Fugit

photo by joeball

We are reminded by the perennial philosophies that all is ephemeral.

The wisdom traditions underlying Hinduism and Buddhism, for instance, tell us that all of nature—what the sages of the sacred texts known as the Vedas refer to as prakriti—is constantly in transition.  The Universe itself passes into existence in this form and then out again, before reforming once more, endlessly repeating for all eternity. 

What we take to be our self, say the Buddhists, is nothing more than a continually changing set of experiences; there is no essential, unchanging core to be found; our consciousness is a stream with no deep pool as its source we might say.

One finds this view in Western philosophy, too, going all the way back to the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus, who famously contends that all is flux; that we can never step into the same river twice; there is no “there” there that’s always there.

Still, this is little consolation in the real world when an old familiar watering hole and gathering place shuffles off its mortal coil so to speak. 

Sure, nothing lasts forever (except embarrassing pictures and posts on the internetz), but it is a little sad to note the immanent demise of a comfortable go-to spot which—although far from perfect—has sufficed as a place to congregate, toss back a few, and gather sustenance for the late-night ride home.

Of course, it’s important to keep things in perspective, which is why riding once more (for only the second time this year by my count) to an abandoned road above our fair city’s industrial sanitation heart in order to raise a conflagration from freely available combustibles is recommended. 

No doubt the day will come when there’s nothing but aluminum cans and cardboard to ignite, but for now, at least, we can be made warm by what’s at hand.

It’s literally a figurative way of seeing it; the metaphor of fire is actually what it is.

Christastrophe

Our capitalist culture goes into overdrive during the holiday season trying to convince us that happiness is to be found through consumption; we’re told by our televisions, newspapers, and internets that we’d better go out and buy the newest and flashiest gizmo or gem if we have any hope of finding something akin to bliss in our lives.

But, of course, it’s much simpler than that.

All you really need to have all the joy you’ll ever need is just a bike, some booze, and a fire.

And, I should add: several dozen acquaintances, including long-lost and far-flung heroes still recovering from jet-lag and/or nuptials, mixing together at a thoroughly over-planned checkpoint-style bicycle race inviting participants to kiss one another, imbibe thoroughly disgusting holiday-themed libations, and puff away at cannabis or nicotine all while meandering through actual old-growth forest paths within shouting distance of the illuminated downtown of a major metropolitan area.

That’s all you need, but also, for good measure, grown men roped together by a stretched innertube pedaling away from each other on children’s bikes until one or both are yanked backwards—that never gets old, no matter how many times you laugh out loud at it.

And, I suppose, it doesn’t hurt to include a lovely two-wheeled spin on car-free paths on a late fall night warm and dry enough for just a little wool flannel.

Or, in addition: a clubhouse after-party with singing and dancing and toys and gifts—some of which are quite desirable and even fairly valuable—for everyone.

That’s all it takes, really, to have a shit-eating grin on your face for something like eight hours in a row; you don’t need to go to the mall on Black Friday or max out your credit cards to be overwhelmed with the holiday spirit; you just need the Christmas miracle that is simultaneously a disaster of the very best sort, a gift that keeps on giving no matter what it takes.

Backyard

When you discover that your favorite drunken bike gang has biked to and is now standing around a fire drinking at the only outdoor firepit with its very own chimney less than a mile from your home, resistance is futile. 

Even though you’ve just finished your last teaching day of the quarter—or, perhaps because you have—and even though you’ve just gotten home after the first holiday party of the season—or perhaps because you have—there’s really no question of remaining warm and dry inside your own four walls: you bundle back up, hop on your bike and essentially roll downhill all the way to where a couple dozen of your two-wheeled acquaintances have congregated to enjoy the spirit of the season—that spirit being, of course, brown liquor mixed into store-bought eggnog for all to enjoy.

It’s lovely to be welcomed by the assembled and to enjoy the toasty glow of the cheery blaze in the outdoor fireplace; voices rise every higher as the flames are stoked from below and above; somewhat surprisingly, none of the nearby homeowners comes out with a dog to investigate; perhaps it is an early Christmas miracle after all.

Eventually, though, even the charms of the great outdoors begin to pale (either that, or the beer starts to run out) and the assembled wend their way through wooded paths that, to my way of thinking, are plenty exotic enough at this time of night and in this state of mind even if they don’t require a full-on shredding of the gnar.

And before you know it, there you are, having avoided the obvious turn-off to your own abode and by taking a route as familiar as they come, at one of the more typical last stops of the evening, where several nights are capped to songs sung by melodious strangers and exuberant acquaintances.

Of course, all this could have been avoided if only the assembled had assembled farther away.

Sugarplum

photo by joeball

Even though I’m a half-century past the age when I actually believed in Santa Claus, I still felt like a kid on Christmas morning when Jolly Old St. Nick hoisted me into his arms as if I was nothing more than a piece of holiday wrapping paper and I lay suspended in and surrounded by the sheer joyfulness and naughty glamor that is Seattle’s very own Sugarplum Elves.

Who needs hot cocoa on a cold winter’s night when there’s bike riding, booze, and multi-part harmony to keep you warm?

There weren’t a lot of miles, but there sure were lots of smiles as we pedaled from a festive Westlake Center to an art opening at a bike shop in Pioneer Square and then just a tad farther south to a magical indoor Santa’s workshop complete with a video fireplace and holiday grog all around.

And Elves! 

Singing Sugarplum Elves!

You couldn’t have wiped the grin off my face with even the Grinch’s hairy backside.

It’s easy to forget, in our modern high-tech world of instant messaging and auto-tune, that there is really nothing more entertaining than a chorus of human voices, especially when those voices emanate from the most adorable of sources, all dressed up on red and green finery and performing so close that you can, after several heartwarming libations, find yourself “singing” and “dancing” right alongside them.

"Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites and says yes;” so wrote the philosopher William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience, and I’m sure he would have appreciated the divine nature of last evening’s entertainments, augmented, as they were by coffee-flavored Jello shots among other taste treats.

Faces aglow from a short ride in the bracing night air, we tumbled into the all-enveloping warmth, and then, eventually back out into a far less chilly evening.

Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring-ting-tingling, too.  Come on, it's lovely weather for a bike ride together with you.

Hearth

Never before have I visited two bike riders’ homes on a single night out, although perhaps the second stop, at Joe’s apartment, only counts for half since I just partly recall being there.

Bob Ross onscreen, though, seemed like a reasonable cap to the evening, lovely as it was with nary a happy little cloud in sight.

There was a modicum of pedaling beforehand, washed down with lots of beer and other eye-openers and although no one stood around a fire (at least on my watch) there was plenty of warmth of both the metaphorical and literal kind to spare on what might have been the coldest night of the year so far.

