Oh lordy, so busy. This last week and this next one are packed, and it's all fun stuff. Singular and I tried to get into an Over The Rhine concert but it we were unable to. We bought some Jamison and got drunk instead. I took the preliminary stage, just the barebones chopper, of Count Chopula up to the Brew & View where we caught Minority Report and then walked out of About A Boy. Then I rode that wobbly thing back home while fitshaced. The unique perspective that drunkenness brings along with the shouts of passers-by got me thinking- why is it that extending these two tubes on a bike (or motorbike for that matter) all of the sudden make it cooler? A mystery the universe might keep forever.

Been playing a pencil'n'paper roleplaying game, whatta dork. We even did it on the roof deck and risked our reputation among the other residents. As if the freakbikes in the basement aren't enough. As if we care. Discovered that Heaven On Seven will deliver to our house, a dangerous discovery. How can I be expected to cook when someone will bring me southern-fried softshell crab salad and gumbo? Living in a restaurant district can make the wallet thinner and the waist fatter. Especially if there's southern food to be had- even the gravy is deep-fat-fried ;)

Critical Mass had 860 people, a blast as usual. I rode a borrowed tricycle (you know, the old-lady kind) and Bush rode The Hammer. We swapped out whenever the Hammer got too painful. I've never seen a bike that small on the Mass. Lots of people have funnybikes, or other creations that are hard to ride, but they never bring them on CM. All you need is someone on a rideable bike to trade with you every few miles and you're fine. I fell in love with the trike, it's so comfortable to ride, being designed for old folks and all.

Saturday was a little mini rat ride, just four of us. An odd situation- we were heading down a side street where a large group of young men were sitting out chatting. We turned into the alley and they came running after us, yelling unintelligably. We turned a corner and they did too. Were they chasing us? It sure seemed like it, but who tries to catch bicyclists on foot? It just doesn't make sense. Maybe they just wanted to see our bikes but they sure weren't yelling positive things.

And, of course, always building bikes. No use describing them as pictures will do so much better. I'm working on getting my photographer to come over today, as he can't ride a bike and the trike would be perfect. In the meantime, two more pictures from the Rat Patrol UK: Bennito's son commuting to school, and a failed creation that would only go in a straight line before it snapped, although there's a similar creation on the C.H.U.N.K. 666 site.



posted by Johnny on 30.9.02 |

The bike-heavy content of this page is bothering me. I'm trying to split it off, build a separate page for it, but until then I'll put the stuff I need recorded here. An update from the Rat Patrol UK branch:

A follow up to the recent exploits of Rat Patrol UK. We got Foxy Lady together and welll, she works Kinda like. There was a small screw up. We ended with 53" of forks and a 26" front wheel and the pedals still touch down. But she has been out on a few missions. Tomorrow we're gonna cut that long legged bitches head clean off and reweld her front end. It's a bugger having to do this but hey thats life.

Its scary , the photo of the babies is something that Mr M23 made several years ago and did not know why he had done it. Then along comes Rat Patrol and what do we see but very similar babies. Weird.

Bennito on Dr Hannibal Lecter

Dr. H and the Foxy Lady


Foxy Lady's babies

Mr. M23 on the Lady.

posted by Johnny on 26.9.02 |

According to Ghandi, by Demi (a biographical children's picture book), Ghandi's only possessions when he died were two pots, two spoons, a pair of glasses, a tin bowl as a souvenir from prison, and three monkeys.

I love the thought that Ghandi could part with all wordly possessions except for his precious, precious monkeys.
posted by Johnny on 24.9.02 |

Here's a treat. A friend recently pointed out to me some old comics that I'd put in a school newsletter. STF is a series that I do about real-life weirdness that I experience. Click on the pic below for the comic:


posted by Johnny on 23.9.02 |

I finally tossed together a The Roommate Top Ten Worst Roomies page.
posted by Johnny on 20.9.02 |

Too busy to blog, and that's always a good thing. Been playing in traffic, returning to the long-forgotten pen & paper, wrestling with the tediousness of animation, trying to redefine my job under the new leadership (the kind with its shit together), trying to track down Piloto to get some ink, tasting various cheeses, and mostly, hangin' out and around with Singular. I was unable to swing a trip to NYC for the Old-Nosuch wedding, but I bet it was fun in a bun. Having a chop session on Sunday. L8r T8rs.
posted by Johnny on 20.9.02 |

Bennitto Chunkolini Prince of Darkness, a member of the first international branch of the Rat Patrol, writes about the first Rat Patrol chop session in the UK:

