31 Dec 2011

BIG ASS ZOMBIE PERFORMANCE YEAR END SALE!

TODAY ONLY TILL MIDNIGHT! $100 POWDERED AND SHIPPED!

WINGUS BARS,
10 AND 12IN ZOMBIE APES,
WTF BARS,
QUARTER RACERS,
CLOWN CAR BARS,
and UPSWEEPS!





 
1in and 7/8's bars in stock sizing only! Raw, Black, or White powdercoat.
FREE SHIPPING TO THE CONTINENTAL USA ONLY. ONLY TILL MIDNIGHT AND NOT A MINUTE MORE!

JUST VISIT THE STORE!

29 Dec 2011

Leavin today on a rebuild road trip

Rob and I will be leaving in a few hours to spend the long weekend in a shop rebuilding my shovel motor from top to bottom. We are going to meet up with Evan in mesa, az, and do the work at his shop. He has been kind enough to work out a trade with me so that all parts, labor, and facilities for the rebuild are covered and the only real cost will be getting there and back. The best part is I will be driving home Monday with a fresh shovel!

I'll take lots of pics and post all about the process when we get back. Maybe we can make a zen bastards how-to feature on it...a top to bottom rebuild on an amf cone shovel seems like a good diy tech post.

28 Dec 2011

Well I Keep Beating My Head IN!!!

First and foremost, Happy Holidays you Bastards!!!

2nd I've been busy with holidays and all my other junk, phone took a weird crap, but now seems to be better!

As a few of you may know I picked up a triumph frame on the cheap on my local Craigslist. I was thinking of dropping that  BSA in there and selling the Cheatah Engineering frame, BUT after trying something different and a emergency  call I think I found a better use for it! My 45 with BSA a10 trans!

So back to work on Pat's IH and my BSA, I see the next project shaping up!
The trans will be scooted behind the motor.

26 Dec 2011

normally i don't like quotes out of context

with compact self-contained quotes, it's too easy to lose the bigger picture, the essentially useful element from which good quotes come. a short soundbite statement without the wider discussion it came from can be like a wrench outside the framework of a garage as a whole, without the toolbox it came from. the potential for great usefulness is still there, but it can be hard to put it into practical application if the focus is on the wrench by itself.

a flower in a vase is beautiful because we've chosen to create a framework to highlight the beauty of that individual blossom. a field of flowers all budding, blooming, wilting, and decaying is beautiful on a whole other level because it is a whole imperfect scene in progress. the smell of fresh dirt is the smell of macrobiotic decay and yet it only increases the beauty to be found in that field of flowers.

sometimes the only truth i can see is like a reflection caught between direct contradictions...or two things unrelated to each other that reverberate against a third thing to which neither is related. with that in mind, here are some one-liners that i like today:

Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves.
-Bill Hicks

Maybe that's what life is... a wink of the eye and winking stars.
-Jack Kerouac

Reality means you live until you die. The real truth is nobody wants reality.
-Chuck Palahniuk

“It's easy to hate and point out everything that is wrong with the world; it is the hardest and most important work in one's life to free oneself from the bonds of fear and attachment.”
― Noah Levine, Dharma Punx: A Memoir

I don't like anything in the mainstream and they don't like me.
-Bill Hicks

“The inner revolution will not be televised or sold on the Internet. It must take place within one's own mind and heart.”
― Noah Levine, Dharma Punx: A Memoir

I get a kick out of being an outsider constantly. It allows me to be creative.
-Bill Hicks

Find out what you're afraid of and go live there.
-Chuck Palahniuk

This is my home. Home is where the disease is. As long as I stay in America, I'll never run out of subjects for songs.
-Jello Biafra

“Sitting still is a pain in the ass.”
― Noah Levine, Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries

The answer is there is no answer.
-Chuck Palahniuk

We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens.
-Chuck Palahniuk

Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.
-Thomas Fuller

That's the way both they and I travel sometimes. Pick road at random, and when it's time to pull over, you pull over and hope you can find a place to crash.
-Jello Biafra



ps-i hope everyone is doing well and enjoying a festive time of year, regardless of what religious or cultural attachments are tied up with it. love you bastards!

