My First Hot Rod and Aunt Jeanne's '60 Impala

Yesterday's El Camino post reminded me of a pic I had in an old album. This is me in 1961 with my Aunt's '60 Impala Ragtop in the background. I remember it well, fire engine red with a white interior.

Don't know what Aunt Jeanne had under the hood, but mine had pedals and wasn't worth a shit on grass.

With my awesome sled and that bitchin' hat I was scoring big time with the neighborhood chicks in '61.

Sick El Camino

I've always dug the El Camino. It was the ultimate bi-polar vehicle. All luxury, leather seats, power windows and AM FM radio in front and sturdy workhorse, cargo hauler in the back. SUV's are gay.

This one is filthy as hell!

Chicks in the Kitchen

There's nothing I like more than a chick with a friendly smile, great personality and a sweet disposition.

With the possible exception of earthworm stew with centipede giblets in a sauce of white wine and egg whites.. 

Flat Trackin'

Saturday afternoon State Fairgrounds mile oval, beer flows through the crowd like the collective blood of morbid curiosity.

Ancient water trucks lumber around the track, like pissing primordial beasts, knocking down the dust for the featured race.

White knuckles grip throttle and lever as the flag drops and riders launch with bunched-up anxiety, steel-tipped leather boots bouncing over dirt clods and oil-soaked clay, into the fray of first turn mayhem.

Twisted bales of straw are only a thinly veiled facade against an unmerciful concrete wall, unyielding and ever-present...

Maniacal screams and hot dog wrappers float down from the drunks in wooden grandstands, but the intrepid riders hear only the syncopated rhythm of their screaming iron, see only the burnt rubber etched into the jagged-edged grooves of sunbaked clay.

Monday Badass

The fallen American Heroes who've died for our freedom. We owe it to them to be ever-vigilant against tyranny, both foreign and domestic.


 It's not all about cook-outs and parties.

Snakepit Memories

(None of these pics are mine, but look like the right era. My brother has a bunch of old, dog-eared photos but is totally non-digital and computer illiterate. Someday I'll have to grab the best from him and scan them.)




No one gives a shit about the Indy 500 anymore and it’s a damn shame. I live about thirty miles north of the Speedway and always wax nostalgic this time of year. I rarely missed a race in the eighties and nineties, always spent the day in the third turn of the infamous “Snake pit.” We’d get there about 6:00 am and would drop acid, smoke weed and drink screwdriver mix out of plastic gallon milk jugs. The snake pit was like the Wild West back then, largely un policed. Rape, sodomy, drunkenness and knife fights were commonplace. We always brought an old couch and placed it on top of a van or pickup to watch the race. At best all we could see were blurred views of the cars passing, but were too f@#ked up to care



After the race we’d traditionally shove the couch off the van , soak it with gas and torch it on the way out of the track. Cars and trucks would also be set ablaze as the spectators left the infield as well, giving it the appearance of the aftermath of a battlefield, a truly memorable sight, and a fitting way to end the Memorial Day festivities

Sadly, the Snake pit has been replaced with “Family Viewing Hills” and a f@#kin’ golf course!

Another Amërïkän tradition gone forever.

Off the Deep End

Into every life some rain must fall, but when we insulate ourselves from adversity we only grow frail like the sheltered marigold or the pale and sallow buttocks thrust into the heat of a searing summer sun. Embrace the biting winds and walk without dread through the worsening deluge. Seat yourselves among friends and make a joyous noise with vim and vigor.

Our goals are separated from us only by fear.

Paperback Classic

In my neck of the Backwoods the trailer park bimbos weigh considerably more than the almost tramp pictured here, a bi-product of soft drinks, beer consumption and hours spent watching daytime TV while slamming fried chicken by the bucket. The mannish face is pretty close, the bi-product of inbreeding and heavy cigarette use.


Noted author Gil Brewer had a bestseller with 13 French Street and then went and sold out and wrote Backwoods Teaser. But what the hell, a guy’s gotta’ pay the rent and it’s still pretty good entertainment for two bits.

Chicks in the Kitchen

Retro, tea -kettle, sleepy-eyed, spice rack nip slip edition.

Ugliest Production Motorcycle

I like ugly bikes. I love rat bikes, dirty rusty old shovels, resurrected garage-found CB 750's and even Moto Guzzis. My DL650 V-Strom is considered by many to be the ugliest, and for good reason. While shopping for it in '08, I discussed the V-Strom with the sales goon. I mentioned that I found it less than attractive. He kept saying things like, "Well sir, it's a purpose-built bike." and "You know, form over function." When I finally laid down the cash and signed all the papers, I asked him to give me his honest assessment of the bike's appearance. He finally admitted, "Yeah, it's pretty damn ugly."





Not to be completely outdone, Harley stuck their foot in the ugly bike gene pool with the abomination they call the Rocker. What the hell were they thinking?
The old original Super-Glide with its hideous boat-tail seat and red white and blue paint job was pretty bad too back in the day.

 

In my opinion the ugly prize goes to the Victory Vision. Victory was being optimistic in calling this thing a "Vision." Nightmare, maybe, hallucination possibly, but visions like this should be reserved for bad acid trips and horror movies. This atrocious spaceship looks like a designer, fired from NASA for failing the drug test, took an oversized '58 Cadillac tail fin and stuck an antiseptic V-twin engine in it, then wrapped it in some leftover Polaris snowmobile plastic.


The V-Strom, no beauty to be sure, is ugly due to its lack of cosmetics. In trying to differentiate themselves from Harley, the designers of the Vision and their overuse of cosmetics created a horrific, space-age nightmare.

Just my opinion, and as we all know opinions are like assholes, everyone has one, and most of them stink.....
.....or have large, orange vuvuzelas hanging out of them.

