Spike Ectodomain

“More laundry, muddy pants: study weathercasts, maps, thumb catalogs, take naps. Window another chance.” - Labann, Winter Cadence, 2008

Sounds simple: Acquire and apply skills, collect pay, save for retirement, settle bills, and stay within means. When your life is made too complicated, depressing or difficult to bear, you look for someone to blame, though many assume it’s their own fault after years of brainwashing, browbeating and brutal upbringing. Doesn’t mean that corporate protocols, criminal schemes, and government policies don’t prevent you from thriving. Laws don’t care and life isn’t fair. The bimbo in a Mercedes who parks in a restricted zone won’t get ticketed, but you would. Conspiracy theorists spend excess energy concocting senseless arguments denying contagion threat and justifying own stupidity, never forget.

Coronavirus gets its name from its crownlike protein spikes, an ectodomain finger that helps them impale and infect host cells. Cretins ignore need to vaccinate themselves, infect others, yet somehow deflect high death rate. They’re so full of poison even a deadly disease wants out and won’t linger. Scrotus and entire staff allegedly had it, though none seemed unduly impacted, though they misrepresented threat to bolster hardline Republicans, particularly Rubio, who heads Small Business subcommittee. More Americans died from COVID, half a million, than US soldiers in all 20th Century wars. COVID singlehandedly reduced average life expectancy by a full year, the deepest plunge in a century, not to mention causing its worst economic recession. Poverty kills more people than infection, and reduces survivors to slaves.

Siddhartha Mukherjee’s New Yorker article wonders why pandemic death rates were counterintuitively and disproportionately higher among wealthy Caucasian elderly and lower among poor Asian youth. “It was an epidemiological whodunnit... After the age of thirty, your chance of dying if you get covid-19 doubles roughly every eight years.” No studies to date factored in race, but suspect it was a bio-engineered racial weapon. Even those not so convinced have begun to boycott Chinese products based on Beijing’s lying about COVID’s high communicability thereby delaying what would have saved millions of lives. No one knows how long vaccines boost immunity or whether those vaccinated can still infect others. Yet China’s Xi Jinping remains The Chump’s “very, very good friend,” whose totalitarian crackdown in Hong Kong forced self censorship and squashed democratic protests.

Whose friends were Fala, Feller, Edgar, Charlie & Gaulie, Heidi, Edgar & Freckles, Checkers, Liberty, Rex, Millie, Socks, Spot, Bo, and Champ? They were presidential pets of FDR, Truman, JFK, Johnson, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama and Biden, respectively. Teddie Roosevelt, Cal Coolige, and JFK had entire menageries. Not surprisingly, noticeably missing from this list is Dolt 45, who said outright he had no love or time for animal companions, although he surrounded himself with ass kissers, bootlickers, bottom feeders, opportunists, sycophants, thieves, and yes men, who served his will alone and suffered consequences. He cowered Birx and Fauci into violating Hippocratic Oath to save face, while 10% of Americans contracted and 1% died. Now he’s collecting donations for his own PAC instead of relying on RNC for another run, provided DOJ investigations don't result in indictments and convictions.

Cold and COVID set cycling priorities. Biggest difference between indoor spinning and outdoor riding is commitment. Once you venture forth, you must defy odds and endure whatever yet somehow return. On an indoor sprinter or stationary rig, you meet no one, never shiver to stay warm or steer clear of potential carriers, see same old floors and walls, and step off as soon as you sweat. While better than nothing and more efficient, there’s no glory, regret, risks, scars, tears, or toxic clouds of wind whipped road salt, at least in most northern states. Filthy piles of snow glower where sun doesn’t shine.

Rather ride paved roads than sloppy single tracks: Not so likely to run into fauna and flora, plus, should one drop dead being overtaken by an impatient motorist, someone might find intact corpse sooner. Hold little interest in gravel and mountain bikes, though wildly popular among fitness freaks afraid of motorists. Justify so many pedaled miles by supplanting driven miles for free vitamin D, gym visits, health appointments, low impact exercise, shopping trips, and work commutes that meant necessary motility.

