Millennial Chilblain

One begins to see bikes in all sorts of contexts. Labann gathers and sorts, intentionally overlooks and underrates some brackets. But culture tends to be ubiquitous. Bicycling signifies as a means of motility for a billion humans, thrice as many as motoring, nearly as universal as walking. What and who you associate can be less than objective and more sentimental. It’s not a diamond frame or spoked wheel that fascinates, though hypnotic repetition does fixate, rather what you do, where you go, and who you meet, sources of untold delight and inspiration, because you’ve emerged from a frightened cocoon into a wide world by rolling farther and faster.

Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, who curated an art show on bicycling culture (at The Aldrich, Ridgefield, CT) about same time as Labann, wrote a book on his experience pedaling his Montague folding bike through various localities. Curiously, he only mentions bike in one song you can point to, listed among 2000 others, but you’ve got to think it informs a lot of his repertoire. Consider, for example, his Slippery People, “What about the time? You were rollin' over. Fall on your face. You must be having fun... Think of a time. You’d best believe this thing is real... These slippery people help us understand... Don’t play no games, he's alright, love from the bottom to the top... We’re gonna move right now, turn like a wheel inside a wheel.” But Byrne goes on to say that, “There are some things you just can’t write songs about,” including a concept album on city planning that could serve cyclists, though songs aplenty exist to fill scores of them. Labann was there with B&C on CD and rainbow poster to hand Byrne after he spoke about Bicycle Diaries, but the squirrelly rock star slipped away from book signing, so his loss. David has gone white haired. Labann, 2 months older, has not. Cleaner living?

All this occurred in 2009, renowned as the Year of the Bicycle, as did the publication of Robert Hurst's Cyclist’s Manifesto: The Case For Riding On Two Wheels Instead Of Four, Falcon Guide, 2009, 224 pp. “The United States is not going to morph into a nation of bicyclists as it does in the darkest apocalyptic vision. The first thing we need is for people to be realistic... Americans cling with renewed urgency to the ideal of the personal automobile... It’s a colossal and perhaps fatal failure of imagination.” That mankind got lazy, grew tired of struggling, and slapped motors on everything couldn’t be more obvious as the beginning of the end. Before Civil War Bitter Bierce berated Inventors as people who arrange levers, springs and wheels and believe it civilization. Hurst’s slim Manifesto recalls several such prescient insights. Might dismiss it as historic revisionism if it didn’t expose white snobbery of wheelmen nerds, because it persists into present as an epic disappointment.

Late Audioslave/Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell's, When Bad Does Good, ostensibly has nothing to do with cycling, same as his I Am The Highway, but watch official video, and its autobiographical lyrics are portrayed throughout by a bicycling paperboy. Cornell cut a tragic silhouette of mental depression and opioid addiction, but still haunts imagination of filmmakers, such as Brad Pitt, who just announced a biopic on the fallen star. Perhaps his calls for help went unanswered, like so many others, which exposes the failure of psychology and wealth of behavioral knowledge that lets booze, drugs, guns and injustices coexist and explode in mass murder. Unlike 27 Club, including neighbor Kurt Cobain, he made it into his early 50's, but short lives succinctly dissected seem esteemed more than complex extended deeds completed.

Likewise, with no thematic connection though previously listed, video for Corinne Bailey Rae’s Put Your Records On, features a bevy of beauties on girly bikes, with baskets for trips to the market and no top bar, though you now also often see women using so called boy’s bikes. In same vein, Kenny Loggins pop tune I’m Alright opens comedy Caddyshack with head caddy resolutely riding his bike to work. These and more have suggestive lyrics but just don’t plainly spell b-i-k-e. Then others stoked on testosterone spell BIKE right out, such as The Foes of Fern’s, but suggest something else altogether. Nothing new, Sammy Kaye and his swing orchestra recorded something similar in 1950. Kristen Black, The Bicycle Song, Can’t Bring Me Down, 2016, just must have some. Perhaps she can hook up with fellow CD Baby artist Nicholas James Thomasma, who has his own Bicycle Song, Barefoot, 2016, full of hormonal heat.

