I went downstairs this afternoon to find the entir…
I went downstairs this afternoon to find the entire area around the Bridge to Nowhere filled with people and largish motorcyles and scooters with embarrassingly honest names, things like “Grand Dink” and “My Ego”. There were two 250cc Venoxes there as well, one black one and one red one. People were taking pictures left and right. The abundance of chrome made it a Mirror Project lover’s paradise (here’s my latest contribution, by the way). I sat down on one of them and people started taking pictures of me on the bike, so I flipped up the kickstand, turned the key, started her up and revved the engine a bit (I’m probably on the news as I write this; I should go check). It sounded exactly like a pair of smaller Taiwanese farmer bikes, which made sense when you consider that the engine is a V-twin, each part is basically a 125cc farmer bike engine. Put them together, and you’ve got a cruiser that sounds like a couple of farmer bikes.
I yielded my seat to a comically-dressed model so he could ride the thing up and down the sidewalk for the cameras, except the press people, in their desire to get a good shot, kept blocking the rider from proceeding at anything over a snail’s pace. They even followed the bikes out on the road, completely blocking traffic. Idiots. The Venox totally stole the show from the scooters, though. Other models were riding around on the Grand Dink and the Ego, but nobody was paying any attention to them.
Eventually things died down, the press left, and a bit of rain began to fall. I was grilling one of the Kymco reps about the difference in the price of the Venox between Taiwan and abroad, and then I asked him if I could take a spin. He agreed, probably just to get rid of me, so I took the red Venox for a spin around the area. It felt heavy and not at all fast, although I couldn’t really open it up right there on the sidewalk. The gearshift worked smoothly enough, though, and the giant front disc did it’s job well. It’s too bad that Kymco chose our company to do the advertising, since the bulk of our management is female, the people in charge of marketing these bikes had no clue how to advertise them, nor do they care. The result is a slipshod, half-assed attempt that isn’t going to sell any bikes at all. It’s a damn shame, but most of the people at my company are so full of themselves that they think any idea that pops into the ether between their ears has got to be utter genius.
Even if I had enough money to buy a Venox, I don’t think I would, not right away anyway. The market is about to be flooded with various imports, and something tells me that Kymco will be forced to rethink its pricing strategy within the next few months. Also, I don’t have anywhere to park a bike that large and theftworthy.
Womble has completed the new soundtrack at last, after going through several revisions based on my nit-picking over the past few days. It sounds great, and I’m quite happy with it. The problem now is getting the sound onto the film, the film onto a DV tape, and the DV tape to Toronto before the 15th. My friend Jacques has an editing suite set up on his computer at home, but he isn’t answering his phone for some reason. I might see if Ah-qiang and Fatty, friends of mine in the production department at work, can help me with it.
I am going to meet with the publishers from Asian Culture tomorrow about the Damn Book. They’ve sent me the contract, and all I need now is a definite answer from Locus Publishing. And that New York Times interview, of course.
