Failed Hipster

summer, a photo by laurageorge on Flickr.

This is from a Craiglist posting

Failed hipster - fixie must go - $1100 (SLO)

I tried so hard. I dated a girl from Portland. I criticized cheese. I applied the term artisanal to every inanimate object that went in or on my body. I burned and singed my forearms just to make it look like I was going to culinary school. I grew Carol Brady hair. I got itchy from the finest flannel and I cut off circulation from the waist down with jeans that made my ass look like an elevator button.

. . .And I rode a fixie.

No more. It's all gotta go. The hair, the macrame, the texting overages, the Netflix and Hulu Plus. The record collection (have you ever tried to box up and move an effin stack of LPs?!) . . .and the bike. Pictured below is the bike. It's beautiful. It's got red rims. Red chain. Red tires. Red handlebars shaped like devil horns -- because it's the devil.

The guys at the hipster store don't tell you fixes don't stop. So I will. Fixies don't stop. Stop sign? Fixie don't care. Car coming turning in front of you at a three-way stop? Fixie laugh. Want Chipotle? Nope. Fixie want protein powder/beet/purple carrot/bee pollen juice and won't stop till he gets it. Fixie has a mind of his own.

Yesterday, Fixie got pulled over twice by SLO PD in three hours. In six months time, Fixie collected more tickets than a scalper for a Radiohead show at Hollywood Bowl.

I'm selling this badboy and tipping the dregs of my last PBR tall boy in his memory.

Les adieux à la reine (Farewell, My Queen)

A new Marie Antoinette movie? Yes, please!

My Heart Spits on their Idea of Love

This is my song today. Sorry, there's no video.

Foxy Photographer

fairy tale about a girl who found dead animal in the forest and shared it with her warmth, a photo by laura makabresku on Flickr.

I really love this photo and would like to do a painting based on it, but always wonder about how the photographer got the shot. Did the photographer find a dead fox and somehow convince the woman to pose with it? Or could this have been planned shoot with a taxidermied fox?

Old Fashioned Bicycles

Old Timey Biker Daredevil by Ryan Berkley  

What are they called?

Penny-farthing, high wheel, high wheeler, and ordinary are all terms used to describe a type of bicycle with a large front wheel and a much smaller rear wheel. Although they are now most commonly known as "penny-farthings", this term was probably not used until they were nearly outdated. It comes from the British penny and farthing coins, one much larger than the other, so that the side view resembles a penny leading a farthing.

What's up with the big wheel?

In about 1870, James Starley, described as the father of the bicycle industry, and others began producing bicycles based on the French boneshaker but with front wheels of increasing size, because larger front wheels enabled higher speeds on bicycles limited to direct drive.