A bright light might blur blemishes or expose blight. Shouldn’t you shine yours and stand in the sun? You buy little with silence, but risk shame and worse for speaking up. Duty of any citizen is to participate in democracy, but political opinionated people are subject to cancel culture, a new term for ostracism. Prepare to be dismissed as bitter, ignorant and vile by those in denial. Labann does read news but isn’t on Clubhouse, Facebook, 4chan, forums, Gab, Instagram, LinkedIn, Listserv, Parler, Patriots.win, Reddit, Telegram or Twitter yakking with dolts and trolls by the busloads. Blind mute service stands you in good stead until world implodes. Participation in life can be active or passive, which translates into having some small say or reacting to policies against you decided by blowhards, loudmouths, and tightwads. Live by a stone cudgel, sword, gun, pen, computer, smartphone on worldwide web, each mightier by degrees, but, according to debatable old saying, you’ll die by which one you seize.

Life is not defined by scientific hypotheticals that contrast Erwin Schrödinger’s feline fodder against Max Planck’s predatory Manx: All in on sin, or believe in afterlife inevitability, higher purpose, ineffable karma, influential spirituality, probable retribution, or simply you’ll do better when everyone does well. Apathetic or oblivious enablement equal tacit approval. Office of POTUS is a wet dream for an opportunistic con man: Power to promise anything, renege anytime, screw over whomever, take without consequences or limits because world’s biggest army and treasury backs you. Someone, usually those seeking knowledge and truth, have to pay the price.

What young adults don’t need is another bad example to emulate. What they do need more than anything are bicycles, since they get zero exercise with their noses stuck in smartphones all day until onset of diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Internet is loaded with serious content if you’re willing to “sign up’ to some service for loss of anonymity or some small fee. With Alexa or Siri you don’t even have to surf browsers to find bad advice or biased suggestions. Life isn’t buried behind digital barriers but right outside your door, which you should be cautioned to keep closed with home invasions, misery-loves-company contagion spreaders, and utility scams on rise due to pandemic and recession.

Instead of diligently pedaling, doing interesting research. Movies or tunes can be just as infectious as viruses; though fewer die as a result, ear-worms or plots might exasperate enough to distract from meaningful tasks or safe practices. As promised, got back to Grace Papy’s Vélo Bicyclette Remix, reviewed more movies she cited along with others newly discovered for a dozen new, ruled out several as insufficient reference or previous mention, and wrapped up. French film titles seldom match original English titles already covered, which creates confusion. Always try to provide instances where bicycling figures into plot lines, not just naturally appears, or lists would be even longer.

Maria (Marlene Dietrich) meets Count Dino (Vittorio De Sica) while gambling in The Monte Carlo Story (Samuel A. Taylor, dir., 1957). Thus begins an affair, both penniless imposters believing other might ensure her/his future, but it’s short lived. Once Maria learns Dino is chronically broke and compulsively gambles like her, she instead hooks up with a wealthy American and plans to marry him. But Maria can’t shake her fondness for Dino. A vintage poster portrays them in Monaco bicycling together as if sophisticated fun. Period photos also show Dietrich pushing pedals, possibly contributing to America’s bike boom between 1965 and 1975.

Anime miniseries Golden Boy: Sasurai no o-benkyô yarô, aka The Wandering Student (Hiroyuki Kitakubo, dir., 1995-96) stars voice of Doug Smith as Kintaro Oe, a 25-year-old law student who dropped out of Tokyo University, because he had already mastered entire curriculum, to pursue a simpler life of traveling on his bicycle between diverse part-time jobs. Humor comes from his lust for babes who he thinks want his attention.

Mom drags Lola (Lindsay Lohan) away from her beloved Manhattan to suburban New Jersey, where she’s adapting to stifling provinciality, biking to high school, and exploring gated communities in Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, aka Le Journal Intime d’une Futur Star (Sara Sugarman, dir., 2004). She runs afoul of popular bully Carla (Megan Fox) but shows her up in final reel.

