It’s been a couple of weeks now, so I’ve already forgotten how I first met Dylan Weiss. Actually, that’s only sort of true. I found him while searching out more information on Ted Bishop, the author of my current favorite riding book, “Riding with Rilke.” Dylan had done an interview with him, and it kind of went from there.
Dylan has one of the coolest jobs in the world. He gets paid to make TV shows about fast cars and fast bikes. I think there’s more to it than that but I lost interest after hearing those parts. I mean really, what else is there to know.
Being the mid-life softie that I am, his story about how he got into both bikes and the business turns on his dad, Milt . . . a figure who shows up later in the drama as a co-producer with Dylan of Twist The Throttle, a very tasty video magazine about great bikes and great manufacturers.
Somewhere in the middle of all this Dylan manages to pen a widely regarded blog called Twisting Asphalt and to correspond with me about all manner of bike and non-bike related foolishness (Dylan has something about the word twisted that bears investigating).
I have broken this interview into two parts. There’s just too much good stuff here to spatter about in one posting. So come back tomorrow for the rest.
To the unwashed, doing documentaries about cars and bikes sounds like the coolest “job” there is. You say on your blog that it just sort of happened. Tell the story of how it happened.
Well, for starters I feel very fortunate to do what I do for a living – you’re absolutely right creating documentaries about cars and motorcycles is a cool gig and I love it. Right now I can’t imagine doing anything else. Of course it’s harder work then most realize, and there’s all kinds of ups and down that go with it and that the camera never catches, but I’d be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that it’s also a very satisfying job… Certainly I think so and I’m very thankful for it.
How I got started? Hmmm… Well, there’s a very long-winded and highly convoluted version of how I got in the business, but the short version goes something like this:
Growing up my father spent many years working in the broadcast television news world and as a child, I watched from the sidelines as he got to experience one incredible event after another. For example he was there when The Berlin Wall fell, he covered Presidential debates, Elections, basically all the big-ticket moments in our world history over a twenty plus year span – And I thought that was the coolest thing in the world, to in effect be a bystander to history as it happened.
As I got older my attraction to ‘Journalism’ as a profession itself didn’t really take hold – partially because I’m a terrible speller and at the time I didn’t really like writing, which of course is highly ironic since these days I spend a great deal of time writing, both for work and for “Twisting Asphalt”.
Over time what I began to realize was that I was far more attracted to the medium then the news itself. The idea that you could affect an audience emotionally with moving pictures was fascinating to me – and frankly still is. Eventually my interest in visual arts led me to The University of Southern California and more specifically The Cinema-Television department. It was a great place to immerse yourself in possibilities and dreams. Then a year after graduating, after working at a few different production companies around LA, I took a long ride up the California coast and had an epiphany of sorts, where I realized that within the vastness of the visual medium, what I really wanted to do was create documentaries.
So that was the moment I jumped out of the airplane, so to speak, and started Cry Havoc Productions.
Looking back I guess television and things with engines were intertwined from the start! Of course I was fairly naive about a lot of things at the time, particularly related to starting your own business – which is much harder then you’d think it should be – but I was also aware that I didn’t want to look back on my life down the road and say, “Why didn’t I have the balls to try going after my dreams?” That seemed like a much more dangerous proposition in the long run then giving something a go when I had absolutely nothing to lose.
The part that just ‘sort of happened’ on its own was the blending of my interest in cars and motorcycles with my passion for the visual arts. There certainly wasn’t any great master plan involved, that’s for sure!
But I guess where it’s all kind of come full circle is that just like Milt [Dylan’s dad] got to experience all kinds of crazy world events during his tenure in the news business, the combination of things with engines and documentaries has offered me the opportunity to experience some really incredible things within the moto-community and it’s certainly something that I don’t take for granted…
What projects are you working on now?
Currently we’re working on another project for Discovery Turbo, this one is tentatively being called ‘Amazing Machines’ and may evolve into a weekly (or bi-weekly) look at cool parts of the automotive and motorcycle world.
So one week we might be taking out a new Supercar, the next week we might be interviewing a head designer or engineer at a car company, the following week we might be at some ‘secret’ car event… So the content will keep changing, but you’ll be able to show up every week and know you’ll see something fun. At least that’s the hope…
Long term, we’ve also got some more – perhaps let us say, ‘dedicated’ motorcycle projects in the works. I can’t really talk about them just yet, but I doubt Twist The Throttle is the last sportbike project you’ll see from us ☺
You grew up in Northern California. Talk a little bit about that.
NorCal was a fantastic place – and an odd place – to grow up. Because of Milt’s network news gigs I basically spent most of my childhood moving. Until I entered High School we moved to something like nine different states over a fifteen-year span. Northern California was the first time I ever got to put down ‘roots’ as they say, so that in and of itself will always make it a special place for me.
