Jack Black Was Onto Something...

Jack Black may have been onto something a few years back in his movie Nacho Libre. Not just the fact that Lucha Libre is huge in Mexico but the fact that it puts the fun back in wrestling while also injecting it with an air of mystery. 

Jack Black in Nacho Libre

Wrestling has always been about larger than life characters, but there is just something alluring about watching a Lucha Libre match that is quite different from the bouts we see here in the US. Read up on the article below and have some insight into a recent match in Tijuana, Mexico as seen by a writer from Wired Magazine.

Various Lucha Libre posters from events in Reno, Nevada

Luchadores masks at a market in Mexico

Lucha Libre - Heros of the Ring advertising

Lucha Libre ring girl

Link to original article on Wired.com


When a friend heard I was going to Tijuana one Friday night a few years back, he shook his head and said, “Dude, you’re going to die.” I could only laugh as I said, “Naw, I’m not going to die. I’m going to lucha libre.”


Yes, that’s right, I’m talking about badass pro wrestling, Mexican-style.


As a wee Sol, I was fascinated by the professional wrestling I saw on TV and loved trying to catch them faking the drama. It was like trying to catch Santa (mom) stuffing presents in my stocking. There was something, too, about the crazy costumes and improbable personas that piqued my curiosity.There has in recent years been a plague of violence along the border, and I don’t mean to make light of it. But I figured if I was going to Tijuana looking like a goofy tourist and focusing my attention on the wrestling arena, the greatest threat I’d face would be a flying chair or two. Turned out it wasn’t even that bad. I didn’t even get Montezuma’s revenge.


So you can understand why I’d been wanting to catch lucha libre in TJ for quite some time. I got my chance while chasing down some Weird Sports in SoCal. From downtown San Diego, I took public transportation to the border and wandered along the nutty zig-zag pedestrian walkway across the border.






It’s easy to catch the action. Bouts are held almost every Friday at the Auditorio Municipal Fausto Gutierrez, a mere seven minutes from the border. It’s cheap, too, with tickets starting at five bucks.
I’m still kind of mad at myself for taking French in high school. What a waste. Sure, I can order a café au lait with the best of them, but Spanish would have been so much more useful. Predictably, plenty of people speak English in TJ, including my cabbie, who shuttled me to the auditorium. I found an ATM for some dinero and hopped in line for tickets. Few people were springing for the premier ringside section, so I joined the crowd in the cheap seats. Usually, I’ll try to wrangle a press pass, but sometimes it’s easier to go as a fan with a camera. And more fun. So that’s what I did.


I went through security with my gear with no problems. And then I found myself laughing at all the grown men wearing luchador masks being frisked by federales looking for weapons. It was surreal.





Hey Wiki. I’ve got a question for ya: What’s the story with lucha libre?


Well, Sol, in the early 1900s, professional wrestling was mostly a regional phenomenon in Mexico until Salvador Lutteroth founded the Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre (Mexican Wrestling Enterprise) in 1933, giving the sport a national foothold. The promotion company flourished and quickly became the premier spot for wrestlers. As television became a viable entertainment medium during the 1950s, Lutteroth could broadcast wrestling across the nation, subsequently yielding a popularity explosion for the sport. Moreover, the emergence of television allowed Lutteroth to turn lucha libre’s first breakout superstar into a national pop-culture phenomenon.


Thanks Wiki. Very insightful. And what’s the story on the masks?


Good question, man. Masks (máscaras) have been used from the beginning and have a historical significance to Mexico in general, dating to the Aztecs. Early masks were simple, with basic colors to distinguish the wrestler. In modern lucha libre, masks are colorfully designed to evoke the images of animals, gods, ancient heroes and other archetypes, whose identity the luchador assumes during a performance.


