That’s the bad news. The good news was that while attempting to fix Trikeasaurus, the whole episode turned into a simple yet immensely satisfying return to my North Carolina* roots.

You see, as I don’t like cars much, I miss out on one of the great joys of my cultural heritage. Luckily the following image (after the jump) is as close as I’ll ever get to a certain primal yearning that was programmed into me from my youthful surroundings:

Trikeasaurus Up On Blocks In My Front Yard!


(click for closeup)
My life is complete!

(fear not Trikeasaurus fans - we’ll be back & boomin’ soon)

*or “North Cack-a-lackey” as we like to say - but where the hell does that phrase come from?

Thank You! Thank You! Thank You to everyone who made it to last night’s FlashDance at City Hall! Sooooo much goodness & exactly what our hero needed It was once again stupendous and makes me even more bummed that I did not manage to have a June FD - what was up with that?

Anyway from the Amazing Filipino(?) Dance Squad, to the Flava Flav impersonator to the Italian tourists it was awesome. And even the fact that we got busted and had to move locations all worked out well (see below!). Simply a great FlashDance! I hope you all had as much fun as I did & I can’t wait for August (hint: we’ll be hitting the same spot we always hit for August FD…).

Thanks again for making my night!

3 quick additional notes:

1. If you are not already signed up to get SMS updates on your phone - PLEASE DO!!! Last night showed how important these are since we had to move it was the only good way to find us. Instructions are here.
2. Check us out! April’s Flashdance got a mention in the Guardian! With some cute pix!
3. How did you like the music!? Leave comments! Hopefully you all loved it as much as I did. ever since the comments of a few FDs ago, I’ve been trying to broaden the musical selection whiles still trying to keep it BROADLY accessible. I’ve also tried to work in more requests and to generally play more than just my standards. How do you like it? At the end of the day, I’ll always be playing primarily POP music (Sorry house/techno fans) - but I’m open to considering anything as long as I think a LOT of people will enjoy it. Let me know what you thought of last night if you were there… (below is my reconstructed playlist - I think a few things I played are missing….)

• Flash - Queen
• Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley
• Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe - Barry White
• Material Mickey (Madonna Vs. Toni Basil Vs. Bay City Rollers Vs. Quiet Riot) - Matt Hite
• Super Freak - Rick James
• I See You Baby (The Gheewala Club RMX) - Groove Armada
• Disco Club (Large Pro Peas Remix) [Explicit Version] - Black Eyed Peas
• Harder, Harder, Harder, Harder! (Daft Punk Vs. Passions) - Electrosound
• Sad But Superstitious (Stevie Wonder Vs. Metallica) - Wax Audio
• Can’t Get Enough of Your Love, Babe - Barry White
• Love Today - MIKA
• Low A Prayer (Madonna Vs. Flo Rida) - DJ Maxentropy
• Let’s Dance (ft. Busta Rhymes) - Brand Nubian
• That Dude - The High Decibels
• I Wanna Be Sedated - The Ramones
• Get Down (Calvin Harris Remix) - Groove Armada
• I Wanna Be Your Lover - Prince
• Boyz - M.I.A.
• When I See You - Macy Gray
• Mercy - Duffy
• Ain’t That Peculiar - Marvin Gaye
• Come On - Dexy’s Midnight Runners
• Right Here’s the Spot - Basement Jaxx & Me’Shell Ndegéocello
• Get Off Your Ass And Jam - Funkadelic
• Shut-Up Remix - Black Eyed Peas
• Faith - George Michael
• Private Eyes - Hall & Oates
• Raspberry Beret - Prince
• Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard - Paul Simon
• Sometimes - Michael Franti & Spearhead
• Rock With You - Michael Jackson
• Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
• We Can Work It Out - Stevie Wonder

Hey folks -

The last few months have been very draining both physically and emotionally - but the biggest upside of that time is out in the world, and I’m pretty proud of it. For many of you this will be a “oh, that sounds nice” but for a few of you who use iTunes or AppleTV a lot at your house & you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch - you’ll really love this. I do. It is one of my two proudest accomplishments at Apple*.

