Forever.

june13th2014
All day, e’ry day.

In Wednesday’s post I said that this post wasn’t gonna be here, but I had that sweet gif that’s up there which I’d been saving for months, and if I didn’t use it today, I would have had to wait eighteen full cycles of the moon before the next Friday the 13th, so I went for it.

I’m a dirty liar.

Here’s a story for you that comes in two parts.

Firstly, my nearly life-long love of fanzines is no secret. Plus, I regularly gush about art that doesn’t suck. Well, it was sometime in the mid 90s when I came across a little fanzine called ‘The Moonlight Chronicles’;
MLC
Via.
When I first started picking them up, I learned that the man behind the pen was a person called Dan Price, and his adventures, as well as the resulting production of the zines was thanks to a shoe company that some might remember called Simple;
simpleads
Every now and again, you’d stumble across a Simple dealer, and inside you could scoop up on one of Dan’s efforts. His stories were amazing, and his wanderlust was contageous.

Naturally, what really spoke to me the most were his drawings. Having carried a sketchbook with me nearly everywhere I go since I was eighteen, his ability to translate what he saw into visual fodder was extremely inspiring. Secondly, besides his observational sketches, he would always have all these drawings of yurts and adventure trucks and so on that he wanted to one day build, in which his adventures and life plan could continue.

Eventually Simple sold to another company, or they shut down or something and Dan Price’s books could no longer be found.

The few that I collected got stashed away in some box or another (aside from this guy I found in my collection by my desk);
mlc24
-and I’d long since forgotten both his name, and the name of his zine, and after numerous attempts to find out any information about him with the Googles, I came up with nothing.

Fast forward to two days ago when the mail man brought to me a box from my parents containing every card and letter I’d ever written to them;
alltheletters
After texting them to make sure they weren’t breaking up with me, (thankfully they weren’t. They had just recently moved and were unloading years of stuff they’d collected.) I began going through each letter individually. Contained in one of the letters I’d sent while traveling through Flagstaff years ago, I’d mentioned Dan and his artwork.

Immediately I jumped on the computer and did another search for his name when I found this;

Naturally I was thrilled to find that not only was he was still living his own amazing dream, but that an array of his Moonlight Chronicles were still available.

Everyone could stand to have a little bit of Dan’s ideology woven in their daily existences, and I’m supremely thankful that my own orbit has now come back into his.

Now that we’ve handled that, let’s get into a regular bit of bike junk. Like, for example, this photo of DeMonika, looking smashing in the old-timey baseball uniform inspired 2014 All Hail The Black Market kit;
dmlookingpro
To be pro, one first must look pro.

And in other news, Jeff from Maximo Supremo residents All City sent out an email detailing a pretty bitchin new addition to the family;

Hello friend,
Just wanted to let you know that we’ve unleashed our new beast upon the

The Blue/white/ black is production color;
jydallcity
Thanks a mint.

Why, that little beaut does indeed look like a ton of fun to ride. Then again, one speed mountain bikes always look like a ton of fun to ride until I get on it and remember that no matter how they look, they always hurt me shitload.
And speaking of that specific amount of hurting, it was on Wednesday when I stumbled upon this article about a twenty-one year old man called Edward ‘Ryko’ Reichenbach, who 100 years ago rode 3000km up the island known as Australia;
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The saga reminded me very much of one time a few years ago I rode 60 miles with nothing in my system but a banana.

And it’s with that, that I once again thank you for spending some of your day with me. I hope you had as much fun reading today’s effort as I would have had assembling it, had I been riding water slides at the beer factory.

The Black Market readership’s support means the world to me and I love each of you like, forever.
newlittleskull

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Leave a Reply

7 Responses to “Forever.”

  1. Seattle June 13, 2014 at 12:04 pm #

    Before Moonlight Chronicles, Dan published a photo ‘zine called “Shots.” I subscribed for several years, and had several photos in it. Over time, Shots had more and more of Dan’s drawings, which eventually lead to the Chronicles. I think Dan published Shots from his tepee in northeast Oregon (?).

  2. trama June 13, 2014 at 4:52 pm #

    some people are really good with the pen and i love it but it makes me feel a little crappy when i try it

  3. JohnL June 13, 2014 at 7:01 pm #

    Do you ride any bikes with suspension?

    Friday the 13th and full moon.

    ps- good reading here.

    • Stevil June 14, 2014 at 4:18 pm #

      I have the old RS suspension posts on most of my bikes, but you weren’t asking about that. I do have proper suspension forks on both of my mountain bikes, so yeah I do. I’m old and broken. The more cush the better.

  4. East Bay Ed June 14, 2014 at 7:13 pm #

    You’ve got cool parents.

  5. Rick June 15, 2014 at 4:57 pm #

    Awesome post my friend. Isolation and adventure, much needed medicine for the modern world.
    “Live it up before you pass away.”
    Bob Pollard

  6. Brooks Ayola February 23, 2022 at 4:29 pm #

    I literally just found this article after trying to use Google to help me remember the name of the “Simple Shoes book”… eventually found this by replacing book with zine! Thanks!