some recent pics.

Take down at our kid show.

As moms were entering, a man was stopped by cops and soon a scuffle broke out. Big city fun 

several looks in just a few days.

Me on a puzzle

Portland's tall bike clown jigsaw puzzle by chixland
View other Portland Puzzles

I thought Olive got us some fancy new cooking gear.

 Turns out she just made an improvement on an old favorite that was hard to get a handle on sometimes.

The "Wash it off" song by Olive and Dingo

Road log, Tram/ Portland/ no arctic drilling mini protest.

Trippy video of us as line drawings

Favorite moment as a American #255:

 Eugene mid 90s. We were making a chaos clown movie, on film not video. My kid's Mom and I were paying for it with restaurant jobs. It's freezing in the dark parking lot but still my friend was eating a huge ice cream cone and drinking a beer at 1 am. "I'm freezing dude but It's so good I can't stop". he was a strapping, second generation Korean American who was going to U of O and waiting tables where I was line cooking. We told him to create his own clown make up and we were amused when he came out looking more like an Autobot. We had bribed him and half the staff to be clown extras and come help film our final battle scene clowns vs. skins. Some of them got way into it. We had imported some genuine skinheads from Salem. Somehow it was fairly easy to conscript skins with the offer "ya wanna beat up some clowns for free beer and cash...and ice cream?" They were happy to oblige. Our dignitaries showed up in high spirits. They were friendly and immediately started guzzling beer, stretching and head butting walls. All our lights and camera were powered by a nautical battery in a little red wagon pulled by a freak bike. I was hooking up wires when I noticed the skinheads aggressively shadow boxing and getting pumped up. I got on my little walkee talkee and talked to the other side of the crowded parking lot to my colleague "Hey Pepto, you did ask the skins not to obliterate us clowns right?" I wasn't just concerned about my teeth, we needed the fight to last long enough to capture. Ideally we needed to survive multiple takes. We didn't have good gear, just a dream for a great movie. I had been too busy with other stuff to properly do any blocking of the scene. I waited...then Pepto crackled back "Negative Dingo, our friends are pretty much method actors...better write a will". The first take, check the light meter,lights on bright, "Action" both sides attacked and quickly three clowns (I'm one of them) dropped like laundry. "CUT!" My baby Mama walked up to me "I thought you were from Texas?" The one clown who was just fine was our Korean friend (Josh). Apparently he knows a bit of the old martial arts. He was fine but faced with the uncomfortable faces of the dudes he was just swinging on. We all squared off for take two. After this the thin fabric of co-operation would tear. The skins looked like they wanted to close the deal quick, we may not get another chance. Then my favorite American moment(#255)happened.  "Action!" We converged on each other in a flurry of boots, fists,floppy hats and clown noses. At that moment the Eugene police rolled up on us from all directions, flooding the lot with lights like our little nautical battery wished it could do. I remember thinking that from under a large bald gentleman. "FREEZE! thisistheEugenepolice department" came the authoritative voice from the PA system of a squad car. We all froze (like he said). After a fantastic pause again from the cop car speaker "Drop the rubber chicken!". Pepto had been on a guys back frenetically thrashing him with his rubber bird when the law rolled up on us. He dropped it, everyone heard it hit the ground, It was over. Skinheads aren't particularly funny but when clowns freeze exaggeratedly in front of the police, they froze ridiculously too. Great moment between factions that normally wouldn't have anything to do with each other. We all laughed including the cops. They kindly told us to get lost and everyone went home. It was a great moment. We blew our momentum on that scene so our movie never got made but the chunks of 16mm film are still floating around. Good Times. All that I told you is true.

 I like that the making of the movie was more like a movie than the actual movie ever could have been. Here is a little exposition. Originally there were 5 dudes with the last name Dizmal, Pepto, Dingo, Neptune, Draino and Servo. The gals in the gang were named mostly after chemicals Chlorine, Caffeine, (baby mama's two characters) Cinders, Knockneeze, Our guys had to "be" the characters not "portray" them because chaos clown was a 24 hr. job. Mission: save the planet as annoyingly as possible while also entertaining punkers, hippies, federal agents, cops, tree sitters and hoedaddys, while drinking a lot and making out with people who would surly regret it the next day. Multiple people played some of the same Dizmal clowns and Draino can come back whenever he likes. Pepto and Dingo were the most off the hook. We once ran into a bank as it just opened,shirtless,covered in sweat, brandishing toy guns and demanding all the pens. When the guards tried to corral us we flipped the script and attacked each other. A lot of pistols in our grills kind of sobered us up. Oddly they put us in a cab...the cabbie threw us out a few blocks later when he realized what was on his plate. The last guy to be Pepto Dizmal quit to save his life "I'm becoming "Pepto, not in charge of his own actions-o". I thought about re-booting the Pepto regime but even though the world is plenty screwed up, it's trying. Trying a lot more than the depressing corporate dominated termite culture we were in. Now instead of protesters typically looking like muppets, they draw regular concerned citizens making statements based on careful observations and good info. In that environment, chaos clowns come off looking like jerks. smile emoticon Right now it's not bad enough for chaos clowns, Ha but you will know it is if I ever lose the top hat. Life was fun for a chaos clown pre 911 and pre-Insane Clown Posse, After that it was to easy for the people and authorities to call us "Terrorists" or worse "I.C.P.". We were on the E.P.D. list of gangs but we never did any time behind bars because all our crimes were fake or merely crimes against fashion.

