Living in å lånd öf måny milks and hönëy.
Welp, I went and did it. I uprooted from my new home in Santa Cruz of eight years and re-rooted to my old home in Oakland of fourteen years before that, and I gotta say, it feels good to be back;
This week has been (if there are children in the room, or the person reading this has delicate sensibilities, send them out of the room, and/or skip a line ahead) an absolute clusterfuck of a week. When I was young and dumb moving entailed filling a backpack and messenger bag with all my worldly possessions, borrowing a car to move my record collection and stepping on.
Now as a much older (though still fairly dumb) person, I seem to have amassed a collection of garbage that would make Fred Sanford green with envy.
As I told someone recently, if I started out with three tons of crap, I have donated and thrown away a solid ton, which is good, but still leaves me with two to contend with.
Now with several many hundreds of miles behind me, I have landed relatively unscathed, but with my work certainly cut out for me.
For the attentive among us, you might recall the initial photos I had here and there of my new basement, which I have affectionately dubbed ‘The Hole’;
I didn’t have a whole lot to work with but four walls and twenty five to thirty five pounds of the finest and most toxic dust ever to coat my sinuses. Never one to shy away from trimming out what otherwise would be considered by most to be a shithole, I put on my Martha Stewart wig and got to crackulating;
(The old green Coleman cooler in the back of the room is the bar)
Awesome. I now have two separate and fully functional areas in which to engage in making crappy art and barely working on bikes. Everyone should be so lucky.
The upstairs was another matter entirely and I got so far as hanging some of my considerable collection of artwork at which time I got distracted and made a sandwich.
However this wasn’t before getting my office somewhat put together;
With my muse present, there’s hardly a sentence I can’t complete.
This is all well and good and I’m sure you are hanging on every word, but the long and the short of it is I have been absent for an unreasonable amount of time, and besides boring you with tales of domesticity, I believe I said in my final transmission that I would have a new site up here. Well, I’m back and it’s obvious that the new site is in the box, still wrapped up waiting for the switch to be flipped just as it was when we last parted ways.
Until Cobra Commander gets around to flipping that switch, we’ll just stick with what we know.
Let’s get to the meat of the matter while there’s still daylight.
This clip may have made the rounds a braziillion times over, but I haven’t been paying attention, so when Ken, Justin, Skinny Bee and David all sent it to me I thought to myself “I should put that on the Black Market website” so I did;
Then at that very same minute, Bee’s diametric opposite, Loudass came through with this;
“Breakfast of champions”;
Then, the opposite of both of those jokers, Pamela Palma sent the following request on Valentine’s Day;
“Hey Stevil,
How are you? Hope you’re getting lots of love from your lady today. But I’m not writing to wish you happy loving thoughts on this day. I’m asking if you could give a shout out to my calendar on your blog.. Its a ladies Calendar!
You know on bikes and all. I know your man friends would love this type of item. I have a bunch left and really need to pay my printer. I really would appreciate it.
Here’s the 411-
It benefits the SF Food Bank. It has dames! even a pregnant lady! Lyndsey Hawkins! even that Rapha girl!
The 2012 Ladies Bicycle Calendar can now be ordered online at www(dot)forwardthreads(dot)com
Help support the San Francisco Food Bank and Promote Women Cyclist!
Thanks I really appreciate it.
See you in Oakland soon.”
I got a few other emails from people. You wanna read about them?
In news of ‘so you wanna get a job in the fast paced and exciting world of bicycles?’, Peter from Maximo Supremo residents Surly Bicycle Brand emailed me with news of a headhunt;
“Stevil-
You could mention this, couldn’t you?
Thanks and please.”
Get a job at Surly bicycle Brand you say? I think we all know what that would be like;
In closing, Gypsy the Punk made the contact with some art that doesn’t suck, and just in the nick of time too;
“I saw the attached picture on a random Flikr page, and thought of you;
You can see some of the rest of her work here;
Pretty Whores.
I have no idea who she is other than that she’s young, and energetic, and…
…still looking for a voice…
…unless looking for her voice *is* her voice.
You never can tell with you artists types. You’re kinda shifty that way.
Punk rock is as punk rock does,
Gypsy”
He probably thought of me because everybody knows I love to eat spaghetti in the bathtub;
Either that or because I huff paint and then shoot cats to sell the carcasses to the local chinese food restaurant.
Enough is enough is enough. I have some inexpensive and easily assembled Swedish furniture to throw together.
It’s nice to be back though. Really it is.
I did not know that King Cobra came in cans.
$1.05 a forty (tax included) in a 1990 Youngstown, OH.
welcome back!
you look like a redken hair product kind of guy. don’t ever move again until they make you, is my motto.
There’s Waaay to much fiber in that breakfast.
You have a nice Hole.
Nice Buffalo Bill murder basement. Perhaps you can listen to “Goodbye Horses” and have a dance party down there.
After watching the supercool freestyle video and wishing I had a pile of bacon… this came up in the little youtube window
http://youtu.be/g73N1aS
My day is complete… I can go to bed now
It Puts the Lotion on It’s Skin, or It Gets the Hose Again!
I heard they was some good ridings up there.
Can I come stay at your house for about a week?
If you weren’t cool enough to deserve all this rad shit happening around you, I would totally be talking shit right now.
No… wait a sec… fuck you anyway.
Oakland fuckin’ Hella rules.
Welcome to the real world.
The town where the potholes are filled with broken glass and the blood of the young and stupid.
You could definitely fit a great big fat person (or two) down there.
Are you and 2-$hort gonna hang?
On behalf of the legions of lake merritt rats, o-town cyclists, and the OPD anti-gang unit,welcome back to Oakland. Protect yer bacon at all costs.
two things- your new cave looks civil, and your readers seem to be funnier than you. why is this? just askin’ , EK
and whats yr cats name?
welcome back to Oakland Stevil…..at some point you to come down to west to check kustom rawk poster art ala RonDon ™ and Chris Shaw studios
Is Chris still on 32nd? I haven’t seen that guy in an age.
Yes he is. Same studio the art is getting even better. RonDon and Chuck too.
Sorry if I missed it but I don’t really have a lot of time to read much now that i am masquerading as a productive member of society but WHY did you go back to Oaktown? Curious minds want to know. I was just telling somebody about our Strawberry Canyon escapades.
P.O.
TTG
I would like to say that number of reasons brought us back, chief among them being to be closer to DeMonika’s family, a number of our friends, greater professional opportunity for her, and simply because we missed it here. I would also like to mention that Santa Cruz was great but our lives kind of ran their course there and it was time to move on. In truth, we left because I robbed the store by our house and got busted dropping a deuce in my neighbor’s chimney.