Welcome to my corner of the sandbox.

It's not the best, but it's also not the worst, and there are guaranteed to be no turds in it. One thing I can say for certain is this is all you get until next year.

Here we are, once again sharing my kingdom of dirt, with all the toys anyone could want to play with and more.

First things first, the best artist in the whole world has just released his newest effort, and I love it as much as I love all of them;

As always, don't let your short attention span short change you. There is so much in each of his videos that it takes me repeated viewing to capture it all. If you haven't watched them all, or you are newly initiated to Mr. Finger's particular brand of genius, then I encourage you to start at the beginning and work your way through to today's.

His attention to detail and skillset is beyond reproach, and I adore his output. To say I'm quite enamored with him as a maker would be an understatement so I was quite taken when I received the following voice memo from him last week;

 I mean, what the hell, man? Is this what it's like to achieve everything in life I could ever hope to?

Moving on from art, to the dreadfully boring topic of bicycles, anyone worth their salt has been watching the world's best sharpening their elbows and doing battle in the mud, sand, and generally inclement conditions over there in Europe. You've likely seen Eli Iserbyt acting like a petulant little bitch;

And after his suspension, getting rewarded for his nonsense as well.

Well, I've throughly enjoyed watching him get served a bit of street justice, and a few rounds of what some might consider karmic retribution, but in a recent exchange with a media personality who will remain anonymous, I got word of a wholly decimating blow. I'll recount the exchange nearly word for word for you now;

'I was on a trip a couple years ago in Spain, and there was a Belgian dude there who was super into cross. Being Belgian, he was hyper-national, somewhat racist, and some kind of mix between misogynist and closeted he-lesbian. Nothing out of the ordinary there. At the time I hadn’t developed much of an opinion on Iserbyt, but we were talking cross and getting drunk so I asked this dude what he thought. He fucking exploded. “He’s a little shit. (Who's) been complaining about everything since his mother kicked him out of the womb. nobody likes him- Not the fans, not the other racers, maybe not even his sponsors. We wish he wasn’t Belgian.'

Speaking of cyclocross, and specifically sand, anyone who's ever thrown a leg over a 'cross bike knows what a brilliant challenge it can be. One of my favorite stories on the topic came to my ear after running into Pineapple Bob one day outside of an Oakland Coffee shop. As we sat, he described how he didn't much care to go on the usual training road ride up into the hills any longer, but what he truly was enjoying was to ride up to a little lake in the gateway of said road rides and to simply ride figure eights on the beach. The way he described watching the sand fly up off his tires and sparkle in the sunlight was inspired. He detailed the experience it from the perspective of an artist, and I will always cherish him for sharing it with me. 

In the years since I've gone out and done figure eights on his birthday because I'm just that sort of sentimental nerd;

They're painting masterworks, while  I'm doodling on the walls with my own feces.