last night i was doing some overnight babysitting/house watching and two bikes were stolen out of the garage. we were there at the time with the windows open, lights on, and the door from the garage to the house open. who ever did it was bold. anyway, they got a fuji cambridge and a fully suspended trek. the funny thing is - you can't get either of those bikes around here - they're both one of a kinds in this area, the trek especially (it was a demo). if you see anybody riding either of them around you can get a hold of me through here, i'll start checking this more. you can also get a hold of my at true_till_what@hotmail.com or 231.343.7175.

the fuji is a hybrid mountain bike/road bike. it's a split color frame - half maroon and half silver. it's got a black rack on the back and some gauges to tell speed and distance on the handlebars.

the trek is all flat black. the trek logo on the frame has been painted over with a flat black as well, but you can still see that it's there. it's got one less car stickers all over it, so that'll help - until they peel them all off. it's fully suspended, so that sets it a part a bit , making it more recognizable and expensive as hell. so at least if they catch whoever did it they're looking at a felony now.

thanks for the help. we appreciate it.

anybody got an extra three feet of space on the way to the requiem show. i can squeeze in anywhere and help with gas, of course. i just wanna go.

- derek

i decided to celebrate this once in a life time occasion with a tattoo. upper right arm, next to 'k' is for kate, chopped with an axe.

sometimes hearing how 'friends' treat friends just makes me hate people. most of you are just vampires - living off of others. when one lifesource ends you find yourselves another host to sponge off of. you are human parasites, leeching, using. you try to cover your asses by calling it a community, but it is just a commune of take/take, not the give and take of a true community. you are depressing. living seperate from you is a weight lifted from these shoulders. if you had a brief moment of doubt about whether or not this was about you - it was.

i have an idea. grab a dictionary and look up the word 'solipsist' or 'solipsist'. memorize it because it will forever define you.

fallen idols make good gravel. i'll gladly mix all my little 'friends' up with some water and produce a foundation to build something pure upon.

what more could you possibly need?!? seriously.

anybody going to see leftover crack on friday? just wondered.

i just went down to the new artworks building which advertises artist lofts for the art community. i figured that since i went to kendall college of art and design, since i work in a tatto shop drawing all day; since i have had work in the muskegon musuem of art, kendall's gallery and the g.r. museum, since i have family working at the muskegon museum of art and the frauenthal theater, and since i've sold many of my drawings in the past that i might be able to get in down there. they provide goverment assisted living for the starving artist.

but upon talking to them i found that they have eight spaces that get 75% assistance and go cheap, all eight are indefinitely rented throughout the existence of the building due to a contract with a company that provides group housing for people with mental and/or physical disabilities. the company moves people into the artworks building to get them living out in society and on their own, away from the group home setting. that's great and all, but the building was designed as art spaces for the art community. so the straving artists lose out on those spaces because mentally retarded people need a new place to live. that's fucked up. that's muskegon.

hey artworks, fuck you. you helped fuck muskegon again.

all 95 episodes, plus the ten part mini-series, plus g.i. joe: the movie. all mine, in two to three business days. that's just over fifty-two hours of total viewing pleasure. that, and at the end of each episode i get to learn a bit of wisdom from all my favorite charcters. yeah.

the rate of decay is far greater than you could possibly imagine...

i'm wasted talent just wasting my time. it turns out that legends are all believed lies. monuments to grief, i've built them five miles high. there's something dark waiting behind these eyes.

- another gray day. but soon we'll have an extra hour of daylight.

- wrote the one less car newsletter today. we came up with a great idea to see what life is like for bike riders in different areas. the plan was to send disposable cameras out to the first five people to respond to the newsletter and have them take pictures of their biking adventures for a few days. then they send it back to us and we develope them and put them up on the site so that everyone can see what it's like biking in other spots. we got the first response two minutes after i posted it. crazy. i can't wait to see everyone's pictures, cuz biking around here everyday gets boring in the visual department. we just got another response as i'm typing this. awesome.

edit: all five spots filled in thirty-three minutes. there are now 125 people on the mailing list.

- i hit the biggest tumble weed ever today on my ride here. i thought it was gonna get pissed and kick my ass, it was that big.

- the water looks dark today. i bet it's cold as hell. i can't wait for swimming this summer out at the lake. near the end of last summer we had snorkles and goggles. we were throwing everything we could pick up into the water, diving for it. i found a quarter at about 20 feet.