25 Dec 2011

gunga, gunga-galunga


and lo, gunga, the man-child is born...and lo though the child a zen bastard be, that child shall bear a name, gunga-galunga...and that name shall be bill of murray. and, as time may bear to witness, gunga, that child shall bring gifts of peace on dirt and goodwill towards mang.

23 Dec 2011

Yule Tide Greetings...

I am not much for "Christmas" to be completely honest. The cynic in me wins quite often this time of year. However, I do want to share a message with you all from THICH NHAT HANH. I know I haven't included much in the way of Buddhist philosophy on here lately, I promise to start adding a bit more here and there. I also promise to up the amount of dick/fart jokes as well, don't you worry. The paragraph I have quoted below is from Shambhala Sun This quote struck me just the right way this week. I guess I just needed it.

"Imagine a pine tree standing in the yard. If that pine tree were to ask us what it should do, what the maximum is a pine tree can do to help the world, our answer would be very clear: “You should be a beautiful, healthy pine tree. You help the world by being your best.” That is true for humans also. The basic thing we can do to help the world is to be healthy, solid, loving, and gentle to ourselves. Then when people look at us, they will gain confidence. They will say, “If she can do that, I can do that too!”

Treat each other well, enjoy yourselves and your families whenever you can, not just this weekend. I love you all, thank you all for what you do.

Your humble bastard,

Rob

Feliz Navidad, Compadres`

20 Dec 2011

stole this from bob at xxx carburetors


this is one of bob's 'black maxxx' carbs...a highly souped up and reworked s&s super g with all the bells and whistles!

hope he won't mind if i share some of his humor with you bastards...he's gonna work his voodoo on my humble little shorty e carb while i'm laid up after surgery. check him out on flEaBAY or at his own site xxxcarburetors.com

enjoy!

TOOL TIME


Following is a list of tools that most men are familiar with especially those of us that grew up as "hot rodders". This list is
especially useful if your a beginner mechanic.

Subject: Commonly Used Tools

DRILL PRESS: A tall upright machine useful for suddenly snatching flat metal bar stock out of your hands so that it
smacks you in the chest and flings your beer across the room, splattering it against that freshly painted body part you
were drying.

WIRE WHEEL: Cleans paint off bolts and then throws them somewhere under the workbench with the speed of light.
Also removes fingerprint whorls and hard-earned guitar calluses in about the time it takes you to say, "Ouch...."

ELECTRIC HAND DRILL: Normally used for spinning pop rivets in their holes until you die of old age.

PLIERS: Used to round off bolt heads.

HACKSAW: One of a family of cutting tools built on the Ouija board principle. It transforms human energy into a
crooked, unpredictable motion, and the more you attempt to influence its course, the more dismal your future becomes.

VISE-GRIPS: Used to round off bolt heads. If nothing else is available, they can also be used to transfer intense
welding heat to the palm of your hand.

OXYACETYLENE TORCH: Used almost entirely for lighting various flammable objects in your shop on fire. Also handy
for igniting the grease inside the wheel hub you want the bearing race out of.

WHITWORTH SOCKETS: Once used for working on older British cars and motorcycles, they are now used mainly for
impersonating that 9/16 or 1/2 socket you've been searching for the last 15 minutes.

HYDRAULIC FLOOR JACK: Used for lowering an automobile to the ground after you have installed your new brake
shoes, trapping the jack handle firmly under the bumper.

EIGHT-FOOT LONG DOUGLAS FIR 2X4: Used for levering an automobile upward off a hydraulic jack handle.

TWEEZERS: A tool for removing wood splinters.

PHONE: Tool for calling your neighbor to see if he has another hydraulic floor jack.

SNAP-ON GASKET SCRAPER: Theoretically useful as a sandwich tool for spreading mayonnaise; used mainly for
getting dog**** off your boot.

E-Z OUT BOLT AND STUD EXTRACTOR: A tool ten times harder than any known drill bit that snaps off in bolt holes
you couldn't use anyway.

TWO-TON ENGINE HOIST: A tool for testing the tensile strength on everything you forgot to disconnect.

CRAFTSMAN 1/2 x 16-INCH SCREWDRIVER: A large pry bar that inexplicably has an accurately machined
screwdriver tip on the end opposite the handle.

