Novel Novocaine

Leonardo DiCaprio and Michael Bay are developing a movie about Rwanda’s Cycling Team, on whom Labann reported in 2013. Sure, must be time for a big budget blockbuster on competitive cycling, considering how much it’s been in the news, often for the wrong reasons. International pelaton lives in a narcissist bubble; even traffic is shut down so they can serve selves. Not to forget deprived youth who collectively do far more pedaling, Dope (2015, Rick Famuyiwa, dir.) is a post hip-hop comedy arriving at theaters this Summer (limited release on Juneteenth) in which black teens on BMX bikes roaming Inglewood, CA come of age; garnered acclaim at Cannes and Sundance. Last year’s allegorical fantasy The Giver (Philip Noyce, dir.) is set in a future supposedly without emotion or pain, though everyone is given a bicycle, chief form of transportation, on their 9th birthday and relegated to a slave role on their 18th. Retirement is no issue; once you’re used up you’re tidily sent elsewhere, as are infants who don’t measure up. You’d have to take drugs daily to be so compliant to rules and impervious to bicycling’s many discomforts. One pill a day will make you small.

In all cases based on what’s actually happening in today's society, actors with imaginary names will stand in for actual persons, who are always the real stories. Novels and screenplays magically indemnify authors and producers against liability when narratives make some antagonists upon whom they are based look bad. On occasions, authorities have been known to locate sources and prosecute if a movie raises public’s hackles. Directors and novelists receive awards and rewards for doing so. Documentarians and journalists generally get suits filed against them by lawyers in suits, because it’s all about disseminating spin, maintaining appearances, and never portraying truth. Ask filmmaker Michael Moore, called a creep for making almost undeniable observations. That’s how illogic can win, by renouncing the messenger when you can’t refute the message.

Novels aren’t always new. Neither are movies. Many are written to formulas: Hacks plug in different names and places and, voilà, escapism. Some psychologists criticize them for their linear rigidity and rhetorical manipulation of readers. Yet some argue that fiction describes reality better than nonfiction, because too few who diarize, journalize, or pen memoirs stick to unvarnished facts, rather color observations with bias or hyperbole, as do fisherman who exaggerate size of catches, and politicians who manufacture legacies for themselves. It’s clear that all writing ultimately derives from actual experiences embellished less or more by imagination. Nevertheless, spend 75% of time concentrating on nonfiction books per se, maybe in the hope of discovering something both factual and useful. Not one convinces anyone of its reality, but each may raise questions worth asking.

Books represent arbitrary conventions, blogs, one-sided opinions. Nothing really occurs in life as described, because words don’t exactly equal lives, which tend to drag along boringly until punctuated by crises. Only events get described to telescope narrative time or readers skip ahead. Absorb stories even faster from films; saw tens of thousands over 5 decades. Logic remains the biggest victim of tall tales. Society always urged reading and writing for money, so obliged. Researching and writing over 500 books instilled a deep dissatisfaction with almost everything except honest essentials. Sorry if that makes Labann hard to get along with, but you can always escape into psychotropic bliss should entertainment not fill your craving abyss.

Kid Charlemagne

Too much riffing and skewing on same topics - automotive carnage, bad behavior, economic injustice, perdition of privilege, perils of pollution, wars over resources - paints an intimidating image, not at all like nostalgic vignettes of beloved racists Currier & Ives. Was trying to focus on crucial realities rather than waste time on piddling trivialities. Must acknowledge a problem before formulating solutions, but pleasant words do mollify and suffer fools to get by. Vast majority goes harmlessly about its duties. Evil only exists because grating emperors, mob bosses, and smug rulers, who never progressed past infantile itches, intentionally will it, while sheep obliviously obey. Wouldn’t happen if never enabled. Crybaby and motherly instincts at play? So who’s responsible? Never one culprit, guilt enough to go around, but ought not blame victims. Society expects those they reward to be grateful and share with needy, but who enforces, monitors and prosecutes? When will billions of souls act collaboratively and address collectively their first priority: Being happy together? Murder perpetuates imperialism, rewards terrorism, and solves nothing.