- anybody know anything about mountain climbing? i have some questions.

- two girls came in today to get tattoos. one of them got the fox racing logo tattooed on her. when they left they got into a red sports car that said 'redneck' in the back window, like it's something to be proud of. it seemed to scream, 'i love testosterone and beer fueled macho men, racism and really tight bootcut pants'.

- so this guy comes in the shop with a tribal-type swastika looking thing on his arm, so i put on some dead prez. the song "i'm a african" comes on right away and he says that he went to school with a girl that was born in africa & raised in the u.s., but she's white. like that's a physical abnormality. i told him that a large part of the population of south africa is white people and he looked at me like i was lying to him. he said that he didn't know anything about that. i think he got bummed when i said that ignorance really must be bliss a little too loudly. racism.

- why are we a port city with little, to no, dock space? why aren't there boats and ships of all shapes and sizes out in the lake? oh yeah, because muskegon lake is sick as hell and there's nothing along the lakeshore to inspire people to hang out in lake michigan. silly me. you'd think we're have a boardwalk, some docks, some fishing, some businesses down near the waterfront, but no. there's some carp fishing and a telemarketing business. muskegon is dumb. we've taken something that could have been, and once was, a thriving area and fucked it beyond repair. we're idiots.

- lots of one less car mail the last couple days. packages going out to the u.k., scotland, sweden, washington, oregon, california. i never would have thought...

- got a zine in the mail today from a kid in portland. he got the address from the website and sent his latest issue and some stickers, just for the hell of it. i read most of it this afternoon and it's awesome. i sent him a return package with a bunch of patches, stickers and a note saying that he's rad for doing what he did. thanks scott. check out his website at www.gobybicycle.com. i'm going to review it and give his contact info on the 1lesscar website. being that we've gotten over 150,000 hits so far this month i think some people will see it and hook him up. yeah, over 150,000 hits.

- ebay brought me burning witch's "crippled lucifer - seven psalms for our lord of light" and two dvd's (two hours each) of daffy duck, bugs bunny and elmer fudd cartoons. score.

- the ride to work this morning was amazing, being stuck in here all day isn't though. i've spent most of the day out on the sidewalk.

- cops stopped me last night on my way home. i go his card. that makes number six in the collection. he stopped me for a supposed stolen bike, but it turned into a graffiti conversation quickly. go figure. i guess it's been popping up more frequently and guess who's under the gun? ridiculous. what really gets me though is that amongst all the questions and what-not he managed to get my phone number from me. bastards. i realized it too late and was like, "fuck!!!" but now, due to that amazing act of patriotism they will be able to run my number and get the numbers of everyone i've called and everyone who has called me. i'll be changing my number soon. and hopefully my address. i'm getting restless being in that same apartment for six months anyway. six months is about my limit.

they say you should want to be richer than everyone. they say you should want to have more than everyone. they say you should want to be better than everyone. they say you're never good enough anyway. better get down on your knees. better pray to our god, his name is greed.




we belive that if we have beliefs that someday everyone will realize that they were wrong...

last night i tightened my chain after work. when we got to the end of clay, down by port city paints there were a few guys sitting just out of the streetlight's range. as we rode by they asked for a ride and i had to say no. then they made some comments, like guys do, as we went to cross lakeshore. i stood up to hop up the curb and as i leaned onto my right pedal i felt it slip and my tire leaned into the left side of my bike, locking up. the guys saw this and started laughing and making jokes. i was stuck there with a tire that didn't spin. so i walked it around toward heritage landing and hid it underneath that red wooden storage building that's over there, trying to make sure that the guys couldn't see. then i had to walk back to the shop to get the socket wrench. it was a beautiful night and a slow walk. upon leaving the shop we ran into lindy and his girlfriend and they walked with us back to my bike. i realigned everything and we all parted ways. a slow bike ride home made me anxious for warmer weather. but at this point, everything has me anxious for warmer weather.

- got hit with a hockey puck last night at the fury game. and we lost 6 to 0.

- today cole built a cart for the back of his bike. we can go grocery shopping now when we need food.

- sun was out today. even though it was cold it was nice to ride around.

- freight train was short as hell tonight.

- spent the rest of the day making seitan. mad fat batches.

