Who Needs magazines? Garage
Jesse James has managed to do a lot of stuff in his relatively short life. He’s built a bunch of motorcycles. He starred on a show where they turned cars into..cars. He managed to get the phrase, “direct descendant of,” redefined to mean “nephew” (Jesse is a direct descendant of A Jesse James, but THE Jesse James is his uncle). He married and (allegedly) become the deadbeat baby daddy to one of the biggest pornographic actresses in history, then he left her and married good girl actress, Sandra Bullock. He also produced a movie you may have seen called “Joe Kid on a Stingray,” and publishes a quarterly hot rodding magazine called “Garage.”
The thing about Garage is the guys who run it are SoCal guys in their 30s – 40s. Which is to say they all grew up skating and riding BMX bikes. This month they had some sketches from Jason Jesse and an interview with Gary Turner which is interesting in that there’s absolutely nothing he said about the founding of GT that wouldn’t be said by any of the half gajillion riders who would go on to found their own companies in his wake. One thing that caught my eye was that Gary’s contribution to BMX was the introduction of 4130 and big tubes. Apparently he found out by talking to his car fabricating friends that he could increase the strength of frames by using tubes with paper thin walls but large diameters and made out of higher quality metal. Looking at modern frames, we’ve got 2 out of 3. I can’t be the only one that misses fat downtubes.
Anyway, the current issue also includes a ride along with everyone’s favorite BMXer turne cop. No, not Brian Blyther. No, not Robbie Miranda, either. Stu Thomsen. It may be stuff you’ve already read, but it’s still a good read and it’s nice to know that he’s never stopped riding bikes, even at 51. They even took him out to the track and he still looks like STU FUCKING THOMSEN when riding.
So, there you go, if you feel like getting some old school jollies, pick up a copy. It’s good stuff.
