Month: October 2004

Crafty Planet recieved this email within an hour of the show. And I thought I was a safety Nazi.

Trish Hoskins,

Your segment on Stuffed Animal Food Critters just
showed on HGTV. The stuffed toys are cute, but were
overshadowed by the fact that you were not wearing a
helmet riding your “scooter”.

It is hard enough to get kids today to wear helmets
while riding bicycles! “My head sweats and it makes
my hair flat.” “I have to carry the helmet with me
and everyone knows I rode a bicycle to the mall!”

As a former Motorcycle Safety Instructor I say “Shame
on You!” Not only were you riding a moped, one of the
most dangerous vehicles ever to be allowed on the
road, but you probably don’t have a motorcycle license
to operate it because your state doesn’t require one.

Insurance companies place accidents from “2-wheeled
motorized vehicles” in one class, and the rates are
high because of people like you who ride something
that doesn’t have enough braking power to stop your
momentum in time to prevent an accident. And if it
did, you would be thrown over the handlebars. You
weren’t even wearing gloves!

Do you realize that your “scooter” is only a motorized
bicycle. Motorcross bikers won’t even ride those
things, and they wear boots, helmets, gloves and fully
padded leathers when they ride off-road.

Other women watching the show may not notice, but I
guarantee their kids will pick up on the fact that you
are not being a responsible rider. You were even
carrying a shopping bag on your left arm instead of
securing it to the “bike” so you could properly
operate your “scooter”.

You keep riding like that and there won’t be enough of
you to “stuff” after an accident, they’ll have to have
a “closed casket funeral”.

Sandy Swartz
311 SE 34th Street
Topeka, KS 66605-2909

Lady, I’ve known Trish for six years. She invariably wears a helmet when she’s NOT BEING PROFILED ON NATIONAL TV AND THEY WANT TO SHOW HER FACE. And it’s NOT A MOPED! She has a license, as well as several other scooter and motorcycles. I applaud your promotion of safety, but calling her stupid and insulting her cherished, valuable, lovingly-maintained vintage motorscooter isn’t the way to go about it.

“Mod” is dead. So dead.

Minneapolis scooterist/ibrarian/polyglot/craft store proprietress Trish Hoskins will appear on HGTV’s Crafters Coast To Coast at 11 AM (Eastern/Pacific, that’s 10 AM Central) tomorrow (Friday). Trish will be demonstrating her Bacon Buddies, which have served as trophies at the Galewood scooter rally/bacon cookoff for the last few years. Above, we see Trish with a HGTV production assistant taping over the “Vespa” logo on her scooter. There’s no free publicity on HGTV, they don’t even name her shop (Crafty Planet) on the show. Anyway, Christmas is coming, and who doesn’t love plush meat?

I’ve recieved a secondhand report of a sighting of a “Volkswagen Popcycle” at a VW dealer in St. Louis. Seeing as how I can’t find anything about it on the web (honest, and I’ve been on the web since the beginning), I’m guessing it’s a salesman’s Honda Metropolitan with VW stickers on it, but I did find some cool photos of VW’s 1986 three-wheeler concept, called “Scooter,” (photos),
(more photos).

From sfgate:

Piaggio USA isn’t even trying to be subtle about the role of its Vespa motor scooter in the forthcoming “Alfie” remake. Teaming up with Paramount Pictures, the studio that showcased a fleet of Mini-Coopers in last summer’s heist film “The Italian Job,” Piaggio will be sending out free tickets to “Alfie” and featuring star Jude Law in dealership promotions.

After the Spiderman Typhoon promotion that happened before the Typhoons were available, and the Coach promotion they didn’t bother telling the dealers about, I bet dealers aren’t holding their breath for Jude Law to stop by. One more time, Piaggio, why I’m bitter: You keep using old Vespas to sell new Vespas. If new Vespas are so cool, put Alfie on one of those in the movie. When they (and oh, they will) remake Bullitt with Vin Diesel, they’ll use the new Bullitt Mustang, not the old one. They used the new Minis in the Italian Job. Have some goddamn pride in your product.