- got a phone call from casey that made me wish i could reach through the phone and give him a hug. i made him a batch of seitan and after i finish my present for jeff i'm going over to their house to deliver the goods.

- probably go back home after that and watch 'howl's moving castle'.

- yesterday i rode to work and it looked like i was riding inside of a giant snowglobe, you know, one of those glass balls that you shake up and watch the fake flkes fall. only this one was a giant shitty muskegon snowglobe. the flakes were so big and fat that when i got to work i was just soaked.

- this morning i walked to the post office and the sky was spitting a light rain. when i walked out ten minutes later the sky was blue and the sun was shining.

- the wind. oh, the wind.

- i got another email from a kid living in another state asking if i could send some a.t.o. cd's. man, i miss those days. i would have never thought that i'd be getting emails from kids living all over the u.s. asking if i could send them the music that we made. that's so awesome. so awesome. so i mailed those out today. i am grateful. thank you.

- last night, late night bike rides to go play with a dog. hazel. she was amazing! she's seven months old and so full of energy. dog hair everywhere in just a few minutes.

- i'm getting anxious to start exploring buildings again, as soon as it gets a bit warmer. it's so cold inside those places. shaw-walker anyone? there's still so much to see.

- yesterday morning started with a freight rolling ten feet from me. i saw an 'alone' from a couple years ago, and a couple tags that looked familiar. that's always a good way to wake up.

- why does it bother me when i'm reading a good book and the word nigger gets used? i mean, i understand that the author was using the character's voice in the way that it probably should be used - a whitebread redneck sheriff in new mexico would probably be a racist asshole, but it just doesn't sit well with me still. the book would still be great without it, but would it be stripping away the reality of the characters, thus stripping away the authenticity of the voices and times. why have humans evolved into such biggots?

- take it easy out there. ride safe. and leave the lightest footprint possible.

paperclips were designed by norwegians during world war II as a symbol of solidarity against nazi oppression. they were worn on collars of shirts and coats to show underground resistence. this way their message got out to those who knew, yet they stayed under the nazi radars. pretty cool. and this whole time i thought they were just a handy little device to hold loose papers together.

i got this from a documentary called, simply enough, 'paperclips'. it was about a middle school in tennessee that was doing a project on intolerance. it showed that people are quick to judge those that they aren't familiar with, and it did a pretty good job of it. i think that the kids still viewed jewish people as something similar in ways, yet set aside from 'normal' life - their town has no jewish people or homosexuals (or any that have openly come out), they only have two black kids in their school and a spanish kid or two, and they're all baptists or methodists - very straigh laced and homogenized. so learning tolerance for others that aren't like them was a pretty big deal. i just don't understand racism, homophobia, ethnocentrism, sexism, class, nationalism, etc. we're all human. we're all here on this planet trying to figure out our own way. why be an asshole? why step on others? what makes your cause more noble than anyone else's?

p.s. cops don't apply to any of this. they still, and will always, suck.

i just got done watching the movie 'blue crush'. it's a surfer movie with girls that surf being the focus. i've been watching quite a few surfer movies lately and was pretty stoked to check this one out, but after watching it i'm pretty sure that women were set back a few generations. here's a break down of the breakdown of strong women in films:

- she opens the movie by training hard for an upcoming competition.
- she has a pretty relaxed job, a couple close friends that she works and surfs with.
- she has a little sister that she's raising because her mom left them for a man.
- a young pro athelete comes to hawaii for vaction. he's rich and handsom.
- he buys her clothes and dreses her up. he takes her out and spends tons of money on her.
- she skips training and practice for this fuck. competition in three days.
- her friends get bummed because she's giving up her dream for some guy on vaction from montana.
- she keeps skipping working out and practice.
- she gets bummed and tells the guy to tell her what to do, suddenly she is mindless i guess.
- she ends up going to the competition only to suck pretty hard.
- she catches one good wave and one of her male surfing friends says, 'you go bitch!' so in her greatest moment of the film a guy is calling her a bitch.
- in an extended scene when she tells the guy to tell her what to do he says, 'be the girl you were before you knew me. you'd never have asked a man to tell you what to do before.' they cut that part out of the film though, the one line that would have supported her strength as a female.
- in another deleted scene it shows the girls getting to the beach and a guy tells them that the waves are too big for them, maybe they should surf somehwere else - so they leave to find smaller waves.
- they talk to a female pro surfer and she calls surfing a male's sport and that it was hard coming up a gilr in that situation. well, calling it a man's sport isn't a good start. although it may be male dominated, that doesn't automatically assign a gender to the sport as a whole. then she says that women started getting into surfing more later on, but when billabong started making a women's clothing line then it really blew up. so it makes it sound like women only really got into surfing because of the cool clothes.
- then the rest of thedeleted scenes show the girls all sweaty in bathing suits doing nothing else but posing. it's bullshit.

