Dan Michael – The man from the future
Recently I got a chance to sit down and speak to a man from the future. That’s not the most exciting part of this post. The man’s name is Dan. That’s not heaps of excitement either, but he really is from the future. Not like John Connor (at least I don’t think so. I don’t know that much about his homeland)- but like 16 hours ahead of me, or some ridiculous shit like that.
Dan is in Melbourne, Australia and I’m in Los Angeles, California.
At any rate, it was interesting to talk to someone on Monday when I was still enjoying Sunday.
Though separated by time and space, we are connected by the love of motorcycles and art. I love those two things and Dan is very good at those two things. Since I have a show called Creative-Riding about creative motorcyclists, it only made sense to seek Dan out and have him on the show.
Interestingly, I found Dan when I decided to give Google+ a go. I tried to figure out the ‘collections’ feature, and needless to say, once I found Dan’s collection, what else was there?
Daily Bikers
He’s a curator and collector of some of the best motorcycle related pictures and news on the ‘teh internets’ as he says jokingly.
Dan has also owned nearly one of everything under the sun, and it was great fun talking to him about his life on two-wheels.
And what a life it has been!
Dan has been on motorbikes since the tender age of four. While you were wetting your pants and playing with action figures, Dan was skittering through the trails and tumbling through bushes on his PW80.
He’s steadily graduated to the fairly exotic and pricey world of BMWs and Ducatis, but still enjoys a jaunt on his DRZ now and then, and enjoys drawing all sorts of bikes even still.
A life event a couple of years ago helped to solidify his decision about what was too expensive when it comes to bikes. He’s overcome and accomplished a lot of things in his life, and I think I agree with him – you only live once. You might as well live full throttle. Enjoy what you have before it’s gone, and ride like hell while you can.
He’s a bonafide artist and I think I read somewhere that he has a masters degree in digital design. As a person from an artistic family with motorcycling roots, it makes sense that his two passions would eventually cross paths and forge a trail of their own.
Below is some of Dan’s favorite artwork, and some of mine as well. It should also be your favorite artwork now, and you can actually own a piece of it. Hop over to www.DailyBikers.com and have a look-see at all the goodies that your hard-earned dollars can buy!
If you have ever wondered what it must be like to draw one of these beauties, you can set aside years of your life trying, or you can listen to the show and hear Dan talk about the trials and tribulations involved, not to mention the massive amount of time, patience and skill that it takes to create a piece of moto-centric art .
We also talk about what bikes he’s owned in his time on earth, and what his favorite bikes are to ride and illustrate.
He uses cool words like “clappers” and crazy phrases such as “it goes like a cut cat”. It was an amazing conversation (on his part) and I asked my usual poignant questions like, “does the toilet water run the other way round?” and “can a kangaroo really rip your balls off?”
I know… right on par for me.
At any rate, you deserve a reprieve from my blathering and non-sensical ramblings, and you can actually read some really insightful stuff about bikes, gear, culture, travel and riding – all over at www.DailyBikers.com.
You can also find him here:
on Google+
Twitter @DailyBikers
Pinterest
Etsy
and www.Ducatiblog.com.au