Monday Badass

I'm the last to fawn over a bunch of preening, arrogant Hollywood ass-wipes, but Steve McQueen was different. Love his attitude in his DUI shot.






The consummate badass and real-life biker.

Thursday Afternoon Beer Run & the Price One Pays for Looking Sexy

It's finally warm here in the vast RedState Midwest with temperatures in the eighties. I've broken out my summer wardrobe, feeling good and looking sexy. I went for a late afternoon beer run on my trashed-out, wrecked, and recovered Superglide, like an innocent, free-spirited, fully-circumcised schoolboy, wearing hot pants, a skin-tight wife-beater, cheap sunglasses and Budweiser trucker hat. Picked up a six pack of imported Mexican beer at the local rural liquor outlet and loaded up the sissy-bar mounted backpack ready to blast home on fumes and sweat-dropped beer-bottle condensation. As I hit the solenoid starter switch, I burned my leg on the straight pipes, leaving a small hunk of burnt flesh on the blued chrome.

I've been burning my leg on the same spot for thirty f@#kin" years, and still haven't learned not to ride in shorts.

Took the whole six pack to recover from the pain, shame and anguish.

Paperback Classic

Before the internet and such spell-binding diversion as "Survivor" and "Honey Boo-Boo" people entertained themselves with thirty-five cent literature and ten cent movie matinees.

Ernie Weatherall, being a visionary, probably knew that Real Gone Guys and Dolls on Dope would never go out of style.

Quail Huntin'

If I look at this thing for more than a few seconds I get a headache.

Chicks in the Kitchen

Nice tomatoes.

Congratulations

Gloria looks remarkably well after having just given birth to an S&S Generator Shovel.

Neglected

Been so busy I've had little time for posting stupid shit on the blog.

After my trip south in March I had to work on my trucks and building some other stuff for work. After sitting around all winter, I'm now busy as hell with the good weather. Feast or famine and all that crap.

My River Rat Rigid sits as I left it, neglected, and slowly rusting on the table. I hope to make a few bucks, buy some parts, and have more time when things slack off midsummer.

Meanwhile, I will endeavor to persevere.

Monday Badass

Unsafe at any Speed

Followed this dumbass (at a safe distance) for about a mile. His trailer hitch scraped the road every time he hit the slightest bump. Don't know if he negotiated a successful turn or lost the whole load on top of a Toyota.

Be careful, they're out there!

Mailing It In

In an effort to stay consistent with the rest of this week, I'm mailing it in today.

Kitchen Cutie

I think this is my all-time favorite.

Hubba, Hubba!

Dimmer Switch

My bikes will never win awards at bike shows.

Unless there's one for the most blockheaded dimmer switch.....

or most nonexistent horn......

Or rustiest head bolts.....

Overflow

1920's.
Crates of Milwaukee Iron sitting out front of the New England Branch.

No potted ferns, forty dollar T-shirts or designer bandanas in this Harley dealership.

Monday Badass

Random Dobie in a random snowy yard where lawn furniture and yard tools never come up missing.

Ole Mossy

Organic camouflage.

Mysterious Hippie Van, Broke Down South of Burlington

I spotted this hippie wagon, seemingly abandoned in the sleepy village of Burlington, Indiana. Located in the very heart of Redstate Amërïkä.

They don't smoke marijuana in Burlington.

But the meth labs and bootleg food stampers thrive on subsidized agriculture and addiction. Between hookworm treatments, the local unwed mothers lounge on crudely fashioned plywood porches watching the barefoot children play in the mud and discarded beer cans. New spring grasses struggle to grow in trash-strewn yards among the brightly-colored dandelions and last winter's dog shit.

In front of decrepit houses, once proud old men sit on buckets and lawn chairs, cigarettes clenched between grim teeth, as they watch the livestock trucks rumble through town carrying the undead swine to their final destination. Shrieking indignation, pink skin pressed against vent holes, urine and vomit oozing through floor drains, leaving a faint trail of trichinosis on the crumbling pavement of highway 39.

And there, on the edge of town tucked in beside the rail tracks, a broke-down purple microbus sits lonely and out of place, still smelling of residual patchouli, body odor and hemp, its owners unseen. Hopped a freight on The Santa Fe line no doubt, headed for Woodstock, like wandering, psychedelic ghosts.

New Favorite Bike

I'm diggin' those pipes.

Guardian of the Realm

"Some call him the Gangster of Love,
Some people call him Maurice. ..."

....but he's not. He's Mudflap, a dog of unquestionable integrity.  Whelped 'neath an abandoned pickup truck and wet nursed by a she-wolf in the vast Canadian wilderness, he grew to possess a combination of raw speed and astounding brute strength. He is quite capable of running down swift antelope or snapping the femur of a bull moose with his vise-like jaws. With his incredible quickness and uncanny reflexes he can snatch a freshly broiled pork chop off the table with the flick of his tongue, like a lizard catching flies on the outhouse wall. One time, in a formidable display of willpower and determination,  he swallowed a dish rag which passed completely through his digestive system with little or no affect on his personality or unflappable self-confidence.

Even though his testicles were snatched from the jaws of victory in a painful, pre-pubescent surgical procedure, he's forgiven me and has become a trusted companion and an effective protector of the vast and complicated Interplanetary Hermit Hovel Compound.

Chicks in the Kitchen

The smoke alarm goes off soon as she walks into the kitchen, even before she burns the toast.
She is the Goddess of meatloaf and GFI outlets.

Hotter than a short-circuited microwave in a July house fire.
Cool as a cucumber on a faux marble countertop.

Stockings of fish net and apron strings dangling loosely
in the forbidden valley of chocolate chip bran muffins.

"Sweeter than Tupelo Honey" and
Sharper than a set of Walmart^® steak knives.