Beaten Swain

Can anyone drive a tandem? You derive the term “drive” from whipping a team of horses forward. Indeed, they speak of a pair of horses as a tandem team. Motorists drive an engine’s horsepower for all its worth. You cannot drive a bicycle, because it conveys an individual and presents neither horsepower nor team. But you might drive a tandem bicycle, since it could be manned by both captain and stoker. Pelaton teams are driven by ambition to beat rivals. Cowboys drive cattle to slaughter. Congestion and construction drive commuters to behave badly as they blow schedules.

Driving evokes images of someone fuming with impatience to get going at someone else’s acquiescence. They’d leave vulnerable road users to own devices. Slave drivers whip their chattel into submission. Among all countries worldwide about 25 million people fall into categories of bonded, child, domestic, forced or sexual servitude either to repay debts or without pay. Meanwhile, Congress debates a hike in minimum wage in a selfish attempt to raise revenue and thus squeeze a bit more from business owners, who practically pay no taxes. Worse, they expect interns to work for experience in lieu of paid benefits and compensation, as if a knight’s swain. Medieval nonsense! Should be illegal. If you’re repaying an underwater mortgage, you’re a wage slave. Banks loaning bucks still create serfs and thralls. But sudden hikes in prices of key commodities trigger recessions that enslave millions and take years to recover from.

Humans are driven by self preservation, yet contribute to society since they recognize that’s the only way to defuse and survive threats. Labann often ponders whether this inherent corruption is worth overlooking, but realizes speaking of it fosters reluctance. Delays only harm those currently deprived. You don’t become incorruptible without burning bridges to each desert island upon which you can’t live alone, so corruption will persist, and you can only partially resist.“What you resist persists,” has been suggested, but would ignoring malfeasance and stupidity result in improvement? Probably not. Incarceration separates criminals from partnerships. But is your drive to improve anything more than badgering from which only you profit?

Who has earned the right to be free? Shouldn’t it be inalienable? Never signed on for nonstop loyalty. Promises of commitment have expiration dates, not necessarily preprogrammed renewals. Experiments are worthless unless they gather disciples, none of whom may follow if what you’ve done doesn’t embrace them. Nobody wants to hear a drummer going solo. Only a chorus of voices engages. You must want what everyone else wants for delivery system to work. Then again, why live in fear of acceptance, convenience or rejection? You’re entitled to march to your own drum in that great street carnival [stills from video]. Beating spirit from a swain won’t result in anyone’s gain. Curing those who greet you then do you harm could be mighty satisfying in itself, but takes considerable effort, loss endurance, patience, and risk tolerance.

Believe the answer is in choosing well and doing proactively, not planning retroactively and waiting for conditions you've set. To be able to imagine what you want then reach for it with success requires that the needs of others also be met. Mutually beneficial outcomes preserve civilization. Yet you can’t convince Big Oil CEOs, drug lords, or those who worship them that greed deprives everyone including self. Only teams that share responsibilities in tandem secure rewards worth achieving. Choose wisely.

Thieves Restrain?

Jeff Rossen’s bait bike sting aired on Today Show not only caught thieves on camera but interviewed them and tracked down the GPS rigged unit to a suburban home. Caught redhanded, denials and dismissals ensued. Who me? Where are the arrests and indictments? Want to see someone dragged through court, pay damages, possibly serve time. Follow up, make an example of them, by all means, not proclaim open season on bicycle stealing.

Kayla Smith of Vancouver dangerously confronted criminal who stole her bike for resale and returned the favor by riding away with hers on pretense of trying bike out. Labann personally hunted down 3 of his own and satisfactorily retrieved. A u-lock won’t deter someone from taking your bags, saddle or wheels for ghetto currency; you need to also thread a cable through both wheels, frame itself, and some permanent, unmovable object. Wiser to bring bike in with you wherever you go whenever you can.

Criminals are stupid. If they were motivated and smart, they’d hold decent jobs and stay out of prison, provided, of course, jobs were available. Unemployed wage slaves give up and steal instead, all the more reason to offer good pay for roles in which people stay. Hundreds of bikes are stolen every day in every state; most are sold off with impunity in a vicious assault on the vulnerable. Cars are harder to rob, identified by VINs, and registered on state databases, but sometimes aren’t as valuable as bicycles. A cheap used car can cost less than a top model new bike. You should record serial number and/or uniquely tattoo yours. In either case, transportation is vital to continued employment, yet each dimwitted, lazy, rude villain targets only those least likely to retaliate. They’re not bandits or pirates to celebrate, rather cowards stealing food from children riding back to school as carefree Summer days wind down.

Rossen better be careful. Thieving ring will sue him for defamation. Citizens who set up cameras to record crime routinely are. Laws protect criminals, not those who expose them or victims, and preserve lawyer’s revenue stream. Is this just? How could it be? Or is his report merely fear mongering against cycling? Why aren't there reports on way more numerous motoring accidents and deaths?

Sorting out conundrums is one role for writers. Providing opposing opinion is another. But unlike most art with its considerable material investment correspondents only need paper and pen, perhaps internet access. Blogs might only reveal what’s on an individual’s mind, though that’s often what a group desires and needs. Focus on negatives could incite thoughtless mobs. A boss who can’t tolerate a sloppy performance wants to enforce standards which become incomprehensible and result in the opposite of what's intended and sensible. Control freaks convince comics and critics to ridicule, which creates diametric opposition to balance lunacy. Retaliating may result in more loss and pain than tolerating. Things change hands. Anything taken too seriously brings jeers, though survival will always be serious business.

Gumbo Zatarain

There is no official recipe for Louisiana Gumbo, just a bunch of items, meats and/or shellfish including maybe alligator or squirrel stewed together, often thickened with roux, possibly filé powder or okra, and suffice by itself or over rice. It’s a complete meal, a cultural hodgepodge, just like those who settled in The Big Easy, and spicy fuel for pedaling thanks to Zatarain seasoning. Gumbo’s recipe mirrors a post about references to bicycling culture from all over United States.

Made in America (Richard Benjamin, dir., 1993) stars New York native Whoopi Goldberg, who falls for daughter’s anonymous sperm donor, white car salesman Ted Danson, though she rides a bike throughout, which causes scenes of havoc, and smashes interracial sex taboos. Sadly, Americans don't make nearly as much as they used to, however you want to interpret this.

Syndicated political cartoonist Matt Davies penned well regarded juvenile picture book, Ben Rides On (Roaring Brook Press, 2013), which deals with bike thieving bullies, who, as you all know, later run for Congress.

Infrastructure faults haunt Boston and Houston riders beset by motorized competition. Boston Globe reports on neighboring Cambridge’s first bike traffic light. Can’t see why it exists, since cops can’t effectively threaten or ticket anyone without a license to yank. Traffic codes were written to mitigate automotive carnage. A warning sign would have been plenty for those keenly aware of self propelled risks. Houston puzzles over the merits of paving paths for cyclists beneath high tension towers. After a bout of buzzing, no cyclist would want to repeatedly use. You can clearly see that it’s to segregate them from streets they are entitled to ride. Bike paths do play a role in urban and suburban snarl, but country roads usually aren’t so crowded that you need to separate users. If situation still seems fuzzy, bicycles do resemble spectacles, as confirmed by the current Glasses.com commercial.

Minneapolis activists present poster show Artcrank, with cycling related art cranked out quickly to enjoy with beer and locals. These events over 4 years have spread to 10 other cities with imminent September shows in Brooklyn and San Francisco.

Vernacular sculptor Isaiah Zagar, influenced by Barcelona’s Gaudi and Watts’ Simon Rodia, installed public art spots throughout Philadelphia, none so famous as The Magic Gardens, replete with broken bicycle wheels and other found objects, mosaicked grottos, and religious motifs. Kept a few busy for generations.

Community activist Jason Hall appears in a recently aired Apple IPad ad organizing a weekly Slow Roll group ride. Sure. Detroit’s spacious boulevards are practically empty after city’s manufacturing collapse and population exodus. Like David Byrne, who wrote about riding in Detroit in his Bicycle Diaries, Joe Baur seems to concur with Jason in his BBC article, “Cycling Detroit Makes Too Much Sense”. More telling is General Motors new program to share Zagster bikes with employees in their nearby Warren Technical Center. Although a first for US automakers, European BMW and Mercedes have ridden bikes for decades to get efficiently around huge assembly facilities. But can this startup succeed by partnering with private industry when public programs, particularly Alta Bicycle Share in over 20 cities, have required subsidies to stay alive? You’d think more would choose bike sharing and plan to use if offered nationwide alongside airports, bus stations, hotels, and train terminals.

When manufacturers dwindle, cities crumble and government agencies stumble trying to distribute welfare and employ masses. Who pays? Can’t hike taxes to hire more bureaucrats. Private sector provides civil underpinnings, but stupid policies undermine labor equality. Offshoring jobs should be a crime, yet tax code gives corporations incentives to do so. The only way to restore greatness is to re-shore core industries, the key generators of wealth: farming, manufacturing, and mining. Why bother to celebrate a national holiday when foreign slaves produce everything you apply, consume, or wear? Whose labor?

