New Edition is way better than Bel Biv Devoe

audition tape from Mario Ferrari on Vimeo

So this is the second audition tape I have made for Quest for G. I pretty much made it yesterday, with a little help from Luke. It's definitely better than the first one. I am glad I made it, because I almost didn't. They have yet to tell me if I get to go to boot camp. Fingers crossed!

This Machine Kills Hipsters

My buddy in Seattle, Matt, came up with these stickers a couple of years ago and has been passing them out at messenger events. He started a blog (thismachinekillshipsters.blogspot.com) to follow the proliferation of them across the world. I got a little blog love in there the other day. So here's some blog love back from the hippest harbinger of the track bike apocolypse (with the tightest pants of anyone I know).

Audition Tape

So this is the video I sent into those casting people. Fingers crossed.

Alex from Luke Stiles on Vimeo.

Big Day/Blog Love

So check this out. Friday morning I taught my usual spin class, hopped on a train to Northport Long Island to buy a Greco Flying V Bass. Two hour round trip. Came back went to band practice. Went home took a nap.

I spent the week chasing down footage for this audition tape, and now I had to actually get it in my hands. I had to meet Jon Van Tuliken at Columbia at 4:00 p.m. to pick up what we shot of a unfinished short film and then downtown to 115 Broadway by 5:00 p.m. to meet Mike from Kissena Track Racing Blog. I woke up late and I didn't leave my house until 4 o'clock. I got to Columbia at 4:40 met JVT and then had to book it 7 miles across Manhattan to catch Mike as he got out of work. I met him at 5:15. I had another spin class to teach at 6:30, so I couldn't really mince words. He snapped a couple of pics, which he posted on his blog. Thanks Mike.

View Larger Map

Fame and Fortune Await Me Across the Sea

So what follows is my response to the email that Victor sent to me yesterday for this documentary/reality show that is casting a NYC messenger to race for reals. I think I am a perfect fit, but I have to convince them.

Hello Marc. I was referred to you by Victor Ouma regarding your documentary for XXXXXXXXX. My name is Alex Farioletti, and I have been a New York City bike messenger for the last six years. I am also cat 3 track racer and the current New York State Champion in Keirin racing. I will be a good subject for your documentary, as I am both a bike messenger and a track racer who has the potential and discipline to be competitive on a national level, possibly beyond. I also have a very unique back story and lifestyle (there aren't very many tattooed metalheads in the track racing world) that would be good fodder for a documentary.

I grew up in Weed, California and was raised by my mother. I left home for the Bay Area and junior college before finishing high school, and it wasn't long before I felt stifled by school, so I left to ride freight trains for a year. I lived in Portland for a year, working in the tech industry; it was there that I stopped driving completely and started riding my bike everywhere.

I quickly grew sick of cubicle life. An old friend of my mother's needed a roommate and offered me a cheap place to live in New York City. So I moved here in 2003 intent on working as a messenger, the only job I have ever really wanted. I started racing in alleycats and it wasn't long before I started winning. I won Stupor Bowl 8 in 2005, the biggest alleycat in the world. I won the skid event at the Cycle Messenger World Championships in Sydney Australia the next year and the sprint event at the 2007 North American Cycle Courier Championships. The messenger racing scene was my life, it was during this time that I opened Trackstar, a track bike boutique in the East Village.

My success in the underground prompted me to pursue competitive cycling more seriously. I quit the bike shop and I started racing on the track two years ago with the goal of a national title in the match sprint. In 2008, I won the Keirin and took silver in the match sprint at the New York State Track Championships. I couldn't afford a coach and I wasn't racing for any organized team. I did it all by myself, all while founding my own messenger collective and rehearsing, gigging and touring with my metal band Atakke. I am no longer in the band, and I am completely focused on the 2009 racing season. I training to compete at the Elite Track National Championships.

I love the unique people, opportunities for travel, and freedom cycling has given me. I have ridden my bike around the world; competing in races all over the US and in Australia, Japan, Switzerland and Ireland. I am very competitive and a natural athlete. I love how pressure brings out the best in me and my opponents. The lessons that I have learned through racing have helped me overcome some large obstacles in my life. This documentary would be an ideal opportunity for me, and I am excited at the thought of what I can accomplish with the right training and resources.

I look forward to talking to you more.

It's like they made a TV show for me!

