Finally at the end of a long and busy weekend with the clone. Last night, at about three in the morning, I was frightened awake by a sodden thump from the bedroom next to mine. I went in and sure, enough, John was asleep on the floor, with his head on a folded blanket. Apparently he fell out of bed while wrapped in a blanket and it didn’t even wake him up. I let him sleep on the floor for the rest of the night, but it made me glad that his bed is relatively low.
I should also admit for the record that I checked in on him a few times afterwards, on the odd chance that a fall so minor as to not wake him was sufficiently major enough to cause him delayed death or something. Then, in order to punish him for scaring me, I made him go to the Ducati dealer and watch me ride a Diavel. I’ve sworn a blood oath to buy no more new motorcycles in 2015, which is almost over. 2016 will have to look after itself. I have to say that this is a very quick bike. So quick that I didn’t open the throttle all the way in first gear. Much stronger acceleration than a Huracan or a 650S or a Z06 or any of those cars.
Alright. Let’s try an idea stolen unashamedly from Mr. Hill at Dustbury.com: search terms of the past 30 days, chosen at random, with my responses.
“jack baruth”: As Snoop once said, he is I and I am him. This is, perhaps obviously, the most common search string.
“should I install facebook messenger”: Probably not. You might want to quit Facebook while you’re at it. Doing so improved my life measurably.
“incel suicide”: It happens. More often than anyone would care to admit.
“jack baruth accident”: Jesus, which one?
“jack baruth january 2014 crash”: Was miserable.
“magnus walker crash”: Not nearly as severe as any jack baruth accident.
“does heritage guitars sell to the public”: The factory does not. You’ll need to choose a dealer.
“allman brothers naked”: You’ve come to the right place!
“sekou bunch carvin”: They’ve parted ways. I’ve parted ways with Carvin as well, unfortunately. The way my last order came out ruined my enthusiasm.
“why is my nissan hardbody3.0 stil smoking after i fixed theturbo” Thats a good question. A better one: how’d the turbo get there in the first place?
“does edward snowden have aspergers”: Almost certainly.
“messenger sending nude photos safe”: No, email them to me instead.
“is jack baruth bark m.?”: No. I’m Bark M’s big brother.
“ta nehisi coates idiot”“: I don’t think he’s an idiot. I think he’s managed to make a lot of money feeling sorry for himself in public.
“mark ledford death”“: Was tragic.
“alison krauss naked”: If pictures exist, I hope they’re post-weight-loss.
“dirt bike without embarrassing”: I CANNOT HELP YOU THERE. *rubs leg*
“jack baruth black flag”: Never performed together.
“why did carvin stop making the sb5000”: I think somebody got greedy, and based on my time with Sekou Bunch, I doubt it was him.
“steven lang cars”: I wouldn’t buy a car from Steve Lang. Or anything else.
“what should i get myself for my birthday”: A Ducati Diavel.
Well done. Once you open up that list, things just start to jump out at you; sometimes I have trouble keeping it down to 12 or 13.
Possibly bad form to ask, but you aired the subject, so - why the low opinion of Lang? He seems to give reasonable advice for the non-specialized consumer of automobiles.
Yes Jack, spill regarding Mr Lang.
What I’m prepared to say is this: My experience working with Steve has been universally negative on a personal and professional basis. Steve has requested that TTAC terminate me at least twice to my knowledge. And while Bertel Schmitt and I will probably never send each other Christmas cards, the hit piece that Steve wrote on Jalopnik to get Bertel fired was a masterpiece of ethical absence.
Speaking of absence, that article is markedly absent from the internet these days.
Lang likes to edit. I saw an early draft of something where he was utterly castigating a fellow automotive journalist for something… then somebody clued him into the fact that said automotive journalist was worth a couple of million bucks from a non-journalist source.
Full revision of the story occurred and it was fawningly sent to said journalist. However, I’d seen a copy of the original, so I forwarded that to him.
That bike is Gorgeous with a capital G. I don’t even ride but, seeing machines like this make me seriously consider going down the path. I still have reservations about the motorcycle life since my dad is still suffering from his injuries from over 30 years ago. I’ve done enough to mess my body up via BMX and Snowboarding but the siren song is calling…
Never got a chance to ride one but I sat on a Diavel at IMS and the fit felt perfect. While I can afford it I cannot justify spending 20k on a motorcycle. Maybe one day in the used motorcycle market I will find one for the right price. Jack, I would be interested to hear your opinion on a Victory Gunner if you ever get a chance to ride one.
I think they look cool — I think the new Indians also look cool — but they’re thirteen-second bikes, aren’t they?
Closer to 14 where the Diavel is a 10 second bike. I guess the extra 10k buys you that among other things.
All this effort to avoid looking blue-collar on a bike!
You’ll put up with an ancient carbureted junker, you’ll debate spending good-new-car money on a Ducati, but will you consider the right answer?
Sell the VFR, and buy the best secondhand Hayabusa you can. It’s a sport tourer for the generously proportioned, it’s old-farm-truck durable, and it should be fast enough for you.
The Busa makes my wrists hurt.
I adore the fucking Busa.
Would love to have one.
But it might be ZX-14 for me.
On a stray tangent to the T-NC comment, I’ve been having entirely too much fun following Shaun King’s Twitter meltdown and subsequent implosion this past weekend and into this week.
Perhaps he’ll shift his career to TV News Weatherman and use that time to transition back to being white.
He’s #WrongSkin!
As to your clone rolling out of bed, I did the same thing when I was his age, but out of a top bunk in a motorhome. Oddly enough, I didn’t remember it in the morning when I woke up, but my parents told me I screamed bloody murder when it happened. I was kind of confused about waking up in a different bed.