Bedevil Antifain

Personal distancing requires continual judgements and heightened vigilance, neither of which occur when noses are stuck in smartphones. Besides obvious derelicts, panhandlers, slobs dressed in rags with stains, stumbling drunks, and those without masks fully covering mouths and noses, you'd be right to shun pet owners who play all day with feces and smokers swinging hand to face on a sneeze trapeze. At least you’re already avoiding coworkers who value paychecks over your wellbeing, family members, and other people’s kids. Do you even have to mention sick patients in doctors' offices? Together they probably account for most episodes of contagion. Virus may even exceed 2 meter perimeter by floating on smoke particles, but morons hanging a lit cigarette out a window in a crowded parking lot are not likely to be arrested for a hate crime or terrorist act. Most crime goes unchecked, unreported even. An informal count tallied half of people not wearing masks or taking them off unless right next to those infected, by then too late. You don't know when some careless "covidiot" is going to come around a corner or overtake you from behind. On Labann’s favorite holiday, those in total pandemic denial will gather for Independence Day festivities and line parade routes. Watch next week for the post holiday spike.

Meanwhile, it's well known that human bodies consist of a surprisingly sizable portion, cell count up to 57%, of extra-human microorganisms, including gut biota, outnumbering human cells 10:1, though, since microscopic, only 1 to 4% of body mass. This fact becomes the point of departure for short All These Creatures (Charles Williams, dir., 2018). Award winning actor Yared Scott narrates fictional story of his dad’s bedevilment by them and subsequent suicide. Teen peers and Yared invade empty houses and speculate how these squirming bugs will displace their identities and leave empty husks devoid of selves, their bikes without riders. Where do bugs begin and you end? Most folks can handle germs as long as their brains aren’t affected and immune systems still function. But repeated use of antibacterial cleansers and antibiotic medicines is bound to backlash, expose you to even more lethal disease, such as pneumonia and tuberculosis, and make novel influenza seem a minor inconvenience by comparison.

Human interest stories abound among billions of viewpoints upon which tens of thousands of films are based. Few are as poignant as what history’s quintessential sociopath, Adolph Hitler, did to Christians, Jews and Russians before defeated by global decency in 1945. The list of atrocities is too heartbreaking to enumerate, but his malignant tyranny extended to the smallest details of one’s life. “Our freedom was severely restricted by a series of anti-Jewish decrees: Jews were required to wear a yellow star... to turn in their bicycles... forbidden to use streetcars [and] ride in cars, even their own... I long to ride a bike, dance, whistle, look at the world, feel young and know that I’m free, and yet I can’t let it show.” Such simple pleasures were dreams for hopeful teen Anne Frank in 1943, before being interned in a concentration camp then dying in a typhus epidemic just a month before allied liberation at end of WWII. Toronto artist Jenn Woodall’s ANTIFAin image from zine Girls suggests that the freedom machine is today’s weapon to fight fascists and whoever else is intolerably mean.

Before starring in blockbuster hits like Jurassic Park, Sam Neill was the protagonist in New Zealand drama Sleeping Dogs (Roger Donaldson, dir.,1977). Nestled into a peaceful life on a small Maori island, he’s falsely accused and detained by fascist regime when local tensions flare up. After he escapes and finds a love interest, who he rides around on his bicycle, relentless monsters catch up with him. What else is new? Why all these repressions unless to preserve possessions and properties of those who already own too much? “It is a sin to be rich. You know that it's a low down shame to be poor. You know a rich man ain't got a chance to go to heaven, and a poor man got a hard way to go.” Samuel Lightnin’ Hopkins, written 50 years ago, recorded in 1972, tells it straight how it’s an endless struggle balancing on a tightrope, fulfilling moderate need without succumbing to greed.

“Do you have the time?” asks Jennifer Love Hewitt in If Only (Gil Junger, dir., 2004). It’s never how much time you’re given, but what you do with it. Magically given a second chance to cherish and relive his remaining day with her, Paul Nicholls makes them count. Motor accidents claim millions of lives. Both characters would have been better off riding one of the newly introduced mountain bikes they see on London streets two decades ago. Any Google search will show doe-eyed Client List star Hewitt on a pink lady bike with a basket. Wikipedia, however, lists less than 4 dozen bicycling related films, most of which B&C previously catalogued, but none of which are among 6 dozen Labann described in last several posts. As always with superficial research, can’t just count titles that refer, because you’ll miss other connections a hundredfold. B&C is all about bicycling’s ubiquity, proven through thousands of pages, yet 30 years later, still wondering where’s the love and why bicyclists still aren’t accommodated on streets.

Beto (César Troncoso) builds The Pope’s Toilet (Enrique Fernandez, dir., 2007) on cash stolen from his daughter’s college fund, because he’s anticipating charging use fees for tens of thousands of visitors expected for John Paul II’s stop in Melo, Uruguay, a poverty stricken northeast border town. Plot focuses on several transporters who subsist by arduously bringing goods from Brazil by bike with hopes of avoiding duties levied by corrupt customs officer Meleyo (Nelson Lence). Despite crossing frontier off road and wading though swamps, they frequently get caught and suffer losses. Meleyo later confiscates Beto’s bike, but that barely has any impact on this financial fiasco. Many townsfolk had same idea and invested in market booths, but few visitors show up and none buy anything, which leaves entire region worse off. Dramatized upon actual event, results demonstrate downside of proactive planning around power wielded capriciously.

