Wazupwidis? You tell me

The next topic that I alluded to on Monday that I will discuss today for a hamburger next Tuesday is the best piece of unprofessional journalism to grace the pages of the illustrious and great tasting magazine since the Old Coot discussed the drawbacks of using those new fangled toe straps, "Wazupwidis?"

Check it. It's legit, there's my name listed under contributors.

Yes, it happened. I gained a slight amount of legitimacy as a writer by having my first article published in a real paper type magazine. This is not like the time I was in Decline for the Hell Ride, or on the cover of Endurance Magazine, or briefly mentioned in Bike and Dirt Rag in the past (or even that picture that MBAction keeps using from the 2006 Solo Worlds). No, this is 100% shit freshly squoze from my head, perhaps with some grammar and spelling corrections from the staff at Dirt Rag headquarters, but definitely the smelly parts are from me. This is stuff you will never be able to read here on the blog, so you either need to subscribe, get to a magazine store or local bike shop, borrow a friend's copy, or come over to my house to read one of the 300 copies I got for myself.

I mentioned before that I've been reading Dirt Rag since the early 90's. I used to save all my magazines back then, and I mean all of them. Mountain Bike Action, Bike, Bicycle Guide (which became something else before it disappeared), Mountain Bike, Bicycling, Mountain Biking, and The Cycling and Extreme Knitting Quarterly Review. At some point I realized I had no need for all these old magazines, as I was no longer looking for reviews on close-out items from mail order stores to put together a new bike with outdated parts. I did manage to save one issue as the cover art was perhaps my favorite of all time:

Oddly enough the cover art was done by John Hinderliter who also did the cover art for the latest issue of Dirt Rag that contains my article (meaning I'll be keeping two pieces of his artwork).

This issue (the one adorned with Larry, Curly, and Moe) is from sometime around March 1994. It was purchased at the Nashbar Outlet Store in Youngstown, OH for $3.00+tax.

I flipped through it the other day and marveled over the outdated bike parts, photos of pros long gone, and lack of beer reviews. I also found the inspiration for the title of my article (Wazupwidis?); Gunnar Shogren's column "wuzzupwiddat?".

I find it odd that the only issue I saved contains an article "by Gunnar" that starts out:

"We're sorry to say that Gunnar was not able to contribute his usual tales to this issue of Dirt Rag. Seems he's a bit tied up at the moment training... we've selected two of the more memorable letters that Gunnar received from his faithful following..."

Wow. I wonder how long before I can dirge my writing responsibility to Dirt Rag and just have fan letters printed under my byline instead. Seems like a good idea, but I would've expected no less from the wily (and at that time 42 years old) Gunnar "King Willy" Shogren. Get to writing those letters kids... I'm sorry, they were called "letters" back in the golden era, but we now call them emails... so get to writing those emails kids since I won't have new material forever.

The other day Josh the Wonderboy snuck up behind me when I was writing my second installment of "Wazupwidis?" on a legal pad. He asked me what I was writing, and I told him "I'm writing an article for Dirt Rag".

"You taking over for the Old Coot?" he queried.


Meh.