Introducing Remote…

.ps
And it is free.

.pps
No, I didn’t write the app that runs on the phone, I put in all the stuff in iTunes and parts of AppleTV to make it work.

.ppps
Ok - my second favorite app:
Jared!!!

.pppppps Ok one last cool Remote feature for those of you with AppleTV’s.

*And the other is iTunes’ music sharing feature.

Woooot!

My FlashDances won an SF WEEKLY BEST OF THE BAY:

http://www.sfweekly.com/bestof/2008/award/best-flash-mob-1032566/

I think they summarized the whole thing pretty damn well :

Best Flash Mob (2008)
FlashDance, put on by Amandeep Jawa
http://www.deeptrouble.com/flashdance
Step one: E-mail flashdance-join AT deeptrouble.com to get on the list. Step two: Await message with the 411 for the next roving street dance party. Step three: Show up and boogie while onlookers wonder what the heck is going on, or just stop asking questions and join in themselves. Started around two years ago by a Silicon Valley software engineer (the rare kind who actually can whip out the moves on the dancefloor) who lives in the Mission and can be spotted every once in a while wearing a giant disco ball costume, Jawa has been coordinating the dances since he spotted a salsa dance party along the Seine in Paris and thought, “Why not in San Francisco?” He feeds funk, soul, pop, and some Indian electronica off his MacBook through some amps at such locales as the 24th Street BART station or Embarcadero Plaza.

& thanks to everyone who has left a comment over at their website

I’m seriously happy about this!

[Ed.Note: For those who don’t know, Trikeasaurus is my 500W tricycle-with-speakers (click here for more)]

So about a month ago, on one of my Trikeasaurus rides, a bad thing happened: I got a ticket. For being too loud & thus creating a public disturbance. The cop in question was kinda lame about it. Many cops have been cool or at worst have just said “turn it down”. Most ignore it. A few have been mean. This one was just lame in lecture and attitude.

Anyway I got this:

Before I go on though, let’s make one thing clear: The fact is, I *am* violating the law when I’m rolling with Trikeasaurus: anything over 50 decibels is illegal.

A more important fact is that everyday numerous obnoxious motorcycles ROAR past my house at sounds way the hell louder and less pleasant than Trikeasaurus and no one ever gives them a ticket. Also, I take multiple steps to be as much of a positive thing as possible:

• I make a point of keeping my sound system moving so as to not annoy anyone for long.
• I’m careful about what time of day & types of days I rock the bike….
• I’m pretty conscientious to try to play music that will make a lot of people happy.

In fact the whole POINT of Trikeasaurus is to make people happy. And it works - the VAST majority of people are VERY happy when Trikeasaurus comes by. They tell me all the time, and now it has gotten to the point where random people stop me in the street with comments like “Hey! You’re the guy with the tricycle - right? Awesome we had soo much fun…. you made my day.”

So anyway, I went to court yesterday. I was expecting to plead my case and make various devastatingly reasonable points such as the ones above. I planned on courtroom drama. I planned on staring at the judge eye to eye. To look at it another way, I planned on losing. And I planned on paying a fine, being disgruntled about “The Man Keeping Me Down” and coming home and blogging about it.

Well here is what actually happened:

I showed up at the Hall of Justice, (disappointed as usual by the lack of Superfriends or even the lame Xann, Jana & the dumb monkey combo) and prepared myself to take on The System™. Very quickly my hopes of presenting a stirring and impassioned court room plea were crushed as I realized that my destiny only deserved a line in the Traffic tickets room that lead to a clerk behind a glass barrier. No Judge, no gavel, no “You want the truth! You Can’t Handle The Truth!” (I had worked that in by this point). Sigh.

So I waited in line for 15 minutes & then stood in front of The Man™ and frankly he kinda looked the part: late 40s, white guy, officious-if-bored. At least that much was meeting expectations. And so I opened:

‘Deep: “Good morning! How are you?”