AVIATION METAL SNIPS: See hacksaw.

TROUBLE LIGHT: The home mechanic's own tanning booth. Sometimes called a drop light, it is a good source of
vitamin D, "the sunshine vitamin," which is not otherwise found under cars at night. Health benefits aside, it's main
purpose is to consume 40-watt light bulbs at about the same rate that 105-mm howitzer shells might be used during,
say, the first few hours of the Battle of the Bulge. More often dark than light, its name is somewhat misleading.

PHILLIPS SCREWDRIVER: Normally used to stab the lids of old-style paper-and-tin oil cans and splash oil on your
shirt; but can also be used, as the name implies, to strip out Phillips screw heads.

AIR COMPRESSOR: A machine that takes energy produced in a coal-burning power plant 200 miles away and
transforms it into compressed air that travels by hose to a Chicago Pneumatic impact wrench that grips rusty bolts last
over tightened 50 years ago by someone at Ford, and neatly rounds off their heads.

PRY BAR: A tool used to crumple the metal surrounding that clip or bracket you needed to remove in order to replace
a 50 cent part.

HOSE CUTTER: A tool used to cut hoses too short.

HAMMER: Originally employed as a weapon of war, the hammer nowadays is used as a kind of divining rod to locate
the most expensive parts not far from the object we are trying to hit.

MECHANIC'S KNIFE: Used to open and slice through the contents of cardboard cartons delivered to your front door;
works particularly well on contents such as seats, vinyl records, liquids in plastic bottles, collector magazines, refund
checks, and rubber or plastic parts.

DAMMIT TOOL: Any handy tool that you grab and throw across the garage while yelling "DAMMIT" at the top of your
lungs. It is also the next tool that you will need.

EXPLETIVE: A balm, usually applied verbally in hindsight, which somehow eases those pains and indignities following
our every deficiency in foresight

18 Dec 2011

let's see if this worked.

anybody want some crap for their dome?



zen bastards merch!

more coming soon...

Feel free to throw out suggestions or requests

I cant believe your guys are stupid enough to let me post on here!




haha,...thanks! glad to be here!

coming soon...

support merch store! wanna buy some crap and have a good excuse? need some fashionista points to impress your friends and enemies alike? just like cool stuff and wanna support the zen bastards?

i'm going to setup something to handle all that and more. I will still be doing handmade custom made stuff for members only, but now there will be a place to go for anyone who wants some support merch. the best part: every penny nickel and dime made on this stuff goes straight into the ZBMC fund for runs, parties, and whatnot. no one personally profits at all. it's solely for the group to do stuff together.

who knows? maybe the merch you grab today will help fund the Zen Bastard shindig you brag about going to next summer! hahahaa...

online store in progress

17 Dec 2011

MercuryMoto blog

I finally got some seat time on a computer with internet to do some stuff on my blog. I just got a computer but still don't have internet. The few minutes I had really shows my computard syndrome so don't expect anything as cool as this one. Haha. But ill be posting more pics of my projects and personal build and other random stuff as I figure it out. Thanks for looking!

Rene
MercuryMoto.blogspot.com

16 Dec 2011

happy almost birthday jebus

from macho man randy savage!!



i have a mad slim jim craving now...

Christopher Hitchens










Dead today from cancer at age 62. I rarely feel an emotional response to hearing of people dying that I don't have a real life connection with. This morning at 0649 when I recieved a text message telling my one of my all time favorite writers was dead, I had exactly that, a negative emotional response. This man was a genius and if you have never had the pleasure of reading any of his work, do yourself a favor. Get this book.

15 Dec 2011

iraq war is "officially" over...

for whatever that means...sounds a little too much like "mission accomplished" from years ago.

i clearly state my take on the larger picture in question with a couple patches:



on an unrelated note, i'd like to give a heartfelt greeting to a bastard practicing the zen of fabrication out in oregon. hey steffan! that's a rad brain condom!! i bet it prevents frostbite in the cold and mental infection when assholes are trying to fuck with your head...uh, that sounded odd, but you get my drift.

any chance you can scare one up in zbmc colors of black, hot pink, neon green, and purple? i need to keep it safely wrapped upstairs, too.

