I like listening to music during long rides. But don’t worry. My music is not loud enough to drown the ambient noise in my surroundings while riding. Besides, my earphones serve as my headset/mouthpiece so I can freely receive calls from fellow riders, especially when they’re by their lonesome, ahead or trailing the pack. It’s also handy during emergencies like when a fellow rider needs direction or to announce an unplanned emergency stop because of engine trouble.
Here’s my typical riding ritual. Put my iPod on shuffle and any random song comes up from my playlist. But the song below urged me to make a specific playlist that I can tune into during rides. It’s currently on repeat mode in my iTunes. And now I’m even blogging about it.
It’s a a single by the Welsh rock band Manic Street Preachers, released in 1992. It reached #17 in the UK Singles Chart, but it’s the first time I’ve heard of it today. I blame my limited exposure to American Top 40s. 
It’s not a happy-happy kind of song, but I feel it’s a good song to listen to while riding. 
MOTORCYCLE EMPTINESS
by Manic Street Preachers
Culture sucks down words
Itemize loathing and feed yourself smiles
Organize your safe tribal war
Hurt, maim, kill, and enslave the ghetto
Each day living out a lie
Life sold cheaply forever, ever, ever
Under neon loneliness, motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness, motorcycle emptiness
Life lies a slow suicide
Orthodox dreams and symbolic myths
From feudal serf to spender
This wonderful world of purchase power
Just like lungs sucking on air
Survivals natural as sorrow, sorrow, sorrow
Under neon loneliness, motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness, motorcycle emptiness
All we want from you are the kicks you've given us
All we want from you are the kicks you've given us
All we want from you are the kicks you've given us
All we want from you are the kicks you've given us
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Drive away and it's the same
Everywhere death row, everyone's a victim
Your joys are counterfeit
This happiness corrupt political shit
Living life like a comatose
Ego loaded and swallow, swallow, swallow
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness everlasting nothingness
Dear Laya Rana,
A very happy, happy birthday to you, Siobe!
You don’t know how your arrival in the family made me, Mimma & Achi so much happier.
It’s your birthday today although you didn’t get to have a big birthday party like Achi’s. But that doesn’t mean our celebration with you was less special. Mimma & I decided to forgo the party so we could save up for our family holiday to visit your cousins’ family (Achi collectively calls them “The Sudarios”) in Australia for summer 2011. It’s gonna be their first time to see you since you were born and they are all excited! 
Anyway, what we had was a birthday shoot to celebrate your 1st Birthday. Here’s a souvenir sot of both us looking great together.
father & daughter
I actually have planned on bringing my scooter for your birthday photos. I think Pyke would’ve been perfect with the vintage feel of the shoot. But Mimma needed me to drive the car to bring the family and some props to the set-up. I know you would agree that a Vespa would’ve been perfect somewhere in this picnic shot:
birthday picnic
Oh well, maybe some other time.
Anyway here’s a special music video for your birthday. I specifically requested for this song which I especially dedicate to you (and Achi too!). I love you, babe!
.
Forever,
~Didda
P.S. I hope you get to stumble upon this post in the future while searching for your name in Google (or whatever popular search engine the time you find this).
[My heartfelt gratitude to all the people who helped in this photoshoot. Full credits listed here. ~Abet]
me & my neighbor Mark Laccay for Pinoy Scooter Podcast (PSP)
September of last year, me and my neighbor and fellow Vespa Club Pilipinas member, Mark Laccay, embarked on a project we could do together during our free time. Him being a sound engineer, and me as a webmaster, Mark proposed that we make a podcast (a fusion of web & sound) for Filipino scooter enthusiasts. We wanted an entertaining audio discussions about the Filipino scootering lifestyle. We call the show “Pinoy Scooter Podcast” or PSP in short.
PSP logo by the creative roshipotoshi (Mark's lovely wife)
For the past six months or so, Mark & I managed to come up with 10 episodes featuring various rides and personalities.
