As if this guy hasn't embarrased himself enough already......

http://lamesa.patch.com/articles/reality-tv-star-arrested-on-suspicion-of-committing-lewd-act-on-female-child

"Allegedly", the victim is reported as his step-daughter.....

Got this "garage find" FXEF running this weekend.....

Tommy figured that his Pops (who's still riding in his 80's), needed a project to get him off the sofa. So, Tommy found this 1980 FXEF Fatbob for a really good price for him to tinker on. The bike quit running over 7 years ago, and the owner just parked it in his garage. Tommy hauled it over here for me to get it running again.

It's pretty much original, save for the GME brakes, and the Progressive shocks on the back. The bike has 31,600 mi. on the clock, and somebody in the past put a 93" S&S Sidewinder kit in it, along with S&S barrels, S&S oil pump, and an E carb. They even dual-plugged the heads.

Under the dust and dirt is the original 1980 Vivid Brown Factory paint and decals, and the matching Factory brown vinyl seat upholstery is still in pretty good shape. It even has the Factory 2 into 1 collector exhaust, but somebody's cut the slash cut portion of the collector off square.

We figured out that the Dyna 2000i that was in it was fried, so we replaced it with a Daytona Twin Tec, added in a new battery and a set of NGK Platinum plugs, fiddled with the base settings on the S&S E, put a drain pan under the case vent line (if you work on old Shovels, you know why.....) and hit the starter button. Fired right up, and ran extremely well - just a little carbon smoke, which cleared right out as it warmed up. Oh yeah, it also puked out about a quart of oil from the vent line.....

Tommy's picking it up today, and it'll be on it's way to his Pops in New Orleans shortly, and his Pops can ride it and tinker on it to his heart's content. That is, unless the Saints are playing........

Oh yeah, as a sidenote - see that little Miller 100 MIG welder in the background? I bought that welder in 1990 to use in the body shops I worked, so I wouldn't always be waiting for somebody to finish up so I could use one of the shop welders. Well, that welder is still going strong after 22 years of hard use, never have had any issues with it, and we still use it here weekly for quicky welding jobs. Don't be seduced by low prices on equipment, buy quality.

Wow! Historic 'poon.....

I found this photo of Harpoon hawking his wares on an old CD. The photo's kinda grainy, I don't remember who sent it to me (could have been ChopperDave), what the event was, or what year....but I think it was around '99-'00 maybe?

Hey Harpoon, help me out here, will 'ya?

The Ed Roth commercial that wasn't......

Maybe you've seen this, and maybe you haven't. It shows up on blogs from time to time. It's posted on YouTube as the Ratfink Nazi Helmet Commercial. It alludes to a possibly long-lost '68 Ed Roth TV commercial that advertised his "Surfer's Helmets" (as Roth called them, along with his Iron 'Surfer's' cross), which may have run in the local SoCal area at one time. Not the case.....

The segment is actually from the movie You Are What You Eat, released at the end of Sept. of 1968. The movie is an early underground "documentary", in the vein of later works, like The Monkees' Head, The Mothers' 200 Motels, and the Jimi Hendrix docu Rainbow Bridge. The "commercial" was actually a satirical spoof included in YAWYE, lampooning the Teenage Fairs, a yearly 10 day event held at the Hollywood Palladium from 1964 - 1972, expressly to market wares to the emerging teen market segment who had for the first time, a lot of discretionary income to buy with. The Teenage Fairs were held at different times, but always held to coincide with the L.A. Basin's high school's Easter Spring Break, to maximize the attendance. A good thumbnail history, and the actual purpose of these Fairs can be found here:

http://gogonotes.blogspot.com/2008/12/palladium-lawrence-weld-years.html

The IMDB credits the voiceover in the film to "Emperor Rosko", BBC radio DJ Joey Pasternak, son of movie producer Joe Pasternak, but that isn't correct. The voiceover for the movie was actually done by Rosko, the black DJ at the time for L.A. radio station KBLA.

Interesting to note, the Teenage Fairs (as you'll see in the link I provided) had both an amateur "Battle Of The Bands" to provide music during the event, and also well-known groups that played during the event as well. Some of the groups that appeared over the years were Sonny and Cher, Jimi Hendrix, The Byrds, The Chambers Bros., and Sly And The Family Stone. It's also funny to note that Capt. Beefheart and His Magic Band won one of the Teenage Fair's Battle Of The Bands competitions.

Also, in the link I provided, it states that there were always hot rods on exhibit, along with a full midway of vendors. While I've not read anyplace for sure if Roth (or a designated outside vendor) had a booth set up at any of these Fairs, or had any of his cars appear there, but the chances of both those things happening were probably pretty good. Roth would have never missed a chance to sell his wares to an eager teen audience with money to burn, and the Teenage Fairs were a perfect place to do just that. Also, it was right in Roth's backyard. I think that the film footage YAWYE culled from whatever source for the commercial spoof movie segment was probably shot during the Teenage Fairs around '65-'66, not in '68 (Roth started selling the helmets and crosses around mid-year of '65 in magazine ads), and I'll bet that Roth was indeed set up there, selling those Surfer's Helmets at the Fair as fast as he could stack them up - hence the proliferation of them on attendee's heads in the film segment.

Anyways, here you are, the Roth "commercial" that never was........

Well, allright for Leo!

Leo Rickerman came to me from Colorado Springs about a year-and-a-half ago. He had a wishbone frame with a neck and backbone that had seen better days, but the frame otherwise was pretty solid. He asked for my opinion, because he wanted to build a chopper that he could take a trip to Sturgis on, when it was finished. I said if it was mine, I'd replace the neck and a partial backbone vs. trying to un-rake/restore what he had. Leo agreed, and I performed the surgery for him.

Leo's been diligently hammering away on his Pan, and finally he and his brother took their very first trip to Sturgis this year, Leo riding his completed Pan project all the way. Well, while they were there, Leo entered his Pan in the Cycle Source Chopper Show, and won Best In Show! On top of that, his bike was shot by Chris for a future feature in the magazine (see the above photo). How cool is this whole story?

Congratulations, Leo. Proud to be a small part in helping you to achieve both your goals.