12 Dec 2011

Our local bike shop: Bikers Custom

These guys are awesome. Jimbo has been running this place for 41 years. He and Mark rebuilt my shovel motor for me while I was living in a hotel when I first moved here. Jimbo is a salty old bastard. The way old bastards are supposed to be. Here are a few pics Pat shot inside their shop. Believe me when I say it is the sorta spot that has (almost) anything you could need (Harley).

11 Dec 2011

reflecting on a tiring week...

today was a little like the whole last week encapsulated in a single day. lots of hard work, frustration, inspiration, wasted effort, and a little bit of hard earned success, all came together and collided. rather than ramble on about the details of my mundane trials and tribulations, i thought i'd put up a couple images from this weekend that sum up where my head's been at. after talking to everybody this weekend, to get the votes and just check in, it sounds like i'm not the only one feeling this whole high contrast humor and headache combo vibe.


here's something that i always have a hard time taking seriously because it's too actually accurate and useful for comfort. one of those things that can be a great tool, but only if i'm willing to really put it in practice:










this next one is from the guy running the 'cycle shack' back home in the twin cities, mn, metro area. whether it's personally his or not is somewhat irrelevant, because i think all of us (married, kids, relationship, or single) on here can relate to the general sentiment and headache that must have prompted this little love note:










at least something went as well as i hoped today. it's deceptively hard to get a good picture of a mirror, without just getting an image of the camera's reflection instead of the natural appearance of the mirror itself. i'm pretty happy with how rob and my mirrors turned out...i'm going to try something on a headlight next. zbmc members or friends hit me up if you want something similar etched for any glass piece on your chopper, or on a shot glass, or whatever you can think of...



ps__does anybody have a metal body, bottom mount rectangular headlight they want to trade for a 5 3/4 bates style headlight? kinda like the old 'caddy' style rectangular lights...i'd like to do hi/lo in a single light, but if you have a pair of single beam-ers maybe we can work something out.

on another note.....

i have been noticing alot lately when i sign into blogger and try to leave comments here on other peoples post's,it doesnt work.
i think somethings up. ive tried to leave comments on Mercury Moto's post's as well as others.
i think it may be a glitch in the blogger system.
so nobody feel like nobody cares about your post's,because we do....i for one love you assholes.
...technology sucks ball sacks.

ZBMC

Etched mirror.

10 Dec 2011

since we're gettin all edgy tonight...

just wanted to make sure the uptight anglophiles didn't feel left out...

this is from our zen bastard abroad in merry old empirical londontown:

sugar skull queeny


'saw her yesterday, this was a life-drawing...'



apparently the windsor's are trying to claim sovereign bastard status...poor inbred royals, can't someone help her get the make-up on straight at least?

what.......




too soon?



Love,

Chico.

Coil

Anyone got a known good coil they aren't using and can send me? Yes I'm begging for your trash. And yes, I broke mine and attempted to repair it. The used one I got from pat tested bad as well. Not his fault a tweeker gave it to him...

9 Dec 2011

Mas pictures




Old school metal working

I received an order for a crazy orange style fender. I've made one before from an existing fender but it wasnt fun. It was mostly repairs.

So I decided to make this one from scratch. Started out as a sheet of 18ga steel. Laid out basic lines to keep things square and hammered away.

I like this kinda work a lot. I used to do it when I worked at a hot rod shop but not really for the bike biz. It's very therapeutic and ZEN. I just blast music, wear my hearing protection and hammer away for hours.

The fender in the pics isnt finished yet but you can see the process. Kinda... I'm bad with a camera. Anyway, ill post pics of it when its done too.




8 Dec 2011

Buddhasanta Elfzen

my ol lady loves xmas like nobody's business...and i like mocking statue icons.





she embraces the magic of childhood wonderment...and i am afraid of embracing the icons of buddhism.

Patches O' Hoolihan!

Here's a pic of me with the patches and on my current build. I can see now they're crooked so ill fix them. Hahaha.


Magic


Hey Guys My name is Jeremy also known as #13
or LFOD603 or THE REAL WAY!
anyway here is my build I call it Magic.
I will post some on here but most on my other blog.
check it out and please give feed back positive or negative.