Free, Verlaine?

Grew up under a cloud of postwar suspicions about un-American activities, Red Scare of Senator Joe McCarthy, sensationalized accusations that ruined lives and were proven malarkey, spouted by a posse of paranoid schizophrenics including Ronald Reagan. Nobody can truly define term "American". Technically, it only qualifies as Western Hemisphere, that is, North or South American, but some would rather dismiss any neighboring sovereignty or nomadic constituency of pre-Columbian ancestry. Has come to describe ideals of a good citizen of the United States, as if all shared same ideals, which news events repeatedly prove they do not, not even close, as divided as any Middle Eastern region enduring perpetual redivision. Can any two humans ever agree on anything? Well, sometimes.

To majority of nation’s residents, American represents fairness, opportunities to get ahead based on elbow grease and steady habits, tolerance of personal, political and religious beliefs within rules of law, and worldwide charity as the biggest benefactor by far in human history, literally trillions of USD. In the last century, nation grew rich and strong by melding minds despite conflicting customs through faith in these flimsy sentiments. These days statutes proscribe all such precepts. Innocuous advice can get you fired. Bad upbringing and befriending losers might trip you up despite believing otherwise, knowing prejudice defies reason, and mostly managing to act responsibly. Deck is so stacked against individual freedoms, many out of fear wouldn't dare to exercise any. Bad deal when thousands of good deeds you did can be negated by one indiscretion, isn’t it? Henceforth, expect nothing from Americans, including entrepreneurial innovations and foreign aid.

Gainful employment is meant to be all important. If you can perform under withering conditions owners want and rulers set, they'll dump so many demands upon you you'll fail despite accomplishments. Patience and skills make you a slave among parasites and thieves, until you complain on your own behalf, then you'll be dismissed summarily and replaced by another dupe with impossible ambitions. Because a few do seem to reap rewards, illusion of an American dream endures. With businesses supposedly spoiled by luck in the Year of the Pig, where are foreseen generosity, honesty and prosperity? Reality supports no pure capitalism but a quasi-socialism with skewed welfare for both corporations and designated individuals, but not all in need. Double standards and exclusionary stipulations abound.

Favored news networks foster blind loyalty, glorify greed, promote inequality, suborn sedition, and whip up hostilities under a ruse of freedom of speech. They now deny Red Scare in vote tampering, as if jealous rivals weren’t motivated to ruin Americans through political division and narcotics pandering. If any argument sounds like you'll get ahead at someone else's expense, it's probably un-American and routinely unconstitutional. One in a million defies odds and ignores orders to find some measure of satisfaction. That’s when new rules are concocted that don’t affect lawmakers. Policy beats down anyone who sidesteps status quo whether or not it might topple regime. By choosing sides, conservative and liberal extremism have always been blatantly un-American. Neither describes majority, who don’t approve or rule, just kneel and knuckle under.

Safe? You are under constant threat of instant annihilation wherever you sit, more so whenever you move despite old adage about targets in motion being hard to hit. Weapons of mass destruction can be detonated anywhere (including remote test locations) without warning, obliterate everything in blast diameter, and really want to yield deadly potential given number of lunatics and terrorists intent on doing exactly that. Every month vehicles crash into businesses and homes, injuring or killing bystanders. Luckily, normal people carry on as if these facts had zero validity, so society doesn't suffer from planning lapses and poor harvests, except when leaders shut down government or pavement for personal leverage.

Rancor and trauma to which all humans are subject result in doubt, grief, guilt, malaise, moralizing, philosophizing, or worse. Lashing out acts as a curt balm but deterrent to calm and serenity. What you regret or resist will forever define you, who you only fool when you forgive self. To atone, not forgive, prompts healing. Christ on a bike who can cure with a word shall be left behind by Trump in a coupe, as actor Fred Gwynne illustrated, because evil might leans right and leaves a wake of deaths and losses. Talking heads on television never mention the term “reparation”, or see how it applies to them.

World welcomes juvenescence and renaissance without reservation. Plenty of timeline to make same mistakes of reliance on technologies that shirk duties to mankind and nature. Never trust stories from an immutable past that may never recur. All you can do lies ahead if you. Adapt self, apply logic, be flexible and smart, conduct own experiments, don't expect this paradigm to last, hope for the best, plan for the worst: zombie apocalypse.

Dreary are the winter regrets of dinged up seniors, especially those ridiculed as masters of the obvious. As Labann fades into retirement and reconsiders mortality, self preservation gets overridden as a key priority by dreams of a just society. Is it too much to ask to ride your bike in peace? Or even just get by? What little you worked so hard to accumulate will be ripped off by hidden fees, insurance premiums, nursing systems, and tax codes established strictly for that purpose. Who thinks of elder abuse, human trafficking, or identity theft as cons worse than homicide? Financially, you'll be recycled alive even before funeral strategies begin. What’s left of self will be whatever endearing or enduring work you did. Only a few figure this out or fully participate as chances allow, so billions of folks will pass largely forgotten, perhaps only by close friends and devoted family. Celebrity after death only means your career is deconstructed into a fiction that continues to serve agendas.

Some were wired for giving, so won't go against instincts by not producing. Art and literature both distract and inspire, but guarantee neither. Popular poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine personified hipster flâneur long before term was coined, promoted decadence, hedonism, and interpersonal abuse, then by all accounts regretted their bohémien rhapsody. Both died alone, too young and totally bankrupt, though deemed legends never to be eclipsed by those similarly bent. Too many presume life’s riches will always be free for the taking, an unsustainable attitude in a world facing a 60% deficit in food, fuel and water over next 5 years. Saying so will be criticized as acting un-American, behaving badly, and causing trouble, when defying duties causes all emergencies mankind must attend. Only the insane get free rein; the rest must fill roles and suffer consequences. Why pretend normalcy, and thereby forfeit notoriety and sacrifice liberty? A debate worth deliberating? Certainly.

"Best you keep your Rhyme sober and sound, lest it wander, reinless and unbound."—Verlaine

“Who is it really makin' up your mind? You want to listen to the man? Pay attention to the magistrate. And while I got you in the mood, listen to your own heart beatin’... Don’t it get you movin’... Then give it up and give it the job. I’m alright. Nobody worry 'bout me. Why you got to gimme a fight? Can't you just let it be?” Kenny Loggins, I’m Alright, Caddyshack Soundtrack (1980)

Gelid Mane

To commute by bike in below freezing dark one must be demented, desperate or devoted. Expect fingers and toes to be painfully stung along with any exposed spot. Deadly cold feels almost as if being branded by a red hot poker from hell. Easy to add a wool base layer beneath neoprene bib tights, tunic and windbreaker for arms, legs and torso, but what about fingers, head and toes? A slew of websites offer partial advice. Always asked to explain further, even though covered in book.

Head may be swaddled in a balaclava, plus a wool skull cap to ease brain freeze as long as helmet still fits, but prepare for helmet hair, an unmanageable mane of flattened straw and stubborn cowlicks, yet it’s wool you can grow and trim. However, doesn’t protect face. Wrap around safety glasses, clear or yellow for low visibility, at least hold heat and shield eyes. For ears, mouth, neck and nose, a foot wide fleece tube can be pulled up around cheeks; one guarantees it will become drenched with gelid exhale, wet freeze, but can be peeled and shifted however you please. By pursing lips you can redirect breath to avoid fogging lenses and momentarily blinding you, why you never use goggles unless easy to quickly remove. Sequence of donning correctly can confuse and consume time better spent dodging potholes on longer than normal trips.

Full fingered pittard gloves with leather palms that cyclists wear come Autumn and Spring don’t meet demand below 40°F, when insulated gloves must take over. Below 30°F, one might combine them or try a glove liner. Built-in wrist cinches on tunic wrap around gloves to keep cold from running up sleeves to which bicyclists are particularly vulnerable with hands ahead draped on handlebars. Whatever you do, avoid flat tires, misery for frozen fingers. Wheel set rigged for winter should include heavy tubes, Kevlar belted tires, and tire liners properly installed and pumped to normal pressure to prevent both pinch and puncture flats and provide extra traction. Some cyclists simply store equipment as soon as thermometer reading in Fahrenheit equals age in years, so deny self of all these trying travails. After a few miles body generates enough BTUs anyway to make bone-chilling rides tolerable.

At same temperature points, feet need similar protection. Calientoes, spandex cones, cover toes of cleats, thus a wind pierce preventative you can leave in place all winter, or you could slip into complete shoe covers each time you suit up. Below 30°F, neoprene booties insulate beyond. Likewise, socks go from flimsy polyester to heavy wool, some times both, wool over liners, whatever cleats will allow. Mountain bikers opt for heavy boots and ski paraphernalia. Since safety becomes priority over speed, they sacrifice streamlined for practicality. Only the best prepared or totally foolhardy venture out below 0°F, when breath turns instantly to ice, cable shifts balk, and chain grease freezes.

