#Old Monterey Cafe

[tavolgisvist]

When I interviewed Derek Taylor he was in semi-retirement. Being off the drink he wouldn’t meet in a pub, suggesting instead a cafe near my office and close to Brian Epstein’s old London HQ, by the London Palladium. Just across Regent Street was the Savile Row building where Apple used to be.

Within the record business he was still revered by PRs and journalists who’d watched him operate in his heyday. ‘There’s a man I have a lot of admiration for,’ one told me. ‘He was a man of manners. He had great style. And when you didn’t get anything from him, he made you come away feeling you’d been royally entertained.’ Another said: ‘If I’ve ever modelled my approach on anyone, it was him. It just struck me that he had this incredibly civilised attitude to the whole thing.’

Raised in the Wirral, Taylor left the Manchester showbiz desk of the Daily Express in 1964 to be Brian Epstein’s assistant - he’d just helped Brian write his autobiography A Cellarful of Noise - and then became the Beatles’ public relations man. ‘My inclination was always as an enthusiast rather than a relentless hunter down of evil men, which is why I crossed over from writing about the Beatles to writing for the Beatles.’ Friendship with Lennon was cemented one drunken night in Pans: ‘Are you pretending to be from Liverpool or something?’ John demanded. But he could be won over, Taylor recalled, ‘once you had proven you weren’t from Manchester and therefore useless’.

Derek looked after Epstein’s public relations in the media frenzy over Merseybeat, which had no precedent in Britain. ‘I remember going to get hold of Cilia Black at a hairdresser’s in Liverpool - because if you got to Number 1 you went and had your hair done. It was a more innocent age. The joke of getting your parents a house in the country had been laid out in the 50s: the paradox was that whereas pop stars were seen as very vulgar and crude people, they were in fact very sentimental people who bought their parents homes.’

Within a year he was restless, however, and after a minor tiff with Brian he moved with his wife Joan to Los Angeles. Here his first PR clients were the Byrds, another brilliant group who were transforming the sound of pop. When they toured England, Brian took them to a West Country gig by train, so that they could re-create the scenes in A Hard Day’s Night. In America, Taylor’s gentle whimsy and optimistic world-view made him an ideal mouthpiece for the Love Generation, and in 1967 he helped set up the first great hippy event, Monterey: ‘Doing the Monterey Festival was easy. I was never afraid of looking a prat. I sent out a very fancy press release: “Through a gold Californian sky, a festival of great delight and magic . . .” It was part GCE poetry, part journalese and part marijuana, and it was saying this is not an ordinary thing we’re doing . . . We were not trained PR men. I wasn’t that smooth. I was honest. The Beatles got us pretty well trained to be straight, to be yourself, and that got me by a lot.’

Droll and charming, Taylor acquired a glittering reputation for hip eloquence. He’d need these qualities more than ever when he was recalled to London to become the Beatles’ PR again. During their troubled and final years, he was the spokesman for their idealistic but chaotic Apple adventure. ‘That was the biggest test,’ he told me. That was a hard and unhappy time, a lot of the time. The press had turned against the Beatles, and the Beatles turned against Apple. I never lost faith. I still believed in an Apple that was there to fulfil at least some of the promises, to give people a cup of tea if they came in, or a few quid. At the same time we were all having a couple of drinks during the day… And what we were trying to do was to save the world. This had gone beyond PR, this had gone to another phase. In my case it was entirely political: we had lots of money and other people had bugger-all, so Apple seemed to me like a wonderful idea.’ Was money wasted? ‘Well, what is money wasted? It depends on what you think money is for. I’ve always felt that it was for spreading about.’

Newsreels show Derek, bravely defending John and Yoko in the media circus of their bed-in for peace. Back at Savile Row, his hospitality was legendary. He became an alcoholic in the process. ‘So, what with the Beatles falling out, the money running out, my administrative skill being limited, my generosity with their money being unlimited, confusion ensued. Downstairs you had John and Yoko running a peace campaign on a grand scale; Paul was wondering how he’d got into this madness in the first place; George was only interested in spiritual matters; and Ringo was quite indifferent to the whole thing, really. There was a lack of direction, to put it mildly. In Liverpool they were asking, What has happened to our boys? Liverpool has the capacity to absorb all sorts of craziness, from Derek Hatton to Bill Shankly. It’s a place which is never short of extremes. But the Beatles even had Liverpool baffled: “They’re goin’ round in fuckin’ dresses now!” ’

When the Beatles split, Derek stayed on for another year: ‘I didn’t accept the break-up. I’d say: The break-up is temporary. The Beatles will never break up. And they haven’t. They can never be ex-Beatles.’

Then he took a job at Warner Brothers, eventually becoming its UK boss. His philosophy was unchanged: ‘It was always trying to show people a good time, that was the thing. And that meant lunching, parties, receptions, meeting them at the airport with enormous limousines and people with flowers. In Liverpool I’d see that they stayed in the Adelphi and not some modem place.’

He’d greet the visiting US acts at Heathrow and drive them into town via Windsor - a big detour, but Taylor always took the qualitative view of life, not the quantitative.

When he spoke about the Beatles it was never the statistics of chart success that excited him, but the magical essence he detected at the group’s very core: ‘I never saw the charts as being the real measurement of value. Real value doesn’t necessarily end up in the singles charts.’

He kicked the drink in 1975 and as a Warners executive sponsored several Liverpool acts, especially George Melly, but also Liverpool Express and Deaf School. (When he tried to sign the Sex Pistols from EMI in 1977 he was overruled.) By 1978 he was ready for retirement in East Anglia: ‘I began to dread people coming in and saying, “D’you wanna hear the guy’s new album?” Because I didn’t. I wanted to hear George Formby.’

His last project for Warners was overseeing the clever Beatle parody the Rutles. ‘After that I realised that was more or less it: I’d done the Beatles at the beginning and the Rutles at the end. Out!’

But that was not the end: by 1995 he was back at Apple, hard at work on the Anthology CDs, films and book. I’d visit him there, in the company’s smart new place in K. - no longer dispensing unlimited hospitality, but still the in-house wit and sage, perched above the fray like some benevolent owl.

As a publicist he was a cut above the average spin doctor; he had the sense to know that the spinner is not the ball. ‘Anyone can do it,’ he said of PR. ‘There’s no mystery to any of this. On the other hand, what I love about soccer, or tap-dancing, is that there’s no deception there. I’d watch John Barnes on TV, taking those corners, and say to my wife as a joke, “He’s bullshitting, it’s trickery.” Because it so obviously isn’t. It’s all so wonderfully honest . . . Artists are reachable, and so deeply human and insecure, that if you can slot into that - the fact that we’re all little children, weak, we’re all in this struggle to get by as best we can - then you can become a publicist and you can become their friend.’

Derek Taylor died in 1997, leaving the magnificent Anthology book as a memorial. ‘If you want to think I’m a bit of a Charlie,’ he once told me, ‘I still believe that we come back, and that your body is just like a coat and hat that you take off, and you’re still here even if you’re dead.’ On the dangers of fame, he wrote: ‘I would guess that there is no combination of weapons more dynamic than a strong childhood within the closeness of Liverpool, a sense of humour and a belief in a power higher than ourselves.’

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI), (XII), (XIII), (XIV), (XV), (XVI), (XVII), (XVIII), (XIX), (XX), (XXI), (XXII)

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Monterey Bay Aquarium 07-09-24, Pt. 1

It was good to get out, away from "here" at last. Haven't left the Bay Area bubble in five or six years, so it was a definite occasion, a proper Day Out. The drive took a couple of hours each way, and it was nice not to be the one doing the driving; it gave me time to just take in the scenery.

The mountains here are unique...they don't look like the Rockies. I love their huge rolling, stacked-up hills and contours of the (mostly) grass and patches of scrub and trees. And when you see sand dunes appear on the opposite side of the road, you know you're getting close.

Kiddo's mom found an all-day parking garage, and Monterey has an old-fashioned Trolley bus that goes around in a circuit and picks people up and drops them at the Aquarium.

We got to the Aquarium sometime between 12:30 and 1pm, and gravitated toward the Kelp Forest, naturally. It's just so magnificent. We got there just before they were going to do the feeding, and I was able to get a couple of shots from the side (it was packed!), but mostly just got to look.

And I have to say a big number of the photos were just un-salvagable, because the light was just too low, and the autofocus was not cooperating at all. The shutter was having to stay open too long, and I am no longer as steady as I used to be holding the camera. There was a fair amount of being jostled and walked-in-front-of, and that kind of general photographic frustration, of course. Had to jockey for position on a lot of the more popular exhibits.

Since we got there past lunchtime we went to the little cafe and kiddo's mom got us all lunch. Let's just say the prices were eye-popping for this old guy who got everybody in because of his food-stamp EBT. That part, btw, went amazingly smoothly, it took less than a minute to get things squared away and we were inside. Very glad that the Aquarium is participating in the Museums for All program!

And the place seemed a lot bigger since 2013, but maybe it's just I'm a lot older. I definitely had to find a bench and sit down a few times, and by the end of the day my feet were screamin' at me, and I'm sore this morning, but It was worth it!

Spent most of the day today sippin' my coffee and going through the photos and short video clips I was able to get; we'll see if tumblr cooperates on the videos. lulz.

Things are in chronological order, for the most part.

Starting in the second photo, you can see the guy in the scuba suit feeding the fish on the far right side.

They had two "Sea Pens" this time, but they were both closed up.

I love anemones. Can ya tell?

Wow...only 1 video upload per post? See what I mean about tumblr cooperating on the vids? They definitely aren't! I'll have to make separate posts, which is ridiculous...these are just little clips, most of them less than 30 seconds. sigh.

Look for the rest of the posts about the day...I'll just number them.

[tieronecrush]

listen.... i know that halloween joel has been taking up so much real estate in our brains.. but for the sake of asking about a fic i know nothing about: PLS antique restorer joel is exactly what i need on this day 😵‍💫 ILYSM

AHHH KIWI! you have selected my nearest and dearest wip to ask about.

this one is *actually* called patina...the title hasn't been updated for my doc because this fic has actually been living in one of my notebooks. so i will try to summarize as best as i can!

oh! and it is my first OC fic!

Mabel Fletcher has been waiting for her life to feel like hers. Only thirty years old, and she feels worn, used, and discarded -- by family, friends, and especially her (pending) ex-husband, Bridger Monroe. All thirty of her years have been spent on the east coast, following a path carved out for her with such fine detail, if she stepped out mere centimeters, it felt like all would crumble. And, well, she was right. Leaving what she knows behind, Mabel moves herself across the country with a suitcase and a backpack to a small town near Monterey, California. Random, obscure, and totally off radar. Plus, the picturesque town reminded her of a version of home that wasn’t broken; the perfect setting to finally make her own choices and begin her first novel. She rents a cottage near the beach for a month, paranoia telling her to move on before she gets too settled. Building a routine quickly in her first few days, there's a mysterious man she encounters on the beach nearly every morning. Following her swimming and lounging on the sand, Mabel heads into town to the cafe, either picking up a to-go cup or sitting down to work. A curious young employee, Ellie, starts up conversation each time Mabel visits. One morning, following her same schedule, unable to shake the rigidity of her previous life, the mystery man approaches her after she comes out of the water. Introducing himself in a gruff manner, Joel Miller asks if she's the author his kid keeps talking about, and informs her that he runs and workshops out of the antique store in town. What she comes to know about Joel shapes their relationship through their differences, and it all finally feels like her choice. Whether it's the right one is to be discovered.

in each run-in after, tension thickens between the two of them, and, well, the rest is to be written. but i do have it planned! angst, fluff, smut, hurt/comfort, this fic will have it all!!!

that was a lot but i am very excited for this one. definitely won't be posting until it's all written though, sorry friends!

[thislovintime]

David Crosby and Peter Tork at Monterey Pop Festival, June 1967 (photo by Ann Moses); Crosby at Peter's house in 1969, photo by Henry Diltz.

In memoriam: David Crosby

Q: "hey @thedavidcrosby what’s your opinion of the monkees?" David Crosby: "I was good friends with Tork so I will not say" - Twitter, June 26, 2020

"David let me have his — well, not his apartment, he had a house, and David let me stay there for most of a year. It was sort of by way of interest on the loan [of $25,000] I gave him to buy his boat, and I stayed there with my, with my then girlfriend [Reine Stewart], and our daughter [Hallie] was born in that house." - Peter Tork, GOLD 104.5, 1999

Peter Tork: “First, I met Crosby when I was a Village hippie. Nothing had happened for me yet, I was still singing folk songs with my little banjo and passing the basket. I knew McGuinn, who had been in the Village scene with me; we used to play guitar together in the apartments and smoke a little weed and sing and play together, and I knew him pretty well. He went off to L.A. and came back with the Byrds, and they were doing a TV show, and they came back to the Village. McGuinn said, ‘Let me show you my old stomping grounds,’ and they walked into some of the cafes that I used to inhabit, so I had dinner with those guys once and met Crosby there. Interestingly enough, I remember McGuinn and Crosby, and I hardly remember the other guys at all. I met them all there; all five were there, but I hardly remember anybody, except for some reason, Crosby was there. Beard-less, mustache-less, but still with that kind of subtly gleeful look on his face that he always has.” […] Q: “Crosby has fond memories of you, but he remembers you as ‘a little innocent.’ Do you have any sense of what he might have meant by that?” PT: “I guess he was starting to screw around with some pretty serious drugs. In terms of the drugs, I smoked dope and I did my share of acid, but as far as the harder stuff — what we called the harder stuff — I wasn’t averse to a nighttime cocaine run, but amazingly, I never got addicted to it, I never got caught. In the middle of a nighttime run, you want more, but you go to bed and you wake up the next day, and you’re not like, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to have another one; I’ve got to have another one.’ For some reason, I’m a pretty addictive personality, but coke didn’t grab me, and I didn’t ever do enough of anything else to tell the tale. I don’t know that Crosby was talking about drugs when he was talking about my innocence. I am absolutely of the optimistic believer in the better angels of our nature type of guy, and I absolutely was then." - 2007 interview, published by Rolling Stone in 2019 (read more here)

"I borrowed $25,000 from my friend Peter Tork of The Monkees and went to Fort Lauderdale in search of a schooner. I found one that looked just like the John Alden piece I admired years ago and bought it. The 74-foot boat was called Mayan and was built in 1947 from Honduran mahogany." - David Crosby, itBoat dot com, July 28, 2015

"Once [Stephen] Stills and David Crosby and my then girlfriend [Reine Stewart] and I were jamming together [at my house] and I leaning into the drums something ferocious, banging on cymbals and lashing out pretty good, until a city councilman and a cop came over and we were so loud that we drowned out conversation down the hill, apparently." - Review Mag, May 2016

CSNY rehearsing at Peter's house, and more: here; plus, more Crosby mentions here.

[shefanispeculator]

“We were happy to see that @blakeshelton and @GwenStefani visited Monterey's Old Fisherman's Wharf yesterday for some fishing with Chris' Fishing and Whale Watching and dinner at Cafe Fina. Lots of smiles. Great couple! Be sure to check out Gwen's SLOWCLAP new single, too!

[tintinwrites]

Stuff I remember from my childhood

(Fitting all of this in an ask would be a bitch)

Going to a conference with my mom that was in Monterey Bay. We went to the aquarium and apparently there was a singing clam, which I remember. Also, the hotel we stayed at had a restaurant that was like “Three Flags Cafe” or something like that

Some show with Whoopi Goldberg; one of the characters was called Tiger Jane Kitten and that’s all I remember. (If her name was Tiger Jane Kitten, she must’ve been a cute cat)

Going to another conference in Newport Beach, watching HBO Family and the following cartoons: Rainbow Fish, Paddington Bear (the theme song is catchy as hell), I Spy, and retellings of fairy tales, with the one that stuck out to me was a hippie version of Rip Van Winkle (I then found out it’s called Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child)

Cheesecake and cookie dough sales at my elementary school where the grand prize was principal for a day (I wanted the prize where you’d go in a limo and have lunch, but my parents were cheapskates and we always did the lowest tier- ice cream/popcorn party). There was always an elaborate assembly for that.

The annual jog-a-thon, which I had no idea what it was for. (Again, you could get cool crap by raising money, my parents always did the ice cream party.) The clique of PTA moms (it was always the same three) and some teachers would have a tacky assembly (one was Star Wars themed and it was cringy) explaining the purpose of the jog-a-thon.

Every month, our school had a birthday celebration thing where kids would go to the cafeteria and watch a movie or do something. When it was my turn and the other October kids, it was a bagpiper and Scottish dancers. I wasn’t impressed.

Rainy day recess- the boys would hog the Legos. Always. And we’d watch either old ass cartoons like Mighty Mouse or a Don Bluth movie. (Once we watched The Incredibles)

Stuff involving station rotations, like Field Day.

The long anticipated Read Across America Week, which meant the eighth graders or our own parents coming to read to us, and Pajama Day! (When I was in eighth grade, I came to my old school to read. And my parents came to read several times.)

Halloween meant “dress up as a career you want to have or a book character,” while the kindergarteners and fifth graders could dress as whatever they wanted to. (Then it was banned in middle school.)

In kindergarten, I remember going to an assembly where there was a guy who did mime. He did not have his face painted, thank god.

For someone’s birthday, having cupcakes brought to the class was practically mandatory.

The talent show at my elementary school was coordinated by the same clique of PTA moms. Everyone else’s acts had to be a certain length and not be controversial. But the kids from the same PTA moms got to do “Anything Boys Can Do Girls Can Do Better” once, which started a fight among the kids; and Weird Al’s eBay song, which was four minutes long. Not fair.

Back to school night being fun and involving pizza.

The long awaited book fair!

- @chromium-siren

You telling me these things about your childhood (I love hearing about people’s unique or similar childhood experiences!) makes me want to recall what I remember from my religious home schooled childhood.

[popofventi]

The 20 :: Your Daily Cup of Culture (#200)

"We should do everything we can to make sure this country lives up to our children's expectations."  -- President Barack Obama

Your (Almost) Daily Cup of Culture...

I can't believe I've done 200 of these things. That's a lot of good things and I hope I've brought some smiles to your faces the past two years. I'll keep doing this as long as I need a secret hideout from all the negative and bad shit out there. It's cheaper than a therapist and sometimes you guys buy me a cup of coffee and that's cool. Thanks for reading and choosing to be a part of this. I'd do it without you, but it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

If you find any peace and value in what I do, any donation, big or small, means a lot and helps keep spreading the positive vibes.

ONE-TIME DONATION

You can make a single donation in any amount you choose by clicking the button below.

Here's The 20 things I found on the internet worth sharing today. Your Daily Cup of Culture can be fun, serious, thoughtful or just some great new song or something to buy. If not, you can get your money back.

or

1. Bicentennial Beyotch! - Here's a great mood booster to kick off today's 20 and celebrate #200:

2. Kitchen Closed? - Home-cooked meals could soon become a thing of the past. Millennials are cooking less and less, and it could hurt America's biggest food companies.

3. A Hole In My Theory - If donut holes have gotten smaller over time, then doesn't that mean we have more actual donut?

4. Underground Music - "Each year, hundreds of musicians vie to see their name not in lights, but in pink, on a banner indicating they’ve earned official status to perform in New York City’s subway stations." - Auditioning Not for Broadway, but the Subway

5. Beyond the Belt - An Australian gastroenterologist and researcher thinks he’s found a way to diagnose I.B.S. quickly and directly: by listening to it with a wide belt, to be worn by the patient, that records the creaks and undulations of the gut, analyzes them with software, and recognizes the distinct sonic signature of I.B.S. - The Belt That Listens To Your Bowels

6. Art & Design & Home Deco - 8 Creative Alternatives to Expensive Wall Art

7. Obligatory Coffee Link of the Day - Amaze your friends with these 15 Coffee Facts

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8. Environmental Conscious Brew - Florida brewery unveils six-pack rings that feed sea turtles rather than kill them

9. Love and Loss and Humanity - Around The Horn host Tony Reali wrote a beautifully eloquent piece about the death of his infant son.

10. Parenting - More than screen-obsessed young children, we should be concerned about tuned-out parents.

11. Islands In The Stream - Need something to watch? Check out the best cooking shows available to stream on Hulu. Not a gourmet? Check out the best documentaries available on Netflix.

12. Disney's Mosquito Surveillance Program - This video explains why there are no mosquitos at Disney even though it's build in a swamp:

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13. "I Get No Respect!" - Is horror the most disrespected movie genre?

14. Mike's Bike - Schwinn created a brilliant 80's ad for their Stranger Things' bike...the campaign was a huge success as the 1-800 number rang off the hook and the bike sold out in minutes:

15. Buy The Book - Top 10 lost women's classics

16. Vacation Travel Log 2018, Stop #2 - Monterey, California. Travel Tips To Self for Next Time:

Eat at these places again: Old Monterey Cafe, The Perfect Crumb Bakery, Pelican Pizza,  and Paprika Cafe

Stay Longer at Lover's Point and Drive Scenic 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach Again, but NOT on Memorial Day Weekend.

Camp out inside Old Capitol Books.

Book a stay in nearby Carmel.

Skip the Aquarium (stay outside), bypass The Melville Tavern and schedule a much shorter Whale Watching Tour.

kofiwidget2.init('Buy Me a Coffee', '#28a842', 'Q5Q1CN1T');kofiwidget2.draw();

17. New Song of the Day - "Carmel By The Sea" by The Whiskey Wasps

I learned about the band The Whiskey Wasps while traveling through Monterey/Carmel. They are an indie-acoustic/folk band founded by husband and wife, Billy Schmidt and Rachel DuVall-Schmidt. Originally from West Palm Beach, FL, the couple relocated to California in February 2017. Recently their music video, Carmel by the Sea, helped sell a $3.5m house and was featured on the cover page of The Carmel Pine Cone as a groundbreaking way to market real estate. Their website says a third album is set for a late 2018 release. Check out their marketing video:

Ventipop's 2018 Playlist

18. Brown Bag Dad - Artistic father Lynell Jinks (a.k.a. “Brown Bag Dad“) sends his two children, Zelina and Izaac, off to school in style by drawing stunning works of art on their paper lunch bags.

19. Marvin's Flag - Martian Flag Assembly is exhibiting seven flag proposals designed by artists around the world, to be planted by astronauts on Mars during the first manned mission. The exhibition is on display at Space10 in Copenhagen.

20. The Last Drop - A Dutch designer created a human-powered machine that knits a scarf in five minutes. Take a ride on the Cyclo Knitter:

Seriously...thanks for reading.

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Grind #200

[janaonthepct]

Why I’m leaving the trail...

Wow. What a way to start off a blog post guys, am I right? To keep the story arch intact and to possibly annoy you a bit longer with the question of whether the headline actually means what you think it means, let's start where we left off last time:

Day - I don't really know what day it was - at mile 152 sitting at the Paradise Valley Cafe devouring a typical American breakfast: pancakes, eggs and bacon. We had left camp pretty early in the morning to cruise down the last 10ish miles to the Cafe fast enough to have breakfast at an appropriate time because everyone told us it's definitely worth the 1 mile detour off of the trail and because we were craving a proper breakfast. Let's say this: they didn't lie ;)

We were going so fast that I even missed the 150-mile marker of the trail. Oh well, technically these little markers aren't supposed to be there anyways. A big principle on the trail is the LNT - leave no trace - principle and apparently even rearranging stones to form a number is too much of a trace to have. But the big milestones usually still have them anyways. We arrived at the Cafe where we met a ton of other PCT hikers that had started that day with the same idea as us. Talking to them we heard a lot of rumors and reports of the upcoming miles being decently sketchy and snowy enough to be needing micro spikes and possibly even an ice axe. Stories were going around of people having fallen off of ridges, getting injured and helicopter rescues and everyone was starting to worry and having to estimate the personal risk they were willing to take.

Every time we got out of the mountains and off of the trail at least for me it has been a very overwhelming experience. On the trail I barely used my phone, for one because I didn't really have that much cell service anyways and also because I enjoyed being fully out there without all the noise and distractions of modern technology. Some people enjoy hiking with music or podcasts, I literally only used my phone to take pictures and to locate myself with GPS to keep track of the trail and where to get water and such. So whenever we'd end up in a "more civilized" place, meaning a town or a restaurant, immediately many things would happen at once and in a very condensed time: While trying to get some proper food into your system, you are also faced with figuring out the next steps (whether that means where to hike to further that day, booking a room in a town or figuring out all the things you need to resupply on), your phone is going insane with a ton of messages, there is a lot of noise and people around you (more then you usually experience in one or two full days on trail), you’re probably also contemplating whether you already smell so bad that a shower and a laundry are needed and at the same time you are socializing with all the other hikers you haven't seen in a couple days exchanging stories of things you've seen or heard or comparing gear and food choices.

Back at Paradise Valley Cafe I was still chewing on my bacon and pancakes while Zack had already decided with Paul and Alex to hitch into Idyllwild quickly to grab some new micro spikes to tackle the upcoming section that afternoon, Nadine had already organized a ride from an amazing trail angel Jodie (we had met her at the barbecue before Warner springs) to get back to San Diego, where she was going to rent a car for the last couple days she'd be in the US before heading back the UK (she had only intended to hike the first two weeks with Paul and had done so amazingly covering over 150 miles!) and I was left with a difficult decision: I could either continue hiking with the boys, either having to buy new micro spikes in Idyllwild as well or not going with any spikes and risking injuries and sliding off or I could take the ride to San Diego with Nadine and wait for my micro spikes. I thought I wouldn't need them until the Sierras (the big mountains in Central California) and had left them in my friend's car and Olive had left the US to go to Mexico for a couple days so I had to wait for her to get back before getting to the car... (it's a long story I know)

Since Zack was already on his way to Idyllwild and I also didn't fully see a point in getting new micro spikes since mine were so close and perfectly fine also (yes, this is my German side speaking), I decided to join Nadine for the ride back to San Diego and luckily had an amazing friend there which was spontaneous and kind enough to let me stay at her place for another two nights after only getting notified literally 10 minutes before I was planning to leave the Cafe (you are the best Allison!). So here I was, back at the starting point in San Diego, two weeks and 150 miles later. I was kind of glad Olive was still in Mexico because that gave me three days off of the trail to get some perspective and to figure some things out.

Let me preface this by saying two things: 1. I absolutely LOVED every minute and every step of the trail! 2. None of what I'm writing here has to make any sense to anybody else, it's just some truths I have found to be fitting at the current time and place for me.

Ever since I stepped foot on the trail I was having a wonderful time. Being out there, living simply, being active and challenging your body, meeting like-minded people and having space for yourself, it just all made perfect sense to me. I realized I'm great at doing these things too and enjoy them a lot. I also realized some other things though. But since I don’t want to turn this blogpost into a novel (it’s getting there I know) here’s the short summary: - Although I’ve been having a grand time on the trail I just realized that I am currently in a point of my life where I want to commit to something, get working and stay somewhere for a while. I realized finishing the trail might not get me any further in knowing what a next step could be and instead of avoiding this decision, I knew I wanted to take action now. - I want to give back rather then receive. The trail is so much based around receiving help and kindness, which makes it very special. I feel like I am at a place in my life right now where I am capable of giving and I want to use that knowledge and spread joy. I guess I want to be on the giving end. - As much as this might be a once in a lifetime experience or chance I don’t feel like it has to be and I know that this isn’t going to be my last time going to the US and seeing all my amazing friends here again. So, I didn’t feel like this chapter really needed closure or a full stop. Instead I just absolutely rejoiced in reuniting with friends here, exploring new places and remembering old ones.

Anyways. Here I was having found these truths but also still really enjoying the trail and my hiking group. After Olive got back from Mexico we talked some more about it and came to the conclusion that I was going to reunite with my hiking group for a couple more days and then leave the trail from Big Bear Lake, a small hiker town in the mountains just off of the trail. The boys had successfully conquered San Jacinto in those days so I joined them about 50 miles later in Cabazon and did another 70-80 miles with them. And what a beautiful and rewarding 4 days those were. The landscape was absolutely gorgeous, we had super-hot desert, river crossings, snow and below freezing temperatures all within 24 hours. Lots of elevation gain and loss, lots of wind, lots of beautiful valleys and outlooks, lots of flowers and lizards. We got to Big Bear and had another full Zero day together. It was a wonderful way for me to come to an (at least temporary) end of the trail. I never wanted to leave on a bad note hating the experience, getting injured or feeling homesick or whatever. The trail and everything it entails has been nothing but outstanding and I am very grateful for this! It was hard to say goodbye to the boys but I hope it’s more of a “see you again very soon”. I am now their personal cheering squad.

(Some impressions from the last days on trail and saying goodbye to the boys)

I’ve been off of the trail for about 10 days now. Me and Olive had a super fun week together driving a little bit of the distance back north, meeting friends and also having a couple days just as the two of us roadtripping. We went to Santa Barbara, back to Monterey and then had two days in San Francisco and Point Reyes (a super cool national park right across San Francisco over the Golden Gate bridge). I then took the train back north to Portland where I had two days exploring a bit more and spending time with special and beautiful people and now I’ve been back in Port Townsend. I’m leaving the US next Monday, flying to London (because there were no good straight flights to Germany but also mainly because that means I get to see Nadine again, see London for the first time and even meet some other dear friends who live there). I will have another week there and then I am BAAAACK.

Super stoked to see you all again and to get started. The adventure definitely isn’t over. More steps coming. Let me know if you want me to keep the blog running though.

(Photos from the days after the trail)

Ihr lieben, der Blogpost ist definitiv zu lang geworden um hier eine komplette Übersetzung zu schreiben. Die zentrale Aussage: Ich komme zurück nach Deutschland :) Nicht weil mir das Wandern keinen Spaß macht, oder weil etwas Schlimmes passiert ist, sondern einfach weil ich gemerkt habe dass ich aktuell lieber einen nächsten Schritt in meinem Leben gehen will und an einem Ort ankommen will. Ich erzähle euch gerne mehr dazu, wenn wir uns mal wieder in Person treffen. Bin ab Anfang Mai wieder in Deutschland, nach einem kurzen Zwischenstopp in London. Freue mich euch wiederzusehen!!! Cheers, Jana

[lostwollongong]

What was your favourite old Crown Street cafe? 🍔☕ A miniskirt waitress sweeping the front of the popular Monterey Cafe in the recently bulldozed Langs Corner on the corner of Crown and Kembla streets in 1970. Photo thanks to Lost Wollongong member Ray Mills. #picnictrain #thepicnictrain #kiamapicnictrain #5917 #R766 #steamtrain #steamtrains #steam #train #locomotive #steamlocomotive #kiama #kiamansw #wollongong #welovethegong #sydney #wollongongpressplay #illawarra #shellharbour #visitkiama #visitwollongong #visitsydney #visitnsw #destinationnsw #coalcoast #southcoastnsw #regionalnsw #countrynsw #ilovensw # @picnictrain.com.au @visitnsw @sydney @kiamansw @visitwollongong @visitshellharbour @destination_nsw @tourismnsw @regionaltourismawards (at Wollongong CBD) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXYKfHYv2lP/?utm_medium=tumblr

[auskultu]

The Black Elvis?

Michael Lydon, The New York Times, 25 February 1968

SAN FRANCISCO —“Will he burn it tonight?” asked a neat blonde of her boyfriend, squashed in beside her on the packed floor of the Fillmore auditorium. "He did at Monterey,” the boy friend said, recalling the Pop Festival at which the guitarist, in a moment of elation, actually put a match to his guitar. The blonde and her boy friend went on watching the stage, crammed with huge silver-fronted Fender amps, a double drum set, and whispering stage hands. Mitch Mitchell, the drummer, came on first, sat down, smiled, and adjusted his cymbals. Then came bassist Noel Redding, gold glasses glinting on his fair, delicate face, and plugged into his amp.

“There he is,” said the blonde, and yes, said the applause, there he was, Jimi Hendrix, a cigarette slouched in his mouth, dressed in tight black pants draped with a silver belt, and a pale rainbow shirt half hidden by a black leather vest.

“Dig this, baby,” he mumbled into the mike. His left hand swung high over his frizz-bouffant hair making a shadow on the exploding sun light-show, then down onto his guitar and the Jimi Hendrix Experience roared into “Red House.” It was the first night of the group's second American tour. During the first tour, last summer, they were almost unknown. But this time two LP’s and eight months of legend preceded them.

The crowds in San Francisco—their three nights here were the biggest in the Fillmore’s history—were drooling for Hendrix in the flesh. They got it: this time he didn't burn his guitar ("I was feeling mild”) but, with the careless, slovenly and blatantly erotic arrogance that is his trademark, he gave them what they wanted.

He played all the favorites, “Purple Haze,” “Foxy Lady,” “Let Me Stand Next to Your Fire” and "The Wind Cries Mary.” He played flicking his gleaming white Gibson between his legs and propelling it out of his groin with a nimble grind of his hips. Bending his head over the strings, he plucked them with his teeth as if eating them, occasionally pulling away to take deep breaths. Falling back and lying almost prone, he pumped the guitar neck as it stood high on his belly.

He made sound by swinging the guitar before him and just tapping the body. He played with no hands at all, letting his wah-wah pedal bend and break the noise into madly distorted melodic lines. And all at top volume, the bass and drums building a wall of black noise heard as much by pressure on the eyeballs as with the ears.

• • •

The black Elvis? He is that in England. In America James Brown is, but only for Negroes; could Hendrix become that for American whites? The title, rich in potential imagery, is a mantle waiting to be bestowed. Within his wildness, Hendrix plays on the audience’s reaction to his sexual violence with an ironic and even gentle humor. The D.A.R. sensed what he is up to: they managed to block one appearance with the Monkees last summer, because he was “too erotic.” But if Jimi knows about his erotic appeal, he won’t admit it.

"Man, it's the music, that’s what comes first,” he said, taking a quick jerk of Johnny Walker Black in his motel room. “People who put down our performance, they’re people who can’t use their eyes and ears at the same time. They got a button on their shoulder blades that keeps only one working at a time. Look, man, we might play sometimes just standing there; sometimes we do the whole diabolical bit when we’re in the studio and there ain’t nobody to watch. It’s how we feel. How we feel and getting the music out, that’s all. As soon as people understand that, the better.” 

• • •

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, now doing a two-month tour (they will be at Hunter College on Saturday and at Stony Brook, L. I., on March 9), was formed in October, 1966, just weeks after Hendrix came to London from Greenwich Village encouraged by former Animal Chas Chandler. Mitchell, 21, came from Georgie Fame’s band, a top English rhythm and blues group, and 22-year-old Redding switched to bass from guitar, which he had played with several small-time bands. Their first job, after only a few weeks of rehearsal, was at the Paris Olympia on a bill with Johnny Hallyday.

Their first record, “Hey Joe,” got to number 4 on the English charts; a tour of England and steady dates in the in London clubs, plus a follow-up hit with “Purple Haze,” made them the hottest name around. Men’s hairdressers started featuring the “Experience style.” Paul McCartney got them invited to the Monterey Pop Festival and they were a smash hit.

But Jimi Hendrix, born James Marshall Hendrix 22 years ago in Seattle, Wash., goes a lot further back. Now hip rock’s enfant terrible, he quit high school for the paratroopers at 16 (“Anybody could be in the Army, T had to do it special, but man, was I bored”). Musically he came up the black route, learning guitar to Muddy Waters records on his back porch, playing in Negro clubs in Nashville, begging his way onto Harlem bandstands, and touring for two years, lost in the bands of rhythm and blues headliners: the Isley Brothers, Joey Dee, Little Richard, and King Curtis. He even played the Fillmore once, but that was backing Ike and Tina Turner and long before the Haight-Ashbury scene.

• • •

“I always wanted more than that,” he said, “I had these dreams that something was gonna happen, seeing the numbers 1966 in my sleep, so I was just passing time till then. I wanted my own scene, making my music, not playing the same riffs.

“Like once with Little Richard, me and another guy got fancy shirts ’cause we were tired of wearing the uniform. Richard called a meeting. ‘I am Little Richard, I am Little Richard,’ he said.‘the King, the King of Rock and Rhythm. I am the only one allowed to be pretty. Take off those shirts.’ Man, it was all like that. Bad pay, lousy living, and getting burned.”

Early in 1966 he finally got to Greenwich Village, where he played at the Cafe Wha as Jimmy James with his own hastily formed group, the Blue Flame. It was his break and the bridge to today’s Hendrix. He started to write songs—he has written hundreds—and play what he calls “my rock-blues-funky-freak sound.”

• • •

“Dylan really turned me on—not the words or his guitar, but as a way to get myself together. A cat like that can do it to you. Race, that was okay. In the Village people were more friendly than in Harlem where it’s all cold and mean. Your own people hurt you more. Anyway, I had always wanted a more open and integrated sound. Top-40 stuff is all out of gospel, so they try to get everybody up and clapping, shouting, ‘yeah, yeah.’ We don’t want to get everybody up. They should just sit there and dig it. And they must dig it, or we wouldn’t be here.”

A John Wayne movie played silently on the television in the stale and disordered room, and Hendrix started alternating slugs of scotch and Courvoisier. He stopped and turned to the window, looking out over San Francisco. “This lookslike Brussels, all built on hills. Beautiful. But no city I’ve ever seen is as pretty as Seattle, all that water and mountains. I couldn’t live there, but it was beautiful.”

Besides his music, Hendrix doesn’t do much. He wants to retire young and buy a lot of motels and real estate with his money. Sometimes he thinks of producing records or going to the Juilliard School of Music to learn theory and composition. In London he lives with his manager, but plans to buy a house in a mews; in his spare time he reads Isaac Asimov’s science fiction. His musical favorites, as he listed them, are Charlie Mingus, Roland Kirk, Bach, Muddy Waters, Bukka White, Albert Collins, Albert King, and Elmore James.

• • •

“Where do you stop? There are, oh man, so many more, all good. Sound, and being good, that’s important. Like we’re trying to find out what we really dig. We got plans for a play-type scene with people moving on stage, but everything pertaining to the song and every song a story.

“We’ll keep moving. It gets tiring doing the same tiling, coming out and saying, ‘Now we’ll play this song,’ and ‘Now we’ll play that one.’ People take us strange ways, but I don’t care how they take us. Man, we’ll be moving. ’Cause man, in this life you gotta do what you want, you gotta let your mind and fancy flow, flow, flow free.”

[thislovintime]

David Crosby and Peter Tork backstage at Monterey Pop Festival, June 1967; and, from the Reelin’ In The Years Photo archive comes this rare photo of Peter, taken on that same occasion (photographer unnamed). (It was a mirror image on the website, so I’ve taken the liberty of flipping it.) No copyright infringement intended.

Peter Tork: “First, I met Crosby when I was a Village hippie. Nothing had happened for me yet, I was still singing folk songs with my little banjo and passing the basket. I knew McGuinn, who had been in the Village scene with me; we used to play guitar together in the apartments and smoke a little weed and sing and play together, and I knew him pretty well. He went off to L.A. and came back with the Byrds, and they were doing a TV show, and they came back to the Village. McGuinn said, ‘Let me show you my old stomping grounds,’ and they walked into some of the cafes that I used to inhabit, so I had dinner with those guys once and met Crosby there. Interestingly enough, I remember McGuinn and Crosby, and I hardly remember the other guys at all. I met them all there; all five were there, but I hardly remember anybody, except for some reason, Crosby was there. Beard-less, mustache-less, but still with that kind of subtly gleeful look on his face that he always has.” [...] Q: “Crosby has fond memories of you, but he remembers you as ‘a little innocent.’ Do you have any sense of what he might have meant by that?” PT: “I guess he was starting to screw around with some pretty serious drugs. 
In terms of the drugs, I smoked dope and I did my share of acid, but as far as the harder stuff — what we called the harder stuff — I wasn’t averse to a nighttime cocaine run, but amazingly, I never got addicted to it, I never got caught. In the middle of a nighttime run, you want more, but you go to bed and you wake up the next day, and you’re not like, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to have another one; I’ve got to have another one.’ For some reason, I’m a pretty addictive personality, but coke didn’t grab me, and I didn’t ever do enough of anything else to tell the tale. I don’t know that Crosby was talking about drugs when he was talking about my innocence. I am absolutely of the optimistic believer in the better angels of our nature type of guy, and I absolutely was then. Being that way, you tend to overlook the harder realities. The British have this expression, gobsmacked, which is a great expression — it’s like being hit with a big wet fish. As reality hit me, I was gobsmacked at every turn, and years and years later, now, as we’re talking, I think I’ve had my education and I’m not stupid about the way things are, but I still believe in the sunnier angels of our nature. I’ve just become less sanguine about how we were going to fix the world by tomorrow. That’s clearly not going to happen, because too many people have too much of a stake in what’s wrong with the world, as far as I’m concerned, and I believe it’s all fear. I don’t believe anybody, given the full choice — except for sociopaths — would prefer to be operating on a basis of greed and acquisition, because everybody knows that the actual possession of things themselves does not generate any longterm satisfaction. Everybody knows this, and yet people keep chasing the carrot, even though they sort of know that it’s tied to their own heads and they’ll never get it, they still keep chasing it because they don’t know how to.” - 2007 interview, published by Rolling Stone in 2019

[devilsfool]

[text] Do you remember that old cafe we went to in Monterey? The one off of Cannery Row. [text] They turned it into a souvenir shop. -sangcreole

[text] Waste of realty. 

[text] Why Monterey, then?

[santacruzoceanfronthomesforsale]

208 Venetian Rd, Aptos, CA 95003 | Beach Home For Sale

Your own slice of paradise is waiting for you!

This Tudor Rose Manor beach house in Aptos, CA is a dream come true. Prime location, SwimSpa, fun front yard croquet, badminton, and Frisbee golf play area with the best of conveniences combine in this amazing property. 

This beautiful masterpiece features 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, and 2,755 square feet of living space.  There’s also a huge attic for storage.

This expansive property has been a family reunion vacation home for years. It offers an awesome stay, fun family activities, and comfy rooms, plus it’s fully furnished. 

Located on Monterey Beach in Santa Cruz County, this beach home is a short 3 to 4-minute walk to two of the area’s largest sandy beaches in California. Seacliff State Park Beach and Rio Del Mar Beach have a long history of fun at the beach!

Seacliff State Beach is a beautiful beach where you could walk for miles. There are shaded picnic areas, an oceanfront campground for RVs, and a huge fishing pier to explore. At the end of the pier,  there is an old concrete ship called the USS Palo Alto that is worth seeing. 

Rio Del Mar Beach is the main beach in Rio Del Mar in Aptos. It’s a long, beautiful sandy beach. This peaceful beach is an excellent place to walk on sand and get your toes wet. This is also the perfect spot if you prefer to sit and just look out at the beautiful vast ocean in many directions. 

This lovely beach house is also a short drive to colorful Capitola and the famous Santa Cruz Boardwalk. There are all kinds of fun activities for everyone. There’s the Natural Bridges State Park and the Henry Cowell Redwoods. Downtown Santa Cruz and Capitola have great shops and restaurants. The nearby Deer Park Marketplace also has a pizzeria, wine bar, cafe, and a grocery. 

Looking to expand your real estate portfolio?

This Santa Cruz Beach home has been a successful vacation rental business for many years. The income was mostly re-invested in the home’s additions and improvements.

If you’ve been tossing around the idea of starting a vacation rental business, it’s time to go for it! You just have to apply for a new Vacation Rental Permit in the lottery in January 2021. The current owner is also willing to show the potential buyer how she ran the business. 

Upon entering the home, you will be greeted by a homey living room with a fun electric fireplace. There are also lots of games, hundreds of movies to choose from, and a TV/VCR/DVD area with a stereo entertainment center.

This is the perfect spot to throw the ultimate game night for friends and family. Charades is a living room game that never gets old.

There’s also an elegantly appointed gourmet kitchen. It features polished granite tile counters and all stainless steel appliances. There is a new gas stove/oven and Kenmore dishwasher. There are also lots of cabinets so storage won’t be a problem. 

A happy gathering place

Your guests will enjoy mealtimes in the adjoining dining room. There are large tables that seat 20 people. There are also 2-counter stools for a total of 22.  There is enough space for everyone!

There is also an oak cabinet with 3-available shelves in the dining room, plus a large food locker for extra food outside the back door.

Fitting many people under one roof can be challenging. Luckily, this vacation rental property in Santa Cruz has 6 bedrooms and 3 other sleeping areas. Your guests or family are guaranteed an enjoyable and comfortable stay. 

The bedrooms are all cozy and primed for sleep and relaxation. Your guests are sure to get the restful sleep they need, even when they are far from home.

This grand English Tudor Manor is just right for groups up to 22. The lower level sleeps 8 with 2 bedrooms, 2 Queen Innerspring Futons, and 2 full baths. The first downstairs bedroom has a Queen bed, while the second bedroom has a California King bed. The family room has 2-Queen Innerspring futons. There are also air beds for guests that prefer not to share a bed.

The upper level has a third bedroom with redwood floors and a Queen bed and a pack-and play in the closet. The fourth bedroom has two twin beds. 

There is a game room that has 2-Queen Innerspring futons and another fireplace. It has an entertainment center with a large 58” flat-screen TV, a computer desk, and a Foosball table. There’s also a large refrigerator and a microwave.

The fifth bedroom has a Queen bed and is called the Sunshine Room. There is also a door to the outside deck with 4-chairs for a quiet conversation area. There is an adjoining compact wet bar and a sink with a fun popcorn maker that is often used as a dressing/make-up area.  

The West Wing or sixth bedroom has been recently remodeled and is now attached by a new causeway. It has a King bed, a twin daybed in the causeway, and a sofa and roll-top desk. There is also a Comcast Cable TV/VCR and stereo w/CD and tapes  and a bathroom with on-demand hot water!

This beach home has 4-full baths. Two of the bathrooms have showers, while the other two have tubs and showers. There are also 3 sets of stackable washer and dryers to accommodate all the laundry when using the home as a vacation rental. 

This amazing Santa Cruz beach home is an excellent choice. Most of the interior photos were taken after the remodel in 2017. Even if you don’t plan on turning it into a rental property, this home would still make a wonderful compound for family and friends to live in.

Other features of this home include a new elevator that can hold a wheelchair for access to the 2nd floor. There is also a Sandbar Solar system that was installed in 2018 and has a 25-year guarantee. You won’t have to worry about high electric bills and you’ll have 100% clean, renewable energy source.  There is also a wonderful citrus soft water system for the whole house.  

The 7,000 square feet yard has a wonderful Swim Spa that seats up to 12 guests and a front yard croquet lawn with flower boxes. There are also 5-picnic tables, lots of chairs, and plenty of room to hang up wetsuits and surfboards. There are also 8+ bicycles to enjoy the neighborhood trails with. 

Make it yours for fun with family and friends for $1,499,999.

Don’t miss this chance to make this desirable property yours! Call me, Sandy Wallace, at 831-818-7099 to see more details of this home. 

In case you can not view this video here, please click the link below to view 208 Venetian Rd, Aptos, CA 95003 | Beach Home For Sale on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/SK4RT_6SIoA

[anonsally]

Day 5 of Family-In-Law Vacation

Today was chilly and misty again, which was unfortunate given our plans for the day. 

I have come down with a slight cold, and we ran out of hot water while I was in the shower, before I washed my hair. But I did sleep better than the previous night, and the day was good.

We had breakfast and set off in the car--Father-in-law-in-law drove me, Wife, and Sister-in-law on a bit of a tour around the Blue Mountains. First stop was the Mount Victoria Train Station, which is old and charming. A man working there gave us some tidbits of historical information about the station and pointed out some of the good bits. 

Next, we drove along a very misty road to Pulpit Rock lookout. We hiked down to the lookout, but it was so foggy that we couldn’t see across the canyon. But being on the top of a cliff that ends in fog was very atmospheric! and it was nice to get a little exercise (the hike to the lookout wasn’t long, but it was steep--about 325 stairs down, and then of course back up).

Then we drove to the Hydro Majestic Hotel. It’s very fancy and was recently restored. We spent quite a while wandering through various lobbies admiring the decor. From the window looking down toward the canyon (it was less foggy there), we saw a kookaburra from the window! We watched it for a while; it was perched in a tree looking around, and would periodically fly down and catch a bug and eat it, then fly back up to its perch. It is much larger than any other kingfisher I’ve ever seen. 