Butterfly Dogbane

Certain butterflies thrive on Apocynum, aka dogbane or indian hemp (shown left), but it is poisonous to mammals, may cause humans mental distress, and sequesters environmental lead. Even so, Native Americans used its fibers to make strong cordage for bow strings, fishing lines, and sewing thread. Developers and farmers have so impacted habitats that dogbane and milkweed are disappearing, and with them butterflies, which might explain why a yard full of attractors hasn’t drawn any of these important pollinators all Summer. Bicyclists dread such unsettling facts sooner than those who spend all their time in mobile or stationary shells. Why look through a glass window when you can be there?

Dogbane resembles truth itself. Might mean death or loss to some, or totally the opposite, untold opportunities for gain. Each coin has 2 sides; rungs on a ladder climb to heightened clarity; yang and yin pervade all. To survive you must master fear, proceed with caution for the dark, and rise with reverence for the light. A level approach is a basic truth. “The great art of riding,” as Alice’s savior, the futilely novel White Knight, was saying, “is -- to keep your balance properly.” Whenever acts of ascertaining facts and discovering truths reveal paradoxes, some who think they’ve got a good grip on reality react badly, but only because you’ve temporarily displaced their fulcrum.

Naval gazing again, Bike&Chain was written to expose uncertainties in an age defined by lies, prevarication, and what the definition of “is” is... really! It was produced to examine freedom, responsibility and truth, as well as exercise memory without exocranial aids: No dictionaries, documentaries, encyclopedias, internet, libraries, newspapers, periodicals, or television. Brings up what’s significant rather than delineates sides, chooses waves to surf, so that readers can further explore and participate, just as this blog has expanded upon topic for 6 years, and unfolds at a glacial pace. Introduced its own genre with a dozen new rules to which no other literature complies, which gives it a unique voice reminiscent of the White Knight’s, “It’s my own invention.” Exploits every convention, fuses all forms from essay to memoir, narrative, poetry and prose, yet uses very little symbolic language, since it's supposed to be honest, as if any such thing exists. Truth be told, analogies and metaphors lead people to believe ludicrous ideas yet better understand facts, too. Hard to exist without.

Nonfiction runs risks, particularly popularity. But, since the 1990's, film as documentary has evolved into a bankable entertainment. B&C is unabashedly filmic. Minds operate like movies with flashbacks and foreshadowing. At full novella length, 67 pages, Chapter 15, the book’s longest, isn’t just about beholding lowdown but hearing language sonorities. Vast populations listen to internet podcasts, late night radio, or television talk just to feel connected. Content hardly matters. Indistinct prattle of a stadium crowd seems a comforting backdrop. Some call organized noise music. Middle alphabetical consonants—l, m and n—are evocative of munching mushroomy snacks, nursing from a nipple, slurping umami soup, and smacking lips. Passionate vowel sounds—ah, eee, eye, oh, ooo, uuu—coo wonderful wordless vocalise. Although angry over choices nevertheless accepted, B&C could be more about how life sounds than lies said. Narrative is unreal unless you capture exactly what’s happening, including gooey, hungry and messy cravings with too much to clean up after. Fiction engages you sensually and expects you to suspend reality. Nonfiction seldom achieves that initial love factor, just bemusement, nods of recognition, thoughtful concern, or urges to act.

Said the Cheshire Cat, “A dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad." Mad cats and dogs find no balance. They foment religions, such as the Church of the Subgenius, who worship J. R. Bob Dobbs, archetypal slacker. "'You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 'Who are YOU?'" When ethics are irrelevant, whatever you get away with would be called doctrine. Anarchy appeals until basic needs aren't met. "Cried Alice, losing all her patience this time, 'You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!' 'Does that kind go smoothly?' the Knight asked in a tone of great interest."

Why handcuff yourself? Why ride a bicycle? Why allow yourself to be so vulnerable? It’s a challenge, as is living, which can grow too comfortable. Thus you occasionally see a strange wanderer upon the lonely moor. Everything you do or say can’t earn congratulations and hugs. The weak call inconvenience and tangible agony banes of existence. Incompetence and mediocrity plague those you mollycoddle. How else can you gain independence and improve without insults, isolation and pain? “Beyond offended,” you moan? Admit you’re soft; only then will you begin to grow. If you want to sound original and stay healthy, you must restrain yourself, not greedily devour cake or take whatever you see, though the Grateful Dead sarcastically quipped, “Too much of everything is just enough.” Otherwise, don’t groan when things go wrong. Constraints you choose to endure make all the difference. Artistic geniuses produce from sparse palettes. Everything may be interconnected, but unless you set boundaries, they get muddled. Some call it discipline, which gets a bad rap for being someone else's rules. Self imposed limitations inform, inspire, and make for innovative manuscripts. Better advice might be to do whatever you can or desire, exercise your free will, but exercise, not give up or submit to tyranny. “Surely the questions decide us... not the tail that wags the dog.”—Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (pub. 1871, dawn for bicycling)