Depending upon gages, sensors and yardsticks at your disposal, you can collect all sorts of data, but is raw information always relevant? One cyclometer says both speed and temperature, but not whether frostbite will claim body parts or wind chill is too biting to bear. Know-how and logic preempt forecasts and reports. Microscopes reveal bacteria but don't segregate beneficial from harmful. Gyms are heated but harbor germs. Experts rather sell opinions or shut up. Wintery outdoors has wholesome fresh air to spare, better than rest of year. Scientists deny facts based upon whoever pays best. Denialists exist in cycling, who trade hyperbole and hysteria for sensible arguments from 7 decades of experience and research. Every activity possesses downsides and upsides, minuses and pluses, pain and pleasure, yang and yin. One has to question why anyone would expend a quarter century building a case for bicycling culture when most would rather risk their lives on tenuous technologies. Upon onset of winter every year you see scads of ads and articles explaining why motoring is as dangerous as mixing antimatter particles. Have biked through snow to bail out stranded drivers.

Michael Carabetta, Words to Ride By: Thoughts on Bicycling (Chronicle Books, 2017, 112 pp). Critics deride Carabetta’s compulsion to cite only the famous in this slim compilation of images and quotes. Out on a spin inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle? Maintaining balance as cautioned by Einstein? Blues beset best of bicyclists despite whatever incompatibility James Starrs expressed, especially in dead of winter with seasonal depression. Labann published 500,000 quotable words on bicycling, entirely original and open source, which with zero risk of plagiarism Carabetta never once cited.

Isaac Potter, The Gospel of Good Roads: A Letter to the American Farmer (League of American Wheelmen, 1891), cajoles with common sense, dazzles with statistics, pressures agribusiness to invest, promotes sympathetic political candidates, and reaps benefits for bicyclists by piggybacking scot free on costs to commerce. And what an impact it had! From it flowed pavement from local roads to national highways. Potter was merely a paid spokesperson for the well healed, Hannity of his day. Anthropologist Margaret Mead may have circuitously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has,” but should doubt she meant allowing the already affluent to steal from public for personal gain under a guise of common good.

The Good Roads Movement ended officially in 1925 when the Interstate Highway Program began to ensure state roads aligned at state borders. In the last decade alone costs to nation totalled $10 trillion, at least triple that in last century. With every mile of highway now carrying an average $10 million price tag, expenditure can only rise to an unsustainable stratosphere. Meanwhile, local roads declined, railroad and tow canal rights-of-way were abandoned, and stone bridges crumbled under relentless freezing/thawing and rumbling commerce. States have begun to revive them for bicycling, mostly because it demonstrates legal compliance.

Federal laws since 1990 require bridges, highways and interstates to provide reasonable alternatives for cycling and walking. By law, lightly trafficked neighborhood streets need no further accommodation, unless less than one lane wide in each direction, when a low cost bikeway can alleviate bike and pedestrian safety issues. Roads that connect housing tracks can be paralleled by bike lanes that also serve as sidewalks with bus stops. Imagine getting stranded in a vehicle and wondering how you’d safely exit highway on foot? Instead, planners specifically restrict, falsely assuming motorists never need to, though many of the nation’s annual 10,000 pedestrian fatalities are directly due to this negligence.

With bike lanes taking up space on avenues and boulevards, controversies crop up. Motorists, who can never be relied upon to obey rules, drive and park in them, figure they’re entitled to all pavement, since they pay nearly $9,000/year for this privilege, and resent sharing. It becomes a constant battle to convince them otherwise, especially when bikeways and sidewalks, pavement not meant for motoring, don’t get plowed, so traffic lanes are all that’s left for cyclists and walkers to use, often until April. Winter impedes basic mobility for all alike, so motorists must adapt, be patient, expect the unexpected, slow by half, and wake up earlier to make up time needed to escape gridlock and scrape ice. Forced into closer proximity, frigid starts and fogged windshields threaten everyone’s passage. Bicyclists ought to dress bright and use a light both back and front; cute units can be recharged during work shift for home commute. Beware, because sensible advice nobody’s obliged to bear will never ensure anyone will care that you get there.

Cross of Lorraine

Just as you must exert yourself or lose muscles mass, you must exercise freedom or invite tyranny. Many don’t appreciate what blessings liberty brings, consider how hard won it was, or know what to do with talents over time, other than feed face and get off. Some figure entitlement entails Christmas stalkings, that is, menacingly following footsore shoppers to find sole parking spot during busiest buying, and New Year’s rituals involving lemony risotto and lucky lentils, which allegedly evoke pennies from heaven, plus making resolutions they never plan to keep. One could instead campaign for civility, comment upon what authors post on line, read or write a book about cadence and shackles, or simply bike aimlessly or for charity. B&C was open to discussion for a decade, but so few did blog got suspended. Was that what this web of 8 billion wanted? Hard to believe. Or maybe silence implies, “No objections; press onwards, limitless. Nihil obstat, imprimi potest.”

Freedom will always be measured by how much responsibility one assumes. Government does anything it wants because of dominance it presumes. Individuals seldom feel so empowered. Authority begs abuse, bitterness, challenge, dismissal, hate, jealousy, and resentment, so tends to be avoided by everyone but the brave or invincible. It’s easier to do nothing, or whatever you’re told, until you start counting what you’ve forfeited or sacrificed, or suddenly drop dead. In short term, some rather go rogue, jump bail if ever caught, migrate to countries without extradition, settle for stupidity instead of community. Freud spoke of Civilization and Its Discontents, problems of perpetually stifling pleasure principle, and suffering that living among others causes. Isn’t society the primary source of pleasures: Entertainment, food, interaction, necessities? Living alone would be unbearable.

Max Ginsburg (cover illustration) for juvenile novel by Jan O'Donnell Klaveness, Beyond the Cellar Door (Scholastic, 1991, 186 pp.), in which children imagine, magic Victorian house gradually delivers, and past influences present. In actuality can anyone ever escape origins?

During Labann’s impressionable teens someone emphasized the importance of reading and writing. Skills accordingly practiced served as a career, but stripped boyish innocence and joy. Fledglings forced to confront depressed cranks who comprise panoply of wordsmiths would be hard pressed to stress happiness over dystopian duress. Novels almost always depict protagonists in darwinian struggles against an adversary or adversity, seldom coworkers on tireless teams interacting nicely, which better represents livelihoods of majority. One deems cooperative routines and repetitive regimes too dull to divulge. But the crux of it is a cross you must bear, duties you can’t deny, ever more restrictive obligations, exact opposite of autonomy: martyrdom or self imposed slavery.

General de Gaulle chose Croix de Lorraine (originally D’Anjou) as a standard for Free French against Nazi occupation, stymie to their swastika. It became an emblem of liberation for which French forever aspire along with equality and fraternity. Croix D’Anjou traces back to crucifixion of Christ, with a high placard and longer crossbar: heaven above earth below. Joan of Arc, patron saint of France, grew up in Lorraine village of Domrémy, later under German control until reunified by WWI. She donned male armor, led France into 15th Century victory, so was burnt at stake as a lesbian teen heretic by a grateful nation with impotent patriarchs. Doesn’t inspire loyalty, not one bit. Ashes disappear; cross remains. Tour de France, which intentionally visits outlying departments, promptly passed through Lorraine in 1919 and several times since (as image shows). Resembles Labann’s latest holiday ride probing borders, ringing providence. This crucial adaptation now appears on cognac bottles, because bravest prefer brandy, yet has increasingly been embezzled by cookie cutters, dastardly evildoers, and dope smugglers who cynically pretend to be modern day rebels, while fascism stages a comeback versus a browbeaten, obese, stoned democracy.

Long ago Labann canonized the bicycle as a freedom machine, but only where state provides supportive infrastructure, where you can dodge vehicular entanglements. Instead of advocating equal accommodation, smear campaigns by Big Oil, Cripple A, and GM attempted to discredit cycling by exaggerating disadvantages without offending new customers, particularly during 1970’s bike boom, when adults began to recall a cheaper, safer, simpler alternative. They should have targeted heavy trucking; easier to pass bicyclists, often outside travel lane altogether, than tractor double tandem trailers and wide bodies that occupy entire road. Drug cartels followed automotive example: Offer affordable product until users are invested, overwhelm competition, then raise price until consumers are enslaved. Average wages can no longer afford $8.5K/year costs of ownership. Only biking and walking truly offer autonomy and mobility.

Spin spontaneity proves manumission is possible. But owners of yore freed slaves as punishment, left them to fend for themselves or starve, palliated sting of own guilt at victim’s expense. Cycling against a motorized tide connotes time alone for which you must atone. Religious scholars rate free will as innate, yet use doctrine as a stalemate. Politicians quote Bible as they legislate perks and misappropriate funds. Evil and good are supposed to be yours to choose, though hint good advice might impoverish or inconvenience and most will refuse. Consequences could leave you with nothing left to lose. Crossover will kill a rover, instill talk of a crosswalk, never limit outrageous motorist offenses, since insurances pledge all necessary defenses.

“Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free... I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday... Feelin’ good was good enough for me, good enough for Me and Bobby McGee.” Grateful Dead, The Golden Road, Warner Brothers, 1971

"Well, I sit and I pray in my broken down Chevrolet, while I'm singin' to myself, ‘There's got to be another way.’ Take away this Ball and Chain. I’m lonely and I'm tired, and I can't take any more pain... I've searched to find the perfect life: A brand new car, a brand new suit, I even got me a little wife. But wherever I have gone, I was sure to find myself there. You can run all your life but not go anywhere.” Social Distortion, Social Distortion, Sony, 1990

“Some things are better left unsaid, if that were true, then I'd be dead. More sad nights at the hospital, fever swarming around my collarbone. Always waiting for the death of, the death of love. Get up, get up. You know it's true.” British grunge band Gallows, Cross of Lorraine, Gallows, Bridge Nine Rec., 2014

“Just remember what it was like astride that Yellow Bike: First freedom, second life. All the places I could ride, leaving early, packing light. That little ache inside. My kingdom for someone [with whom] to ride.” Pedro the Lion, Phoenix, Polyvinyl Rec., 2019

Shades of Grey Zane

Despite blindness, Slackjaw Knipfel sees perfectly and speculates on 4 plausible causes of America’s ongoing Civil War and probable affect on him personally. He speaks modestly for vast majority. Lockstep conservatives attack public with depraved arrogance and lurid disinformation, flinch only at truth, yet publish anything that might sell in an unregulated market. Liberal losers brace for battle, circle their wagons, and micromanage message, more likely to censor moderate commentators. Anyone alive should feel anxious and uncertain in this battle for one’s soul. Action and mayhem, mirroring life, have never been more popular on screens. Every American owes $150,000 in public debt; few have that much in savings, most know that they have to pay share for indigents and marginal earners, and more than not blame government recklessness and can’t envision any fix. Of course: Intentionally isolated when only collaboration stands a chance, you’re expected to endlessly pay and silently stew. Instead of dangling a destination as if a carrot on a stick, why not improve everyone’s journey?

Those who complain risk being branded as malcontents or traitors. Journalism no longer exists after Dubya retaliated against Mapes and Rather for breaking true story of his dodging military duty, thereby describing a seated POTUS as an example of undeserved privilege. Fox infotainment, finding calamities where none exist, dominate state reportage, while real news has been vilified as fake. Insiders denigrate those they deem inferior or threats, while those whose agendas they further slink about exclusive haunts like pests behind the wainscoting. When perception equals reality, professionals must feign phony guise of game show host. No champion protects folks who just scrape by and pay for everything, though plenty claim to speak for them. Capitalism crashed. Democracy died. Social justice is a sordid joke.

Last several posts In part tried to justify this blog. Cannot convince self. A later ah-ha only serves as a lesson learnt, not so a great comeback or instant reaction that vaults you over oppressors. Must diligently dance and stay sharp or suffer consequences of being own fuzzy threadbare self. After 10 YEARS, anniversary today, have to say book and blog in no way found any following, though welcomed infrequient encouragement and rave reviews from published authors. Popularity only comes into play when one expects to make a living off creative output, as did prolific western romanticist Zane Grey. Grey, a dentist, got a late start but gradually became the first millionaire author having produced nearly 100 titles including The Last Trail. No Painless Parker, frontier tooth extractor, who hired marketeers to promote his wares, Grey migrated further west and worked as a hand at Wilder Ranch (note single track mishap at 8:25) in California before settling in Oregon Wilderness. Trying to draw readers has always been like pulling teeth. The proud and rich don’t give a damn what readers think. Yet ignominious obscurity may be evidence of a self directed monologue. Can’t fault content here for quality or quantity, only failure to gain attention, something any teen who’s staged a tantrum has already seen.

Age consumes and retirement looms. Why continue any cachinnation for a nation of cretins? About time to pass baton to another bicyclist and ride off into a purple sage sunset. Not giving up altogether; assuming other projects, making self available for lectures and parties, pedaling more on own bike, and writing less. Let B&C be your open source foundation for extending investigation into bicycling culture, which, if you hadn't noticed, provides a veritable expressway towards understanding everything anyone needs to know. By comparison one culture reveals another, sort of an entrance ramp to contemporary anthropology. Question is, will bicycling culture continue to emerge in this information age? Or will virtuous pedaling revert to totally virtual indoors technologically?

"Some trails are happy ones, others are blue. It's the way you ride the trail that counts. Here's a happy one for you... Until we meet again, happy trails. Keep smiling unto then." Dale Evans, single, RCA Victor, 1952, same year Painless Parker passed away.

Took from AIN

“Summertime and the living’s easy...” May be somewhere for someone. Nowadays, it’s when insurance premiums and property taxes come due, property maintenance and vacation spending occur, and utility and water bills peak. Must make hay and work overtime to cover savings hit. You save not for rainy but sunny days. In dead of winter where would anyone be without a warm memory of some primetime odyssey?

Anyone who's the least bit aware of current events already has PTSD. Systems based on humans suffer fatal flaws. From daily interactions one derives many a small insight, might even flesh it out with facts, form paragraphs, pen essays. Fakes scholarship truly but sounds pretty good to those desperate for certainty or security. Who's fooled? Change, violent at times, has always ruled. Agents of chaos and mayhem constantly surround. You only navigate around potholes, never fully alleviate anxiety’s tolls.

Free and wild, aboriginal people fulfilled every necessity themselves, didn’t take survival for granted, moved inland during summer to gather and hunt, shoreline in winter to harvest shellfish that cold kept from spoiling. Refrigeration reversed this perennial migration. A 1971 anti-litter campaign depicted a native chief shedding a tear for what motorists had done, though it was all a ploy aimed at a public shamed for imprudent habits so corporations wouldn’t be blamed. For a while some states did demand bottle and can recovery, pennies and nickels upon return. It didn’t keep America clean, only made a tiny opportunity for homeless trash pickers.

Money grubbers find gobs of drudgery; those who can rather pay someone else to do onerous chores in sweltering heat. Glorious explorers got bankrolled up front upon lure of riches, which resulted in Columbian Exchange that nearly wiped out AIN (American Indian Native) nations through disease, genocide and habitat destruction, though since last ice age they had thrived against animal predators using stone tools under harsh conditions. Americans today squirm in desperation; most scramble to make ends meet. Few care that Le Tour de France has begun. Science and technology over centuries improved quality of life, yet they demand constant renewal and surveillance lest they become a nuisance. Who more exemplified independence or merited a holiday?

Why not do projects for neither compensation nor credit, just because they’re interesting? Later, when others reap rewards, underpaid contributors resent them, too stressful and unsettling for many including millennials. Internships and volunteerism slyly renew slavery. Stubborn souls do just do stuff, pursue as if a hobby, shut up about it, then turn professional due to experience. In collaborative teams, writers used to produce reams being hopefully speculative, it seems. But times have radically changed. You can’t live well scraping up pittances, only by scoring on successive pay days. Patience gets you nowhere; you’ll die before patrons notice or reward your initiative. Does that matter? Getting by will always be a basic goal.

Independently wealthy? You’re free to do whatever pleases your fancy, reciprocate kindness per noblesse oblige, spend a decade updating an unread blog, or such. Even then, situations can quickly complicate, serve nobody’s needs. There’s no idling at an island timeshare for very long. Pleasurable excess catches up and creates a mess, one would guess, steam hissing off your trauma express. Anyway, chasing lifestyles of the rich puts you in opposition’s crosshairs. Must choose among bravery, drudgery, misery or skullduggery, life’s only options. With a right to pursue happiness, you’re offered no guarantee of achieving it.

When you enter “bicycling culture” into any internet browser, you’d think this 10-year blog would come up immediately. No, you get Bicycling Magazine’s Culture tab, Biking USA/EU from Reliance Foundry (bike locker/rack manufacturer), and other commercial references. Eventually you stumble across video Veer (Greg Fredette, dir., 2009), which documents five individuals involved in Portlandia’s hilarious bicycling culture, narrated by actor Matthew Modine, famed for role in Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket and resident of New York who chooses to commute around city by bike. You might never discover that Tomb Raider (Roar Uthaug, dir., 2018), the Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) origin adventure, explains she was an East London bike courier before declaring dad dead and inheriting his millions. What better way to toughen up for nonstop action?

