Corona Interreign

Was really determined to bike into sunset, but extraordinary scenarios keep resurrecting reminders of bicycling’s ubiquity, especially within the great entertainment and huge escape of internet streamed, socially distanced movies, something to watch while quarantined in a pandemic.

Cycling sequences signal sensuality and smartness akin to how rustic foods surpass sophisticated cuisines. Yet prudes coin many phrases to shame bicycling scorchers and footsore jaywalkers, as if the violence of using poorly paved roads and sidewalks isn’t punishment enough for hammerkitten Dorises, mamil pathletes, manty-hose Freds, sick psycholists, spandex sportifs, and traffic salmon struggling against a one-way tide. Got to wonder whence derision comes, surely impatient motorists, since movies beatify bicyclists more than berate.

Holly Hunter uses herself on a bike to halt plane’s takeoff and profess undying love to firefighting pilot Richard Dreyfuss in sentimental fantasy Always (Steven Spielberg, dir., 1989). Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, or is it stupid tears for Dreyfuss’s ghost having to inspire his replacement to romance Hunter so she can move on with her life. Grab a tissue, if you can still find any.

Jodhi May (The Last of the Mohicans, Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival) gives Martin Freeman (The Hobbit, Golden Globe and Screen Actor’s Guild Awards) a lift on her bike to triumph over traffic in short Round About Five (Charles and Thomas Guard, dirs., 2005).

Metropia (Tarik Saleh, dir., 2009) has animated protagonist Roger biking empty streets in a post oil dystopia, even during downpours, to avoid taking subway, which he feels is somehow affecting his mind, only to find his beloved alternative has been smashed overnight. Turns out paranoids do have powerful and secret enemies. Daily soaps and subterranean systems are not to be trusted.

Low budget indie flick Bellflower was dangerously directed by and starred Evan Glodell, who anticipated apocalypse while wooing Jessie Wiseman. Glodell ditched bike once his flame throwing Buick Skylark labeled Medusa was ready for action.

Designing Healthy Communities (Dale Ball, Harry Wiland, dirs., 2012) documentary episode Retrofitting Suburbia reflects on how urban sprawl depends upon cars, which decrease self propulsion and increase health hazards. Doctors at Atlanta’s Center of Disease Control decried 70 pedestrian traffic deaths every year in this poorly designed city with a reputation as a soulless parking lot. So billions were invested for unprecedented improvement, its award winning BeltLine, focused on bicycling and walking access and public transportation, which remains open despite mayor’s general shutdown. When you can’t go anywhere else, parks appear popular destinations. Many Atlanteans have begun moving from burbs into urbs to cut commutes, following a national trend.

Within economic meltdown and futile future of The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam, dir., 2013) starring Christoph Waltz, meaninglessness cannot be proven mathematically, even though living freely and spontaneously is prohibited. Bicycling in particular is banned in the plaza, though bicyclists buzz by ban signs anyway. Being alive imposes its own undeniable logic.

Life’s blessings seem less than bountiful for heroine Julianne Cote in Quebecois indie film Tu dor Nicole (trans. “Wake up, Nicole”, Stéphane Lafleur, dir., 2014), as she makes her way by bike around Montreal suburbs into adult responsibilities.

Cupboard may be bare, but shopping might risk death. Enormous global problems help put delivery disruptions, empty shelves, and such inconveniences into perspective. An indie documentary reminds you that Every Three Seconds (Dan Karslake, 2014) someone on earth dies from poverty, the biggest killer in the second millennium AD, over a billion victims of starvation in last few hundred years alone. One billion humans barely survive on less than $2 per day. Individuals can make a difference despite distance. Seven year old Charlie Simpson raised £50,000 in one day for earthquake relief in Haiti by riding his bicycle a mere 5 miles, £250,000 overall.

Curious and nubile Dakota Johnson takes a bike ride between kinky trysts with Jamie Dornan in 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, dir., 2015). Surprised she can abide a saddle after such spanking sessions with her millionaire boyfriend. Privilege struggles with restraint, though saltpeter doesn't deter libido except for its disgusting association with bat guano.

Blank Demain

Must agree that humanity usually betrays and disappoints. But, besides ignorant organisms, inert minerals, insipid vegetables, instinctual animals, interstellar debris, and uninterested stars, what else have you? Everything isn’t about you, must equally be about others. Isolated, you’re pathetic and powerless. Clients and friends improve your horizons and prospects, take you to otherwise unattainable peaks.