Vivian Bang plays a naturalized Korean performance artist in White Rabbit (Daryl Wein, dir., 2018). She bicycles throughout contemporary Los Angeles, plants herself in parks and supermarkets, and spouts amplified monologues on Asian-Black tensions during 1992 riots, which had resulted in massive losses stoked by exaggerated news. Her sister asks, “Is it self indulgent to be, like, ‘Okay, I can be an artist today,’ when world’s, like, going crazy?” She replies, “I have to make stuff. If I don’t find a way to express myself, like, I’ll go insane.” Art expression becomes life experience when black fashion model Nana Ghana locks her bike to Vivian’s and messes up important business. They later meet under better circumstances and spend several days together. Vivian lets her lesbian lust for Nana get the better of her before learning to let go.

Judith Davis, who directs and stars in this 2018 French comedy, asks Whatever Happened to My Revolution? Her radical character fights for space to ride a socialist Vélib’ on busy Paris cobblestones to work, but goes by bus after being sacked by her merely liberal bosses. “We have no right to judge people. It’s uninteresting and counterproductive...” Storyline addresses millennial angst and moral judo, but she settles, like everyone these days, for a love interest that fulfills basic needs. Revolution begins and ends as an inner quest. 

Set in 1985 Columbia, Rolling Elvis (Gustavo Torres Gil, dir., 2020), pudgy preteen Julián Andres Salcedo Rodriguez, awakes hoping to skip school and view Tour de France on television, dreams of becoming a professional racer like countryman Luis “El jardinerito” Herrera, sneaks into video room instead of attending assigned class, but suffers embarrassment of combative paternal chastisements and punitive maternal inducements to participate in a talent show. Parents fighting over his fate, he dashes off on his BMX, gets Elvis costume caught, and goes head over heels, winding up a paraplegic. In hospital at least he can watch Tour coverage. Mom (Maria Dalmazzo), a big fan of The King, has entertainer aspirations for son, and hots for a handyman installing a handicap ramp. Portrayal of dad’s homophobia and hypocrisy seem to be handled ham-handedly for a PG-rated after school special. Helped by local kids, who build him an ad hoc hand-cycle, he rides until he can again use his legs a year later.

Tykes Unslain?

Reading synopses and skipping through film after film have uncovered fewer instances of bicycling culture than one might figure given ubiquity of bikes. You’d think but would be wrong that they’d appear more in Chinese or Indian movies. Costume dramas set earlier than two centuries ago shouldn’t show any. Action heroes increasingly rely on advanced technologies and jet propulsion. Pricey transportation choices don’t sell themselves, only occur as a result of conditioned delusions. Directors will never guarantee expressive quality since criteria are steeped in subjectivity. Face it, most scripts feature juvenile ideas, nightmarish fears, product placements, or silly plots. Filmmakers compile scenes about anything, just roll dice in hopes investment pays off. Big budget don’t necessarily produce blockbusters. Jewels are rare by definition. Movie time resembles what bicyclists mentally do while they ply every byway: Pay attention to approaching pavement, plan next ride segment, use quiet between meditating, noticing scenery, and reflecting on whatever one encounters directly or vicariously in any given moment.

Wide eyed Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper) dances through cult horror classic Suspiria (Dario Argento, dir., 1977). If only that girl’s bike parked out front wasn’t removed, she could ride into town to escape witch coven that poses as a ballet school. As Professor Milius (Rudolf Schündler) explains, “[Witches] are malefic, negative and destructive... They can change the course of events, and people’s lives, but only to do harm... Their goal is to accumulate great personal wealth, but that can only be achieved by injury to others. They can cause suffering, sickness, and even the death of those who, for whatever reason, have offended them.“ Sounds like what poses as government these days. Greedy and needy, you waste treasures at your own jeopardy. Oddly, in recent remake Suzy walks past a group of liberating bicycles with no thought to ride away and save herself. Jump on and just go, girl!

Television series Pacific Blue (1996 - 2000) was yet another law and order drama. It covered daily dealings of Santa Monica’s elite bicycle squad. Season 1, Episode 3 stunt riders tackled nazi aggressors, nudist protestors, and wall desecrators. Likely it was canceled because it there’s only so much mileage you can get from a bikini clad bimbo and Muscle Beach bravado, although popular competing show Baywatch flexed and jiggled for 12 seasons. Monkees drummer Micky Dolenz who played city’s mayor was the only well known cast member.

A gang of tykes on bikes get embroiled in A Christmas Tale (Paco Plaza, dir., 2005), more like a low budget Spanish Goonies adventure. Hanging at and zooming around an amusement park that’s closed and for sale, they find a woman in a Santa suit, who fell down a well. For foolish reasons they decide to feed her but refuse to help her escape, later suspect she stole $2 million pesetas (less than $14,000 before Euros took over) according to news broadcasts. Once out, she tries to kill them all, only they pull Home Alone tactics, which result in her being decisively impaled but still a deadly threat.

Delusional author Mike O'Connell, when informed by his doctor he'll die of a grave, vague disease before end of next day, immediately implements The Living Wake (Sol Tryon, dir., 2007), so he can enjoy every minute of living, including grief of those bereaved. Considering himself on par with literary great Samuel Johnson, he has his own Boswell in manservant Jesse Eisenberg, who records every moment. Means limited by lack of cash, they embark on a full day itinerary with Eisenberg pedaling O'Connell throughout on a cycle rickshaw.