Cyclists Voters Ordain

Presidents are surprising advocates of cycling considering they must always be surrounded by secret service agents. John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, “Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride.” Can’t imagine crippled dealer FDR or purple heart recipient JFK ever pedaling. Eisenhower, Johnson and Truman may have, but haven’t seen any proof. However, Eisenhower Park in Hempstead, NY has a 5-mile road biking loop. Eisenhower State Park in Denison, TX has a mountain biking track. Eisenhower himself spurred a huge expanse of pavement, particularly interstate highways, that got his name on parks and roads and, yay, separated cyclists from speeding motorists. Harry S Truman Lake in Warsaw, MO features a mountain bike park with 20 miles of trails. There’s a Hoover Trail in West Branch, IA, the Depression President’s home town. They put in a parking protected bikeway next to JFK Drive at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, CA, but not without controversy.

Before Lincoln's term (1850’s), bicycles weren’t available; could imagine rail splitting Lincoln or rough riding Roosevelt giving bicycles a try, but not arrogant Grant, frail Hayes, nor stout Cleveland. From assassinated Abe to murdered McKinley, unpaved roads hardly permitted horse drawn carriages, never mind honest bikes and horseless buggies. Presiding over the first bike boom in 1918 was Harding, whose nieces and nephews remember kindly as Uncle Warren who taught them to ride, not the scandalous lothario posterity depicts. Way more historical details are presented in Michael Wagner's blog.

Pictured, in order of their presidencies, are the 37th to the 44th (years in office and comments) enjoying bicycles at some time in their lives: Richard Milhous Nixon (1969-1974, family outing in D.C.), Gerald Rudolph Ford (1974-1977, as a child), James Earl Carter, Jr. (1977-1981), Ronald Wilson Reagan (1981-1989, tandem actor), George Herbert Walker Bush (1989-1993, while visiting Beijing), William Jefferson Clinton (1993-2001, receiving a bike from Lance Armstrong), George Walker Bush (2001-2009, mountain biking during countless Texas vacations), Barack Hussein Obama (2009-present, during a recent vacation on Martha’s Vineyard). [All images repeated from internet sources; click to enlarge.]

Enough about political leaders. How about the late Soichiro Honda, founder and president of Honda Motor Company? To Labann’s knowledge, he’s the only modern automotive CEO to establish a career by working on bicycles in his father’s shop. Honda, shown with a bike upon which he slapped a motor, was also the first Japanese maker to assemble cars in the United States. Ford built where he sold, too, successfully. This year, the most popular vehicle in America of any type is the fuel efficient Honda Accord LX sedan. Can identify with Honda’s curious policy of waigaya, loosely translated as “blah blah blah” or "brainstorming", which solicits commentary from everyone involved so as to explore all possibilities for quality improvements. It’s precisely the invitation to dialog that Bike&Chain was built upon.

It’s unfinished logic was supposed to draw readers own comments, rather than simply disengage. Different shards of reason wind up in individuals. The collective unconscious requires billions of viewpoints to exist and sustain itself. It's akin to biodiversity, where all pieces of an ecosystem are necessary as long as they stay in balance. How they know, what they feel, why feeling surpasses knowing for most humans are all intrinsic to the B&C experience. Was intended to be participatory, reaching out singly to stimulate responding publicly, and set up so readers could access at any point and still become immersed, with arc but no causality, unlike most linear narratives. Might be confrontational when an author eager for conversation suggests reading a big damn experimental book. Although many influences shape progress, only your own position and what you made of it matters in the end. Only then will anybody realize it has the smallest merit, if only an ancient signpost stuck at an intersection pointing to a destination that no longer exists.

Commitment goads action. Indecision yields mediocrity. Does perpetually conflicted negate advancement? No. All action occurs before results can be evaluated. Struggles writhe around indeterminate possibilities. Inaction can impact just as much as action. History determines results and provokes change, not participants or presidents whose job is only to choose and do. You prevent through planning, though proactive planners seldom consider all contingencies. Only artists concern themselves with rare imagination and remote chances. Heads of state just inherit situations and suggest directions. Blame ambitious demagogues in Congress for unintended consequences of badly written laws.