The Man™: “Fine! What can I do for you?”

‘Deep:“Well I have a ticket” <sliding ticket through barrier>

The Man™: <reading> What? <smiling>

‘Deep: Well I have a sound system on my bicycle…

M: “Sounds fun!”

D: “Yeah - I think so and most people seem to - but this cop didn’t like it”

M: “Well, we don’t like this cop.”

D: “And I was playing Stevie Wonder at the time!”*

M: “Well your choices are the fine, or court”

D: “OK, what’s the fine & what’s the court?”

M: <slight pause, then reading>”This ticket is invalid”

D: “What?”

M: “This ticket is invalid - was it a young cop?”

D: “Yeah”

M: “Well it is invalid - you don’t have to pay”

D: “Wow! What is wrong with it?”

M: <gesturing vaguely over the text of the ticket> “Something’s wrong in
here.” <smiles>

D: “Wow - Thanks.”

M: “This is your lucky day….”

And so it was ( a really lucky day! for numerous reasons**).

Thanks The Man™!!

‘deep

* Ok this wasn’t true. It wasn’t Stevie. I think it was Asia actually? Luckily I wasn’t under oath.

* Woot! I found out I won this today (more soon)

So Saturday night we had our first FlashDance of the season at the 24th & Mission BART station, very close to “Deep International HQ. Not surprisingly, this 13th FlashDance ROCKED. Why did it rock? An excellent question, Dear Reader! It rocked for the same reasons FD always rocks:
- great people
- good music (I was pretty happy with the mix - see the playlist after the jump)
- random sillyness (human arch, dancing in the streets, 12 year old (?) break dancing girl, invasion of the Dance Mission dancers, and me serenading the crowd to the Pet Shop Boys’ “You Were Always On My Mind” )

For the Playlist - click “More” below

Here’s the Playlist:

1. Flash - Queen
2. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough - Michael Jackson
3. Jungle Love - The Time
4. Callin it Back - AC/DC v. Lyrics Born
5. Stronger (Clean) - Kanye West
6. Feel Good Roboto 2 - Gorillaz vs Styx
7. Bucky Done Gun - M.I.A.
8. September - Earth, Wind & Fire
9. Cosmic Girl - Jamiroquai
10. Give It To Me Baby - Rick James
11. Timba Funk Land - Timbaland vs. Daft Punk
12. Crazy in Love - Beyoncé
13. LoveStoned / I Think She Knows Interlude - Justin Timberlake
14. U Got The Look - Prince
15. Track 01 -
16. Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys
17. I Think We’re Alone Now - Tiffany
18. Mundeya De Dil Hil Gaye - Kais Feat. D.S.I.
19. Beware (Jay-Z Remix) - Panjabi MC
20. Hello Remix (ft. Lifesavas) - Lyrics Born
21. Dec. 4th, Oh What A Night - Jay-Z vs. Frankie Vallie & the Four Seasons
22. Head - Prince
23. Working Day And Night - Michael Jackson
24. (Come ‘Round Here) I’m The One You Need - The Jackson 5
25. Black Or White - Michael Jackson
26. Let’s Dance (ft. Busta Rhymes) - Brand Nubian
27. Walkin’ Out Yo Girlfriend (Unk Vs. Avril Lavigne Vs. Toni Basil) - Lobsterdust
28. White Lines - Duran Duran
29. Get Down (Calvin Harris Remix) - Groove Armada
30. Get Up Offa That Thing - James Brown
31. Dil Le Gayee - Jassi
32. Rock With You - Michael Jackson
33. Request + Line (Deep Edit) - Black Eyed Peas
34. Like A Prayer - Madonna
35. Milkshake It Up - Kelis vs. The Cars
36. Music - Madonna

[UPDATE: They contacted me 2 weeks after I posted this - see the bottom for the update.]

Dear Soma Folks,

First off let me say that I love that you are here in SF & that you make awesome bike stuff. Keep on Rockin’!