Anthropology student Annie Braddock (Scarlet Johansson, Avenger Black Widow) takes a summer domestic role in The Nanny Diaries, aka Le Journal d’une Baby Sitter (Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, dirs., 2008) to study the strange marital customs of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Rent’s free, but she’d rather have a corporate internship. She does learn a lot about how husbands and wives shirk commitments. When family vacations on Nantucket, she gets desperate to reconnect with handsome Harvard neighbor back in city, so bikes to a pay phone, which precipitates her being fired.

L.O.L (Lisa Azuelos, dir., 2009) has hormonal school teens emoting uncontrollably. Lots of honesty about post pubescent behaviors, Lola (Christa Theret) dumps Arthur (Felix Moati) to date folk singer Maël (Jérémy Kapone) and follow him down a dark tunnel on her bike.

In 2008, family of Sami Ben Boudaoud (Samy Seghir) settled into ritzy Paris locale Neuilly-sur-Seine. For 10 years he rides his tandem bike alone and with friends and studies political science aspiring to conservative office, until his idol loses presidential election, parents forfeit fortune, and they have to leave their beloved neighborhood. Neuilly Sa Mere, aka Neuilly Yo Mama (Gabriel Julien-Laferrière, dir., 2009) sees Sami’s embarrassing downfall and moving in with country cousin Charles de Chazelle (Jérémy Denisty).

Best friends Grace (Selena Gomez) and Emma (Katie Cassidy) quit their waitress jobs in rural Texas for an adventure in Paris, accompanied by Grace's stepsister. While there, Grace is mistaken for a philanthropist socialite, which leads trio to Monte Carlo, aka Bienvenue a Monte Carlo (Thomas Bezucha, dir., 2011). Farces, fights and flirts later, heart throb Theo (Pierre Boulanger) sees Grace riding a bike and whistles to stop her so they can reunite.

Noémie Lvovsky directs and stars in charming French magic realist flick Camille Rewinds (2012) as a middle aged wife whose husband (Samir Guesmi) leaves her. This triggers her alcoholic binge that leaves her in an ethylic coma. When she awakes in a hospital bed, she’s back in 1980’s, and society sees her as a 15 year old girl pedaling jejunely to school on a pink Peugeot, though she still appears 40 to herself and moviegoers and remembers everything that occurred. Determined to relive her life without repeating choices she regrets, she tries to avoid future husband altogether and to protect mom (Judith Chemla) from a fatal stroke, but fails on both accounts. After a bike crash and a t-bone collision, she’s back to present with a renewed attitude.

Montreal short The Man Who Lived on His Bike (Guillaume Blanchet, dir., 2012), best film in its category at a slew of film festivals, shows what one can do while living for an entire year on a bicycle... everything, including eating, phoning, Rubik's cubing, shaving, showering, sleeping, and suggesting even dating.

This is 40, aka 40 ans mode d’emploi (Judd Apatow, dir., 2012), shows how unhappily married couple Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) confront midlife. After overhearing that Debbie’s pregnancy is being kept from him, Pete goes for an angry fast 40th birthday spin on his Trek roadie, where he encounters just about every obnoxious Los Angeles motorist behavior and gets doored by a thoughtless SUV driver, while wearing his Giro helmet, fortunately. Driver punches him in the stomach when Debbie catches up to find him. Nominated for a dozen industry awards, it won two.

In chick flick Endless Love, aka Un Amour Sans Fin (Shana Feste, dir., 2014) sheltered debutante Jade (Gabriella Wilde) falls hard for troubled car valet David (Alex Pettyfer) enflamed by parental disapproval. He knows how to drive but rides her seductively on his handlebars.

On their farm in Aries, everyone in La Famille Bélier (Éric Lartigau, dir., 2014) is deaf except 16-year-old Paula (Anne Peichert, aka popular singer Louane Emera). Paula, who acts as interpreter for her parents, bikes everywhere, and is vitally important to farmstead operations, though they can’t appreciate her vocal talents. Movie earned 7-fold and won César Awards for Best Actor, Actress and Film despite some criticism by deaf activists, who complained affliction was insensitively played for laughs.