Have often said life would be unlivable without art, creativity, criticism of the constructive kind, and events that celebrate being alive and not interpersonally blind. Terrorists and tyrants want to deny you these enchantments, smother enjoyments in strict observances, torture you with sinister torments. Judgment of past sins just emasculates and shames. Smart people don’t play such games, not worth time better spent soaring upwards and synthesizing innovations.

Draw a blank when pondering espère pour demain, hopes for tomorrow. When you live in the moment, plans become irrelevant, especially as Fall passes into Winter. Dream jobs lead to dead ends. Endless volunteer efforts could fill your days; nonprofit directors drool over efforts freely extended. But worthy causes attract bad actors and cares pretended. Crafty chiselers rush into voids left by catastrophes. Charity begins at home, creeps carefully around, but forever puts altruists at risk.

While another blog validates being overtaken is a perceived hazard that keeps bicyclists from riding, potential for accusations deter cycling community from volunteering. Joined what was billed as a group ride only to spend day escorting a young lady alone. Maybe most don’t think that’s indiscreet anymore, but embarrassing comments were passed. Under pressurized conditions conversations center on self, not zeal for cause for which you appeal. You find yourself struggling with audience to focus on deal and keep issues of correctly composting and recycling real.

Always sought a zero carbon footprint, but most technologies affordable or available don’t dovetail into an impact that’s preferable. Over nine hundred planetary scientists, practically all of them except for the few paid to lie on behalf of vested interests, urge, under no uncertain terms, an immediate halt to deforestation, harmful emissions, ocean pollution, and toxic aftermaths. They demand alternatives to fossil fuel and natural gas as energy sources.

Dead comedian George Carlin tore elitists a new hole for smugly presuming they could save planet. “The planet has been around for billions of years. It will be around for billions more. Humanity is screwed, soon to be extinct.” London smog was so bad it killed asthmatics and children. Once coal was no longer used for household cooking and heating, air quality dramatically improved. Proves Carlin was wrong for enabling denalists, and why humans irrefutably affect environment.

Katharine Wilkinson asks mankind to drawn down 2 billion tons of CO2 emissions over next 30 years and seek zero population growth by empowering women. Sources of greenhouse gases also include manufacturing, mining, raising livestock, shipping, trucking, and work that provides livelihoods. But vast biosphere can filter excess given a chance to do so. Can’t let equatorial rain forests burn and disappear. Almost 2 million people have viewed her Ted Talk. She’s not alone.

Gentle teen activist Greta Thunberg testified against global warming before United Nations assembly, yet has gotten bullied and dismissed by world leaders, who haven’t done a damn thing to address it. “Remedies are already known; what stands in the way are politics and stupidity... Ecosystems are failing. People are dying. How dare you? Don’t sit there and praise me; that doesn’t do any good. Act.” You can’t be that articulate without mounds of irrefutable evidence. Indeed, why isn’t an issue that affects all life on this planet front page news daily?

Entire human species needs to acquiesce to sustainable practices. Policies need to persecute despoilers and idiots who go by truck when an electric subcompact would suffice. You’re already paying taxes for landfill purchases, waste management, weekly pickup. So why not assist by sorting correctly at home? Already 280,000 tons of waste are recycled annually, but consumers must be willing to buy durable quality, do without useless products, spend less, and target products made from recycled materials.

Do know what’s coming... another lame claim on how bicycling addresses so many of these issues. Long ago decided, “If I can bike there, I will,” so supplanted half of motored miles with pedaled ones. Didn’t personally save planet, but did provide a conspicuous example of an adult riding. Now notice hundreds of bicycles on school grounds and outside train terminals, where decades ago there were none. Once seemed to be sole cycling commuter, now greet dozens each trip. If elected officials weren’t subsidizing Big Oil by extorting taxes from you, driving costs would skyrocket and you’d see far more bicycling instead.

Electrically assisted bikes have almost become commonplace. Batteries, neglected for 50 years, deserved recent reengineering. What’s really needed are high energy capacitor nodes that could be interchangeably plugged into many devices or vehicles and quickly/repeatedly recharged. One such node already exists: a human body. Educate, employ, feed, fortify, nurture, supply with bicycles, water, and what you can expect is a future. Otherwise, be satisfied for this very moment, because that’s all you’re entitled to.