Better to praise the best, but how do you define it? Used to form a posse on Sundays for recreational rides. For a while, we’d all go together in a van while listening to CDs of Labann’s collected bike songs. Sure, carpooling cut carbon footprint, but riding a bike to the ride reduced it further, though took a toll on group performance. Commuting by bike reigns supreme as carbon neutral, sequesters carbon in graphite components and steel frames, and skips motoring entirely. Driver once asked for a Best Bike Mix, since so many shared seemed shrugged off rubbish. It’s been tried, internet sites claim victory, but Labann knows scores of sweet tunes that few do since seldom said. You get Logan Paul’s misogynistic, reckless ripoff of Flobots’ No Handlebars instead. Did he get hired? Based on comparable background, a president was elected.

Tried to honor that request without insulting artists who at least made an attempt or did their best. You endear audiences when you reach them personally. Labann strongly connected with certain tunes from almost unknowns, like Jack Wardell’s aptly named Bike and Chain, Matthew Price’s all too true Freedom Machine, Melody Gardot’s alarming reminder Some Lessons, and Tracy Jane Comer’s coming of age Yellow Bike. Bits of bicycling media don’t bring big rewards, rather derision from lowbrows, stereotyping as just another crank, or worse. It’s sales suicide, so often shunned. Honest assessments get turned into click bait by millennial hackers, who can’t be bothered doing own research and don’t know why it matters, to extract pennies from greedy advertisers. Pathetic. Hoar frosts any commitments for earnest scholarship published open source, yet not so heavily one might get a chilblain for which calamine lotion, Pond's Extract, witch hazel, and wool socks would soothe pain.

Nature’s Brane

The new brane thin shell model of creation of the universe, derived from earlier ekpyrotic or pre-expansive models, describes a bounce or cyclic recreation to account for the repulsive cosmological constant measuring several magnitudes smaller than predicted by Big Bang Theory. A bicyclist’s reading of this might suggest that frequent trips by bike for recreation avoid the blues and winter's deep emptiness, and there’s a big fat universe of undiscovered facts yet to be revealed by someone smarter than Labann.

Looking for cheer? Cupboard is bare. Groundhog was wrong; winter’s not complete. Bikes don’t belong with snow on your street. Not getting in miles, no motives for smiles. Burning gasoline to blow snow. Carbon dioxide’s got nowhere to go. Target methane, ranchers complain. Comment on snizzling weather, warnings of disasters come from scientists together, while leaders deny facts, hell bent for leather. Sends a message: Do whatever you like. Labann will keep trying to ride his bike.

Gave up on cataloging emerging bicycling culture when it became all too easy to repeat self, and far too difficult to divulge uniquely interesting examples, though any search engine will show an arbitrary grouping of art forms, articles, books, commercials, crafts, films, lyrics, songs all somehow related to bicycling, usually when they want to promote healthy living and smart choices, although seldom do so themselves.

Adventure Cycling’s CycleMiles collected a bunch of representative illustrations in Pinterest. Design Museum of Chicago just closed an exhibition called Keep Moving. Harks back to Chicago Museum of Science and Industry’s 2013 exhibition. New York Times has an index of recent articles to read. Amazon likewise indexes latest 92 bike books for sale. Etsy points to a burgeoning craft market; time was you’d be hard pressed to find any such tchotchke for self promotional gift giving and subsequent dust collecting. Already have enough tea mugs and towels to last a lifetime. Better might be a 6-pack of Belgian ale small brewed with bicycling as an inspiration, something thirsty athletes might at least get down with gusto, maybe target heartbroken brain cells. Nature abhors a vacuum, and these few links hardly peek over edge of bicycling culture's vast abyss.