Get to know Mark & me through this short video clip:
Listen to past PSP episodes via psp.podbean.com
or our FB page: facebook.com/pinoyscooterpodcast
Subscribe for FREE via PSP in iTunes.
VESPINAS (a student documentary)
My nephew, Earl (second from right) contacted me that he wanted to make a Filipino documentary for his school project. He wanted to interview me with two of my riding buddies about Vespa and how it acts as a lens in seeing the country. I invited Mark Laccay (my neighbor and co-host in Pinoy Scooter Podcast – subscribe via iTunes), and Uriel Protomartir (2011 President, Vespa Club of the Philippines) to join me and they willing agreed.
Apologies to my non-Filipino readers as the soundbites in the clip are mostly in the vernacular.
They’re selling Vespa shirts in Bangkok with my name on it. WHAAAAT?!!!
Last week, the boys from the club hosted dinner for James, a riding buddy from the recently formed Vespa Club – Cebu Chapter (CeVo). James was telling me that Havey, a fellow CeVo member, saw this Vespa shirt made in Bangkok, Thailand being sold in a mall in Cebu. He told me that the shirt has a quote and bears my signature. Yeah, it’s one of those WTF stories. The crazy-happy kind! 
I honestly didn’t know what to make of it. But soon as I got home, I sent Harvey a private message asking him to buy me a couple of shirts and to please take a photo. Days pass and I realized I haven’t told my wife this unbelievable story. As soon I am done, she asked me to tell her the entire story again just to be sure she heard me right the first time. I take that she find it hard to believe as well. But the news got her really excited! She urged me to follow it up with Harvey and she even added him in facebook despite not having known or met him before. She told me there are so many questions she wanted to ask herself. LOL!
This morning, Harvs posted these snapshots on my wall.
The design is based on a previous Art Vespa – Imagine Vespa post I made back in 2006.
Honestly, I surprised that someone would actually make and sell shirts with my design (and NAME!) on it. But I don’t mind it at all. My name’s there so as far as I’m concerned, credit was given where credit was due (apologies to John Lennon). I actually hope they made and sold a lot of these shirts. What’s cooler is that the shirt made it’s way to the Philippines!
When Harvey got back to the shop selling the shirt, he got me the last piece. I call that destiny.
“The Vespa and the Movies” Exhibition (La Vespa e il Cinema)
exhibition poster designed by painter and sculptor Ugo Nespolo
An exciting journey in film, advertising, photographs, posters featuring a myth that has no equal.
(PRESS RELEASE) Pontedera, 5 November 2010 – “The Vespa and the Movies” exhibition was officially opened this morning at the Piaggio Museum in Pontedera. A major initiative of the Piaggio Foundation organised jointly with the Cinema Multimedia Centre and Viareggio EuropaCinema, the exhibition celebrates the links between the cinema – the dream factory – and the world’s most famous scooter.
The opening ceremony – where guests included actors Alessandro Gassman and Ugo Dighero – was addressed by the Mayor of Pontedera, Simone Millozzi, the President of the Province of Pisa, Andrea Pieroni, and, for the Piaggio Group, Michele Pallottini, chief operating officer for finance, and Francesco Delzio, director of external and institutional relations.
“Today, after more than sixty years, the Vespa is the worldwide symbol of Italian creativity and a unique example of ‘immortality’ in the history of industrial design,” writes Piaggio Group Chairman and CEO Roberto Colaninno in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue. “The Vespa is no longer just a product of the world of transport: it is the story of a phenomenon-symbol of global mores, and the images exhibited at the Piaggio Museum offer a fascinating journey through films, advertisements, photographs and posters, in the company of a legend without equals.”
Entry to the exhibition in the Piaggio Museum is free. It will be open to the public until 15 January 2011, re-tracing the origins and development of the Vespa-Cinema binomial through a huge selection of material – presented for viewing on multimedia stations – and a collection of more than 150 posters of cult movies starring the Vespa. An assortment of styles, colours and moods synthesised and enhanced by the splendid exhibition poster, designed by painter and sculptor Ugo Nespolo.