Victor passed this email on to me. I got pretty excited.

Hello Victor. This will be a weird one for you... I've been hired by XXXXXXXXX to cast a documentary that will follow eight athletes as they train for up to 8 months out here in Los Angeles. One of our sports is cycling and they specifically said they would love to get a NYC bike messenger to come train and compete to see how far he/she could go in a competitive cycling environment (different from yours). Anyhow, they want this sort of "out of nowhere" story line, so I'm coming to you. Does this sound like something anyone you know might be interested in? They would have to be seriously committed as they would be put up in a place to stay. Be paid a weekly stipend. Train at least five days a week with serious trainers that we provide. They would have some of the worlds top nutritional scientists from the XXXX (XXXXXXXXX sports and science institute) working with them, etc. It's for anywhere form 4-8 months out here in L.A. If this sounds interesting AT ALL please don't hesitate to get in touch. Thanks for your time.

Blast from the Past.

I made both of these in 2005. I just posted them to Vimeo to see how they looked, and they look good.



Untitled from Mario Ferrari on Vimeo


Best Checkpoint Ever from Mario Ferrari on Vimeo.

Chicago NACCC Part 1

The North American Cycle Courier Championship was held in Chicago last weekend. Since I was recently given heaps more spare time I decided to go. Austin Horse hooked up a free van through Redbull. We drove out in one 14 hour marathon. I compare this to touring in Bill's cargo van and it is a whole world of difference. Seeing the country while you are driving gives you an experience with the environment that you travel through that the windowless cargo van deprived you of. 

We stopped every 3 hours or so to let one or five of the seven people pee or to eat. That was nice. It added a couple of hours, but made the trip go faster. Flemming drove in the states for the irst time. He was stoked on experiencing the rural truck-stops  that reminded me so much my hometown of Weed, CA. I got a huge kick out of pointing out the "America" in everything we came across.  "Look Flemming! That's America! Riding motorcycles shirtless without a helmet. Yeah!" "Flemming! Now that's America, a pickled sausage!" 

We rotated music pretty nicely too. We got a chance to listen to Biggie Smalls, Fela Kuti, Profuse 73, and even some Digable Planets. 

When we got to Chicago we took a few to Eric's house on the southside. I hadn't seen him since he got whooping cough and almost died. I saw him right after and he looked sickly skinny. This was years ago. I guess he cam back for a few months last winter, but we didn't run into each other. He looked way better now, had a little vegan beer belly.

The Essex Inn was nice. They had some Herman Miller furniture in the lobby that 

got Flemming all stoked. It was an old fancy hotel, a little rundown but still fancy. It was funny bringing all the bikes into the place. 

Friday was registration. We spent the day meeting up with old friends and meeting new ones. Sarah and Ian from SF, favorites of mine were hanging out with Casey from Portland. We drank some beers at Cal's, a bar I visited when I had an canceled flight and a day to kill on my way to KyotoLOCO 2005. It was this dingy old dive in downtown, right below some elevated train tracks. It was a remnant from a ancient era, dirty, wino infested, beautiful.

We rolled over to registration and put away 4 pitchers. Fergus Tanaka showed up. He had a fire in his eyes. He was hungry for this race, I could tell. I had heard that he had cleaned up his act and trained for this really hard. I was well on my way to wasted, so I went with some people to the Blue Frog, a bar and grill right next door to a larger messenger company. They we doing karaoke. I sang something, drank something, smoked something, then puked then sang something else. It was time for some other party to start and I followed some randoms over there. There was a bunch of people.  I was sobering up a little. Mike Dee was there slapping people for stupid shit and generally kicking up dust. Roxanne Steffek was there all pregnant and radiant. I has talking to her, holding a half drank warm tall-boy. I told Roxy, "Get away from me!" I shook the beer out all over me and a bunch of other people. I guess it pissed some people off.

The next morning I realized that all of the fluid that I had ingested the day prior had been booze. I was a little rough around the edges to say the least. We headed out to the race. I casually rode the course stopping to say hello Kevin from Cog Magazine. I found out that the qualifier was an  hour and a half long, two manifest ordeal. No thanks. It wasn't clear if sprints were to be that day or the Sunday. I hung out drinking water and smoking weed, shooting the shit with a bunch of friends that I hadn't connected with in a while. Eventually they announced that sprints were to be tomorrow and that meant I could relax.