Bicyclette Melaine

“As a kid I had a dream – I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.” - John Lennon

Donald Gerola, Birdie Bicycle, steel sculpture, 2009

Thanksgiving honors special providence, when God goes that extra mile and intervenes to save sinners from catastrophes.Those who celebrate this holiday see it as an annual miracle when bosses give them a couple days off to figure out what Christmas recipients want, then go out and buy their gifts. During 1960’s bike boom, many preteens longed for a bicycle. For those who feed crowds and serve families, it’s an anxious interval of painstaking forbearance for buying ingredients, cleaning house, preparing feast, and putting on football for guests while wrapping up mess.

Labann takes an early spin on his bicyclette melaine, black bicycle, before festivities begin. Somebody must've raised a candle high, because pandemic ebbed and weather held, so got in a circuit on a wing and a prayer. In America, folks arrive at destinations by Wednesday night, sleep in, then wend their ways to where they were invited the following afternoon. More travel occurs nationwide on Thanksgiving eve than rest of year, but morning of holiday itself sees the least. Bicyclists who venture forth at dawn can ride on just about any road, even those typically impractical due to heavy traffic. After a couple of hours sweet smells of baking pies and roasting meats amuse bicyclists most, since motorists occupy vacuum packed rolling cans insulated from environment they despoil.

Few outside North America, and only 300 million residents, recognize this dated tradition on brink of disappearing altogether, compared to at least one billion bicyclists among planet’s eight billion inhabitants, some so enthused about their every day open air adventures as to write thousands of songs.

Alex The Astronaut (Alexandra Lynn), Ride My Bike [indie], How to Grow a Sunflower Underwater, self, 2022
 “I wanna climb so high, but I can’t find you. And I’ve been riding my bike slipping through the side streets, sweating up the hills. With these bricks what do I build? I’ll find it. I’ll keep riding.” All of Alexandra’s songs are informed by her autism diagnosis.

Bombadils, Bicycle [Canadian folk], Dear Friend, self, 2022
Luke Fraser and Sarah Frank from Halifax, Nova Scotia hark back to bluegrass. “The road’s got its ups and downs. It’ll break your heart. Slow down, or you could brake too hard. But there's a spark in my spokes spinning round, the brightest hope I've ever found. I see it in you and all the people riding through. So I'm not stopping yet. It feels too good to fly.”

Jaś Zgnilec feat ANA, Rower, single, self, 2022

Mooz Vibes, Velo Électrique [French Polynesian synth beats], single, self, 2022

BTS (Bangtan Boys) feat. RM (Kim Namjoon), Bicycle [K-pop], single, self, 2021
"Let’s ride a bike, if we’re sad... open our arms freely... Let it roll sometimes, like a bicycle wheel, I need to find something...”

Stamina MC (Linden Reeves), Bicicletta [English & Italian expletive drum & bass], single, self, 2021

Lil retar & Okti, Rower, single, Cucumber Gang Collective, 2021

Alphabeat, Back Of My Bike [Danish pop], single, Warner Music, 2019

 Cruising the Boardwalk, I Can Ride my Bike Song, single, self, 2019
 "Turn off your brain from the daily mundane that’s so crazy insane... I can ride my bike today. Be free!”

Rue (Park Hyeon Jun), Rain and Bicycle [K-pop], single, self, 2020

Maude Latour, Ride My Bike, Starsick EP, self, 2019
 “My mind's on fire, I feel the blood rush to my brain... I can't explain, so take a right at Central Park to clear my mind. And get that runner's high, high, and, baby, for the very first time I’m not afraid to die... think I found what it means to be alive. So I backpack through the universe, and I came back with no possessions except heartbreak and life's fake. And all the gods gave me one message, that you live fast and you die quicker.”

John Mineton, Rower [hip-hop], Rower,single, self, 2017

Rivival Now, I Ride My Bike in the Rain, At the First Revelationiest Project, Arkam Records, 2016

Passenger (Michael David Rosenberg), Riding to New York [folk ballad], Whispers, self, 2014
"See the doctors told me that my body won't hold me, my lungs are turning black... there ain't no turning back. They can't tell me how long I've got, maybe months but maybe not. I’m taking this bike and riding to New York... 'Cause I wanna see my grandson one last time... I wanna see my daughter, tell her all the things that I should have taught her, and I'd do it if I had to walk.”

Bicrophonic Research Institute is an anarchic organization of bicyclists who make “concrete music” tracks by riding bicycles equipped with a GPS receiver and Raspberry Pi computer on back rack and stereo speakers on handlebars. Using bespoke mapping software, they link different sounds to different places, meaning that what's played by the bike changes depending upon how fast cyclists pedal and where they go.

Established in London by Kaffe Matthews and Dave Griffiths in 2014, every year BRI collectively and conceptually undertakes several projects involving architecture, contemporary issues, cycling possibilities, finances, politics, or time, while running local workshops in sonic bike making and sharing developments online and open source. As a result independent sonic cycling hubs also exist in Berlin, Brussels, Finland, Houston, and Magdeburg.

Kaffe Matthews, Radio Cycle Highlights [excerpts from live broadcasts], podcast, self, 2002
During July of 2002 BRI's Kaffe Matthews broadcasted Radio Cycle 24/7 as an experimental podcast.

Melanie Anne Safka, Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), Lay Down (Candles in the Rain), Buddah, 1970
"We all had caught the same disease, and we all sang the songs of peace. Some came to sing, some came to pray. Some came to keep the dark away. So, raise the candles high, 'cause if you don't, we could stay black against the night (sky). Oh, oh, raise them higher again, and if you do we could stay dry against the rain." Though not about bicycling, this Woodstock anthem naîvely extols a kinder society, one in which bicyclists can enjoy peaceful alternatives.

Midterm “Cam-plain”

“When I move my body just like this, I don't know why, but I feel like freedom... You can't stand still. This ain't no drill, more than a cheap thrill.” Jon Baptiste, Freedom, We Are, Verve Records, 2021, styling jazz on his art bike in song’s official video. Album won a Grammy.

