327 Words

What to Do

2009-07-18T12:55:00.001-07:00

I doubt whether our hunter-gatherer ancestors ever fretted over having a full stomach, a warm, dry place to sleep, and shelter from wild animals who might do them harm. That is, I think we’re probably hard-wired, as humans, to be content with contentment; I can’t see why—at least from an evolutionary standpoint—anyone ever ought to be worried that he or she isn’t busier or more in need of undertaking efforts that aren’t even indirectly related to continuing survival or well-being.

And yet, I keep finding myself vaguely stressed-out because I’m not as stressed-out as I think I should be. Here I am, for example, sitting on my back patio, in the shade, sipping coffee, and reading a book but instead of just taking in the relaxed joyfulness of the experience, I’m thinking that I ought to be writing philosophy or educational policy or working on my bikes, or cleaning the house, or organizing my sock drawer, or even putting together a 327 essay, just so I can tell myself that I’m not a complete and utter useless drain on the world’s resources, who is just taking up space and resources that would be better used by someone who is making a positive difference in the world through sheer hard work, determination, and intestinal fortitude.

It’s weird to think that nobody’s really counting on me to do anything these days, no students waiting for the papers to be graded, no colleagues expecting me to do my part on some administrative busywork, no fellow Union members needing my input on some tricky aspect of contract negotiations. Not even any clan members wanting me to join them in digging up tubers or chasing down a Mastadon.

All I’m really on tap for today is pitching for my softball team; oh, and drinking beer afterwards; then there’s that band I’m going to see tonight; and I’ll need to shower. Shit! How am I going to fit it all in?

Stupid

2009-07-17T09:44:00.000-07:00

It’s kind of amazing when an offhand comment on an electronic bulletin board turns into about forty people dressed in all white with red sashes and bandanas showing up for a drunken bike ride and the opportunity to chase somebody else sporting horns on his helmet and terrycloth bull testicles on the back of his saddle around a city park; if that’s not evidence of the chilling power of the internetz—or that we live in the fucking end of days—I don’t know what is; I’m am sure, however, that the memory of last night’s shenanigans will provide comfort and solace as I reflect back on it from my deathbed some years hence, at least what I can recall of it, which is almost as spotty as the drops of spurted red wine on my formerly clean white shirt.

Oddly enough, dressing like a person running with the bulls at Pamplona doesn’t really solicit stares from passersby in Seattle; I got no double-takes as I rode alone to the meet-up; on the other hand, when you’ve got three or four dozen similarly-attired cyclists in a pack, people definitely tend to hoot and holler.

And when you congregate in an outdoor amphitheater and stage mock bullfights while sharing a handle of cheap whiskey, no one can resist.

Surprisingly, none of us got gored, even when we descended upon the frat-boy western-themed bar to ride the mechanical bull, an endeavor I somehow managed to eschew although I did undermine any future political ambitions by singing a Foreigner song at karaoke later in the evening.

What will stick with me longest is the delightfully random stupidity of the whole event; that’s the human condition laid bare: we do these absurd things because why the fuck not and if that means you wake up on the couch with your shoes on and wine spatters all over your one good dress shirt, so be it, the memories alone are worth it.

The Bear

2009-07-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve tried to get serious about William Faulkner novels a couple times. When we lived in France back in 1988, and I hardly had any English books to read, I plodded through Absolom, Absolom and As I Lay Dying and I couldn’t help thinking some sort of emperor’s new clothes thing was going on; I mean, the man was obviously a genius and could turn a phrase like no other, but why did he have to make everything so opaque? It’s like when you see a movie and it’s in reverse chronology, like Memento, that’s when you know that there’s something lame with the story and the director figured the only way anyone’s going to tune in is if you turn things around so it’s like some kind of puzzle to be figured out, even though if it were presented normally, there wouldn’t really be any “there” there.

But now, it being summer and having plenty of time on my hands and wanting to fill some of those hours with something at least a tiny bit intellectually challenging, I’ve picked up Faulkner’s collection of stories, Go Down, Moses, and have been taking on his celebrated novella, The Bear, and have, for the most part, been amazed, intrigued, and quite moved by it.

The endless mea culpas for slavery I could do with less of but the dramatic unfolding of the hunt for Old Ben completely captivated me, especially how the relationship between the Boy and his companion Boon emerged. I especially liked the scene where they go to Memphis and Boon wants a dollar to go into a bar and the boy is at first reluctant but then recalls how a few years earlier Boon saved him from the “wild never-bridled Texas paint pony,” by grapping its reins when it bolted, “Boon vanishing rapidly on his stomach in the leaping and spurting dust and still holding the reins until they broke too.”

“He gave Boon the dollar.”

Spare Change

2009-07-15T16:13:00.001-07:00

When we were in France last summer, bums on the street (“flanneurs,” I guess, or “chomeurs,”) would routinely hit us up for spare change.