The more than two hundred images in the exhibition catalogue – many of them previously unpublished – are included in the documentation on the official website www.lavespaeilcinema.it. The catalogue also presents critical essays by Tommaso Fanfani, President of the Piaggio Foundation, Pier Marco De Santi and Andrea Mancini (the exhibition curators), Elena Colombini, Veronica Boggian and Daniele Michelucci. It closes with a filmography documenting the Vespa’s appearances in the movies, often in a leading role and never in a simple walk-on part.
The Vespa made its movie debut in 1950, four years after its market launch, in the Italian film “Sunday in August”, and became a worldwide status symbol in “Roman Holiday” (1953), with the celebrated sequence when Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck weave their way through the Rome traffic on a Vespa 125. In addition to movie posters and stills from countless films, this special exhibition at the Piaggio Museum also exhibits the Vespa models that played leading roles in the films, covering sixty years of history, styles and a changing way of life.
During that time, countless actors and actresses sat on the Vespa, which appeared, or even took a leading role, in countless films – comedies, dramas, action movies, social comment: “Examples include Nanni Moretti’s ‘Dear Diary’ (1993), where the main character spends an entire episode – entitled, naturally enough, ‘In Vespa’ – on the saddle of a 150 Sprint,” says the exhibition curator Pier Marco De Santi, “or ‘Alfie’ (2004), directed by Charles Shyer, which sees Jude Law out on the streets of Manhattan on a white and blue Vespa; or Sydney Pollack’s ‘The Interpreter’ (2005), where Nicole Kidman’s favoured means of transport around New York is a yellow Vespa.”
The photographs in the exhibition “The Vespa and the Movies” illustrate the long list of international movie stars seen on the world’s most famous scooter over the years, in films ranging from “Quadrophenia” to “Absolute Beginners”, “American Graffiti”, “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, “102 Dalmatians” and the blockbuster “Transformers”. In the photos, in the films and on the sets, the Vespa was the “travelling companion” of stars like Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Geraldine Chaplin, Joan Collins, Jayne Mansfield, Virna Lisi, Milla Jovovich, Marcello Mastroianni, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Gary Cooper, Anthony Perkins, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Nanni Moretti, Sting, Antonio Banderas, Matt Damon, Gérard Depardieu, Jude Law, Eddie Murphy, Owen Wilson, Nicole Kidman and many others.
While the exhibition is open, the Piaggio Museum will be turned into a movie theatre, with weekly projections of some of the most important films in which the Vespa appears. A total of ten evenings will be held, attended by actors and entertainers. The first evening is Saturday 13 November at 9 p.m., when the Hungarian film “Vespa” will be shown.
"Vespa" by Diana Groó
SYNOPSIS: Read more…
vintage scoot in Cafe Puro TVC with Sandwich
In case you haven’t caught it yet, here’s the Cafe Puro ad airing on local TV. It features the band <S>andwich rewording of their hit, “Betamax.” Raymund Marasigan does the vocals but it the band’s drummer, Mike Dizon, who got to ride in style in the ad. Check it out!
The vintage Lambretta seen above is owned by Vestsinoy. In the scootering community, the scoot’s ‘pedigree’ levels up once it make it into an ad like this. Congrats Charlie!
Thanks Dansoy & ProjectV for the heads up.
Vespa Club of the Philippines Grand Eyeball 2!
Come party with us for our annual Vespa Club EyeBall II!
Date: Friday, July 30, 2010
Time: 7:00pm – 11:00pm
Venue: North Hall, Corinthian Gardens Clubhouse, Madrigal Avenue, Corinthian Gardens, QC
• SWAP MEET
- Bring new or used Vespa related items that you want to unload
- Tag a price to it, label with your name and mobile number
- Leave the items at the swap meet table
- We will help you sell them at the event
• CHARITY AUCTION
- Donate any item that you want to unload. Does not have to be Vespa-related.
