Summer In The City

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright

And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Cool town, evening in the city
Dressing so fine and looking so pretty
Cool cat, looking for a kitty
Gonna look in every corner of the city
Till I'm wheezing like a bus stop
Running up the stairs, gonna meet you on the rooftop

But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright

And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city

Hot town, summer in the city
Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty
Been down, isn't it a pity
Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead
Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head

But at night it's a different world
Go out and find a girl
Come-on come-on and dance all night
Despite the heat it'll be alright

And babe, don't you know it's a pity
That the days can't be like the nights
In the summer, in the city
In the summer, in the city
From: Summer in the City
The Lovin' Spoonful
(John Sebastian - Mark Sebastian - Steve Boone)

Just got back from two brutally hot weeks in New York, specifically Manhattan. That is New York for me, but then, some would call me a snob about that among other things. Everyone was looking for a cool drink, including this guy hitting up the girls at a bar on Clinton St. on the LES. He probably had a greater level of success than most! Because, if you don't ask, you definitely won't get!

Serendipity is a wonderful thing and happily, I got to experience that on this trip, too.

I keep a really sweet 3-D Racing SS (that's single-speed to you!) bassboat red (don't know why it's called that, but it's a deep red w/ metal flecks that is just sexy gorgeous) at the NY apartment. Flat tires, old worn-out pumps and a resulting broken stem sent me to one of the coolest bike shops in the city, BikeWorks, located just off Rivington at 106 Ridge St., New York, NY 10002, (212) 388-1077. They're serious about cycling, closing on Wednesdays so they can do the track races out in the far reaches of Queens and on Sundays so they can go for a ride, too, like everyone else. They cater to the bike messenger community, fixies/single-speeds, but they love bikes and know how to treat the high-end, low-end, everything-in-between-end spectrum of bikes.

So, this aloof, tattooed chick wrencher takes my bike under her wing to make it all better. As we're talking, I'm thinking I know her, so I introduce myself first to get her name. Lo and behold, it is KT, a bike messenger I bugged until she would talk to me years ago riding across Houston St. (Bike messengers, like bike mechanics, are slightly loathe to mix with the general population of people on bikes.) I ended up loaning her a few $$ to take the ferry to Jersey to then ride to Philadelphia with a herd of messengers for the Bike Messenger Worlds after the week of Metropoloco in New York, summer of 2000.

As narrow as margins are in bike shops, she didn't hesitate to comp me for the new tube and the work without objection from Dan the Man. Good customer service! Good karma! Cool experience all the way around on a sweaty August afternoon.



KT's teaching wrenching to women each Monday evening in the basement at Times Up on E. Houston St. and I went to check it out. Full house, despite the heat and humidity.

She asked about GirlGroove.com. Seems every direction I turn, someone is reminding me that I need to relaunch this bike chick online mag. With a commitment from one of the best chick wrenchers in the US to write a regular column, I guess I'm going to have to take the plunge.

Stay turned for the re-launch in the near future as a Web2.0 blog thing.

Despite Everything...

"The secret of success is constancy to purpose." - Benjamin Disraeli, the only Jewish prime minister of England who brought India and the Suez Canal under rule.

Stage 1 of the Tour de France, Robbie McEwen produced a perfect sprint in the final 100 meters to come out of nowhere, surprising even the commentators in a chaotic finale and a decisive stage win. Robbie'd crashed with about 20km to go in a pileup and regained contact with the peloton with less than 10km to go. On a very narrow road, he had to push his way through a mass nearly two hundred riders, a nearly impossible feat. But, he stayed true to his purpose, appearing in the last frantic dash to the finish line to eclipse everyone else. What a finish!


Today in Stage 4, there were so many crashes, guys riding in shredded shorts, dripping blood. Alexandre Vinokourov went down hard and the huge hole in his shorts revealed a quickly darkening purple-dark red bruise covering his hip. Again, it was a race to try to get back on the back of the peloton to remain in contention. His team members led him out to bridge a huge gap, each gradually dropping off after a huge pull at the front of the team paceline. Again, he prevailed and not only regained the peloton, but made it nearly to the front to lose a little more than a minute. (Considering the smallest margin ever by which the maillot jaune was won after three weeks and nearly 2,500 miles is 8 seconds, a minute plus can be devastating.)

Despite all the conjectures, accusations, and outright guilt surrounding cycling's elite about doping, this sport at this level is awe-inspiring and a source of so many important life and business lessons. Team building, singularity of purpose, strategy, persistence, grace, fortitude, etiquette.

These are all top of mind for me right now as we prepare to launch a new Website to feature our first turnkey business suite, VENNtive, a pre-integrated CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ESP (Email Solution Provider) suite for small groups with up to five users.