Category: Lifestyle

The “American Girl in Italy” Lambrettista

Surely you’ve seen the poster, it has graced countless dorm rooms, and hangs in every other Italian restaurant in Chicago. Ruth Orkin’s photo “American Girl in Italy” has been a popular symbol of Italy for decades, but the first thing any scooterist sees is the early Lambretta to the right of the frame. Corriere della Sera recently tracked down the Lambrettista (now 79 and living in America) and interviewed him,. From what little sense the Google translation makes (he’s a Clint Eastwood lookalike? What?), it sounds like a fascinating story.

’Tween Wolf

Phil Waters from POC Scooters had the chance to take a road trip on SYM’s Wolf 150, here’s his report:

merwolf1

Ever since we first spotted the SYM Wolf 150 at DealerExpo in Indianapolis in February, we’ve been pretty well enamored with it. Some of us readily admit that our love of scooters goes hand in hand with our love of motorbikes so seeing the resurgence of the small displacement motorcycle is pretty important to us.
Continue reading “’Tween Wolf”

Spider Man and more scooter comics

Eric tweets that the new issue of Amazing Spider-Man (#602) features Mary Jane on a Lambretta. Is that computer-generated art or a gouache painting? And why is Mary Jane so huge? I avoid comic book stores because I’ve chosen to waste all my disposable income on scooters and records, but I might have to pick that up.

Eric runs Modern Buddy, and even if you hate Twitter, follow his “Scooterism” on RSS, it’s always great stuff.

Speaking of comics, Eric (OTHER Eric) at Chicago Scooter Club recently posted a roundup of scooter comics, including Chynna Clugston-Major’s “Blue Monday” and “Scooter Girl” series and a new “Mods and Rockers” comic. And don’t forget Ed Brubaker’s Deadenders and The Originals by Dave Gibbons of Watchmen fame.

Spree to the beach

Artist Jay Nelson rigged up a custom Honda Spree with a surfboard-bearing roof, a retractable awning, and a wooden storage bin. (An early sketch shows he originally intended it to be a Vespa.)

Funny how stuff like this spreads around… The scooter was exhibited last Fall at Nelson’s “The Autonomous Zone” exhibit at TripleBase gallery in San Francisco. Apparently a current exhibition of Nelson’s work at Gottino, a restaurant in NYC, brought the scooter to the attention of a Portugese-language green design blog, and the image ended up on Notcot, where it was spotted at random by John Park at Makezine. In this case, 2SB reader Sharon spotted it there and sent it our way (Thanks, Sharon! This rant has nothing to do with you), but I’ll probably see the Makezine story later tonight when I’m scanning Google News Alerts, and it’ll be on every scooter blog and newsgroup in America by tomorrow, credited to Makezine. I just point this out because it’s interesting how blogs come across stories then other blogs link to the blog they saw it on rather than the original blog, and what could have been a big bonanza in hits for the person that originated the story ends up bogging down their server with anonymous hot-linked image hits. It’s the internet, whattaya gonna do, but I thought it’d be fun to track down the reason that a year-old art exhibition was suddenly getting a spike in attention. It’d be fun to do a website that pulls stories off Boing Boing and Metafilter and Slashdot and Digg and tracks them back to their original genesis, which is usually by someone that put a lot of effort into the story, and was forgotten in the process of re-writing, simplifying, linking, and forwarding.

Not that I don’t do the same thing, all day every day (though I generally don’t help myself to photos when I don’t know where they came from). I’ve been sort of reluctant to post this sort of sixth-hand story lately, but I guess that’s what what bloggers are supposed to do. Hopefully my occasional hard work on original content makes up for it. Sorry about the weird tangent there, but these things interest me.

Perseids tonight

Tonight’s the peak of the Perseid meteor shower, we saw a few last night from the front porch with Chicago light pollution, so if you can ride out somewhere dark and clear tonight, it should be amazing.

Darren has organized a group ride for Chicagoans. Meet at Dunkin’ Donuts, 5000 W Irving Park. The ride departs at 10pm.