Depressing enough being stuck indoors, Oscar Boyson’s short public service announcement Ride a Bike (2018), further twists the knife and worsens the wound. But given a day above 30°F without sheets of ice and shoals of sand everywhere, it would be perfectly inspirational. Climate change means a lot more rain as superior nature scrubs itself clean from inferior human ingenuity. A sixth extinction of beneficial insects will lead to rise in deadly fungi and viruses and a seventh extinction of polluting technologists and their doomed species. Forecasts promise springlike conditions in coming weeks as long as tipping point hasn’t already been passed.

Mokska (2018, Francesca Weikert, dir.) documents three women who are cycling pioneers in Nepal for MTB racing across Asia. The title, also vimoksha in Hindu, refers to an enlightened freedom from the cycle of agony, death and rebirth. Nishma, Roja, and Usha repurpose it to mean freedom from patriarchal domination, exploitation, and human trafficking. Wow! Freedom machine indeed! Imagine what might occur if money was unnecessary, powerlust deemed insane, and terminal scenario stopped.

Amanda Palmer, Berlin, Theatre is Evil (2012). Pianist Palmer, former founder of Dresden Dolls, and her Grand Theft Orchestra plinked out this dreary 7 minute dirge, “Your bicycle's chained to the fence outside. There’s plenty of offers, but you won't ride. How you pedal in those is a miracle, a miracle. And you laugh at yourself as you speed through the red lights. Oh, Berlin, nobody knows where you've been... It's hard to work on an assembly line of broken hearts. Not supposed to fix them, only strip and sell the parts.”

Honey Brothers, Green and Gold, Time Flies Like a Peach (2012): “Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night shall keep. No fear, no lust, no sand, no tears shall take your trace. No hate, no wind, no irony shall dim you dull. Your shine, green and gold bicycle.”

Hymner, Bicycle, (Finnish single, 2018) Tenacity Records, pop tune that came out about a year ago.

Sia, Riding On My Bike, (c. 2005), “I’m riding on my bike. I'm going round the block. No, I can't cross the road. I'm not allowed to do that... My tummy's rumbling. My mama's selling tickets to broccoli and fish sticks. I’m hungry.” As a Grammy nominated pop star, this old nursery rhyme fades into background, but emulators including Australian Kina Grannis won’t let public forget.

Toby Keith, Mama Come Quick, Toby Keith (1993) is a jejune country western ballad that somehow slipped through the cracks. “I straddled my bicycle when I was ten years old... there’s a creek bed six feet wide. If you peddle fast enough you can make the other side, Mama come quick, I think I fell and hurt myself again... ’Cause nothing heals as much as your lovin' touch.” Sounds so familiar, but couldn't find it previously mentioned. Once you've diligently covered it all, something will always appear out of nowhere, demand attention, and prove you wrong.

Beat Detrain

Why write a book, any book? Authors expect to sell their scribbling, or at least get paid by someone who wants to spread whatever they’re spewing. If not, then for glory or therapy's sake, strictly out of craven conceit, especially among self absorbed babies stuck in sandbox battles. Maybe some feel compelled to change minds and win support for hopeless causes, such as civil rights or social justice. After all, they were cycled through a system that educated them how to compose and encouraged them to produce. Reading begets writing and vice versa. Presidents pen memoirs to publicize legacies and pursue agendas, more likely ghostwritten by mercenary evangelists.

Only bankable stars or brown-nose sycophants actually secure book deals, yet library shelves groan with hundreds of millions of titles, too many to read over an eternity even if you wanted to. Effort expended on each is considerable. Wonder why so many exist, not to mention how many more never get past censors and editors. Took millions of contributors, dreamers, librarians and publishers many centuries, yet some jihadists and neocons would burn books by the gross squared per minute because they disagree with their nazi scheme to power their steam rolling machine.