My Joeball-endorsed hardware store gloves performed admirably, however, so I got to avoid the traditional cold hands component of the warm heart duo; in fact, as the night went on, the weather seemed less and less of issue; happily, in any case, I did make it home with all my accouterments intact.

The problem with internet jukeboxes, like the one at our newest watering hole, is that they offer too many choices.  Sure, it sucks to be limited to Dave Matthews and Toby Keith like at the first joint we rolled into, but when you can choose from everything from Abba to ZZ Top with fIREHOSE and Jethro Tull thrown in for good measure, it’s hard to decide.

That’s why it’s often a relief to simply follow the blinkies in front of you and give yourself over to whatever happens to show up.  If this involves invading someone’s condominium—at their invitation—to raid the liquor cabinet and test the weight limits of their rooftop deck area, so be it.

And if later in the night, it means you circle around someone else’s apartment yelling their name before shamelessly invading the premises, then that’s fine, too.

You don’t always have to make choices; sometimes what happens is the ride chooses you:

Whee!  Whee! Whee!

All the way home.

Dirt

One measure of a good night out on two wheels is how often you go off-road.

I count four: 1) Interlachen, with its impromptu tuneless bike-straddle no dance party and one beer or bowl mechanical, 2) Sweeny’s detour bulge to the Marsh Island barge, where we got to look at the moon and its reflection over the undulating waters upon which Husky Stadium balances, 3) the magic corkscrew through the Ravenna ravine to Cowen Park where at least one more libation was allotted, and 4) just a bit of turf on the turf over the actual lower-case reservoir where people bounced themselves silly before heading over to the actual upper-case Reservoir.

And a clear mark of an excellent November evening in the Pacific Northwest is how much of it you can spend outdoors without getting drenched so if you count your commute, and the ride home afterwards, that’s nearly six hours, dusk until midnight, with only half a beer inside, crisp and dry the whole time.

I admit I was unsettled at first by the prospect of following Joe, but it turned out my perfectly reasonable fear was, at least in this instance, mostly unfounded.

Sure, it seemed like there was a bit more standing around, backing up, and on-the-fly wayfaring than one might be accustomed to, but most was in a place you didn’t mind being and usually with people sharing one thing or another, so as long as we remembered, as Brother Botorff and I reminded ourselves, that whenever someone grinds your gears, it’s you doing the grinding, all was well.

I realized, afterward, that I’ve never been on a ride before with nary one of the typical ringleaders, so it just goes to show that a set is not just the members of it, but rather, it must be the routes and practices passed down somehow by accident.

Or maybe it’s just that you notice, next morning, that your tires are coated with mud.

Costumed

photo by Andrew Squirrel

Suppose you are compelled by adult responsibilities to be up an atom the next morning for “Disaster Preparedness Training;” couldn’t you just submit your Thursday night Halloween bike ride experience to earn the required certification or whatever?

After all, it’s got to count as being pretty much ready for anything the Universe throws at you to pedal alongside Ronald McFondle, Gumby Damnit, and sexy Dorothy from Oz while singing the only scary song you can remember to the catcalls and cheers of costumed revelers all around your fair city’s central waterway on All Hallow’s Eve, right?

We’re not in Kansas, anymore, Toto, that’s for sure, and, besides, who’d want to be when the alternative is a warm end to what certainly will go down as the driest October on record (or, in memory, at least) and an outdoor stop at a park that’s usually just for flowers and toddlers, not grown-ups in Flintstone’s outfits, sombreros, and high-concept dress-ups supposedly referencing online memes and inside jokes.

Kids love the spectacle, we know that, but everywhere the peculiar pelaton pedals people point and wave; merriment abounds, especially on the inside and most of all when wigs are traded and oldsters dance like hermit prospectors shooing varmints offa their grubstake.

And if being ready for emergencies is the theme, then how can it not count to have survived the sight of Shaddup Joe’s chest merkin bulging from the tiny devil outfit; surely this prepares even the most timorous out there for ducking and covering when the proverbial shit hits the fan.

There was even a legitimately spooky ride through the darkened forest and while I did see a gladiator crash on the marble raceway, there was battle armor for protection, so no harm done.

Eventually, two wheels turned into many cups in the old man bar turned post-graduate masquerade for the special occasion; having survived that, is a course on what to do when the big one hits still required?

Apotheosis

photo by joeball

According to the St. Anselm’s so-called “Ontological Argument,” God’s existence is proven since, as “that which nothing greater can be conceived,” He necessarily exists, point being that if He didn’t, then He wouldn’t be the greatest conceivable thing (lacking the property of existence).

The seminal objection comes from the monk, Gaunilo, who argues that ironically, the Ontological Argument is too powerful.  By the same logic, says Gaunilo, we could prove the existence of the greatest conceivable island, but this is absurd, and so, by a reductio, Anselm’s proof fails.

Contemporary philosopher of religion, Alvin Plantinga, responds on behalf of Anselm and contends that Gaunilo’s analogy is faulty; while “the greatest conceivable thing” is a coherent concept, the “greatest conceivable island” is not; the former is an infinite Being; the latter is something finite to which attributes can be added infinitely; the concept, therefore, is self-contradictory; thus Gaunilo’s objection fails and Anselm’s proof carries the day.

I’m not so sure, though.  Consider a different finite something with the property of being unsurpassable, “the greatest conceivable .83 ride,” for example, “the .83 ride such that no greater ride could be conceived of.”

It would feature an unseasonably dry evening, a fair amount of miles on mostly car-less roads; an endless amount of surprisingly decent marijuana passed out freely by a non-partaking Derrick Ito; not one, but two outdoor drinking spots, the second of which at a fondly-remembered hidden hobo firepit with a conflagration hot enough to give rise to several SOC Pussies; a double-EntAndre in the tree overhead; so much beer that even the Angry Hippy felt compelled to turn unopened leftovers into coal-fired depth-charges; a couple mechanicals, but no broken bones; more than enough trash-scavenged dick pics; whiskey at a favored watering hole for a nightcap; and, to top it off, Daniel Featherhead navigating the whole goddamned trip on his home-built tall bike.

It doesn’t get better; it can’t get better, and yet, remarkably, dear Gaunilo, it exists.

Shiny

The Harvest Moon, I’m told by the internet, is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, but you didn’t even need a wireless connection to glean the extra-special luminosity of the evening’s celestial orb; all you had to do was admire the Mini-Me shadow puppets it cast on the sand as the fire burned to glowing coals and the conversations rose like bona-fide fireworks bursting into patterned roses overhead.

photo by joeball

Brother Botorff directed my attention to the western skyline where the fog nestled around the distant landmass like a scarf and I couldn’t help seeing Jay Gatsby’s green light blinking across the water.

My own perspective kept being drawn to our nearest celestial satellite and even though I showed up after water bottles and growlers had already been filled with and emptied of the homegrown cordial, it was all I could do to walk a straight line under its highlighting aura.

If you ever find yourself forgetting how unusual is this weekly confluence, just ask: when was the last time you stood around a bonfire that you got to by being outside the whole time; and if that’s not enough: free beer, friendly faces, and what meteorologists call an “Omega block” to keep things dryer than any Northwesterner in October has a right to even dream of.

As I pedaled in, a couple of early-exits passed by; I wondered whether I’d be too late to enjoy the mass conflagration; not to worry: from a quarter mile away whoops and hollers became audible; soon enough, bicycles everywhere, and sand in one’s shoes come morning.

A couple times I found myself in conversations that involved reminiscences, and one common theme was how long this has been happening; eight years, more or less, to my way of experience, but somehow, it keeps surprising.

The moon, after all, has been doing its thing every month for over four and a half billion years and that still has yet to get old.

Beer

photo by joeball

The important thing is that nobody wiped out on the wet grating of the Ballard Bridge as we headed to the brewery for Brewmaster Dave’s birthday bacchanalia.

Bear with me chillens: it doesn’t matter how much of a bad-ass biker you are, even how fat your tires may be; honest to God, stay off those damn bridge-gratings in the rain.  I never want to see another flapping forehead on any of you, even Joe, who probably still wouldn’t shut up if his eyebrows were dangling over his mouth.

It was one of those nights where cycling played second fiddle to quaffing, and why not?  After all, it’s rare you get to pedal to Peddlar on the occasion of your friendly local beer maker’s birthday and choose from among an array of tasty beverages served up by cheerful, smiling folks in a room into which you can wheel your bike from the drizzle and pile it on top of those ridden by old acquaintance to trap them into staying by the weight of your rig.

And why leave when not only are their plenty of grownups to lie to, but also, you have the unprecedented opportunity to make goo-goo eyes to an actual real-live second generation Angry Hippy, who—at three months—seems to have inherited little of his father’s legendary inclination, but rather, was remarkably sanguine about the whole proceedings, even when Derrick held him in his arms.

Eventually though, the promise of even better (well, freer, anyway) beer drew the hearty from the pub and out along a trail that usually seems more familiar, but which, eventually, led to the zip-lined park where more tales were spun and dyspepsia was cultivated by intrepid souls like Fancy Fred who twirled on the merry-go-round.

I left in time to miss further weirdness that may or may not have involved flaming pizza boxes; my bike brought me safely home by midnight, avoiding one more wet bridge-grating on the way.

Chase

(This space intentionally left blank.)

Zone

photo by joeball

“Wherever you go, there you are,” say the Buddhists (or was that George Carlin?); “You’re never lost as long as you have nowhere to go,” was how some wag around the fire put it.

And why would you have any other destination in mind, anyway, when everything a person could need is right at hand: all the beer you can drink, so many marijuana cigarettes you have to smoke two at a time, a toasty fire whose banked-up coals warm your slowly-spinning body from bottom to top, conversations in every direction to dip into and sometimes nervously back away from, all presented way out in the apparent middle of nowhere under a sky filled with shy constellations peaking out between painterly clouds and not a raindrop in sight.

Of course, at some level, we’re all lost, always, all the time, wandering through a meaningless accidental Universe absurdly in search of some sort of meaning, but if it is possible to find oneself, it’s more than likely to happen in circumstances such as these: in a place that feels familiar but new, wondering how you got there and relying on the kindness of well-known strangers to lead you away, needing nothing else for the time being other than what’s in arm’s reach.

A riparian zone is defined as the area of interface between land and a river or stream; perhaps it’s in such buffers where the secrets of existence are to be found: the moving patch where rubber meets the road (or gravel); the white-hot point at which fire clings to wood; those fleeting moments when words ignite laughter; or an evening whose limbs stretch out in both directions, transitioning smoothly from summer to winter, a perfect autumn instant balanced between the billions of colors behind and the infinite grey-scale ahead.

And even though, I’ve seen it before, I still believe in wormholes and magic carpets; how else can we get so lost and still find ourselves home?

Dicks

photo by joeball

Many will bemoan the loss of tradition, complaining about the way, for instance, that the true spirit of Christmas—or Superbowl Sunday—has been forsaken; and while it’s important to venerate that which has brought us here, it’s also vital to respond to the world as it is.

We live, as the Indian philosopher Krishnamurti reminds us, in a universe of thought, and it’s easy enough to take those thoughts as the only way the universe can be and so it’s good, I think, to allow the past to influence the present without being utterly beholden to the way things went before.

We can come to appreciate, therefore, how Santa eventually usurps Jesus (at least for the time being) or over time, how fries become burgers while the commemoration of freedom remains intact.

Think of what our human brethren around the world might give for the opportunity to pedal to even one such bountiful purveyor of local delicacies; but four? 

I marveled at the way bicycles braved routes built mainly for cars and nearly fainted when our friend Mr. Double-Truck was somehow avoided by dozens of tiny two-wheelers in Wallingford.

One of the characteristic human dilemmas is to rectify the map with the territory, the plan and the present, our expectations and reality; how we do so depends upon principle.

Democracy may be, as Churchill put it, the worst form of government except for all other forms that have been tried, but that doesn’t mean it works in situations where nobody really knows what he or she wants in isolation.

That’s when it’s sometimes better to simply stipulate, based on a standard of inclusion, what comes next.   (Even if an Angry Hippy is literally begging for an alternative.)

Because, after all, it’s much easier—in keeping with the Descartes’ well-known admonition—to change ourselves rather than the world at-large.

And in the end, if you get to swim one last time in this summer’s lake, you do.

Forecast

photo by joeball

There are lots of good reasons to miss a ride—illnesses, wedding anniversaries, band practices—but in my experience, the weather is almost always a poor excuse.

Which means that deciding to stay home based on merely the forecast of inclement conditions is surely a road to regret.  Moreover, it’s remorse of the worst kind: the type that emanates from something you didn’t do rather than something you did. 

After all, it’s one thing to feel bad the morning after for carrying on the Nutpunch Park tradition of nutsacking a relative stranger in the balls, but it’s another experience altogether to be kicking yourself (in the nuts, no doubt) for missing the opportunity to be there enjoying lightning strikes and bulletballs just because you looked at colored maps on the internet earlier in the day.

Apparently, pretty much everyone knows that the bark of the Douglas Fir tree is resistant to fire, but it seems there are some folks who forget that human beings are not made of sugar and while—as any Angry Hippy will attest—rust may never sleep, it moves slowly enough that even a sustained drenching is unlikely to result in the immediate destruction of a steel bike much less one constructed of aluminum or carbon fiber.

Elsewhere, thunderbolts skipped off the helmets of motorcyclists, but on the favored platform suspended above the Superfund site not a single one of Zeus’ throws hit its mark, which I realize has nothing to do with rubber-soled shoes but I like to believe so, anyway.