“Petites pieces, petites pieces” they would implore, meaning, literally, “little coins,” which I assume is the idiom for “spare change” in French. Mimi thought they were saying “GPS, GPS,” which seemed to fit, since most of them looked pretty lost; it made sense they were asking for direction, and in the mind of a 21st century kid, requesting a global positioning satellite was a perfectly reasonable request.

Back here in Seattle, we regularly get sparechanged; usually it’s some guy who wants a dollar—which, unless it’s a Susan B. Anthony or a Sacajawea, doesn’t really qualify as change, does it?—for a sandwich; I go through phases where I alternate between it being my policy to always give something to someone who asks and then never doing so, especially if the sparechanger is smoking a cigarette, which I realize is pretty arbitrary on my part, but so be it.

I mention this because today, with no conscious intent that I"m aware of, I’ve apparently been sparechanging the universe. As I’ve ridden along on my bike, I’ve kept finding coins in the road, not a long, mind you, but just enough to make me wonder what’s going on.

This morning, on the way back from yoga, I rolled over a quarter; at first, I didn’t stop, but then thought, “If I can pick it up in less than 15 seconds, that’s $60.00 an hour,” so I did.

Later, on my way from the store, I found a dime. Since I scooped it in no more than 10 seconds, I think that pays off.

Then, just now, returning from the library, I spied a penny. That, I left sitting in the road; I’d have to scoop at the rate of 1 a second, I think, to have it pay.

Some petites pieces are just too

Sleepyhead

2009-07-14T16:09:00.001-07:00

I’ve always—or at least since I had a morning paper route in seventh grade and would get up at 4:30 AM so I could be finished by 6:30 and back to bed for forty winks before bursting from the covers at 8:15 to be at Fulton Elementary by 8:30—been one of those annoying people commonly referred to as a “morning person.”

I like being up before anybody else. My favorite time of day is just after sunrise, when the streets are mostly empty and you get to see—especially if you’re out on a bike—all the detritus from the night before, including, if you’re lucky, some people in evening wear doing the infamous walk of shame. On Sundays, I’m happy to be at the coffee shop before 8:00, when I can almost always be assured of my favorite table and I never have to wait in line behind people ordering double-tall half-caf no-foam mochaccinos to get my mug of drip coffee.

My plan for this summer has been to rise most days by six so I can be out the door to practice yoga and back at home reading the paper by nine; I managed to do that a few days prior to going away on vacation and it seemed like the model for the remainder of July and August.

However.

These last few days, it’s all I can do to crawl my way out of the sack by 7:30 or so. My alarm goes off at 6:01, I take a look at it, change the wake-up time to 7:01, and then when it goes off at that time, snooze for another half an hour or so. And it’s not like I’m going to bed at all hours; it’s just that it feels so good to keep dozing.

Too bad you can’t “bank” sleep; I could definitely use these hours come September when school starts.

But enough of this; time now for a nap.

Survived

2009-07-12T21:28:00.001-07:00

I came in second or third to last and still got exactly the prize I wanted—Mathauser brake shoes—which is a perfect metaphor for how the positive and negative sides of today’s race: The Tour de Watertower: Guerilla Time Trial—embraced one another, so that, in every case, the worse the hill, the better the ride, or at least that’s what I think when I reflect upon it, now in the relative comfort of my home, and after a few pain-killing drafts of grains and greens, as well as a lovely dinner leftover for me on the counter in the kitchen.

The route took us to seven of the highest spots in town—makes sense, those are where you put watertowers—and after four of them, notably Magnolia’s at the second top of Dravus near 38th—I was really all about just holding on for dear life, finishing, rather than finishing fast being my only true priority.

My low point was after leaving the Magnolia tower; I made a few wrong turns and ended up at the bottom of a cul de sac from which I had to ride uphill to escape; that had me wasting many minutes consulting my map at the next unclear point.

Dumbest decision was to go east on 85th from Phinney; grinding up the unnecessary I-5 overpass, my left thigh cramped up and I had to hotfoot it on the sidewalk; that was the only time I really could imagine giving up, and once I was on my way downhill from Maple Leaf—even in the thunderstorm (a nice touch which almost added hypothermia to my collection of ills)—I knew that I’d make it, although that could have been a result of the safety meeting I belatedly indulged in as I headed down Roosevelt.

Props to the organizers and sponsors, to all the riders and to the winner, who finished more than an hour and a half faster than me.

Home Again

2009-07-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

Travel is broadening (especially, given how we tend to take all our meals in restaurants, about the beam), but I’m glad to be home again with all the requisite constraints on my psyche that being back to my usual way of doing things affords; I don’t think I’d be a very good fulltime explorer; I’d want, sooner than not, to be sleeping in my own bed, with my own pillow, and drinking coffee I’d made out of my favorite mug.