My bike's colors don't run (after the paint dries).

Happy Nationalism themed holiday.
My Tall Bike Behemoth is red white and blue because I love my country.
I like when folks notice.
Yesterday I was thrilled when I passed an elderly
gentleman who looked South East Asian. He was really old but his eyes lit up and he attempted to jump  only managing to feign a little jump dance.
His hat was bristling with gold embroidery, pins and insignia I recognize to be
that of a military vet. The people around him seemed to hold him in high regard too.
He was smiling big and yelling "Coo bike"!as I was thinking the same about him. "Cool human". Was he a Philippine army Ranger, maybe a Korean war era, navy man? His whole identity cried out "fought for this country".  I was stoked to make him smile.
That just happened.
I always have to for the old guys. I hang out with a lot of them.
It's a great country, one with lots of contrasts and splendors, tons of irony and humor.
One of the funniest things I can think of is a truck leaving a Walmart parking lot after buying a couple of flags. A United States flag and a Confederate battle flag. They just paid China to strut two flags on a truck (made in Venezuela running on Saudi petrol), that either Civil War army would have puked to behold flown together.
A federalist flag and the flag of an armed insurrection against it don't actually go together, not then anyway. Maybe they do now but that just points to the fact that the flag means different things in different times and to different people. The Walmart flag is more universal than the Stars and Stripes unfortunately. That is a hideous fact.
I'm leery and weary of flag zealotry. Loving your country is great but defining yourself by an unrealistic ideal is folly. Defining your actions by an AM radio commentator is a disaster. You deserve better than that. We deserve better than that. Don't let them train you to vote against your best interests.
Like racism, Nationalism is largely an illusion because all Americans don't have the same experience. Not everyone of the same race has the same shake, the country works like that as well. We are united more by class, neighborhoods, products and sport than skin complexion and flag waving. It's a sucker bet.
It makes us so vulnerable as a country (or I wouldn't care). Ever notice that folks who accomplish a lot of stuff and find happiness usually just own themselves. Folks who may not have a lot of luck, breaks, identity tend to latch on to something bigger and greater to identify with. Like race, nationalism and religion.
That is cheating themselves out of a natural life and annoying the hell out of the rest of us.
Government uses nationalism as a cheap, easy trick to manipulate people. I know all about that stuff because I'm a Carnie. I can read people and situations like a book...a book of "tells".  It's easy to appeal to someone's supposed superiority and eagerness to dehumanize and judge others (U_S_A,!).
I would love to tell the creators of the flag how and why it got to Iraq.
 To natives the flag was all about ethnic cleansing, stripping of culture, slavery, human warehousing. A lots of reg-a-ler Merakins, don't actually know much history so it's hard to relate from the perspective of the megachurch that not everyone that loves the country is totally hip to the flag.
That flag is very scary to a lot of Americans. Much of the flag history is tied to slavery then, corporate dominance now. It also meant a lot when it was planted on the moon and when it came into the ww2 in the third quarter to seal the deal vs. Germany. I'm not a hater.
So this is what I'm doing on Country day: Same as always. I'm questioning everything. What good is it to recycle when the metal returns as a polluting vehicle or tool. I want to know where everything comes from and where it goes. I will continue to be a citizen- first responder , a citizen reporter, a vigilante and a clown pirate gypsy, I will help my countryfolk whenever I can and do my best to promote balance in every way. Rock on U.S.A.

Will it Float???

The bike fair (click link for more story.}

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10153441011369644.1073741893.826409643&type=1&a  

mp;l=79d0d25db8

"You People" most delicious part. (it hints that she came a long way to end up on the right side of history.)

Olive didn't have enough money at the grocery store. She tried to put some bananas back but the lady behind her said "No I got it", Olive is a proud woman so again she tried to decline. Then the lady cracked her up by saying "No you NEED those bananas". She graciously accepted the gift. As the lady departed she said "B.T.W. nice glitter eye brows and congratulations on you people getting gay marriage. That's why I bought your bananas". Olive was wearing street clothes but hadn't taken her clown make up off yet. I think the lady thought Olive was what a typical lesbian looks like lol. Glad her heart was in the right place whomever she thought she was hooking up..