You'll Never Ride It III: Pripyat

Spot the crumbling hubba:


The Ukrainian city of Pripyat has been a ghost town since 1986, when, bullseye downwind from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, its entire population was evacuated in a span of 24 hours--50,000 people, one suitcase each. Everything else remained as it was left, a perfect time capsule coated in fallout. Three decades without human influence have given nature the opportunity to begin reclamation of the land.



Wikipedia reports that background radiation is at a safe level now; sometime around 2000, looters began clearing out the city's apartment buildings. "Nothing of value was left behind," Wikipedia states. "Even toilet seats were taken away."

Archaeologically speaking, it's too bad that the time capsule has been violated; or perhaps it's good news that Ukrainian entrepreneurs are tapping into these long-frozen assets. The city border is still controlled by the military, but tour companies are being granted access. I don't suppose that a bmx bike would be allowed inside. Maybe if you greased the appropriate palms.

How hilarious/cool would it be to hop that fence with a crew of friends, bikes, and camping gear, and explore the silent city, cruising down streets and sidewalks, carving around the trees and weeds pushing up through the pavement? I bet much of the city feels like utter wilderness.



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(BTW, on the bmx+camping tip, check the NoBikes blog for photos of their excursion to a remote spillway in the Alaskan wilds. Wish the write-up went into greater detail. I'd be interested in the non-riding photos, too.)

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Doubleset.


MACBA ledge.


Pool.


Not actually a missile.


Put some tiremarks on Lenin.


...Too many amazing Pripyat images to choose from. Here are handful from around the internet.
[Nuclear] Winter.


1970.


Amusement.


Chernobyl in the distance.


Lastly, some Pripyat YouTube:

The Complete Steven Hamilton Youtube Discography

This has been a good week for fans of Steven Hamilton. His fantastic part from 2004's The Day is Over made its way online a couple days ago, and just last night bmxboard's Alistair Heely uploaded the full 2005 Tip Plus video The Family. (Clips below)

Everyone appreciates Hamilton for his unconventional peg-free approach to street riding, not to mention his casual hucking of monstrous gaps. But for some reason his effortless bike control and clean style are overshadowed by the motowhipping likes of Aitken and Hawk. For style, that's my personal top three, probably, with Hamilton on top.

I think it's significant to note that none of the three is taller than 5'10. Aitken and Hawk are small men that have always ridden huge frames and handlebars, and I think this visually striking jockey-on-stallion effect is one reason they look so damn good flying through the air. Hamilton, by comparison, rides a flatland frame and more "medium" bars, and he could be even shorter than the other two guys. The allover smallness makes his wheels look huge in a way that I find really satisfying, and, furthermore, he seems to have an exceptionally large bunnyhop. But his pop is so natural that I've never heard anyone comment on it.

And Hamilton comes across as a real guy, thanks to his smile, unaffected demeanor, and penchant for a good hoody. Here's the text from his Dig issue 42 interview, archived on Tunney's excellent blog. (the full thing w/photos! --Ed. 11/16/09)

Of course, there hasn't been video footage of Hamilton in a couple years. After leaving the limelight, rumors circulated that he had fried his brain with drugs and stopped riding. Then, in a 2007 issue of RideUK, Hamilton reappeared with a cover shot and a dozen excellent, sponsor-worthy photos (lots of gaps and even a handrail with pegs!) and the most memorable interview of all time. He seems to have gone voluntarily insane and now lives in a parallel psychadelic world. (You can read the RideUK interview online now.--Ed. 9/13/09)

I was disappointed on one level (bye-bye striped shirts), but pleased to find that the new Hamilton is just as real as the old one, escaping the annoying outward trappings of hippiness in favor of an apparently authentic schizophrenia. Sunglasses at night? Intentionally mismatched gloves? A bike covered with seaweed and twigs, painted over with gloss black spraypaint? Keep this stuff coming, please!