Everyone defines “satisfied” differently. A chicken in your pot once sufficed. Now hardly a helicopter, penthouse, and 60 sex fantasies make any dent in your insatiable sickness. Across the spectrum of fulfillment, perversion and seduction, freedom from fear and pain cannot be achieved. Why allow a few to distance themselves from suffering and worry at the expense of everyone else? That’s truly masochistic. When necessities turn into commodities, they inflame anxieties. No one can survive without access to important information, arable land, breathable air, electricity, education, fuel utility, livestock slaughter, medical care, potable water, preserves canned, sheltered apartment, transportation, and waste management. Such desiderata should be free. Anything beyond you’d earn yourself, unless for freely distributing them you need a state subsidy. As long as everything runs on money, inequities remain, because a small minority will always be more adept at piling coins higher, as if that was ever a commonsensical aim.

A system of equal credits per day per person that can be exchanged, given, lost when expired, or saved until needed would eliminate printed currencies, resource shortages, and unequal salaries. Gamblers and gluttons might have to go without once squandered, though who can’t survive until midnight renews allotments? Yet what incentive would there be to starting a business, taking on some back breaking or mind numbing chore, or volunteering to defend? Backbiters would scream this amounts to abominable government interference, and they might be right. But who exactly does current system favor? Gorgers, hoarders, warmongers, whoremongers? Moderate appetites benefit both self and society. You can have it all, just not all at once. Freezing fortunes ultimately helps no one. When cash flows steadily, everyone celebrates, eats well, enjoys a resort ever so often, and goes home happily.

Socialism is a utopian notion that can’t prevail on its own. It already exists alongside capitalism, communes, democracies, dictatorships, monarchies, and tribes run by shamans and warlords. Situationally dependent, all seem to be required somewhere. No point introducing anything progressive; the higher the level of organization, the quicker it collapses. Probably need a simpler form that can be applied worldwide. Clearly, self control is simplest, though never proven effective except among the enlightened. If you don't exercise your mind, you might fall for the insidious Cult of Conservatism that breeds fear, cultivates division, and disseminates lies over airwaves and through institutions. Media moguls augment their own assets, so you already know where they stand, never with rearguard Roland at Roncevaux or you in a worldwide recession of their making. You don't have to be a millionaire to believe everyone wants whatever you possess, though those who have a lot will fall farther. Freedom implies you have nothing left to lose except your life. Don’t steal candy from a baby, take from someone who won't miss it.

“Some things will never change. Son you were mistaken. You are obsolete... Get along, Kid Charlemagne... Clean this mess up else we'll all end up in jail... Is there gas in the car?” Cool undervalued jazz, Becker & Fagen rebelled against capitalist disco. “From their boats of iron, they looked upon the promised land, where surely life was sweet. On the rising tide to New York City did they ride into the street? See the glory of the Royal Scam.” Steely Dan, The Royal Scam, ABC Studios, 1976.

Kurt Cobain

According to Cross’ biography, when still a child Cobain would ride a bike around the small yard behind his Aberdeen house. As a 14th birthday gift, his uncle let him pick between a bicycle and secondhand guitar. Maybe choosing wheels would have changed his destiny, dead at 27 from drug abuse, fame pressures, and suicide gunshot. Pedaling dispels nervous energy more positively than huffing and vandalizing. Happy until his parents’ divorce, he’d soon be on Ritalin to cope at school. In Nirvana’s song Sliver (Rolling Stone rated it group’s 3rd best) from Incesticide, 1992, Kurt’s lyrics speak to those times, “Grandma, take me home. She said, ‘Well, don't you start your crying. Go outside and ride your bike.’ That's what I did. I killed my toe. Grandma, take me home!” Grandparents apparently heightened child’s anxiety: incest suggested by album title? Suffering from ADHD, probably he’d rather be home poking holes in and stenciling Led Zeppelin on his bedroom walls. "I wanted to be a stunt man, [Evel] Knieval was a big influence on that. I’d jump on my bikes, and I took all my bedding and pillows out of our house, and put it on the deck, and got up on the roof, and would jump off."

