Directed by Aaron Rose and Joshua Leonard

Co-director Aaron Rose will introduce the film this Friday at 7:15PM, Saturday at 3:00PM and Saturday at 7:15PM and will hold a Q and A afterward. Cinema 21.

BEAUTIFUL LOSERS celebrates the spirit behind one of the most influential cultural moments of a generation.

Here’s the synopsis:
In the early 1990’s a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery. Rooted in the DIY (do-it-yourself) subcultures of skateboarding, surf, punk, hip hop and graffiti, they made art that reflected the lifestyles they led. Developing their craft with almost no influence from the “establishment” art world, this group, and the subcultures they sprang from, have now become a movement that has been transforming pop culture.

Starring a selection of artists who are considered leaders within this culture, Beautiful Losers focuses on the telling of personal stories. It speaks to themes of what happens when the outside becomes “in” as it explores the creative ethos connecting these artists and today’s youth.

Watch the trailer here.

B-Day ride to Bend 08 from Steve Hoskins Jr. on Vimeo.

Two of our Nemo guys, Steve and Morgan, grab the bikes and head Southeast from Portland, climb over Mt Hood, ride through the reservation via Madras, stop off in Redmond and finally hit Bend. Amazing.

Nemo CD Mark Lewman is out in Beijing checking out the BMX events, a big first for these riders - BMX, China, Olympics no way! They are all stoked check out the NYT piece. Meanwhile there was a crazy pile up that laid Kyle Bennett low - here’s pics of the action leading up to the crash.

Kyle Bennett, a team USA athlete racing for a slot in the finals, gets tangled up in the first turn. This was the gnarliest crash of the day.

The berms are asphalt and riders carve through the corners held in place by G-forces. Their bikes are almost level against the wall of the berm. So rad.

But one fuck up at this speed and it all goes to hell in a hurry.

The Dutch guy leading the pack buckles under the G-forces and he goes down, starting a chain reaction of bad stuff…

…Which ends with Kyle Bennett on the ground, completely jacked.

More at StudioNemo.

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Earlier this year, Portland enhanced its bike-friendly status by becoming the first US city to be designated a Platinum-level Bicycle Friendly Community. In 2006, then Commissioner now Mayor-elect, Sam Adams had launched a nine-part strategy to win that status and called together advocates and community leaders to work toward achieving the goal. Mission accomplished as they say.

There is a problem though. In Portland and across the nation as more people are affected by the high price of gas and switch to the bicycle for their commute tensions are rising between car drivers and cyclists. Along comes a timely new book - ‘Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do’ by Tom Vanderbilt which has been reviewed by Mary Roach, who admits to a map-reading-while -driving induced fender bender in Portland a few years ago. Reading this book may help understand the psyche of the person behind the wheel - human nature is at fault.

For anyone interested in the way traffic flows and why you find yourself sitting in many traffic jams this book seems to be a good read. What follows are bullet points that I’ve pulled from Roach’s review:

01. Traffic jams are not caused by flaws in road design but by flaws in human nature.
02. Gawkers cause a 12.7% increase in traffic slowdown after a crash and the rubberneckers themselves are so busy gawking that they often slam into the car in front of them as it brakes for the driver to get a better look.
03. Drivers will slow down to look at anything, even a couch dumped in a roadside ditch.
04. Starbucks places stores with drive-through lanes on opposite sides of the road to spare drivers the “agony of having to make a left turn during rush hour.”
05. In a 15 block area around UCLA drivers logged on an average day 3600 miles looking for a place to park.
06. Add a new highway and drivers will defect from others to clog it up.
07. Americans won’t accept congestion charging to help reduce traffic.
08. They will accept a surcharge for peak-travel time hotel rooms and airfares though.
09. We think we are good drivers and that’s a problem as we base that on the number of accidents we’ve been in instead of on the number of accidents we narrowly avoid.
10. In ancient Rome, Caesar declared a daytime ban on chariots and carts as traffic was so bad!

And how does this affect bicyclists? Well, Vanderbilt’s research has discovered that drivers pass bicyclists more closely on a road with bike lanes than on one without. And pedestrians can’t win either - more people are killed while crossing in crosswalks than while jaywalking.

The solution appears to be that we should separate cars, bicyclists and pedestrians and also implement a congestion charge on drivers to reduce the amount of cars in cities. Portland seems to be the best candidate for this experiment. Go Sam.

The engineers and technologists who designed and built the giant Airbus A380 may well be proud of their accomplishments in attempting to reduce this huge aircraft’s environmental impact. As their web site says “[they took] a fresh approach to its environmental impact, too. With a new wing design and composite materials accounting for 25% of its structural weight, the A380 is a much more efficient aircraft all round. And by producing only about 75g of CO2 per passenger kilometre, the A380 is contributing to the aviation industry’s commitment to constraining greenhouse gas emissions.”

So, a full A380 carrying 525 passengers between London and Los Angeles, a distance of 8750km, will produce 344,531,250gms of CO2. Yes that’s 344 million - I’m just saying…hat’s off to the marketers for using grams instead of pounds. They’re European, so they can.

The site also mentions that “The A380 burns fuel per passenger at a rate comparable to that of an economical family car.” All I can picture here is 525 cars driving 8750km. And what is an “economical” family car?

They go on - “There’s the extra space per passenger afforded by its twin, full-length, wide-bodied cabins. The cabin air, recycled every three minutes to keep the atmosphere fresh. The natural light provided by 220 cabin windows. And while the A380 feels more natural inside, the environment outside benefits too. From the dramatically reduced external noise levels. From the lower fuel consumption and significantly improved CO2 emissions per passenger kilometre. From the increased capacity at airports and the reduced need for expansion.”

I love that phrase natural light provided by 220 cabin windows because every flight that I’ve been on the attendants can’t wait to tell the passengers to please lower your window shades as the “entertainment” i.e bad movie or TV, is about to begin. Whether you like it or not you are forced to sit in a dark stuffy tube while people with headphones on guffaw at lame jokes. Good use of “natural” though.

And this is a good one - “From the increased capacity at airports and the reduced need for expansion.” The boast here is that the ‘planes are so big they can deliver more folks to be packed into your airport’s long lines at immigration reducing the need for the airport authorities to expand their airports. Brilliant! What a relief for those in charge of our comfort while we struggle through their over-crowded airports, they don’t need to do anything but allow Airbus A380’s to land.

It gets better - “Some operators might, for example, choose to seat their First and Business class passengers on the upper deck –providing a corporate jet-like environment for these clients – while configuring the A380’s main deck for an all-Economy layout.”

Dear Airlines, when you configure the ‘planes for your fleet, why not put the great unwashed underneath with the freight and be done with it?

An oil rig off the coast of California

Here in Portland I am seeing signs that the price of gas is making a difference in how people get around the city. Bus ridership has spiked, there are less cars on the road during the commuting hours and bicyclists seem to be everywhere. Yesterday as I walked my dog along the banks of the Willamette River, I noticed far more sailboats than the motorized variety. Maybe the price of gas is making Americans think twice before getting into the car? Maybe.

I carpool to the Nemo warehouse and it’s still a drag to see that of those cars that are on the road I’d guess that 95% of them are occupied by only the driver. And don’t get me started on the hypocritical Prius owners who fly past at speeds that exceed the legal limits. And on Sunday’s the Hillsdale Farmer’s Market is filled with people buying fresh, locally-produced organic food while the parking lot and the surrounding streets are crammed with their cars. None of this makes sense. If you’re concerned perhaps you can leave a comment on their blog.

It seemed that once gas went through $4 a gallon and the $100 fill up entered the public’s economic equation we’d see a marked change in the way we would use our energy. Unfortunately that’s really not the case.

Portland is one of the more environmentally-friendly and green cities in North America. If we can’t break the automobiles stranglehold on our city then what hope for other cities that are less friendly toward buses and bicyclists? Portland has also shown strong support for ending the war in Iraq. If we disagree with the Iraq war, and the inevitable future Middle East wars that will be fought over oil and water resources, what will we Portlanders do at home to reduce our dependence on foreign oil?

I argue that if we are unwilling to drastically reduce our gasoline use then it is hypocritical of us to oppose off-shore drilling in California and drilling and exploration in Alaska. We simply can’t have our cake and eat it.

Today, President George W. Bush plans to lift a presidential ban on offshore drilling to combat soaring energy prices, a largely symbolic move unlikely to have any short-term impact on the high cost of gasoline.

Who will stand in his way this time?

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