[August 1996]

<!-- If you live in New England, you no doubt know David Muggleston — even if you're not from NE, there's a pretty good chance you've at least heard of him (probably from the hate mail in Ride magazine). He's the man behind Welfare 'zine, Ampersand clothes, and Low Fat videozine. So enough with an intro; here's Dave... -->

Let's start with the basic stuff, like how long you've been riding and stuff.

Well, I'm 25 years old, I've probably been riding for 12 or 13 years.

How did you get into 'zines, Ampersand, videos?

Actually, it was becuase I saw Wire 'zine — no, it wasn't Wire, it was the last issue of Radazine that you were handing out at a King of Flatland contest. And I kinda looked at it and thought "I could probably do this." And a couple weeks later we had a little 8-page Team Welfare #1. That was really horrible, but it was fun; just kept doing it after that. Ten issues later I finally learned how to halftone photos (laughter).

Whatever happened to Team Welfare?

Mike Boyd drives around in a truck and works for $8.50 an hour and has unprotected sex with underage women, the Shattuck brothers smoke a lot of pot, and Mike Clary still stinks it up and I don't know what else. And Jesse Hicks rides flatland and I ride everything else.

So what about Ampersand? Are you still doing it?

Yeah, kinda. I don't know, I might stop. I just wanted to some t-shirts, and I like that name. Unfortunately a lot of people don't get the name. If you buy a shirt that says Poor Boy or Little Devil the name itself is more humerous. But I figured I'd have a more intellectual name, but I think it hasn't worked out as well as I thought. But a lot of kids around here like it.

So you're saying that riders just don't get it.

I don't know. The looks on people's faces when they see the logo shirts usually tells me that they don't get it. I don't know. I'll probably end up making more shirts as Ampersand, but I might have a couple new things up my sleeve, so you better watch out.

Do you still have Steve Swope and the Hoffman team after you for that fake interview you did (in Welfare #10)?

I don't know what they're doing. I don't know if they're after me or not. I don't think that they ever actually were, it'd probably be bad business. I guess Jared Souney gave Steve Swope some "Mug for President" stickers (laughter) and Steve probably wasn't that amused. But we sure were.

Are you psyched that Kiss is touring again?

Uh, I dunno. The only reason I'm not psyched is because I know I'm not going to get tickets and I'm not going to be around when they're around, 'cause we're gonna be on this road trip and everything.

So what's this, you quit your job and now you're gonna be touring the country?

Yeah.

In the Reznormobile?

Yeah. We've spent the last 6,000 miles shuttling between Memphis, Boston, and Newburgh, NY — well, actually Cornwall on the Hudson, NY. Now we're about to leave Cornwall on the Hudson and we're going to Rochester for Tony Zanni's jam. After that we're going to Seattle, maybe to Alaska but probably not, then go south to California and actually see some things we haven't seen before.

So this isn't for riding.

Well, I'm trying to stop at all the riding things I can along the way, but since we know so few people out on the West Coast and Theresa doesn't ride or anything it's hard to keep it strictly a riding tour. It's just a real loose arrangement, and I figure the riding I miss out on over the summer I'll make up for in the fall when I still have three more months left off from my job.

Are you going back to IDX (his old job)?

Well, I don't really want to. Not that IDX is a bad company or anything, I just didn't like what I did; it was kinda boring. But if I run out of money or something, then it's probably a good thing to go back to. But it probably wouldn't be worth going back because I'd have to go through the whole interview process again and probably have to go buy a bunch of new clothes and after a month realize that I really didn't want to do it. So I'm hoping that maybe I can stick it out, work as a temp or bike messenger, or just not work at all and live off savings, and find out what I'm gonna do after that.

What's the craziest road trip you've taken?

Uh, probably this one, but the trip that I took with Jim Dellavalle, Mouse and Mark Florek ranks in second. Mouse asked me a long time before if he could go to Florida with me 'cause no one ever wants to give him a ride (laughter). And then Jim said that he wanted to go, and I gifured Mark would be the best addition. Those three people are just all completely nuts, and it was a lot of fun.

How can Florek take traveling with you all the time? I know Brian's vowed never to do any more long-distance travelling with you guys after the Chicago trip.

Well, I think Brian...

You scared the hell out of him.

Brian's scared of my driving. But Mark Florek actually likes to try and get me pissed off so I drive bad (laughter). I don't know if Brian was noticing all the subtle things that Mark was doing to get me to drive that fast, but Mark knows all the buttons to push. So that's why we were going 90 mph ten feet behind a semi truck, and Brian was really scared (laughter).

Sure, who wouldn't be?

But the Reznormobile has air bags (laughter).

Any final words or anything?