The reason for my email though, is my love/hate relationship, no - let’s say “love/deep-abiding-sadness” relationship with your Crystal Polypropylene Water Bottle. The love comes from the fact that as a constant-water-drinker I tried out one of your bottles a few months ago & it was love at first sip. No rubbery taste! Clear and large and clean! I felt a revolution in my water intake was afoot! And so simple! Seemingly, so obvious! Happy Happy Joy Joy!

But a few days in, I noticed that it leaked around the top. Must be a dud I thought, a one-of-a-kind manufacturing mistake, I’ll just get another one! That will be perfect! Sadly no - it still leaked.

Sometime into my third one (having lost my second one) I just tried to ignore the drips of water on my face as I drank, or the small puddle of accumulated leaks in my bike bag. But how much can you ignore at 4 in the morning when you reach for a sip of water in a cozy half-asleep daze, only to be awakened fully by the needle-like prick of ice cold water on your chest? No - there is no ignoring, only sadness.

When I lost my third one, I briefly thought about going back to an older water bottle - but the thought of all those rubbery chemicals that I have imbibed all through the years was too scary to consider. “Maybe they have fixed it!” I thought. This was just three days ago mind you.

So I bought my fourth one, but no, it still leaked. I actually lost it a day after I bought it*, but today, I sadly & resignedly bought my fifth. It seems I am your customer regardless of what happens now. But know that with every drip upon my chin, there is also occasionally a tear in my eye.

yours
‘deep
SF Bike Coalition Board Member (FOR ID PURPOSES ONLY - My views have NOTHING to do with the SF Bicycle Coalition)

*Yeah, I DO lose a lot of water bottles! What IS up with that!?

UPDATE: So two weeks after I posted this, Stan at SOMA Fabrications found my website somehow & responded (I had sent him an email, but he never got it, due to an outdated email address I found for them). Anyway, he was super helpful and interested. But of course, now that I finally got their attention, Water Bottle #5 turned out to not leak. Theoretically, I’m happy about this development…..

Seriously, though THANKS STAN & I do love my water bottle, so I recommend ‘em.

Did you hear Trikeasaurus roll by Sunday? It probably sounded like some Jackson 5 booming from a pair of massive speakers attached to a shiny blue tricycle? Maybe you saw a few people dancing along behind while riding their bikes? Or maybe you caught one of the dance parties that sprung up at some of its stops?

Trikeasaurus in Action!! (thanks for the pic Gretchen!)

I LUV Trikeasaurus.

I should ’splain:

Trikeasaurus is my musical tricycle:

It’s a large adult tricycle decked out with an iPod and my FlashDance sound system (details below). I had all the components to use for Flashdances & then got a tricycle to cart them around in. But the real spark came when my friend Aaron Lander (SUPERSTAR!) built a metal rig to hold the speakers so they would be useable while I biked. Suddenly my tricycle was not just to get my equipment to my Flashdances, but also a party both to & from FDs & also for Critical Mass or whenever I feel like it. Trikeasaurus was born! Trikeasaurus is ALWAYS a good time.

So Sunday I decided to celebrate the spring gorgeousness & go for a short musical bike ride (maybe an hour?) Trikeasaurus had other ideas: Five & a half hours later I returned having had one of the most epically fun days I’ve had in a long long time:

12:45: TXTed Gretchen coz she is always up for Trikeasaurus time & told her to come meet me.

1:15: Assembled Trikeasaurus. Sid joined us coz he was biking by. The three of us hit the road with some Public Enemy.

Assembling is quick (thanks for the pic Prolost)

- Biked up Valencia to Market street & then to the Castro to run some errands - rocking the peoples. Trikeasaurus decided to play Devo’s “Whip It” for the Castro

- Met Kunal at the Castro Theater, lost Sid.

- Rocked on down to Dolores Park (with Mary J. Blige) & biked through the park (the gay boys loved the Mika!) and stopped and got a good chunk of the park to sing “Happy Birthday” for someone….. Then as we were biking out a small group of people got up and started dancing - so we stopped again and kicked in the Michael Jackson and maybe 15 people joined in for our first impromptu dance party of the day (you guys were so fun!!!)