It might be said that the "crazy drugged bike rider artist" thing was pioneered by the Gonz, but, by contrast, Hamilton doesn't seem to care whether we notice or not. As always, he's doing his own thing, living his own life, and it feels like a privilege when we get access.

Along with every other bike rider alive, I'm hopeful that we'll see video footage soon, and Hamilton's Phoenix-like return will be complete.

Here's all the footage of Hamilton that I'm aware of. If you know of more, I hope you'll share.

The video part that made Steven Hamilton a household name, from AnimalBikes' Can I Eat?


From the old Ohio video A Day Late and A Dollar Short.


Steven's first part ever, reportedly, from a video called Inception, which I know nothing about. Packed with bangers and striped shirts.

From the Federal video. Last two clips are heart-stopping.

From AnimalBikes' All Day.


The complete Orchid roadtrip video Step On It. Lots of Hamilton footage. Ridiculous clip at 6:40.


Tip Plus's The Family, complete video. Steven's part starts at 21:53.


And, finally, his recently uploaded part from Elliot Van Orman's The Day is Over, 2004. Perhaps my fave video part ever. When this song gets stuck in my head, I don't mind at all.



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July 18 Edit: Two additions. Fresh Hamilton footage, Go Skateboarding Day, June 2008. From Skavenger.


And thanks to aaron for bringing to my attention the really good skapegoat 2.5 web video, from March of this year, which includes some recent footy from Ham. Bonus: a bunch of brakeless riding from Ralph Sinisi!


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July 19 edit: From the Animal site, , in response to this blog posting:It really is nuts to see Hamilton kill it and I promise you all he is not done. Hamilton has been in the area for the past few weeks puttin in some work for the next Animal Video.

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December 9 edit: The internet has yet to make sense of this Youtube gem from late October. Who is this video's intended audience? There's a lot going on here, none of which makes sense...



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December 19 edit: This vid, edited by Hamilton himself, appeared on the Animal site the other day. See Lobsterspine = The Real Steven Hamilton? for more.



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December 31 edit: More classic Hamilton 1.0 footy in a web video from Peter Adam. Just the title "World Travels" is enough to make me feel something. Thanks for the heads-up, Sam.



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September 13, 2009 edit: In addition to his blog and YouTube account, Hamilton is actively posting high res stuff to Vimeo (to avoid Youtube's music copyright filter, presumably), rendering much of this blog post discography redundant.

DMC

Some close friends planned an art project/performance/protest, and I was flattered to be asked to help film, though I take no credit for the idea. My wife and I put together this video:



The signs made headlines in two Portland papers--the Mercury picked it up first and then the Oregonian Metro section and Business section--and appeared around the local blogosphere at Indymedia, Matt Davis, livingyellow, and JustSeeds, as well as MattressZine, some kind of mattress trade pub.

Clips were used to mount the signs, so that they could be removed without causing damage, and a safety cable secured it all just in case. One important thing the video doesn't make explicit--but maybe you can still tell--is that the DMC is located right on Belmont St, the namesake for one of Portland's trendiest neighborhoods, fully gentrified over the last decade or so. Someone commented in an old Flickr image that the DMC "gives shiny belmont some much-needed squalor," and this had been my unofficial position on the issue before my friends ever suggested the protest. But the original Mercury post elicited seventy-four widely varying reader responses, most of which made valid, intelligent points.

"Although the art is interesting," blogged jmacphee on JustSeeds, "the responses to it are whats really worth checking out. A fascinating, rambling road through varying opinions on street art, vandalism, gentrification, class, yuppies, and property values."

The most critical reaction to the signs came in a lengthy response to the Oregonian Business section write-up. Someone called "Mannis" detailed his family's longtime business relationship with the DMC. He describes how the DMC's actual business model--selling inexpensive, refurbished mattresses--has directly and indirectly helped "thousands" of local needy families and individuals (a good, liberal notion), while simultaneously, on the environmental front, reducing waste (also a good, liberal notion). Mannis goes on to defend the Confederate Flag and condemn those unwilling to acknowledge it as an authentic symbol of legitimate Southern heritage, separable from the notion of slavery.