I recently finished reading Stephen Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis and the Opening of the American West; it’s a thrilling story—poignant and tragic, too, at the end, when Lewis takes his own life—and even though, as Ben the Angry Hippy put it, being out on an expedition like that would mean you’d have something to write about every day on your blog, I’m quite sure I wouldn’t have been happy on the Corps of Discovery. I think I’d rather have been hanging around Monticello with Thomas Jefferson, especially given the diet of the men on the journey, which—at its best from their point of view—consisted of something like nine pounds of meat a day.

Back here in Seattle, in my own little Monticello—where I play the part of the dumbwaiter, I guess—I’m looking forward to a few weeks of uneventful living, which, I hope, will entail some writing, some bicycle riding, a bit of yoga, perhaps a barbecue or two, a fair number of margueritas, a solid component of sitting in a chair reading and napping, and maybe even a household chore should the spirit take me.

The only downside of this, as I can see it, is having to answer the dreaded question, “what have you been up to?” Maybe I’ll just have to make something up; I can tell people that I’ve been exploring the American West, looking for an all water route to the Pacific; not much, really.

This Might Work

2009-07-08T20:47:00.001-07:00

I rented a bike here in Santa Fe and it’s helped me to see that maybe this place is a model for how things could work in the post-petroleum world. The downtown is small and dense and there exists, around its perimeter, all kinds of places to which goods could be delivered. I could imagine trains and trucks unloading palettes of stuff that would then be distributed, via human power, to homes and business in the central core; people would walk and ride bikes to their homes and workplaces, and you’d have entrepreneurial human-powered businesses to bring people and goods to their doorsteps.

There’s certainly no place I need to go from my hotel that I can’t get to by bike or on foot; last night, we wandered around in search of the perfect marguerita, although we failed, we did sample a reasonable selection of drinks in the process. Then, after returning to our room, I was able to easily pedal to the liquor store for the beers we needed to make it through the evening.

It remains fairly shocking to me to note that when I lived here, I didn’t even own a bicycle. It just never occurred to me that I didn’t have to drive everywhere I was going and as a matter of fact, there was that time when my car was in the shop and I waited for something like two hours for a taxi to take me the three miles or so to my work, a distance I could have easily pedaled if I’d known it was possible.

The Conference Bike would be amazing here; I could imagine making a living ferrying tourists around the downtown area on it’ you’d have to put up some kind of canopy to shade the relentless New Mexican sun and it might be a bit of a tough sell for the glut of overweight Texans, but it would sure beat trying to find a parking space.

We're Doomed

2009-07-06T21:15:00.001-07:00

The distance from where we left the car in the parking lot was almost as far as the distance we drove to the restaurant, but we’d never considered walking since to do so would have marked us as weirdoes or losers and besides, who wants to be outside without air conditioning when it’s already 90 degrees by 10 in the morning and even though I’m exaggerating a bit, it’s obvious that there are many places on earth—Albuquerque, New Mexico being one—that couldn’t possibly exist, at least in their present form, without plentiful cheap petroleum and big cars filled up with it.

I fear mightily for my country and the way of life that many of my fellow citizens enjoy, a way of life that I can pretend isn’t so prevalent in my little green corner of America in the Pacific Northwest, a way of life that depends completely, as far as I can tell, on a resource that’s got what, 10, 15 years left?

What’s going to happen to these giant four-lane in either direction highways with shopping malls on both sides of the road when there’s no gas left? Who’s going to buy those hundreds of cars in the massive auto dealerships that line the roadways? How are people going to get across a town that’s got to be 25 miles from end-to-end and where are they going to put their Starbucks coffee when there’s no cup holder to put it in?

And the sad thing is, unlike most of the time, when I get to pretend access to the moral high ground as I bicycle commute everywhere, here I am, in my Chevrolet HHG, driving three blocks to breakfast, knowing that if I lived here, I’d get totally used to it and would think nothing of filling up and cruising around everywhere without any worries that this way of life wouldn’t continue forever even though it’s obvious it can’t last and we’re doomed.

Hands Free

2009-07-05T20:33:00.001-07:00

The world is a reasonably decent place, all things considered (at least if you don’t consider the political situation in many parts of the world and the economic situation in most) but it was also a reasonably decent place in 1990 before the latest scourge of up-to-date technology arrived and, believe it or not, I’m not talking about cell phones; I’m referring to hands-free bathroom appliances, notably those fucking faucets and paper towel dispensers that are so annoying that they’ve become a trope used in television advertising, but even so, it bears reapeating that here’s another example of something somebody invented that was supposed to make our lives better but if you really think about it, and even more, experience it, it’s not better at all.

I mean, do I really need to have some electric eye turn my water on for me when I come to wash my hands? I don’t mind, I’ll admit, having the toilet flush automatically after I do my business, but this thing where I have to waive my hands under some sensor that I can never exactly figure out where it is, bugs me; and then, after I finally get my hands wet, having to waive them again in front of some other sensor to make the paper towels come out is just too much.

I think these systems are probably why diseases like swine flu are more likely to spread—it’s so goddamn annoying to wash your hands, you just give up—and plus, it’s probably a conspiracy on the part of manufacturers to save money at our expense, since—if you’re like me—you simply despair of getting water or paper and just give up.

I know that this is another example of a development that marks me as an old person, but here’s an instance of that I don’t mind; if being old means you know how to wash and dry your hands without help, then that’s me.

Details

2009-07-03T20:23:00.001-07:00

I took as a good omen, not getting creamed by the truck that barreled past me on the left as I started a U-turn to the Elysian Fields brewpub on Occidental, but as the assembled group agreed, we’d all have wanted the trip to go on anyway, even were I flattened on the pavement, especially if someone had the good sense to rifle through my panniers for the shortbread cookies I’d brought along.

And luck held out all the way to Joeball Mountain and back, although, like most of my fellow travelers, I did manage to get smashed in the figurative sense around the fire later in the night—a nearly perfect one, by the way, with the waxing moon appearing before sunset over the trees, and the temperature so mild the flames were almost too much, especially with plenty of anti-freeze in me, especially as the hours careened past midnight and the second wave of riders arrived, got quickly caught up with the earlier contingent of revelers and ended up singing and spitting booze until the sun began to lighten the edges of the horizon all around.

My memories of this year’s edition of Joeball Mountain are all smooshed together like fingerpainting, but I do recall being amused by my proclamation to the effect that it's logically impossible to cheat on your fiancé; only on wives and girlfriends does it count; and I know I laughed at lots of other things people said and did, including somebody’s observation of somebody’s observation that you should never create anything because, as the story of Dr. Frankenstein reminds us, the monster will always turn on you and the villagers come with torches and pitchforks.

Although I’m not sure that principle applies to events like this: because while it’s true that the ride and the imbibe did kick our collective asses, I saw no one taking up arms against it; on the contrary, if schedules didn’t require a race downhill to the ferry, we’d still be there.

Making and Breaking

2009-07-02T13:24:00.001-07:00

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with the world: physics!

That’s the problem; these so-called “laws” that govern the way things work.

If it weren’t for phucking physics, we’d have perpetual motion machines, faster-than-light travel, and I could go back in time and avoid making all these mistakes that I’ve made that have resulted in broken dishes, pointless arguments, and the cracked screen on my laptop when I slammed the trunk lid on my knapsack in which it was stored.

Oh, and those favorite shirts that I shrunk in the wash would still fit.

The thing is, most laws can be broken, or at least negotiated. For instance, there’s a law against riding your bike through a red light, but when no one’s around, who cares? By contrast, even when I’m alone, I can’t break the “law” that says matter can’t be created from nothing—as evidenced by my inability to manifest a pile of hundred dollar bills from thin air.

I blame this not just on Mother Nature, bless her pointy little head, but also on physicists, who have to take the blame for “discovering” these laws. If Newton, for example, following his misadventure with the apple on his noggin, hadn’t come up with the law of gravity, then maybe I would be able to levitate these days, or at least dunk a basketball.

Other disciplines have their “laws,” too, but most recognize those laws can be broken; in philosophy, for instance, we have the so-called “law of non-contradiction,” which says that something cannot both be something and not be something, or as philosophers like to say, cannot simultaneously be P and not-P. But, of course, that law is broken all the time like when the home team blows another lead in the late innings and I’m both a Mariners’ fan and not a Mariners’ fan all at once.

We need a master criminal to break the laws of physics for us: Bernie Madoff, where are you?

Good Solution

2009-07-01T11:37:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite essays by one of my favorite essayists is “Solving for Pattern,” by Wendell Berry. In it, he uses the example of farming practices adopted by a farmer named Earl Spencer to illustrate the difference between good solutions and bad ones.

Bad solutions tend to be of two types: one creates a series of additional problems, outside the scope of the original problem, and the other just tends to make the original problem worse.

Nuclear power, with its attendant problems of waste disposal, potential meltdowns, terrorist attacks, and so on, could be an example of the first type of bad solution (to the problem of energy creation); taking out a payday loan could be an example of the second type of bad solution (to the problem of limited cash flow.)

By contrast, says Berry, a good solution tends to work in harmony with the system or pattern in which the problem has been generated; the Earl Spencer example highlights how the farmer used agricultural (rather than technological) means to solve the problem of how to profitably run his dairy farm.

From this, Berry generates a number of criteria or desiderata of good solutions, my favorite of which is that a good solution tends to solve more than one problem at a time.

