capturing Ken 2010

this was the first day of our california to new york round trip. the future was unwritten, northern cal. motoring through this beautiful land, eager, with steady diet of exhaust fumes and gas station food. i lost my hat this day and my cut off shorts in case we went swimming.... turned out i didn't need em.

i knew there was a reason i liked this guy.

doesn't have a chopper, isn't getting into lowriders, never had skinny jeans.

a dozen years dumber....

12 years ago i would drive by this ghetto loading dock everyday and think about things to launch off of it... usually space out thinking about trying to get a car on two wheels A-TEAM style.. but without a disposable vehicle to practice with my next idea was to ride a motorcycle past it and have someone jump(ollie) over me. i ran it by a few people who's response was kind of like a "well right on" followed up by a subject changer. so i approached Mark Gonzales with the idea, simply because mark is fearless, made out of rubber, and i knew if all else failed i could call him a "pussy" or say "yea you probably couldn't do it anyway" which would send him into a tailspin and for sure wouldand have to prove me wrong. we ended up trying it out and gabe morford shot photos of it, but then they wanted dan wolfe to film it, so we tried it again... stupid ideas turned into fun, which is good enough for me. so 12 years later real skateboards wanted to re shoot it with some of their new pros, Ishod and Jake, these guys are so talented that i knew something insane would go down. Two things, i hadn't fired up the bike in a decade, and Ishod had never ridden a motorcycle. Turns out the bike fired up with a little fine tuning, and the same could be said for Ishod. Thanks to Real for being such a phenomenal inspiration over the years and taking on hair brain ideas like this one.
 max schaaf 2013
 sorry if there is a commercial before the video, it's just the way the world works these days


 

steinbeck passage

john steinbeck, the man can put words down like no other, this is not breaking news, but damn sometimes it just floors me. to be able to write with such seamless clarity, like he's sitting next to you, telling you about it. not over polished just clear and perfect...... doing a quick re-read of travels with Charley, it's been at least a decade, so as i grow older this passage hold more weight. check it out:

-- CHOPPER PROPHETS --

NOT BOBBER PROFITS...

It's a radio interview show with interviews of people
in this chopper community..

mike and i talked the other week and he let me
ramble on and on and on and on.

check it out here:
chopper prophets

ken nagahara a few months back shooting the purgatory bike for roller. tangled up in blue.