My friend Jerry Keslensky recently asked if I’d write an article on how I create my strip for his blog Bristol Board and Ink. While I’m hardly an expert, I was more than glad to do so. Check out the article here.
I met JK in the user forum of Toon Boom Studio, animation software we’ve both used for our own brands of storytelling. JK has been at this a little longer than I, and has been a co-conspirator and encourager in the work we both love to do when our regular jobs allow time for it. He also started a strip of his own last year called Bug Pudding, set in the fictional land of Tuberville, Georgia. It’s wonderfully drawn, and if you follow it long enough, you catch him pointing his humor in a variety of directions.
The family took a drive up to the big city (San Jose) a few days ago and I managed to talk my wife into stopping along the way at a few Thunder Press for some photo ops.
The first stop was at EMF in Morgan Hill. This is a great shop. I’ve only been in a few times, but I’ve always been treated respectfully there, as if my business is important. I think I’ll be back at some point to bring them just that. Word on the street is that they do great work as well. I’d put a link to their website, but they don’t have one. Their advertising and business model is by word of mouth. I suspect a website would get in the way of wrenching for this place, and they seem to have lasted a long time without one.
Here’s owner Mark behind the counter with the artist formerly known as Rupert Piston and the February issue of Thunder Press.
Unfortunately I completely forgot to ask if he had a tank mount kit in stock. I’m nearly finished with the rewire on my shovelhead and will be installing the tanks soon. The mount kit seems like an infrequently stocked part, though it probably isn’t. I’ve had my shovelhead for over 20 years and have always just run a set of hardware store bolts with a bunch of washers to space between the frame tabs and the tanks. The trouble there is that you risk damaging the threads on the tanks, not to mention the pain in the can of keeping all the washers in place if you take off the tanks. The Custom Chrome kit includes all hardware required and special spacers at roughly the required thickness, along with studs for the threaded holes on the tanks, and only runs around $12 U.S.
So now I had good excuse to stop at another shop. Or a good excuse for my wife to say we should get moving and have lunch (she’s not such a fan of the chopper). We stopped at Road Rider on Monterey Road in San Jose. I’ve only been in this place a few times, and I always have the wrong impression that they are mainly an import shop. This has never been the case. Road Rider has parts and accessories for any type of rider imaginable, and their staff is friendly and knowlegable. Sure, this is the usual crap you hear about any store getting reviewed. But if it ain’t true, I ain’t writing it. Road Rider has different counter space and staff for different types of bikes and riders, as well as separate sections of the store for each. Pretty quickly, they found what I needed and sent me on my way. But not before I got a photo of v-twin parts associate Manual, who helped track down a tank mount kit and an oil filter:
Cameron Weckerley of the Roadshow Podcast
For those who don’t know Beemerman, let me take this opp to toot his horn a little.
I met Beemerman (aka Cameron Weckerly) several years ago when I sent him some sort of email question about his Roadshow Podcast, curious to see how he was working it and what kind of traffic it was bringing him. He turned around and interviewed me, both for the Roashow and for an article for Friction Zone Magazine. In the course of this, we managed to become good friends (who’ve never met).
In that time, Cameron managed to get himself through a rigorous program at MMI in Pheonix and become a BMW motorcycle mechanic. After his graduation from MMI, he got a job at BMW of Santa Fe, which is where he got this shot after acquiring the February issue of Thunder Press Magazine.