First Stop in Dolores Park (thanks for the pic Chase!)

- Biked down 18th & up Valencia & then downtown to drop off Gretchen.

3:00: Met Jen & started a tiny little dance party in front of the San Francisco Center Mall with Jen, Gretchen, Kunal and a few random strangers - worked some Gorillaz & some Bee Gees. Left Gretchen with Jen & rolled out…

- Kunal & I biked down to the Embarcadero & first went towards the ballpark & then decided to go to Fisherman’s Wharf. We entertained many tourists along the way with a long Stevie Wonder set, & picked up another random bicyclist who blew fabulous bubbles at stops (thanks green bike woman!). The highlight of this leg was stopping where the skatepunks hang out and starting a little skate dance party with them. I let them plug in one of their iPods & we rocked out while they did skate tricks. Cool. Thanks for the “Thistle Dance” by Mac Dré skater dudes!

4:30ish: K and I biked back up Market - both up and down Market we had little dance moments break out with random folks at stop lights. This leg was all about Michael Franti & Spearhead!

- Biked back to the Mission & up 16th & then back down to Dolores Park. Biked by the park & then stopped at BiRite Creamery for some ice cream. Left Trikeasaurus playing Prince for the folks in line (after asking if it was cool of course). Got the crowd to sing “Happy Birthday” over the soundsystem for someone in line. Biked off happily with my mint chip & roasted banana double scoop & Prince’s “Raspberry Beret”.

- Decided to call it a day - but various friends in the park TXTed me asking me to return. Also heard from Gretchen who was at Fritjz. Dropped off Kunal, biked up Valencia & picked up Gretchen.

6ish: G & I returned to the park & biked up and around (played more Mika for the same gay boys - damn I love Mika) & found Tom & Catherine in the middle of the park. Started an epic 45 minute dance party amidst the hipsters (maybe 40-50 people dancing). Lots of mashups, some Michael, some Madonna, Kanyé West’s “Stronger” and OutKast’s “Hey Ya!”.

Dancing in Dolores Park (thanks for the pic Gretchen!)

Note: It was Palm Sunday, hence the fronds (thanks for the pic Gretchen!)

6:45: Dragged myself home because my battery started dying. Kicked it into mellow “Here Comes The Sun” - the new mix from “Love” & Fatboy Slim & Bootsy Collins’ version of “The Joker”. The battery completely died just as I rolled up to my house :-). Perfect.

It’s about biking, it’s about music, it’s about dancing, but mostly it’s about making me & lots of random folks happy.

I LUV Trikeasaurus.

‘deep

.ps
Thanks Kunal, Gretchen & Sid - it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without a bike posse!
—–

Random Notes:

- Folks in SUVs: For some reason along the Embarcadero tons of people in SUVs were giving me all kinds of props and generally loving Trikeasaurus as they were gas-guzzling their way down the street. Sigh. I *hate* SUVs. But Trikeasurus loves everyone.

- Homeless dance parties: At a few stops (esp. mid-Market), and a few other times on Trikeasaurus, some of the folks jammin’ out were clearly homeless, or at least seriously down and out - it is always truly awesome to see them so happy. Music is a good thing.

- I play a lot of what I call “Crowd Favorites” on Trikeasaurus. Other people have called it “Wedding Dance Music,” which, while painful, is pretty apt. Part of me feels bad that I’m playing fairly routine music & that I play a lot of it over and over (MJ, Stevie, Prince, as much as I love it), but when you are blasting music out to a lot of people and want to make a lot of people happy, “Crowd Favorites” are really good. In fact, I think I’ll start calling it “Highest Common Denominator Music”

