Friday, July 23, 2010

Wagon

“Suck it, commuter!” someone yelled with that hearty sense of abandon that only comes from riding in a pack of bicycles that includes a bike trailer-mounted Conestoga wagon, the realization of one of those ideas that comes to a person on a solo bike tour, and which pays dividends as a keg hauler on the Oregon trail, or in this case, something akin to that classic adventure, missing, thankfully, dead oxen, but including, in exchange, fireworks, missiles at the moon, and countless opportunities for hunting game other than bison and probably even some likelihood of dying from dysentery, although no one, thankfully, succumbed, at least during my portion of the ride.

I broke two of my time-honored rules; first, declining to swim in the lake when the opportunity presented itself (due to the chill wind blowing off the water), and second, riding my bike even though I was unable to unlock it (tired old eyes leaving the Knarr prevented me from lining up the combination numbers just right; I remain in debt to my more youthful companion who was able to do so for me), but still everything turned out all right in spite of not making it to either the outdoor big screen presentation of the Tour de France nor the end-of-the-evening festivities with fire celebrating the completion of the long and lonesome trail.

My spoke card tombstone reads “Here lies Professor Dave, died of trampled by oxen” which, as it turns out, seems pretty accurate for how I felt this morning, although thanks to the healing powers of caffeine and sugar, I’m ready now another expedition, especially if it were to include the puffy pink sunset of last night’s adventure.

I drank my beer from a giant-sized can of Rainier, which made me seem like a midget when holding it, but when refilled from the covered wagon, I felt as tall and strong as those pioneers must have when they arrived successfully in Oregon City.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Wholesome

You can have your Las Vegas penthouse suite with piles of cocaine and hoards of strippers giving free lap dances to anything with a pulse, or your exclusive downtown New York City nightclub packed with free-flowing champagne, caviar, and supermodels, or even your more traditional forms of amusement, like sitting around the great table after the hunt, savaging huge drumsticks of meat, throwing the bones to the dogs, and playing slap n’ tickle with the serving wenches; but for me, when it comes to good, clean fun, nothing beats riding bikes with a bunch of familiar faces to the local lake on a clear summer night, quaffing quaffables and munching pretzel rods, then swimming around in the surprisingly warm water while the sun slowly sets over the city and you bask in the glow that emanates not only from the exterior world but also from the interior experience that lasts so long you can still feel it the next morning just by sitting still and letting the images wash back through your mind’s eye.

Bungie-jumping, Formula One racing, hang-gliding from the Golden Gate Bridge: they’re all great to be sure, but in my experience—as with the aforementioned celebratory thrills—all pale in comparison to floating on your back in the water, paddling forward to the rocky shore for another swig on your beer, while folks stand around waist-deep in the wet sharing stories and telling lies and eventually have to have chicken fights complete with costume-chicken head; and while I’m sure Brad and Angelina, not to mention Barack and Michelle, would really have liked to see me at their party on Air Force One, frankly, there was no place on earth I’d have rather been; and I’m sure that had they had the opportunity to pedal and swim around like I did last night, they’d have understood why I had to turn down their invitation.

That fun is fun to be sure, but nothing like this.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Bull

There’s a puzzle in the field of philosophy of mind about the metaphysics of physical sensations; the thought experiment that illustrates it is to imagine what’s referred to as a “super Stoic,” someone who claims to be feeling something—intense physical pain, for example—but who doesn’t show any outward signs of it; the question then is whether we can really say that the person is having a bona fide sensation.

Conversely, we might also wonder whether exhibiting the relevant behaviors means that the person is feeling the feeling—and that’s what it was for me, at first, in this year’s edition of the Running of the Bulls, the now traditional dress-up clusterfuck bike ride and generalized shenanigans sometime in mid-July.

Visually, it was stunning: Westlake Center taken over with about fifty idiots in white pants and shirts with red sashes along with a handful of bulls, including Mr. Leggohead.

“What is this?” asked all the pedestrians as we rode by, ululating and singing. But how do you answer when you have no idea yourself? “Running of the bulls!” someone would shout back matter-of-factly.

But what amazed me most was how the fun just gets inside you after you act like it for a while and by the time I was reminded never to pass up an opportunity to jump in the lake on a hot night there was no doubting either the internal reality nor outward expression of this bliss. The endless sunset alone would have been worth the price of admission.

Even the frat-boy bar hell had moments of pure poetry, in particular, the most lugubriously delicious exhibition of mechanical bull-riding you’ve ever seen and street-dancing, within and al fresco.

And then, because the bulls were still running, the prey kept on riding, for singing and French fries where all you had to do was just open your eyes and look around and you’d know for certain that fun was being felt inside and out.