Bike&Chain took 25 years to date, not full time, mind you, except at intervals between cash gigs and professional contracts, late hours stolen from sleep, multitasked during otherwise boring bicycling, cooking, gardening, and household chores. Can't really produce own books while proofing texts and writing books for corporate crusades, though ideas distract and percolate 24/7/365, why so many would-be celebrity wordsmiths drink or take drugs lest they go mad not submitting to this herculean chore.

Researching content takes as much time as writing copy. B&C was based on personal experiences including 7 solid work years worth of cycling spread across half a century; external resources were hardly ever used, nor were experts interviewed. Can entirely blame none other than Labann. Let other authors take pride in parading champion soundbites. Didn't take an expert to publish something so pitiful, akin to busy Bay Area street graffiti glimpsed on Google Maps, yet who's to say it isn't just as brilliant as any other title? Depends upon what you value including role you accept, reconsider, or reject when opportunities equal one among thousands who apply.

Whole B&C thing traces back at City Lights bookstore in postwar San Francisco, where Beat began a lifetime ago in year after Labann’s birth. Ink for innocent verses had hardly dried before anger waxed and charges were filed. During obscenity trial, Berkeley professor Mark Schorer rightly defended Ginsberg’s poem Howl as, "an indictment of materialism, conformity and mechanization leading toward war,” same as B&C, and smartly helped acquit defendants. Great notions rippled into next decade onto opposite coast to a curious teen kneeling between magazine racks perusing old issues of Argosy and Evergreen Review, racy rags libraries didn’t lend, trying to duck surly shopkeeper, who kicked out loiterers for not spending. Before Internet, ideas took years to spread thousands of miles. Freedom forever faces accusation, indictment, persecution, and resentment.

And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, coauthored by Jack Kerouac and William S Burroughs in 1945, wouldn’t be published until 2008, same as B&C, despite Jack’s best drunken efforts and both of their deaths. Tricycle: The Buddhist Review also posthumously serialized his biographical nonfiction Wake Up: A Life of Buddha. Few recall his aborted lawsuit against GM for On The Road ripoff TV series Route 66. Was it all an anarchist hoax, insider jokes giving The Man irreverent pokes, nonsense wheedled from needles and tokes? Yet Beat bellowed from the heart, spilled out dancing characters, disgruntled protests, jazz rhythms, ragged sentences, vignettes from thousands of miles of road journeys, same as B&C. Nothing so emotionally sophisticated, humanistically tender, and literarily pious cannot help but succumb to a crass movement within mundane masses. In fact, good rhymes almost always get inverted into vile crimes. How does one detrain this Beat express, exit its miserable boxcar, quit crowd of disreputable copycats, and transcend urban distress?

Mr Master and his grammar police to this day release almost no measurable empathy. Their old rules suppress resolve to express among those they oppress, so couldn't matter less. Mothers babble and coo over babies you know they cherish. Trigger words repeated, repeated, repeated beseech a monument to one's opinions as if an obelisk of Babel to the threshold of heaven, as do all magical incantations, and, spit at risk, supplicate in order to resurrect spirit, if any residue persists.

Poetry and prose don't primarily exist to inform, but emote, inspire, raise girls and guys above ignorance and want into sustainable teams with purpose in common, say what should be said, sometimes right wrongs, or underscore better ways to relate than war. Wild oats Beat generation liberally sowed were harvested by hip hop, rap, and rock stars - Dead, Doors, Dylan - who cared for the neglected, fed starving, founded charities, redistributed riches, and restored some semblance of balance. Few music icons are multimillionaires; most just possess extra bling, golden grilles, and obsessive entourages. Free hands and open wallets may save marginal society, though quickly vanish since mostly mirages.