Professor Matthew pointed out that along with their Gatos Gordos story, the Seattle Times ran an equally well-written piece about the Mosquito Fleet, Seattle’s branch of the Moped Army, on the same day. The last paragraph is brilliant. We’re really looking forward to our Seattle trip now.

Durso’s busy today: Apparently some politicians are campaigning on Segways. If a politician showed up at my house on a $3000 toy, I’d wonder about his fiscal responsibilty. When looking up “Bush” and “motorscooter” on the web, I found this list of Secret Service Codenames:

• BACKSEAT:
  Secret Service Motorscooter Unit
• BELLHOP ONE:
  Secret Service Elipse Motorscooters
• BELLHOP TWO:
  Secret Service White House Motorscooters

There’s a name for a DC club: the Backseat Bellhops SC.

Fron Durso: “Tired of rear-end repairs, Bob designed an automatic flasher that uses a pressure sensor in the brake line to measure the pressure applied to the brake pedal.” If my taillight worked, I’d be halfway there.

One of my favorite memories of college was getting tanked on Krakus (Liberate another Pole!, we would say) with my socialist friends at my poli-sci teachers house and putting on the Wedding Present’s Ukrainski Vistupi V Johna Peela, and clog-dancing around the porch to “Davni Chasy,’ faster and faster as the song sped up, and eventually collapsing in a pile of giggles and putting on some Biz Markie. Those were the days, my friend.

• (newbie): how old is mod?
• (newbie): never heard of it before now
• beeb: 50s, 60s
• (newbie): I mean the recent revival thing
• beeb: there’s been a revival going on since the 50s, or 60s, heh
• The_B: its been an ongoing joke since then.
• (newbie): revival of what
• beeb: the big revival started in the 70s/80s with the Jam, etc.
• beeb: but, unfortunately, it’s never really gone away
• beeb: seriously, LOOK ON THE WEB
• beeb: it’s not a secret or anything
• (newbie): I’ve never heard of this as a movement, honest and I’ve been on the web since the beginning
• (newbie): this is so weird
• beeb: www.modculture.com
• (newbie): it must be a scooter thing
• (newbie): yeah but is that site tongue in cheek? I want straight answers
• beeb: you’ve never heard of bukakke, but if you look it up on the web, you’ll find it.
• (newbie): is that some kind of dish?
• The_B: ack!
• beeb: uh, don’t look it up.
• beeb: but trust me, it exists
• (newbie): tell me then
• (newbie): oy
• (newbie): I’m at work
• (newbie): I yahoo’d it. I hate you
• beeb: heh
• The_B: ack! again.
• beeb: i told you not to. I was just proving my point that just because you’ve never seen something on the web doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
• (newbie): I gotta clear my cache
• The_B: can’t……stop… laughing.
• beeb: yeah, you could get fired for trying to learn about Mods

To promote their Discover DTS-i (Electric Start!) motorcycle, Bajaj brought in Jackie Chan, long famous for riding really nerdy underpowered pseudosportbikes in his movies. Here are two ( 1
2 ) magazine ads. When I glance at a headline and see “Master,” “Hand” and “Job,” I get weirded out. Thanks Patrick!

Jude Law (quoted in ManchesterOnline): “I loved that Vespa. Even though I couldn’t get it to start at times, it was so much fun to ride.” Good to know to know that no amount of money, charm, or good looks can guarantee your scooter will start.

All right! Here’s a story that won’t get you drunk, The Seattle Times’ report on Los Gatos Gordos and their Ride with the Dead rally. Well done!

Cingular is giving away a Vespa ET2 and other prizes. You’re supposed to enter a code on your phone and then every time you text message someone, you have another chance to win, but non-Cingular customers can enter online (and probably get Cingular spam for eternity). But hey, you asked me to let you know about contests.