One thing I noticed is how family-friendly lucha libre is. Kids stared wide-eyed, mouths agape, at the body-slamming ballet. I’m guessing that’s how I looked when I was their age, watching WWF on the TV. I’ve seen smaller-production lucha Libre in Latino neighborhoods in L.A. and Denver. There’s a sense of love and trust between the wrestlers and the fans, and the whole thing feels like the world’s most awesome family reunion. Kids wander around the ring as sweaty sportsmen make sure not to squish them, even as they taunt fans who usually include their wives. For most of the night, I just wandered around taking photos, admiring the frenzied atmosphere and sipping on my namesake cerveza. Yep, living large.


After the bout, I caught a cab and returned back to the border after stopping for some amazing tacos. When I approached the American border officer, he looked at me straight faced and asked “Do you have anything to declare?”


“Definitely,” I said. “I declare I had a great time.”

Lucha Libre in Tijuana, Mexico

Hellbound Glory To Play Mountain Vibe 2012

The 3rd annual Mountain Vibe Music Gathering will take place August 11-12 at Shinneyboo Creek Cabin Resort in Soda Springs, CA. The lineup this year includes Lyrics Born, The Stone Foxes, Forrest Day, Hellbound Glory, Lavish Green and more.


Potential vibers have 30 more days to purchase tickets (camping included) for $60. Click here for more information.


Mountain Vibe 2012

Hellbound Glory will be one of the featured acts at Mountain Vibe 2012

Lineup


Lyrics Born
The Stone Foxes
Forrest Day
Hellbound Glory
Lavish Green
Pine Box Boys
Arden Park Roots
Coffin Hunter
Space Monkey Gangstas
Oola Rocksteady
Swoon
Conscious Souls
Full On Flyhead ZuhG
The Chaw Burnt
Thanks for Leaving
Stone Roots
Brothers Gow Stone Child
7eat9
Tiny Television
Terrell Liedstrand 


PLUS Special appearances by:
Troy Hazelton
The Human Will
Ben Benkurt

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lightning

Certain bikes will always scream while standing still. It could be the stance or it could just be the power plant that begs to be revved up. Over the years we have grown to dig much more in depth into the lure of all that is Vincent Motorcycles. We are tip toeing around the edge as we know the water is warm, but we can't go quite full bore into them just yet as our pockets don't allow for that type of freedom. In the interim, enjoy a superb article posted on Cycle World with Jeff Decker and another one on BikeExif about this amazing Vincent Black Lightning.

Read original article on Cycle World

Catch up to date with all things BikeExif

"If you’ve been to the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, you’ve already seen Jeff Decker’s work. His 16-foot, 5000-pound bronze Dynamic Hill Climber—a soaring sculpture depicting a 1930 H-D DAH-mounted hill-climber at the apogee of his ascent—occupies the place of honor on the museum grounds. Whether or not you’re a motorcycle person or an art person, it’s an awesome piece of work. If you are a motorcycle person, the level of detail and accuracy is amazing. If you’re a sculptor, you might appreciate that the final piece is, in fact, 200 castings welded together. After sculpting something that complex, piecing together a custom, even a Vincent custom, is Romper Room work. We sat down with Decker to find out how it all came together.

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lighting, from BikeExif

How does a guy who grew up in the Southern California suburbia of Thousand Oaks get to be a sculptor in bronze, anyway?

My dad was always building race cars, and we always had a shop that was bigger than our house. I was surrounded by a father and uncles who always worked with their hands: chassis, body, motor and machine work. It was really blue collar, but I was in a neighborhood where everybody was a doctor or lawyer. And I didn’t really appreciate how privileged I was. I drove a 356 Porsche to school that my dad and I restored, and people thought, “Oh, gee, poor Jeff can’t afford a new car.” I tried to explain how my car was better than their new BMW, but that’s how it was: The Deckers drove old clunkers. To this day, we’ve never owned a new car.