VVV: Les Breastfeeders “Mini Jupe et Watusi”

Velcome! It’s Vednesday, and here’s your Video: today we’ve got another of the dozens of videos on David Smith’s list that I’d never seen. Les Breastfeeders from Montreal:

Artist: Les Breastfeeders
Song: “Mini Jupe et Watusi”
Album: Déjeuner Sur l’herbe (2004)
Scooter(s): ’60s Vespa (VBB?)
Scooter content: about 30 seconds
Jump to the good parts: throughout

For the second week in a row, we milk Canada (or should I say MuchMusic) for a VVV, and while JDiggz’ video was fun, this one is even more fun, and the song is way more up our alley. Les Breastfeeders have been around for a few years, mixing up a garage rock sound with power pop and a hint of classic Yé Yé that Stereo Total stole from Serge Gainsbourg and Françoise Hardy. Which, hell, how can you not love that combo? They top it off with an undead tambourine player named Johnny Maldoror, who I’m guessing is the Quebecois version of Bez out of Happy Mondays, or the weird old guy in Arrested Development (not Jeffery Tambor, I’m talking about the band!).

In this particular effort, they tie together a song honoring the mini skirt and Watusi with a slick video featuring a Godfather-style gangster plot. Les Breastfeeders’ bassist Suzie McLelove appears on a white Mod Vespa throughout the frenetic video, and delivers the hit weapon and facilitates the getaway. This is the best video/song combo to grace VVV yet, and I’m having a hard time seeing it going anywhere but downhill from here. I’m definitely going to be tracking down some more music from these guys and putting VIna’s nearly-useless bachelors’ degree in French to the test.

Thanks to everyone who’s been sending in videos! David’s list contains enough to last a couple years of Vednesdays, but keep ’em coming! Hard to believe there are so many!

Genuine’s new “cruiser” due in 2010

Everyone’s been talking about Genuine’s retro-styled touring scooter for months, but Genuine (amazingly) has kept images and details under wraps. So I was surprised as hell when, after an already-surprising Blur 220 ride, Genuine president Philip McCaleb and designer Eric Carl offered me a peek at a series of computer renderings last Monday.

Of course, I’m sworn to secrecy about the details, but I can reveal a few things:
Continue reading “Genuine’s new “cruiser” due in 2010″

Motorsport 30% off sale, two Chicago rides

One of our favorite shops, Motorsport Scooters (aka Scooterwest) in San Diego, CA, has a spiffy new site and a big “NC-17” anniversary party scheduled for Saturday. If you’re not in town, take advantage of 30% off all items this weekend when you order from the new site.

And here in Chicago, don’t forget about Logan’s Run on Saturday and Scooterworks Chicago’s Sunday Ride.

VVV: JDiggz “Make It Hot”

Vespa Video Vednesday is back, on an actual Vednesday! Here’s a good one that I think ten people sent me two years ago when it was new and I never even watched until I saw it on David Smith’s master list that inspired this enterprise:

Artist: JDiggz
Song: “Make It Hot”
Album: Memoirs of a Playbwoy (2007)
Scooter(s): Series 1 Lambretta, Vespa P-series
Scooter content: about 30 seconds
Jump to the good parts: 1:11, 1:42, 4:08

Canadian rapper JDiggz’ tune doesn’t do much for me, but it’s at least innocuous. The fact that the video is so totally incongruous to the song kinda makes it better, and the fact that they steered clear of the obvious gang-war motif buys them some points, too. It’s very nicely shot, and fun. JDiggz looks totally slick, and his posse of mods and hot-pantsed bootie chicks is somehow funny and believable.

The La Dolce Vita-esque intro is funny, but doesn’t really fit with the Quadrophenia thing. Though it appears to be a TV175, the Series-1 Lambretta predates the mods-and-rockers era, and the P-series Vespa is even more out of place. Of course JDiggz fans could care less about that. It’s obviously shot in Toronto on a leftover Jackie Chan movie set, which doesn’t really evoke London or Brighton, but JDiggz looks just about as wobbly and uncomfortable on a scooter as Phil Daniels.

Remember that time we had an idea for a regular feature and only kept it up for three weeks? Check back next week and see if we can break our record!