I am taking a jewelry class this semester and have met a lot of very cool people. While it is hard to get out of work early enough to get to class on time, and hard to be gone from home for 12 - 14 hours at a time, I do enjoy the social interaction. I took sewing for 2 semesters, and started to HATE sewing. I burned out mid-way through 2nd semester and just stopped going. I was seeing if I would enjoy a career in sewing/fashion, but decided it's not for me.
A friend of Uncle T's from work took this jewelry class and I saw all the cool stuff she made. So the first chance I got, I signed up for it. I have loved it!
Anyway, one of the cool people I met was Tay. He is this bear of a guy, about 6' 1" and does beautiful engraving work. When I first started the class in August, I still only had my bike. It turned out that Tay was a rider (as well as one of my professors!) and actually did custom work for Jessie James (of West Coast Choppers fame), and other chopper customizers.
He quickly set to work hooking me up with all these guys and giving me #'s and recommendations. One of them was with "Hot Dog" (aka: Pete Finlan), renowned pinstriper. (Google 'Hot Dog, pinstriping' to get an idea of his work.) I had put some flower decals on my motorcycle and helmet. I was quite proud of this small custom feat, but Tay was distressed. He quickly set the ground work for me to get my helmet pinstriped by Hot Dog himself.
I sold the bike that had the flowers. I did take off the flowers before selling it, but I kept the flowers on the helmet. Tay convinced me to bring my helmet along to the annual Easy Rider show so Hot Dog could pinstripe it. Tay had been giving him a sob story about how horribly tacky my flower stickers looked and convinced him I needed professional help.
So I went to the show with Uncle's T and S. I found HotDog's booth and loved all the examples of pinstriping he had at his booth. I was very excited as I handed my precious helmet over to HotDog and watched as the "Cali Girl" stickers were quickly peeled off. I choose a color scheme of Black and Silver striping on the Burgundy helmet. I was told it would take a few hours so we were off to explore the rest of the show.
"This is the closest example of a true “Dutch” that we’ve seen in a while. Alan Michaelis’ ’60 Galaxie was a nice mix of black suede and contrasting-colored striping. The work was signed by
Hot Dog, a striper from around San Diego, California. Can you see it?"
I must say I enjoyed this show a lot better than the International Motorcycle show held at the Long Beach Convention Center every year. The Easy Rider show is much more cruiser and chopper oriented, and much more about making your ride unique. There were a ton of booths, mostly leather gear and local bike shops. I did find some shops in the area that I had never heard of, and found a few nifty devices that I could use. There were also a lot of patch booths. S got a few for his vests, and I finally found some that had some femininity in them. While most patches remain male oriented, some patch makers are finally branching out into female patches. Most of the cooler ones were made by Harley and featured their shield.
A few more hours of looking and drooling (and watching the Big Belly contest) and I went back to check on my helmet.
Is it not beautiful?
The ride was great, the show wonderful, and the helmet perfect!
(Hot Dog's website is: www.hotdogkustoms.com)
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