that has this sweet shit in it . It tastes like sweet sun tea , kind of like the tea my mom used to make . My mom is from Mobile Alabama and she would fuck up some sweet tea , so I know what sweet tea is supposed to taste like .

At any rate , this tea is amazing and I'm not sure which is douchier , how much I like this tea or that I'm blogging about it . . . but fucking-a . It's pretty good !

Welcome to hell !

If you're like me at all , and you probably are ( at least a little ) . . .

then you're bummed out that you can find good old timer 50's & 60's & 70's music on the AM radio anymore . It seems like they have all but gotten rid of that format around here , and it makes cruising in your oldie a lot less enjoyable .

Obviously with the advent of modern technology we have the internet and wireless this and that , and all kinds of awesome that can take the place of said AM radio loss , and fill that vacuum nicely .

Enter the iPod touch with wi-fi , then enter the cleaned out ashtray ( iPod dock / amplification system ) and viola ! We're cruising to the rocking sounds of AM gold . . . This is my buddy Dave's 1964 Dart station wagon . He says he's going to make a little iPod cozy to hold it in place in the ashtray For now the ashtray makes it sound pretty loud due to the chamber effect it has , but he wants to add an 1/8" audio in jack to the radio so he can amplify the tunes on his radio & crank the mono speaker in the dash and cruise in style . Good times keeping old shit relevant and up to the task .

Here's part 2 of my little knife story .

My pal Fredo who owns & operates Star Leather here in San Diego & who let me use his facility to make my knife handle in the earlier post , made this slick little sheath for me yesterday . He knocked it out in about an hour & 1/2 only counting for a few " high-deas " and a couple mistakes it turned out awesome .

I wanted to be able to put the knife on or take it off my belt without removing the whole belt so he came up with this tricky little system . You just unsnap everything , pass it up & under your belt and viola . You're geared up and ready for some camping or urban warfare or whatever kind of shit you're into .

I also wanted a place where I could attach a lanyard to keep it from flopping around if I were wearing it on a bike and jamming out or climbing a rock face like David Lee Roth looking for adventure . He came up with this little utility tab . Bingo , keeps getting better huh ?

So if you need some sweet custom leather gear made up for you right here in the USA and you want it a certain way or color or whatever , Fredo is your man and Star Leather is where you want to go . (619) 302 4159 The website's not much to look at right now but the number is good and he will take care of you . I can't promise hell get it done in 2 hours , but we're tight bros and that's how we roll . You're experience might differ slightly .

What would Easyriders look like in the future

Or I guess technically a long time ago , in a galaxy far far away . . .

This is a stolen picture . I found it on a blog called ATR .

I don't know them but they took this picture of this nice motorcycle built by this feller named Grant .

The reason I'm posting it here , is because Grant was nice enough to buy one of my fancy iron cross points covers and put it on his bike . Hence I have it here for your viewing pleasure . Thanks Grant for building a pretty neat chopper & ATR for being awesome and not even knowing it .

Boom-shaka-laka .

If you now me personally , this little story will be no big surprise but will maybe shed a little light onto the kind of person I am and why .

When my parents moved to Bonita from skyline in the late 60's , it was a case of " white flight " from a once beautiful young neighborhood in Spring Valley that was suffering the fancy new fangled plague called " urban gang activity and turf war " We had lived in Skyline for about 4 years and had just adopted my sister before it started to eat shit and become a life sized shooting gallery . My mom & dad decided it wasn't a going to be such a great place to raise their newly aquired young family .

We moved to a bigger house in a new neighborhood called Bonita . It wasn't too far from Spring Valley , but it was light years away from all the trouble and violence going on there . It was near a park and was new and clean and not engrossed in drug and gang troubles so it seemed like a good new start to a brand new life as a family man .

He was the first one to buy a lot and as soon as the word got out all of his newly retired Navy buddies all jumped the line and bought new houses on the same street . It was awesome . We had a family in every house on the block and new everyone in every direction . It was pretty much urban utopia .

One of the great parts about this new living situation was the constant roaming house parties . Being a bunch of retired salty dogs , these men liked to tear back on the cocktails and have a good time every once in a while . All the wives would lounge around on the patios with Mai Tais or Blue Hawaiians , smoking like smoke stacks while the dads would be huddled around a little a.m. radio listening to the ball game next to the pool drinking beers and getting sun burns and whooping it up like a bunch of drunk sailors .

To this end my dad decided to take it to the next level . We had a 4 bedroom house , and my dad knocked out one of the windows and made it into a sliding glass door , that led to a swimming pool . On the other side of that door he built the ultimate man cave ( at least that's what they call it now-a-days ) , complete with a sunken bar ( where the closet would have been ) a working sink ( plumbed into the bathroom sink on the other side of the back wall ) , hidden Hi-Fi speaker system and a keg cooler . All this sweat and work , to have a classy drink with his pals . . . who's that sound like .