And should you think you’ve seen it all, here’s a surprise: a locked gate and the unprecedented teamwork of two-wheelers, including burly touring rigs, being passed over barbed-wire fences, so no one, not even drunken nutpunchers are left behind.

Sure, the final spin home is drenching, but at this point, you’re feeling very little pain (and only a modicum of regret, just as you might have predicted had predictions been predicted.

Dive

photo by joeball

It’s as corny as a Celine Dion song sung by a unicorn on a rainbow, but it’s true: sometimes it’s not about where you go, but how you get there.

Greenlake is as mundane a destination as there is, but when you arrive via a spin around the Ghettodrome, a climb over Queen Anne, and a thrilling descent which takes you across the Aurora Bridge in the so-called “bus lane,” it’s as special as anyone could hope for and at least as unusual as nachos in the park, an experience that in more than half a century on the planet, I’ve never ever experienced before.

Advice is, almost by definition, trite, but I offer it to myself on these occasions and am reminded never to pass up a chance to swim when it presents itself.

Forty eight hours before, you’re floating on your back under a full moon in the Caribbean Sea, but paddling about in a city park pond is equally glorious in its own way since, among other things, it doesn’t require twelve hours of travel time in aluminum containers but rather, is reached simply by snaking through one’s hometown astride a steel two-wheeler.  It may not be a glowing turquoise paradise, but all the elements are there for a live to be lived as fully as possible, hackneyed and pedestrian as that sentiment surely is.

But, of course, it’s not all old hat: pretty soon you’re arriving by bike at a splendid old local watering hole you don’t ever recall drinking at before, and it’s even got a self-styled “deck” in the back where Soccer moms strategize about how to get their kids to school and ballet lessons before being descended upon by a dozen or so beer drinkers who laugh loudly enough to drown out their conversation and earn the friendly ire of the joke-telling bartender who runs the joint.

And then you’re riding home, one more destination whose journey is that, too.

Leap

photo by joeball

The important thing is that no one broke a neck—not their own, nor anyone else’s.

Few things, I expect, would put a damper in one’s evening more effectively than having to see your friend or acquaintance hauled from a lake, limp and bleeding, and reduced to eating through a straw in a wheelchair for the rest of his or her life.

Fortunately, (and perhaps somewhat surprisingly), there was none of that, in spite of the slipperiness of the dock, the wonkiness of the ramp, and the intoxicated enthusiasm of riders as they hurtled towards the water on a brakeless BMX bike that wobbled and fishtailed on the plastic wood walkway.

My heart was in my mouth more than once as I could envision wheels sliding sideways and heads hitting corners, but instead of worst fears being realized, it was all good fun until someone loses an eye—and since no one did, “Woo-hoo!  Spring Break!” (To quote the departing Dr. Tittlefitz, who, if I recall correctly, didn’t cycle off the ramp, but who is pretty much doing the same thing in his life as he leaps headlong into the Midwest, Godspeed, sweet prince.)

Presumably, mad math skills could compute trajectories of flying two-wheelers, but even the most innumerate among us can calculate that bikes, beer, (a few) costumes, sun, swimsuits, and peer pressure will add up to times that might require something more like 3-D IMAX to really capture on film.

We may all be living the best action-adventure buddy-comedy neo-noir musical extravaganza ever and it’s in surround sound smell-o-vision, too.   No one knows how it’s going to end, but it seems like a scene where the hero rides his trusty steel horse off into the sunset ought to be in there somewhere.

Flames shot out of the top of the chimney at Gasworks and the shelter smoldered but didn’t ignite.

That’s some Oscar-winning performance, the role of a lifetime, no dry eyes in the house.

Grapple

photo by joeball

All I ask is that I never get inured to this nonsense, that I never fail to be utterly gobsmacked by the over-the-top inanity of it all, and that I’m always giddy and gleeful a the gleeful giddiness glowing before me in rainbow Technicolor when Everclear is mixed, slides are slipped, and vegan Jell-O in a kiddie pool provides the perfect venue for what turns out to be some pretty serious rasslin’ when bike nerds in bathing suits go at it for real.

If you ever catch me yawning, rolling my eyes, or making comparisons to previous events when this crazy shit is going down, I respectfully ask for a kick in the pants or possibly a nutpunch just so I never forget that it’s unforgettable every time—even if many of the participants will have trouble remembering the details afterwards.

Any of it would be more than enough which is why all of it can almost seem insufficient, but only for an instant until you recall that nowhere else in the Universe is this commonplace or expected, much less unprecedented and unbelievable.

Those kids on skateboards flying down Second Avenue among the disco bike horde had their peak moment and that was only 2 minutes into things.

People come out of many a woodwork to witness for themselves that such hijinks exist, but it’s those sights you can’t unsee—like naked bowling balls hurtling down the plastic-coated lawn or headlocked hillbillies thrashing like alligators in chunky green goo—that are hardest to believe your eyes over.

Seattle has a long tradition of Seafair shenanigans, and I like to think such escapades as these fall squarely into that exalted history; we may not be pirates “kidnapping” beauty queens from local diners, but surely future archeologists unearthing plastic bits and bike grease will have to conclude that the local customs were certainly uncustomary, in spite of the fact that you can almost, over time, become accustomed to them.

Classic

photo by joeball

Hopes fulfilled.   Expectations exceeded.  Sunset and moonrise.

And, I swear, a tailwind in both directions.

All you have to do is stick with it, keep pedaling, and yet another outdoor venue appears, complete with its very own celestial moment, whether that’s  our favorite local star lapping up the lazy waters of the hometown lake as it sinks behind the nearest ridge of our fair city or the dirty toe of a moon sliding sideways across the western horizon like a bouncing ball in the cartoon musicals.

You won’t find any of this in the palm of your hand, but it’s right there for the grabbing on your bike.

This one was a summer classic from the start: Second Avenue en masse; grandeur over the city bridge; shadow cyclists animating beside you on all the fences.

There was tunnel-yelling at the top and bottom of your lungs, too.

I laughed aloud at the absurd beauty of the Lake Washington crossing: that frog-like sound the cars’ wheels make an accompaniment to water-skeeters on two wheels. 

Try to capture THAT on your device; you have to make a photograph with your heart instead and even that’s just a snapshot of the comprehensive 3-D Surround-Sound reality.

The Island’s marble raceway over and over; how many corkscrews can a corkscrew screw if a corkscrew can screw screws?

Perfect timing for the endo-less beach arrival: sunlight gilding the waters for plenty of time to get wet and pruny while emulating otters.

Some aerobics, then provisions, then another beach, this one complete with a folksinger, are you kidding me?

Consensus achieved and the lights twinkled and blinked westward, still in shirtsleeves after eleven.

