THIS THING WORK>? NEW ZO BAGS SOON..

Well the only place I have had any output on the web is the landlords site , and I am locked out of my flickr becuase my 'puter died and it wont recognize my new one.. but.. heads up there will be some commerce content and info here as I enter the next stage of my life.
stay tuned
erik ZO misster pissta

EROICA OPTICAL ENLARGEMENT WET PRINT KONICA AUTO REX FUJI ACROS

Got any bicycle ink? why not..bicycle tattoos the early days...

A few weeks ago I went in to the fancy cafe clothing store to watch one of the last stages of the Giro on the television there. A few of the employees were talking about if the 50 dollar bar tape was still in stock in black ,becuase he wanted to retape his bars. I noticed these guys had full arm tatts to complement their shaved legs, these guys were into to cycling as well as tattoos(i mean working in a shop thinking about 50 bucks for tape?) so I asked them" Hey guys do you have any cycling tattoos?"

No way, I would never... 

WHAT GIVES?

I have to seriously consider every tattoo idea I get that DOES NOT include cycling..am I WEIRD? WELL that must be yes..

So I grew up in a bike shop. My first spiked wristband was made from a bicycle chain and some roofing nails around my wrist. The chain stayed long after the nails left, and became a tattoo after some years. But that wasnt my first cycling tattoo.

My first tattoo was a winged wheel campagnolo logo poked on me by Greg Kulz in his room in pacfic heights on Broadway with the gun he had gotten from Ed Hardy the week before. Needless to say the wheel was not round ,but at that time my wheels rarely were round (teenage bike abuse club).

After that every year when I went to the bicycle trade show I would ask anybody I saw with ink if they had any bike tattoos, the seconnd year I ran into a Harley dude from the foothills who had 3 inch high camagnolo in script running up and down each leg.. sorry no photo, the next person had some tire tread surronding a mantis logo. My point is cycling tattoos were not common, in fact if I saw one I took a photo if I could, this is all film era..most of these photos are mid 90's maybe up to 2000.

more to follow as they turn up.. I know there is a great one of slim buicks arm and some others.. but heres some for now...

I bought a car today..well not a car a vehicle-a Willys Jeep to be exact.

  Hi there- It was fun meeting people and hanging out at L.Quan Healing Arts Centre last saturday.. thanks for coming out. Well sunday ,I went to my church, (the Alemaney Flea Market) as per usual. On saturday someone had asked me if I have ever owned a car ,I said I had a Lambretta for a few years over 30 years ago but never a four wheeled vehicle yet.

      25 years ago my pat answer as to if -when -what,  as far as vehicles was in my mind- i would answer that I planned on buying one of the first brinks armoured cars with a fuel cell when they retired them from their fleet....my logic was that by the time I was ready for a "car" ( my friend chris corrects me EVERY time I am in his TRUCK that I am not riding in a car, but a vehicle) people would not be happy to see cars on the street and I would need the protection of an armoured vehicle. Well it does not look like that is gonna happen in my lifetime..so I bought a Willys Jeep:

When I was 15, I lived in Stockton on Tees , in county Cleveland in the north of England (just shy of geordieland). 

      I had 3 brothers as my Sensi's , imparting upon me their skills and knowledge in the arts of cycling and frame building. The middle brother Norman had a thing for jeeps.

         Norman was the only one of the 3 brothers who served his country in the second world war, Ken being too young and Jack then a pattern maker, having a "reseved trade" which exempted him. 

As the story goes Our Norman became field artillary ,and learned to drive a vehicle in a tank. After the war when he returned to the island he drove a jeep and it felt like a sports car. To see how much this shaped him and his brothers lives one only needed to take a walk through their old works on church road. 

         Most frame builders at that time did their own paint in house , this necessitated having a sand blaster, most shops would have a booth that in a tight spot might be able to fit a triplet or a tandem trike, as there was not much need for it to be any larger. The Taylor Brothers shop however had a sand blasting room that..,you guessed it.. could fit an entire JEEP. Norman in his life made over 8000 cycle frames and tandems and .....fully restored over 30 Jeeps , Willys being the maker he was dear to most. Norman never bought a new vehicle until "retired" in the 90's and he bought a westfalla .

Ken on the left and Norman behind the wheel of a Jeep. I dont know much about this photograph other than that, in fact it makes more questions in my head than answers. Did Jack take it ? Jack was a Leica man, the formats wrong, was it cropped? Which leads to another question how many right hand drive jeeps were there? Or is the negative flipped.. one thing is for sure both Ken and Norm look very happy. It looks like its at a higher elevation and the size of the crowd makes me think it must be at a mid fifties Tour of Britian ; after Ken had stopped racing..maybe Ken will see this and tell me....anyway its a JEEP.

