Brooding Graphomane

Still sitting on fence about whether collecting, sorting and theorizing about cultural artifacts serves any practical purpose. Now attuned, you notice every humble bike you once filtered out. They call anyone with an insane writing compulsion a graphomane. Computers have expanded outlets for poets and public's chance for rants by a quantum advance. Journalism died. Media became infotainment. Social media promotes hipster hegemony. You can assume this means most of what you read merely deflects criticism, incites mayhem, provokes replacement, or spins fables, unless you stumble into some backwater where brooding deliberation over decades seeks beauty in reality.

B&C deserves a snappy anthem. Listed many songs that nicely align, but to select only one would show bias. So wrote own that quotes names you might know or ought to.

Bicycling Culture by Labann

Sport or transportational:

Labann wrote tomes on this
conveyance you pedal.

Vulture for cycling culture:

On something less vulgar,
could've avoided ulcer.

Fervor, fear beget regret.
Yet so does parking

your butt on a soffette.

Buy wheels at a bike swap,
junk dealer [1], trendy shop,
or yard sale next door stop.

Can ride it if you like [2],
though many bust or rust [3]
when no longer a tyke.

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Play the fool. Just decide
to swallow your damn pride.

Learnt really hard lessons [4].
Dodged some stones in the road [5],
during cycling sessions.

Ever look left, right, left
across, not let yourself
of living be bereft.

Pass losers, motorcrashes [6],
balderdash on diaper rashes.
Steer clear of bigot clashes.

Activist Morrisette heed.
Dan Behrman, Illich read.
Bike’s all you’ll ever need.

Wake white [7] or yellow [8] zeal.
What will you reveal
pursuing an ideal?

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Ignore jibes and sneers snide.
No pet? Be your own guide [9].

Don’t forget to mention [10]
how Pierre Michaux’s bike
was world’s best invention.

Choose a freedom machine [11].
You will get glad and lean,
but it won’t keep you clean.

Never get there? Went far
on fixed wheel with crossbar [12],
faster than driving car.

Tied my bike to a post [13],
shamed to fret. Still almost
got stole' by some foul ghost.

Depressed you say? Why not
be on a flow today?
Pedal your blues away [14].

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Neither be pushed aside,
nor let rights be denied.

Ride bike slowly [15], sans dread,
wherever you like, Grateful
Dead songs in your head.

Beasts and botanicals,
spandex mamils, fat bottomed [16] wamils,
such amusing mammals.

You, me, and the devil
make two [17]. Not merely revel,
peddle on the level.

Bicycle built for fools [18],
forget about it [19]. Tools
can’t touch me, beyond rules.

A’cycling through village [20]
’s legal right, no breakage.
Driving’s just a privilege.

Chorus:
Go outside. Ride, ride, ride.

Safer than your next stride;
motoring’s suicide.

Snippet Sources:
1 Paul McCartney, Wings, “Junk” (1970)
2 Syd Barrett, “Bike” (1967)
3 Tom Waits, “Broken Bicycles” (1982)
4 Melody Gardot, “Some Lessons” (2008)
5 Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Stones in the Road” (1994)
6 Björk, Sugarcubes, “Motorcrash” (1988)
7 Tomorrow, “My White Bicycle” (1968)
8 Tracy Jane Comer, “Yellow Bike” (2006)
9 Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Bicycle Song” (2002)
10 Be Your Own Pet, “You Are My Bicycle” (2006)
11 Matthew Price, “Freedom Machine” (2009)
12 Wild Billy Childish, “Medway Wheelers” (2005)
13 Woody Guthrie, “Dance a Little Longer” (1946)
14 R Crumb, “Pedal Your Blues Away” (1978)
15 Trey Anastacio, “Let Me Lie” (2006)
16 Freddie Mercury, Queen, “Fat Bottomed Girls” (1978)
17 Scissor Sisters, “Bicycling with the Devil” (2004)
18 Jimi Hendrix, “My Friend” (1968)
19 Kevin Bacon, “Got Damn Bicycle” (2008)
20 John Lennon, “New York City” (1972)