Spokes

By Fur

This column is called SPOKES, checkie?
The first tidbit I’ll toss at y’all is that Mercury Rising is not the only mess rag in town. Our friends Nosmo, Rich, Chris, etc. are bustin’ out with MESS PRESS sometime this week. Maybe we’ll eventually merge, or we could just work out a cozy Joint Operating Agreement like the ChronEx. So everybody get busy and come up with the contributions, ‘cause we’ve got two ‘zines that plan to publish monthly!

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Those MESS PRESS fellows are onto another cool idea – B.M. trading cards! Get your picture taken by Rich or Ski and fill out your data sheet, if you haven’t already. The object won’t really be trading – we’ll all buy full sets – it’s just a fine way to remember each other. Besides, it’s about time we all took credit for being veteran professional athletes!

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Now we’ll smoothly segue into another handsome commemorative set. Dogpaw announces that a book of the mind-bending biker-bash flyers of the 80s will soon be released. He, Lance, and several other artists will be represented. These were some of the best bike art graphics that’ve been seen. Dogpaw’s collection of posters will take you to a post-urban fantasy world where hard is soft and noize is… peaceful.

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One Sunday last summer ,13 of us discovered a new way to make money on a bike: we rode 30 miles for Howard Williams’ pet project, BIKES FOR AFGHAN AMPUTEES REHABILITATION. We raised over eleven hundred bucks towards setting up a physical therapy center for lower limb amputees in Peshawar, Pakistan. Toe-clips, multi-speed bikes and other adaptations can help many amputees achieve great self-sufficiency. Howard has already been there twice to make deliveries and he’s going back next month!
Now if we could just take a nice bike ride for pledges every day instead of gagging on the usually downtown soot…

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Messengers popped up in Herb Caen’s column twice last month. First, he fairly fawned over our fashion sense – pointing out that designers try and fail to copy our style. Then he plugged Lynn Breedlove’s new women’s company, Lickety Split Delivery (to be featured in next month’s Merc). I heard that landed them some new clients. Cool. At least Herb knows culture when he sees it.

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Speaking of which ,here’s a Caenian little item. Western Josh heard some institutional refugee blurt out: “GEORGE BUSH! … POPCORN TAX! … TIRE CHAIN DIVORCE!” You don’t get it either?
Picture a big banner draped across the Wharf Holiday Inn: SFBMA welcomes AMCS! Kinda friendly and scary at the same time.