Protektor (Marek Najbrt, dir., 2009) set in 1942 Prague has Marek Daniel as a respected reporter who collaborates with Nazi invaders in order to defend Jewish movie star wife Jana Plodkova. Antisemitic enemies get the movie his wife bikes and stars in banned. Secretly he’s with antifascist resistance; when he attempts to assassinate Reich’s Deputy Protektor, photo evidence of a bicycle emerges to implicate him. Though couple go to lengths to hide it, bike proves to be their undoing.

Hesher (Spencer Susser, dir., 2011) opens with school kid TJ (Devin Brochu) on a BMX with a duct-taped seat chasing a tow truck and t-boning a car. Accident prone, his arm is already in a cast. Nicole (Academy Best Actress Natalie Portman) protects TJ when bully Dustin, who thinks TJ tagged his sports car, chases, doors, and smacks TJ down. Foul mouthed, mentally unstable, metal head squatter Hesher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who really vandalized car to punish TJ, witnesses further bullying, won’t interfere on boy’s behalf, but would later incinerate Dustin’s car and let TJ take blame. Police are unable to make charges against the boy stick without evidence. Hesher brings Nicole and TJ to a vacant home for sale, goes on a destructive rampage, hurls patio furniture and rides another bike into pool, then sets diving board on fire. Adults repeatedly disappoint this traumatized kid, who has lost in rapid succession his mother, grandmother, and innocence.

Daydream Nation (Mike Goldbach, dir., 2011) describes hopes youth have during systemic decline. Some just find cheap ways to dull ire and get high. Residents of a small town worry over smog from a continual industrial fire, so wear masks whenever they ride bikes, and a serial murderer killing cheerleaders, so pair up whenever outside. Wiseacre teen Kat Dennings (Two Broke Girls) safely bikes solo, but occasionally drives a Volvo, whereupon she collides with killer, so does town a favor pro bono.

She sums up society’s turmoil, “People will tell you that nothing matters, the whole world is about to end soon, but... Things don’t need to last forever to be perfect.” This pandemic too will pass, later if not sooner. And, as the late Gill Scott Heron warned, “The revolution will not be televised... reruns... will be live,” gestures supplanted by active changes.

World class geneticist William Blakely (Conal Byrne) takes home his research and sets into motion The Reconstruction of William Zero (Dan Bush, dir., 2014). He’s haunted by a fatal accident when motoring home and mowing down his own 6 year old son just after he taught him to ride a bike and told him to pedal on street outside. He consequently separates from bereaved wife Amy Seimetz, then, in order to disappear and escape grief, creates a clone of himself into whom he dumps all his memories. William Two hatches an evil plot to further clone himself and kill anyone who opposes plans, including nosy neighbor Scott Poythress, shown. William Three, aware he won’t live long, kills William Two, reconciles with unsuspecting wife, then transfers renewed relationship to William Zero. Although complete and complex fiction where nobody really died, every day motorists slay tykes, tyros and vets. By now, practically everyone has been inured against feeling complicit.

The Strongest Man (Kenny Riches, dir., 2015), Cuban immigrant Beef (Robert Lorie) and his Korean buddy Conan (Paul Chamberlain, l to r) are construction laborers in Miami. Beef doesn’t drive, loves his gold plated BMX bicycle upon which he can do impressive tricks, but it gets stolen. Conan feels responsible so helps him look for it downtown, which turns dicey after dark. Meanwhile, an existential Beauty and the Beef affair evolves with neighbor’s niece. Plagued with insecurities, Beef wisely testifies, “Sometimes I get anxious... Then I worry about feeling sick. I start worrying about germs, and doorknobs and hands... and humans, and filth, and public restrooms... about getting old... and going to die soon. There’s nothing you can do. Then you die,” prophetically given current events. Labann figures that biking 10 miles a day, or covering full or half century rides weekly, and still being able to lift bike onto its storage hooks provides evidence of one’s vitality and validates clean living and superficial scars through decade seven.

To the Moon (Emma Thatcher, dir., 2015) sent eighteen bicycling activists from San Francisco, CA to Amherst, MA through 15 northerly states, and took its title from an H.D. Thoreau quote about fresh-faced optimism. CoCycle hoped to raise awareness for United Nations’ 2011 International Year of the Cooperative, a socially just, sustainable business model. Such cross continental treks have held appeal for restless youth ever since Kerouac’s On The Road, and nation’s highways that facilitate roadie riding with sag support. Nice not having to pitch own tent and ride with panniers. Nicer sponging snacks off coops they visited along the way. All could hardly believe completing fourscore successive metric centuries to finish in less than 3 months.

2020: Fallen Earth (Joshua Land, dir., 2019) predicts a post Peak Oil shortage that decimates humanity. Ten years later, teenage lead Mitch Holson, who bikes across opening titles, hikes across a barren landscape in search of his estranged uncle’s farm to escape brutality of scavenger mentality. As a species, mankind doesn’t need a zombie uprising to witness apocalypse; desperation to preserve comforts and distribution inefficiency through loss of easy fossil fuels would drive anyone to savagery. Motorists are already impatient savages squabbling over lane space and right-of-way rules in place.

