Co-Conspirators

August 24, 2007

The Sinking Ship cont...

So I finished The Sinking Ship tonight...stayed late at work to get the last few details right. Here she is in all her cold, steel glory....







Went together great! The only exception being that the canti tabs that I had welded on the seat stays were tacked on too high...so the brake pads are at their maximum lowest point in the caliper arms...meaning that they'll never be perfectly adjusted until they wear in. Other than that, it seems to run great! Here's the simplified bike check:
-Surly Cross fork
-Avid Shorty 6 cant brakes
-53 x 21 drivetrain
-Surly Singulator
-Mavic Open Pro's laced to Ultegra hubs
-Crank Bros Egg Beater pedals
-Custom Ghostship stem
-Custom Ghostship 'Indy' down tube decals
-19lbs and change (with pedals for all the weight geeks/snob/weenies who're keeping track....oh yeah! almost forgot, I weighed in at around 206lbs this morning but that was before I took a shit...and I was wearing socks. Tally that up you elitist bitches.)
Hopefully she'll stay in one piece for my first race this weekend up in Agawam, MA. Wish us luck and terror this weekend (as well as no mechanicals, lots of mud and no crashes!)!

August 17, 2007

Thank God For Cigarettes pt 2

So the show....holy shit! Dean and I left CT @ 2pm, had some good conversation and music on the way up, beating out the rush-hour traffic. We wandered around the city for a bit while waiting for friends to show up. Walked through Northeastern, down to Copley Square. Stopping into and Irish pub for a pint is where things began to get interesting.

No sooner do we sit down at the bar than this shit-housed, weird east islander looking dude starts trying to make conversation. After making small talk and pointing out my trucker hat, he states, "White trash from CT, huh?". What the fuck?! Then he backed off, did his little drunk apology. Dean talked him up a bit and found out about another bar further up the street. So we pound our pints and get the fuck out of the twilight zone episode our experience has become. Up the street, we go to the Pour House.

Damn, what a great bar! Cheap PBR on tap, cheap (good!) food, friendly bar-tenders, good music. A win-win situation. We definitely found the silver-lining to the cloud looming a bar back. We ate, drank and generally had a good time. On the way back we hit one last irish pub in Dean's buddy's neighborhood while we wait for them to call us. Hit the packy, pick up some Sparks and head to their house. We pre-game a bit and then take the T over the Roxy for the show.

Get up to the doormen at the entrance at which time we're told that the show is sold out. WTF!!!!! We start chatting with them a little and 2 of our crew zip right in and get to the floor. Fuck! So we back off around the corner and I check out what the hand stamps look like at the door. Our brains start going into overdrive about what we can do to get in. There are four of us at this point w/ two inside. No one has a black marker, is there a back entrance? Let's go buy a scalped ticket....The 2 come out and spin some ideas with us. I spy a cigarette butt on the ground and try to ash the back of my hand. Nothing. Dean puts out his cigarette and ashes my hand for me, then himself. One of our four decide he's not getting in and leaves. Time to give it a shot.

We walk up to the door like we own the place, breeze past the two guys at the door (who are stamping hands and have no idea what's going on). We go up the stairs, and are asked for ticket stubs or hand stamps. We show 'em the "stamps" and they ask where the 'Over 21' is. Ummmm, must have rubbed off, it's hot as fuck out! We're told to go back downstairs and get restamped. We get the same questions at the door by the guy we breezed past minutes earlier. Dean and I tag-teamed the dude with answers to his questions...'yeah, we've been here for like 15-20mins...it's super humid out, the stamps rubbed right off, the guys upstairs told us to come back down.' Aparantly, it worked, cause next thing we know, he's asking if we're with the band (we are if it gets us in!), and we're back in getting wristbands and are on the floor!

We run around a bit, checking out the floor. I randomly run into my friends Jay and Natalie. Haven't seen them in about 3 years! They're getting married, and life is great. Now I'm on cloud-fucking-nine, getting into a sold-out show using the oldest trick in the book, running into friends who are great, my brain is exploding!

I get up front for the last few songs of Lifetime's set, and wait for the Souls. They played great, I got a couple of Ghostship stickers up to the band, just awesome. There was a ton of crowd surfing going on. I didn't catch too many boots to the head. The worst part was some dude stage diving and gouging me in the eye. When you're jumping into a sea of people, keep your goddamned hands up! I was literally cross-eyed for about 3 songs! It must have been bad cause 2 guys in front of me were asking if I was alright.

An awesome show. Great night out, nice and cool. We grabbed some pizza on the way out and headed back to CT. An amazing evening if there ever was one. Good times!

THE BOUNCING SOULS (or Thank God for Cigarettes!)

The. Bouncing. Fucking. Souls. This show was possibly the best concert experience I've EVER HAD! How should we say.....Epic? Yes. Epic. Details tomorrow.....

August 15, 2007

Oleee, Ole Ole Oleee, Ohleeeeee, O-Oleeeee.....

Bouncing Souls tonight!!!!! So. Fucking. Excited!!!! Watch out Boston! Here's a photo of Pete I took the last time I saw them in New Haven:

August 13, 2007

New Art

I've been getting 'back to my roots' so to speak lately and doing more art. This should be the way that things have always been, but shit happens, you know? So here're two pieces that I've been working on lately.



-This is the painting that everyone's been asking about. It's still in process but I wanted to share where it is so far. Who doesn't love battling kites?



-Another piece that's kinda mid-process. I say 'kinda' because I've started doing these larger drawing pieces (like this one), kinda treating it like a big sketchbook. Total stream-of-consciousness type trip, naimean? They're super fun cause I get to be so loose and not worry too much if things are a little 'offy' (yep, it's a word now!). Oh yeah! Flickr gave me a pro account, so I was sorting through some OLD photos. As long as we're on the subject of art, here's a piece I did for my friend's old band Indian Chief Headdress:



One last thing! If you like reading about relationship advice (and wish that someone like myself or my boy Wolf wrote the answers) go check out this blog. Enjoy!

August 08, 2007

Sinking Ship (or Everything Was Going According To Plan When...)

I've dubbed it 'The Sinking Ship'...the rear tire clearance looks more like a track frame, seatpost size should be 27.2, but seems a bit smaller, issues with the Singulator....I've started putting together a single-speed cyclocross bike for the upcoming season. Had Jimmy from Black Magic Bikes retro an old road frame that I have to work as a cross rig. Started hanging parts on it tonight. The bb / cranks went smooth as snot. For all the road rides I did in the rain on my old road bike, the bb has little to no corrosion and is still smooth. Super stoked. Then I tried to hang the Surly Singulator...that's when things went wrong.

After fucking with the Singulator's return spring (swapped out the 'pushing down' spring for the 'pushing up' spring) for a good 30mins (I had to actually bend the spring end so it would match up with the hole it seats in...what a bitch!) I hung the part on the frame only to discover that the clamp bolt that adjusts the chainline position of the jockey wheel was stripped! Fuck! I pulled it off the frame and took the bolt out to see how bad the threads were. I could only laugh out loud when all the threads removed themselves along with the bolt. Spare fucking parts. If only I knew where my digital camera was, I could take a picture of all the carnage to share. Good thing my other parts order goes in tomorrow so I can slap another Singulator on there. Then I get to stay after work to disassemble my rear Campy shifter to figure out what the fuck isn't fully engaging and making shifting downright inaccurate and miserable. Maybe I should sell off a few bikes and alleviate some of the issues.....hmmmm. (Of course I'm joking!)