Ancient philosopher Aristotle reckoned, “Well begun is half done.” While cycling, you’re entitled to call hills well begun “half won,” since momentum carries you part way up if you charge hard beforehand. Takes determination and effort to escape a gravity hole or scrape yourself out of depravity hell. Half a presidential term usually isn’t enough to evaluate an administration’s accomplishments or crimes.

Began communicating online during 1980’s when everyone who texted was savvy about computers so somewhat intelligibly conversant. Respondents once understood courtesy and logic. Social media reversed this situation. In 4 decades of expressing self among blogs, bulletin boards, listservs, personal email, social media, and websites, learned volumes about human behavior. Life became unpredictable when knee-jerk oppositional overwhelmed sensibly conventional.

Nothing worthwhile comes from arguing with antisemites, bullies, cat fishers, cowards, cretins, criminals, cultists, denialists, extremists, fanatics, fascists, gaslighters, ghosters, grifters, homophobes, hucksters, louts, misogynists, narcissists, nazis, nincompoops, psychos, racists, simpletons, trolls, xenophobes, or zealots. Without dumpster diving and sorting through garbage speculations proven false in previous century, intellects can’t derive factual consensus. But process can be sped up by first identifying with whom you’re dealing. Etiquette matters, but rude manners should cost bores more.

Cat fishers extort and scam money from lonely people looking for love. Cultists justify their lazy allegiance to known celebrities rather than research character merits and track records. Deplorables reduce casual convo to “get help”, “Kool-aid drunk”, “love it or leave”, or strawman fallacies, then selectively delete own comments to make yours look odd and paranoid, though a 75% majority either agreed, ignored or liked. Remaining 25% correlate to one in four people with antisocial personality disorders who psychiatric scientists say constitute every community. Gaslighters and narcissists answer by belittling and browbeating to make you doubt yourself while they shore up own insecurities. Misogynists hate women so much they’d deny their majority and rights. Trolls renounce you personally hoping you’ll inadvertently blurt evidence they can use against you.

Whole Earth Catalog cofounder Stewart Brand flippantly advised, “We are as gods, so we might as well get good at it.” Well, reality of American majority might be diametrically the opposite. Fully 12% are illiterate in any language; 15% are retired beyond caring; 18% are school kids; 25% are trumpkins who bow to their Orange Jesus, a creamsicle crime lord in 3X marshmallow golf shorts, who has been twice convicted of fraud and twice impeached by House of Representatives. He’s been continuously investigated and relentlessly opposed not because he made political enemies for promising to “drain Potomac swamp”, rather because he’s a lifelong lowlife and pond scum with brain fog from drug abuse and sadomasochism. Remaining 30% include leaders and workforce reasonably anxious about issues and policies such felons might influence.

During last 2 years nation shrugged off a major pandemic and slew of attacks from domestic terrorists, both fanatical and financial, while deficit reduction and job growth set historic records. Corporate gouging, price hikes, school shootings, and worry whether family will die or fail incite discontent. Civil liberties, creative freedoms, democratic rule, and third estate are under relentless attack by would-be tyrants. Threats to your choice, health and wellbeing ought to give you pause for thought. If you forfeit rights while seeking security, you’ll be denied both.

People who suffer vent. They blame identifiable scapegoats, imaginary conspirators, or ingratiating politicians who’ve made promises they couldn’t keep resulting in disappointments, embarrassments, or losses. Some countenance hate crimes, random insurrections, and vigilante justice, then decide to avenge without knowing who's responsible. Ideology divides, dreams unite.

Vampires suck life from all they enthrall. Egomaniacal orators and giant tome writers cause same harm: They drain you dry by canceling your presence, monopolizing your time, or pushing you aside. Just think of what good a child could do if parents were simply supportive rather than sociopathic or stupefied. As everything in nature, humans exist in time-space haunted by memories that refuse to die. Hard enough to find inspiration without blood suckers abusing, demotivating, exploiting, or heaping insults upon you.

Politics are infested with vampires, who use patriotic, religious, and security arguments that defy logic, reason and sense to pick your pockets and secure their seats. You can’t just ignore them lest everyone including you suffer mightily. Too many boomers dropped out, thereby left this mess. What kind of dunce heeds Republican agenda of corruption, division, strong-arm tactics, and transfer of trillions from workers to an oligarchy? With only 25% voter affiliation nationwide members of this minority party could never get elected without arm twisting, ballot tampering, district gerrymandering, domestic terrorizing, ego stroking, electoral fudging, fear mongering, financial attacking, price hiking, school shootings, and vote suppressing.

Overlords pay Carlson, Hannity and Murdoch millions to spew propaganda for them 24/7 nonstop. Nothing new, been going on since Nixon, then Reagan, two Bushes, then worst, Trump. Investment transferred $50 trillion from US Treasury into offshore accounts of 850 billionaires, while 30 million families sunk below poverty line. Dictators desperately desire everyone’s compliance despite own crimes, even if that destroys everything that sustains society. An old French saying, "You grow to hate those you've wronged," explains why GOP wants to strip the poor and retired of earned entitlements, including social security you’ve involuntarily paid into for an entire career. Once they gain congressional and court control, none of these issues matter anymore, because it's all about blind hate, callous domination, donor support, and trickle “up" tricks. GOP hasn't introduced any domestic or international policies since Reagan; they vote lockstep with their totalitarian goal of destroying democracy.

Must mind what John Stuart Mill said even before Edmund Burke, “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.” Labann warned about this decades ago. Speaking out and standing up define democracy. Ambitious bullies want to rule world, but they don’t know what to do, so leave details to whomever they think they'd like, never some unassuming public servant who’d quietly and selflessly perform, rather some charismatic snake oil salesman in their own image who'll promise whatever constituents want yet never deliver.

Certain candidate ads don’t mention party for whom they are running. These closet Republican bimbos, con artists, flip-floppers, rapists, and the totally unqualified blame Democrats for problems they created. Could be explained by brain defects (crack babies, FAS, years of substance abuse, etc.) or mental disorders (antisocial sociopathy, dementia, depression, low self esteem, mania, narcissism, etc.), not that one should ostracize or vilify those who are mentally ill. When challenged in social media, they immediately call for a sidebar lest they be exposed.

Without exaggeration, what’s at stake during this midterm campaign are citizens’ access to ballots and expectation to have votes counted; climate action with energy diversification; constitutional freedoms of self determination; continuation of earned entitlements for healthcare and retirement; correction of social and taxation injustices; and criminalization of medical care choices. Already $30 trillion in debt, nation can’t keep handing public treasury to an oligarchy.

“Systems wrecking the environment are the same harmful systems that are dividing people and causing social inequality. Patriarchy, racism – these things are very connected to extractivism and destroying the environment. I think that these fights need to be connected. Feminism, the fight for social justice, anti-racism, anti-fascism and climate justice are in many cases the same fights.” Greta Thunberg, teen activist who already knows that conservatives, dictators and fascists are an existential threat to humanity.

Bicycling commuter Labann has decided to start a carbon credit registry, and become someone from whom you can purchase carbon offsets, a $2 billion/year racket that supposedly exonerates wasteful corporations from their environmental impact. Labann’s standards go further than most by consuming 80% vegan and zero beef, maintaining a junglelike yard as a nature preserve, recycling 75% of solid wastes, shutting all but one low energy light at night, supplanting miles driven with those biked, and supporting local farms directly by riding to their stands for purchases, thereby mitigating semi-tractor trailer trips to supermarkets, winding up below 3 tons of carbon footprint per year. Analysis shows all these activities annually avoid nearly 14 tons from national average of 16 tons of household carbon dioxide emissions, yours to purchase for a price of $5/ton, or entire lot at a discount of $50/year.

“Money cannot buy happiness, but it’s more comfortable to cry in a Mercedes than on a bicycle,” supposedly said cancer victim, chain smoker, and screen actor John Wayne, who might also be deemed a mass murderer as a macho role model who promoted tobacco abuse, among the top 5 deadly habits that shorten life along with continual stress, excessive sitting, inattentive motoring, and poor diet. Patrizia Gucci upped ante by substituting a Rolls Royce.

Wayne didn’t originate saying, which has been around since Jean Jacques Rousseau in The 18th Century in various forms alongside a contradictory saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” Greediest repeatedly cite both to stifle competition so as to leave more for them to grab. Money can be another tool gathering dust, while spending can also be a deadly addiction. Too much success sucks, while poverty can kill you from hunger, violence, and whatnot. When will people learn that balance and moderation are better?

Anyway, it’s not bicyclists who are crying, since exercise boosts mood, rather motorists grieving over their precious investment into a dying paradigm while stuck in gridlock worrying about EVMs supplanting ICEs. Readers seek entertainment, not advice. Comfort, encouragement, hope, inspiration seldom attract as much as schadenfreude for the agony of others.

Self interest masks heinous sin; guilt elicits flimsy excuses. Lies put proverbial lipstick on greedy pigs. Legitimate excuses could silence you forever, but perverse pleasure can be had by sticking a pin in an inflated opinion. Losing a delusion soothes more than learning a truth. Rolling among those asleep, Labann doesn’t delve too deep, makes a point, and moves on. While you still can, take care to exercise your right to vote without fear, or don't complain about results of campaign.

Cinema Samhain

Was admiring warm autumn foliage before Halloween and digging hard on Hardig Road, newly smooth, not at all like washed out disaster it once was during daily commutes, when odious doubts began to badger.

What if all study into arts, literature, lyrics, music, philosophy, poetry and science constituted an inapplicable canon and waste of time? Recognize self regurgitating memes read in youth but no longer consciously recall. Brain gradually loses plasticity, thus potential for using memory effectively when most necessary. Akin to physical fitness, you can only maintain mental competence through daily practice in languages, math, and other learned systems. Writing knack gets taken aback, then all is lost once you die. Lives fly by limited by circumstances you beget through apathy, bad habits, and neglect. Happiness offers no guarantee, stems from mutual dependency, suggests a meaningful journey rather than a miserable existence, nothing more really.

All of what emerged from this B&C experiment predates and validates Milan Kundera’s Slowness (2022), “The degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.” Labann chose to go slower and self propel, which created volumes from memory and disrupted a business blitzkrieg racing mindlessly nowhere leaving a wake of fog, regret, and ruin. A tome written to amuse self deserves no audience, while a novel meant to appeal to masses becomes a chore and seldom satisfies its author.

Whoever spends tens of thousands of hours of both bicycling streets and consuming cinema doesn’t need extra courses in critical thinking to see how they routinely intermingle. Somehow this Samhain, when darkness fills theaters and frightens cyclists, a harvest of evidence presents itself.

Disney fantasy sequel Hocus Pocus 2 (Anne Fletcher, dir., 2022) has Wicca curious teen heroines Becca (Whitney Peak), Izzy (Belissa Escobedo ), and Mayor of Salem’s daughter Cassie (Lilia Buckingham) bicycling everywhere, resurrecting witches, and summoning nonsense. Filmed at several Rhode Island locations, film sells to young audiences by starring same-aged tokens. Meanwhile, undead Sanderson Sisters hunger for children to eat and make themselves a nuisance with their paranormal spells. Disney has always promoted magic realism, but rumor has it that practitioners of dark arts must always pay a personal price.

Speaking of teens, a Thai school soccer team leaves practice on their bikes straight into trouble in true tale Thirteen Lives (Ron Howard, dir., 2022). In 2018 they run afoul while exploring caves that get flooded, evidenced by abandoned bikes at cave’s mouth. Navy Seal divers can’t figure out how to find and free them or recover corpses. So expert caver Richard Stanton (Viggo Mortensen) is called in. Despite seemingly impossible challenges, all teens survive, although one rescuer didn’t.

Paper Girls (Georgi Banks-Davies, dir., 2022) has four bicycling delivery preteens - Erin Tieng (Riley Lai Nelet), KJ Brandman (Fina Strazza), Mac Coyle (Sofia Rosinsky), and Tiffany Quilken (Camryn Jones) - from 1988 Cleveland, Ohio time travel to 2019, where not only have newspapers become irrelevant, they have to enlist their adult selves to save the world from warring factions. Based on Image Comics pulp series illustrated by Cliff Chiang and written by Brian K. Vaughan.

Pretty e-cycling protagonist Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) courts physical peril by accepting virtual missions in Amazon Prime series The Peripheral (Season 1, Episode 1, Vincenzo Natali, dir., 2022), set in a near post-apocalyptic future when e-bikes have become a primary mode of transportation. Meta Go Farther ad just dropped in which cyclists allegedly go farther in virtual reality. Will take real roads anytime. Anyone who thinks pedaling a stationary bike matches road riding must be naîve and pathetic.

On the other hand, beret wearing bicycling reporter Herbsaint Sazerac (Owen Wilson) in The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson, dir., 2021) complains, “The Automobile: a mixed blessing, on the one hand, the honking, skidding, speeding, sputtering, and backfiring, the emission of toxic fumes and filthy exhaust pollution, the dangerous accidents, the constant traffic... Oops!” as he crashes his bike into steps down into Metro station. Competing for space with stooges slinging around tons of steel does represent risks.

Apocalypse prepper Addison (Justin Dwayne Hall) sets out on a trike with a trailer laden with bare necessities across a midwestern state to reunite with family After The End (Ron Hanks, dir., 2021). Almost everyone else has died from a pandemic. En route he befriends a pregnant rape survivor Ava (Alex Frnka), and they travel together by bicycles. Ava’s secret is that she’s on the run from a bible thumping trio who justify murder through scripture.

Highly rated documentary Accomplice (Jeremy Grant, dir., 2021) praises mankind’s best invention by profiling top free ride cyclists from around the globe.

Domestique (Adam Sedlák, dir., 2021) explores lengths to which cyclists will go just to be considered for a team, and personal sacrifices they make pursuing vicarious glory.

After her dad dies, Sarah (Arlen Aguayo Stewart) leaves Montreal to visit his mom Magda (Gloria Demassi) from a small Uruguay village in award winning Canadian film Les Routes, en Fevrier (Roads in February, Katherine Jerkovich, dir., Quebec, 2019). During dead of winter it’s far too sultry so far south, but Sarah hardly recognizes the place of her birth, and residents don’t warm to her either as she bikes around alone.

Animated irreverent TV series South Park: Bike Parade (Season 22, Episode 10, December, 2018) treats bikes as luxury vehicles that attract girl groupies, while gang takes on Amazon’s unfair labor practices as best they can and well they should.

Bicycling protagonist Max McGrath (Ben Winchell) dodges those hunting him and doesn’t understand why. Turns out he’s half alien, so can emit tachyon radiation, which powers an armored suit when he pairs with a robot and transforms into Max Steel (Stewart Hendler, dir., 2016). An adversary also wants to exploit his power. Gives a new meaning to e-bikes, which have become increasingly popular, just like when early bicycles were gradually supplanted by motorcycles, then automobiles. Best and worst thing about purely pedaled bikes is how much effort they require. Amidst automotive convenience and pandemics of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and obesity, opportunities to exercise in fresh air and soak up Vitamin D have all but disappeared for all but the most adventurous road cyclists and avid outdoorsmen.

Down to doping scandals and no high profile champions, has cycle racing seen The Last Kilometer (L’Ultimo Chjilmetro, Paolo Casalis, dir., 2012)? Just because critics got bored doesn’t mean participants don’t revel in world class competitions.

Bicycle mechanic Joseph "Jody" Summers (Tyrese Gibson) fixes BMXs for neighborhood kids in feature film Baby Boy (John Singleton, dir., 2001).

“Woah, I can feel it move me, feel it shove me as I break the law... Well, he took it standing, broke commandments, and he tumbled like a toy, blood like this crimson highway, spreading out from the temple to the ground.” - Glenn Danzig, Samhain, Twist of Cain, Final Descent, 1990. Not about cycling, though lyrics suggest consequences of riding streets carelessly.

Uneven Terrain

José Guadalupe Posada (1851 to 1913), "Calaveras Riding Bicycles", depicts belligerent reporters at Mexican velodrome races, engraving print, circa 1900

When terrain gets bumpy or steep, input seems unduly rapid and unexpectedly grumpy. Suddenly under attack, you must react quickly or suffer misery. With an uncertain forecast, neither know what to ignore anymore, nor what well founded strategies will last. Likewise, hard to keep up with boatloads of bicycling references from all over during a bona fide bike boom. Haven’t been able to post since February because preoccupied by a massive bicycling research project.

What do Arnold “Terminator” Schwarzenegger, Ashton “Dude” Kutcher, Bill “Deadhead” Walton, Brad “Achilles” Pitt, Hugh “Wolverine” Jackman, George “Ocean” Clooney, Jennifer “Friends” Aniston, Jennifer “Selena” Lopez, Matt “Bourne” Damon, and Russel “Maximus” Crowe have in common? Off, and sometimes on, camera they’re all avid bicyclists and genuine characters, along with scores of others mentioned in a magazine article, including Joe POTUS Biden. No surprise, a billion humans prefer bikes to gas guzzling cars for at least some trips; why shouldn’t celebrities? Brains of bicyclists are bathed in neurotransmitters and oxygen, so operate more effectively; distant destinations and insurmountable obstacles teach them empathy, humility and patience.

“High gas prices affect so many aspects of life, like, from getting to work, to childcare, to, you know, all your friends who bike becoming even more smug about it.” - Trevor Noah, Nov., 2021

Jefferson Airplane, Fat Angel, Bless Its Pointed Little Head, RCA Victor, 1968 - 
“He will bring happiness in a pipe. He’ll ride away on his silver bike. And apart from that he’ll be so kind in consenting to blow you mind. Fly Translove Airways, get you there on time.”  Live jam at NYC’s Filmore East is an excellent cover of Donovan Leitch’s song, who in 1966 mentions same silver bicycle on Ferris Wheel from album Sunshine Superman.

Always tried to fairly evaluate motile methods by carbon footprint versus perceived convenience. Autonomous private passenger cars are easy to pilot and carry cargo aplenty. But escalating costs for fuel, failing emission systems from contaminated gas and converter thefts, and mounting environmental damage make them world’s worst transportation choice, diametrically opposed to just walking, which impacts nature the least and improves participant the most. Bicycling is more efficient than jogging, but requires employing some amount of energy for manufacturing and shipping. Busses, subways and trains (often electric) move multitudes with much lower emissions per capita than diesel and gasoline cars. Container ships move merchandise more efficiently than planes. Yet people prefer to drive themselves to airports and fly on business and holiday trips irrespective of high costs and intolerable hardships. Unwanted consequences and utter chaos always accompany resource wastes. Devil-may-care consumers choose whatever’s available, while callous capitalists make sure their merchandise fills bills and forces losses on those they oppress.

“Civilians lay dead in the middle of the street. Others lay by the side of the road, next to or underneath their bicycles.” - New York Times, April 6th, 2022, regarding Russian troop withdrawal from siege of Kyiv, Ukraine, and unequivocal evidence of war atrocities

If your worst grievances are having to endure petty inconveniences, prices hikes, and wise advice you don’t want to hear, you’re blessed beyond condolences versus tragedies so many others must bear. To a bore on Bloor, bicyclists know what you are, rude to the core, something all those as deplorable as you obviously ignore. Labann hardly notices despicable motorists anymore. What used to be unforgivable pales against heinous acts and naked aggression by a power lusty, territory mad bully. Unlike invaders driving thirsty tanks, Bucha’s bicyclists managed to get around town until Russian butchers cut them down. It’s another Chinese Tibet sangha-cide or Spanish Guernica genocide guaranteed by dirty gas and oil deals. Later, a captured Russian soldier pleaded guilty to killing bicyclists, probably expecting mercy, as usual for whoever mistreats those who are most vulnerable on streets. In stark contrast, Russia has been convicting and executing foreigners suspected of helping Ukraine’s army, but stupid Americans never much cared what happened in other countries, not realizing tyranny irrevocably spreads, resembles pandemics or tsunamis that massacre millions, and winds up in own backyard.

Blame!? Murderers who pulled triggers didn’t take matter in own hand, but followed orders sent down a chain of command. Devious dictators build for themselves a bubble of deniability to further despicable rackets. They seem either too powerful or too removed to be convicted or even indicted, even though it’s obvious they ordered atrocities. There’s no guilt or shame in choosing a bicycle over a car.

Oppositional conservatives and reactionary dragons are all about blame, chastity, dominance, fraud, greed, guns, impotency, hoarding, patriarchy, privilege, slavery, and such stuff that preoccupies the guilty minds of twisted villains. Antebellum good old plantation days are what they mean when they demand Make America Great Again, because USA already leads world in all measures that matter, why foreigners fight to breach borders on their flight from barbarous tyranny. Conversely, diggers, fairies, hairies, hippies, huggers and yippies were proponents of free love without gender biases, and freegan economics after generations of compliance without rewards. Chemical haze notwithstanding, Jerry Garcia was their gentle conscience, reasonable voice, and shamanistic statesman. Counterculture opposed crooked institutions with consumer boycotts and nonviolent protests. Extremist insurrections, intolerant hatred, knee-jerk brutality, and slaughter of innocents  left majority met speaks volumes about far right’s cultural sellout, delusional threats, and false expectations.

Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter, What’ll You Raise?, Go To Heaven, 1979 - “Just rolled in from the golden state, a dusty spoke on the wheel of fate... What will you raise to stay in the game? I follow the breeze, the quick autumn leaves. Who can deliver us all? Is there a reaping, or any safekeeping? If not, how far can we fall?”

“We were grappling over bike racks trying to hold the line... It had become a war zone.” - Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards, January 6th Congressional Committee Presentation, June 9th, 2022

Commentators don’t seem to comprehend why so many American artists are preoccupied with what it means to be an American, when it’s painfully simple: It’s a nation of chaotic diversity, intentional obfuscation, and wonderful amalgamation, so perpetually amusing, which annoys conservatives no end. One size will never fit all, so quit demanding that everyone conform to some narrow minded values. People elsewhere view America as a reality show with outrageous scenarios. Age and experiences make one bitter, demented, hopeless, jaded, reckless, yet sometimes wiser.

How consequent and pivotal bicycling scenes are to a film’s plot can be hard to ascribe. Just being out and vulnerable among strangers raises bicyclists from low to medium risk, somewhere between stay-at-home fuddy-duddies and streetwalking hustlers. Movies reflect these truths through a glass darkly.

Nature documentary A Survey of Open Spaces (Peat Duggins, dir., 2013) follows urban bicyclists Chris Comfort and Michaela Duggins 4,000 miles around America’s last wild places, where they dodge grizzly bears and get sunburnt. Film dispels notion of impossibility that so often accompanies opinions on bicycle touring. These days you can die attending classes, congregating at churches, going shopping, or simply joyriding; you might be safer pedaling amidst apex predators.

Based on actual events, The Ride (Alex Ranarivelo, dir., 2018) beholds John (Shane Graham), after an abusive upbringing, come of age as a BMX champion with the help of adoptive interracial parents Eldridge (Christopher Brian “Ludacris” Bridges) and Marianna (Sasha Alexander) Buultjens. With a name including velo, wonder why this French director, well known for sports dramas, has no other cycling titles to date.

Both Jules (Hunter Schafer) and Rue (Zendaya) ride bicycles and take drugs to get to Euphoria (Augustine Frizzell, dir., 2019, Season 1, Episode 1). Both are into self harm in different ways. Rue won’t get high then go for rides due to several past crashes. Jules chucks a finger to an abusive football star pickup driver, who then runs her off the road into a bruising collision on a suburban lawn.

Bikes of Wrath (Cameron Ford, Charlie Turnbull, dirs., 2019) chronicles adventure of five Australians who by bicycle cover same route from Oklahoma to California as characters in John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath, and explore lesser known localities.

Nobel laureate studded documentary Life on Wheels - Transportation For a New Urban Center (David Hodge, dir., 2020) exposes automotive paradigm for its annual/fatal/global 1.3 million crashes and unnecessary holocaust in the name of greed. It recommends cities be revamped to accommodate bicycling and walking, as they once did, though doesn’t solve obvious factors, namely tripled population since good old days.

Oscar winning Canadian composer Howard Shore produced Bicycling, for Holocaust film The Song of Names (François Girard, dir., 2020), in which an orphaned violinist taken in by an English family bikes and bonds with their son, then disappears just before a recital. Later boys, now middle aged men, bitter sweetly reconnect. Neocon legislators want to outlaw mentions in history classes of genocide, racism, slavery and such things of which they’ve been guilty and want to resume without remorse.

Margaret (Kathryn Newton) and Mark (Kyle Allen), both stuck in a time loop reliving the same day, find each other and survey The Map of Tiny Perfect Things (Ian Samuels, dir., 2021). Growing unafraid of consequences, Mark rides his bicycle while taking serious risks. Margaret steals a car trying to teach herself to drive, though not well enough to avoid crashing into a rack full of bicycles. In aftermath of pandemic, time seems to have stopped for many of those grieving lost loved ones or working from home in isolation. For those unemployed, time’s inexorable passage leads to concomitant foreclosures and dire consequences.

In biopic set a century earlier The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (Will Sharpe, dir., 2021), penniless governess Emily Richardson (Clair Foy) marries ne’er-do-well title gentlemen (Benedict Cumberbatch) and urges him to pursue his talent for drawing and painting cats. His hobby illustrations become wildly popular, but Louis, with no head for business, gives them away, though he bicycles to judge cat shows and get appointed president of Britain’s Cat Society. His real passion is studying effects of electricity, which he legitimately perceives in his feline friends, a neurological insight of which Victorian Englanders had yet no idea. Labann relates to twin themes of contagion grief and obsession relief, neither of which often result in fan adoration or productive application of one’s belief.

Throughout a 15 second Legal Zoom spot (October, 2021) a diligent local bike shop owner wrenches alone before opening for business.

Home2Home (Dennis Kailing, dir., 2022) narrates story, condensed into just under 2 hours, of 24-year-old German Kalling who bicycles 27,000 miles through 41 countries on 6 continents to circumnavigate planet in 761 days. On his first bike journey ever, he asks,”What makes you happy?”, and heads east. Answers come in natural, profound, simple, small experiences on a living planet.

The Mojo Manifesto: The Life and Times of Mojo Nixon (Matt Eskey, dir., 2022), featuring Eric Ambel, Jim Dickinson, John Doe, Kinky Friedman (SchwinnTwenty-four song), and Winona Ryder, takes a bicycle trip across the country with young Neill Kirby McMillan, Jr. After befriending enigmatic Skid Roper, Neill finds mainstream success but makes a decision that could jeopardize his career.

Amazon TV series Mixte: Voltaire High, set in 1963 small town France, tackles teens coming of age after local lyceum decides to go co-ed during emergence of feminism and sexual revolution. True to its name and nation, unisex frames abound in every Saint-Jean-d’Angély outdoor scene, whether mopeds or utility bikes. Class beauty Annick Sabiani (Lula Cotton-Frapier) nearly gets expelled when she’s late after a stalker steals Solex that she uses to quarter the hour it takes to walk across town. A rich classmate offers her a lifeline by giving her his sister’s unused bike.

Final scene of documentary We Feed People (Ron Howard, dir., 2022), according to its Oscar winning director, covers a 10-year-old bicyclist who spontaneously volunteers for award winning chef José Andrés and nonprofit World Central Kitchen’s mission to provide the baseline dignity of wholesome meals during disasters, akin to Hog Farm and Wavy Gravy, no? Youth leads humanitarians around devastated city to homes of locals going hungry.

Comedian Seth Myers took a Closer Look at conservative leaders, "'Torturing living things gives me joy,' ...the most honest articulation of [Trump’s] belief that if you can’t empower or enrich him personally he doesn’t care about you... The only way [GOP] can get away with this stuff is because we have an ass-backwards electoral college system that lets Republican vampires write off anyone who doesn’t live in one of a dozen swing states. If we had a national popular vote, Trump and GOP would have to campaign in places like Portland or New York City; I’d personally love to see him try to pander to Portlanders by growing a mustache and riding a penny-farthing."

Recent Greenlight spot has kid earn own money to save for a bike, then ring bell on Wall Street as an IPO tycoon.

New Amazon series Troppo (Jocelyn Moorhouse, dir., 2022, Season 1, Episode 1) set in crocodile infested tropical Queensland, Australia has bicycling private investigator and tatoo artist Amanda Pharrell (Nicole Chamoun) hiring disgraced ex-detective Ted Conkaffey (Thomas Jane) to help her find a missing Korean tech pioneer. Amanda takes her e-bike right into her studio rather than risk damage from reprisals by Crimson Lake villagers, all of whom seem to despise her. Ted profiles her riding and remarks correctly that she spent time in prison. Labann often pondered whether those in the prison he commuted past daily for years might long to be free to ride like he, maybe behave better to pedal as a released parolee.

Primatologist Mireya Mayor, accompanied by researcher Ronny Le Blanc, ride quiet e-bikes hoping to gather cryptid proof in Travel Channel’s Expedition Bigfoot (Ronny Rose, dir., Season 3, Episode 10, May 22, 2022). While many summarily dismiss their existence, for no amount of money would Labann ride wooded trails at night where angry Sasquatches have been reported. People go entire lives without ever seeing a bear, deer. elk, fox, moose, mountain lion, or wolf, though Labann saw them all while riding suburban roads.

“Nothing will stay. It all fades in the end. But we saw angels riding bicycles. Oh, what a sight to hold!” Keston Cobblers Clubs, (Angels Riding) Bicycles [Brit folk], Almost Home, Tricolour Records, 2017

Inform vs. Infotain

Still from Dropkick Murphys’ droll music video, The Season's Upon Us: “I'm so glad this day only comes once a year. You can keep your opinions, your presents, your happy new year. They call this Christmas where I'm from.”

Always meant to sum up best advice for bicycling before shuffling beyond:
Ask yourself, “Can I bike there instead of drive?”
Beware bad pavement and mad motorists.
Brake and downshift before you must.
Carry a cell phone, tools, and tubes.
Choose best venues and times, mindful of weather forecasts.
Don’t antagonize motorists or pedestrians.
Hydrate often or suffer later.
Keep at least one hand on handlebars, preferably two.
Lock bike up securely when not riding, lest you wind up walking.
Maintain equipment in proper order; recheck before each outing.
Mind traffic controls at intersections, where behaviors are unpredictable.
Never lay or lean bike on derailleur side.
Pay attention above, afar, ahead, around, beneath and behind while you ride.
Pick and stick to a sensible track; weave only as much as you must.
Tuck in on curves to avoid clippers.
Use lights and reflectors.
Wear gloves, helmet, safety glasses, and visible apparel.

Surrounded by even more dire threats, also warned people about losing health, liberty, life, love, sustainability, and what matters most, despite fact that everyone is beset by so much detail they can’t digest the least bit and forget or ignore it. Facing enormity of this universe of reality, carved out a niche from which to observe, test and theorize, if only to make sense for self’s sake. Someone else benefitting would be an unexpected plus.

Bicycling is safer than driving, even when both are equivalently done responsibly, though those with vested interests will dissuade against pedaling, or persuade you into frivolous spending. Neither destiny nor doom will ever be assured, except by lying schemers who’d use such notions while deluding simpletons to pledge devotions. After all, humankind has always lived on borrowed time, but paradigm continues to unwind despite fret and grime, while peeps pursue crime, football, sitcoms, or some other stimulating pastime with hours they have left after working double shifts or overtime.

Why do so many submit to wills of authors, celebrities, dictators, emperors, experts, geniuses, kings, leaders, opportunists, rulers and saints? Because it’s easier and lazier than figuring things out and putting in effort themselves. Never underestimate craving for convenience and extent of mankind’s laziness. But someone, maybe a self funded scientist or street corner prophet, ought to simplify complex issues with intent to inform, not just opine, perhaps even reform.

Used to be that social commentary about newsworthy facts was what they broadcast during dead air and ratings voids. Political infotainment primetime only became possible because cable and network programming reeks of seen reruns and unentertaining chores. If not for discovery, history, movies, science programs, and sports, there’d be nothing worth watching on basic cable. Broadband advancements now allow internet streaming; soon cable will be obsolete, though monthly fees haven’t yet declined to reflect this fact, rather increased while anticipating inevitable end.

Historically, cults of personalities brought civil and social catastrophes. Broadcasts named for hosts instead of topics prove they persist. Those who ruled inevitably committed prideful outrages and sacrificed enthralled followers. Pride goeth before your humiliating fall, while prideful instigators are protected from it all. “In a land of wolves and thieves, don’t put your hope in ungodly man, or be a slave to what somebody else believes. Trust yourself,” advised Bob Dylan in 1985. Leader of the world's most powerful country is a magnet for history's most evil villain. 

Gone are the days when one scandalous act was enough to cost candidate an election. Today, politicians rely on constant mixed publicity to raise status to celebrity. Being known as a circus spectacle seems to trump securing spotless renown. No one is innocent when it takes society’s consensus to cause this predicament. But unless you’re on the campaign bus stealing alongside bosses, you’re never informed as to what their intentions really are, so should you blame yourself? Frank Zappa urged others to despise apathy, insincerity, phoniness, and lies, since almost everyone’s passionate about own investments toward success.

Admit, also, any subrogation of autonomy can be considered a root cause for all sorts of ills, among them burdensome oversight, government interference, political corruption, and reprehensible “sheeple-dom”. This doesn’t impugn or negate contributions of agents of improvement and regulation, but does warrant questioning motivations and outcomes. If you fail to arrest and indict, laws become shams, something Zappa once described as randomly enforced and suspiciously written, ways to keep masses afraid and subservient. Yet those who bristle over guidelines recommending distance and masks during a pandemic miss real human rights violations directly imposed upon them.

What should citizens expect as a baseline in a just society? For starters, The Four Freedoms - from tyranny and want, of religion and speech, ratified by both UN and USA - imply a host of specific rights. Each revolves around identifiable conditions, none indelible, often lost, and only regained through battles, death, pain and sacrifices.

Tyranny takes many forms, among them browbeating, bullying, crime, extortion, low wages, jailing journalists, misinformation, monopolies, price gouging, propaganda, slavery, state religion, unconstitutional acts, unforgiving policies, and vote restriction. Worse, bicyclists are being forced off ever more roads through elimination of shoulders and lack of accommodations. One shouldn’t have to fight skirmishes daily, scrutinize some bureaucrat’s decisions, take lawmakers to task on how well they represent will of constituents, or worry over secret agendas. Oaths seem to be taken as empty rites that don’t apply personally.

Want includes homelessness, hunger, joblessness, lack of hopeful enfranchisement, and poverty, which kills more people than any other cause. Dickens’ twin specters of ignorance and want arise from failure or refusal to create own opportunities and too few owning too much. Wealth is a finite resource that allegedly rewards able bodied and agile minded. However, for every new billionaire, more than twenty-thousand families tragically sink below poverty line. Among industrialized countries, USA has the most lopsided ratio of poor to rich. Unlike others, Reagan’s trickle down with tax breaks for richest few has proven a dismal failure in countless ways, worst of which are burden on middle class taxpayers for corporate and family welfare, resentment of failure and success, and sense of despair and envy that a few who sell their souls can make it while you are condemned to ignominy and poverty after shouldering responsibility upon every opportunity. Forever coming in second or up short can be maddening, but never having a chance could either be devastating or liberating.

Some Americans persecute members of certain religions, notably Muslims, and favor others, often white Protestants. Evangelicals polled showed a notable bias toward cult leadership and empty promises, with three quarters tenaciously supporting Dolt 45, who attorneys general of 5 states want to indict and imprison. While creed is poison to villains, one shouldn’t fear being agnostic, atheistic, Buddhist, Catholic, Jewish, or new ageist, yet often must. Religious rights include clear passage to place of worship and no private or public penalties for your affiliation to any congregation, but not forcing your beliefs on others, since that constitutes tyranny. Founding Fathers kept religion and state separate based on disastrous precedent and no theocratic upsides to celebrate.

Americans, unlike probably billions of others, can supposedly speak aloud with access to existing forums over worldwide web. But social media reeks of obligatory guidelines and self appointed censors who limit what you post about taboo issues: Politics, religion, sex, and wages, that is, what affects lives the most. Wars of words aren’t going to save you from iron fisted oppressors. Increasingly, First Amendment doesn’t exonerate those whose message departs from what ruling class imparts. Not even fiction and films are exempt, lately losing credibility for truths they convey. Only coalitions acting at local voting boards, encouraging apathetic to cast theirs, keeping ballots honest and open to all, and working proactively ahead of each primary will give democracy a chance, help freedoms advance, keep checks in balance, and protect justice parlance. Civil liberties have been eroding worldwide during this century; for example, an estimated 50 million slaves today have no voice and possess zero rights.

During pandemic, films entertained better than propaganda, made quarantine tolerable, and mitigated desperation, though suicide rates are still rising. Attractive and clever actors in roles preserved on film make better friends than coworkers. They don’t ask for a favor or bother you later. In person interaction is slowly being supplanted by arguably safer virtual delusion devoid of infectious proximity and socially transmitted diseases.

In coming-of-age dramedy The Battle of Shaker Heights (Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin, dirs., 2003), battle re-enactor Kelly Ernswiler (Shia Labeouf, Transformers) has a teen crush on older hottie Tabitha Bowland (Amy Smart). Kelly bikes to crash her wedding unsuccessfully, then bikes to visit dad in a clinic. Despite his two-wheeled awkwardness, a comely coworker still desires his attention.

Bicycling math prodigy Martin (Elijah Wood, Frodo in LOTR) teams up with renowned professor Arthur Seldom (John Hurt) to solve clever homicides of patients who would have died anyway in The Oxford Murders (Álex de la Iglesia, dir., 2008). The nature of truth underlies conflict between them. Arthur sides with ivory tower chaos; Martin with Euclidian conceit of factual math and physical solidity that all bicyclists know too well. Dunning–Kruger bias is in full force; experts underestimate their own ability, while incompetents overestimate theirs. Emotions govern more decisions in a week than logic ever will. World is full of stuff of which most are unaware, so disproves Kant’s theory of reality being generated internally. Measured results and scientific proof always beat conspiracy theories and information denial.

A couple who bikes, he a budding journalist and she a candidate for doctor of criminology, expose a rogue governmental cadre and get assassinated for their efforts in Swedish thriller The Girl Who Played with Fire (Daniel Alfredson, dir., 2009), second installment of the Millennium Trilogy. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo heroine Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) holds the key to unravelling their trafficking syndicate. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest concludes series with yet another innocent bicyclist being randomly murdered by Lisbeth’s psychotic half brother Ronald (Micke Spreitz), although her attending physician Anders (Aksel Morisse) is spared from this bicyclist massacre.

Victoria (Sebastian Schipper, dir., 2015), recently arrived from Madrid to party hearty at a Berlin disco in the wee hours before her breakfast shift as an underpaid cafe waitress. As Victoria (Laia Costa)) bikes to work, a rowdy gang accosts her. She plays along with their flirtations, then gets recruited into a driving getaway vehicle for a bank robbery. Although caper succeeds, subsequent events leave gang dead and her holding loot.

In London romance blooms for shoe-belled Christmas shop elf Kate (Emilia Clarke, Game of Thrones) and too-good-to-be-true bicyclist Tom (Henry Golding, Crazy Rich Asians), in Last Christmas (Paul Feig, dir., 2018). A reluctant heroine with little to lose meets a patient suitor who’s eager to crash every gate to give her his heart, literally.

In Sundance Film Festival award winning supernatural drama Nine Days (Edson Oda, dir., 2020) Will (Winston Duke) interviews and judges prototype souls before they inhabit living bodies by being born. He grants candidates not selected their choice of peak experiences before they cease to exist. One such consolation prize is a bicycle ride through a city. 

Single pregnant mom Abigail (Christina Ricci) goes on a bittersweet bicycling date with commitment averse kidult Benjamin (Hamish Linklater) as one of 10 Things We Should Do Before We Break Up (Galt Niederhoffer, dir., 2020), where they traverse an empty painted urban night-scape without helmets or lights to a waterfront picnic. She drops her bike on derailleur side the last time audience sees her with it.

Jacob Marley points out a boneshaker while he ushers Scrooge through Christmas Past in latest Mercedes EQS commercial. Bicycles have long been considered ideal Christmas gifts for young recipients. However, few could afford to gift a brand new Mercedes. Horsepower corrupts, and high performance absolutely empowers arrogance, impatience, and murder. Often see manias publicly demonstrated in road rage, but not private depravities of mechanized psychopaths.