    DO NOT THINK THAT NORMAN WAS NOT A CYCLIST. Throughout his life Norman was a member of the Teeside District Association HARD RIDERS. To be a member of The Hard Riders the cyclist must ride 100 miles in under 7 hours and 200 in under 14 hours. A few of the outings he was the only one in the group to finish -after the rest packed it in due to cold and snow. These were not races but rather social rides that involved at least a pint of beer per hundred miles. He had piles of certificates dating back decades he had recieved from the CTC for his riding exploits..he was hard.

      When I spent the summer of 1980 in Teeside I lived with Ken and his wife Honor across from the park where captin cook was born. The days were long in the northern summers, and after riding back from the works with Ken I would eat , and then go to the park where the local kids were learning the lastest dance routines from the Madness songs. I had a few skryos , a flying toy -which later became the aerobie,  that I threw around the park. The skyro was like a super frisbee :this I later learned was fitting becuase the Apprentice the Taylors had before me ,Jack Whitmer (later to run cook bros) had gained the nick name "frisebee Jack"

       In mornings I would take a training loop into the works and make rear carriers,until lunch when I would ride the works BSA para trooper bike to either the chippy or the sandwich shop and fetch some lunch.

I rekon I wasn't put up at Greta lane where Norman lived his entire life becuase his nights were spent at the Norton working mans club.

     Anyhow since then every time I see A jeep I think of our Norman, and it is a vehicle I have contemplated owning. I remember seeing the ads in old magazines of the post war period selling surplus jeeps along side Aero Ektar lenses for 29 dollars. Well I bought a jeep for 15 dollars on sunday to remember norman with. I took it out , and had to look under the hood , after I got stuck in the mud.

It was photogenic so I took a photo and drank a beer. When I visited the Taylors in 1994 before the Cycle messenger world championships in london I was old enough to drink and I stayed with Norman a few days on Greta Lane. Its when I first drank at the Norton WMC.

NORTON WORKING MANS CLUB

Sign in the W.C. of the Norton W.M.C

These working mans clubs are Members clubs that are all but dissappeared these days. You would enter the building and show your card to get in. Upstairs was fancy ,women were allowed and it must have cost more. Downstairs , where I went with Norman , was all men except for maybe a barmaid. There were 2 or 3 snooker tables with coin operetated lights with everyones pool cues locked up below the tables. One side of the room had 3 darts boards where occasionaly another WMC would be hosted for a tournement. The rest of the decor in the room was straight up high school cafeteria, folding chairs and florescent lights.
 I like beer, especially high quality inexpensive beer, and that is one attraction of the working mans clubs , the pint of beer there is sometimes less than you can get a can for at the off liscence, and 3 or 4 times cheaper than if you go in a proper pub or free house . The bigger thing would have to be community though. When I think about it ,at one point all 4 of the brothers lived on Greta Lane ; did they all drink there? One thing is sure Norman drank there the most because he never moved his whole live. One time I visited Norman and he was in assisted care , I went up to the club and they let me in becuase " you are OUR Normans americian" ; I was able to let people there know what had happened to him , he soon had some visitors and moved home for a stretch.
      Beer was part of Normans life, in fact  I believe that when he stopped drinking because the doctors told him "it didnt get along with the meds they were giving him", it led to a slow decline in health due to the missed nutrients from not having his nightly pints and instead having an orange soda .
.A decade before that, the last time our Norman came to california ,I rode the Delta Century with him. I knew Norman had not had beer in a while since he was visiting with mormons that didnt have beer or booze in their house. I took a bit of a flyer from the group we were with and stopped at a beer store and filled up my water bottle before the group we were riding with got there.
      I then rode up to Norman and offered him my bottle, he looked at me like I was crazy and said he had water. I said here norman its cold milk have some. He took a confused sip and got a great smile on his face and a burst of speed.
oh memories here dredged up  on the side of the bay with a broken jeep..
but ...I was able get the jeep moving without much work. I didnt get far however before I was stopped again. Again it was photogenic so I took advantage of my misfortune to make some more exposures.