B&C hasn’t undergone search engine optimization and never carried advertising, so garners no notice despite its main focus. Has always avoided being characterized, pinned down, or readily dismissed. Going by bicycle means being immersed in everything, sights, sounds, vegetative life exuding fragrances. Pass a cemetery or church, religion begs attention, or spirituality sticks. See others on streets, clad in bikinis or skintight spandex, politics intervene and sex smolders. Whatever you do requires cash and duty. Big 3 taboos - money, politics, religion - appear integral and ubiquitous. When does freedom occur?

Blacksmith Pierre Michaux just up and put pedals on a velocipede in late 1860’s. A century later relative and world traveller Henri Michaux won a French National Literary award, which he didn’t accept. Private and reclusive, Henri’s notoriety came from asemic writings that mimic oriental calligraphy, represent nothing, yet suggest semantic meaning. His nonfigurative abstractions resemble cave paintings, Pollock canvases, Rorschach inkblots, tipi symbols, visual vocalise, or wallpaper patterns. You sense a struggle between being lost in noise and expressing self aloud. This “bigly” reverberates with Labann, who began devoted to vocabulary’s soundscape and wonders whether B&C was worth all its effort. One must satisfy self or nobody.

If artists create crevices into which audiences can plug themselves, they garner a following. Impenetrability repulses everyone, but then hardly anyone bothers you. You never know beforehand what’s manifest in you will blossom into, reason enough to stay on course. Your ancestral tribe may be extinct, yet your totemic spirit pedals you onward beyond troubles and worries.

Had enough of being serious. Top things to enjoy include familiar moments, great meals, live concerts, lush poetry, recorded films and songs, sexual relations, smart art, and sporting events. Besides bicycling and creativity, anything else constitutes a mundane chore you might abhor, crawls out of darkness into crepuscular light of dawn, and wastes too much of your limited lifetime. Regret 16 years of school, which shunted into 45 of desk jockeying and personally finishing tens of thousands of projects, up to a dozen a day. Education should enrich, not enslave. Might have been better off collecting welfare, doing nothing, entertaining self, going fishing, growing produce, leaving projects to some sucker interested in such nonsense, reading more and sleepwalking. Only favored groups can claim such a status. Yet industrious folks do make for warm memories.

Fondly recall a holiday town with building facades next to a rideable small scale train. Fun for kids! Construction crews would restore for a few months each Fall to everyone's delight. Under your Christmas tree might be gifts of cowboy duds, feather war bonnet, and 2 cap six-shooters, presumably to replay tragic hostilities. Authors recreate mirth to raise hope that such attractions will recur, but failures to repeat, lack of skills, or lapses in funding typically disappoint. Only the alert or lucky get to savor solo ephemera and transitory thrills. Partially explains why TV networks revisit Christmas every July, propaganda to urge later spending upon which they rely.

Best of Bourdain

"What have you got to lose?" is a rhetorical question advisors ask of those chewing over change that recommends leaping before looking. Change is inevitable, necessary even. Decay feeds plants; their growth feeds humans and livestock. Days divide nights; seasons become years; centuries, eons. An incredible amount of transactions occur while one civilization after another coalesces then crumbles. Casino owners, insurers and tax revenuers size up what you have to lose and take from you whatever they can just shy of you organizing revolt. Swank restaurants charge a week’s salary for a single meal after which you’re still hungry, but at least they decorate place with a poster of a bygone track cyclist on a fixie. Life somehow perseveres despite stress.

Imagine how different society must have been several centuries ago, before education was free and opportunities abounded. Monarchs undermined education, which furnished students with tools to teach and think for themselves. Made them too clever to subjugate. Nowadays, practically no one obeys traffic laws; wonder what other covenants they break and transgressions they make while you politely stay right within limits. Some only occupy left lane and proceed slowly because it leaves space ahead, so they can react timely while savoring distractions.

What of texting? Where's the harm? How is it unlike listening to radio? Indeed. Talk radio totally transports listener into a tiny sphere alone on road with a rabid copilot urging driver to fixate on his disembodied hypnotic voice, ignore all else as if in a psychotic break, Son of Sam territory. Should instead be dancing courteously, paying close attention, and reacting defensively. Social media and traffic snarl leave participants frustrated and vulnerable, wear patience thin.

One could directly link a lot of crime to birth defects: Bad nutrition or crack addiction while pregnant, FAS, interbreeding. Leads to brain insufficiency, inability to learn, insanity that sooner lash out against complex demands than apply reason. Later they’ll snort up nose, stick in arms, and stuff faces with harmful substances. Food gets abused most. Yet fat is where flavor’s at, dissolved by beer and wine into a triglyceride stew and vascular menace. Putting bullies on a short leash makes sense, though shouldn’t lower expectations for their achievements. Focus can easily be disrupted by social fears. Restrict sources, and some who would've sunk can now swim. A forgiving and trusting nature invites assault and theft, as Labann has too often personally undergone.

A master wordsmith concocts stories seemingly out of thin air; whence they come include inner dialogue, input responses, personal experiences, stuff that might percolate over a lifetime. Not every act in which one engages is worth repeating; not every thought imagined bears expressing. Certainly some mustn’t be stifled lest individual or society suffer. Takes copious attempts and enormous effort to master the craft. Humanity has arrived at juncture Douglas Adams joked about, where an innocuous statement reverberates across universe and starts an intergalactic war. What one mostly hears are ads for crap you don't need, come-ons for charities that only pad directors’ pockets, and propaganda aimed at intimidating you into political submission, seldom thoughtful analyses meant to inform you what's at stake, sometimes life itself.

While immersed in meaningful projects, who has time for despair? Challenges demand completion, yet suicides have risen to an epidemic proportion among middle-aged men. While clinicians search for answers, causes couldn’t be more obvious. To avoid operating expenses, insurers recommend replacing them with healthier youth, ripping rug from under their sense of purpose, tossing them onto an ash heap of uselessness. Plus they regret in silence being complicit with what ruthless executives in male-dominated industry did to consumers, employees, and stakeholders. Drugs and liquor goggles overcome disgust of a date with a gun to head or rope around neck. Who can afford food, never mind therapists once health coverage lapses? Government policies also pave way for hostile takeovers and resultant downsizing. Being displaced doesn’t exempt an individual from having to earn, eat, survive; those ineligible for Social Security or Welfare have few alternatives. Severance, unemployment, and workmen compensation only fulfill short term needs. States do almost nothing to get displaced workers back into saddle before retirement savings run out and true desperation sets in. Back in FDR’s day, there were CCC, PWA and WPA, though gap from poor to rich is bigger today.

Can’t reverently lay Anthony Bourdain’s roasted ashes to rest without saying what about him you should admire best. He was no snob. Broke bread with both celebrities and nobodies, particularly in nations where USA ran rampant leaving them in shambles. Seemed to accept role as ugly American abroad, only transformed it by being genuinely caring and warmly sociable. May have appeared an elitist globe trekker, but began humbly as a dishwasher and performed backbreaking KP on brink of bankruptcy until well after 40, when he began to write and got a break. An admitted crime buff, published stories about underworld in Manhattan’s Little Italy. But his exposé of nauseating restaurant practices brought notoriety. Expert chef, the real deal, middle-aged Tony acted out other people’s perception of a bad-boy hipster and provocateur, vilified for his addictions and candor. Apparent sympathy for sin attracts fans, but bravery was what he was all about, not anger, gluttony, greed, or pride. Passionately against food waste, Hollywood rape, and policy tyranny, he was recognized as an authentic voice for the downtrodden everywhere. This put him at odds with powerful enemies, whose spooks know how to stage a scene to look like suicide.

Do bipolar personalities fail to thrive on cycling? Long bike trips mess up hormones, elating many, leaving others in funks. Biking helps assess your vitality. Doctors even measure health by putting patients on stationary bikes. Tony spent his last day stoking a tandem through gorgeous Alsatian countryside of which one can only dream. If you must go, what better way? He once quipped, “Life’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride,” echoes of Hunter Thompson, “Buy the ticket, take the ride,” both firmly in charge of their independence, not the bad examples snide commentators make them out to be. What have you done with your hard won freedom? Many sell it for a transitory sense of security, trade a reliable cow for a handful of fascist beans. In the end, what you choose decides your fate. Do you really know what’s on someone else’s plate?

Feeding strangers implies behaving responsibly. Quoting self, “Instead of squabbling, learn to bake cookies and brew 2 cups.” To be magnanimous, one must immerse oneself among recipients willing to reciprocate. Americans have long since ceased to match mercies, respond in kind, and transcend Darwinian imperative to eat or be eaten. Can you blame anyone for selfish motivations given mainstream opinions?