HBO’s new biopic Montage of Heck (2015, dir. Brett Morgen) comes (as you are) after two decades of “27 forever” in a culture obsessed with “dead voices of their own generation”, much like Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison. Cobain, enduring bully shame, despair for prospects, and family rejection bouncing from home to home, never finished high school or reckoned on fame, just wanted to earn a cool $3 million to buy drugs and escape drudgery. Sadly, cycling crazed Seattle is close to Canadian border, beyond which ibogaine can legally be used to treat heroin addiction. Sadder still, drugs he detested but used anyway flow without interdiction over same border to area addicts. Teen anger punctuated his diary, poetry and songs, an impressive canon given less than a decade of adult production. Barriers and inabilities frustrate. When kids don’t try things for themselves because parents don’t care enough or get overprotective, their resultant incompetence undermines can-do attitudes. Nevertheless, he was notorious for do-it-yourself, damn the training, yet questioned “ethics involved with independence”. His journal makes a manifesto, “Punk is musical freedom. It’s saying, doing and playing what you want. In Webster’s terms, ‘nirvana’ means freedom from pain, suffering and the external world, and that’s pretty close to my definition of Punk Rock. Art is sacred... right to express is vital. Anyone can be artistic.” He provided a downtrodden world with another embattled but incorruptible artist with whom to relate.

Can only speculate about the implications of educational disenchantment. The late Alan Watts asked, “Doesn’t it really astonish you that you are this fantastically complex thing, and you’re doing all this, and you don’t have any education in how to do it?” Instincts derive from genetic code of nature, skills rely on society’s nurture, but stunning genius explodes onto scene from seemingly nowhere, then just as suddenly self destructs, thus depriving fans once again. Or is it that audiences only discover what they were looking for, and elevate at intervals one practitioner over others out of a need to impose order in chaos? Public wants what it wants when it wants. Consequently, entire generations get skipped and wonderful out-of-sync art goes unnoticed, though it might someday stick, so merits whatever effort and pain it took to produce.

Group’s bassist Krist Novoselic tweeted about practicing Nirvana songs prior to last’s year Hall of Fame induction, “It's like riding a bike... Nothing like finding that groove again.” Trio’s drummer Dave Grohl, who survived to form award winning band Foo Fighters (2015 Brit for evocatively monikered Sonic Highways, and multiple Grammies), admits he mountain bikes 5 days a week. Their song, Let It Die? seems a question addressed to his former frontman.

First Breed, Bike Life (Kurt Cobain Mix) [NYC hip-hop], Shawshank Redemption (compilation with other artists), 2013, mentions the disturbed icon while musing about cycling.

Throne of Rattan Cane

Wicker bike by brasil- eiros artist Jarbas Lopes shown at Arizona State University

A conversation with a bike acquaintance concluded, “Withstand sand.” So well covered last month, was tempted rather to reply, “Mind the moguls.” Labann surely does. A double entendre, could mean pavement humps or privileged punks. Frost heaves left a lot of skill challenging, tire slashing runs, similar to what skiers stumble over in Aspen. Mogul Empire declined because of popular reaction to same corruption that describes corporations and government today: Disgust for depravity in high places, excessive luxury, and exploitation of peasants; failures of conservatism; revolt against religious rule; social independence. Rattan unravels under bloated 1% gluttons. Monarchs insist their right to rule is divine and succession to throne, so much the topic of recent British press, secured by birth. Atheists disagree; secular commerce ignores royalty. Nothing more than a tourist attraction, the Crown Jewels have lost any ruling sway or trendsetting cache.

Though Paris strives to be Europe’s bicycling capital, you might be impressed by an official report from London’s Road Safety Observatory. It makes an important distinction: "Cyclists opting for assertion want infrastructure that helps to establish their right to be on the road and that clarifies how the road is to be shared; and, cyclists opting for avoidance want infrastructure that gives them more opportunities to avoid traffic." If anything, it demonstrates riders aren’t a homogenous group, don’t necessarily concur, and probably require both.

Just as pelaton devotees who call bikes racing equipment do not epitomize all cyclists, "avoiders" don't represent majority, either. America’s Federal Code of Regulations and state laws grant pedestrians first rights to shared pavement, followed by cyclists, commercial operators of taxis and trucks, and lastly private car drivers. In a conspiracy of greed the amoral and illegal reversal of this order was choreographed by automakers, Big Oil, and their lobbyists, who for decades urged parents to deny children their bikes. Sure, why not curb sustainable alternatives and ensure everyone the right die at speed and take out others? As Hunter S. Thompson observed in Kingdom of Fear (2003), “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you.” Capitalists declared war on low consuming, slow moving cyclists; they're not supposed to fight back? Freedom Day, the 150th Juneteenth, may only be a month away (June 19th), but reforms should begin today.

What’s unbearable is having to repeat songs of fire and ice for the umpteenth time. Bicyclists shouldn’t have to put up with bridge bans; lack of lanes into and racks at airport, bus and train terminals; loss of shoulders at intersections, where many cycling accidents occur; rotaries that require instant acceleration. It's bad enough bikes are banned from >25% of roads (interstates, limited access highways), discrimination that favors motorists. Like all of roadnet, bikenet must be continuous to offer a real alternative, preserve pavement, relieve gridlock, and stop pollution. Why not bar motorists from some streets to create corridors through cities that segregate cyclists from noxious odors, traffic worries, and unhealthy fumes? Yet saving shoulders on streets makes them safer for everyone. Cars can pull over in emergencies. Bike riders can ease over to let cars pass. Shoulderless, 2-lane, undivided roads account for majority of accidents of all types. Federal law says streets need to be complete, or provide, at least, a nearby parallel route for vulnerable users; if a bikeway, it must be lit, patrolled and swept. States that don’t comply either forfeit federal funding or pay fines; legislators don't care because it's your taxes they squander.

What you begin to trust then let in ultimately defines you. Sly pundits advise you to dismiss negative spokesmen; beware their treachery. When status quo gets ugly, one ought to say so loudly, not schmooze gentry and smooth over transgressions with pleasantry. As soon as anyone imposes senseless rules, patriots circumvent them. Most, though well intentioned, are inapplicable or unenforceable, or just cannot be abided. As John Barlow wrote and many have adopted as a mantra, "We'll go right through the book and break each and every law." How else can boundaries be tested? It's a marvel anyone still believes that dicta serve any purpose other than domination by insane ideologues, who’d curtail your rights to expand their own, or those less intelligent or talented. Clearly, some can’t handle freedom, but isn’t that for them to decide after frequently exercising? Whoever doesn’t assume responsibilities inherent in liberties lives to regret consequences: disrespect, homelessness, illness, poverty, probable death, punishment enough. A society that allows a few to rise only to be let down repeatedly has every right to complain and remedy the problems that power invites. Instead people persecute a harmless crank… too easy to kick a dog, too hard to depose a king.

“Jobular” Vein

Do your part, fulfill some destiny, get a job, and satisfy society. Asking the impossible? By what criteria do you claim success? How do you determine this miracle has occurred? Important conditions must be met. Have walked on water, though it was frozen at the time, and stood on Brook loath to serve. Farmers routinely turn bean into bounty, dirt into dollars, mush into wine, and seed into loaves that feed multitudes. What can wordsmiths do to compare with completing such life sustaining equations?