Champions of contradiction, pilots of paradox, pray poets never go away. Though persecuted by petty officials and reviled by bourgeoisie, as déclassé as it gets, they signify another forsaken refugee, who supposed leaders portray as nation's biggest threat today, since they'd have to pay for some welfare skyrocket from revenues they'd rather pocket. Worst threat will always be greed that does directly lead to wealth disparity, engenders powerful cadres with selfish agendas, and establishes scenarios that result in fiascoes. Must you be reminded of what living was like under inbred monarchy madness? Masses pay price, while billionaires who own all media escape deserved vise by applying divisive debate as a rhetorical device thereby disguising own avarice. Only one independent voice in Congress redirects this argument, proof it's plainly a rudimentary truth.

Entire sectors of busy bees have invested lifetimes into bilking consumers and screwing other nations. Complicity disassociates from legacy, tunes out contemptible poetry, and washes down guilt with bilious wine approaching life expectancy. America’s biggest employer, government, resolutely ensures tax revenue flows, from which conservatives have established a long running ruse to appear benevolent while they deliberately stuff offshore accounts and war chests to stay in office despite repeated layoffs and scandals. Meanwhile, $50 trillion disappeared. An awful lot of good might have occurred with so much public treasure, but didn’t. Tragic consequences await.

Sometimes what you do is simply manifest within you. It's the best and worst reason to write: pure intentions, poor rewards. Original inquiry into dubious activity will never be popular or salable; only plagiarists and publicists ever profit. By 1940’s linear narratives with rigid plots had already forfeited power to communicate to rival films, recordings and television. Demanding quests capitulated to passive consumption. Beat poetry represented a requiem for a dying art form, which morphed into meaningless musical lyrics people were willing to plonk down cash to hear so distorted they might as well have been beats of branches banged on tree trunks. Yet this business has also faded. Only rants and vents against momentary frustrations entertain anymore, that is, fake infomercial news and iron fisted judges settling cases on brazen ego. Viewers want to believe they can exert control in a world best described as sheer mayhem even though they cannot and never will. Maybe a smidgen of mercy is all anyone can assume.

“...nobody knew or far from cared who I was all my life three thousand five hundred miles from birth-O, opened up and at last belonged to me in Great America.” Jack Kerouac, "October in the Railroad Earth", Evergreen Review, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1957, which recounted his impressions as an apprentice train brakeman.

“Unlike motor cars, which have developed into baffling robots that apparently have opinions of their own and would much rather they drove themselves... the bicycle rewards hard work; we understand and respect that.” Paul Maunder, The Wind at my Back: A Cycling Life, (Bloomsbury Sport, 272 pp), 2018, explores how bicycling inspires creativity. It’s well known that artists and authors gear toward cycling, because it invites world into one’s soul instead of insulating body from universe within a self inflicted cage destined to kill when computer control inevitably crashes.

Before Beltane

Are Impoverished youth more likely to sit once retired? Some do exhibit diminished imagination, get bored easily, and remain sideline spectators. Obviously depends upon opportunities they seized, or regimen they pursued, throughout careers. Bright, privileged children who are properly nurtured seem more likely to aspire to fame and fortune than kids who’ve dodged bullets and suffered trauma. “Twice burnt, shame on me,” leads to motivational paralysis. Isn’t a permissive culture a mixed bag? Must you endure problems to enjoy freedoms? The ease at which criminals and incompetents acquire assault rifles and automobiles can only be described as unconscionable.

As a child, had hardly any toys, made do with a borrowed bike, garden hose, other kids’ castoffs, real tools begrudgingly lent, or scraps of lumber. Still have scars to show. Built treehouses, did chores, dug holes, hiked around, played sports, practiced skills, and read voraciously, rather than swallow silly commercials, so acquired little but natural memories. Didn't have access to television until a teen, but embraced it as a labor saving device, a dozen complete stories digested in time it took to read a single dime novel. Starved for input, never questioned whether video was a net loss or unhealthy pastime. Generations were deliberately misinformed about details that could affect their very survival: asbestos, BB guns, propaganda, sex, toxins. Might as well include matrimony and monogamy, because even when you’ve been meticulously faithful, spouses will believe lies and misinterpret friendships or work relations. Everyone envies couples who stay together, so they become targets of divorcees, gossips, swingers and widows. Why put up with fading beauty, loveless duties, tongue lashings, and undeserved recriminations?