Débat d'entrain

Feelings are fleeting, insights tricky to intercept, in tandem, require real effort to recall. But does writing them down reinforce memories or relegate forever to forgotten? In senility one misquotes statistics, mistakes billions for millions, or single-mindedly repeats same old story. Genuine and superior sail away together leaving you marooned. Precise quick recall rates just below muscular reflexes among survival mechanisms. While content here may seem disjointed, Labann knows connections but skips explanations; when warning of peril, you'd only identify immanent threat, not obscure in wordy malarkey. Could find another place to fall and flop, forsake in disgrace once duties you face dissolve, give up on it all, and stop. Expire, migrate, or stand fast: Yours to decide. Exit strategies are endlessly tempting. Once elation of peak experiences, including bicycling, wears off life grows depressing. Despair leads to losses. Disturbing.

Reconsider immigrants for a moment. Do some perpetrate crimes? Of course. Members of Bratva, Mafia, Sinaloa Cartel, and Yakuza operate internationally and pile collectively upwards of $40 billion in illegal loot each year enabled by an insatiable appetite for illicit sex, off-track gambling, smuggled narcotics, stolen merchandise, and unsecured loans, which can all be gotten legally at lesser costs/risks. Organized criminals intimidate targets into accepting their contraband and falling into their trap. They need you, not other way around.

So 95% of all crime could be eliminated through better education and policy realignment, that is, if people really wanted to be informed. Instead, mayors consider downsides, and dole out one-way bus tickets to dump addicts and indigents into some other jurisdiction. Make it go away? Solves no problem. Other mayors cynically pay for bus rides from third world to their cities to build a base of dependent voters while they extract costs from homeowners in soaring taxes, so pay nothing personally yet stay in power. Treachery against community comes easily to sociopaths in office. Heinous assaults and imaginative scams make life almost too difficult to bear.

Most acts of terrorism on American soil originate domestically, of course, given cost of travel. Any market economy that forsakes individuals and glorifies profits makes 99% losers, who then base self worth on success of 1%, blame scapegoats for failures, and lash out inappropriately wherever they reside. Capitalists, who ensure weapons remain cheap and plentiful, seldom forgive victims and vice versa. Illegal immigrants bear brunt of resentment, when it's rich patrons paying them under the table who warrant punishment. Besides, they perform menial tasks citizens don’t want: au pairs, domestics, gardeners, harvesters, or unskilled roles below minimum wage. In a race to the bottom, will you kill to be last?

Fake news pigs, who wallow in mud of culpability, and few who pay them to dupe rubes and refute scientific facts to suit profit motives, cause most attacks. Boosts ratings, reinforces fears off which mercenaries make money, and ruins reputations of real journalists. To whom do you look for guidance after all institutions have been scandalized? Silt and stones do not account for rising sea levels. Billions have made their presence felt in innumerable ways, like ants who tend jungles, without which jungles would die from rot and disappear. Unlike ants, humans negatively affect entire planet through atmospheric pollution, deforestation, ozone depletion, public confusion, worsening storms, and worst calamities. All reputable scientists agree. Yet Fox News broadcasts contradictory nonsense, because facts might be right, thus upset uptight who mine anthracite and pump crude into fossil fuel’s twilight.

Leaders lack foresight to understand how automaking, gaming, munitions manufacture, tobacco growing, and slaughtered beef saturated in artery clogging fats represent health costs that negate profits. Aren't these the ethical issues you elected them to solve? Perhaps they figure they have already, reason letting them fade away would be wisest course, reckon your perspective doesn’t matter one iota. Unless developing timely alternatives to supplant those depleted, conflict, deprivation, and devastation will result. With one hundred thirty-seven motorists worldwide dying every day, one every 10 minutes, you can be sure leaders will always sacrifice lives of the lowly to stay in power. Ought to obligate everyone to represent majority, resist upon principle, and stand resolute against tyranny.

One tires of chipping away concrete under which truth got buried, of interminable burden to analyze and inform, of paragraphs laden with paradoxes and pessimistic wordplay. Delve deeper, extraneous opinions detract from fact, and you divert further from confidence. Do have options: Plan an exit, stay until blog’s 10th anniversary next month, or stop abruptly. Suppose that’s a question followers should answer, not that there’s ever been intended débat d'entrain. Could also, if so inclined, delete content, disassemble blog, go commercial, or sell out, though that would be vengeful backlash to any lack of lively discourse. In this fragrant season of warmth, one should be outside cycling as far and often as sprung legs in shorts support, restoring own wellspring of hope.

Oil of Mirbane

If can’t be incorruptible, at least be independent. Can only speak with complete authority when no debts are owed, strings exist, or ties bind. If censors must review every word before you can disseminate, little or no decency, honesty or legitimacy remains. Any committee exist specifically to bury truth before it causes its members losses. Belong to human species with no band, group or political affiliation. Let conscience guide actions and speech, so sound off often unafraid of obligation.

So what of June 3rd’s inaugural World Bicycle Day, new praxis rite ratified by the United Nations this April? Will #June3WorldBicycleDay recur annually? Could be confused with September 17th’s World Cycling Day, first ever global bicycling cultural festival begun in 2017 to coincide with supposed 200th anniversary of bicycle’s invention. WCD originators specified this date because in Chinese “917” could also mean “Just Cycle”. In either case idea was to adjure pollution abatement, sustainable development, and traffic reduction that cycling affirms and driving negates. Been practicing and promoting all this for decades already, so don’t need to join anything, rather World joins Labann for once.

In an interview around time The Who played halftime at Superbowl, Pete Townsend disparaged Keith “The Loon” Moon for drumming wildly undisciplined. Why ridicule one of group’s better attributes? Impugns entire output; implies none of it bears listening. Instead they had John “Thunder Fingers” Entwhistle, bassist of the millennium, who provided beat and bond, so Keith, Pete and Roger Daltry could dance, noodle, sing, soar and windmill, which they surely did. The Who were the real deal: rebellious rock delivered with distinction and humor to receptive youth. Rumor has it that Pete still begrudges deceased Keith for having exploded his drums live concluding performance on Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, which may have left Pete a bit deaf, though hearing loss usually results from cumulative exposure to ear splitting decibels. Hearing heightens not only enjoyment but safety, so worth preserving.

Why not let the audience decide whether your approach works or message resonates? Rating based on arbitrary rules or repeating something that succeeded reeks of feckless and irrelevant. Right thinking lives in present and looks towards future. Past, now immutable, possesses little worth resurrecting and really can be too painful to recount. Will always prefer authentic to ersatz. Take, for example, oil of mirbane (nitrobenzene), a poison manufacturers once added to soap for its fake almond smell. Unless cheaper than almond oil itself, why bother? Makes you wonder what hides inside products as basic as detergent or foodstuff. Fruits are obviously treated with insecticides and other toxins, which is why you should always immersion wash them, even spin dry, before consuming.

Speaking of sound, regret not elaborating on birdsong in B&C chapter Guilty Pleasures. Of course, deliberate tweets and twitters constitute a significant input on morning spins. In fact, silence does disturb at dawn, since it indicates disorder that frightened away feathered friends and represents danger riders should heed before they proceed. For example, around next corner have found a bunch of police cars and sidearms drawn in a raid. Miners used to bring canaries to work; when singing stopped it warned them of noxious gases. Birdsong inspired entire classical compositions, most notably Olivier Messiaen’s Le réveil des oiseaux (1953). After decades of intense study, biologists and birders can distinguish among a cacophony of random chirps to identify individual species. These days public doesn’t value their insights into extinction and migration, since it’s seldom good news and sure to cost them more somehow. Explains why so few will be celebrating WBD.

In a deepening sea of complexity and irrelevance, the best doesn’t readily float to surface. Cyclists who spin up to high points get frustrated by fact that tallest was built by waste disposers in state’s landfill. Crowd noise, human cacophony, rises or swells at shopping malls or sporting events. It may contain potent hidden content, as do songs, each a small digest of contemporary influences, some with mind warping effects, which is why you ought to listen judiciously. But, then, songs representing bicycling culture from around planet will surely get overlooked, as were these curious expressions of individuality:

The Bennies, My Bike [Punk], Better off Dead, Jackknife Music, 2013

Café tacuba (yo soy), Bicicleta, single, self, 2010

Clutch, When Vegans Attack, From Beale Street to Oblivion, DRT Entertainment, 2007
“Manifestos at Kinkos, pinko commies play no fools. I feel the spirit moving over me. There are clouds beneath my feet. When vegans attack on ten speed bikes. Tattoos with meaning, American Spirit Lights.”

Craig D’Andrea, Three Mile Bike Ride, Getting Used to Isolation, Candy Rat Rec., 2009; previously mentioned, recommend watching live video of this lovely guitar instrumental.

El David Aguilar, La cumbia de la bici [Mexican], single, Qué Te Importa Rec., 2014
“Everyday sees more of us because it’s so magic. A cumbia dance for bikes since they move us around. Wonder if they can recycle a track for us now.”