Wife and I got cups of tea in the cafe and then we drove on. We went to the Three Sisters (a rock formation) --but it was too foggy to see them. We could sort of make out one and a half of the Sisters, but after a few minutes the fog got even thicker, so we gave up and got back in the car. We went grocery shopping (it was much warmer in the valley) and came back to the house.

I had a video call with my family on their Family Vacation in Monterey (California), which was nice--I still feel a little weird about not joining them this year. 

There were guests for dinner--including a couple and their young son, and an older man. We made pizza in the outside pizza oven, which was delicious, and also ate salad and crudités. We also pulled Christmas Crackers, which was fun and very British!

One of the king parrots was fascinated by the pizza baking process!

I will try to catch up on posting my photos...

Wildlife spotted today: more of the king parrots, crimson rosellas, and cuckoo doves; the kookaburra; a galah or two, and a magpie-lark. EDIT: and a little frog just now on the front porch!

[mmckenzieport]

By Melissa McKenzie

Updating early 20th century bicycle styles to modern, sleek modes of transportation, Santa Clara’s Vintage Electric draws inspiration from the 1900s to design environmentally friendly, manual-electric hybrids and fully electric bicycles that can be used for weekend adventures and weekday commutes.

Founder Andrew Davidge always had a passion for motorcycles, cars, bikes and hands-on experiences. Growing up, he raced mountain bikes across the United States and, as he got older, looked into the history of Harley Davidson and 1900s racing, which gave him the bug to build his own bike. Quickly realizing his first gas-powered creation was not practical, he began researching batteries, controllers and motors, leading him and Vintage Electric’s Director of Operations Brian Hamilton to produce their first electric-powered bike in Davidge’s parents’ Los Gatos garage.

“We took it out for the first time, and I was just blown away,” he said. “I was, like, ‘this is the perfect way to get around the city.’ There’s no noise; there’s no maintenance; there’s no more moving parts than normal bike. And, that’s when I was, like, maybe we should start a little business out of this.”

With that, Vintage Electric was born in 2013. Early on, Davidge took two prototypes to Monterey Car Week and was quickly overwhelmed by the interest and response from consumers. A handful of marketing opportunities — everything from being featured on Jay Leno’s Garage to customers offering to invest in Vintage Electric’s growth — also helped catapult the business.

“It was just this kind of motley crew of metal shop kids,” said Davidge. “Brian’s super smart, business-wise and operationally. He kept us all in line, and we just started selling these bikes.”

Six years later, Vintage Electric offers two basic bike styles: a thumb throttle Roadster version that can be modified to reach 36 miles per hour on private property (20 miles per hour as sold) and a pedal assisted Cafe bike that can reach up to 28 miles per hour.

And, according to Global Sales Manager Eddie Johnson, there is no average customer. Buyers range from 16-year-olds who finance a bike to use in place of a car to bikers who need to step away from their motorcycles; and weekend warriors to those who want to jump start weight loss.

“We have a customer on the east coast,” said Johnson. “And, when he first reached out to me about two years ago, he said he weighed something like 280 or 300 pounds. He bought the Cafe and he didn’t ride bikes; he was scared to ride bikes. It’s actually such a cool story. I heard from him yesterday; he sent me a picture and he had done 5,000 miles in one year. He has now lost right around 60 or 70 pounds by commuting on the Cafe to work every day. He actually sent us cupcakes and a card.”

Johnson said, in addition to becoming part of the family of Vintage Electric owners, the bikes are easy to maintain. All models plug into a standard wall outlet and are fully charged in between two and four hours. Depending on the bike and battery, a full charge will last a minimum of 20 miles at top speed and a maximum of 75 miles, and each bike comes with a display showing battery life, lifetime miles, average and maximum speed, trip mileage and trip time, allowing owners to get the most out of their purchase.

To further simplify the buying process, Johnson said each Vintage Electric model comes almost completely assembled. Local buyers can opt to have the final assembly steps completed at Vintage Electric. For those living out of the area, Johnson said Vintage Electric will work with a local bike shop to complete the assembly at no additional cost to the buyer. Vintage Electric additionally offers a service allowing owners to easily replace their batteries or upgrade outdated electronics on earlier models without having to make another investment.

“I get so many thrills every day over just seeing the enthusiasm and experience that people have on a product that me and my buddies have created really out of a passion for building something cool,” said Johnson. “It’s an incredible community that we’ve been fortunate enough to foster through like-minded people who appreciate a really well built product. We’re very fortunate — a lot of hard work and a little bit of luck but we’re having a blast.”

Vintage Electric is at 1725 De La Cruz Blvd., Ste. 4 in Santa Clara. For more information, visit vintageelectricbikes.com.

[tshirttrend]

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda shirt

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda shirt

  When it comes to mother Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda shirt . daughter lookalikes, there is no pair more similar—or striking—than Reese Witherspoon and Ava Phillippe. The duo practically look like twins, sporting their pink pouts and sunkissed wavy lengths everywhere from the Emmy Awards to the streets of Hollywood. And last night, at the premiere of Big Little Lies season two, they arrived hand in hand, showing off their equally genetically blessed looks. Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda shirt, hoodie, sweater, longsleeve and ladies t-shirt

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda Classic Ladies

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda Hoodie

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda LongSleeve

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda Sweatshirt

Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda Unisex 19-year-old Phillippe, who just finished her first year in college, joined mom in New York City for the big event, adding a swipe of smoky kohl liner to match her little black dress Hard Rock Cafe Wakanda shirt . Meanwhile, Witherspoon paired her glossy blowout with a blush frock that gave way to a major leg reveal. With their coordinating beauty, both women prove that an effortless glow, plus some runs-in-the-family charm, is a surefire way to win the red carpet.Big Little Lies—and its iconic cast of women—is back. And, for her part, Shailene Woodley is earning her place among the Monterey Five by stealing hearts—and offering up double-take worthy beauty.For last night's season two premiere in New York City, the actress commanded attention with a lesson in '60s beauty, complete with era-inspired crown in the form of some seriously stylized hair. A strategically sheer dress and matching moody manicure served as a jumping off point for Woodley's above-neck notes: A swipe of pinky-nude lipstick coupled with a dusting of warming bronzer, the look finished with a smokey eye, metallic mauve shadow inching toward brows. But it was Woodley's mane, brushed into a bouffant worthy of Brigitte Bardot, that ensured the moment was one to remember—and the stuff of retro revival daydreams.As if cool girl throwback lengths weren't enough to set Woodley apart, Instagram feeds this morning were freckled with a clip of newest addition to the Big Little Lies family, Meryl Streep, who took to The Wing's Soho location to gush about the 27-year-old actress. "She's just a miracle in this thing, I have to say," she said. "I'm glad she's not here because I can talk about her that way. I mean, she's a miracle." Aspirational hair and praise from Streep herself? For Woodley, it's all in a day's work. You Can See More Product: https://newshirtonline.com/product-category/trending/ Read the full article