February CRANK Mob Recap: Cake Mayhem & Graffiti

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Midnight Rida “barleye” put together that recap of Saturday’s CRANK Mob. I’ve overlooked a bunch of other videos from previous months, so I’ll sprinkle them through the post, and I’ll leave some for y’all to find on YouTube.

The mass exodus of some of Midnight Ridazz best and brightest to the Salton Sea, together with the lack of bike towed sound systems left organizers of CRANK Mob wondering if the Gods of Bike were trying to destroy our CRANK spirit.

Gods of Bike = FAIL! The Feburary 16th, 2008 CRANK Mob was the most epic yet thanks to Kieron’s brilliant organizing, and the potluck of fun poisoning which is the C.R.A.zy N.aptime Killers.

There was the mayhem at the starting point. Actually, there was mayhem before we made it to the starting point. Pedestrians and motorists felt the buzz and cheered and honked when we got within 1/2 mile of the start. The neighborhood really appreciates the ride. They know that fun is FUN!

The star of the crazy bike show was Richie’s modded out tandem, which captures the ad hoc superfun attitude that is CRANK Mob. For 45 minutes I drew on my face, drank, and yammered while Richie and Birthday boy Tyler Humer added a fork on the back to mount bike jousting poles and then a rack on the front to mount a megaphone, . . .

and then another fork on the front to make sparks. You fellas make sparks in my HEART.
Psyched and hyped the ride headed to Beverly Hills and 33third, a local record store which sells graffiti supplies and has walls for tagging in the back. This store is amazing, and Mobsters set to improving the walls in back with bikeffiti. The Mobs wasn’t satisfied with just painting walls and looking at records, so the 250 odd riders spread out around the block, some at the shop, some chilling on the corner, and about 30 in line at the world’s slowest liquor store.

I got ambushed by cake wielding psychos. Right there in the liquor store, in front of all my bike colleagues, Alec and Brian from Smell Segundo nefariously plastered two pounds of vegan cake and icing on my face. Next they targeted Tyler, and afterward cranKSTERS bouistrously sang Tyler and Katie O’Shea a happy birthday.

Also, there was this. And this. You had to be there. Similarly, when LAPD showed up and enthusiastically joined CRANK Mob in December, you also had to be there:

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Even if you’re friends with the “laws” you can’t sex up an American neighborhood that much without risking the preacher lambasting you. So we took our party cult elsewhere, toward our final destination.By the way, can you jump rope? Me neither. But now I can, because CRANK Mob lerns ya. Jumping rope is now the highlight of my resume. However, some women of CRANK Mob aren’t easily satisfied, and they decided at a break for a flat, to hopscotch over the jump rope. Ladies, I was out of it, did it happen?Joyfully we collapsed into delirious finish at an isolated parking lot in Palms. SWANKY, at least to those with the Funder within them. The open space lent itself to a huge sidewalk chalk pegasus and other visual chalk poetry, plus room for wrestling and bike jousting. Or non-bike jousting. Non-bike jousting is the new bike jousting. Mobsters discovered that jousting is best done in shopping carts.Richie and Kieron gave out sharecuts using some power from a utility pole. Sharecuts are haircuts given by friends with the intent of making you look totally rad, and get you totally fired. I got one, and Louise Chen, who founded CRANK Mob Santa Cruz with Chris Campbell, got one too.

All in all, even without blasting music, February CrAnK mO/b/ was just as groovy as January, and that was groovy, as you can tell from Midnight Rida bentstrider‘s vid:

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Of course the tunes will be back next month, new and improved. Mobster of the month goes to birthday boy Tyler Humer, who got mostly naked on a cold night, got cake in his hair, and got really crazy. Cheers!