Booty Wolfsbane

Having exhausted joyride potential in a 50 mile radius from home, Labann has begun to consider driving to daytrip starts. Same old scenery suggests what’s alluring in countrysides, galling nearby to sensibilities, and going or staying wrong in cities, which then taints social media entries. Contentious talk among quarantined crazies turns to pandemic blowback and revolutionary resistance to solemn guidance once majority begins to act as if they’re exempt from disease; gives new meaning to phrase "gone viral”. Many more will be gone permanently if they lower their guard in even the least instance. Horrific things occur right after officials announce “all clear” and you relax vigilance, particularly when it comes to economy.

Already intuited that CARES Act would disproportionately help richest, because so-called representatives care a lot more about corporate campaign donors than hundreds of millions of hand-to-mouth constituents. While those who earn over $100,000/year don’t get a $1,200/person stimulus check, the wealthiest forty-three thousand will get on average $2.6 million in other benefits buried deep in small print, potentially $11.2 billion. Trillions in relief will also transfer to bankers, credit holders, insurers, tax coffers, and whatever obligations you can’t ignore. Covert intent was to make majority complicit in the biggest swindle in nation’s history. Few will see it this way, so tax cheats will get away with not having to pay. Did you expect something better than yesterday? Nobody much cares, settles without struggle, so nothing improves. “As we wage war on an invisible enemy... America will triumph yet again---and rise to new heights of greatness,” says Trump, though he and his pirate pals alone stand to plunder booty. Who’s really your worst adversary? How do you protect yourself? Which is worse, being starved or dodging bullets?

Things ignored eventually get noticed, including any pivotal but small bicycle appearance in films, another reason to pay closer attention. Cheerless biopic about Conan creator and pulp writer Robert E. Howard describes The Whole Wide World (Dan Ireland, dir., 1996) of early 20th Century wordsmiths. Media then mostly meant classroom lessons, neighborhood gossip and old wives’ tales. You had to bike down to drug store to find something actually entertaining, and sat on a curb devouring latest comic book, lurid magazine, or strange story anthology drinking a bottle of Nehi. A dearth of ideas can prove deadly, but what of too many? Alligient citizens ride today’s waves of business mergers, community neglect, criminal onslaughts, and uninvited door-to-door numbskulls who resent pandemic, so risk lives begging, cheating, proselytizing, and selling. You never have to answer door or phone, of course.

Things seem to be looking up for nearly illiterate teen Reese Witherspoon, seen riding happily on homeboy beau Bokeem Woodbine’s handlebars at high school, but usually that’s when bottom falls out. After crackhead mom and deviant stepdad go back to jail, just before fiancé gets gunned down in a drive-by shooting, she takes to the Freeway (Matthew Bright, dir., 1996) to grandmother’s place. Junker car breaks down, naturally, so she naïvely accepts a ride with big bad wolf Kiefer Sutherland, who reveals himself to be the serial murderer/rapist of trailer trash shown in news and sought by police. When she feistily fights back, bane to wolves who figure age and sophistication gives them an edge, mayhem ensues. Strong arguments are made for educating youth better and leaving none behind.

Based on actual events, everything is not Hunky Dory (Marc Evans, dir., 2011) for working class bicycling brothers Angus and Davy (Aneurin Barnard) in 1976 Wales, who get abused by classmates and conservative drunk of a father. In a tender moment dad imparts a lesson on fixing tube punctures. Angus berates Davy by insulting his flighty girlfriend: "Don't know why you bother. Stella. Everyone knows she's a school bike." Teacher Viv (Minnie Driver) tries against setbacks to stage an updated version of Shakespeare's Tempest using contemporary music from David Bowie (thus the title) and others.

There are tantalizing titles, such as dating angst flick Fish without a Bicycle (Brian Green, dir., 2003), that, as advertised, are devoid of bici-culture, hardly any outdoor scenes even. Then there are films specifically about cycling with titles that one might not pick up on. Speculative documentary King of Mont Ventoux (Fons Feyaerts, dir., 2013) pits reputations of five famous peloton stars - Bernard, Gárante, Merckx, Pantani, Virenque - to place one on a pedestal as sole champion of this Bald Giant of Provence and penultimate climb stage of Tour de France, using archival footage, contemporary interviews, and informed arguments. For it Nits produced an original soundtrack. Pity poster boy for illegal doping Lance Armstrong, who respectfully gave Pantani that stage win in 2000, arguably the best duel in Tour history,  wasn’t considered. John McCutcheon made Original Song about Lance Armstrong and Barack Obama, Peter Joseph Head & Pascal Babare penned Lance Armstrong (Mont Ventoux), and others composed 4 more about this scandalized Texan. Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx has equally been honored in at least 6 songs and Marco “The Pirate” Pantani 14. Since, in 2016 and spectacular fashion, frontrunner Chris Froome was knocked down by a pileup caused by a motorcyclist and ran on foot sans bike before hopping on a teammate's to finish this stage.

