World Messenger Championships are here! You have been warned.

Ted Shred, originally uploaded by Green Biker.

Pictured here is Ted Shred, famous San Francisco DJ, skater and downhill freewheel bomber. Read an interview with Ted at: www.fecalface.com/features/ted-shred/
Ted was also in town for the premier of a short documentary that played at the NY Bicycle film festival www.bicyclefilmfestival.com. The name of the film was:
"Bomb Bay" The bicycle film festival is now held in New York, Los Angeles, London, San Francisco and in Tokyo (Nov. 4-5)

Meanwhile Messengers from all over the world are converging on NYC for the 13th annual World Messenger Championships held June 30th-July 4th.

Visit: www.nybma.com/cmwc2005/

The New York Bicycle Messenger Association has been organizing this event for more than a year and is using the Time's Up space at 49 East Houston as the Messenger worlds headquarters. Please give these hard working messengers room at the space. You are more then welcome to come by and attend forums but please leave BIKES OUTSIDE and be respectful of the neighborhood.

The schedule over the next few days is posted at www.nybma.com but it is slightly hard to figure out.

The main races are on Sat. and Sunday in Jersey City, because the NYPD is punishing all bikes for the success of Critical Mass.

There will also be alley cat races, but you must be in the know! hint hint.

also see the fine folks at NYC's hottest track bike shop:

www.trackstarnyc.com

for more tales from the wild side and hints about world's goings on.

Last night messengers appeared on Team Spider's www.teamspider.com show, on MNN, here is an account of what went on by show host and band front man: Chris Ryan,

:confused:
those watching TEAM SPIDER TV tonight and curious why the screen went
BLACK after 5 minutes,, we were SHUT DOWN in the middle of a live
broadcast.

why? because BIKE MESSENGERS were sitting on their bikes...

Even though the entire purpose of the show was to promote the MESSENGER
RACES this weekend, we practically had to beg to even be allowed to
bring bikes on to our set...
-"no sports equipment allowed in the building"
-" you'll track mud in"
-"then we'll have to let everyone bring bikes in"

oh no.


well, eventually we were BLESSED with the ability to have a couple
bikes on our set, (a set we spent 2 hours building and miking...
complete with a TEAM SPIDER live music corner.)

over 50 bike messengers showed up, and though it would have been
visually cool to have a million bikes in there, i think we came to some
compromise like 10. and let everyone else be audience members

we were so blessed.

anyhow, episode starts and the messengers proceed to sit on their
bikes, demonstrating their "track stand" ability to sit still and not
move, we hear " get off the bikes"

even though it is physically impossible to ride bikes in the MNN studio,
they had a caniption, said it again,,
people got off their bikes, but it was "too late"
we were shut down,


so about 50 messengers, from around the globe, who came up to promote
their upcoming 4th of July competitions, and waited out in the rain for
an hour to get in, were all sent home, as the American messengers
muttered "free speech" under their breath, and the Europeans scratched
their heads not sure what was happening.

So as usual we were painted as the -trouble makers team spider-, who
always have "creative ideas".

sorry. i thought the staff at MNN is there to support US and free
speech, not consistantly, non-stop harass us for inconviences to them
such as "loud bands", a "cooking episode", promoting the "BIKE
COMMUNITY"

they bothered us about ?why? we only filled in an estimate of *6-12
guests* on the studio reservation sheet we filled out 2 months ago,
well before we even decided on a topic.

as i was battling to bring some bikes in, and stating "yes . i will
personally mop any mud that appears", i told them that in the future i
will update any forms with emails whenever i find more things out, but
the fact is i never know what exactly is gong to happen, we have bands
cancel 15 minutes before we air, and other times we (obviously) have
messengers spontaneously decide our show is 'the place to be'

it is really frustrating and sad. it is hard enough to put together an
episode with no money, unrelieable guests, unpredictable crew members,
but the staff makes sure to keep it hostile and stifling on top of it
all, which manages to keep all "creative" people / ideas
out. i believe nothing would make them happier then if nothing
happened there except 1967 level production value 2 person talk shows.

they just want to shut down ideas, rather than facilitate them. its
really sad when i am afraid to even mention what i am considering doing
each episode, because then THEY are programing our show, not us. i
dont want to go through a
"Naw, what else you got"
conversation every week.
which,( assuming they arent going to now get vengeful and try to take
us off the air or something,) is a conversation we are going to have to
have every time we walk in "their" building.

anyhow...
as Dave said,
( before he returned to the =company paid for!!= night out with his
girl / which he cut short to come in and crew the show...)
"SHORTEST EPISODE EVER."

--xris
------team spider



--see us perform live this Monday ( july 4th) @ THE HOOK, ''shoved off
to the ghettos of red hook Brooklyn... team spider"