As I sat watching a bit on the news this weekend concerning the new end-of-the-world meets 'Say Anything' block buster '2012', my mouth was agape. In said news piece, they interviewed several NASA scientists who where discussing the fact that they are increasingly flooded with emails from people demanding information on the upcoming end of times, and the government conspiracy to cover it up.

I can't wrap my mind around the fact that a movie is causing such hysteria, though I suppose this is the same public who picketed the Mr. Magoo movie because it made fun of blind people, bought duct tape faster than they could make it when the media told us that it would be an effective means of stemming terrorist attacks, and made 'Everybody Loves Raymond' a prime time hit.

Now, I wasn't a huge fan of Mike Judge's sleeper 'Idiocracy', but I'm regularly taken aback at the swift course we seem to be headed towards that very reality.

In the current issue of BIKE Magazine, I've been done the honor of being included in a feature in which at one point it's mentioned that some of what is discussed here on All Hail The Black Market is "the human condition".
I'm not entirely sure what that means specifically, but if I were to guess, based on contemporary trends, I'm afraid that that condition is terminal stupidity.

Now that Captain Bringmedown has done his job, let's get back into the day to day jackassery that is the mail bag?

This week we've gotten a couple of very fine examples for the 'what the hell?' file, which tends to be among my favorites.

Troy B. just sent this;

"Some content?"

Yes Troy, some content.

Then From Kelli I got another. It should be noted that this email was sent at 4:16 in the morning.

"If you ever needed a kidney, I'd give you one."

Honored, albeit a bit puzzled, I had to inquire what inspired such an offer, to which she responded;

"I was up at 4am (couldn't sleep) watching a documentary on PBS about a drummer from San Francisco who got a kidney transplant and for some reason he reminded me of you. I like you. If you needed a kidney to live a full life, I'd gladly give you one of mine."

In my life I've been bestowed many gifts from my friends. Among them, most recently, (almost) the contents of Cheever's stomach, but never before has such a generous offer been made as this.

It makes me feel good to know the numbers and power I have in my corner, but my fingers are tightly crossed that I won't have to take Kelli up on her offer.

Digging back through my inbox I've found another assortment of treasures, the first being from Shifter Dan concerning a new piece that recently went up in his neighborhood, thanks to the peeps from Everfresh Studio;

By the way, the crappy one was the 'before' and the non-crappy one is the 'after'.
If you'd like a more static view of the piece, just go here.

As far as art stuff goes, many times before I've mentioned one of my all time favorite artists who goes by the name of Al Columbia;

In the early '90s Al produced two books called 'The Biologic Show' on Fantagraphics, that has long served as inspiration and fodder for my own discipline, though shortly after those books came out, Al all but fell off the face of the earth. For years I've tracked the illusive character's activities and was thrilled when at long last, a hard cover bound edition of his work has been made available.

I've got new book wood, which is, of course very similar to 'new bike wood', only a tad bit more cerebral.

If you need me, I'll be piled up under the covers with my new goods and a flashlight.

Here we are, nearly at the end of a new post and not a single word's been uttered about bikes. That feels pretty good, though to remedy this, I'll go ahead and include an email I got from Stewart a couple weeks ago, that's full of bikey goodness;

"Stevil!

Stewart
Atlanta"

Anybody with a velodrome close at hand is pretty lucky, I'd say..
That actually reminds me.. There's a party this coming weekend to help raise funds for 2010 SJ bike club junior racing team, up here in the CenCal;

While it's snowing in other parts of the country, winter doesn't generally start around here for reals, for at least another few weeks, so we can continue to have bike nerd throw downs such as this and possibly even still wear shorts.

Season in and season out, we're pretty lucky like that..

Unless the world is ending that is, in which case the only recourse is to wear duct tape and speak in an endlessly annoying New Jersey accent. That'll get through it in good shape.

Speaking of being in good shape and wearing shorts, we'll close with some high math from The Pleasure Intercourser;

This;

Plus this;

Equals this;

Photo credit- Maximillian Kirchoff.

Class dismissed.