In offbeat comedy 3.2.1 Frankie Go Boom (Jordan Roberts, dir., 2012), deadbeat druggie and wannabe director Chris O’Dowd tormented baby brother Charlie Hunnam with cringeworthy videos from child through adulthood. Charlie is guilted by mother into attending recovering sibling’s coming-out-of-rehab ceremony, after which jilted bicyclist Lizzy Caplan literally crashes into him. She is so desperate and drunk, they connect for a hesitant one-night stand. Chris makes yet another embarrassing video of their fumbling rendezvous that gets millions of internet hits, triggers a string of misadventures, and sells brother’s car without permission. Soon Charlie, like Lizzy, also has to ride a bike to get around.

Bike culture on full display over the course of one night, lean bike messenger Jenny Strubin, shown en route to an unsanctioned race on Chicago streets called The Alley Cat (Marie Ullrich, dir., 2013), struggles to deal with one loss after the next. Ex lover Tom Reigel crashes after cut off by a car and sustains a fatal injury, a pervert propositions then stalks her until she can elude him, then she visits her “niece” at dawn, though viewers suspect she gave up her daughter along with nearly everything else to pursue a cycling lifestyle.

Called on the carpet and told his office would be consolidated with another more distant, dour civil servant Eddie Marsan (director and star) volunteers to buy a bicycle to make commute possible. Instead sacked, he faces his final case for Client Services, where he arranges state funerals and investigates people who’ve died alone to bring some closure to estranged families, mostly without success. With bikes on a rack outside, he finally locates right fish & chip joint where last client last worked, so funeral for once consists of more bereaved than he alone in Still Life (2013). Dignity for dearly departed might be moot when multitudes die while trying to stay away from contagion. Many may see, but not all understand.

Katie Holmes plays mild mannered vigilante Miss Meadows (Karen Leigh Hopkins, dir., 2014), who gets bailed out by bicyclist pedophile recidivist Callan Mulvey when he tries to kill her with her own pistol, thus imparting fingerprints which link him to serial murders instead of her. She marries sheriff James Badge Dale, and lives happily ever after as a force for justice in a twisted world full of criminals who think avenging angels don’t exist and preying upon innocents will never be opposed. 

In a bizarre reversal of Miss Meadows, neocon London bicycling bobby Kevin Bishop asks, "May I Kill U?" (Stuart Urban, dir., 2014) before deciding whether criminals deserve to be executed on the spot. He wasn't always such a rogue enforcer; a vicious punk stuck a pipe into wheel of his Smith & Wesson cruiser [shown], he flipped over onto his head, then his migraines began to trigger traumatic responses. Police walk a tightrope between downfalling and upstanding, but given what scum they have to wrangle daily, it's difficult to agree that defunding solves anything. Authority and power do corrupt, but not automatically or necessarily; conscience and intelligence usually choose correctly in hot scenarios.   

In short The Gift (Gabriel Robertson, dir., 2015), eleven year old Elvis (Brady Permenter) goes into town with mom Gladys (Amye Gousset) to buy himself a birthday present from his modest savings. Though, “nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs,” mom’s resigned that it will be the dangerous bicycle which Forrest Bobo (Xander Berkeley) shows in hardware store’s front window, but youngster has changed his mind and rather have a rifle. Mom is horrified and refuses. Bobo persuades him to take a guitar instead. A true story, the Presleys return to their Tupelo, Mississippi farm, a real journey to rock and roll kingship begins, and the rest is history. According to recently discovered photos, Elvis got his first bike at age 13, just before moving to Memphis.

Another Men in Black moment occurs when immortal Henry Rollins begins to open up to waitress Kate Greenhouse about why He Never Died (Jason Krawczyk, dir., 2015). Bicyclists drift past in busy downtown backdrop as he lists all jobs he held during his millennia on Earth. But he fails to mention until later being named in the Bible (Adam’s wayward son Cain), defending the helpless, or working hard to kick his addiction to villain flesh.

Max & Leon (Jonathan Barré, dir., 2016) has comic stars David Marsais and Grégoire Ludig doing anything they can to avoid French military service during WWII, including disguising themselves as a bicycling priest and childish civilian. They probably wouldn’t have repelled Nazi invasion anyway. Luckily, allies stepped up to turn back fascists, though they never disappeared. After all hate speech Trump belched while on continual stump, no coincidence exist why cries of Antifa and Black Lives Matter persist. All lives matter, except bigots and idiots who’ve embraced evil as a lifestyle.

So, how do you navigate such Dark Waters (Todd Haynes, dir., 2019) really? In this legal thriller, attorney Mark Ruffalo, after years of defending questionable corporate practices, sues industry giant Dupont Chemical, who covered up company’s poisoning of seventy thousand West Virginians by dumping fluoropolymers into their drinking water. Hundreds of dead cows and rotting gums of local kids on bikes provides clear evidence that ultimately leads to nearly $1 billion in damages. Turns out, “Better Living Through Chemistry,” was no more than an unexamined slogan fraught with human casualties. Though devastating and disheartening, decades of toxins in low concentrations don’t kill nearly as quickly as viral bioweapons specifically engineered to wipe out entire populations.

Trailer for just released biopic King of Staten Island (Judd Apatow, dir., 2020) has nerdy antihero Pete Davidson debating a career opportunity as an NYC firefighter, since his firefighter dad was killed on duty. Bonding with this band of brothers in service to The Big Apple seems to include another nighttime group bike ride. Basic hook and ladder equipment includes a company helmet, Pete. 

Cure or Quintain?