But NorCal was also a unique place to grow up because it’s a great microcosm for the entire United States – you can literally find a group that’s passionate about just about anything. There are so many cultures and interests and bizarre things going on – well, in certain areas like Berkeley or parts of SF anyway – that it’s a really rich landscape to be exposed to and one that I think helps you to understand that there are always multiple points of view on things.
Do you remember your first bicycle? Is there a good story about it?
Can’t say that I have a great specific memory of my first bicycle, other then it was bright lime green and from the day I got to the day I got rid of it, what I really lusted after was a dirt bike!
When did you first ride a motorcycle?
Well, Milt rode motorcycles throughout my childhood, so my first ride was actually on the back of his bike. I think maybe at the time it was a Honda Magna, but I’m not 100% sure… I should probably ask him!
The first time I piloted a bike myself was just outside of Danbury, Connecticut. Milt had surprised me for my birthday with a little Honda XR80 and there was a dirt bike ‘park’ in Danbury where it was legal to ride off-road on public land. And that’s where I first learned to ride.
I don’t know if that ‘park’ is still there or not, but what I certainly remember was dropping that bike a dozen times before I got the hang of the letting out the clutch and giving it enough gas at the same time! It was a messy, dirty, fantastic first day, and it left a smile that lasted for a month… Easily one of the best days of my life…
You’ve had four Ducatis. Is that correct? Have there been other bikes?
Actually five Ducatis – which is great for the passion but not so good for the wallet as it turns out!
My first road bike was a well-worn BMW R1100RS with ABS that was still running strong even though it had over 100,000 miles on it. After growing up dirt biking, I had more or less stopped riding throughout high school and college. But after college, I wanted to get back into it. So I took the MSF basic rider course and at that time Milt had been riding Beemers for a while, so it seemed logical to look for one as well. Plus he felt very strongly that if I was going to learn how to ride then it was only prudent to start out on a bike that had ABS. That’s about the only ‘fatherly rule’ he really ever had with me when it came to things with engines and frankly I’m not sure it was really about the brakes, but rather that he wanted to make sure that I didn’t go out and get a full-blown liter bike as my first machine. (As an odd side story: After such a big fuss over the ABS, the only place I ever engaged it was at Laguna Seca during my first track day – go figure).
After the R1100RS, came my first ‘new’ bike, which was an R1100S. Like everyone else on the face of the planet, I had always lusted after the Ducati 916 and this seemed like BMW’s answer – at least from an aesthetic standpoint. Bought it at a great little mom and pop Beemer dealer in Torrance called Marty’s – unfortunately I think they’ve since gone out of business, but they were a fantastic shop. It was the kind of small shop that showcased what’s good in the motorcycle world.
Then we went off to shoot a documentary for the Fine Living Network on BMW’s 80th Anniversary in Bavaria, and we ending up taking a side trip to Bologna and the Ducati Factory – where we shot some additional footage that eventually became the foundation for the “Ducati: A Story of Passion” doc that we did for Pro Italia, which is a Ducati dealership in Glendale, and Ducati North America.
In retrospect this was probably the most expensive shoot I’ve ever been on because after meeting the folks at the factory and seeing the passion that they have for the brand and the sport of riding, I came back and immediately found myself thinking, ‘well I’ve got a morning to kill, why not go kick tires?’, which as we all know is the first step towards convincing yourself that you need to buy a new bike!
And that basically started my fascination with Ducati. My first Duc was a great little 749 base model that had the unfortunate luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, where it was stolen. If there’s any lower feeling in the world then coming home and realizing that your prized motorcycle has just been lifted, I don’t know what it is. Perhaps it was because I was just coming off the BMW, but the 749 always sticks in my mind as an amazingly nimble machine. Hands down I’d tell you it out handled any of the 999’s that I’ve had. The 749 was also a special bike because it coincided with the start of Twisting Asphalt, so all the ups and downs of owning became fodder for blogging…
After the 749, came an ‘04 999. That ‘9 then had the misfortune of a major oil leak problem that first appeared after a track day (not so fun to live through, but good material for a blog).
Thankfully Ducati North America really stepped up with the kind of customer support that as an owner you want to believe is possible, but most of the time you rarely see in the real world. So that’s where the ’05 999 era began, and to this day there’s no more comforting feeling for me then saddling up on that bike and hitting the canyons. It’s the bike on which I came of age as a rider.
Today I ride a 1098S and an ST3, while the ’05 999 has found a home in Milt’s garage!
Continued here . . .
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Tags: DylanWeiss, Milt Weiss, Discovery Turbo, Cry Havoc Productions, Twisted Asphalt, Ducati, 749, 916, 999, 1098S, ST3, Sportbike Documentary
[...] called Twist the Throttle, and it’s just fabulous. As always, you can read the entire interview at midliferider. Here’s a snip. It