"Tonight's the night, the night. Whoa oohhhhhh."- Phil Colins

                                  photograph by Jose Sandoval

I spent tonight with Papa Tong and the Velvet Hammer, Mr. Peter Rubi if you're nasty. Not in the biblical way, mind you, but in the way that old friends do.

Not gonna lie, I have ABBA tattooed over my heart. I'm not making that up, but now that I think about it who would lie about that? Anyway, you may never see part two of the See See MOTOR shoot and you may never know what bruised me for a week and a half at Interbike, but what I can promise you is wheelies: 

The school bus variety.

I've been at Interbike

Photo by Mr. John Watson

Much like a black hole, Interbike can suck you in and destroy you. I know I left you hanging with the 2nd half of the See See shoot, but... Interbike. I just got home and all of my socks and underwear are now clean, so I will tell the tale in the next couple of days. 

I still like the things I like

The Ren & Stimpy Show - I Was a Teenage Stimpy [Full Episode] from Cxoban on Vimeo.
This show will never get old.

Blind Date at the Dairy

Everyone's favorite cross race, Blind Date at the Dairy,  returns this September 10th and if you are in Portland and was able to weasel your way out of Interbike you should go to the series kick off. Why is it called Blind Date? Because it's in the dark, silly.  My pal James "Jam Jam Babyface" Wilson made a video to get the people hyped.

BLIND DATE AT THE DAIRY 2014 from James Wilson on Vimeo.

You remember James, right? He's the one who made this classic 21st Ave Bicycles video.

21st Avenue Bicycles - Family Fun Bike Build! from James Wilson on Vimeo.
Yes, that's me doing what I do best: being rad. Wipe the dust off the ol' cow bell. Cross is coming.

Chrome x See See MOTOR shoot: Day 1

Sometimes my job feels like a job. That's why it's called a "job" and not "super magic fun time". Other times I wonder what I did to be so lucky. Being hilarious and incredibly charming probably helped, but I digress. Chrome is coming out with a motorcycle line and I couldn't be more excited. I met Thor Drake through my pal, James Crowe, when I was managing the Portland store. I wanted to clear all the product off of the floor and throw a motorcycle show in the HUB. James made the intro, Thor brought an XS 650 and that was the start of our on going relationship with See See Motorcycles. We've worked together on many projects since then including Thor's "The One Motorcycle Show" and Chrome Elements; just to name a couple.

See See Motorcycles: Slo-Mo from See See Motor Coffee Co. on Vimeo.
 It made sense to bring him into the product development meetings when we were designing the bags and I'm glad we did. These bags are tough as shit and I'm not just pitching that because I work in marketing, but I watched them do burnouts on top of the Chrome MOTOR bag, besides being scuffed, it was completely intact. Why were they doing burnouts on the bag? I'm glad you asked. To spread the word of the MOTOR launch Chrome, See See, and Kamp Grizzly teamed up to make a video that is about nothing more than a good time... and the bags I guess. The See See crew came out with a video about a year ago called "A Moto Food Fantasy" and it went a little something like this:

See See Motorcycles: A Moto Food Fantasy from See See Motor Coffee Co. on Vimeo.
What are they selling? Nothing, they're having fun. You should try it sometime. How does that saying go? "Laughter something something something medicine?" I couldn't agree more.

In this next video the chef and gang are back with more tom foolery that will have you asking, "what the hell?".

Day 1 started off with shot outside off See See.

Hey take a look at that nice young lady. That there is my boss and next to her is our pal Scott Toepfer, king among men. We had Toepfer shooting shots of Kamp Grizzly shooting. Super meta, probably way over your head, so let's just move along.

When he wasn't set directing Thor was stunting it up to beat the band... whatever that means. After we got all the shot we needed, we went to our 2nd location: the name isn't coming to me at this very moment, but it wasn't too far from Portland.

Ahhh... there it is, Sauvie's Island. Without giving too much away, I'm just going to show you some pictures I took. I mean, the story line is so clear and concise I'm practically giving it away, but I can't resist.

I practically gave the whole story away! The tension between Scuba Bjorn and his love interest is almost palpable and the struggle between the two has as many twists and turns as a roller coaster at Dollywood. 

The sun set and we headed back to Portland for dinner and laughs. The first day of shooting was fun and weird and we still had another day ahead of us to look forward to. The most I really knew about it was Drake McElroy was flying in to do sweet jumps and we had raw squid in a cooler.