Staycation almost over, wondering when journeys begin and services reopen. Temperatures soaring, already down to single ply cycling apparel. Repeatedly downplayed by current US administration, COVID-19 has claimed one third of global total in a country with only 5% of its population. Virologists predict American fatalities to double or triple by August, since warmer weather seems no deterrent. Freak out has barely begun. Every step is fraught with uncertainty, and grows increasingly dangerous. Death on the doorstep, you want to record history precisely yet take in everything simultaneously so as to miss nothing. From movies and videos you can absorb entire stories in short order, faster than reading. Speed seems elementary to deductive success. However, hurry results in errata, but histories will be revised anyway to suit some big shot’s agenda.

“Do you mind not being a Motaur? For those born to ride...” shouldn’t that be Bicitaur? In ancient jousting, quintain was a swiveling tee with a flat target and heavy weight on either end; should you strike target riding too slowly, weight would swing around to knock you off your steed. It’s like a medicine that initially soothes only to rebound with worse maladies, or rushing to reopen that costs many times more deaths than waiting would. Then again, pharmaceutical companies would be content to invent diseases that only they can prevent, thereby charge ridiculous prices everyone would begrudgingly pay to avoid lament and mortality. For decades they’ve eyed mutating influenza as an angle to produce vaccines for lucrative profits streams, but weighed downsides of heinous fatality, herd immunity, and hurtful verdicts. Lust for profits despite collateral damage of the unsuspecting may be the ultimate horror.

Over his short life of short story writing, penurious Howard Phillips Lovecraft was known to ply Providence streets by bike. Excerpt from The Picture in the House, 1920: “I had been travelling for some time amongst the people of the Miskatonic Valley in quest of certain genealogical data; and from the remote, devious, and problematical nature of my course, had deemed it convenient to employ a bicycle despite the lateness of the season... Now I found myself upon an apparently abandoned road which I had chosen as the shortest cut to Arkham; overtaken by the storm at a point far from any town... I did not hesitate to wheel my machine up the weedy rise to the closed door which seemed at once so suggestive and secretive. I entered, carrying my bicycle, and closed the door behind me.” Lucky for curious cyclist, a violent thunderstorm suddenly destroys cannibal host in decrepit house, and spares him.

Of the many writers who died believing they made no impression or were abject failures, none found more posthumous fame than Lovecraft: Penniless genius, possibly racist, rather resentful of folks who never missed a meal, and seriously possessed. Once considered a pulp hack, a century later Lovecraft has been called a major American author, compared equal to Edgar Allen Poe, and considered a huge influence on all genres of novels. Having survived the Spanish Flu pandemic, which undoubtedly distorted his notion of the unknown into dread, he nevertheless died young of intestinal cancer. Fans of Batman will know Arkham Asylum for Criminally Insane, which was loosely based upon Danvers State Hospital in northeast Massachusetts.

Tales That Witness Madness (Freddie Francis, dir., 1973) has two doctors discussing four cases. In one, Timothy (Peter McEnery), an antiques dealer, inherits a penny-farthing bicycle from his aunt, which seems to have time travel capabilities overseen by the haunted portrait of dead Uncle Albert. Albert gets him to sit on bike, whereby he’s conveyed to a simpler time and falls for a dopplegänger of his current fiance (both played by Suzy Kendall). Not the first or last time filmic bicycles permitted time travel says IMDB.com. In fantasy short Wreck Less Abandon (Baily Rose, dir., 2011) a female gang uses bikes and fashions to search for their missing lovers, who were captured by X-rays.

Beleaguered 1950’s mom of nine kids Julianne Moore, wife of ne’er-do-well Woody Harrelson, enters contests and emerges as The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio (Jane Anderson, dir., 2005). Her first prizes consist of $5,000, which becomes a down payment on a home mortgage, and a Western Flyer bike, which replaces junk her kids are trying to fix. Knack and luck with jingles, mom’s happy outlook while facing hardship makes for a heartwarming story based on fact. Now, you may remember punk band Defiance, Ohio, whose song Bikes and Bridges (2008) seems to reflect this family’s desperate dysfunction. “...on the back seat of a bike and all my fears get washed away... It's been such a hard season, and the bridges we burned might be all we had to keep us from drowning. But at least we had this time; and I'd like to think we're better off for it... Hearts aren't made of glass, they're made of muscle and blood and something else, and they don't so much as break as bend and tear. We have what it takes to keep it together; and move on.”

Several scenes in We Are Legion: Story of Hacktivists (Brian Knappenberger, dir., 2012) show freedom fighters on bicycles. None was so gratifying as when Anonymous Chanologists targeted Neo-Nazi talk show host Nat Turner [shown], a plump chump shilling for wealthy oligarchs and white supremacists such as Trump. Beware that religious cults and repugnant fascism continue uncensored, whereas revolutionaries for democratic rights and free speech, who mount counterattacks through legal civil disobedience, will be beaten, censored, and prosecuted to the full extent of law. You can buy a mask or mug with a swastika, but you’re not entitled to expose crimes or learn where your tax tithing really goes. While convening on streets to protest may not be practical now, internet tactics are possible if questionably ethical. Just who your heroes are becomes debatable: Mean geeks, nameless freaks, paid agitators, or putative leaders?