You can cite the particulars of what becomes a classic most: miles ridden, beaches taken, strokes swum, beers consumed, jokes told, lies believed, overhead orbs admired, but it still fails to tell the whole story. 

For that, you need to be there embodied, dripping and squirming, like a newborn, born anew.

Bullish

Photo by joeball

“Nothing lasts forever” the Queen song tells us, but it seems to me that there are some memories at least, that must be—for all intents and purposes—everlasting and eternal.

I know, for instance, that the image of nearly three score cyclists, resplendent in dress whites with red sashes and bandanas, clustering into a candy-cane colored peleton while ascending from the evening’s starting point will abide in collective unconscious forever.

And I’m sure that the mental snapshot of the same dozens of riders mingling by the water in two main groups, one wetter, one dryer, (but both pretty well soaked in the fruit of the vine) will never fade.

And doubtless, the sight of men with horns on their heads charging and grappling on the grass in the soft light of a high summer evening is burned into the brain for all time, try as one might to make it go away somehow, some way, some day.

Anticipation becomes actuality at last as we don our once-a-year outfits to honor an untraditional tradition that’s become traditional itself. 

Untraditionally, though, the route, after corkscrewing through parts of town perfect for bystanders to point and cheer, went east to a more pastoral setting than usual, but one better-suited than in years past to bottle-rocketing and sangria-showering.

I got to swim and dive from the dock that says “No Swimming No Diving” for the first time all summer and was rewarded by water warmer than air.

I got to yell at the top of my lungs for as long as I wanted and earned a morning voice like Harvey Fierstein for the fun.

I got to go overboard on the wine-sloshing and feel remorse for my behavior upon arising.

Fleeting moments certainly; so Queen’s right: they won’t last forever (unlike the wine stains on our whites).

But the memories?  They, on the other hand, will remain etched in our minds forever—try as we might, with some, to forget.

Blast

Photo by joeball

The huge fog banks hugging Eagle Harbor, from which Lee Williams surmised pirate ships would be emerging to board our Bainbridge Island-bound Washington State Ferry vessel, had nothing on the massive smoke screen that crept in on something much bigger than little cat’s feet—namely several hundred dollars of Chinese-made military-grade ordnance manufactured to commemorate the birth of the American Republic—to the parking area of the Suquamish reservation at Agate Pass on the Olympic Peninsula as sweaty bicycle riders launched explosives skywards, earthwards, and sometimes even eyewards for probably as long as the battle of Lexington itself may have lasted if not the subsequent skirmish at Concord, as well.

In spite of the fact that the putative organizer of the event “yes, but no’ed” at the 11th hour, the small troop of almost non-duplicated named cyclists (two Matthews) managed to not only leave Westlake Center in time for beer at the pier, but also, thanks to the Nuclear version of the aforementioned double-Matts, get a little bit of trail-riding in on the way to the Native American fireworks stand.

A small contingent even braved the interior of the Clearwater Casino Resort to enjoy what the bartender called “pounders” of beer in the Beach Rock Lounge where Ladies’ Night apparently means that the DJ is female since no other patrons of any gender seemed to be attendance at the time.

But perhaps the loveliest aspect of the whole experience is how the miscreants offered at least a respectful gesture of effort to clean up after themselves by organizing the spent explosives into a trash bag (at least those not launched into the woods and nearby highways) before pedaling away to the cheers of gratitude from fireworks purveyors who seemed not a bit disturbed by the carnage they’d just witnessed.

A fast spin to the boat and then, back on the mainland, nightcaps without singing for once capped the evening.

Still, plenty of fireworks all around, yo-yo-yo-yo, pop-pop!

Capacitor

A capacitor, if I understood tehJobies explanation, as he pointed it out to me in the technological bowels of the space-age music bike, is a device that holds a charge so as to deliver power instantaneously when the overall energy needs of the system call for it, in order (and here I’m probably paraphrasing) to ensure that the requisite highs, lows, and overall output is maintained at the desired face-melting levels for as long as necessary.

.83 metaphor much?

The capacities of your average summer solstice Thursday night bike ride are never exceeded, not, anyway, when you get to circle a soaking Ghettodrome while the bike-mounted sound system drowns out the fountain’s philharmonics and you’re having to calibrate your distance from the sonic cycle’s subwoofer so that you’re not blown off your saddle by decibels alone.

Sometimes the purr of your chain and the squish of your tires in the wet is enough; other times, it’s great to have a soundtrack, especially when the drizzle turns to a downpour and passing busses fill shoes with gallons of rainwater.

Fortunately, there are places for nights like this in our town and our very own homeless Prometheus to bring the fire to life; too bad references get confused and he goes all Icarus on things; moral of the story: you fly too high and get sticky-fingered around people’s bikes and a neon-colored solar flare will burn you outta town fast as any capacitor delivering its charge.

You don’t get your liver eaten by eagles for all eternity, then, but you do miss what happens when fizzy drinks and roaring flames combine with sonic booms to send shirts and knickers flying and what had been simple sausage fest somehow morphs into a real banquet on the dance floor.

Miraculously, Jobydrinks do make you better-looking and more intelligent; same for everyone else, too; that’s that capacitor  again, delivering just the burst you need when you need it, and even when you don’t.

Solitaire

Cycling is essentially a solitary endeavor, so it’s perfect when, after a while in the saddle, you get to arrive at an outdoor location crawling with several score others who have also pedaled their own two-wheelers to get there.

And it’s made even better (if better than perfect is possible) when there’s more beer than will be drunk, enough wood to eventually shoot flames through the fireplace chimney, and such a long-fading summer sunset that a waxing crescent moon grins on the horizon throughout.

Because plans change and neither my phone nor its operator are smart, I ended up riding farther north along Elliot Bay than necessary, but because this afforded such abiding views of sailboat flocks gliding upon rainbows, I realized that I wasn’t really in a hurry after all.

And when, turning around, the clouds became M.C. Escher geese and giant teddy bear heads, there was no doubt in my mind that what was out there to be observed mattered more than alacrity.

Besides, you’re never behind schedule on a bike; as long as you’re riding, you’ve already arrived.

The long way around Alki to high school hijinks parklands is almost too short when the Olympics cast shadows on the underside of heaven; in spite of missing camaraderie, I sort of liked I had only myself to look out for and could pay less attention to the road before me than the drama above. 

A decided lack of “YOLO” at the beach for this time of year, I thought, but that was more than made up for by those who realized that everything they could possibly want at the moment was spread out right there before them.

Granted, in another week, we’ll have a whole extra minute or two of daytime, but it’s hard to understand why anyone with lighting would pass up a chance to savor every lumen possible.

I understand the impetus to ride, though, solitary perhaps, but never alone with your bike.

Flare

Half a loaf is better than none, and a little bit of a lot is still a lot.