When I came to Brigham Young [University], they had a pretty weak art program. I studied art history and Spanish, and I found art pretty boring. Art programs today, whether prestigious art school or appendage of a university, they don’t really dig representational art. They see Norman Rockwell as an illustrator, not an artist. When I expressed interest in, you know—“I want to capture man’s quest for speed! I wanna synergize organic with mechanical!”—my teachers were like, it’s silly, you’re not expressing yourself. Well, for them, it’s silly. For me, it’s honest and sincere. I couldn’t throw up some silly abstract thing in front of a building in New York. That wouldn’t be me. You might not think I’m the greatest sculptor in the world, but what I do really does come from the heart, from the soul; it’s what I eat, breathe and live. 

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lighting, from BikeExif

When you think about it, guys on motorcycles are the most natural progression in the world from sculptures of guys on horses, which has been an art staple from Roman times, right? Or before then…

Absolutely. That is the quintessential theme of what I do, and it’s the paradigm shift it represents. When Frederic Remington did all these cowboys and Indians, he was glamorizing a chunk of American history with about only 20 years relevance. I mean, Roy Rogers was “realler” than Wyatt Earp. When the Transcontinental Railroad came through, that hybrid of the European cow and the Texas Longhorn, they just loaded them on the train. The cowboy became obsolete. Americans lost their identity but continued to want something “American” instead of the old world so many of them came from. So we fabricated the cowboy, and Remington helped do that.

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lighting, from Cycle World

What I think is more real is the synergy between America and the Industrial Revolution, that paradigm shift. For 4000 years, there was the man on the horse. That animal was transportation, wealth, power, food—suddenly it’s completely a pet, glue, the Kentucky Derby and women in silly hats. And the motorcycle replaced it. The motorcycle literally replaced the horse in the American psyche. We call it an iron horse, we use the same clichés about the wind in your face, the freedom—and it’s even realer, because a horse can eat and sleep and sh_t on its own. It doesn’t need man. The motorcycle is a useless piece of junk until you fill it with fuel, unless we tend to its needs.

How did your Vincent come about? 

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lighting rear view, from BikeExif

I did a sculpture in 1999 of Rollie Free laid out on his Vincent at Bonneville (“Flat Out at Bonneville”). When I began researching it, we were listening to an audio tape of Rollie, and he mentioned this mechanic named Mel Helde and Farmington, Utah—that’s an hour-and-a-half away from where I live. I looked in the phone book and there’s a Mel Helde, Jr., so I called this dude and asked him about Rollie Free, and he says, “Yeah, you’re talking about the scrapbook in the basement. I can’t really get to it today, can you come by tomorrow?”

So I get there, and this guy was a teenager out there on the salt, helping his pops wrench with Rollie. He turns this shoebox full of info over to me, and [Vincent aficionados/restorers/collectors] Herb Harris and Jay Leno and Mike Parti and Marty Dickerson and I all pooled our information to come up with a great body of work that helped Jerry Hatfield write his book [Flat Out! The Rollie Free Story]. Meanwhile, I’ve been collecting DNA, from patches that were on his jacket to original photos to bike insurance policies. Herb would pull stuff off his shelves and say, “This is the tire he set the speed record on.”

“I want it, Herb.”

“Well, Jeff, you can’t really run it. It’s not safe.”

“No, but I can take pictures of the bike with it on there.”

Then I’d say, “I want these motors,” and he’d say, “Well, these are Marty Dickerson’s cases. He was such a tightwad he’d never buy a Lightning bottom end because the factory would up charge you. He’d buy a standard Shadow bottom end and ‘Lightningize’ it with the big cams, use the two front heads.” So, in fact, my bike’s got more racing history than 90 percent of the Lightnings out there. 

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lighting, from Cycle World

What about purists who don’t believe Vincents should be customized?

I’d say, “Herb, I don’t want to be president of the Vincent Owners Club; give me a bastard—just give me the best DNA you can find.” So this bike really is a cobbled-together Frankenstein that I’m not ashamed of. Of course, these highbrow Brits look at it like, “Oh, how dare you,” and I’m like, “What? Mine starts up and rides, yours gathers dust in your living room.”

