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Volbeat is James Hetfield’s psychobilly wet dream come to life.

Sending this one out to Jason “The Banana King” Williams. Pedalpedalpedalpedalpedalpedal!  Good luck and ride safe, man.

Bast posted this on Facebook.

Georgia Ninja Crew Summer Edit – More BMX Videos

Young Mr. Smillie is apparently going to SLC to the Dew Tour/Free Flow Tour finals thanks to this video.  It’s not embeddable, so you’ll have to go to the Ride site to see it.  In order to not spoil the congratulatory mood I won’t even make fun of him.  Good going, D.

Jason Williams and I disagree strongly about a couple of things.

1. Whether or not everyone should own a T-1 (He says yes, I say no)
2. Whether or not Eastern sucks (I say no, he says yes)
3. What’s the greatest band to ever come out of Baltimore.  He foolishly believes it’s Clutch.  I love Clutch, but I still say Wrathchild/Wrathchild America/Souls at Zero own that title (then Clutch, then Fear of God).

George Teneyck posted this up then linked to it on his Facebook page.  I haven’t had time to watch it yet, but, come on, the 1988 Haro Freestyle Team.  There’s no way this one won’t contain nostalgic goodness.

Team Haro Freestyle, Circa 1988. BMXDigital from T/n/m/ Group on Vimeo.

So, a new Mike Aitken video came out a couple days ago.

While I was watching it I couldn’t help but thing about how much Aitken looked like Jason Becker when he has his traech.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Jason’s story.  In the 80′s he founded an instrumental metal band called Cacophany with a similarly young Marty Friedman.  When Cacophany broke up Marty went on to join the Rust in Peace era Megadeth (version 3? version 4?  Does the version with Kerry King on guitar that lasted for 30 seconds even count?) while Jason got the most coveted sideman spot in all shreddom, replacing Steve Vai in David Lee Roth’s solo band.

Top of the world, right?

Right after he found out that he had the gig, he found out that he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Lou Gherig’s Disease.  ALS results in complete physical paralysis and in many cases, death.  Jason’s already way outlived predictions on his life, but the paralysis thing…much like Stephen Hawking Jason communicates through an eye activated computer.  He still writes music, but he can no longer play it.  He can’t talk and on a good day he might be able to shake a finger.

Aitken went down on a trick that he could do in his sleep in a place that he’d ridden a billion times.  He wasn’t doing anything crazy, just riding and he had to learn how to walk again. He was, honestly, lucky.

Next time you’re thinking about going out without a helmet, check the video.  It’s worth it as a reminder.

Got this from Jake, who I think got it from D. Lang.  Much, MUCH better at making the point than the Hitler video thing.