Friday, October 30, 2009

Tutu

photo by joeball
After circling around Ballard for a while, trying unsuccessfully to raise anybody via telephone, and even attempting to manifest the ride by taking an individual safety meeting at the deserted Fremont firepit, it became obvious that the only way I was going to locate the bike gang, out on its annual Halloween dress up catastrophe, was to don my own outfit and trust that the magnetic attraction of asshats on bikes in costume would inexorably pull me towards wherever the collection of characters—including, I knew, a pocketless Fred Flintstone, at least one Santa, and the inevitable Ronald McFondle—had tumbled into.

And it worked like a charm: for no sooner did I slip into my Tonya Harding tutu, than I passed by, on the Burke, near Gasworks, a rider already calling it a night, who informed me that people had already left Flowers in the U-District and were heading towards the Wild Rose on Capitol Hill.

I figured that, at barely 10:30, it was probably way too early for that plan to take hold, so I reckoned the Met, and was rewarded in my conjecture by happening upon the bike pile outside the Crescent on Olive, guarded, sorta, by Batman, Pee-Wee Herman, and the random G.I. Joe, I guess.

Inside was, among others the Crayola Crayon, the Unicorn, and scariest of all, Mini-Me Derek, complete with five o’ clock shadow and Kozmo.com bag.

Songs were sung, beers were swilled, and eventually, the anthem was shouted, which made it all the more strange that a microphone should disappear (later, I’m told, to reappear) as we made our way back on two wheels into the night.

They loved us at Dick’s—at least I thought so—and Cal Anderson park welcomed the bedraggled pack of remainders; I pedaled off towards home after sharing a nightcap with Herr Flintstone; unlike some, I’ll bet, I didn’t wake up in costume; I know, though, that magic is found when it’s on.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Margins

Wendell Berry, in his essay, “Solving for Pattern,” offers a number of criteria of what he calls a “good solution.” Among these is that a good solution has wide margins.

The idea, as I understand it, is that a good solution is one in which you can fuck up royally and still succeed. He cites the example of Earl Spencer, a farmer who managed to make his farm profitable by doing more with less, the point being that when you develop solutions whose tolerances are way too tight, too much can go wrong too easily and consequently, nothing really works.

I mention this because the lesson has been for me these last two Thursday nights that the bicycle has such margins.

Last week, for instance, a person (admittedly one like no other) could take a swan dive on metal diamonds and still be up for a night out six days later. And then, tonight, another human being can roll his bike smack into the front of a speeding car and still arrive for tipsy karaoke singing less than an hour afterwards.

Compare either of these to similarly spectacular accidents on four wheels with a motor and all of us would have been attending two funerals in the past 8 days, which isn’t to say that we all shouldn’t be saying, “Fuck! Be careful!” but which is to notice that if you’re gonna be a stupid idiot, then there’s no better place to do so than on a bike.

Put the fun between your legs, definitely, but I guess it’s worth noticing that if you’re dead, it doesn’t matter where the fun is, anyway.

The other thing that’s become patently obvious is that while homing in on and catching up to the ride is kind of like a satisfying detective novel, what I really miss is arriving at the start of things, having no real idea how they’ll turn out, but being confident that wide margins will prevail.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Sobering

In the list I’m compiling, “Everything I Need to Know I Learned in point83”, number .27 is “If you want to see a bunch of drunken assholes turn into paramedics, take a face plant.”

I’ve witnessed it happening twice now in person and have read evidence in other instances, my point being it’s a reliable principle, and no longer needs to be tested empirically, okay?

The predominant experience for me this evening was how fine it was to see faces, familiar faces in familiar places, faces I like to look at, faces to be seen.

At first…

Everyone was on their worst behavior:

I showed up at the ride just as it was getting kicked out of a bar more or less on purpose. We split up all over the place on the way to the Knarr, even though both Derrick and white Scott (welcome home!) were wearing dresses.

One of the notions I recall bandying about was the valuable function of just getting drunk sometimes; to do so has got to be an element in the human condition; I’ve seen it lots of times and shared a case for it with Ben; we are allowed that.

The sobering thought for me is how much more important are the connections among us than the differences between us.

I guarantee that all the shit any of us were fighting over, either in our heads or with one another or both, is set aside when you see somebody wreck on their bike, or even, as in my case, come upon the crash to be right there witnessing that transformation I mentioned above.

We all know what really matters—even though we require misfortune to notice—is simply being there when we really need each other.

We had to call for an ambulance; I like living in a city in a state where that happens; it’s all going to be okay, but only because we’re in it together.

No on I-1033.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Minds

One of the standard chestnuts in philosophy is the so-called “problem of other minds,” a puzzle which emerges when you notice that, on purely empirical grounds, it’s impossible to be certain that anybody other than you has subjective mental states.

It’s possible, in other words, that the people around you are just zombies or robots and that unlike you, they only exhibit behavior without the attendant psychological motivation that drives your own actions. It’s a kind of solipcism, the view that all that exists in the universe is oneself and one’s perceptions, a position that Bertrand Russell is reported to have been amused by when, at some party, a lady said to him that she was a solipcist and was surprised there weren’t more people like her.

In any event, one of the typical responses to the problem of other minds is to address it by analogy: since other people exhibit the same behaviors you do and since you yourself have mental states, it’s reasonable to conclude—even in the absence of empirical proof—that they do, too.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that it’s clear my fellow cyclists are not zombies or robots because they, like me, appear to enjoy riding from one end of town to another and then back again the other way in order to drink beer, tell harrowing stories of consciousness-altering gone wrong, and even throw peanuts at one another.

And because I would eschew that last practice, preferring instead to stand outside and appreciate the irony of a deserted warehouse with a sign on it reading something like “Industrial Revival,” I’m compelled to conclude that something has to be going on inside their heads, too.

So, what’s kind of amazing, when you think about it, is how even with all those different internal experiences happening simultaneously, you can all end up, via bicycle, in the same place, at the same time, experiencing the same thing, only different.