- We shall auction off these items during the party
- Proceeds will go to club funds and to our chosen charity projects
• SCOOTER SHOW – Awards will be given to:
- The best automatic
- The best geared
- The best classic
- The people’s choice/most popular scoot in the party
• EVENT SPONSORS – Special thanks to the generosity of the following companies:
Kitakits!
~ABET RANA
Scoot! Magazine features Manny’s Lammy
Scoot! Magazine — America’s No. 1 scooter magazine — recently featured the the custom-built Manny Pacquiao scooter in its April 2010 issue. Wawel Mercado, president of the Vespa Club of the Philippines, tells the story below how the publication got wind of the project. Also included in this blog post are hi-res scans of the three-page feature which consists of a Q & A interview with Elmer Reyes of the Laguna Choppers who custom-built the scooter. Read on….
The attention that the Vespa Club of the Philippines generated for “Manny’s Lammy” in the local scene and in the world wide web last January 2010 led to a call sometime in February 2010 from San Diego, California-based Scoot! Magazine to Elmer Reyes, the artist behind the custom motorcycle shop Laguna Choppers.
The Vespa Club had visited Elmer in mid January 2010 on rumors that he was building a Pacquaio-themed Lambretta. We were not disappointed. Consequently, the photos we posted on Vespinoy were picked up by the top motorcycle blogs in the country: Bimbo Isidro’s Motorcycle Philippines (MCP) and Abet Rana’s Who Rides a Vespa? The excitement around the scoot consequently led the Vespa Club to organize a scooter unveiling at Eastwood City together with the country’s foremost mod band Juan Pablo Dream.
Scoot! wanted to feature Elmer’s latest creation in their magazine. So an interview was arranged, and photos of the custom painted Lambretta was requested. Fortunately, Vespa Club of the Philippines Ride Director Tops Marin had just visited Laguna Choppers in January 2010 at the inaugural ride of the Vespa Club of the Philippines, and had lots of good photos to share with Scoot! Tops generously agreed to support Elmer by giving him access to his photos, and sent his images by email to Scoot! Anything for a scooter buddy!
The feature on this proudly Philippine made scooter came out in Scoot! Magazine’s April issue, and now we can finally read the article and see the gorgeous pictures once again.
To our brother Elmer Reyes: You make us proud to be Pinoy scooterists, dude! This may just be the first scooter in the Philippines to be featured in Scoot! And our hats off too to Tops Marin, for his generosity in sharing his photos, and the great achievement of seeing his photos published in an international scoot magazine.
Scoot! Magazine is North America’s #1 Magazine for Vintage and Modern Motorscooters. Scoot! is an 80-page full-color, bi-monthly magazine dedicated to the appreciation of vintage and modern motorscooters. Scoot! is available throughout the US and Canada with distribution also in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, Sweden and Vietnam.
Click on the thumbnails below to read the 3-page Scoot! Magazine article.
www.vespausa.com now sports a new look.
In its homepage is a collage of pictures of [mostly] actual riders/enthusiasts instead of the obvious in-house PR photos. But these are no amateur shots. The images seen in the page are noticeably taken by people with an eye for art. Here’s how it looks….
The first and third pictures at the bottom row are images by Cristeen Quezon, a Filipino mother and a photographer based in Cebu City. Both photographs were actually taken during the the 3-day epic ride of Vespa Club of the Philippines to Cebu where our members met with some of the local Vespa riders in the Queen City of the South. Cristeen’s husband, Michael, also happens to be a Vespisiti and is the guy in one of the chosen shots.
In exchange of the use of her pictures, Cristeen will be getting a set of limited edition Vespa shirts for her whole family. How limited? In her blog, she shared that only 1,500 of the said shirt has been produced worldwide. That’s pretty awesome!
Congrats Cristeen!
~ABET