Today big things stirred in the Rat Cave. Rat Patrol had their first 'at home'. A chop building day.Things look good, we got half the frame of 'Foxy Lady' built and boy is she shaping up to be one foxy chick! A full blown cut and shut job using an old Muddy Fox (the british yuppie bike of the early nineties), another piece of Wills old Scott and assorted bits of junk off the floor. If things go to plan this Foxy Lady should get to lose her cherry tomorrow as it were and get her first ride. and if John cant reach the handlebars I shall die laughing, he chose the geometry.

posted by Johnny on 16.9.02 |

Here are the pics from the last Rat Ride:





Emily on "Ann Margaret".




Digging for treasure. On the right, I'm preparing myself for my favorite part about the Rat Rides- tossing old shoes up onto the phone lines.




Nathan falls victim to one of the Rat's most feared enemies- the dreaded Nocturnal Alley Yak.




Alley Yaks fear but one thing: Chopper-riding Alley Panthers.




Behind one house we found a bunch of mirrored furniture and a bunch of stuffed animals. It looked like the result of a marital compromise: "I'll throw out my stuffed animal collection if you'll get rid of all that damn mirrored furniture! Our house looks like a coke dealer's!"




Emily said, "Better not touch that bear, I can almost guarantee it's been humped." Then she proceeded to demonstrate how it might have been humped.




I tied a string from one of its arms and we dragged it through the streets.




Eventually it was "bombs away!" as I cut the string in the middle of a busy intersection.




This baby wasn't looking too good after a rousing game of Kick the Baby. I left one of its hands in a water fountain and chucked the head in somebody's pool.




"Hey kids! Be cool, stay in school!"




Me: "Hey, look, an electric organ! Let's plug it in!"

Craig: "I could take it home! It's the best in the city of Chicago!"

Me: "This chunk o' shit? Come on, Craig!"

Matt: "I mean, really Craig, there's no action left on this piano."

Craig: "Excuse me, I don't think there's anything wrong with the action on this piano."




Craig: "Well I heard about the fellow you've been dancing with
All over the neighbourhood
So why didn't you ask me baby
Or didn't you think I could?

Well I know that the boogaloo is out of sight
but the shingaling's the thing tonight
But if that was you and me a now baby
I would have shown you how to do it right
Do it right (U-huh)
Do it riiight (Do it right)
Dot it riiiiiiiiight
Do it riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight
Do it riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight...."


posted by Johnny on 11.9.02 |

Here's my Grandma Fern's rain lamp. If you've never seen one of these before, mineral oil runs down the fishing wire to make it look like the statue is surrounded by rain. My theory is that in 1970, all future grandmothers were issued one of these lamps. One of the lady's breasts and her buttocks are exposed. Needless to say, I found this very fascinating as a young boy. Grandma Fern gave it to me while I was in college. Many a wacked-out visitor spent hours staring at the droplets running down the wires. They were usually pretty scared by it, as the lady has no pupils and it gives her eyes an evil-zombie sorta look. My grandma also likes blobby colored-glass swag lamps, and I had one of those as well, sorta like this one. My roommate Ron, on one of his Acid/Mescal/Robotussin trips, once claimed that it was an evil alien horse head that was sent to monitor his actions. Ah, good ole Ron.

posted by Johnny on 10.9.02 |

Grilled out with Kabuto's family on Sunday. We went to a preserve, it was nice to see those green thingies again- what were they called- oh, yes, "trees". Kabuto's dad Tomato is even wackier than Kabuto is. He made a drink called "nalgas de indios": "Indian Buttocks". Unfortunately it had rum in it so none for me. I had a "Bloody Maria" instead: Clamato, lemon juice, hot sauce, and tequila.

I love hot stuff, and thought I had gone as far as I could with it. I like habaneros & scotch bonnets etc, and a fresh habanero isn't that bad, right off the bush. Extracts don't do it for me, they taste nasty, and taste is just as important as the endorphins I get from eating it.

