Soundtrack

When the face-melting volume of tehJobies bicycle-mounted disco first kicks in, it quickly becomes the ride’s soundtrack, the music behind the scene, even one as strangely juxtaposed as thirty Caucasians on bikes rolling through the city’s industrial wasteland to the throbbing beat of the Geto Boys’ “Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta.”

But eventually, the pulsating vibrations so wrap you up the separation between soundtrack and scene is so flattened that it becomes one thing: you pedal to the beat but it pedals you, as well, and in spite of the fact that what’s playing might be Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out for a Hero,” it’s hard to tell where the music starts and individual personal identity begins.

So, when the tunes are turned off for a maintenance break as you congregate on a concrete platform over the river at the city’s heart, it takes a few moments to find yourself and you feel, at first, like Presidential candidate Ross Perot’s running mate, Admiral Stockdale, who, I learned last night, infamously opened his remarks at a televised Vice-Presidential debate by asking, “Who am I?  Why am I here?”

But soon enough, you’ve got your land legs back and you’re learning about the history of the shipping container and wondering aloud whether there might be other values to be stressed than just efficiency in the world of maritime trade.

Then however, the freshly-repaired sound system roars back to life and even the most recalcitrant of dancers can hardly help stepping out despite the fact that a fly on the wall glancing at those getting low might wonder briefly whether he’d landed at a park in Seattle or bar in San Francisco.

Fortunately, though, the beer runs out and the ride stumbles to the favorite watering hole of visiting groomsmen where Reverend Derrickito can find his new calling as a pitcher-swilling preacher for whom the word “God” is music—since every time it’s uttered, he takes another swig.