One of the things I don’t like about stock Vincents—I’m not a huge Vincent fan—is that I think once you strip about 100 pounds off of one, you find it was kind of like an overweight woman with a beautiful face: Once you take the red meat out of her diet, she transforms. When you take that horrible seat off, and those mudguards—when you throw away about 100 pounds of Vincent bulls__t—all of a sudden, that sexy broad comes out. And that’s what I wanted to do, strip it down to the bare necessities. If it did not need it absolutely, it went away.

Comparing your bike to a Lightning, it doesn’t really look like you changed all that much besides the seat.

Well, the Lightning, there are 31 of those left, we think, and they were sexy from Day One. But they were never street-legal; they were factory-prepped beauties. When I say strip one down, I mean a Rapide or Shadow, which had these big, clunky traveling packages, about three gauges more than they need, four levers on the handlebars, risers, all these kinds of things. The fact that you say mine doesn’t look that much different than a Lightning is a huge compliment, because that was my goal—to make a street-legal Lightning.

In fact, the greatest Black Lightning in existence is the Rollie Free bike [now owned by Herb Harris], and it’s a B Rapide; technically speaking, Lightnings were all C models, which came later. The factory did all the posters and photos and promo talking about Rollie Free’s Vincent Black Lightning [Free’s bike was the first to go 150 mph, at Bonneville in 1948.], and it’s a B, which is a contradiction.

My bike, if you do the numbers, it doesn’t fit into that “31” category. But when you show it to a guy who owns a Lightning, it bums him out. He says, “Wow, where’d you get those carbs?” or “Oh, you’ve got two front heads,” and “Jeez, are those real cams in there?” He goes through there and finds out most of this damn thing is Lightning.

So I registered it as a Black Lightning. Herb and I giggled about that. He says I should call it a Black Lightning all I want, since it’s a prepped racer—plus the Vincent motorcycle club’ll go nuts; they’ll sh_t! How dare you call it that?! So I call it a “Lightning” in a very sarcastic, politically incorrect way.

Of course, I still wanted to be respectful to the Lightning; I wanted it to look like one. But next to a Lightning, mine’s tinier and sexier, there’s even less on it. If you see it from the side, the profile of the tank is stock, but when you look down on it, it’s 4½ inches narrower. When you park it next to another Vincent, you say, “Wow, look how big and fat and dumpy that stock one is…” 

Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lighting, from Cycle World

Give us a rundown of some build specifics.

Mine’s got the GP racing Amal carburetors and two front heads, so there’s no manifold. The hubs are specifically Lightning, with 21/20-inch rims, an impossibility to find and specifically Lightning. The brakes have heat sinks I fabricated from scratch. I exposed the springs under the seat and in front of the fork and built my own inner shock absorber because it bounced around too much. The tank’s actually 2½ inches narrower in front, 4½ inches in the rear: I took the widest measurement, at the cases, and wouldn’t go beyond that. The only things that stick out beyond the width of the motor are the pegs and handlebar. I put three-quarters of a front mudguard on the rear. And I kept all the quick-change elements: You can literally pull this thing apart—the front and rear end, the wheels—without tools. It’s all meant to be kicked apart; it’s all hand-break-downable.

You sit about 12 or 18 inches lower on mine than you would a stock Vincent—you’re down in it. I deliberately ran the exhaust pipes in front of the motor, protecting the magneto, then ran them into a heat-sink exhaust system that also acts as a skid plate, which kind of gives the illusion of it being a tighter bike. Then the gas tank is just sunk in and squeezed as tight as it’ll go—to really emphasize the bulk and the massiveness of the motor.

On the fringes of the bike, I just went as light as I humanly could. I wanted to exaggerate the freakness of, the massive nature of, the Vincent motor. The kickstand’s in a weird place, the seat’s off a Schwinn Sting-Ray, the rear fender struts are homemade. 

