Monday, December 20, 2010

Cooks sprinkle pixie dust, space goat eats holidays


From Kreigh Hampel an OG Cook a.k.a. "Dr. Rot:" about Burbank's good bike deeds.
Heck! The story made it into the Chicago Tribune!

My Dear trouble-making cooks,

I want to tell you one story (of many) that all started at the Bike Kitchen a few years back. I also want to give you props and remind you why your work is so freak’n worthy. The attached picture shows bikes at Burbank City Hall. It all started 6 years ago when I first walked into the Kitchen at Eco Village and my jaw dropped. Not long after, I started lurking around the kitchen at hel-mel, then started helping out as a back door cook.

It was the Kitchen bubbles that caused me to wrastle a couple of cooks down to Burbank’s first bike tune up event at the YMCA, later there were tune up classes at the Recycle Center, then some bike tune up tents at neighborhood events and at the Chandler bike path. The bike thing was growing.

So last year we put together a holiday bike campaign with the Salvation Army. Again, it was pollinated with bikes donated from the Kitchen. We cleaned up about 10 bikes for kids. More mysteriously however, cooks and ridazz at large were suspected of silently spreading pixie pollen all over town. Turns out Burbank got inoculated with a crazy passion for embracing collective bike culture just before the holidays. The holiday bike campaign exploded with nearly 25 volunteers. Nearly 90 bikes were donated and about 60 were given to kids who need a little good stuff.

The bike thang took on a life of its own. City employees and local wrenchers partnered in a high level of good humor and energy. Is there conspiratorial bike pollen blowing around? Wasn’t it just a decade ago that LA's bicycle rebirth was germinating in the cracks of the cultural creatives, the voluntary poor, and the car-free believers? Now it's blowing into the suburban master plans, codes, and annual budgets of government!

Lucky for Burbank the goofball pleasure of wrenching together has coalesced a feisty and well oiled troop. It’s a straight up crew of odd bedfellows (police, fire, community development, city attorney, public works and transportation planners) and it’s gone so far as christening a spiritual leader whose only credentials include a Harley, a pressure washer and a big socket set. Go figure, we all have perma-grin this week over bikes.

As if the three stooges had come down from the shag carpet mountain top, we have a new, twisted, unconventional scripture for laying down peace between “THEM and US” and a chance to do a little good around this place. My hats off to all of the new bike comrades, rag-tag believers, rust belt eliminators, punsters, doers and big hearts. This has been the highlight of my year and it is all because of the Kitchen!!!! I repeat, this glob of bikes on the steps of city hall all started with the Kitchen! Your work is rippling bike love around the world!

Happy holidays you merry mobsters! Lotza love, drot


LOTSA LOVE BACK TO YOU, DR. ROT!

We are closed from December 20th - January 2nd. Regular hours resume Monday, January 3rd.

TO ALLA YOU BIKE BUDDIES, HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE BICYCLE KITCHEN.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Cooks

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