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Early Saturday morning, I headed over to the East bay for the annual Head To The Hills rally on Gail, my 1964 Vespa GL. Alan told me about this ride, which runs for about 125 miles through some awesome twisty canyon roads. I’ve heard good things about the twisties in the east bay for awhile now, so this seemed like a perfect time to check them out.

Of course, in order to get over to the East bay, I had to cross the Bay Bridge, which, on a 46 year old 160cc scooter, is a tad daunting. I hopped on the 101 at the Bryant street on-ramp (the left side carpool one), which was nice because it dumps you nicely into the right-hand slow lane. There wasn’t much traffic, and soon enough, I was cruising happily at about 60mph. Even so, it was a little scary to not have any more power to go to in case I needed to get out of trouble. Also, the grooves in the pavement made the scoot wiggle nervously as we crossed the bay. Eep.

I made it to West Oakland without incident, and Alan and I rode over to Cole Coffee to meet up with the rest of the crew. In all, about 20 scooters came on the ride. Mostly vintage Vespas and Lambrettas, but a few modern plastic scoots (the retro looking-ones) joined us, in addition to a pair of of the goofy-looking new MP3s. And, as Alan pointed out, for some reason, scooter rallies always have one old, pot-bellied dude in sweatpants, riding a Ruckus. Great.

I don’t have any pictures from the ride itself — it was way too fast and twisty to even attempt to get the camera out. Oh well. I did have my Garmin 305 with me though, so I was able to map out the ride:

We stopped for lunch down in Pleasanton. Yes, in case you’re wondering, Pleasanton is very.. pleasant.

The craziest part of the ride was through Morgan Territory Road. On the east side of Mt. Diablo, it’s a one-lane road through some gorgeous hilly country — here’s a video of someone driving it on YouTube). So yah, imagine riding that road in a line of 20 scoots at a decently fast clip. It was pretty awesome.

As to be expected with any vintage rally, we had two scoots need to board the “shame train” with mechanical problems — one was a modern scoot, and the other was the ride leader Derek’s GS — whose rear wheel nearly came off due to a loose axle nut (yah, that would have been a lot worse, considering we had just finished riding Morgan Territory Road).

To get back to SF, I hopped on the highway right near Cole Coffee. Thankfully, there was a ton of traffic, so even though I had to merge from the 24 to the 580 to the 80, I was able to lane split my way through stopped traffic all the way to the tollbooths.

In all.. the ride took nearly 7 hours and went over 130 miles. Thanks to FLCSC for organizing an awesome ride.

In other scooter news, Andy and I started cleaning up the 1976 150 Super that’s been sitting idle in our garage for nearly a decade now… we really should have taken a “before” picture, but she’s looking really good now:

See you at Scooter Rage 24 in June.

So, someone recently asked me to recount my life.. musically.. It was an interesting task, and a fun one at that, so I looked back… and put together a little mix that represented my musical tastes thus far…

I’m trying something new.. a YouTube playlist of these songs — I’m actually quite impressed that YouTube has ALL of these songs. Wow.

(80s Phase)
Ok.. so I dont actually have any tracks in my iTunes from this phase — it was the 80s, and all of my music is either on LP or Cassette tape, and therefore, not in my iTunes… Anyway.. it WAS the 80s when I was listening to this stuff, so it wasn’t called “80s music” back then.. Back then, it was just “pop” and I remember listening to a lot of it on 107.9, aka POWER 108.

Thriller – Michael Jackson
Let’s Hear It For The Boy – Deniece Williams
Straight Up – Paula Abdul
Piano Man – Billy Joel (my first live concert)

(Classic Rock Phase)
So, In high school, I was big into classic rock.. You know, Zeppelin, Clapton, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles. I listened mostly to 100.7 WMMS (aka the buzzard with the wig). Then, I got my first CD player, a Sony Discman D-4, by saving up for like 13 years, I think. My First CDs were.. Pink Floyd’s Delicate Sound of Thunder and the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd
A Day In The Life – Beatles

(Folky/Classical Phase)
I was a huge fan of Northern Exposure, and this track was in the last episode of that show:

Our Town – Iris Dement

All throughout my childhood, I played violin, so yah, I had an appreciation for classical music.. My favorite classical track of all time is:

The Moldau – Smetana

(Ska Phase)
I’m not sure how I found ska in college, but I did. All throughout college, I pretty much listened to like 80% ska music. I did the whole deal, I had the flight jacket, a porkpie hat, oxblood doc martens, and skanked. Ya, I even had a Vespa (and still do).

007 (Shanty Town) – Desmond Dekker
Message To You Rudy – The Specials
He Wants Me Back – Dance Hall Crashers
Tell You Why – Pietasters
Come Back Baby – The Slackers

(Punk Phase)
The ska thing kind of developed into a punk fascination — I mean, OpIV is ska-punk, so it seemed like a natural evolution.

Sound System – Operation Ivy
Life Size Mirror – No Use For A Name

(Japanese Phase)
I had a brief fascination with Japanese music. Yah.

Baby Love Child – Pizzicato Five
Sugar Water – Cibo Matto

(Electronica Phase)
And then.. I moved to San Francisco. And in SF, electronica kind of found me. I probably spent like 6 months listening ONLY to trance, and on this one trip up to Tahoe, I ONLY had trance CDs in my car.. about 2 hours into the drive, I was so desperate for ANYTHING NON-TRANCE that I almost tore my ears out until I (thankfully) found a cassette tape from high school (classic rock) that I listened to for the rest of the weekend. I have a theory that you can only listen to so much trance in your lifetime, after which you’re just, like, done with it. So yah, even though I remember really, really liking this PVD track. Now, I can’t even be bothered to sit through it. Ugh.

Out There & Back – Paul van Dyk

So, from trance, I moved on to breaks, which I think is a natural progression. I probably spent the most time DJ’ing breaks, and my vinyl collection is primarly breaks. That said, for some reason, I don’t really like listening to breaks on my iPod. Maybe that’s cuz I don’t really like listening to breaks — I prefer dancing to it.

Collect – Emit

(Folky Phase.. Reprise)
I think as a backlash to my years of electronic/trance-ness, I rekindled my interest in folky stuff. These two tracks are my favorites:

The Blower’s Daughter – Damien Rice
Lonestar – Norah Jones

(Hip Hop, Turntabilist Phase)
For like a brief time, I really wanted to be a good scratch DJ/Turntablist, and it was during that time that I found a lot of hip hop that was pretty rad.

From 93 till Infinity – Souls of Mischief
Ghostwriter – RJD2
Point to B – Prefuse 73
Swing Set – Jurassic 5

(Indie Electronic Phase)
I think the pendulum swung back kind of crooked — and since everything merges anyway, I found myself in indie-land, with a bit of an electronic influence.

Hide & Seek – Imogen Heap
Needy Girl – Chromeo

(I LOVE Xmas music)
So, for the past 6 years, I’ve compiled a CD of Christmas music. I heart christmas music, and this is my favorite holiday tune:

Baby It’s Cold Outside – Elf Soundtrack

(Indie Phase)
Ok.. and now we’re kind of in my latest phase, which is just the “Indie Phase” — that said, “Indie” is kind of a wide spectrum of things, and pretty much, for the past few years, I’ve been putting together mixtapes like every quarter. So, here’s just a sampling from those mixtapes of tracks that I find to have a particularly high level of awesomeness.

First Breath After Coma – Explosions In The Sky
To Be Loved – Joan As Police Woman
Falcon Jab – Ratatat
Blood Bank – Bon Iver
Lisztomania – Phoenix
Comets – Fanfarlo

And.. that’s it, I think.. 34 biographically representative songs from my 34 years..