Eminem, Legacy, The Marshall Mathews LP2, Aftermath, 2013
"Why am I so differently wired in my noggin? 'Cause sporadic as my thought come, it's mind bogglin'... look at the bright side. At least I ain't walkin'. I bike ride through the neighborhood of my apartment complex on a ten speed, which I acquired parts that I found in the garbage, a frame, and put tires on it. Headphones, straight ahead.” Album won a Grammy Award for Best Rap.

From Autumn to Ashes, Streamline, Abandon Your Friends, Vagrant Rec., 2005
“I see an empty space next to the yellow bumble bee; that could be the perfect place to park my broken down ten-speed. Just tell me when you get off work and where you'd like to meet. Then we can pedal up and down the crowded New York streets. My shoes are worn out, because the breaks don't function. I just put my feet down, let them drag on the pavement.”

God-Des & She, Get Your Bike, Three, self, 2009

King Charles, Mississippi Isabel, Mississippi Isabel, Universal Rec., 2011
“I rode her on my bicycle all the way in the rain. She kissed me once, I took her out for lunch, and she never kissed me again.”

Sam(antha) Shelton, Bicycle, single, self, 2014

Taylor Turner, Bicycle, Versus, self (Kickstarter Project), 2014

Turbo Mansion, Bicycle, Danger Laces EP, self, 2018

Charlie Chaplain

Another Bike Week passed with little fanfare. Originated in England in 1923, nearly a century ago in Europe and North America, observances are scattered from beginning of May to middle of June. Here in New England, every year, it seems to rain during 2nd week of May, which sells more lawn products than rain gear for cycling. Sure, on Bike-to-Work Day a few diehards convene on town squares under tents for free coffee and donuts. Labann got to work from home last Friday, and rides to work year round when weather cooperates, so didn’t rise irreproachably to support cause. Bike commutes rate slightly above haircuts, something you do routinely without ceremony. But a Centennial Anniversary of Bicycle Week could be legitimately promoted among Amish, artists, geeks, mamils, moonbats, Mormons, Neo-Luddites, reactionaries, religious fanatics, and whoever else would likely attend.

Too often convening disappoints. Typical stay-at-home television viewers get an eyeful of beautiful and delightful humans of which malls, plazas and venues seem devoid. By comparison, public you meet on street appear annoyed and bent out of shape; patience, serenity and smiles were destroyed by their android and disrespect of ugly rabble you'd rather avoid. Fingertip access to information does expand opportunities and speed transactions, but social media serves practically no purpose, other than wrongly identify you as a target or terrorist.

Instead of data retrievers, mankind once built devices that really saved labor. Who can deny a clothes dryer, dishwasher, washing machine, or wheat harvester/thresher saves effort and time? True, you could arrange for wage slaves to hand pick grain, kneel by a stream, or stand at a sink for hours each day, but then you couldn’t multitask other equally crucial chores.

Machines weren’t necessarily man’s best friend, though. Mechanized warfare accounts for recurrent Memorial Day, which honors soldiers fallen to it. It’s when politicians arrive in limousines to honor their sacrifice through a litany of hollow hypocrisy. Excludes cops, firemen, guards, and workers, too, though they get equivocally remembered on Labor Day. Everyone gets their own birthday, some Father’s or Mother’s Day; better make the most of it. The Good Lord, having been tortured for all souls’ sake, only gets alpha birth and omega death of Christmas and Easter. Exactly what did YOU do to deserve even a seldom seen headstone or totally ignored obituary?

Back when Americans in Korea were fighting Charlie, chaplain bicyclist Emil Kapaun ministered to soldiers so effectively, he has since been awarded a Medal of Honor by Obama, considered for sainthood, made into a film hero, and woven into Latham’s war biography Cold Days in Hell: American POWs in Korea. Apparently that’s wasn’t enough suffering to deter current administration from resuming hostilities. A treacherous few will always profit by provoking war. You know who they are: They wrap themselves in a shroud of religiosity while accepting bribes from gun lobby, fueling fascist Fox agitprop, inciting domestic terrorism, and profiling blacks and muslims as militants. Without God’s blessing, they are just Neo-Nazis eager to promote your sacrifice for their gain.

Chaplains such as Kapaun [shown with trusty bike during WWII] can be distinguished from pastors by their advanced training and lack of fixed parish; they minister not only to own denomination but whoever needs spiritual guidance navigating boredom and stress that binds just about any occupation. A cynical appraisal of most company’s codes of conduct would be that employees agree under duress to abstain from what executives routinely do, mustn't harass, intimidate, relate misconduct to unauthorized outsiders, retaliate, and so on. Chaplains even address fear in the fog of battle. If you’re a chaplain, shouldn’t you forgive minor insults? Not always so, as article attests. Did instead make a federal case over it, but didn’t specify convict’s sentence.

Saints who possess a semblance of piety humble themselves before deity, put others before own, and sense by man not all can be known. They are loathe to inflict deserved punishment, don sackcloth to suffer alike, tolerate petty transgressions, and turn other cheek to facilitate further pummel-ment. Society has to compartmentalize duties among those less high-minded lest criminals rampage unchecked. Sometimes crimes derive from elected officials not acting responsibly or doing job appropriately.

Neglected roads loaded with debris and holes cause riders to weave, thereby aggravating motorists and endangering cyclists. They do slow everyone, which some might consider a blessing. On a recent motor trip was following a cyclist, who was going briskly along road edge and waving all behind to pass. Couldn't provide a meter margin so didn't. Only when he turned onto side street could one see it was a small unregistered motorcycle, which resembled a kid's single-speed cruiser. Funny, bicycles conversely used to mimic motorcycles to make kids feel grown up. As Summer approaches, see more and more unlicensed riders on midget motorcycles, minibikes, pocket rockets, and scooters. Tiny target does not exonerate lawbreaker, though operators are usually children and teens. Tickets ought to be issued to abetting guardians and parents, who likely provided or willfully condone use of an illegal vehicle.

As dangerously as they cut corners and dart about unexpectedly, they aren't a bicyclist's arch nemesis. Garbage trucks, RVs, and tandem trailers seem worse for sheer bulk at excessive speeds, although pickups and SUVs outnumber them, so really constitute greater risk. Luckily, drivers of Motheaten Tree Service are few, out at dawn, terrorizing travel lanes, unfortunately on roads Labann frequents. Talk of traffic hazards may seem lame compared to gun violence or infectious disease, though currently kill more people than both combined. Where’s a bicycle chaplain when you need homilies to encourage better road ethics? The silent comedian you thought this entry was about at least made you chuckle; maybe that’s all you can do while immersed in menace. Riding in silence was never Labann's strength.

“‘Go, God, You know that to win is not getting there but continuing.’ Everyone, on the sidewalks rolling on the ground with laughter, we applauded him like crazy! But, a certain night, his horrible bicycle with a trailer began to cast an enormous fluorescent tail. Unbelievable! The pickpockets were returning wallets on the bus; the powerful were ending hunger; the UFOs were revealing... the mayor himself was filling the potholes in the streets. I cried of joy, dancing under that light the polka of the cyclist... sinister rage, I do not know why... we assaulted him, and from behind, his white bicycle we started to destroy... turned it into a thousand pieces... he shouted, ‘May I save you!’ took a look at his bicycle ...smiled ...walked away. Skinny Guy Who Art on Earth, how come you forgot that we are not angels, but men and women?” - Astor Piazzolla, La Bicicleta Blanca

Rabidly Outgain

Another summer hence, fifty years since 1969’s Aquarian Exposition of August 15th to 18th, a weekend festival of art, music and peace together, where will civilization find itself? Closer to promoters goals of communities coalescing for improvement, ethical practices, every individual entitled to make a difference, free trade, planetary stewardship, non-violent camaraderie, unfettered creativity, and universal human rights? Really? Participants believed they could live without cash, organized roles, retirement investment, or roofs over their heads. Works for twenty-somethings while agile and mobile enough to withstand uncertainty and vagary. Wear occurs relentlessly to all their gear year after year until society doesn’t care they’re living somewhere on a rusted bus on blocks going nowhere.

No height of Hippiedom, Woodstock marked its demise - promise died - and signaled an inexorable regression into barbarity. Barbarity, cruelty and stupidity describe majority competing for cash. Under capitalism, fair trade and social justice rate as mortal sins. Some can’t handle freedom, because they forget that it means they’re responsible for every action, behavior, commission and omission in which they’re complicit. They’d rather be blameless, bemoan innocence lost, bumble along without consequences. Battles won, when you disengage, you nosedive. An entire generation never heard whole storyline: Tune in, turn on, drop out, die young, and let fascists build a war chest to cheat and murder the rest.