All of which has me thinking about the bicycle and what a good solution it is since not only does it solve the problem of how to get from one place to another efficiently, it also solves the problem of how to do so economically, healthily, and environmentally sustainably.

The internetz tell me today that almost half of American kids are overweight; that’s because, I think, they’re all sitting on their asses in the back of SUVs eating Doritos. Get them out on bicycles—and their tubby parents, too—and voila: fewer fat people, better and cheaper healthcare for all, less traffic, reduced emissions of greenhouse gasses, world peace and harmony, magic.

Self Divided

2009-06-29T22:14:00.001-07:00

If I say to myself, “I hate myself for doing that,” or “If only could have done differently,” or “I’m not that sort of person,” (perhaps all self-referential statements), I assume that there are two of me (at least.).

And this seems kinda weird.

If there are two of me (at least), then which one is the real me? Can I be allowed to designate in all cases? I mean, can I always pick the one that, in retrospect, I would choose for myself?

And what the fuck does “in retrospect” mean, anyway?

It’s comments like that which open up the dialogue, and in doing so, demonstrate the two-self hypothesis admirably.

On the other hand, if we didn’t get to notice to ourselves how gorgeous a day it was we wouldn’t remember, would we?

Clearly, being of “two minds” about something is what makes us conscious. “Consciousness,” then, just means self-awareness.

And self-awareness assumes, by its very nature, two selves (at least).

Does my dog know that it’s a dog? It probably knows its place in the world much more closely than I do.

Well, no less so, anyway.

And probably way more.

I have tasks, though, that I set before me. Does she? Is she better or worse for having or not having them?

It’s also seems kinda weird to have the same sort of divided-self feelings in relation to one’s body. I do. It’s not that I’m not entirely sure whether I want my body to represent who I am in the world, it’s more like I look at my body and I’m not sure if that’s who I am.

Which means that if there’s a body and a mind and a mind, then there’s a body missing. So, maybe what love is is finding a body to put one of your minds into and when two people do that it’s a beautiful thing.

With three twenty-seven, it’s phenomenal, hah!

See the self-referential divide?

Recreation

2009-06-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I did pretty much nothing to make the world a better place.

Oh, sure, I showed up at the Equality Yoga event at 9:00, expecting it would be a regular class that was over by 10:30, only to discover it wasn’t even starting until after 10:00 and that consequently, I’d only have time to participate in something like 10 minutes of practice before leaving for softball, but other than that tiny nod in support of a more just and equitable world for all, all I really did from the time I rose to the time I retired was just play around.

I did manage to feed the dogs, so I guess that counts for something, but as far as advancing the cause of humanity or even reading a little philosophy, I failed miserably.

The question is: how much should I care about this? To what degree, in other words, am I required to justify my existence through efforts that go beyond my own enjoyment? It’s summer vacation, after all; I worked reasonably hard all through the school year; is that enough, then, and can I just be a complete slacker for the next two months or so?

Part of the problem is that it’s not exactly clear what would constitute my making a positive difference in any case. I know I should probably type up lesson plans for philosophy for children classes, but beyond that, maybe the best I can do is just be kind to friends and family and refrain from snottiness and condescension to strangers.

Once again, the key to self-satisfaction appears to be setting the bar low.

Plus, I did have a pretty good time for most of the day; the Chuggers and Sluggers softball team scored an impressive come-from-behind victory in the second game of our doubleheader and Jen, Mimi, and I rode bikes to Georgetown for the Artopia event.

I did little for the world; it did much for me, though

Simple

2009-06-26T09:56:00.001-07:00

It’s easy enough to spend so much time and energy focusing on everything you don’t get that you overlook all you have—a trite observation, but a common occurrence (at least for me), in any case.

Like last night, what I initially wanted was a forty-some mile roundtrip bike ride and a longshot victory with commensurate payoff in the last race at Emerald Downs; instead, I got a trip of about twenty miles from home to home and warm fire in a waterside park shelter in West Seattle along with many conversations, plenty of beer, and the occasional drama here and there to spy upon and take note of.

So, I could be all, “Wotta bummer, less than, coulda, shoulda, woulda,” but for why? Whatever was was good enough, since, after all, it had a goodly amount of pedaling, quaffing, and dissembling, and there was even singing at the end of the night, although that’s when I, after a twenty-minute search for a misplaced helmet, eventually made my way home.

It’s all about expectations, I guess. I could decide to bemoan that fact that what I was planning for from the evening didn’t come to pass; or I could simply savor what did occur, which was, truth be told, all a person could really hope for when it comes to Thursday night bike-riding and beer-swilling.

My favorite moment was pulling up en masse at the pile of salvaged wood neatly stacked under the trestles on the far side of the West Seattle bridge; logs and sticks were stuffed into messenger bags and panniers, and strapped with varying degrees of success to people’s racks. Way more than enough fuel made it the rest of way to Lincoln Park, in spite of a faggot or two falling to the pavement here and there.