Writing isn’t a job, it’s an avocation. The universe chooses those who do. If you question whether it's for you, you'll never compete with millions of others already wordsmithing for fee or free. You need no permission even when forbidden by decree. Just open a vein to bleed onto page after page. Can’t expect pay, yet must earn the right and like to write about the bike fight. Unless you’ve completed centuries or multi-day tours, have ridden as profession, recreation and transportation, mastered bicycle handling and wrenching, and sustained injuries, what more can you offer that hasn’t already been said? Labann surveys bicycling counterculture because it’s ongoing and underreported, though has to carefully select news to not repeat yours.



With 135 million titles lying unread in The Library of Congress, why would anyone want to add to this dust collection? The best distributed book in history has been The Holy Bible, all you need to get by among puritanical westerners, though Book of Mormon, Quran and Red Book of Mao vie for devotion. Writing sermons is still writing. In fact, clerics and preachers have an interested audience, more than most writers, who struggle to attract their own tribe. About 75% of writing involves mainly unsuccessful marketing, so you’ll spend 10 years creating a masterpiece that won't circulate before you're dead, mimicking evangelists, therefore wasting time better spent earning. Writing without a signed book deal is about as good an opportunity as winning a lottery. Doesn't deter gamblers or wannabe novelists, though you'd do well to doubt their sanity.

Borne out by historical records and media news, last economic recession directly resulted from conservative austerity measures. Dubya’s dopey domestic policy of tax cuts for the affluent put millions of workers on the dole, for which states have been unable to raise revenues. Declaring government doesn’t make jobs condemned millions of people to poverty. He lied. Government does make jobs. In fact, federal agencies constitute the nation’s largest employer. States also account for 20% of local jobs, more than any single private company. Only small businesses taken collectively rival government for job creation. Where else will a Wolverine Mario [shown] temporarily rack your ride? Corporate welfare winds up as class warfare, taxes collected from middle class redirected to the rich. Better to hire public servants since cuts in corporate surveillance cause many a consumer calamity.

Was managing editor of a newswire, but that dried up. Then published a book and started a blog. Skilled wordsmiths compete with unschooled commentary tapping hot topics on social media. News, per se, is passé. People only ever followed it to inform decisions. Trend has been for immediate televised coverage that isn't necessarily up to journalistic standards. Talking heads pump a story until viewer share diminishes. Followup with facts has been supplanted with sensationalized infotainment. As far as printed stories, some publishers are reviving local reporting for smaller targeted audiences, so they can sell classified ads to neighborhood merchants rather than national brands who focus on television commercials. This requires local spokespeople who know the turf, but all shares of small pies will always be crumbs.

Job offers over a career arc represent a bell curve. You'll struggle in 20’s through Catch 22, no experience off which to springboard. By 35 you will get most offers; choose wisely. After 45, plan on becoming an entrepreneur since few will hire you. Not even fast food joints bite if you've had any business experience; you're a threat to teenage hiring managers. From 55 to 65 you supposedly manage amassed fortune, survive stints in a contingent workforce, or take whatever comes in. After 65 you might learn a craft, glue or sew, and sell at a mall show, while waiting for retirement checks government might bestow. Thirtysomethings would rather claw the eyes out of rivals than make do with this malthusian inevitability. Heaven help whoever isn’t fit after grinding adversaries and sniggering at cycling, since whatever he or she amassed won’t cover 6 months of medical bills. Or you could ride your bike to a state mandated meeting meant to improve your employability.

“To hell with unemployment: I think it’s a fine thing. I like sleeping all day and having nothing to do but read, write and sleep whenever I feel tired... In short, I think it’s a fine situation for a man to be in: provided, of course, that he has enough money to eat and pay the rent. I don’t... and therefore I must work: but what the hell? Is it something to cry and pray for forgiveness about? Is it some sort of heinous shame, some great soul-sucking agony for which universal pity is the only cure?... eviction is second only to hunger as the dirtiest word in the dictionary.”—Hunter Thompson, late and unrepentant slacker, 1958