You hate what gravity gradually does to your body. Stuff sags including tattoos. But you love gravity when rolling downhill, a rejuvenating thrill. You curse climbing, yet value its effects: builds muscles, keeps you from floating off into space, regulates tides, and whatnot. Anyway inevitable, gravity itself should be deemed neutral with minuses and pluses in delicate harmony with The Tao. Rather, you loathe yourself, what your body has become, inert flab, slave to what’s grave. Over months indoors and years at sedentary work you’ve gone from enthused recruit pleasingly toned with plenty of energy to a superfund cleanup site of toxic negativity from which everyone steers clear, silly hyperbole yet suitable metaphor.





Seriously, irked by stalwart service taken for granted, sure, you’re just a jerk in a jersey, yet upscale of a racist on Yawkey. Political correctness has been called an identity trap and seems to thwart common sense, but to ages of abuse and neglect owes its existence, payback for smug insults and unearned munificence, which explains why fat cats cycling for free, riding toward right, and swigging your tea so resent this concurrence. How did their mothers raise them?

Economists say in year following Woodstock, 1970, restrictive access to opportunity, social mobility, and success from hard work dramatically began to separate affluence from indigence. Advent of artificial intelligence, automation, and globalization only furthered this divide. In a way, Woodstock aided ambitious and shrewd, who gladly grabbed what hippies wanted to give away, namely any share in ill gotten prosperity, master-vassal economy, and war blood money. Fear infects fools in need with the disease of greed, who consequently inflict society with decades of drudgery.

Wouldn’t you prefer reliable prescience to information desperation? If only you could predict what will occur years from now, you'd grow rich and stay fit to enjoy it. Yet your personal involvement might alter timeline and cause investment to fail instead. Neither does it work in hindsight; would've been a billionaire by holding Apple and IBM stocks into present. But for every technological stride, usually two ethical breakthroughs backslide.

Money fills a need, but why crave excess? Assets can become a nuisance, cost plenty to maintain, get in your way, have a way of hanging a target on your back, and waste time whence lives are woven. Besides, you can’t take any pride in how you succeeded, since society only allowed it by buying into your lame game; indeed, no amount of effort actually expended ever guaranteed you’d achieve greatness. Cash may rule, but dollars continually devalue; millions might become meaningless before midnight and thrones decay into worthlessness. Earn to live, not live to earn.

Affluence can instantly be reversed. Losers may ultimately win. Meek may inherit it all. Accursed advantages will fall when they no longer resist what used to persist. Nevertheless, Congress fallaciously bankrolls tycoons, who they figure can make good use of extorted revenue, reckon educators fail to graduate enough innovators to make grants worthwhile, resent welfare that keeps alive those upon whom tycoons tread, and shrug off what this half-century snafu did: Cause the largest gap between poverty and wealth ever. Look for a time when they begin collecting and eliminating what’s deselected and marginalized, such as bicycles or splinter group members. An informed public wouldn’t comply with whims of psychopaths in power, so teachers face increasingly bigger barriers. State policies typically ensure life’s a chore and majority suffers. Already, you must earn health insurance money or pay a hefty fine you can’t afford.

Heartfelt expressions can get around globe in an instant, yet mostly go ignored, or, worse, invite retaliation. You'd think but wrongly assume that net gains from Internet exceed losses. Literally tons of computers, e-pads, smartphones and tablets were sold based on access to it. But slave labor assembles all this merchandise. Frauds, gambles and scams cost billions, not to mention diminishing corporate profits from employee distraction. Billions more are spent on paltry pleasures and popular porn that profits only a few, never populations as a whole. Tobacco alone after profits results in a net loss of $200 billion per year. Businesses and government figure they can cut costs if posting ads and forms to websites, though salaries have to be paid to do so, and 25% of population can’t connect, particularly elderly. If cash can be called a tool for retirees, it resembles an axe collecting dust or rust out of mind and sight. As a fruit of labor, someone else - bankers, doctors, insurers, lawyers, nursing homes directors - squeezes its juice and steals your use. You might be better off giving it to your family and spending it to make a memory.

For WWW to fulfill its informational promise, users would need to mine facts presented and perform analyses, as has Labann while building blog and defining bicycling culture. One can hope that observed facts could be amassed into postulates that serve some higher purpose: Eliminate waste, end war, foster rights, increase understanding, save lives, or work wisely. Smarter folks can join list servers for academic and scientific discussion and use to achieve progress. Too bad boring chatter, false claims, junk science, and profit motives bury useful information. POTUS calls actual but adverse news fake, and uses social media to dupe gullible masses and shape favorable opinions.

Ignore copy studded with words ending with suffix “tion”, so many they supply a plethora of cheap rhymes for nauseating poets. Pronounced “shun”, that’s what reader should do, avoid like viral contagion. Beware of bold pronouncements with no logical narrative. Maybe author didn't go through process of thinking statement through; then again, maybe author did and spared you labor of sorting through details. Anyone might associate ah-ha moments with unrelated facts, suggest causality where none exists, or whip up passions for nonsense. Be assured that Top-Ten appraisals overlook thousands of better picks not being forcibly publicized.

Continual exposure to narcissists, paranoids and schizophrenics inflicts normal people with inhibiting anxieties. Take xenophobia: Immigrants do bring challenges and costs, but nation was entirely populated by refugees and their progeny. Uniting amicably is what Americans do, to a fault. Nation’s generosity may be taken for granted by recent arrivals who say they’d rather be in motherland whence they came. Lunatics who pay no taxes or provide no services complain the most. Being aware and assuming tasks define adulthood, but not necessarily wisdom, which pieces together puzzles.

“What it is…" another phrase with multiple meanings: Defines "it", or implies, "Is what it is," or spouts, "How things are." Both blameworthy, ethical and lingual points conspire to launch debacles. Rephrased, "What is it?" betrays annoyance and impatience. Issues surround word "is" because A doesn't equal but might be substituted for B. You can usually pinpoint subtle lies and useless quotes by their use of the word “is". “No man is an island.” Well, duh, no ocean or peninsula is, either. Donne does go on to qualify, but probably would’ve saved time and showed mercy getting straight to his point: Humans are social animals with interdependencies. When right wing media mercenaries, “Tell it like it is,” with righteous vehemence, disregard their bullshit that strictly supports their own interests. They rabidly outgain you because they they sell out to power lust, and wantonly abandon morality though never just. Once they’re comfortably numb, damage has been done, and status strata settles in.

For those who see problems clearly and tackle goals earnestly, bicycling and plain living answer some of world’s issues. Spike in gasoline prices and Spring's arrival (at last) encourage more bike commuting and cost saving. Yet aimless motoring clogs highways all day, while alert bicycling reveals a beleaguered environment of felled trees, general devastation, and senseless litter, which represent no small percentage of motoring’s untold costs. Urge to choose easy route and team with oblivious despoilers weighs heaviest on those who sacrifice for mutual well-being. Neither saint nor sinner by however you define such terms, you’ll make compromises for which you’re not proud. Tax breaks for bike commuters and do-gooders get lost in haste to bail out banks and endow enterprises that suck planet dry. But touchy readers rather not be reminded of obvious villainy unless related to racing or touring, usual topics for bicycle blogs and books, and that you’ll only tell your mom or someone who cares. High minded, mighty intended opinions influence few, provoke ire, and surely invite vengeance among office holders and scofflaw followers, whom you primarily targeted because they vie with criminals as worst examples.

Freedom versus responsibility, theme of Bike&Chain, describes mankind’s core struggle. To take stock on wooden ambitions, you don’t advocate, do right, and fight good fight to earn gold stars on some heavenly tote board or sidestep vicious spiral to hell in twilight. No, you decide daily on weighty matters, some of which you’re unable to resolve or unaware exist. You can improve own effectiveness by doing your job, living to a code, paying attention, or shouldering unwanted tasks. But with whose rules do you comply? Never cease to be delighted and surprised by bikes for Africa, charities that work, disaster responses, doctors without borders, moms putting children’s needs before their own, salvation army, and soup kitchens. Whenever altruism arises to address real issues, world breathes a bit easier.

“The saint inspires the vitality of all lives, without holding back. He nurtures all beings with no wish to take possession of. He devotes all his energy but has no intention to hold on to the merit. When success is achieved, he seeks no recognition… Words of truth are not pleasing. Pleasing words are not truthful. The wise one does not argue.” Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, Chapters 2 & 81

White Reign

Can you embrace bicycling culture without cultivating a comparative attitude? If you ever doubt automotive culture dominates, tune into NASCAR, its exact opposite. Contrast competitive intensity of Talladega 500 to Tour de France; although both border on glory and insanity, over five hundred crew members, drivers, and spectators died in stateside motor races since 1994, while worldwide around one hundred cyclists died (no spectators) in road and velodrome races since 1894. Numbers exclude training on roads, never captured for drivers but mere dozens of pro cyclists. So, global versus national for over 5 times longer from among equal numbers of participants, one fifth as many from pelaton died. Said Reece Bobby in Talledega Nights, “You’ve gotta learn to drive with the fear… if you're scared, that beautiful death machine will do what God made it to do, namely, eat you with a smile." Annually, ratio of civilian fatalities is 50:1. Motor crashes claim 3,287 lives daily around the world, 90% of which occur in third world countries despite much fewer vehicles.