Even if you’re slightly off-tempo all evening, you can still enjoy the music and lyrics, especially if the opening chorus is a welcoming cry able to turn a week’s worth of frowns upside-down.

So what if you miss the sunset; there’s still the illuminated grins of two-wheeled stumblebums as they trickle from the beach in waves.

Who cares if you’re not in time to see the proverbial green flash; you still get to follow a flare that floats down like a parachuting inspiration for much longer than can reasonably be expected.

And why worry if there’s only time for one beer at the de facto clubhouse; when you put it all in perspective, it’s plenty.

For starters, anyway.

If you can’t unlock your bike you’re not allowed to ride it home; however, when you find yourself in that place where you can’t even find it, you know that, like this, even halfway is far enough.

Venture

The devastating tornado earlier this week in Moore, Oklahoma, is, to me, evidence that it is logically impossible for an all-powerful, all-good God to exist.  If He were really omnipotent and omnibenevolent, He could have and would have stopped the twister short of destroying that school and killing those kids.

However, there are mid-spring evenings like this most recent Thursday in Seattle that make me believe there could be a supreme being of some sort who’s awfully strong after all, and does try His best to do the right thing when He can.

Suppose at the cost of Tornado Alley, you’re able to manifest a world where toy boats go full size on a body of shimmering water that gets to be witness to an almost full moon rising and a fuzz-rock sun setting simultaneously. 

It’s not creating a stone so heavy you can’t lift it, but still, it ain’t bad.

Perhaps all-powerful is too much to ask for.  Perhaps it’s sufficient to be awesome enough to create a protected bluff high atop a continent’s near edge with options like a path through the woods for adventuring on as a means of access.

And maybe all-good sets too high a standard.  Maybe it’s enough to have made possible landscapes that turn golden as the day comes to and end and beer in cans that can be consumed by upright mammals who use language to communicate in the afterglow.

The Universe doesn’t ask for more from itself, so why should observers?  Enough is already too much to be believed, so how about simple gratitude for all that is?

Bottle rockets get old and turn loud but the experience of experience always is new. 

A fire might have been nice, but God knows, there are times when holding off the rain all night, just for benefit of some miscreants riding bicycles in a second-tier city on one tiny corner of the globe is plenty.

Who says miracles aren’t real?

Ribbit

photo by joeball

There’s probably way less difference between the conversations of frogs and those of humans than we think.
 
I know that if you wander off is a bit, you’ll find a sweet spot distance at a balance point between the two where the sounds harmonize perfectly, in pitch, tone, and volume. So why not subject matter, too?

Also, it’s clear that we have no more influence, via our thoughts, on the world than does the impetus behind all that croaking. Listening to the echoes in my mind, I surely can’t tell the difference between what I was hoping for and what actually happened.

Perhaps it is the case, as was pointed out, that the only real distinction between ourselves and our amphibian brethren is that we can make fire and they can’t. I’ll buy that. That’s the spark of human consciousness.

Culture’s ability to pass along the message of fire is probably, as Prometheus’ tasty liver illustrates, its number one accomplishment. So, why not, as tehJobies seemed to suggest while hefting the box of Duraflame logs, maximize BTU’s whenever possible?

One thing’s for sure: the higher the flaming Jenga pile rises, the louder our own singsong becomes. I’ll bet the same thing’s happening throughout the melodic marshlands.

The next moment is forever around the corner, so it’s remarkable when one can be sufficiently immersed in the symphonic cacophony that the present sounds are plenty for future and past, as well.

Frogs become princes become frogs all over again.

It's all about being there as it unfolds, especially if you get to be surprised.

Stephen said that if you think of Professor Dave with your heart, he’ll eventually appear and while I’m not sure that always happens, I do love the idea of hearts with minds, because, after all, what else are we expressing as we pedal to conflagrations and circle about noisily than those thoughts which form in our core and rise to the surface in unison, unbound?

Vivid

Photo by joeball

One of the longstanding questions in philosophy has to do with the metaphysics of color.  You can ask the traditional “if a tree falls in the forest” question about it: suppose there were no beings in the world with the ability to perceive color; would the world still be colored?

Imagine a long time ago, (even before Derrick was drunk) before there were any living things; was the sky blue and the sea green?  If the appearance of color depends upon the experience of an observer, then apparently not.

But it’s hard to believe that even if no one had been around to observe it, that the colored pencil shadings of the evening’s slowly-setting sun would not have been equally vivid.

For the British empiricist, George Berkeley, the solution is easy: to be may be to be perceived, but, fortunately, God’s always around doing the perceiving.  And since He never closes his divine eyes, color—and for that matter, shape and number—are always there.

And this, perhaps, is another way of saying that even way more earthly—and far more myopic eyes—like my own, are opened ever wider with every aspect of the ride, starting with the impressive sight of Long Island Ice Teas (‘not for the faint of heart,” according to the bartender) to bike gang flags flapping in the breeze to fires that make their own pit as if by magic.

Ultimately, there’s more to see than meets the eye, which is, perhaps, another way of noticing that perception involves a more robust conception of sight, one that includes the feel of the air on your skin, the pounding in your eardrums at another yelled “YOLO,” the scent of burning wood, (that wisely ends up not migrating after all to another location,) and even the taste of various intoxicants that contribute to an already intoxicating night out on two wheels.

You gotta see it to believe it, and even then, it remains unbelievable.

Bounty

photo by joeball

“Don’t believe anything anyone tells you” is paradoxical advice. 

So, we may as well disregard anything we tell ourselves except the suggestions we don’t endorse—like throwing mini-kegs in fires and only regretting the errors we fail to make.

Which is why, in part, I’d have been kicking myself had I not taken the opportunity to pedal south after a lovely dinner en famille to link up with the ride even though doing so required a mini-bushwhack through the trees following a wrong turn in an area I thought I knew as well as the back of my hand, but I guess it’s more like the back of my neck.

Anyway, the assembled miscreants were easy enough to find, especially as I pedaled closer and could hear repeated cries of “No, Derrick, no!” wafting on the breeze. 

That drew me to where I could see the figures around the fire but not the preferred line of egress.  Ultimately, the direct route seemed the most efficient, if not the most prudent, and while I skittered a bit on unseen roots, I was soon rewarded with a hearty hello and imbibables that made the lovely evening even lovelier.

Picnic tables were groaning with bounty and it seemed like most folks had a pretty good head start on me even though the aforementioned meal included generous portions of the selfsame libations as those arrayed about.

I edged my way into a number of conversations while keeping a watchful eye out for flying marshmallows and exploding beer cans.

For once, suds held out longer than fire and I tucked one for the road into my bag as yet another mini-mortar exploded over the lake signaling five minutes to departure one more time.

