VOD#3, CMWC 96 SF

On my way to the Welcome Party I ran into Bett so we met up at her house-cool, a ride! Silly me, I didn't think about Critical Mass. Bett and I had power bars and good hot gossip to occupy our time. Got to Maritime just before Hollow was supposed to go on but first I had to park my bike in Valet Hell! I was so bummed I missed STD and Bimbo Toolshed but there were plenty of other bands I wanted to see! Hollow, Family Scott, Joy or Six, to name a few; they rocked! I got a little too spun and really needed some air. What was up with those door guys anyway? Who pissed in their beer? I had to threaten to puke on one of them just to let me stand in the doorway! GEEZ! I was in search of a bowl so I could continue with my lunacy. That was not difficult. STD played again later on-yay! (Thanks, guys)

Saturday was a blur! How odd. I don't remember a thing! STD at El Rio I think? DA!

Sunday was the day of Team glue/Rula's heats. Our nails never looked better thanks to those big hills and a bicycle blow-dry! I was so proud to have won the nail contest but America dropped the prize cider-Boo!

My favorite race was the veteran's. I saw the start but had to haul ass to the store cause I ran out of film so I missed a lot of it. My hubby, Cat, never looked so frisky as he came down the hill on his Aero tank with no hands! (Kiss kiss my sweet) Thanx to Cat, Lance, and Broiler, I got some choice action shots (you guys rule)!

Monday morning, bright and early, Limor and I raced to a handy drug store where I got more nail polish and thus the secret cult of green nails began! I was having a great time at Justin Herman breathing fumes of cheap nail wear when.... I spotted them across the crowd... A WHOLE ROW of barefoot guy in GREEN! Not one would let me tag his toenails-I so sure! Where was their fashion sense? Drink more beer, Team Tuborg!

Someone had put out an evil rumor that Team Glue was disqualified! This seriously depressed me so Laurie and America and I were on the case. With our best detective faces, sunburned of course, we went to fix our reputation for utter failure!

And lo and behold, after all our hard work; drinking, stickering, giggling; we got our prize for dead fucking last-a donkey kong watch! It doesn't get much better than that! Sorry Team Golden Anchor (this months nail color is gold in honor of Trogg). I couldn't stay at the Somar for too long for ocean beach I hear is a long way and I was beat. Thanx to everyone for their enthusiasm for great nails!

- Love, Stephanie

Nice Girls Finish Last

In three weeks' time, I got eight hours of sleep once, and I wasn't even one of the main people. Getting patted on the shoulder too many times kept me out of the CMWC meetings, so I just did my thing behind the scenes: an art show at the Acme Gallery; a shrine to commemorate dead messengers; VoD#2; designing uniforms for Team Glue, Team Rula, and Team Golden Anchor; plus the usual activities: a welcome back party for Laurie and Doreen, drinking, carousing, school, job change - oy vey! I agreed to curate the Acme Gallery art show, after I called up Dogpaw to find out about getting my art into the SOMAR show and was hung up on. For a last minute thing, it looked great. Unfortunately barely anyone saw it. Nonetheless, thanks to Steven Yazzie, Gina Kilpatrick, Tony Calzone, Laurie Landler, Chris Hsiang, Pamela Consulo, Wade Boyd, and Kirk Slavedog for participating and Kim Cook for helping me put it up.

Our house started filling up to the point of ridiculousness - going from just two of us to Pam, me, Limor, Laurie, Craig from DC, Mieter and Paul from Rotterdam, Mons and Nils from Malmö, not to mention Stephanie and folks' various snags staying over. When time rolled around for our Team Glue Solidarity Slumber Party, you couldn't tell the difference.

Laurie and Shawn fed the first wave of East Coasters some down home Bolivian food with plenty of coca tea at Wednesday Night Dinner. Why'd they stay in SF? It was the cheese! The Wall swelled to maximum capacity and I was stoked when, whilst standing-by, the see a lady wearing a Team Glue shirt handing out free Power Bars and Bibles! I wish I had been down there when Mack belted out, "We saved your ass in two wars. Why don't you go the fuck back home?!" Team Jingoist!

