Category: Multimedia

Decemberists’ Halloween scooter?

The Decemberists are playing in Wheaton? On Halloween night? And there’s a scooter on the poster? Did Carson Ellis actually paint that? What’s up with her website? Is a liberal alt-whine anachronism-gimmick oboe band playing to creationists at a christian college in a dry suburb on halloween night funny, cool, or sad? I can’t tell anymore, but if anyone can steal me one of those posters, please do. (Photo via Mike Marusin, thanks!)

Scooter vs. Car

Scooter vs Car (might be disturbing for some viewers). No idea if it’s real or staged or what. The video quality is good and (fingers crossed) the scooterist looks like it may be a dummy, so I’m guessing it’s a commercial or safety training video or something, but it really gets the point across: No matter how careful you are, sometimes the other guy just isn’t following the rules. (Thanks for the link, Steve from Andretti/Benelli)

PiaggioUSA 2008 Fall Dealer Meeting

From our spies at Piaggio’s fall dealer meeting:
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Dinner meeting features Jay Leno: 45 minutes of stand up, closing with “when Piaggio called me they said, ‘we don’t have much money,’ and I said ‘I’ll do it free, I’m Italian, I want to support an Italian product, I like Italian bikes,’ then I get here and find out how your sales are up and your dealers aren’t exactly hurtin’.

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2009 Yamaha TMAX Video

The Yamaha TMax is garnering some serious love from the motorsports press, and the new yellow color livens up the look a little. So leave it up to Yamaha to unleash an ultra- lame marketing campaign. The target market for a $8000 scooter is not sheepish motorcyclists, it’s people who specifically want to AVOID being lumped into the testosterone-fueled image-conscious world of motorcycles, but still want to enjoy 2-wheeled life. No one in that market (including me) will recognize the third-tier motorsports celebrities in the ad, nor will they empathize with their “image” problems (let alone their acting skills). And here’s another tip: get those stupid dated tribal-flame bullshit decals off that yellow T-Max, or I’m going to come to Cypress, CA with a heat gun and do it myself. You’re killing me, Yamaha.

The T-Max (once you take those stickers off) is possibly the most appealing scooter available domestically right now, and Yamaha wants to let America know. I understand that. But what does reinforcing scooter stereotypes do for your other scooter models? Wouldn’t it make more sense to sell it as a great scooter, rather than a passable motorcycle? Is it smart to market TMaxes to the small percentage of Americans that are already motorcyclists, rather than the much larger percentage that aren’t?

[Thanks for the video link, Ryan]

Speaking of jumps…

Let me walk you through my run [Thanks to the Hell’s Fairies for the video]:

  • Ramp: It’s a testament to the Blur’s awesomeness that a 255-lb idiot can jump that high without breaking anything.
  • Flag Joust: I knew I’d never pull that off, so I didn’t even try, in the interest of time.
  • Beercan Slalom: I practiced this seven hundred times when no one was around and had it down. Under pressure, not so good.
  • The Gauntlet: The plan: having screwed up royally, I decided to ignore the boards and ride directly into the crowd, as fast as possible, in the hope of scaring everyone so much they forgot to throw their sponges. The reality: I was closer to them, so they were able to hit me head-on, with more force.
  • Follow-up: So it turns out the Blur has a lot of sponge-friendly nooks and crannies, so I was able to loop around and throw all the sponges back at everybody. Later, I took the Eisenhower expressway home and flipped my visor down at 65mph and it was so spotted up with soap spots that I couldn’t see. That was fun.

BTW, Jordan and Rawc are more or less OK, thankfully. Aside from that, it was a great rally, more photos and commentary soon. Thanks, everyone.