Mannis's critique of liberal elitism seems on-point, and, sure enough, a huge majority of the other responses were to the effect of Way to stick it to that ugly store. Don't they know they're in Portland?

I happen to know that the artist's intention (though he wouldn't call himself an artist) was a comment on the symbol and not on the storefront, but no one seemed to notice what he thought was obvious: in Progressive Portland, gay rights, animal rights, and separation of church and state are front page bumper sticker issues, and transgressions will get your business boycotted or your politician blacklisted. Mention racism or segregation, by contrast, and (here's the punchline) the activists shrug their shoulders. Naw, we don't really have those problems here.

For the record, I think it was that specific little slice of hypocrisy that catalyzed the artist.

As expected, the MLK signs came down the next day.

Dan and the Dish

Here are two dope pictures of Dan from streetphire shredding one of the acoustic mirrors from April 11th's post. Can you imagine having this as a local spot? Incredible! And he's not even using a cheater board! (Note the concrete block directly in Dan's path: ninety years ago, that block would have supported the listening microphone. Neat.)

A million thanks to the Shithawks blog for bringing this to my attention.

You'll never ride it, pt. 2: G-CANS

For the second installment of You'll Never Ride It, we have the Tokyo G-CANS project, an immense network of tunnels "for preventing overflow of the major rivers and waterways spidering the city." The tunnels were blogged to death a couple years ago, but never mentioned with reference to bmx or skateboarding, so I'll go ahead and throw up the standard set of rehashed images.































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My dad was talking about Dogs and Demons (I haven't read it (yet)). The book basically predicts Japan's economic and environmental collapse, due to an obsession with exactly this kind of ridiculous public works project. Terrible, but I just can't help getting a little teary-eyed when I think of all the amazing concrete wonders, never to be glimpsed by a skater or bike rider.

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Land Rover used the location to shoot a tv commercial, which is a cool idea but pretty weakly executed. The YouTube:



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Here's another quick G-Cans movie. Video helps give context to all the familiar images; and the audio really completes a sense of atmosphere.

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Tours available in Japanese: "Feel the grandeur of the Metropolitan Area Outer Underground Discharge Tunnel."

Feel the grandeur!

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And, while you and I will never bike the tunnels, some people (admittedly) do. Heck of a commute.

You'll never ride it (and neither will I).

These massive concrete structures are "acoustic mirrors", built in the first quarter of last century along Southeast UK coastlines. By gathering sound and focusing it at a microphone, the dishes gave the Brits an early warning of approaching enemy aircraft, simply by listening.

But faster and faster planes diminished the mirrors' usefulness, and the advent of radar in the 1930's rendered the technology officially obsolete.

There are a dozen or so mirror sites smattered along the coast, but the most impressive specimens, pictured above, stand today in a defunct quarry, surrounded by a moat, at an old military base. A drawbridge provides access for tourists.

Type "acoustic mirror" into Google Earth, and you'll find them.

Hilarious as I think it would be, trying to session these post-modern, post-apocalyptic monoliths with my little bicycle, that's really a minor component of my attraction to them. I just hope they remain standing for a while, and that I can go and have my picture taken with them.


















Read more about them and see lots more pictures here, here, here, and here.

The world is incredible.

Bikes and Coffee

I remain surprised that coffee hasn't emerged as a bigger part of bmx culture. Joe and Ruben have been documented savoring gourmet beans a couple of times:

Sipping espresso on the train at 0:40 in the
Dig Train Trip video


Arriving for the morning skatepark session, Venti Starbucks in hand, at 5:41 in Why Didn't We Do This Before?

Not to mention Ruben enthusiastically brewing a cup of coffee at home in the pre-intro to You Get What You Get.... The video isn't available anywhere online, but two of the V-Club guys did an absolutely unwatchable review of it on youtube, and the video plays in the background.

Not recommended, but the coffee happens at 0:30.


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The only pair of bike riders I like better than Joe and Ruben would have to be Ben and TJ. I've never known quite what to make of the clip below, but I know I wish I'd been there.

Ben and TJ, Winter Morning...



Today I stumbled on this story about the burgeoning trend of espresso bars in bike shops.

And last week I learned about Breakfast On The Bridges, right here in Portland. On the last Friday of every month, morning bicycle commuters can enjoy fresh coffee and pastries, free, on the Hawthorne Bridge. Unreal. When I mentioned it to Ben, his first question was "Is the coffee good?"

We'll have to investigate.

Buy a video.

Video is done, first batch shipping now. Each one is burned at home, spraypainted on my back porch, and decorated with a hand-cut stencil. Bonus material includes our proudest web videos from the past seven years. (Watching them on a full-sized television is quite a trip!)

I think you'll like the video. I really do. Check out the youtube "trailer" in the previous post.

Ten dollars = I send you a dvd. Use the PayPal button below.

NOTICE: The second "pressing" is done and copies are available. This new version is color-correct and has some slight editing tweaks. Count yourself lucky if you scored one of the super-limited-edition V1 discs...

If you want to arrange some sort of barter transaction, email me.

Trailer up.

Put together a "trailer" today and hosted it on Vimeo, but I think it
got pulled down because they don't allow "advertisements." ...So here
it is on YouTube. If you watched the "Call For Footy" video from a
couple months back, you'll recognize some of these shots.



We got some banger clips at the last minute from Andrew Longstreet,
Shay Scheiffelbein, and TJ Henderson, and I feel really privileged.
Editing is all done. Trying not to let myself keep making changes.
Next step is to burn a test dvd to see how everything looks and sounds
on a TV screen. I'll tweak the audio levels, do a little color
correction, and that's it. I've been practicing with iDVD, and the
chapters and menu are done already. Once I've got a master, I may take
it to be professionally duplicated. That's a decision that I've not
made yet. Also not sure how many copies. 500? 100? Gotta' contact
mailorders and see if they want to buy some. I'd love to get a hold of
some old scene videos that people have made, but no one ever has any
copies. I can only conclude that they should have pressed more copies?

Chicago to Portland

I set this down in writing mostly to cement my own memories, but also to share the experience with anyone who might be interested. I had intended to blog/journal every day, but I never seemed to have the time. So it goes, travelling with a newborn, I guess. As I write this tonight, all in one sitting, the trip is not quite completely over.

Eleven days ago, we said goodbye to Chicago and set out for the West. We had sold all of our furniture; returned anything for which we happened to have a receipt; donated to Goodwill anything without resale value; and sent everything else across the country via Amtrak freight, at the extremely reasonable rate of 41 cents/pound.

To transport ourselves, we paid a hundred dollars for a pop-up camper, dirty but in good working order. We spent a week customizing and cleaning it: discarded superfluous racks, brackets to nonexistent accessories, a pair of rusty propane tanks; from the interior, temporarily removed the cabinetry, tore out the linoleum flooring and ragged panelling; put down new pad and carpet (taken from Markie's bedroom), installed new paneling (the only out-of-pocket expense); re-installed the pair of bench cabinets, ditched the rest; replaced the decaying kitchenette tabletop with one from our patio furniture (which J stained to a shade of mahogany); scoured every surface inside and out; and laundered the curtains and upholstery; did not have time to follow through with our plans to paint it. Perhaps in the future.

Some befores:

Afters:

As you may well know, moving can be a chore. The final stages seem absolutely unending. My mom came up from St Louis and watched Markie while J and I focused on our projects for the final forty-eight sleepless hours leading up to our departure. Our goal was to pack light as possible and bring along nothing unnecessary, but at a certain point, we gave up on doing it all perfectly and just wanted the hell out of our apartment. We crammed everything into the trailer, the trunk, the back seat, left the house keys by the fridge, and hit the road, pulling a trailer for the first time.

