Who Rides a Vespa? Well, I guess that'd be me...

John Rana over at Who Rides a Vespa, occassionally posts rider profiles answering his blogs eponymous question. Currently, he's doing a series on American scooter bloggers, in anticipation of AmeriVespa. John began with Orin O'Neill of Scootin' Old Skool, who is also been helping to organize the Seattle rally. From Orin's profile:

thoughts about the upcoming Amerivespa?
The entire scooter community in Seattle is looking forward to hosting scooterists from around the U.S. and the world. I’m on the committee, so I will be helping out with various aspects of organizing and staging the event.
There are plenty of activities planned: Thursday night, there’s a cocktail cruise on Seattle’s Elliott Bay; Friday, a private show at a downtown venue headlined by Neville Staple, formerly of The Specials; Friday and Saturday, there will be several group rides leaving from Amerivespa headquarters in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood; and Sunday, there will be a ferry ride to Vashon Island for an island tour and BBQ, where at least two, and possibly four scooters, among other things, will be given away in a raffle. It’s going to be huge, and Seattle has so much to offer aside from Amerivespa activities, you just have to come if you possibly can!

You can hear more from Orin about AmeriVespa and Scootin Old Skool over at ScooterCast, where he was the featured interview on Episode 13. John Rana was the featured interview in the latest episode, as well, and you should be able to listen to both of these on the player below:

(edit: 7.5.07 the embedded podcast player didn't work. Seriously go check out ScooterCast!)

These interviews have gotten me really stoked for AmeriVespa. There are so many talented and personable people in the online scootering community; I'm really excited to meet some of them next week.

The second profile in John's series is none other than the Dragon's alter-ego, Ben J. Armstrong.

Yup, that's my ugly mug, though I think the mustache is even bigger now, so if you see me at AmeriVespa, feel free to give me a "Howdy!"

The interesting thing about these kind of profiles and interviews is the different perspective you get on folks you may read several times a week. As a personal example, I've been playing around with the idea of posting a kind of mission statement for this blog since it's one year anniversary passed a couple months ago... Though I started posts along those lines several times, they just never felt right, and subsequently were never published. John asked a question about blogging and this flowed right out of the keyboard:

I began blogging almost four years ago, as a means of promoting a radical bookstore collective I was a member of at the time: Last Word Books. I started Honky-Tonk Dragon a little over a year ago, with the original intention of using it to collect research and promote a graphic novel I was working on at the time. Somehow the comic project got put on the back-burner, but the blog took on a life of it’s own.
I’m not sure exactly how to describe my current motivations and goals for the blog. I guess I think of it like a lifestyle magazine… for weirdos! It’s not just about scooters, or art, or music, though it touches on all those things.
I’m nervous because, well, I’m trying to find a way to merge my interest in scooters with some of my artistic skills, and self-promotion doesn’t come easily for me. Heck, even on the blog I hide behind the persona of a redneck dragon!

Mission statement: An online lifestyle magazine for weirdos.

That'll work.