Me on Twitter, Round 3

It took me at least three solid attempts at blogging before it stuck, and now I think I am up for a third attempt at twitter.  I have had my account for a couple of years now, deleted almost all my posts at one time thinking I was done for good, had another half-hearted attempted at doing it again, quit, and now here I am again.  Thanks to all these tools that now make it so painless, I think it may stick.

Thank god for Ashton Kutcher.

I am in serious need of followers, so hook it up.

Vicky Christina Barcelona

Please check out this movie if you haven’t seen it yet. If you have seen it, you’ll know why I recommend it. Watch the trailer above. Some key points:

At 0:38 – this is the point where I knew I had a made a good investment in the $4.99 pay-per-view fee.

At 1:09 – at this point in the actual movie, I got legit chills in my bones. If you are a guy or a girl, could you imagine hearing those words from Scarlett?

At 2:16 – I agree with that statement. Seems to make sense.

At 2:26 – it becomes clear how similar this is to real life.

Steve Berra On the Skateboarding Ecosystem

I love getting into conversations with my skater friends that border on the same topic and others like it.  Aside from my parents and a few key individuals in my life, I believe I can attribute a substantial amount of ‘who I am‘ to my time spent skateboarding – both on the board and observing – since 1991.   I would put teaching ‘Skate Philosophy 101′ at a university at dream job status.  I often say that one of my hobbies is tracing the influence of skateboarding throughout pop culture and society, from fashion trends, to art, to attitudes.   Pathetic hobby, I know.

I frequently see pop culture icons labeled trendsetters and style icons, when in reality they are taking their lead from the quiet (in relative terms) skateboarders who for the most part, could care less.   Style has always been an essential element of skateboarding, but progression and overall enjoyment should always remain most important.   Obsessing over a nollie flip – a skater.  Obsessing over the way your jeans fall onto your P-Rods – a misled skater.

I highly recommend reading Steve’s post.  It is long, but a great read.  It is begging for some David Armano-style graphic treatment to articulate the symbiotic relationship between the parties that call skateboarding theirs.

Duran Duran – Please Please Tell Me Now

“The hook on this joint is straight fire.”

Success: Gladiator Sandals

Today was a nice – dare I say ‘Spring-like’ – day in the city. That may actually explain why I just noticed a handful of visitors hitting the blog with gladiator sandal-related searches today. I shit you not… the sad search of ‘what do guys think about gladiator sandals’ brought three people to my blog today. All I can say… hopefully I was able to influence those three lovely ladies with my previous post entitled “Guy Repellent: Gladiator Sandals.”

I just returned from a night of partying with my brother, sister-in-law, and dozens of girls that got it right by not wearing gladiators. Let’s strike a deal. I will wear any footwear you request, if you don’t wear gladiators. Anything!

Drunk, yet compelled to reinforce my thoughts on the worst shoes since the construction of the Pyramids,

Robby

Reason Number 138 to Love Fort Greene, Brooklyn

Approx. 9th grade African American boy walking to school… hightop sneakers, relatively skinny jeans, small beanie, navy peacoat and the kicker… an army surplus backpack with the names of classic rock bands written all over it with black and red Sharpies. Led Zeppelin. Rolling Stones. Jimi Hendrix. Too cool.

The Beginning: Online Performance

Ah… the origins! Growing up, I was always an entrepreneurial-type kid. My friend Peter and I had a stellar little lawn mowing company called ‘2 Mow Crew’, inspired by the name of the controversial rap group 2 Live Crew who was hot at the time. We took our work very seriously. I pushed the mower and he edged it all up. You could say we were delivered a premium service, because we kept our client-base small and focused.. We were not the guys to call if you had a jungle of bullshit in your front yard. We are the guys Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid would’ve called if he needed some yard guys. I still remember the feeling of accomplishment after doing a yard up right. It was similar to the feeling we’d both get after detailing a Porsche or Ferrari at our next gig: Car Wash On Wheels.

I think I still technically work at Car Wash On Wheels. Once you work there, you never stop working there. It is a lifestyle. Just about every friend that I have from high school stepped in the Car Wash on Wheels van at some point in time. And working for the owner was a such a big part of many of our lives that I would bet more than a few of us still kinda feel like we work there. Like we could roll up, and wash cars tomorrow if we wanted. It was the closest thing to stripper money for a guy. You would come home feeling worn out, dirty as hell, sweaty as hell, with a fat wad of cash. Just a like a stripper, right? We always had fat stacks of cash from washing cars. I think my younger brother was rolling with a Sky Pager and Motorola 5000 in 7th grade.

Later, my other good friend Fabian and I tried to invent things. That was fun and a great learning experience. I remember being a an 18-year-old kid sitting in some slick attorney’s office high in the Galleria Towers, as he laid out what the process would be. Very cool experience, but made no dough.

Then while reading some entrepreneurial magazine – I think it was called Success – I read about a guy that was selling wine over the internet. Being young, slightly insecure and ultra naive, I thought to myself… who would ever buy something from a 19-year-old kid? But this internet thing… Nobody would have to know that I was only 19 years old. I could fool them and maybe they would buy something.

Enter Online Performance. At the time, all my friends were buying and fixing up Honda Civics and Acura Integras and the like. I would go with them to these super shady retailers where they would buy their parts and just hang out. Then I got the idea… If these shady bastards were able to open the wholesaler accounts to purchase inventory, maybe I could too. Except I would never have a store… I would just sell through a website. Not having a computer and not having ever surfed the web in my life, I started working on a plan. I also found a partner – Fabian. I also drew the logo by hand, seen above. That logo would later adorn the hood of every tricked out Honda in Carrollton, Texas

I went to this super smart kid that was still in high school to build my site. His home office was where I first surfed the web (first site: Yahoo. first search: Seal, the musician). The first Online Performance site was basically one huge animated gif (think 800 x 600) that almost killed every poor dial up modem it encountered. We had that site for while, strangely with minimal complaints. Our second was the one pictured above, and is still available to view via the Wayback Machine:

View it here. The messageboard – wrongly labeled a ‘chat’ by me back in the day is also available to view.

I really had no heart in the car parts business, but I did enjoy promoting my business and some of the design stuff.  We had absolutely no competition online for the first year, so we owned the search engines for every imaginable relevant search term.   I would answer 175 product inquiry emails a day (pre- affordable e-commerce) and would sell products to people on almost every continent.  One customer would call me at 11AM from Guam, when he was returning from a night home at the illegal street races.

One day, when seeking a new host for my website, I stumbled upon Lori Barber at Netsuccess in 1997 and the rest is my ‘career’.

Oh yeah… one of the most fun things we did with Online Performance was make t-shirts… ourselves. I wish I still had one!

Francis and The Lights – The Top

God this shit is hot. I am always shocked when I find out someone with that much style is from the US. And both of their EPs are available for free here.

Francis Farewell Starlite: