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.