A zesty jaunt on Lake Washington Boulevard and a reasonably protective pelaton along Rainier led to a fairly large contingent invading the favored karaoke joint near midnight. 

I had the requisite arrival beer and then headed home, no regrets.

Bountiful.

Humans

Photo by joeball

I’m sure that other animals (and even plants) are great and everything, but you’ve got to hand it to humans above all.

You tell me of any other species that invents a contraption like the bicycle, which allows you to pedal the length and breadth of a mid-sized American city with some three dozen other of one’s ilk to stand around a bonfire above a great body of water on a night where the moon’s so bright it cast shadows and air’s so warm it just tickles.

Frogs, I’ll admit, are pretty cool and when they all croak in unison it’s as musical as it is deafening, but can they build trains able to carry a frighteningly immense supply of fossil fuel energy in linked boxcars and build a pedestrian bridge over the tracks so you can leap about like a slightly less-evolved primate and scream at the top of your lungs as it roars by beneath you?

And of course, you’ve got to respect the birds of the air, wheeling and darting as they pick off swarms of gnats at sunset, but show me where any of them can squirt lines of flammable liquid onto flaming coals and still successfully avoid self-immolation, as does homo sapiens,

Nor do I deny that all the fishes in the sea are amazing, but none of them, I promise you, can make beer and put it in bottles that make it portable and provide the perfect projectile for launching at freight trains that strangely, do not even crush quarters as they clatter over them on the rails.

I challenge all of creation to wait as patiently as did our collection of human beings for the lunar worshippers to finish their ceremony before an integration of yin and yang took place via colored sparks and glowing embers.

Sure, we’re a cancer on the planet that’s destroying ecosystems and ruining the atmosphere, but as the Man in the Moon proves, humans rule. 

Brief

If, as Shakespeare suggested, brevity is the soul of wit, then this year’s Filmed by Bike entry had, if not the substance of cleverness, at least its spirit. 

Ninety seconds goes by pretty quickly (except at the dentist) and so even if you’re squirming in your seat, it’s over before you know it, which was kind of what happened this weekend.

A picture is supposedly worth a thousand words; let the above video, then, count for the remaining 327.

Vista

Statistically, it’s unlikely that I will actually live to be 112 years old, but even if I do, I think it’s even more improbable that I will ever see a last Saturday in March as lovely as the 2013 edition, whose clear blue skies and unseasonably mild temperatures were the perfect backdrop to the 327 Words Halfway There (Livin’ on  a Prayer) Vista Time Trial.

Some half a hundred cyclists 

came out to savor a bouquet of some of the finest views in all of our fair city and compete for magnificent prizes from incredibly generous sponsors and friends, including Jagermeister,  Brooks Saddles,  Bill's Off-Broadway, Haulin’ Colin Trailers, 2020 Cycle, Defeet, Swrve Cycling, Vapolution Vaporizers, SKS Germany,Walz Caps,  Microcosm Publishing, BaileyWorks, Peddlar Brewery, Swift Industries, Bombus Bikes, T Leatherworks, and Alchemy Goods,

Ben the Angry Hippy ended six years of frustration by finishing first—at last—with a time of 1 hour, 23 minutes, and 32 seconds, and finally being able to raise the coveted Vapolution as his own.

Newcomer Sandra Wayman took First Lady with a stellar run of 2:07:25 and making off with a charming little saddlebag from Brooks, so darling it almost didn’t find its way into the prize pile—but alas, conscience prevailed.

In keeping with tradition, the trio of Wang, Tom, and Janelle rolled in after first DFL David Mattuzca, had already claimed last place, thereby earning the coveted honor of Double-Dead Fucking Last and the sharp Jagermeister caps that went along with it.

But, of course, everyone was a winner on a day like this one, none the least being race organizer yours truly, who remains in constant awe of the willingness of so many weird and wonderful human beings to engage in such a random event for no other reason than the sheer experience of it (and, of course, in BTAH’s case, the Vapolution).

My life, if hopeful calculations are correct, may only be half over, but with days like this, it’s already complete.

Tradition

Can you have a tradition of ignoring tradition? 

Because if you do, how can you honor it without failing to do so?

But this is just the sort of paradox one comes to embrace after so many Thursday nights out on two wheels.  You realize that of all the places you’ve ever been to, there are even more you’ve never been at, in spite of how memories abound no matter where you ride.

I was all ready to abide by past patterns and preview Saturday’s route, but it’s just as much a nod to history to not do so and besides, having ridden the course so often of late, my eyes were hungry for something different, so northward ho, happily.

Momentarily, from the Safeway with an invisible bathroom to a caged-up stop in the middle of a neighborhood, one could almost, at first, forget the charming  bumble through the new South Lake Union mess and Ye Olde Eastlake Path and Toboggan Run. 

But not quite. 

Because when all the blinkies unblink, there you are, on a ballfield, at night, enjoying the National Pastime—of some nation, somewhere, under some God or gods who clearly know what holidays are all about.

And then, you pedal back into the past for an opportunity to wax nostalgic by emulating the beloved tradition of steering around pedestrians on a dark lake path at night, albeit this time with nary a naked roller-blader to be (not) seen.

Later, in a fondly-remembered park shelter complete with burning twigs, I wondered with Lee Williams when thinking gets to be thought of as thinking; if we’re just talking brain activity, then the distinction can only be normative, not descriptive.

That’s why it doesn’t matter how many sights you see; it’s how you see the sights.

Predictably, the moon is full every month; that doesn’t make it any less thrilling when it finally pours forth from the canopy.

Just like your paradoxical Thursday tradition: traditionally untraditional.

Trainspotting

You’ve waited at the railroad crossing while the train is in the process of coupling: it goes forward, endlessly, then “no way!” backs up forever, then “you’ve got to be kidding me!” forward again as time stands still.

That ain’t nothing.

This time, in a wait so long it ensures that by the time you’re free and across the bridge, riders are already streaming from the bar, the long line of rail cars does the coupling dance, then waits as a massive freight train rumble roars past laden with mind-bogglingly huge shipping containers groaning with machinery that makes you feel like a little kid playing with Thomas the Tank Engine and dispels the annoyance of being stuck for a little while, anyway.

Afterwards, to your utter amazement and consternation and the surprising acquiescence of a cab driver who sits through the entire twenty minute—I kid you not—ordeal, the original train goes through the full coupling cycle again, which by now simply fascinates by contrast to the weather, which hasn’t repeated anything all day long.

Light rain in Bothell, clear by Kenmore, winter at Matthews Beach, hailstones like frozen peas.

I geared up under the park’s cedars and then, peddling towards the U, chuckled at shivering squids who’d dived right into the gale, heading north.

Spring break begins just like March: in a like a lion, out like a lamb?  We shall see.