The Taylors' used a Jeep for a team car ; they had axles with QR'S Brazed to the bumpers.
His whole life Norman made the parts for jeeps  that wore out, such as the anchors for the canvas  tops that got welded or rivited (i DONT KNOW) to the body to attach the canvas.
 Even in the 2000's when he was working out of the shed behind his house our Norman was making odd bits that his mates in the UK jeep preservation society needed in their restorations. I wonder what Norman would think of the Zine I am making the beer I am drinking and the bike I'm riding.. cheers Norman thanks for letting me be part of your life...

happy solstice everyone!!

Cyclist or Bike rider- second printing done.. limited run of 14 !

please see newer posts for more innformation and other zines..
shop is here :etsy.com/shop/erikzo

Sammy Lube writes about Cyclist or bike rider

"just wanted to thank you for the mags,they're fuckin' great! Best money i ever spent on art! "

just wanted to share that early review...


        I have been enamored with the writing of Reginald C. Shaw in his book "cycling" since the day I first read from it.. The idea that a bike rider can learn to be a cyclist ,and what the difference is , is my favorite concept from the book.
        I decided to go through the hoard of prints I have been accumalating, from my hours in the darkroom, and pull out all the ones I have with bicycles as the subject.
        I ended up with a group of about 50 photos taken with a variety of cameras in various formats.
When putting them together and condsidering how to bind it I could not reconcile the fact that I would have binding issues with the photos orienantated in one direction or the other...so I decided to make it a two part issue! Part A is Portrait format Part B is landscape format.

 I have now (26 sept 2015) Finished the 2nd printing of "Cyclist or Bike rider"
I fixed an error in the first printing,cleaned up the covers,adding a pattern on the inside,and added an index of the images with each half of the zine having the index for the other half,so you can leave it open to the index page while you browse.
        I made these at the print house closeset to my house. I did not scan these so I was not able to get a collated package over the counter, my originals are mostly 8X10 prints so they cannot be machine fed..This is an inconnvenince but I decided to make the most of it and change to machine settings to suit each print.
     When at Kinkos the machines in are area are Canon Imagemakers which are getting long in the teeth. I will say the menu choices on the canons seem more sutble than on the machine I used for these which was a XEROX 5545. 
      On this machine you are given 4 choices for your type of original and you can control light/dark, sharpness and contrast. Its much like color printing in the darkroom. You change the color balance and the exposure is off. Changeing the type of the original from PHOTO to PHOTO/TEXT or /HALF TONE photo would require resetting darkness..etc I have a few photos in the zine/paper blog/art book that I reduced down from 11X14 during the first printing, those were the ones that were hardest to get something I liked out of,and for the 3rd printing (if I ever make more) I will bring those in and copy off them ,as if hand placing it is only a modest difference in time. 
             I took over the counter of the copy shop collating and printing for about 3 hours. I might be able to do it a little quicker but still comes out to at least 10 minutes per issue of time to print.
         Everyone in the paper trade who has seen the zine has asked about the cover paper. It is a metallic siVer paper named Currencey, it runs about 75 dollars for a ream of 150 sheets. These are all silver prints so I figured why not spend a couple of dollars on a flashy cover.! 

Cost 30 dollars shipped 25 in person. international inquire for your location..

or go here;    https://www.etsy.com/shop/eriKZo  other zines there as well..

TRY HERE IF ETSY IS PROBLAMATic : missterpissta@gmail.com 

zo out

two parts

- A  (portrait)<24photos>


 and B (landscape)<25photos>..

hand copied ,collated and bounnd in a protecvtive sheath.

Both parts 90 pound  cover printed on both sides. 2nd printing 14 copies hand numbered

(first printing was 5)

Cost 30 dollars shipped 25 in person. international inquire for your location..

make contact on : missterpissta@gmail.com 

zo out

Dfl Cylco-cross dress Race #1 year #21!! Roundhouse.. INTERBIKE SUCKS.....almost as bad as that other neveda event

Well I didnt see the hole in the fence..but thru the bushes was the only place it could be..and then I was in the railyard.. cant say enough about it so I will say nothing.. here are some photos however..

No the hole in the fence is in the bushes..

5bucks less if you have a dress..signup meetup reunion time for many..

Coach inspects --suits and dresses and takes names

slips are checked as the pack masses on the line..

8 minute laps left ample time for spectators to talk and drink

You bet its blury...no auto focus here...


thanks for looking

Hanging out above it ALL

I am still working on the fotos from l'eroica.. I will finish that post soon. While you wait here are some photos from the polaroids I took when I had a chance to go up i a chopper with the door off...
the expired film is fp-100c from 2005 shot with a press-xener 127mm lens.. the wide angles are shot on fresh 100c with a 50mm sekor f6.3 built into a fixed focus body..