Friday, April 30, 2010

Ellipsis

My evening started out swell: a lovely spring evening for a ride along the lake and then, outside the NiteLite, I got to assist a damsel in distress—this young woman, Kate, had her car blocked in by a pickup truck with only centimeters to spare, but with a little direction and some encouragement on my part, was able to inch back and forth and eventually drive off, so I was feeling very expansive by the time I got to Westlake Center for all the bikes and familiar faces, although names kept escaping me all night long.

We rode through the hobo trail from Beacon Hill to SODO with, remarkably, no mechanicals and not a single broken collarbone although we did kinda bust the balls of the somewhat suspicious-looking electrical contractors who were waiting by the end of it.

And then it was all healthy tall people and a former student at Hooverville, where I guess we blended in enough that nobody wanted to throw us out before we left and (this is where the order of things begins to trail off) went for a spin around the Ghettodrome where they did yell at us to GET OUT OF THE BOWL, although earlier, I guess it was, we woke up the guys staying on the sailing ships on Lake Union and (I’m going to believe) charmed them into letting someone stroll on deck (although I could be completely wrong about that).

Then dot, dot, dot including the Nickerson into which I didn’t go and for me, anyway, a ride back downtown for a nightcap and the opportunity, in keeping with the evening’s opening theme, to share two of my last four dollars with a “non-aggressive” panhandler.

I’m sure other stuff went on without me—as it does for all—but that’s the thing: on a bike, in the spring, here and there round and round all night, even the ellipsis gets to feel like an exclamation point.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Losser

When I was in philosophy grad school, one of my fellow eggheads, in response to a lousy grade on a paper or an embarrassing presentation in a seminar or something, announced to us all, “I am a total loser, L-O-S-S-E-R!”, thereby coining the term, “Losser,” which became the rallying cry description for all of us as we repeatedly failed in all the myriad and humiliating ways that not only philosophy grad students, but probably human beings the world over fail again and again in our personal, professional, and avocational lives.

Losser!

That’s what I am for bailing so early in last night’s bike ride, no more than an hour and a half into it, when it was practically still light out and hardly anyone—with the notable exception of one bloodied latecomer—was even fucked up yet. But the accumulated activities of the week past combined with aggravating concerns about responsibilities yet to be dispatched along with some real longing for home and hearth ultimately compelled me to bid an early adieu, thereby causing me to miss what turned out, I hear, to be some classic shenanigans and conflagration well into the wee hours of the morn’.

As it was, though, I did get to enjoy a spectacular commute home from Bothell under a soft blue sky and clouds so fluffy you could all but hear the opening strains of the “Simpsons” music when you looked up at it, and there were robins, and chickadees, and warblers of some type trilling in response to my squeaky chain all the way.

I thought about all sorts of things I want to do in my environmental ethics class and then wondered a lot about whether God—however you might define Him—would ever get tired about being worshipped. Wouldn’t He have the Groucho Marx-type intuition where He wouldn’t want to be God to anyone to whom He was a god?

It’s like being a loser to losers: a losser!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Infiltrator

There was a tax-day Tea-Party rally at Westlake Center last night, concurrent with the bike gang meet-up; I talked to three attendees.

First, was a guy in a suit holding a sign that said something like “Fifty State Health Care Market” whose faith in the free-market system led him to conclude that even services like medical care are best provided by some idealized notion of capitalism (which wouldn’t be possible with the solution he was advocating).

Next, I approached a fellow on stilts wearing a plastic red, white, and blue Uncle Sam costume that I can’t imagine didn’t come from China whose stated message (to me, anyway) was “I love America.”

Best, though, were these three kids, a boy about 10 and his two little sisters, 7 and 9 or so, who were holding a picture of Obama and big sign reading “Infiltrator.” It was cute how the big brother couldn’t really pronounce the word and his siblings didn’t know what it meant. I tried to get a picture of him pointing his own sign at me, with an arrow and the words “Agent Provacateur” on it, but I got distracted when their dad asked me if I was “for God” or not, before answering his own question with the observation, “Well, if you’re from Seattle, I guess not.”

I came away thinking that the Teabaggers are all just lonely people looking desperately for something to belong to and that made me love the Bikebaggers all that much more: we didn’t have to feel helpless and angry; instead, we rode bikes, played kickball and drank beer, and then, under a long twilight sky with Venus glowing brightly alongside a brand-new sliver of moon, pedaled through forest paths so close to elephants you could inhale their warm earthy scent, until we arrived at a patio with fire, that had pretty much all anyone needed, except those government-provided services anyone who pays taxes should be happy to pay for.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Question

Can an evening be memorable if you can’t remember it?

There are some parts I recall reasonably well, notably herculean efforts to start a fire in the windswept barbecue grill with pages from the Jesus pamphlet (no harm intended!) and then later, interviewing the karaoke-jay at the Boxcar and I even have some images of the Nickerson spread out before me like biofilm on my brain matter, but a lot of the specifics sort of pale in comparison to the generalized delightfulness of the afternoon that became the first daylight meet-up for me of the season and perhaps a precursor of what’s in store during the months ahead, even though it’s clear, from this morning’s perspective, that a person oughtta pace himself especially when drinks with strawberries attached are being handed around.

The advertised theme was “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash,” a phrase I only knew from the Pogues’ album title, but which I now have learned was Winston Churchill’s quote about the British naval tradition, and while nobody wore a sailor suit, I guess all three were more or less on display in one form or another.

Still, I couldn’t tell if the direct route through the alleys and wrong-way one ways straight to the wrong side of Fremont counted as the second or the third, even though there was no question about where the first came into the picture, even if it was mixed with juice and vodka and spiced with vanilla, I think.

In any case, the fancy drinks put everyone in a festive mood eventually—at least as memory serves—and the wind acted as a gentle reminder that walls are a pretty great invention, so despite the fact (or perhaps because of it) that it was the sort of night when a route from Magnolia to Magnolia went the long way around, it was also the kind you’ll certainly never forget, (no matter how hard you try) if only you could remember.