Currently, this is what we do know: there are trains and there are trains but all of them seemed especially busy on this, the first full night of the season.  I was even stopped by a six car locomotive I’d never seen in action before, chugging right up the street (it seemed to me) in front of the entrance to the low level West Seattle bridge.

Rendezvousing with the ride, rumors of a far north route quickly thinned the herd.  But, as it turned out, the evening’s theme prevailed. 

Of course: the Boxcar!

Cheery

The first daylight meet-up of the season means that winter is over even if saying so jinxes you.

By now, the probability of lowland snow approaches zero and the moon responds with its best Cheshire grin.  A perfect scoop of cloud reveals springtime just to the west.

tehJobies advises an ill-advised route through the Market and off we go.

One never tires of blinkies through Myrtle Edwards nor of Featherhead flying over hill and dale nor of bombing through the bridge cage to Magnolia.

It turns out the Dravus QFC is a convenience store, which really seems apt.

Parking lots look the same even to those who know where they’re going; second time’s a charm, though.

To be towards the rear and see beams of light pour out over the dunes is more than enough.  To arrive in one piece all you could ask.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have been proud of the fire-making teamwork.  They would have envied paper but emulated shavings.

Old ways are the new thing.

Cherry wood makes for a cheery little blaze, especially when the atmosphere’s lungs breathe so deeply.

The rain shadow shortens a bit as the fuel is consumed; pretty soon you’re following Fred to the apparent delight of frogs everywhere.

Some places in town masquerade as their crosstown analogues; now that’s success!  With a swell bomb downhill, to boot!

Where you think that you’re headed is not where you’re going but when everyone arrives that’s where you are.

And afterwards, you make it home with all your pieces intact. 

There’s a model for an evening of cycling, one that never fails.  With a fire in the center, it’s hard to go wrong.  And when you do it en masse it’s guaranteed to amuse.

Behaviorists say that happiness is nothing more than behaviors that communicate happiness; if that includes communicating with yourself I agree.

Our internal states are both inscrutable and incorrigible; on nights like this, the external ones, too.

Unique

You could ride your bike halfway around the world like our new friend from Downunder, BlakeAndy, and not have a single other opportunity to experience what, around here, is fairly regular, if not downright commonplace: meandering through industrial wastelands on two wheels with several score like-minded ne’er-do-wells and fuckups, bursting lungs on what appears to be a freeway overpass complete with an eyes-closed pray-to-God crossing of those lanes halfway to the summit, then single-tracking through the woods to an abandoned gravel roadway where the firewood’s free, the beer is cold, (well, cool, anyway), sparks rise like libidinous angels in the night, and eventually, as the embers coalesce to cheery heartwarming coals, everything is as illuminated as a medieval manuscript, only better, since in this gallery, the portraits’ fire-dancing eyes follow viewers everywhere as the circle of humanity draws closer.

Seansweeny was telling me about a yoga class he went to that included dance music and a DJ and my initial reaction was well, that’s just too much, but then I was reminded that if beer is good and biking is good, then beer and biking is even better, so why not?  And adding a bonfire and stars just serves to enhance; perhaps there is no limit to augmentation after all.

In his objection to St. Anselm’s Ontological Proof for God’s existence, the monk Gaunilo asks us to consider a perfect island, that by Anselm’s logic would necessarily exist; but since it doesn’t, Anselm’s argument is allegedly disproven by reductio ad absurdum. 

Anselm responds that unlike God, who is infinite, an island is finite and so can continually be improved upon by addition, thus Gaunilo’s analogy, and by extension, his objection, fails.

But what if the island reaches such an ideal state that any addition would be subtraction?  Perfection might be a point achieved when conditions are balanced just so.

If that’s the case, then biking halfway around the world is but a short uphill pedal to God.

Strategy

The whole point of life is to make plans that you eventually come to let go of.

Most of the interesting stuff that happens happens when predictions go awry.

So, for instance, even though the Whiskey Stop ends up being cancelled due to maybe a megaphone, and the hope of catching an earlier ferry is quashed because the creativity of dock workers succumbs to shapes from Detroit and Tokyo, the result is that everyone’s together as imagined, even though no one had any idea things would look or sound like this beforehand.

It’s a shame that all our expectations and plans don’t come out exactly as expected and planned for; on the other hand, it’s way better than forecast to achieve results  that are completely unexpected.  To that end, we do what we can, in spite of the fact that that which we’re unable to do defines each of us more clearly.

It’s harder, actually, to get what you don't want than what you do; that’s why it’s important to thank the Universe every day for fucking with us.

Pain is relative and fleeting; what sticks around, by contrast, are examples of people trying to do the best that they can in difficult situations.  When you allow your eyes the panorama, you see fields of neon ablaze. 

I came to believe in the parade of  Peep’s, but who cares, really?

Especially when you get to stand around the prize pile for long enough to become  a trope; honestly, I think that I’m supposed to steer clear of the assembled loot, but at the same time, one does, in the name of efficiency, at least—have an obligation to identify what hasn’t been chosen so as to pick wisely.

But that’s the point, exactly: that-which-is changes constantly, so you can never really predict how things will turn out. 

Nevertheless, you can be certain the FHR will be grand, although in a manner you’d never have imagined.

Batter

Photo by Joeball

Even if it’s true, as tehJobies surmised, WE are getting old,IT remains as new as ever, and time stands still in honor of the 8th Annual Waffle Ride, returned this year to its traditional time of year when the Sun is in Aquarius.

The promise of free carbohydrates compels even better than free beer as three score cyclists set out from Westlake on a crystal clear evening that one wag called, in deference to New Orleans’ upcoming “Fat Tuesday,” Seattle’s “Get Fat Thursday.” Hah.

In spite of—for those not affected, anyway—the requisite culpability-free bike crash en route, the yearly horde successfully descended upon the Island Oasis and proceeded to produce breakfast at night in under an hour with not a single broke breaker.

Take it as an illustration of the principle that everyone is happiest when they’re helping each other, which is why tehJobies gets to consistently enjoy too much of a good thing.

Langston opined that this was the shortest fair-weather .83 route ever; even if that’s true in terms of mileage, it’s false when it comes to experience. Keep in mind that the ride is almost a decade long even before starting and that before it was over, there were two bridge crossings, multiple tunnel-screamings, innumerable paths along routes unfamiliar to many, and countless intangible places that pedaling parties can take you.

At the end of my night, as I lay in bed with the smell of bakeries wafting through my nose and the dulcet tones of tehSchott’s moving karaoke rendering of “Stand by Me” drifting through my brain, the phrase “Fun is work” bubbled up in my mind and it occurred to me that the phrase is a palindrome--if by “work” we mean something like tehJobies’ tireless efforts at the irons.

And I realized that by such tautologies that the Universe comes into being; something from nothing, existence via identity.

Looked at that way, such fun ain’t old, it’s eternal.