Rear tire, chain and sprocket detail on Jeff Decker's Vincent Black Lightning

The headlight on a Vincent weighs about four pounds and belongs on a Mack truck. I was digging through some stuff and found a beautiful little headlight from a 1970s Honda ATC; we cut a little dimple in it so it would fit tight down over the front spring, and the headlight’s actually smaller than the speedo. That speedometer is really ostentatious. I debated putting it on the bike—it sticks up like three inches. It’s really funny. That 150-mph gauge that came on Lightnings or Shadows was a very expensive upgrade, really a show-off piece. “Look! Our bikes go 150 mph, the record books show it!” It was really a bragging-rights piece. So I said, okay, I’ll play the Vincent game with the one big clunky item I probably would’ve skipped. In the end, it was just so vain, I had to go for it.

And going for it on his Vincent is no problem, Decker tells us. The old beast torques right up to 100 or so and bombs along nicely with a lot of throttle left to twist—just not with Rollie Free’s tires. Those are stashed safely away at Decker’s Springville, Utah, compound, along with a couple of Crockers, an original-paint 1914 Harley he did the Cannonball on (CW, March, 2011), another dozen or so collectible motorcycles and a warehouse or two full of whatever needs keeping, sculpting, driving or riding at the time. Leather helmets off to Jeff Decker. We don’t know anyone else who can cast a thing in bronze, blast down the road on rolling sculpture and thumb his nose at several sets of conventions simultaneously. Hard to argue with that kind of cool."

Thirteen Hours Of Engine Porn?

What if we told you there is a new star in a film, that is thirteen hours in length and the action is ongoing like a Lord Of The Rings adventure, would you be interested to watch? Oh damn, we might have lost ya at the words, thirteen hours, but we dig the bold vision that is being introduced.

Jesse Cain, a film maker and amateur mechanic, has decided to break down the sexy siren within his film, which just happens to be a 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit engine and get it back into working order through a carthatic and enduring process film. Check out a ten minute clip below and see what you think, as it is clearly a different approach.

Link to original article on the Autopia section of Wired.com

Jesse Cain's1982 Volkswagen Rabbit engine and its thirteen hours of voyeur fame

"Forget about Bullitt, Ronin and Vanishing Point. There’s a new contender for greatest car movie ever made. It’s called Parts and Labor, and it’s over thirteen hours long.

Instead of Steve McQueen performing multiple stunts, the film stars the engine of a 1982 Volkswagen Rabbit and a pair of greasy hands. Like the still shown above, all the action consists of close ups of the engine being methodically taken apart and put back together again — triple-X rated pornography for the folks over at VW Vortex.

Filmmaker Jesse Cain is both the man behind the camera and the mechanic working on the car, and the project took him over two years. He said he originally wanted to film himself working on an iconic piece of Detroit iron, but chose a broken-down Rabbit since his name was already on its title.
“I decided to be thrifty in the recession environment and fix what I already owned,” Cain said. “The movie is entirely shot with close-ups, each shot composition and duration determined by the size, shape and difficulty of removing or installing each part.” You can watch ten minutes of it in the video clip below.

Cain doesn’t have any illusions about his own abilities as a mechanic, admitting to multiple mistakes he made throughout the process. “It would be fun to sit with an ASE certified mechanic and have him or her critique my work,” he said. “I’m pretty sure there would be some big laughs and horrified cringes at times.”


The project started as part of a larger film that Cain had planned, about a boy who fixes a long-neglected car after his family’s home goes into foreclosure. After shooting the scenes with the Rabbit, however, Cain realized the car was the true star.

“I started filming tests of how I imagined the engine scenes would look, and after watching the dailies of these tests I realized that I had already started shooting the film I wanted to make,” he said.
The result was a film that took as long as Cain spent working on the car. “Instead of relying on the usual tricks of filmmaking — jump cuts, time lapse, or simple editing of action — I left the camera rolling and showed the entire process,” he said. “The work involved took me 13 hours, three minutes on camera. It’s kind of a rejection of internet culture and immediacy.”

So far, response has been positive. New York City’s Anthology Film Archives screened Parts and Labor last weekend, offering a special ticket that allowed audience members to come and go as they pleased. The program even touted that the film “out-Warholed Andy.”

“Most people find it very meditative,” Cain said. “It’s very easy to settle into it for a while and become involved in the minutia of the operation. Others say it’s surprisingly riveting. The struggle and success of each shot has its own narrative arc.”

In other words, it’s just like working on a car."

Billy Don Burns - Custom Banjo Build - Part 3

For video part three of the gas can banjo build for Billy Don Burns, things are moving along quite well and damn if the tunes are rollin' right along with the action. This video part features the song "That's Alright" from the forth coming album, Nights When I'm Sober, Portrait Of A Honky Tonk Singer available July 10th.

Pre-Order the album now and help support Real Country Music

Billy Don Burns new album - Nights When I'm Sober, Portrait of A Honky Tonk Singerer out July 10th

All Hail The Mighty Pantera

Lets get the facts straight and clear, we are diehard lifers for Pantera and have been since Cowboys From Hell. When it comes to all the side project bands and now full time bands such as Down, we dig them almost even more. Down is such the seething beast with venomous licks and more ambient vibe than any NOLA late night hot spot. After hearing word about a missing track from the genre smashing album, Vulgar Display of Power, we are picking up the new deluxe edition of this classic.

RIP Dime!

Who Is Going To Build Our Infrastructure?

Using the new tools of the internet enjoys us to no end, but in the process as a nation of builders, are we losing our sense of how to do things by hand? The do it yourself mantra is one that we hope this nation never loses. As jobs and career paths move in different directions using new technology, losing hard fought skill sets and basic mechanical knowledge could be our ultimate downfall. A nation that cannot build and sustain its infrastructure is losing all footing for its base to grow.

Mark Cuban recently expressed his thoughts about the next big debacle of financial crisis in defaulting student loans, check it out here. What really got us thinking on this more than anything is not about how many folks go to college but what are they learning and how it relates to a solid career path. 

When plying in a trade, you are taught all the facets of that particular job and in the actual job setting. Every day is continual growth as you learn more about the job at hand and your pay is directly tethered to your experience and drive to succeed. College on the other hand is teaching you how to learn about learning. There is inherently nothing wrong with that equation as knowledge is power. But, on the other hand, many more individuals are seeking out college instead of a pliable trade in which a solid future could be more within their grasp.

Have a look at these graphics below, from some years back talking on the decline and rise of jobs. Even though the information is a bit older the trend is easy to see. We are losing much of our skilled workforce to high technology, which shifts as often and regular as the tide. Does this mean that instantaneously all perspective students will graduate into a white collar work force, not at all. What bothers us the most, from looking at the thirty thousand foot view, is the overall loss of skilled craftsmen on a large scale.

Chart is from The Atlantic article on job growth and decline - http://tinyurl.com/7f358qm

Chart is from The Atlantic article on job growth and decline - http://tinyurl.com/7f358qm

With all that in mind, take a read on the article and videos below about Ford Motor Company and the innovative TechShop in Detroit. Employees are allowed to access the facilities whenever they want and to work on their own projects. Perks are even given out to potential windfall projects that could be used on new vehicles. Needless to say, that is an amazing idea on how to help innovate for the future while keeping hands on skills at the ready, bravo to Ford!

Link to original article on Wired.com

CNC router carving the Ford logo at TechShop. © Ford Motor Company

"Before he invented the assembly line, Henry Ford built his first prototype on a workbench in a shed. More than a century later, his company has partnered with TechShop, Detroit, the 21st-century equivalent of that shed, with a bold program to ignite innovation in the company.

Ford employees who invent something that the company ends up patenting receive a free three-month membership to TechShop, where they can flex their creative muscles. Project sponsor Bill Coughlin, CEO of Ford Global Technologies, has high hopes for the partnership. He expects it to supply Ford with innovative new features for its fleet of automobiles and also to act as a catalyst for Detroit’s economic recovery, generating new businesses and jobs.


It’s easy to see why the program is appealing to Ford’s designers and engineers. The Detroit TechShop is an amazing 17,000 square feet, stocked with $750,000 worth of laser cutters, 3-D printers, CNC machine tools, and staffed with “Dream Consultants” whose job it is to help you fabricate pretty much anything.



Ford employees are free to use the space day or night, for projects related to their work or personal projects. So far, employees have used the tools to prototype new features for car doors and for more fanciful pursuits like one employee’s “Whirlygig,” a plastic sculpture made with a laser cutter that spins in the wind and reflects light in interesting ways.

Ribbon-cutting ceremonies are a little different at TechShop © Ford Motor Company

Since launching the program, patent disclosures are up an impressive 30 percent, but Coughlin thinks there are more long-term organizational benefits. Disruptive ideas, for example, are more likely to be taken seriously.

“An idea on paper is easy to kill, but when you create a prototype of it and a supervisor can see it and experience it, it’s harder to say no,” Coughlin says. “Once someone starts thinking creatively it’s hard to turn that off. People stop seeing problems and start seeing opportunities.”


The partnership also promises to forge deeper relationships between Ford, its suppliers, and the maker community. How? The automaker recently asked a manufacturer of an environmentally friendly material to bring samples to TechShop to see what members could make with it.


Coughlin is a lawyer by training, But decided to temporarily trade in legal briefs for a bandsaw. He posed a simple question to himself: “Could I do better than Ikea?” After taking a couple of classes, he successfully designed a flat-pack end table and worked on another prototype using a ShopBot (an industrial-strength CNC cutter). He won’t comment on whether it is IKEA-worthy, but does say that it is at least “dimensionally stable.”

Water Jet Cutters - The world's most dangerous squirt gun © Ford Motor Company

Coughlin’s group at Ford is responsible for filing patents for the company and monetizing the thousands of patents it already has. Open source hardware advocates aren’t big fans of patents, viewing them as impediments to innovation. But Coughlin points out that many Ford patents are for the greater good — and shared with the industry at large — like the pernicious beep your car produces when you don’t buckle your seat belt. The profits his group generates helps fund new programs like the partnership with TechShop.

Still, the program raises some thorny legal issues for inventors. If an engineer designs something in his free time and funds it on Kickstarter, say, would Ford own the patent?


Coughlin says there is a process for employees to clear after-hours projects, and in all but one case, they’ve been free to pursue their ideas without fear that Ford might claim ownership. And employees who create patentable projects related to the auto industry receive a portion of revenues generated from the patent.

Soon to be quaint. A Milling machine operated by a human. © Ford Motor Company

Will the TechShop partnership help to beef up the dashboard tech too? At Wired’s Disruptive by Design Conference, Ford CEO Alan Mullaly pointed out that Ford would be foolish to install cutting-edge electronics in the dash, as they’d be inmediately obsolete — consumer electronics advance much more quickly than the automotive industry. Instead, drivers can just pop in the latest iPhone and leverage all of Apple’s innovations.


At every level, Ford seems to realize that the days where customers could “choose any color as long as it’s black” are long over. The future of innovation lies in the hands of customers and employees who identify automotive design problems. Giving those employees passes to a hackerspace is a giant step toward finding solutions."

All photos courtesy of Ford Motor Co.

Stevie Tombstone - Lucky - From New Album, Greenwood

Stevie Tombstone will be releasing his new album shortly and damn if this new song, doesn't feel just about perfect for a movie soundtrack. There is a deep resonance and an old soul feel to his songs that can only come through living them. Stevie Tombstone's music in our minds is the perfect soundtrack for that solo journey down the back roads when thinkin' on the next move in the chess game of life.

Dig into more about Stevie Tombstone 

Stevie Tombstone's new album "Greenwood" will be out later this summer

"Americana singer songwriter Stevie Tombstone will be touring once again down the East Coast and performing scattered dates around the Northeast prior to the late August release of his upcoming cd entitled “Greenwood” by L.A. based indie label Cloverdale Music. He recently finished up 3 music videos that are quickly gaining momentum.

Tombstone will be spreading his honestly haunting approach to roots music thru the month of July. This is his second release in less than a year, as a follow up to his last EP Slow Drunken Waltz which hit the streets last October via Farmageddon Records. His previous solo offerings fared well on radio and his 04 release 7:30 a.m spent quite a while on the Americana charts including a brief #1 slot for several weeks on XM satellite radio. After a chance meeting with Roy Acuff, Stevie (then, a young man) was certain he would always be a musician. Born in rural Georgia, Stevie learned the ropes playing country, gospel, and blues. Rebelling against his roots, he immersed himself in the world of rock and the underground music scene of the 80s in Atlanta but never lost the twang of his childhood. Almost three decades later, he has become an accomplished performer and songwriter.

Stevie’s band mates, over the years, have been a veritable who’s who of underground and nationally recognized players, featuring members of Circus of Power, Wilco, the Georgia Satellites, and Jason & The Scorchers. Priding himself in his ability to cross genres, he has also had the honor of sharing the bill with the likes of Leon Russell, the Stray Cats, Greg Allman, Willie Nelson, Drive By Truckers, Johnny Bush & the Ramones, just to name a few. After living in Austin off and on for almost 10 years, Stevie relocated to Atlanta, the Ozarks, and most recently, Upstate New York."

2012 Spring /Summer dates-for interviews ,photos or additional info tombstoneonline@gmail.com or visit www.stevietombstone.net

May 25th The Barn Pawlet VT May 26th Night Train Lounge Sayre PA
June 2nd Limbo Bar Gloversville N.Y.
June 13th McCormacks Whisky Bar Richmond VA
June 14th Buckshots Salisbury N,C,
June 15th Buffingtons Milledgeville GA
June 16th Trackside Tavern Atlanta GA.
June 17th Motorheads McDonough GA
June 18th The Handlebar Greenville SC
June 20th Deep South Bar Raleigh NC
June 21st Bellytimber Richmond VA
June 22nd Calabrese's Barbershop Keyport N.J,
June 23rd The Night Train LoungeSayre PA
July 1st Red Rooster Pub Skaneateles N.Y.
July 5th McMahon’s Irish Pub Warrenton VA
July 6th Molly's Irish Pub Warrenton VA
July 7th Roosterfish Brewpub Watkins Glen N.Y.
July 27th The Barn Pawlet VT
July 28th Redhouse Cafe Syracuse N.Y Greenwood Pre release Party

Steel In Motion - Hot Rods and Guitars

The fine folks in the Geargoyles Car Club will be putting on their annual event this weekend down in Shelby, NC. With numerous bands on tap such as Cutthroat Shamrock, The Fabulous Flying Piss Fenders, Single Shot Sinners, Sean K. Preston & The Loaded Pistols, JT & The Dragpipes, Lords Of the Highway and run what ya brung drag racing, holy shit does this sound like a good time. Below are also some photos from their site on Facebook from 2011.

For more info go to SteelInMotion.net

Hang out with the Geargoyles on Facebook

Geargoyles - Steel In Motion - May 19th 2012

Gasser drag racing setup

Heatin' the tires up on the run what ya brung dragway

Clean custom bobber

Early 50's Chevy 5 window Stepside Truck

Early 50's Chevy 3 window Stepside Truck

Early 50's Chevy 3 window Stepside Truck

1950? International Truck

Coupe and truck mix up custom ride

Circa 1948 Ford F-1 Truck

Honda 750 custom chopper with fairings, bags and drop seat frame

Rat Rod Coupe

Yamaha XS650 Custom

Pre-Order Rory Kellys New Album On Itunes

Pre-Orders are ready to roll and will be a digital download exclusive through Itunes. Follow the link and get this great album streaming for next week. After next week it will be avialable in a multitude of digital outlets.

Get Rory Kelly's - (Don't Shake My) Family Tree, through Itunes

Rory Kelly's (Don't Shake My) Family Tree is available through Itunes