So, utterly crazed from sleep deprivation, I eagerly awaited the World Welcoming Party signaling to end of all responsibilities! Joy of Six took over the Voice of Da and I manned the Men's Club/STD booth. Family Scott ripped as usual. Barely caught anything else until the Wives went on, by which time I was smashed and gleefully slid over pools of beer and broken glass in the pit. STD played a final set, and we made our weary way home, but not until after we asserted ourselves as the Rowdiest Team there: keeping many pits going, running around, wailing and pounding on wayward Jaks and aggro bouncers, basically being a hyperactive wave of mayhem and chaos.

Missed out on Spiller earning his nickname - BAM! Missed Cracker King earning points for Most Puking on Race Course. Missed Eddy Muenster sacrificing the chicken. Saw Yazzie (Pelican) qualify for the finals despite a broken derailleur and a blow out. For those who said no messengers actually do tags on Telegraph Hill, if you work at Pelican, you crank up to Alta or 1100 Mo plenty, I assure you. Dumptruck wins style points for riding the course with a basket and Cat, well, who could be more graceful on an Aerotank? It was great finally meeting the BAAR folk after hearing and reading about them for years - keep up the good work!

Day Two was Team Glue's debut and Brewski made my week by telling Laurie and I, "Hey, if you're not part of the race, get off the course!" We took in the view, ate lollipops, gossiped, drank beer, lost our packages, did our nails-you know, just like a normal day at work. Folks didn't get it. But by the time Stephanie rolled around, the fingernail polish check caught on. We kept Bett well supplied with beer as she moseyed around the race course. Lena had flown all the way from Hawaii to participate and was riding pretty hard. We had to keep screaming, "Slow down- relax!" The race course was so difficult, it even took strategy to lose, and we turned to P. Roj for advice. Luckily our sister team, Team Rula lost for us.

Cosmo and Chicks N' Chains showed you don't need to wear spandex to ride hard. In fact, you don't need to wear anything! Lance gets the Ultra Rookie award for not even realizing he qualified for the finals. Broiler discovered the secret to success-clear everyone out of your way! He nearly nailed Pat and Eric Zo. And Mack owes me a 40 of King Cobra since I didn't get to ride the Genocycle III.

I was worried that the whole event would be a big commercial sell-out, but such was not the case. There were barely any vendors 'cos messengers just don't have any money and the Yuppies were not interested in checking us out. The best thing about the event was the homecoming of the SF Mess Diaspora, such as Perry Claw coming back from Flagstaff, Daria from Milwaukee, Lena from Honolulu, Grady from LA, Red Jack from Chicago, and other faces that haven't been around in a while. That's why it'd be so great if we could put together an annual regional bike rally...

By Sunday, my team gave up on intelligent conversation and instead had a contest to see who could plaster the most cat stickers on King Couriers without getting caught (retaliation-every man, woman, and child had a King sticker slapped on them somewhere!). Little Chris made the easiest target, with Nosmo a close second. I gave Travis T a nonsensical drunken lecture about how he shouldn't have won the basket race. Booze Ass ruled, especially when playing the theme song from Great American Hero. The Ghost of L. Sid provided an animated backdrop for the bike tricks (or the other way around?). Where was Cartoon to put SF back on the map? Hey, Greg 103, where were you? Hearing a messenger sing the Swedish national anthem was almost a religious experience.

No one seemed too excited about winning anything (okay, they were probably exhausted), until we got our award for being last. Hard work, faith, leopard-print biking shorts-it all paid off.

For the mess memorial, Red Jack spoke about Rick Dreger; Mikey remembered Teen, but the recent loss of Travis Morache was on all the locals' minds, casting a shadow over the event. I'm glad folks gave me a chance to spout. Doing the memorial shrine really unnerved me. Mishka led 150 bikers on a memorial ride to Mission Rock, that eventually continued on to SOMAR.

The art at SOMAR was great and it's cool the lowrider bicycles were on display, since they are a very American phenomenon. The talented crew included Marty, John Wotipka, Dogpaw, Aaron Lopez, Damon, Hawk, Yazzie, Tony Calzone, and others. The band situation left much to be desired. No drinking in the band area unfortunately meant no audience either. The LA rap band was allowed way longer than any other band, so by the time Family Scott played, they were ready to drop. And so was I, so I jetted back to my bursting-at-the-seams house and slept and slept and slept. - A