I heard about this when it happened a couple years ago, and never thought I’d get the chance to see it, but thanks to the dual magic of Tivo and Youtube, here it is: With mere seconds of instruction and an unbuckled half-helmet, WLS Channel 7 meteorologist Tracy Butler crashes a Vespa, during a PR piece with Vespa of Chicago’s Sam Tomaino. God bless you, Vespaway. Now if only I could find Les Nessman’s Vespa crash on WKRP…
Category: TV/Movies
Sightings on TV/Radio/Movies/Music Video
Scooter Rally “Scrubs” airs tonight
According to girlbike.com, the episode of “Scrubs” airing tonight (5/16/06) will feature the “Scooter Rally” footage cut from an earlier episode.
Tip for scooterists:
How to guarantee a public beatdown
A suspectedly-drunk man on a scooter was detained by onlookers and arrested in Herzogenrath, Germany on Friday, after crashing three times within a two-hour span:
[…] The 22-year-old man first crashed the scooter as he took a
corner […], losing his helmet in the process, police in nearby Aachen said. Unfazed, the man remounted and plowed straight into the back of a parked car. He flew head over heels through the back
window, landing inside […] “Then he crawled out of the vehicle again, and sped off,” an Aachen police spokesman said. […] Onlookers tried to stop the man, but he fled. Two hours later, bystanders were shocked as the scooter crashed leaving a gas station, this time with the man as passenger.
Please don’t ride drunk.
Vesparados!
A Matthew Diffee cartoon from this week’s New Yorker. Available from The New Yorker Store on T-shirts, framed prints, and anything else New Yorker readers crave… tote bags? latte mugs? Thanks to DC Rob, pretending he’s literate enough to read the New Yorker. I wonder if my “Brew City Beer Run II” flyer, on which Brent misspelled the name of his own club (“Vespardos!”) is worth anything now.
Best… Bust… ever.
Nestled within the usual ads for yarn and alternative menstruation products, the April/May 2006 issue of Bust features a story about “biker gangs” for women. Though it covers bicycle, motorcycle, and scooter clubs, the Secret Servix SC monopolized the bulk of the text and photos, along with the Baltimore Bombshells and a couple other girls’ clubs. If that’s not enough to get you running to the newsstand, you also get Gretchen Mol convincingly dressing up like Bettie Page, and a story on comics artist Julie Doucet. Nice! Janel clearly made the right choice hiring Vina as her publicist.
Pimp my Vespa?
From a Globe and Mail story about the new “MTV Canadia:”
“I joked that … we’re going to see Pimp My Snowmobile,â€? Mr. LeBlanc says with a chuckle, a reference to the popular MTV program Pimp My Ride in which old cars are restored and customized to hip status. It may not be that much of a joke. Mr. Schwartz notes that MTV in Germany has a version called Pimp My Bicycle, and in Italy they’re developing Pimp My Vespa.
Reese Witherspoon Rides the Line
Hello Magazine (UK) reports:
The diminutive performer has been turning heads in the British capital as she shows off her riding skills on a black Vespa. The mum-of-two is more accustomed to the back seat of a limousine than the saddle of a scooter, but she has become a biker chick for the film Penelope, in which she plays a pizza delivery girl.
Life imitates Quadrophenia
I’m going to Hell for this, but: “No f**king accident! You got me, didn’t you? Why don’t you kill me? All of ya! F**king Mr Postman, f**k off, go on! F**k off!” Sorry.
Autographed Lambretta
Vietnamese artist Quang Da has been collecting autographs on his Lambretta for 15 years. The scooter features the signatures of more than 360 Vietnamese and foreign film stars, including Michael Caine. (Another link with a better photo)
Plain-Dealer, meet Scooter-Dealer
Coumnist Sam Fulwood III of the Cleveland Plain Dealer has seen the light. And one-man public-relations army Phil Waters tells us POC‘s phone has been ringing off the hook with people “one of those scooters from the Fifties like in Quadrophenia.”