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Day 1. Sunday, September 16

As the sun rose, Mom tailed us to Dunkin Donuts for 5 a.m. coffee and sugar charge up. We all exchanged hugs, and then Mom drove South for St Louis, and we peeled off onto the 294 tollway, westward. We tried to work up some nostalgic sentiment for our last views of Chicago, but the thrill of being done with it all was too great. That excitement was enough to keep us from conking out for approximately twenty minutes. Eyelids crashing, heads lolling, we exited the highway and pulled into a hotel parking lot where we slept deeply, upright in our seats, for five hours. Not even beyond the city limits, the liberated sensation of travel was strong. The randomness of our spot made us invisible, and after the car nap, J put a blanket on the grass and laid down with Markie for a while. The dogs roamed. Markie burped up; we changed her outfit and diaper. Someone had dumped out a cooler on the lawn, and so I scooped the free ice into our own cooler.

Getting out of the apartment had been our final responsibility. No job waiting for me in Portland, no rent due (We'll be staying with my aunt and uncle, once we arrive in PDX), no school, no homework. Huge, unnatural freedom. Furthermore, at just ten weeks old, the demands made by Markie are at their lifetime minimum, and her capacity for sleep is at its max. No schedule, no plans, no itinerary. Watch the weather, check the atlas, drive when we're in the mood, stay an extra night when we find a good spot, so on, so forth. See how Markie handles long stretches of driving, see how livable the camper is, see what the Volvo is capable of.

Concluding our heavenly pit stop, we promptly found ourselves disoriented and confused, choosing between poorly marked on-ramps, atlas locked in the trunk under the fully loaded bike rack; little dog Murphy spontaneously vomited a stomach-full of dog food and putrid scrounged mystery liquid, coating car seat and Markie, now squirming and screaming. On the shoulder of the freeway entrance, I ineffectually wiped off the car seat with paper towels while J changed Markie's clothes for the second time in twenty minutes.

Markie didn't seem to mind the stench of her car seat, so we trundled off, frazzled but not disheartened, all the more eager to get some miles behind us.

We used the De Kalb Oasis free wi-fi to make reservations at a KOA just beyond Des Moines. Made it there around ten pm, set up the camper, took showers, bathed Markie, decided to spend the next day organizing the camper and car, examine atlas and guide books, enjoy the campground. Slept with the “windows” open, let the night air blow through the mosquito netting.

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Day 2. Monday, September 17.

Slept late. Cooked a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast on the Coleman stove. Organized the living space, consolidated boxes. Loaded the trunk with all items that didn't have to do with the trip. Patched a tube. Drank coffee, read the New Yorker in the shade. Once the sun reached its full height, we zipped the rubber windows and tried out the AC. It works.

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Day 3. Tuesday, September 18.

Got in touch with J's friend Liz in Omaha, made plans to meet for lunch on our way through. Liz invited us to stay the night, so we did.

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Day 4. Wednesday, September 19.

Ate a ridiculous complimentary breakfast at the French delicatessen where Liz works. My first time eating caviar, I think.

Headed North for the Badlands. Sunset rest stop.

Arrived at the Badlands around 1:30a.m., found a campsite, tried to set up quietly.

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Day 5. Thursday, September 20.

Toured the Badlands by car. Lured prairie dogs with gravel.

Wall Drug.

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Day 6. Friday, September 21.

Woke with the sun.

Mt. Rushmore. Refused to pay the $8 parking lot entrance fee, so these are the pics we got. Watched the landscape change from pure farmland to wooded foothills of pine.

Crazy Horse.

Set up for the night at a mediocre RV Park in Worland, Wyoming. Fixed chili dogs on Coleman stove.

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Day 7. Saturday, September 22.

Woke early, romped with dogs in nearby field. Forecast in Yellowstone called for snow, so we decided to skip it.

