street performers

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. .
Big thanks to Amanda and Monkey at Pirate Cat, the Mission District's favorite neighborhood radio station, for the warm invitation.

I've been posting these to You Tube for the last few years. Here are a few of my favorites.

1. Three women sat at the top of the escalator. A roller blader took a hundred foot lead in, then cleared the women and took the escalator backwards.

2. I immediately went for my camera when I saw this woman. I had my friend Emily stand just outside the frame of this video so I could grab the action incognito.

3. I first met Austin at the Crissy Field pullup bar last year. He's dope. What more can I say.

4. BMX pro Pete Brandt practicing at Embarcadero and Market in SF.

photo: Paul McKenzie

I've had some serious wanderlust recently and decided to head to Southern California. I've been wanting to stuff a few things in my bag and travel as a street performer with the Choprical Fish.

The night before my train, I had a photoshoot for the upcoming Clif Bar 2 Mile challenge, along with Gabe from SHAKE YOUR PEACE! and his friends from Utah. The 2 Mile Challenge is an upcoming college campus tour to promote bicycling. After the shoot, I packed my messenger bag with clothes and we all rode to Embarcadero BART so I could sleep in the workshop. What an amazing send off. We cruised by the ball park, where a game was letting out. We sang a call-and-response song as we were threading our way through the crowd. Epic!

It was my first time really traveling with the Choprical fish, so I put in a long night getting the bike road worthy. I never got around to sleeping.

The next morning at 6 I rode to the Amtrak in Emeryville from the workshop. I don't have many occasions to ride the Choprical Fish without music, so that morning was very sweet. I swear the birds were responding to the squeak of my disc brakes.

The Amtrak people were friendly and did non make me put my bike in a box. I dismantled the audio components and stowed them as luggage. In Bakersfield I transferred to an Amtrak bus, and the bus driver gave me my own storage bay.