tikaro.com

Well, I took the plunge and bought a motorcycle! It’s a 1982 Suzuki GS450L. I’ve heard this kind of bike referred to as a “UJM”, a “Universal Japanese Motorcycle.” It has 5100 miles, and is scrupulously clean. I think it’s a really good deal! Now I can start acting extra cool (sarcasm.)

I’ve been looking for protective clothing, and have been fascinated with Aerostich suits. They’re made out of Gore-Tex and heavy cordura, are waterproof for 30-45 minutes in a heavy downpour with no fairing on the motorcycle, and are reinforced with body armor! How cool is that! So I’m looking at colors, and I need your advice. Should I go with the hi-viz yellow and silver, so I’ll look like a Danish highway patroller, or should I get the gray suit with the red trim? Let me know!

I finished Motorcycle school today, and … I passed the tests! Only one student scrubbed out today – a tall stockbroker who owns a Triumph racing bike (the same as in Mission Impossible 2), and a really cool Arai helmet. During the stopping portion of the skill test, though, he hit the brakes too hard, skidded, and dropped the bike. Seven of us were left – when the test was over, our instructor Phil walked over to us. Phil’s a short, peppery Freemason, retired lawyer, and Harley tourer. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news for you’, he said, shaking his head. ‘The bad news is that we’re gonna give all you bastards licences!’

Motorcycle Safety School is held on a large asphalt range behind the track at Yonkers Raceway. I arrived at about seven, as the morning warmups were still going on for harness racers.

Behind the track, three steel shipping containers were full of the Honda and Suzuki 250s that the class rode all day. The bikes are styled like highway cruisers, but are diminutive in size, with the result that I spent the day feeling like a tottery Shriner. I’m having a blast, though, and have made a lot of progress — I can actually upshift, accelerate, then brake and downshift simultaneously to take a tight corner. Of course, this is while a semi-religous mantra courses continuously through my head: “front-brake-right-hand-rear-brake-right-foot-clutch-in-left-foot-downshift-look-through-the-turn-lean-roll-on-throttle,” whew!

So far, of the twelve people that started the course Wednesday night, four have scrubbed. I’m keeping my fingers crossed! But not on my right hand. I need that to brake.

I’m on the BxM4C bus from Manhattan to Yonkers Raceway for Motorcycle Safety School. The bus is full of night workers coming off their shift. Everyone knows the driver’s name, and vice versa. As we cross into the Bronx and stop at a light, the low morning sun slants into the front. The driver (Dave) gets up and pulls down the sunscreen over the passenger side of the windshield. ‘Let me get this for you, Roz’ he says to the young woman in the front seat with a green spiral tattooed on her earlobe.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

Somebody set up us the bomb!

Click on the link above IMMEDIATELY. Turn your sound card up, LOUD.

You have no chance to survive make your time.

All Your Base Are Belong To Us

I got the best request for the Ultimate Water Gun yet to date! Here’s a sample:

…In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my
voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.
Immediately I saw with my own eyes the trophy of an object of light in the
heavens, above the sun, and bearing the inscription, CONQUER BY THIS. At
this sight I myself was struck with amazement and immediately fell to my
knees and awoke from my dream.

Believe it or not, when I looked up your website was on the screen…

>>Read the whole request

The Terror of Sharpless Alley

Well, now I’m an official Badass Motorcyclist! That’s me in the picture, wearing my new motorcycle helmet and gloves, bearing down on the camera at breakneck speed like the Lone Biker of the Apocalypse. (Would it look more convincing if I airbrushed out the kickstand?)

Anyhow, I had a great time tooling up and down the alley behind Kate’s parents’ house in West Chester at speeds approaching ten miles per hour, driving fenced poodles into an exquisite lather of rage. I started out feeling like I was playing the pipe organ, except if you forget what you’re doing a pipe organ doesn’t fall over on top of you. Soon, though, I felt more comfortable, and even made it into second gear! Woo-hoo!

Kate and her dad politely looked the other way while I thumbed the start button and stalled, thumbed the start button and stalled. Kate’s dad is a motorcycle racer. Apparently, if you’re a motorcycle person, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of him. He’s also a really nice guy. So, while I was having a great time, I was also in excruciating boyfriend purgatory as I teetered around on the bike, hitting garbage cans at low speed.

But I’m going to Motorcycle Safety School this Wednesday through Friday, and I hope to be able to ride around with some competence this weekend. Who knows, maybe I’ll even put the kickstand up!

Here’s a Mullet that I saw on the subway to work this morning. I took a picture with my PalmPix. Note the long, creamy rush of hair down over the collar. I’m going to name this the “Rutger Hauermullet.”

Lots more mullets

Waiting for Hasselhoff:

Okay, this is all I’m going to say until tomorrow, when I can get more pictures off of my friend Henry’s digital camera: Thanks to UPOC‘s New York Celebrity Sightings wireless message group, I am now the proud owner of an important new keepsake. More to come.

I’m sending the Ultimate Water Gun to Brunswick, Maine today, so that a sophomore named Matt Cowger can use it for a Bowdoin College beach party. Unfortunately, sometime during the last year, the o-ring that seals the tank has gotten elderly, and needs to be re-greased. Curse of a Meyers-Briggs INTP: I immediately rushed out into Times Square in my shirtsleeves looking for grease. Cosmetics Plus was closed for inventory, damn, no Vaseline. Luckily, I met an HVAC engineer named Ravi, whose van was parked outside [My employer]’ offices on Seventh Avenue. He gave me a big dab of grease in a paper towel.

When you’re holding a pile of lithium grease in a paper towel on a crowded elevator, the stockbrokers look at you funny.