Demands of daily office upon Labann meant decades stuck in seat with eyes glued to monitor tubes. Without paid labor, this habit translates into sitting through televised movies and sports. Swilling beer also seems to make desperate leisure tolerable for some. Personally consider wandering about by bike a better alternative, less injurious despite risks, given sitting is the “new smoking”. Wondering why you seldom see anyone you’d describe as elderly scorching through neighborhoods? People for the most part possess little to no sense, purchase tickets to bounce in place to deafening bass beats, shackle selves in stadium seats to witness action occurring so far away you’d be better off at home watching broadcasts, though half consists of ads for things bad, especially for grandads.

David Flitcroft linocuts "Beltane Breeze" and (below) "Owl Encounter", plus more art from the bike shed by this cycling inspired artist.

After attending outdoor concerts, camping without tents, cycling to festivals, and mingling among eccentrics, in this century illusions and images have begun to replace meaningful physical experiences. Motorists dodge being detected, then flop at home to behold others being dissected. Esport OWL League of team gamers shooting zombies exemplifies how concussed contact players are being supplanted by no-touch celibacies. Many contests only stream online over exclusive high-speed connections poor or privileged have, not middle class suckers who share in nothing but support everything.

At its inception late rock icon David Bowie dubbed the Internet, "An alien from Mars that will radically alter all expectations of media... for better or worse." Its biggest effect by far has been the emergence of busy blogs and social blah, where people can bare their privacy to an unsympathetic public, experience utter apathy, and invite humiliation and infamy, as if critics and prosecutors were chaste characters who've never relented to harmless temptations. Free porn made Internet popular, after all. Some stick around for emotional cuddles of electronic echo chambers, which could validate vices and vindicate obsessions should you find a similarly damaged audience. The hypocrisy of sex scandals in high office implies you’d be better off kowtowing to know-nothing virgins, as if there were any in a world so overcrowded you’d think reproduction was humanity’s sole priority. Cock fights, pit bulls, political bills, and prize fighting are basically alike, preening to attract booty.

Psychiatric disorders typified 20th Century after two great wars left so many families of heroes with PTSD. Such suffering has a cultural component. With better access to information, you’d think that would hasten improvement in 21st Century. But nobody does. Mass confusion ensued. Behavioral theory was exploited for business publicity. Decades of discoveries on Earth and other planets, such as Mars, don’t impress majority. No businessman, charioteer, or plowman along the line knows what any of it is worth, neglected due vigilance, never watched for portents, riders or signals, so social contracts elapse and tyranny rises unopposed. Soon the wind of war will again howl, because it consolidates wealth among the few, something society seems determined to do.

B&C could be a threnody for greatness gone, since nation supposedly needs to fight to restore its status, according to a psychotic POTUS. Dominance shares no benefits, only lumps minion among targets and sorts between combatants. Should you buy into their bizarre arguments, you'll be used as cannon fodder or human shield.

A halfway acceptable riding day might stifle all this banshee keening, bitchy screeching, disappointed complaining. If only nature would stop producing slush, plows piling by roadside and spreading salt and sand, then whole mess freezing solid again, you could regain pavement and remount your two-wheeled steed. Instead, you might order maintenance from your local bike shop before they get too busy, and prepare for seasons to come with suitable purchases. Doesn’t hope spring eternally?

Some just won’t abstain from riding before Beltane, May Day’s fertility feast, or subscribe to primitive Wheel of the Year protocols with marmot prognosticators on Imbolc and timekeepers springing forward before Ostara, the vernal equinox. Bicycling happens year round, though spirits only speak to those sensitive to their presence, not just on Beltane and Samhain but whenever you’re immersed in rolling silence.

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)