A couple years ago I went riding in Western New York and the highlight of the trip was staying in Bradford, PA and visiting the birthplace of the Zippo! I’m not sure why I thought this was so cool but for whatever reason it stuck with me. There is something so iconic about that little steel contraption that has changed so very little in the last 75 years.
I got talked out of buying one at the Bradford PA factory store (where they’re still made to this day) and I’ve been quietly resentful ever since! Hahaha… So, I then figured I’d find an old one that had survived a war and had some sort of cool engraving like “I love the fucking army and the army loves fucking me” or something along those lines but they can get a little pricey and I was broke so I’d forgotten all about it until I was watching Carnivale and Band Of Brothers, both old-timey jams which re-piqued my interest…
I found a bunch of WWII lighters that looked incredible but, again, a little pricey so I was pleased to find a 1978 with it’s original packaging for next to nothing… I figured, as much as I wanted a much older / well worn one I was born in ’78… this guy was born in ’78… we’ll get along just fine.
Should get here in the mail next week… I can’t wait to light shit on fire.
Mine found itself squarely at the center a new collage wall I’m starting… I wanted a big piece for this wall but that’s probably not gonna happen so like Voltron a whole bunch of little guys will come together to make me happy…
I still need to find somewhere to put these fine gents photographed sometime in the 1930′s, probably at the Mutual Street Arena or Maple Leaf Gardens.
L-R: Frank Bartell, Tony Beckman, MaxHurley, Reggie Fielding, Jules Audi, Lew Rush, Torchy Peden.
I’m not nerdy enough to figure out exactly which race these were taken at given that most of these guys were at pretty much all those races but I am nerdy enough to have tried for a couple minutes before realizing it really doesn’t matter.
Truth be told, I haven’t read a book (that didn’t have pictures in it) cover to cover in some time but there was a time when I always had at least two on the go and a waist-high stack ready to be digested. My time as a giant bookworm was relatively short lived but during that time I was fortunate enough have made it through some seriously quality material; top of that list being A People’s History of the United States (1492 to Present) by Howard Zinn.
Few books shaped my world view the way A People’s History did; I’ve read it at least twice (some chapters even more) and have lent it out to so many people over the years (in fact, I don’t even know who has it right now) and am looking forward to reading the most recent revision which I believe takes us all the way up until 2003… Unless Zinn was like Tupac, this will probably be the last of several revisions.
Coming home from a long day to a mailbox full of new/new old stuff? Yep. That’ll do!
Sparkles’ grandfather was a tailgunner! No, no, not like that… you shitheads! He manned the tailgun in a Havoc bomber during the war… While looking around at vintage military stuff on eBay I got to lookin’ at those old planes and boom! There she was! Sure, it’s nowhere near as nice as the stuff Spark gave me to hang on my walls but I think he’ll dig it! Budz.
Then I got to openin’ the big tube from Shirts & Destroy! I’d totally forgotten that I’d even ordered this shirt… All Seein’ Eyes a plenty! Well alright!
This is the last time I’ll mention it, I swear, but that Thomas Hooper / Doomriders piece is fucking awesome.
I don’t currently have any other Giclée prints and I’m really, really impressed with the quality of this print by Alpha Reprographics. It’s got a really incredible feel to it; the stock is perfect and it looks so much like it were painted by hand in watercolour.
14″ x 21″, 42/50 (or 100? I’ll have to check) – numbered & signed by the man himself. I may be filtering out the amount of skulls displayed in my place but this one is going to have to be one huge exception – it’s beautiful. I think there are still a few left so if you’d like one go on and git!
When I was a young pup I had a serious Mac N Cheese problem. I’m not kidding, I would save up my allowance and money I made doing odd jobs to buy cases of Kraft Dinner because my need for macaroni noodles smothered in cheesey goodness outweighed my parents desire to provide. KD was good, no doubt, but nothing compared to my mom’s Mac N Cheese baked to perfection in the oven.
Just the same, I’ve had vegan KD alternatives and they are… um, ok. In fact, the first website I ever built for anyone other than myself was for Road’s End Organics well over 10 years ago and I did it in exchange for a case of Shells & Chreese.
But I digress; on a recent trip to Chicago I discovered Teese but only bought the Mozzarella version… So when Katie from Sadie’s Diner said that she was going there and was kind enough to offer to pick up some more for me, I couldn’t refuse. She grabbed me some of the cheddar so I could breathe new life into one of my favorite childhood memories.
So, with Momma Rennick’s recipe and my vegan alternatives all lined up – a new generation of Mac N Cheese was born in the Rennick kitchen…
I love it when I get new / old things in the mail! This morning I had delivered a beautifully worn mid-40′s Marc Favre military watch (I hope no one did anything awful in it) that I scored last week for less than the cost of replacing the batteries in my current timepiece… which I found I’ve had to do once every year and a half or so.
I’ve spent the last 3 or 4 years with a 5 pound brick on my wrist so it’ll take a little bit to get used to what seems like a little baby watch. It might actually be too small, I can’t tell if it is or if I’m just used to something much more substantial.
I love how well worn it is and for something that is over 50 years old it keeps perfect time! Well, it has since 11:04 this morning anyway!
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Given the date and that Lemmy is an avid (and somewhat questionable) collector of WWII paraphernalia, I’ll leave you with this…
Motorhead / Girlschool: Emergency
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While we’re talking old stuff coming in the mail, on Friday both of these guys showed up!
Positively No profanity Or Dancing; This is supposed to be from the 1920′s and came from the Northern Bible Belt (Central PA) – I’m a little skeptical as it almost looks like a photocopy but who knows? It’s in a sealed frame and I’m not about to open it to check it out any time soon…
1940′s Hyde Park military watch – recently serviced & running perfectly as far as I can tell…
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I wasn’t a fan of the dressy new band so I picked up a NOS Military Issue drab band which looks much nicer.
The Doublenauts were kind enough to let me tag along with them on their annual pilgrimage to Chicago for the Pitchfork Music Festival, more specifically the Flatstock poster show series. I didn’t really care much for any of the bands playing (save for Fucked Up & Pharaohe Monch) but It’s been a while since I got out on the road so how could I not go and do my best to cramp the F out of their S?!
Day One
I can’t wait to get my phone bill – between GPS & text messaging I’m screwed!
Ballin’ outta control.
Sorry boys.
Day Two
Beachball on the head is the new two hats is the new one hat.
I ate, like, 10 of these. Seriously.
Andrew is seriously impressed with text messaging. Seriously.
Ladies, you’re going to need one of these mirrors so you can remember just how beautiful you are.
Novelty cowboy hat is the new beachball on the head.
Ladies, rub on your titties. Yeah I said it, rub on your titties!
I also ate, like, 10 of these.
She don’t use jelly.
Not gay… Not gay at all.
Day Fo
Apparently I really like bridges.
It was really nice to spend some quality time with some really close friends, make some new ones, see some of what looks like an amazing city – I’m going to try to go back in the fall and bringing my bike next time!
Biggest thanks ever to the boys for taking me with you!
Despite the massive amounts of pretty pictures I managed to keep my purchasing down and only walked away with a Small Stakes designed Constantines jammer, a Hero designed Black Angels / Black Rebel Motorcycle Club hoohaw, a Strawberry Luna designed alphabet print for my nephew and a cardboard Budai 1 of 1. Grand total… $20 for the Cons print. I don’t like to pay for things; thank you all for your generosity!
Last night Andrew also brought over this here Magnolia Electric Co. print that I fell in love with in Chicago. It’s got some really lovely details that you don’t see until you look up close – just the way I like it.
Oh yeah! I just found these in my bag – vegan marshmallows! I hadn’t had a marshmallow in almost 15 years. Thanks Chicago!
Speaking of new stuff, because I like stuff; the night before I left I got a mail drop from Transient…
…and this here vintage gas light.
I don’t know much about it other than it was converted to electricity sometime in the 70s and hung in a hollywood studio ever since. I need to extend the cord on it so I can’t hang it yet but it’s going to make a pretty serious addition to my living room!
Weekend theme song: Double Up, playa!
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On a much more serious note; shout out to my man Mitch who was apparently hit by a cab on Friday night and suffered an epidural hematoma, underwent emergency surgery and is apparently now recovering.
The entire cycling community is in complete shock! Cabbies NEVER run down cyclists, there must be some mistake…
Spark was kind enough to lend me the new Stacey Peralta documentary Crips & Bloods: Made In America and I had a free moment to sit down and lay my peepers on it last night. Well shot, edited and incredibly interesting; the doc delves into the roots of LA gang culture, extending well beyond the formation of the gangs themselves in a way I hadn’t seen on film before. Well worth watching…
With that in mind; I’m going to have to make sure that my Mom doesn’t cross Loyalist drive into Crip territory with this bad boy on. She really wanted blue but unfortunately Lee Valley only carries red. Sheeeeit.
Fortunately for me, I wear mine where no one can see so I’m safe everywhere I go…
I do have to watch out for the universally feared witches hat gang, though. The last thing I want is to have a fattening, balding, alcoholic, nervous wreck spell cast upon me…
Ghost tires FTL!
Fortunately for Hammy, he’s got friends who’ll ride across the city with a spare and then post really flattering pictures of him on the interweebz.
My kitchen is finally starting to look like something – I can’t wait to be able to actually use it!
The basement, as well…
My roof, on the other hand… Would you be pissed if this is how your brand new roof looked after a rainfall? Yeah, me too. SLOPE, dudes!
EDIT: It is being fixed. Nice.
I don’t know what’s funnier; the fact that someone (Chris? Jon?) got a hold of my phone while I wasn’t looking and this is what they came up with…
…or that it was normal enough that Robbie didn’t react to it at all.
I’d really hoped to put in some good hours in the saddle this weekend, with the weather being what it was (nice ‘n hot), but the time quickly evaporated and the opportunity to get out for a long haul quickly dwindled. A bit of a bummer, sure, but I did make the most of the day and spent it casually rolling around the city with the budz. Long live the budz.
It was Joey’s first show and he worked tirelessly to put it together (right up to the very last second) and the result was fantastic. The turnout was incredible, the vibe was wholly positive and the vast majority of the decks were super impressive.
I’m very proud of all of my friends that took part in the show and, as always, am in awe of how talented they all are; shout out to The Brothers McCracken (aka Doublenaut), Tami Noa Levi, Hayden Menzies, Andrew Pommier, The Brothers Dywelska, Matt Killen, Che Kothari and all the other artists that took part and turned out some amazing thrashable art.
Some of the decks sold at the show and some others are apparently spoken for but there are still some left to buy so if you’ve got some bucks and bare walls be sure to swing by The Bait Shop to check them out! Even if you’re not interesting in buying, if you didn’t make it to the show it’s still worth going by to have a peek while the show is still running.
Hayden tells us how he really feels
It’s ok, it wasn’t long before he was on the spot, himself.
So many amazing friends, both old and new, in the same place. Warm fuzzies all around. Yeah, that’s right, warm fuzzies. What?!
The man of the hour, Joey Clarke.
There are also still lots of shirts and Freedom Fighter spring decks available so be sure to get in touch with Joey if you’re at all interested.
The show also set the stage for a lovely little suprise that we cooked up for our pal Mike Wong in honor of his 40th birthday.
He’s been talking for at least 2 years about wanting to get back on a bike to help him stay in shape and to make his commute a little bit more interesting so we figured that there was no better occasion than this and no friend more deserving than The Wonger.
Thanks to Spark for being the organizational genie (and best dude ever) that he is, Sean and Bikes On Wheels for hooking it up and everyone who threw a couple bucks into the pot to make sure Mike would get a gift that will keep on giving for years to come. Big shout out to Dave, who for obvious reasons couldn’t be there despite how badly he would have liked to have been, who came through huge! Good lookin’ out, homie.
Let us not forget about the so-called 5th Beatle that didn’t quite make it to the show; the submission entitled “Chimps Like Us (Baby we were born to swing)” as presented by Sir Robert Blyth. It will be on eBay shortly with a BIN price of $10,000.00 – don’t sleep!
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Update: Joey has uploaded a bunch of Viktor’s pics here, and they’re great.
My man Aaron hit me up last week to let me know that he had gotten his hands on some wonderful little nuggets of Toronto Cycling history – beautifully preserved photos of High Park races from the 40′s and a bunch of old CNE track photos which I’m going to assume are from the height of the 6-day races; Audy, Torchy Peden, Lew Rush, etc. Some real gems in there!
Thank again Aaron; I really appreciate you thinking of me and hooking me up, frosty beers shall be shared soon enough!. Unfortunately for the rest of you, the rights to the photos do not belong to either of us so they cannot really be shared or placed online but rest assured, they will make fine prints to be hung in my new place.
Which brings me to my next point and the main reason that I haven’t been blogging (or doing much of anything else) for the last week or so. I’ve mentioned it briefly a couple times here without proper explanation so here’s what’s going on. As the story goes; we’ve kicked around the idea for years but with the economy tanking my folks and I decided to go in on a house together as an investment property together.
We set our sights on a beautiful semi-detached late 1800′s Victorian in Beaconsfield village. The bones are good and the location is amazing so we put an offer in and much to our surprise and delight; they accepted it. It’s currently a single family home but over the course of the next few months we’re going to split the house in half so that half can be used as a rental and as of Saturday, the other half is my new home.
Thanks to my folks, my gal and the buds for helping me move all of my junk from one container to another.
I’ll post a bunch of pictures once I get things more set up / put away which will be the “before” pictures because after a few months the house is going to be completely transformed. It’s going to be a lot of work, take a lot of time and money but in the end I think it’s a sound investment and is going to be a very exciting learning experience for me.
Thanks to everyone for your help and support going into this project / next stage in my life; it’s weird to wake up one day and realize that you’re starting to become an adult. If the bald spot didn’t put the nail in that particular coffin – this has.
First up is the Ciöcc Mockba ’80 reissue track bike – a replica of the bike Ciöcc made for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Giddy up. They really, really should have done something about that stem, though, really.
More details here or download the full “Vintage” catalog here.
As if that plus the reissue of Unicanitor (which I don’t have much interest in but think it’s neat, anyway) weren’t enough excitement for day, how about these Vittoria 1976 Track Shoe reissues? New hotness, indeed.
It really is too bad for me that an 1890s house is taking financial priority over 1970s / 80s bike junk. Old and busted, indeed.
“Since moving to London from Paris about 8 years ago, one thing I have never underestimated is the unrivaled ability of the British to jump on an occasion to dress up. Yesterday I took part in the first Tweed Run, a group ride gathering about 150 cyclists, all dressed in tweed, plus fours, flat caps, etc… A lot of them brought their classic bikes along, with some dating as far back as 1909. Our leisurely stroll took us around London, clearly puzzling foreign tourists and locals alike.” -Yorgo Tloupas
As much as I tend to clown on dorky bike things at least a little bit, even the ones I participate in; I love all things old timey, save for the overt white supremacist patriarchy (thanks Bell) and probably a bunch of other things, I’d love it if Toronto had a “Tweed Run” of our very own – especially if I could get my hands on a Farthing to ride for the day… and then keep forever and ever. Any takers?
The other day on my way out for my afternoon coffee I found these old Grain Edit worthy polish childrens books in a bus shelter and snatched them up but quick. I hope the little tyke didn’t return for them but hey, finders keepers, flathead.
Despite not understanding anything other than Prosze & Nie from years of hearing my neighbor, Ziggy, beg his mother for things and having her flatly deny him (not like it stopped him from doing anything he liked) I thought they looked pretty rad but I opened them up, checked out the illustrations, and all of a sudden Ziggy made so much sense. I mean, patterned hobo pigs, rams fighting wolves, mice attacking cats with scissors, wolves running off with babies? Bananas!
It got me thinking about Ziggy and what a classic character he was – let’s talk about some of the things that Ziggy did when we were growing up that were amazing:
• Loved Extreme, Blues Saraceno, and Yngwie Malmsteen and all kinds of wild shit
• Drove through construction zones with one hand on the wheel and the other holding the door open knocking over construction cones
• Drove his car into a porta potty that my friend Rayron was using at the time
• Got a wicked tribal sun tattoo on his thigh in Poland and did it with a girl
• Always came back from Poland with explosives that we’d use to blow up… well… anything
• Wore a wicked American flag bandana
• Could do flawless kickflips wearing cowboy boots
• Became a doctor
Hands down; my favorite thing to do with Ziggy was go down to the local ice rink in the spring / summer and load up a garbage bag with snow and then drive around the neighborhood throwing snowballs at wanna be gangsters. Hell, it was the suburbs… we were teenagers… what else would you expect?
Speaking of classic dudes, I know this is old but it’s like a fine wine and it get’s better with age. It’s really boqueting nicely.
PS Sorry mom & dad… and the residents of Mississauga.