So our hosts taught me a Mexican secret for making a pepper hotter. They just roll it in other peppers so that one pepper absorbs the hotness of many, many others. I definitely got some mehicano cred for eating a grilled pepper prepared this way, I could see it in their faces. Tomato said it was good for parasites. Another guy called it "Eat today, tomorrow pay." LOL!
posted by Johnny on 10.9.02 |

Here's my treasured Klax machine, which I bought at an auction for $60. It was a video game auction that KC and I went to, and lemme tell you, if you ever hear of one- GO! It was at a county fairgrounds, where several hundred video games were lined up and turned on for "testing" prior to their purchase. We played video games for free for eight hours! I bid $1000 on a pinball machine by scratching my nose (luckily no pinball machine goes for less than a grand) and $40 on a peanut vending machine because I had my head tilted up looking for KC. At the end of the day, the games go for super-cheap, and I picked this one up and took it to my dorm room in school. KC got a hologram fighting game, in a cabinet which you might remember as a cowboy time-travel game. The characters appear as holograms on a flat surface like a Star Wars chess board. The old Chinese master character says, "Your body must be all vein!" If you get a game, be sure to get one that will be fun even after you've won it a gajillion times. Puzzle games, fighting games, and racing games are good this way. Platform adventure games are not. Also, make sure you have the room, because it takes up a helluva lot of space for something that, today, would fit in your palm. Since I lived in the dorm I've been pawning it off on other people a la Tom Sawyer- they think I'm loaning them this wonderful gift, when in fact, they're doing me a favor by keeping it. Sure enough, a few months after my brother brought it up for our bar room, we moved to a place where it just doesn't "fit"... so I'm pawning it off on Monkey Boy, who is converting his living room into a game room. As you may be able to tell, this cabinet used to be a Dig Dug game. My other game, DESERT ASSAULT, used to be a WWF Wrestling game. Wish I had that one, I spent hundreds of quarters in allowance money on that as a kid.

posted by Johnny on 9.9.02 |

What scares me about the highly-contrived and exceptionally crappy music that is mass marketed these days is not its poor quality- I don't have to buy it, listen to it, or watch it on TV. What scares me is the knowledge that, for the rest of my life, these are the songs that will be played in commercials and at weddings, and once that starts happening, I won't have the option of avoiding it.
posted by Johnny on 9.9.02 |

My brother reports from his Americorps gig in the Pinchot National Forest that he has found a sittin' rock up on a mountain where he can see four volcanoes (Mt. Adams, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Ranier, and Mt. Hood) in four directions.
posted by Johnny on 6.9.02 |

Rode in CM with over 850 others. Took the Hi-Riser this time, prompting one bystander to say "dude, he got his sista's bike!". Rode on the Kennedy. Smoked on the Kennedy. Got bullied by E. Victor on Saturday, who went ahead and scheduled the apartment's next tenant to move in at 1pm without even telling us. New tenant agreed to let us leave without cleaning in exchange for moving in early. Loaded up the truck with the gracious help of E-D, Kabuto, Frankie, and the Pagan Quaker Jew. Spent the night at the house of the first two, where our cats met their cats. Introductions did not go well. Played Simpsons Road Rage, which is funny for the quotes but doesn't really have anything to do with the Simpsons. Showed up at the new building and managed to convince the extremely insane weekend front desk lady to hand me the keys. She didn't have time to hand me the keys, she said. We weren't on the list. The regular lady doesn't know what she's doing. She's only there on the weekend. She wanted to leave at 2:45 and here it is 2:55 and I'm asking her for keys. She complained for a good 10 minutes, keys in hand, before handing them over in a 2-second transaction. Made a mental note never to go to the building office on the weekend. Discovered that moving can be very easy if you have an elevator. When all was finished, Frankie and I went for a leisurely ride up north to rent Metropolis and The City of Lost Children. Ate some psilocybe cubensis. Left reality for a while. Came back with a lot to sort out about what condition my condition was in- I can't believe people use that shit for recreation rather than for self improvement. Went up on the roof and watched the city dance for a while. Met some crazy oh-so-city lady and her eurotrash boyfriend. City Lady complained that the Aon building was ruining their view because it reminds them of the WTC. The eurotrash boyfriend gave us zee lowdown on zee building. Went to visit former neighbor Kris and met his nerdy roommate, who found out that Frankie was carrying a pocketknife and leapt at the chance to show off his extensive knife collection. Admired his plastic knives, great for getting past those airport x-rays, while he put a new edge on Frankie's knife. Rode down to see the Earth From Above photo exhibit- not to be missed if it comes to your town. Saw Frankie off. Discovered that the cable was still hooked up in the new place, including the pay channels. Watched the entire Apocalypse Now Redux without realizing which version it was and wondering why it seemed so long. Fell asleep and slept for about 15 hours.
posted by Johnny on 5.9.02 |

JohnnyPayphone@yahoo.com