I've tried to tell my friends who've never been to that house what the room looked like and how it hasn't changed in the better part of 35 years . I swear it has bottles of booze that have been there for that long .

Anyhow , here it is for the first time ever , photographic proof of the crazy story I always tell about my dad's bar-room . This is a large part of why I am the man I am today , because I spent a large portion of my youth hanging out in this room with the dudes , talking dude shit and making drinks for the old guys .

And this is the ceiling . . . black spray on popcorn texture , with sliver flake in it . Yes , my dad has a metalflake ceiling , in his bar , that he built by himself , in his house . I was fucked from the holeshot .

The venerable Banana Caliper

I know more about this little feller than I ever thought I would need to know . Big thanks to Davey for motivating me , once we hit the garage and started scoping it out , he realized that the dust seal on the new caliper would work on the old caliper so we took them apart and put them back together with each others parts and we started looking good .

Oscar busted the piston a little when he put it back together for me the first time so the original seal ripped when we got it assembled and back on the bike . I had to take it all apart again do a little filing & dremeling & massaging to get it to be compliant , but it sealed up nice and solid . Big thanks for him finding me that damn caliper in the first place . I couldn't use it in the end because it needed a " Y " bracket instead of the " boomerang " bracket . Who would have thunk it . It did however have the elusive dust seal that we needed so it turned out great .

Well all's well that ends well , except that once it was all back together and looking like I was out of the woods , I find this under the bike . . .

yippy . . . . brake fluid , leaking from the master cylinder ! The chase for junky old ass motorcycle parts continues ( or at least a rebuild kit ! )

**EDIT** it turns out that my #1 bro buddy Davey who filled up the master cylinder , tells me after the fact " Oh yeah bro , I was a little messy when I topped it off , that's probably just left over dripping off there . " Well as it turns out , it seems that's the case . No mess under the bike for the last few days and the reservoir is full . . . all is well in old Harley town for now !

***NEW EDIT*** , no it's leaking . never mind .

So sad......

I guess punk rock can be imported as a DNA thing

Like at a genetic level , deep in your molecular structure .

That or being a spaz is just what 4 year olds do when they hear anything fast and silly . I like the first one better even though I know the last one is more likely to be true .

Finding things . . .

Some of the most fun you can have for no money is just keeping your eyes open and seeing some cool shit that has been abandoned for whatever reason . I've been wanting a metal detector my whole life , but that's not what this is about , this time .

About 15 years ago I was at a party in the park down by my house . My neighborhood was pretty sketchy back then , you could hear drive-bys and screeching tires and buy almost any kind of weekend party substance right on the corner from some friendly entrepreneur . Seems like that was a long time ago . . . so I'm chilling & grilling at the park . We're all having a great time and I notice something pointing up out of the mud . It turns out that this crusty old knife is stuck in a mud puddle that had dried out and left the broken tip showing about an inch above the crust .

Being the scavenger that I am , I pick it out and clean it off and take it home . It was pretty messy , the tip was broken and bent and the leather handle was falling apart , so I just stuck it up on a shelf next to my stereo in the garage . Hidden back up perhaps for home invasion that never happened . Forgotten for the most part .

Anyhow , fast forward to a few weeks ago and I am thinking , " man I'd like a nice fixed blade knife for my collection , but they can be so expensive . . . " just like that . Eventually as I reach up to turn up the stereo I see my trusty crusty old shank and decide to save a few bucks & restore it into a usable tool .

After a few hours of wire wheeling , heating and rebending the tip and regrinding the point it's starting to look pretty good , but the handle is fucked . The leather rings that made up the grip are disintegrating and falling apart the more I mess with it . It only took about 10 minutes of Googling ® to find replacement parts for this type of knife and I'm off to the races . My buddy Fredo is an aspiring leather crafting master and he offers to help me rebuild the handle and with about an hour on a drum sander and a little burnishing and stain it turned out really nice . I blacked out the metal with gun blueing acid and put a nice new edge on there and it's turned out to be a pretty nice blade .

Turns out also that after I got all the muck & years of neglect off of it , it's a Camillus blade made in NY . They went out of business in the 80's but made blades for the military as well as cooking and plain old civilian type knifing . This one in particular is a Viet Nam era pilots survival knife . The original kit had a neat leather sheath with a sharpening stone in a pouch . That was no where to be found sadly . Fredo is however going to craft me a custom sheath that you can see in the picture . I made a cardstock cut out of what I want it to look like , and he said he could whip it out in no time . Back on the road with a whole new lease on life !

I wonder what kind of life this blade lived through it's long existence and in it's original owner's hands , and how it ultimately ended up in a mud puddle with a broken & bent tip , in the gutter 4 blocks from my house .

Have a great Halloween!!!!

Time for some maintenance , apparently .

