Two-hundred feet from the place you put your best friend to death

is a yoga studio, and a coffee shop, and a place that repairs vacuums.

In pet terms, euthanasia isn’t as detrimental as it sounds.

You say “put to sleep” and “eased of his misery” much easier than you might say

“terminal cancer that left his jaw agape, unable to eat food or function on his own.”

It’s these reasons, and that much more, which will force you to come closer than 200-feet from the place where he left this earth,

to leave flowers and apologize yet again on the first anniversary of his death.

“What’s the weather like in San Francisco,” my mother asked. I was at United Gate 82 in San Francisco International Airport, waiting to board a plane back to Los Angeles.

“It’s cloudy and rainy, it will be warmer in LA,” I assured my mother. It was 1 in the afternoon, 4 her time. “Mom, we’re about to board, I need to get off the phone,” I said.

Pleasantries exchanged, goodbyes said, I put my coffee down on the ledge next to the moving sidewalk adjacent to our gate. And there he was, walking with his head down, acoustic guitar case at his side. I recognized him immediately as Mark Kozelek, the principal singer/songwriter for the Red House Painters/Sun Kil Moon and his own solo ventures. At time, I had cried along to his pains, but mostly, I has just dwelled in the melancholy he had created, interpreting it as my own for too long a time. He wrote records, I listened, internalized and learned to go on because of them. Continue reading →

This was 13 years ago, and watching it now makes me realize how lucky I was to grow up amid such a vibrant, eclectic and progressive BMX scene. Watching some of the street lines in here (from Ralph Sinisi, Joe Tiseo, Bob Scerbo and George Dossantos) leads me to believe that a lot of what was happening in New Jersey at the time paved the way for modern street riding. I’m not patting myself or New Jersey on the back or anything, but you can’t deny the influence that the riders (and possibly, the above video section) had on the direction of BMX.

Also, I miss the random phone calls and meet-ups from Joe Tiseo. That still hurts.

On February 19, 2010, I was working on the 17th floor of our midtown office when a package arrived from S&M Bikes. It was a frame box, and inside, contained one of the first S&M Intrikat frames. I took it out of the box, marveled at the construction and sat it on my desk for the remainder of the day. Continue reading →

I was getting good at updating this thing and then January happened. And I blew it. Now it’s February and I’m scratching my head wondering where the hell the first month of the year disappeared to already. Tonight, I am making a list of things I need to do each week and this website will hereby be added to it. Continue reading →

‪Self Defense Family — ‘Self Immolation Family’

No explanation as to why this song resonated so much with me, but I think it had to do with this line (“Green light from here until Venice”) and the implication that living in Los Angeles can be made better by the day’s driving experience. Continue reading →

My very old friend Adam Guild, formerly a resident of Piscataway, N.J., was one of the first people to film me riding in my earlier years. I first met him at an audition for a Kudos commercial (I think?) in either 1989 or 1990, and over the years, we developed a friendship that has endured for over twenty years. Whether it was driving to Norfolk, Va. for contests or riding for countless hours at a time at the football stadium on the Rutgers campus, Adam was one of the people I came to look up to and respect, not only for his riding skills, but for the sheer fact that he got things done. Continue reading →

Allow me to enter into some BMX-centric nostalgia. We never had BMX videos as a kid in the mid ’80s. Not until the tail end of 1987/1988 was I able to actually go to a bike shop and purchase a BMX-dedicated video for upwards of thirty hard-earned dollars. And that is exactly what I would do, whenever I could get my mother or father to drive me to the one bike shop in Howell, N.J. that catered to BMX freestyle. (Ironically, Scotty Cranmer now owns the same shop in the same location). Continue reading →

Brian Tunney flatland 2012 from briantunney on Vimeo.

Of course, I forgot to post this last week when it came out. Enormous thanks to Aaron Nardi for filming/editing and Minus The Bear for drunkenly agreeing to let me use the song backstage at a show earlier this year.

Ken’s Kosher Deli in Matawan, N.J. was my first official part-time job. Most weekday nights, I washed dishes, then swept and mopped up the restaurant after it closed at 8 p.m. I made five dollars an hour under the table, and that money granted me some of my first financial freedoms.

Suddenly, new bike parts, Fugazi’s first EP on cassette tape and BMX magazines became within reach for me without having to wait for a birthday or a holiday. And though I often hated the work, I took the financial reward as incentive to continue working. I was fifteen. It was 1989. Continue reading →