An estimated $1 trillion was invested in films during 20th Century, versus $10 trillion invested every 10 years on US highways, a multiple of 100, rife with corruption, with only a small portion actually going to construction. Roads provide emergency routes, sustaining lifelines, vital connections, so seem a higher priority and sold as a no-brainer among the cruel who rule and steal revenue from rubes they fool. Lion’s share goes to interstate boondoggles that mostly restrict to motorists alone, not minor upkeep of secondaries and side streets used by everyone. Once a year do they sweep them, spot repair potholes only after numerous complaints. Inadequate bikeways serve drivers better by getting cyclists out of their way, though fail everyone where traffic is thickest and will to build weakest.

Films do fill a psychological need, though not all and whether they satisfy can be debated at best. Many inventions first appear in articles, books or scripts that later become marketable innovations that drive industry and fund road creation and movie production. Storytellers, however, are not obligated to originate ideas for others to exploit, or please audiences even. Although ordinarily ignored, reminders of responsibilities also signify. One might argue that democracy owes everything to cranks with complaints, discontents who dismiss status quo, dissidents who for an answer won’t take no.

Appeals to one’s better self go unheard unless recipient has health or interest enough to notice and react. Getting along isn't even easy among relatives. Millions cherish family animals and despise human neighbors. Prisons are full because cretins don’t know that smacking others around might kill them and solves nothing. Greed, hate and stupidity underlie today's worst evils, but where do they come from? Obviously, no one source can be blamed, but can be categorized under nature, nurture and society’s demands. Neurochemistry looms large, as late doctor Oliver Sachs spent a career exploring and relaying. “It is so geared to one’s proprioception, one’s movements and postures, that it responds almost like part of one’s own body. Bike and rider become a single, indivisible entity; it is very much like riding a horse. A car cannot become part of one in quite the same way.”

Within epidemic deficiencies of magnesium, niacin and vitamin D, little wonder you run into few smarter than you. Lack of oxygen to brain causes dementia. Frequent gentle exercise and proper diet do boost mood and lead to tolerance necessary to coexist in a crowded world. Bicycling can fill half of this bill. But breeding, budget, current events, traumas, and upbringing also incite and inspire behavior. Some can’t pay to eat much else than 4 for $1 boiled ramen bricks or canned tomato soup. Fresh vegetables and lean meats cost more than other items sold at markets and what majority can afford. Poverty forces consumption of empty calories from fast food, pasta and potatoes. Combine with birth defects, sleep deficits, substance abuse, and suffering that urgency for earning imposes, one shouldn't doubt these detriments affect cooperation, judgment, reason, and socialization.

New season begun, get up and go glow of vernal dawns arrives on cue as if a clue to renew. People associate bicycling with wellness. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion shows 2 images of bicyclists to the exclusion of all else under "Our Initiatives" for adults and children. They evaluated myriad approaches and maintain cycling and walking are both popular and safe compared to, for example, organized sports. For subscribers New York Times published a free guide on lowering carbon footprint. If past articles are any indication, self propulsion doesn't bear mention. Some would argue that what individuals do doesn't rate, since profit motivated businesses easily negate. Human beings outnumber business entities 165,000:1; only together will issues be addressed.

Surmised a doctor by those who don’t personally know despite repeated denial, Labann descended from same West European roots considered by bigots to be the dominant race, except has a vampire hairline, especially toward end of a hairy long winter of trying to stay warm, remnant of some East European genes on paternal grandmother's side. Didn’t donate DNA for ancestry to be approximated and later used as evidence of crime, but may have Asian or Native genes as well. Did pursue a premedical track as an undergraduate, and do work in health sector, but unqualified to give any advice or treat illnesses. Films favor Anglo-Saxon monsters, not so midgets or natives, a practice called racist and damned as white privilege.

Bicyclists must sometimes abide but seldom welcome white rain in April, white reign presumption, or willful prejudice from wherever it comes. More than once rode in hail, rain, sleet and snow, but wouldn’t call it preferable. Bullies label anyone a snowflake who doesn’t share their selfish biases and smash/snatch sensibilities. Nod to Tolkien for imagining little people as heroes who did what no great power could against the gravest evil, but also for warning how war will ensnare earth’s entire population. Greatness recognizes how everyone contributes. Pettiness picks disparities and thereby pits combatants.

Black rise, red resurgence, yellow peril? Among races white percentage has always been low. Only 11.4% are Europeans, 3% fewer than Africans. Asians make up 60.3% of inhabitants. Twice as many Mongoloids of East Asia including Chinese join nearly thrice as many native races in North Africa, South/West Asia, and South Pacific Islands along with aboriginal Australians. Southern Italians descended from both Africans and Europeans. Romans were once planet's most cosmopolitan people. Black 1.3 billion equals about 20% of world's total population, so outnumber whites, however you choose to define. Aryan Nation would have you believe they belong to an exclusive sovereignty and white supremacy makes sense, when races who outnumber this minority on a global scale did all the heavy lifting. Slavery has been abolished. Civilization runs better without it. Women, more than half of world population, can be entrepreneurs, hold jobs, outcompete men, run for office, and vote based on gender. Really, human is the only race.

Mark Horst, Boys on Bicycles No. 1, Oil on Canvas—For me, painting is a practice of seeing the world as it is—rather than how I’d like it to be or how I think it should be… pay attention to rhythms and patterns and shapes and colors and emotions and gestures—all these gifts surrounding me.

Apartheid persisted in South Africa for almost 5 decades until Mandela took steps to overcome it. Next year marks 25 years since securing freedom from 146 patently unfair, race restrictive laws. Equality for black, Indian, mixed and native people has dispelled fears upon which this policy was founded and sold. Yet anywhere today you can barely discuss race without inflaming resentment and inviting retaliation.

Recent Oscar winner Shape of Water (Guillermo del Toro, dir., 2017) precisely illustrates these points. When officials treat newly discovered creature with xenophobic cruelty, it lashes back with equivalent violence. When maid shows loving care, it responds with life saving transformation. But how do you measure intention? Beasts present ferocity for self defense. Some eat family members. Best of relations can get too intense. Tolerance has bilateral limits. Balance, compromise, not appeasement, saves lives and smoothes settlement.

Director Kathryn Bigelow's historical film Detroit debuted on the 50th anniversary of Algiers Motel Incident and dramatizes race riots of mid-1960's. Depicts that 1st thing stolen when looting began was a bicycle, despite fact that everyone seems to be smoking and stealing cartons of cigarettes, too. Because deemed indispensable, alcohol, bicycles, drugs and tobacco serve as currency when civil order collapses. Motown music did much to obtain civil rights as amateur artists struck it big in concerts and recordings. Reveals how desperate ruling class became once freedom extended to all, but not even close to con artists, robo-callers, and telemarketers, urged by example of relentless hucksters and politicians, who indiscriminately plague email and voice messages even if you never answer.

Angry white gangs have staged a comeback in opposition of Afro, Asian, Latin and Russian rivals. Easy to gather hate groups through any excuse: hair length, kind of tattoos, original neighborhood, school attended, skin shade, or whatnot. Note that each, rather than extremes, exist on a continuum of varying degrees, levels, and moves. Everyone unique, you’re more alike than different, but too many figure you’ll take pride and torment others based on categories someone else concocts, particularly religions. Being beaten and tortured leads to Stockholm Syndrome where victim joins oppressor, so science doesn’t always make logical sense. Those who blindly do the same become only a pawn in their game, a polarized puppet without free will and ultimately to blame.

Today was Jackie Robinson Day, when 71 years ago #42 first broke Major League Baseball's ban on players of color, with all proceeds from games going to his namesake foundation. Tomorrow locally is Frost Free Day, after which residents can expect blossoms to swell, leaves to form, and warmth to spread. Should instead represent an end to dominant ice and resurgence of impartiality. Some will celebrate 75th anniversary of Bicycle Day on 19 April 2018. Earth Day arrives on Friday, 20 April 2018, as good a reason as any to go outside and grasp belonging by taking a bike ride. Honest to goodness earth awareness acknowledges social fairness. Mankind constitutes a facet of nature at odds with itself. You don’t have to join blindly, waste alongside, or wrestle with devils. Those who tread lightly learn how little they need. Bike-to-Work Day follows on Friday, 18 May 2018, always the 3rd Friday in May. Even if you’re retired or unemployed, why not take a spin? Going by bike celebrates one’s continued vitality.

'Twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon… this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [intellect] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full? Obliged to you for hearing me… ain’t got nothing more to say. Abolitionist and Suffragette Sojourner Truth, “Ain't I A Woman?” 1851 Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio