3.15.2004

This is the scariest bunch of crooks that I have ever heard of. And this administration has the gall (sp?) to base their dictatorship on "Christian principles" and don't you just love how they show that little imp of a man, that hypocritical devil bowing his head reverently as he goes to church every Sunday...

By all means, don't let the people who happen to have The Gay get married because now that would be wrong. STEALING ELECTIONS (He didn't win!! HE should not even be there, does that not occur to America every day? Mustn't something like that just bring on a civil war or something?), killing innocent Iraquis, providing inadequate benefits to the kids that he sends over there for the slaughter, giving our forests to the lumber companies (oh, but it's the Healthy Forests initiative, for the health of the forests), allowing corporations to run the country, now that is not. None of that is wrong.

I swear if he steals this next election, which why wouldn't he? Why the fuck wouldn't he when he has already done it once and no one batted an eyelash? Why didn't we know about this woman who took thousands of voters off of the Florida registers for him and then became a member of congress? Why is that not all over the news? If he steals this election, I am moving to Canada for the next four years. I refuse to pay any more taxes to kill our soldiers and to fatten the wallets of the energy industry who runs our country.

I am itching. I have to go now and ride my bicycle until I no longer feel like breaking things in two.

| link | Site Feed

3.4.2004

Of course there's a subculture. I suspected that it was there as I have sometimes witnessed the parade of spandex that traverses Arguello, the gateway street to the Presidio and Golden Gate Bridge. A cycling society that I never knew existed, complete with its own mores and rules and hierarchies, is out there. As I trundle across the bridge on my squeaky silver Marin hybrid bicycle (just like the ones that all of the tourists rent -- dammit -- except theirs have BLAZING SADDLES broadcasted on the front of the little canvas baskets attached to their handlebars), teams of sleek, sexy bicycles blur past me looking like they weigh about two ounces. Their riders, weighing another 80 pounds maybe, are covered minimally in shiny tight clothes. Their calve muscles form a signature heart-shaped cleft with the push and pull of the pedals, and I admire the musculature wholly visible through the skin for the few seconds that I can see them after they have passed me. When I ride with Mat, who has one of the zooming little creations, a handmade work of art built like dragonfly wings, a delicate extension of the body that lends flight to its passenger, the other cyclists check it out as we pass.

Oh yeah, there's a subculture all right. For one thing, wearing advertisements is big. I know that proudly hawking stuff is popular everywhere. You don't need binoculars and a field guide to find someone in a sweatshirt that they paid seventy dollars for with a huge GAP plastered across it. That look is relentlessly everywhere, even in Laos. But, why bring it out to your recreational world? Are we not bombarded enough in our everyday existence by sneaky, aggressive advertising? Do we really need to bring it out to the lonely strips of wildflower highway or the Golden Gate Bridge and force everyone who passes us or is passed by us to stare at an Ofoto ad? Cycling jerseys and shiny tight shorts don't come cheap, so I know that these people are paying high dollars to be pedaling billboards. There is one exception. I often see stick figures of striated muscle and two percent body fat (well, I don't really see them, I sense them as they glide past me like specters or mists) who are obviously sponsored racers. They have been paid by the evil corporations to do that which they love the most. Okay. I admire them. But, the majority of the people in brand gear out there are definitely not professional racers. So, are they trying to appear to be so? Or are the professional racers the pillars of this subculture, the ones who set the trend?

When I first started riding my bicycle for hours a day, this training for the AIDS ride that has now become almost all that I do aside from working and sleeping, I bristled at this secret society with its expensive accoutrements that makes me think that surely each of these people carries a beeper or a cell phone as they are definitely doctors or lawyers or big corporate thieves, something high powered and money-earning. You sense the change as you cross the bridge into Marin. You are in Marin cycling territory, a polar opposite from the rolled-up black Dickies, white socks, greaser hair, and pocket wallet chains of the militant cyclists of San Francisco. Here in San Francisco, the cheaper your bike, the cooler you are. No helmet, no problem.

Starting out on this journey, I was determined not to buy a bunch of new stuff to do this ride. After all, the production of anything is destructive to the environment (even hand-made bicycles) and fuels the always-hungry capitalist beast who would just as happily feed on your soul as the money in your wallet. I would do this ride for AIDS research, using my old-school clunker and the clothes that I already own. I would wear my helmet, covered in its political stickers and ride my squeaky silver bike, also covered in stickers, with the broken pedal. Punk rock. Representin San Francisco, yo.

Then I rode thirty miles one day. And I realized that that wasn't even one third of what I would be riding in one day for six days in a row. As my brain did the math (sluggishly, due to a blood glucose of probably 25 since I refused to bring more than one Clif bar on my ride), I started scoping out the sexy road bikes as they zipped past my squeaking albatross that felt as though it weighed as much as Sisyphus's stone. The wind seemed to blow me backwards as my legs ached with each revolution of the broken pedal, and the squeaking had driven me quite mad. My fevered brain had concocted a song that incorporated the squeaking, a maniacal repetitive tune that refused to go away and leave me alone. Maybe I would buy a bike like Mat's, one with the weight of a feather, lovingly designed to do the exact thing that I would be doing. Riding for many many miles on a road. A road bike.

Now I'm in the market. I'm prepared to drop over a thousand bucks because that is pretty much the going rate if you want something hand-made, which I do. At least if I am going to buy something new, I want to support any company who continues to do things by hand in an age of assembly line robotics. I am getting more and more into this whole world, looking into buying some sleeker clothes that will not drag in the wind, considering owning more than one pair of the crotch-padded diaper tights that make my bulging, bicycling, mule-like thigh muscles look seven times bigger than they are. After riding behind Mat and observing the smooth revolution that his legs make, the efficiency and unwasted energy that comes from being attached to your pedals, I am going to get some clipless pedals which will mean purchasing the clickety clackety tap shoes that fit into them.

They've got me. I am going to start to fit in to this subculture of silliness. After riding up Conzelman road, an intense slant up the side of the Marin headlands and then soaring the tiny, one-way road down and down from Hawk Hill, feeling as though I was flying, the ocean sparkling before me, hawks flying above and beside me, the deserted rolling hill country unfolding before me as I rounded the corner, I understood the inspiration for the cry of the raptors as they are a part of the same view that I was a part of. On a bicycle, you are part of it. You hear the sounds, are blown by the gusts of wind, dampened by the rain, and warmed by the sun. I will gladly fork over my hard-earned cash for the feeling of something less beneath me. My wings will be but a wisp of aluminum and two skinny tires. My clothes will adhere to my body, making no noise, a part of my skin, shiny and tight. I may begin to fit into the subculture, but I will not wear a Chevron jersey. And the sticker on the side of my helmet will read "Be kind to animals. Don't eat them" not Kodak. San Francisco in the house. Sorta.

| link | Site Feed