How about international law enforcers and social welfare activists who fight the fastest growing criminal enterprise: Child sex trafficking? In these heroic roles portrayed in Trade of Innocents (Christopher Bessette, dir., 2012), Dermot Mulroney and Oscar winner Mira Sorvino play Alex and Claire Becker, who for Cambodian government are trying to rescue several of 1.2 million children who are trafficked each year according to UNICEF estimates. Claire, who commutes to a shelter by bicycle, befriends local bike shop owner, whose granddaughter has been targeted by a vicious pimp after he murders her older sister. Poverty forces some families to sell girls as young as 5 to brothels, while billionaires and millionaires make themselves comfortable ignoring such gut-wrenching outrages. Doesn’t silence invite violence? People who don’t do everything possible to prevent crime are equally culpable.

Low budget Christian thriller Seven Deadly Words (Eric Benson, dir., 2013) has bicycling pastor Roy Lynam fighting to revitalize a failing church against a privileged family intent on dominating decisions and funneling donations into pet projects. To trick playground hooligans into attending services, he bets them his flash bike he can shoot a basketball from downtown; when it doesn’t swish, he explains, “I said shoot, not make the shot.” There are a lot of empty promises throughout, but what did you expect?

Not quite done, 71 year old Harry Dunn (Steven Durgarn), with the help of his granddaughters, learns to ride a bike to attempt a ride across the country with his reluctant son (Mark Nash) in Old Dogs Never Die (Jim Dougherty, dir., 2016). Yup, people of means with good intentions used to embark on bionic adventures. Lately, cities have nightly curfews, so this would never work.

After putting down his infected father, James Boland continues baking and delivering Zombie Pizza (Mike Dudko, dir., 2017) by bike despite viral apocalypse. Reputedly, it’s the first feature film to be shot entirely without a camera, only GoPro digital action recorder used by BMX-ers and other sportifs. “Who in hell wants pizza now?” “Everyone.” Someone must shoulder production tasks; seems in these days of misplaced priorities majority expects to survive on diminishing handouts.

“Excessive wealth in the hands of the few means extreme poverty, ignorance, vice, and wretchedness as the lot of the many... Fully to know the evil is the first step towards reaching its eradication.” Rutherford B. Hayes, antebellum president, called “Rutherfraud” for winning election on smallest of margins, most liberal Republican in nation’s history known for personal integrity, who vetoed Democratic bills that supported Ku Klux Klan and suppressed black voting rights. Never what parties say, it’s what individuals do that matters.

Fin du Mondaine

Pandemic woke up an old boomer, who finds satisfaction in each obscure yet informative explanation and obtuse political pontification. Points made, promptly nods off again. Nobody listens. Had Woodstock Nation not totally tuned out against fascist exclusivity and relentless thievery, world might be a better place with fewer deaths and less disgrace. Alas, efforts that go into resistance strengthen malfeasance in almost every case. Demonstrations have lost clout no doubt due to interpersonal distance; knocks against press, lack of substance, and mistrust on all sides combine to give con men credence and leaders license. Health paranoia has also incited history’s fifth (or sixth depending upon who’s counting) bike boom, as urban commuters avoid busses, subways, and trains for a safer option.

Insufferable trolls, measurable insanity, and mob mentality are why consensus fails and democracy derails. But that’s the point, no? Baiting through namecalling, claims of best yet and boundless confidence, continually shifting positions, doxing on scant evidence, and insincere appeals to explain and prove are what insiders intentionally do, so confusion can raise fears and power can be consolidated. Provocateurs act as if Academy Award, medical license, Nobel or Pulitzer Prize, PhD, and stellar resume are no more remarkable than common sense, and everyone is intellectually equal. Nonsense. But when experts offer advice and you refuse based on hunches, pray only you die or suffer, not infect anyone else or unnecessarily run up costs to society. Such are the bugs mankind primarily needs to avoid. It’s not what you say but what you do that matters; one does say “indeed” to affirm a fact.

Interpreting motives behind online chatter isn’t as difficult as convincing partisans they are being brainwashed, duped and manipulated. It’s not just campaign rhetoric but covert coercion. Stories of fabulous lives in spotlights often disguise persuasion to waste your life desperately chasing impossible dreams so agents and producers can select among most talented and profit enormously from their unpaid sacrifices. In addition to 32 bit data encryption flying over wavelengths and wifi, secrets hide in plain sight through, among other things: bitcoin transactions, backmasking tracks in songs, crossword puzzles, cryptocurrency, cryptography, foreign translations, idioms, image metadata, location tracking, malware, metaphors, passwords, patterns of behavior, selection bias, semiotics, smartphone GPS pings, steganography of data within data, subliminal suggestion, supposedly private forms, sudokus, survey responses, symbology, television programming, textual anagrams, trojans, unforeseen consequences, violence desensitization, viruses, and zebra codes.

Ancient humans after millennia began to appreciate and exploit season cycles and signs in nature. These days facial recognition and profiler software promise to anticipate what you’ll buy or do and discriminate meanings from apophenic readings, fanciful imaginings, and schizophrenic leanings. Statistics don’t directly reveal causality. More things happen wherever people spend most of their time. Few things occur in deserted deserts, lots in densely packed cities. But neither will you remain disease free by ignoring factuality. As in all things, balance is key. You may conduct internal investigations without becoming dysfunctional or being certified crazy.