all in all, girl weakens dream for a guy, loses sense of self and resorts to man for help in a 'man's sport' inwhich only men can surf the good waves. but that's okay because girls only really dig the clothes anyway. anything positive in this movie showcasing a strong female lead was shadowed by the bullshit encroachment of men and their ridiculousness.

- gray skies.

- little to no sun.

- on my bike ride here, to the shop, in the mornings i can smell garlic bread from kohl's bakery and i wish i had had something to eat for breakfast.

- one block later the air smells of burning plastic and metal. the foundry can suck it.

- 'a history of violence' has some graphic brutality. and a fucked up sex scene that left me asking, 'what the fuck was that all about?'

- alkaline trio's first self titled ablum is very good and doesn't get enough credit.

- 'Skaven were a bunch of wild crusty hobo blackmetal punks from "back in the day" (before the new wave of junkies took over …). They were heavily influence by the ol UK stenchcore bands (ala Axegrinder, Amebix, Anti-Sect, and the like) but also had traits of 90's bands like Antischism, Nausea, etc. Anyone who had a chance to see them during their hayday would most likely recall beer, drugs, members of the band on fire, vomit, band members attacking other members of the band, a skinhead getting his ear bitten off, dreadlocks, and other crusty debauchery, sans the "got any change?" routine'.

i got the skaven split today. i'm excited to hear it, but it's coming from germany, so it'll be a while.

- ebay also left me with a 'burning witch' album. for some reason they're going for anywhere between 70 and 120 bucks on shit like amazon.com and what-not. hard to come by. they had an album out on slap-a-ham a while back. 'vocals comparable to nails on a chalkboard'. i couldn't be happier.

- fuck ebay. fuck staying inside to avoid cold weather. fuck cold weather. fuck getting drak early, although it's lighter out longer. fuck not having more arizona peach tea. fuck getting up to go to work. fuck work. fuck getting out of work only to ride bikes in the freezing cold. fuck not having good food waiting for you to make when you get home. fuck cops. fuck wannabe master p gangster motherfuckers giving you shit on the way home. fuck everyone who thinks muskegon is like a big city, this shit's so small-time.

- dead prez, the 'lets get free' album. word is bond.

- "i'm in a dream because everything seems like it's moving through some kind of fog. i try to explain, but the words come out strange and i don't know what i'm doing wrong cause i'm in my own world and you're not a part of it; i'm in my own world it's falling apart. if i smile outside and i roll back my eyes in my head and shake hands, you know what? i can't even tell that i'm not even welcome
in the town where i grew up."

- i don't even care how punk this isn't, but screeching weasel fucking rules! fuck punk rules and uniform thoughts.

- so a muskegon cop killed himself. i'd kill myself too if i was a cop. the other officers in muskegon should take a cue from their fallen friend and start shooting each other, or themselves. am i completely insensitive, or just fucking tired of being fucked with for no good reason?

- finished reading 'the grapes of wrath'. what a sad fucking book. you get done reading that last paragraph and you're like, fuck... life was a ten yard fight every fucking day to them. i'm thankful that my life is one of relative ease. so, big ups to god and baby jesus.

- i'm getting really tired of this constant wind. every day.

- bought a shemagh. it's what everyone wears in the middle east to keep the sun, wind, and sand out of their eyes. wearing it is a nice little act of solidarity, a thumb's up to those fighting the u.s. (world) police.

- started reading 'the brave cowboy' last night. it's an edward abbey book. he wrote 'the monkey wrench gang'. if you haven't read that yet, i'd suggest going to barnes and noble and removing the electronic tag in it right before you walk out the door with it.

- stuck at work on a slow fucking day listening to poison's greatest hits. there's some shitty songs near the end though.

- ebay, here i come. motherfucker. i hate you.