Crossed the continental divide.

Buffalo.

Drove South through ridiculously beautiful Wyoming. Stopped at some anonymous body of water for a picnic roadside brunch of pancakes, bacon, and eggs.

Looked around after brunch...

Found this. I'm not sure—does the graffiti date itself? King Diamond, Bon Jovi, KISS, Judas Priest...

As the below pictures make clear, hips and berms aren't my everyday terrain, but this discovery was perhaps the peak experience of my bike riding life. Thanks to J and Markie for enduring the blowing sand and for snapping the pictures.

Sweaty back and torn jeans, onward to the next stop: Preston, Idaho, the real-life setting of Napoleon Dynamite. Arrived very late in chilly Preston, rang the motel doorbell, and got a room. Cast and crew for Napoleon stayed here while shooting, turns out.

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Day 8. Sunday, September 23.

Napoleon sightseeing all morning. I wouldn't call myself a Napoleon “fan,” but I also wouldn't say my taste in movies is very sophisticated. Sad to report that the restaurant where Kip and Uncle Rico eat is no longer extant.

Preston High School:

Summer's house:

Napoleon's house:

...I couldn't believe Idaho's natural beauty. Large-format Hasselblad would be appropriate, but I just went ahead with my compact digital point-and-shoot and fired away through filthy windshield. These shots were all taken while driving, as J and Markie slept.

Tumble weed. Temperature dropping as we climb.

Made camp in Mountain Home, Idaho. Coffee pot ramen noodles. Did laundry.

Rented a dvd to watch on the computer. Here's a hot tip—sign up for a new account at Video Gallery, get a free rental!

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Day 9. Monday, September 24.

Started the day with an oil change for the Volvo. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, the transmission gave us trouble for the first time ever. The automatic transmission just didn't want to upshift or downshift, had to go way above or below the usual shift points. Checked the fluid (as I had at every other gas station stop), and it was fine, as I knew it would be. Checked with four local mechanics, none of whom had a spare second, and none of whom knew anyone that worked on Volvos. I decided that since the transmission wasn't actually slipping, maybe it wouldn't hurt it to continue driving. Got back on the road and the car was normal within thirty minutes. Fixed itself. I'm planning to share my story with Car Talk this weekend...

Beautiful day, beautiful Eastern Oregon, beautiful wife.

Arrived in Medford at 11p.m.
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Day 16. Monday, October 1.

We lingered in Medford, Oregon, had a fully satisfying visit, and made sure that Markie got plenty of Grandma time.

After a week, we packed up and said our goodbyes. Rather than a straight, five-hour shot North to Portland, we opted for Highway 101, the scenic two-lane that hugs the coast. We dipped down through the California Redwoods and then hit Brookings, the southernmost town on Oregon's coast. It was already mid-afternoon when we stopped to check out the Brookings public beach. When we found that the park included a campground with vacancies, we happily concluded the day's driving.

This was the greenest campground of the trip, and the spot we chose proved the shadiest, soggiest of them all, appropriate for our official arrival in Oregon.

Set up camp, watched the gray sunset.

At just $17/night, we decided to stay the next day, too. Hung out, edited video, let the dogs run.

Rather than spend $8 on two cans of Coleman fuel, I bought an electric skillet for fifteen; only wish I'd done it sooner. Sausage links and french toast for dinner.

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Day 17. Tuesday, October 2.
Drove north. Pit stop at the Oregon Dunes, ocean visible in the distance.

Couple hours later, stopped for a cold-water swim. J stayed dry.

When it was time to find accomodations for the night, we decided not to stop. Instead, we called our family in Portland and let them know that we would be arriving late that night, and they said they'd have our room all ready with clean sheets.

So we drove and drove, made a late sunset photo stop in Depoe Bay, where we honeymooned three years ago.

Arrived in Portland just before ten.
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Day 18. Wednesday, October 3.
Slept happy, woke happy. And this is home now, for the next long while.