Conspiracy theorists speculate that COVID-19 was a weapon to weed out undesirables; it targets homeless, old, stupid, vulnerable and weak who are dole recipients and non-producers. It also cowers survivors. ”Important in managing a herd is to destroy all forms of critical thinking, in particular anything that challenges the supremacy of private property.” Eli Zaretsky, Culling the Herd, May, 2020. However, it may not be a “a grand conspiracy among sentient capitalist overlords - lately the much-maligned 1%. Rather... the result of a discursive system of actors/agents from all socioeconomic strata making (false) choices based on a shared body of internalized messaging that ultimately and accidentally result in The Way Things Are... Monocled robber barons are simply the ones best positioned to capitalize on the fallout,” as Robert Ware commented. Debacle of budget cuts and priorities, “Tells you something about the nature of the sociopathic buffoons who are running the government, and the country’s suffering from it,” opined Noam Chomsky concerning America being contagion’s epicenter.

All you have to do is be attentive, react sensibly, and think things through, what most people prefer to avoid. Bicycling in latest advertising still flags salubrious and smart; be assured next pharma ad will show them, no matter how ludicrous their storyline. When a vehicle was being driven badly, took notice though suddenly nauseated: Black Chevy pickup with a MAGA plate. Must accumulate ghastly amounts at any cost signifies crass greed, self interest, sheer stupidity, and wanton prejudice, what any law abiding American would never condone.

Disgusting how far America has slipped from decency, leadership, morality and statesmanship, but such betrayals aren’t new. Nixon promoted bumper sticker patriotism with Love it or Leave It platitudes. Inadvertently, improvement can be a double-edged sword; a better nation makes you a target for invasion. Advancements only the rich can afford create widespread resentment. Helping entire world to grow at same rate is one solution, though dictators and theocrats disagree, since it undermines their oppression and powerlust. Corruption and greed hurt everyone, including self. Such a paragraph probably sounds insufferably righteous, but consider conditions that motivated writing it.

Reached the rock bottom of boob tube addiction by watching daytime broadcasts. Left a dirty feeling, as if sifting through ash trays for roaches to roll one more spliff. Saw rerun of season 4, episode 54, bike lane blockage (February, 2019) where Mablean not-a-judge-just-play-one-on-TV Ephriam handed down a decision that was a blatant miscarriage of justice based on federal and state laws she’s supposed to uphold. Perhaps plaintiff didn’t prepare his case well, but any vehicle operator who injures a bicyclist or pedestrian is always 100% at fault. The presence of bike lanes doesn’t confine bicyclists to them, especially when an armored vehicle parks in one; they can still use all of street, for example, shifting into passing lane for a left turn. Motorists have to anticipate swerving, let bicyclists be, pass with a wide margin, or slow until they can. Mablean punted decision to city, who can never be approached or sued, thus provided victory for her preferred defendant. Pilate likewise washed his hands to do what was politically correct with no forethought of a future full of warfare justified by phony spiritual fervor. If not gospel, something else would have

to suffice, such as race, since ambitious asshats full of avarice just aren’t nice.

Practically as bad, Adult Swim collects drug addled anarchy posing as puerile, possibly psychotic anime. Spaceman (Dan Britt, producer, 2018) says, “If you play like a child, you will never grow old.” Earthman figures, “There are two possible interpretations to this, but I think what he meant was if I taught him to do a wheelie, I would live forever.” Earthman did choose correctly, but eternal life doesn’t turn out to be the boon he expected.

Supposedly went from ridiculous to sublime by viewing documentary Secrets of the Universe (Stephen Low, dir., 2019), really brief biographies of 20th Century physicists from Albert Einstein to Stephen Hawking. Cambridge University in 1970’s England reeked of cycling reminders for a quadriplegic to ponder when he wasn’t exploring space-time with his unfettered mind.

Is entire world coming to an end, or only society’s mundane smugness that everything will turn out fine as long as you’re fit and rich, no matter how many meanwhile perish? Six-part television miniseries Good Omens (Douglas Mackinnon, 2019) pitted evil against good in a merry manner based on novel of same name by Neil Gaiman and Terry Prachett. When Anathema Device (Adria Arjona) moves from beachside Malibu to a small village in Oxfordshire, England, she arrives by bicycle, then begins pedaling countryside searching for young Adam, The Antichrist (Sam Taylor Buck), who she wants to kill to save world from Armageddon. Corrupt nuns, crucifixion disrespect, cyclist heroine, feminist savior, fey angel (Michael Sheen), God as a woman (Frances McDormand), hipster demon (David Tennant, aka Doctor Who), widespread satanism, and witchcraft normalcy: Little wonder humorless Christian patriarchs hated it and lobbied hard to get it cancelled. Adam and his foursome ride their bikes to encounter apocalypse after Anathema nearly gets pulled up into a tornado, as if another wicked witch. Demon Crowley’s classic Bentley has a cassette player, but all recordings quickly revert to Queen’s Greatest Hits, heard repeatedly throughout, reminiscent of Freddie Mercury’s bare ass fat bottomed Bicycle Race in Wembley Stadium. Celt’s Boudica and Lady Godiva figuratively rock on in something finally worth watching. Alpha Aquarians will inherit everything, maybe accomplish millennials’ aqua aura policies of peace, because ancient farts from previous century just couldn’t see past greed to leave a worthwhile legacy.