- I might try TXTing Trikeasaurus rides to Twitter so that anyone who wants to join in the fun can - but a big ride might be unwieldy so I can’t guarantee I’ll always do it. Anyway, if you want to get SMS notifications of rides, just send the message “follow deepasaurus” to 40404. This is done through the magic of Twitter, so if you are already a member (or want to sign up) you can also “follow deep@worker-bee.com” on Twitter.com to get the SMS . Note: this is also my FlashDance notification twitter so you’ll get FD announcements on FD nights (but there aren’t many announcements so it shouldn’t be a big deal)

- Technical Details for those who want to hatch a Trikeasaurus of their own:

• iPod
• Car Battery - but actually I use a deep cycle marine battery because they go through more cycles and can be treated more harshly. I also got the expensive “gel pack” kind because you can tip them over & generally treat them even worse. I can’t have nice things.
• 1200 Watt Inverter - technically a smaller inverter should work, but my 750 couldn’t handle it - it had something to do with peak load.
• 500 Watt Yamaha Stagepas speakers with built in amp
• Microphone (optional) but how else you going to sing “Happy Birthday” to people?
• The hardest thing is the speaker mount rig. What can I tell you - you need an awesome friend who manages a metal shop (Aaron - did I mention that you were a SUPERSTAR?! Also big props to T.R. Lingley for design help and getting the ball rolling). Or pay someone.

Trikeasaurus pic taken from a passing car last November

Hey Mac-using folks -

I *really* *really* want you to buy a Time Capsule or start using Time Machine. No, Apple doesn’t need the money. No, I don’t get a cut or even work on the Time Capsule team.

I ask you to do this because I care about you. And specifically, because I know the horrors of data loss. Think of all the music in your iTunes library, or all the photos in your iPhoto library, or all those things you’ve written, or all those emails that you want to save. Some day your hard drive will die. Or you’ll drop your Mac. Or something else bad will happen. And on that day you will either say:

1. I’m glad ‘Deep made me buy a Time Capsule.
2. F$&^k, I wish I listened to ‘Deep and bought a Time Capsule.

So what am I talking about?

- The new MacOS X Leopard has a feature called Time Machine. It is a really cool “you never have to think about it after you turn it on” back up service that will automatically save your work, hourly, daily, and monthly. It also makes it super easy to retrieve things from the past and even kinda FUN to do so. All Time Machine needs to silently and constantly save-your-ass is an external hard drive (they’re pretty cheap¹ these days) just plug it in to your Mac & turn on Time Machine & point it at the drive. Done. Ass saved.

- If you use a laptop, like most of us, things get slightly more complicated: though you could use Time Machine and just remember to plug in a hard drive periodically so Time Machine could do it’s thing, I know you won’t. I know I won’t. That is where Time Capsule comes in. Time Capsule is a new Apple WiFi (Airport) Base Station with a big hard drive built in. It is designed to be used with Time Machine, but you never have to plug it in to your Mac. It will just work quietly in the background and wirelessly be saving your ass once an hour all the time. It is also a nice WiFi base station - so you can replace your older WiFi base station with the latest tech and better range all in one fell swoop. And, if you are a multiple Mac household, it will back up all your Macs - nice. Also the quality of the hard drive in a Time Capsule will probably make it much less prone to hard drive failure than a lot of drives that you would buy for yourself.

Leopard costs $129. A Time Capsule costs $299. They are worth it. Trust me.²

I really really hope some of you take me up on this. I honestly think this is important. Most of us have tons of stuff that means so much to us on our computers. This is the best way to guard against the data loss that is inevitably coming. I hate to be a fear-monger. But hard drive loss/failure is honestly inevitable. I can’t guarantee that you won’t ever lose something from your computer, but with Time Machine / Time Capsule your risks are seriously reduced.

Help me help you
‘deep

¹Hard drive are cheap in the literal sense - you can find them as low as $125 for 500 GB, but compared to the value of your data they are INSANELY cheap.↩

²Through a combination of idiocy, inability to have nice things, and bad luck, I’ve destroyed 3 main hard drives in the past year. Luckily I had backups because I was already backing up with the excellent SuperDuper!↩