So, I might have hoped for a bigger conflagration, but I have no complaints about all that did ignite; ultimately, it’s way more than I deserve.

Great Wolf Lodge

2009-06-23T09:38:00.001-07:00

This is what it means to be an indulgent parent of an American kid turning twelve years old in the first decade of the 21st century: you pile her, three friends, and your spouse into a borrowed SUV and drive about a hundred miles from home to an oversized hotel/waterpark in the middle of nowhere, basically, and spend the equivalent of a weekend for two in Paris, France, so the kid can have a birthday slumber party and stay up all night before dragging herself and her buddies out the door right at 8:55AM to be the first ones down the big tubular waterslide when the park opens at 9:00.

Woo-hoo, I guess.

The good news is the place isn’t quite as scary as one might fear and the drinks in the bar are surprisingly strong; I’m hoping that this experience is a once-in-a-lifetime fad, but if the youngster really wanted to reprise the event next year, I wouldn’t be totally opposed to it.

The other upside is that our four young charges are too big to be into the Disney-influenced theme park going on in the hotel that requires children to figure out some kind of mock-adventure using plastic tree-branch wands that they wave at plastic injection-molded treasure chests and the like; the hallways are filled with young parents shepherding their toddlers around with that look of exhaustion and dyspepsia characteristic of doing something with your pre-schooler that’s been designed to maximize his or her likelihood of nagging you to buy some mass-produced fantasy knick-knack.

I fear, naturally, the consumerist indoctrination that’s going on here all around us; this is the type of place that trains youngsters to grow up to find the sights and sounds of Las Vegas attractive; once you develop a taste for themed hotels and animatronic singing animals, they’ve got you.

So I suppose that means indulgent parents will be footing the bill for a soiree at the Mirage in nine years.

Not a Career Choice

2009-06-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Every time I go to the track, as I did yesterday, sort of in honor of Father’s Day with my fellow father—his first year as one, my 12th—Chris Badgely, I think, when I first get there, (and even more, in the full flush of victory after the first race picking the winner paying $8.40 to win), something like, “This is it! Piece of cake. Pari-mutual horse-race handicapping; I’ve got it all figured out; I’m gonna quit my job and become a fulltime railbird, hang out at the track all summer and make my living by picking winners at the ponies.”

Nine races later, with only a couple more small wins at relatively low payoffs, it becomes obvious to me that the only way I’m apt to come out ahead at the track is if I don’t go at all, or maybe if I just resolve to not bet on more than one or two of the races, making a few big bets rather than trickling away my stake on a whole bunch of smaller, mostly hunch wagers.

Still, it was a pretty good time, in a lovely, if somewhat surreal setting; there’s much to be said for having a couple of bloody marys and a few beers in the afternoon with at least the prospect of getting lucky and going home with a wad of cash in your pocket.

My only regret is that I didn’t invest more in support of the ten year-old West Seattle Boy, who won the feature race, paying $16.40 on the nose, but alas, the typical desire for a big win on the exacta undermined a more reasonable, in slightly conservative, betting strategy.

But see? This is the lesson gleaned from yesterday’s adventure, and if I only apply that knowledge to my next visit, I’ll be all set up to make a killing, allowing me to spend the rest of the summer raking in big bucks playing the fillies, right?

Bad Boy

2009-06-19T11:08:00.001-07:00

I live a reasonably ethical life; I don’t steal; I hardly ever lie (and never to hurt anyone, only to protect myself); I’m pleasant to strangers (except when they’re in automobiles trying to run me over); I pay my taxes, eat my vegetables, mow my lawn, and in general, follow most of the rules society has laid down for upstanding citizenry; when people think of me, I imagine I’m conceived of as a pretty nice guy, a good neighbor, and probably something of a role model for environmentally-sensitive, socially-responsible members of an urban community in the 21st century.

Boring.

Maybe it’s a result of sleeping in a tent for a couple of nights; perhaps it’s the authentic sense of summer starting to creep in; or it could just be that I’m feeling my middle-aged oats, but I woke up this morning with an urge to break out of the tidy little life I lead and raise hell of the sort typically frowned on around here, especially by me.

Like I could see myself in a convertible Hummer driving away from the steakhouse I’d just had a huge meal at; I’m on my way to a Nascar event and I’m blaring buttrock from the cars huge stereo system. I’m rich beyond all measure because I’ve masterminded a 7 billion dollar Ponzi scheme in which I’ve fleeced thousands of investors of their life savings and I don’t care a whit because as far as I’m concerned they’re all greedy suckers who deserve to be taken.

I’ve left the water running at my house to water my huge lawn and later this evening, I will turn on all the lights in every room just because I can.