Last week the old '77 started making a slight grinding noise when I would step on the rear brake . At first it was just a hint of a grinding sound so I figured I had a minute to scare up some parts and get to it . Well 2 days later it was grinding with no brake , just rolling it made this sketchy scraping sound .

One of my brown brothers Oscar tells me " hey man , I have some pads & stuff if you need them . Maybe even a rotor for you " , so I get busy and start taking things of .

This kind of stuff is relatively easy . I have a good copy of the original HD manual and it shows exploded views and all the tid bits and small parts . It came apart quick & painless . . . that's when I saw this .

Yee haw ! I guess when you ride like the wind and you ride to live , and all that good shit , you tear through gear like crazy . . . hmm . Anyhow new pads & new rotor and it should be good to go . Here's the rotor , ala Oscar all cleaned up and looking good . I even got between the spokes and got the wheel all prettied up too .

As it turned out when I put the caliper back on , the piston was stuck and didn't want to ease up on the pads . After a few initial miles , the rotor was super hot and it was obvious that there was more going on that needed attention . Oscar tells me he'll give it a shot and rebuild it for me real quick like , because he has a few parts laying around that I don't have and it should be a snap .

Well as it turned out it was not a snap and when we got it put back on , a seal was leaking all over the rotor causing me to not be able to stop on command , which is bad . It looked like the piston got a little goofed up when it got pressed in and I think it ripped the piston seal . No biggie though as banana caliper parts are falling out of the trees around here these days , and it should be back on the road in no time .

It's raining today anyhow , so whatever . I'll ride to live later .

Eric sent me this

He said he's a faithful reader of my blog and thought I'd be interested in this , well yeah .

It pretty much rules !

Thanks Eric !

Things I love.....

Stuff you see outside of a tattoo shop sometimes .

Fip Buchanan's amazing 1940 mercury custom .

My friend Mikey is putting together this little store with the guys from Trophy Motorcycles

It's going to be a sort of vintage clothing / record store / bike rider gear, type of shop . He has lots of nick-nacs and stuff in there already , but he's going to have a full line of Loser Machine stuff as well as his own swap meet pickings . It kind of has a punk rock boutique vibe from the early 80's .

Everything looks good so far . I'm happy to see him taking charge of his shit and trying to make his own way . Support your local pack ratts and spend your money on cool shit !

Pack Ratt Records , 4952 El Cajon Blvd S.D. right next to Trophy Motorcycles .

Soooo who ya votin' for next year?

Big Sur......

We took the roads less traveled on Saturday, short blast to Soledad on the 101 then on to Metz rd. down to King Shity, over the bridge to Jolone rd. and down to Fort Hunter Liggett to head up and over Nacimiento-Fergusson then to the 1 and back north to Fernwood to camp, play a show and party down. All in all it was a great time..

Goin' on a little putt this weekend..

Gunna turn the one hour trip to Big Sur into a three hour tour. If you are in the area we'll be at Fernwood Saturday night....

Ya it is.......

Things I miss some times....

My 49 and my 65, not sure if I miss them or the times more......

We were on our way to a play date with Vaughn and Amy suggested we drive through Balboa Park . . .

Glad we did . We discovered this impromptu lowrider show . Of course there were a few super whacked out cars and lots of really nice classic lowriders . Lots of kids running amuck and the grills were going off . We just rolled through and took a few snaps .

I really hate these guys...

Mike it's been three years,

don't you think its time for a visit?

San Diego Comicon 2011 was bigger than ever and Vaughn actually had a lot of fun this time .

We decided to wait till Sunday this year which they say is " kids day " . Well I guess there were a few kids in the house , but it seemed like any regular day to me . Packed full of nerds & cosplayers & geeks & various good and bad guys .

Also we saw ( and I'm not sure why they were there to begin with . . . ) the Sons of Anarchy cast , signing autographs . Amy took a few pictures of those guys and I'll post them later when I get them off her phone . I know I know , F those guys and that show . . . whatever . I love it and you do to , so shut it .

This year I only spent $20 and I felt weird not having a backpack full of obscure fragile toys and junk that had to be spirited home . . . I got my son a Transformers toy , and 2 cookies . that was the extent of my Con experiance this year . I'd say the smiles on his face in the various pictures make up for the lack of money I spent this year .

Last weekend we went to Barona for the King of Clubs drag races

Barona is a local indian reservation and they have an 1/8 mile drag strip . A few of my friends were racing and we like to go out and camp with them ( camping is free btw ) and support their efforts . By support I mean hang around and eat great bbq food and have drinks all day . . . but once the sun goes down it gets fancy at the compound . This is my buddy Dave's Silverstreak trailer all lit up in all its glory .

This should take you less than twelve parsecs to paint...

Hey batter batter !

Have a great 4th of July long weekend

Barbecue it up ladies and bros!!!!

I finally managed to get someone to send me a picture !

It looks good all painted up like this . . . freedom machine , knees in the breeze .