Okay, I’ve sort of gotten that out of my system; when I put it down in words, it doesn’t sound as appealing a I thought it would.

Maybe I just want to be a little bad; beer for lunch is a start.

Already Over

2009-06-16T10:22:00.000-07:00

Man, summer hasn’t even really started yet—except for the part about school being out—but it’s already starting to feel like it’s already over.

When I tally up the days remaining and all the stuff that I want to do—and even more to the point, all the stuff that I don’t want to do—it seems like the time’s all gone; how am I ever going to fulfill my ambition to be absolutely without ambition if I’ve got to squeeze that into vacation plans, bike rides, and plowing through Bertrand Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy, or, at least, The New Yorker most weeks?

Thinking this way is, I know, to commit some strange cognitive error by which one compresses events by cataloguing them. That is, it’s clear to me that I misrepresent the way things really are—and will be—by casting forward and imagining that all these days yet to be have already, essentially, passed by. I conceive in clumps, in other words; a week in July gets smooshed down to a single concept: visiting New Mexico; three weeks in August turns into a nothing more than an idea; and before you know it, all the time I’ve planned for has disappeared.

It’s like when you pretend you’re going to win the lottery and you try to imagine how you’re going to spend the $200 million bucks; by the time you’ve planned your huge party, given huge monetary stipends to all your friends, bought a few custom bikes, and paid off the mortgage, man, you’re already broke and might as well not have won in the first place.

The thing is, I know that before September, there will be lots and lots of time that I’ll just be looking to fill up; long mornings when I’m tired of reading or writing and don’t know what to do with myself; so even though summer’s pretty much already gone, it’s not used up; me neither.

Bicycle Belles

2009-06-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Here’s how joy is made manifest: take five to seven stunningly attractive young women—and one charmingly adorable young man—put them in tantalizingly revealing purple garb—and in his case, impressively reflective gold lame shorts—have them spend the better part of a year working up dance routines featuring 16-inch wheeled kiddie bikes and custom-made velo-props, gather half a hundred cyclists including a good mix of choppers, tall bikes, and fixed gears, throw in a keg or so of beer and homemade fermented yerba maté, and parade together through Seattle’s industrial wasteland to three different locations where, at each, the performers put on a show of two-wheel-themed choreography that blows you away with its charm, precision, and often real poignancy; if this doesn’t make you hoop and holler with happiness, then you must not have been paying attention—or maybe you just need another cup of that maté stuff.

Move over Portland’s Sprockettes; make room Vancouver’s B.C. Clettes, and welcome to the stage Seattle’s very own Bicycle Belles, our town’s homegrown and legendary bicycle dance troupe; yesterday they graced us with three separate routines, each slightly more accomplished than the one before, all polished, precise, and professional, but still ragged enough to be magic and dangerous at the same time.

The first number, a short bit with just five of the team, showcased the Belles’ pinpoint control as they emerged from a tableau and rode taut figure-eights around each other. The second, slightly longer, piece highlighted the troupe’s exuberance with moments where bikes were embraced, intertwined with, and made romance to.

And then finally, the piece de resistance came after sunset as the full company performed a jaw-droppingly impressive work of bicycle theater featuring ambitious production values and properties: each performer carried a glow-in-the-dark “fan” made of half a bicycle wheel, the moments when those fans came together to complete the circle suddenly brought tears to my eyes, joy made manifest, heartwarming, whole, all as one.

Regulator Rectifier

2009-06-12T09:53:00.001-07:00

I’m not even sure what it means, but chanting it over and over—regulator-rectifier, regulator-rectifier, rectifier-regulator—is what enables me to scale the backside of Graham Avenue as we cross the spine of Seattle the hard way—perpendicularly—from Seward Park, where we’d been swimming right up to the last rays of the nearly midsummer night’s sun; that was a dream to be sure or at least a vision from one: twenty-some pasty white torsos poking from the quicksilver and amber water, beers being launched from shore far more effectively than bottle rockets caught in shoelaces and if this wasn’t enough delight, back it all with the realization that with classes over and grades almost in, the immortal words of Alice Cooper resound, “We can’t even think of a word that rhymes!”

School’s out, not quite forever, but about 90 days until I have to actually think about what clothes I’m going to wear on a given day (before donning pretty much the same outfit anyway) and if last night is any indication of what can be expected before the leaves turn in the fall, then sign me up twice.

Not only did I get to drink tequila out of flask after throwing lake muck at drunks, I also got to sit on bar stool quaffing a cold one after belting out the thematically-apt (for me, anyway) buttrock anthem to that same collection of douchecock sonzabitches, fucking “boosh” as the kids today put it.

The bicycle is freedom, just as it has been every single summer since I was eight years old and I rode all the way from my house to the swimming pool on my Schwinn Typhoon and while in that case, I’m sure I didn’t wear a helmet, I also probably wasn’t as tipsy as I was by the time I started pedaling home last night, ending round one of almost 100 with no more pencils, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.

Chicken or Egg

2009-06-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

Mimi was off on a school camping trip last night so Jen and I got to go out for some midweek drinking and over a couple of margueritas each we got to talking, of course, as parents do when their child is away, about the kid, and Jen allowed that she can’t help seeing herself in some of the behaviors Mimi manifests, which I found somewhat contrary to my own experience, the youngster being a riddle inside of a conundrum to me, if you want to know the truth.

And Jen elaborated that she can even recall specific incidents that had she done something differently, the kid would have turned out differently and that got me to wondering how true that really is and how much effect we really have on the creation of our children’s character when all is said and done.

The question for me is whether our actions towards our progeny create their dispositions or just provide opportunities for those qualities to be revealed; I can’t tell.

My example from my own life is when I was about 8 and I was at the swimming pool with my mom and I wanted show her how I could dive off the high dive; I interrupted an interchange she was having with some lady to tell her to watch, but when I returned to ask her did she see, she merely glared and said, “David, I’m having a conversation here.” At that moment, I remember resolving to take pleasure in my own success and never showing off for her approval again.

But did her (in)action form my character?

Suppose she had watched and when I came back, fawned all over me with praise; I can perfectly well imagine thinking, “Oh my god, this is mortifying; I resolve now to take pleasure in my own success and never show off for her again.”

Different parental action, but the same reaction from child; nature or nurture, probably both.

Died and Gone

2009-06-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Here’s another reason why I find it hard to believe in an afterlife, especially one where you get to sit by the right hand of a supreme being and live in bliss and harmony for all eternity: on today’s ride out to school, the weather couldn’t have been nicer, the scenery more lovely, the bird songs sweeter, nor could I have felt any better and more at peace, even were I reclined beside the Allmighty himself; if there is a heaven, in other words, it’s right here on earth, as I live, not up in the sky (or wherever) after I’m gone.

But as proof that maybe I’m not so sure after all: there was at least one moment as I pedaled along, the dappled sunlight warming my arms, the songs of chickadees and robins tickling my ears, that I did sort of wonder whether I had died and gone to heaven.

At the very least, it did very strongly occur to me that, as my old colleague John Latourell used to put it, “this is the beautiful time, man,” and if it does come to pass, as so many signs point to, that climate change and overpopulation will put an end to so much of the natural beauty we now enjoy, I will recall these days as an older man (assuming I make it that long), as among the best I ever got to experience.

I just finished reading T.C. Boyle’s A Friend of the Earth, which is set in the year 2025, after human-induced global climate change has devastated pretty much of everything: California experiences monsoons for half the year, drought for the rest; practically all the higher mammals (except humans) in the world are extinct; the only thing thriving is a washed-up pop star apparently modeled on a cross between Bono and Michael Jackson. Human activity has reduced that world to hell; here, today, though, I still get a taste of paradise made real.

Ode to Agave

2009-06-05T18:30:00.000-07:00

Consider humanity’s greatest inventions: fire, the bicycle, Gutenberg’s printing press, thermoses that know how to keep hot things hot and cold things cold, and Sheldon Brown’s favorite, the pneumatic tire.

All great to be sure, but rounding out the top ten has got to include the marguerita, that delicious concoction of tequila, lime juice, and triple sec liqueur whose charms are legion and whose appeal transcends race, class, gender and, in doing so, offers a model for universal harmony exceeded only by Grateful Dead concerts and Oprah Winfrey sweeps-week shows.

I happen to be sipping one such illustrious libation even as I type, enjoying the soothing balm it offers to the pains and disappointments of the busy work week just past. With each swallow of the delightful elixir, my cares and woes melt away concurrently with the ice in my glass and if any further proof be needed of the drink’s effectiveness, it’s even made me appreciate the turn of a phrase here and there in this particular edition of this increasingly irregular spewing forth of 327 words.

My version of the drink is quite simple: three parts tequila—100 percent agave is de rigeur, and my favorite brand by far El Tesoro de Don Miguel—two parts lime juice—fresh-squeezed is highly preferred, but I’m not averse, especially if it’s a party, to using bottled, as long as it’s not doctored with anything else—and one part triple sec—fancy margueritas call for Cointreau, but to my taste that’s overkill; anyway, I think I prefer the slightly metallic flavor of the cheaper liqueur; the good stuff overwhelms the tequila in my not-so-humble opinion.

I throw everything into a cocktail shaker filled with ice, dump in a couple tablespoons of sugar and shake vigorously. The mixture, ice and all, is then transferred to a rocks glass where it then begins its journey into my stomach and eventually, frontal lobes, to be repeated as necessary, like right now.