Maybe all you can do is do your best to kick apocalypse down the road and reset Doomsday Clock back a few minutes. Is saving humanity worth one’s own involvement? A big bunch of American blockheads elected and honor a crooked, cruel, divisive, filthy, immoral, lying, misogynist, racist, unchristian POTUS. What does that tell you? Nazis weren’t eradicated half a century ago; their numbers and sympathizers have swollen because social issues never get addressed.

In a nation of bejeweled but threadbare denim, misshapen shadows, multi-shift workers, non-native speakers, and unresponsive audiences, too few care about clever survey, English wordplay, practical poetry, or tactical advocacy. Only the most ridiculous video snippets go viral. What Labann offers has illuminative merit but no monetary value or political punch, provides only a personal outlet for self expression or peevish payback for transgression. Scolding is seldom well received even when course correction is correct prescription.

Teens and twenties converse incessantly, stick noses into smartphones, train through immersive interaction, and tune thereby into current protocols and successful approaches. By sixties, that's all behind you, either blown completely or have it made, incapable of dealing with challenges you meet or riding on easy street. Who do you expect will champion social justice or world stewardship?

All begins and ends within personal supermax prison cells, windowless chambers from which nothing emerges. Readers compartmentalize any mental exercise. Time Has Come Today when there's nothing left to say, that is, that hasn't already been said. “Don’t care what others say... They say we don’t listen anyway... Rules have changed today. Have no place to stay... Love has flown away... been put aside, been crushed by the tumbling tide.” Apologize for nothing, gave project three full decades, never asked for least compensation, and spoke nothing but truths with style. Asphalt ribbons beckon all onward. Au revoir.

Strata Overlain

Pick up Companion Reader, 4th [and likely final] Edition, now available for free downloaded by simply clicking on its image on right or title here. It’s been augmented with latest posts, edited for content, and laid out same as Bike&Chain, which it now exceeds in detail and girth.

Labann asks, “I wrote all this? Do I agree with it entirely? Can I endorse wholeheartedly? Who IS this crusader for human rights and social justice? Surely not the easily distracted, instantly frustrated, severest critic of the overly long, pathetically meaningless, and seriously stupid that surpasses even the most ungrudging futility tolerance?” Could claim someone else composed, some gung-ho invisible instigator with poor impulse control who intermittently possesses fingertips on keyboard, surely a brittle bicyclist beaten about by abusive automatons and belligerents with baseball bats and motorized turbo cats. Have never been so clever in person, instead minded own business and roamed withdrawn around society.

Does it matter whether selective mutism derives from dementia or indifference? Already way past what was originally intended, never meant to repeat self so often, even though withering bicycling does imply repetitive pedaling. Regret sharing 2,000 pages on bicycling culture... dumbest thing ever personally did. No good reason for it, simply saw a hole in society's swing and succeeded in pitching strike after strike for 3 decades. Yet game was rigged; those who outperformed still lost while slackers stole billions and wrecked environment. Although beaten into abject submission, did once rise against cruel domination, and imagine others so inclined. Saw it return and tossed in own two curve balls. But the older one gets, the slower both body and mind; now it’s bullpen time.

Layer upon layer of digital streams and wordy dreams fused into inseparable strata akin to what archeologists encounter at prehistorical sites where habitation existed for millennia, cities built on ruins of villages built on camps along river banks.

If anything, both Bike&Chain and Companion Reader prove bicycling culture not only exists but thrives despite all attempts to eradicate it irrevocably. Automotive interests wanted to clear streets of impeding bicyclists and walkers. Instead they distributed too many vehicles and installed road furniture as own obstacles, so they sit motionless fuming with emotions amidst exhausting fumes, fatiguing billboards, and limiting controls among hundreds of millions of fearfully likeminded. Some motorists are so witless they stop in crosswalks and intersections which they aren’t supposed to enter unless clear to proceed. Then they assault you with verbal obscenities for squeezing carefully around them. From a bicyclist’s viewpoint, it’s a war fought daily in surprising skirmishes pitifully concluded. Hard to fathom how anyone waxes enthusiastic about exercise that punishes more than rewards.

Summer is when automotive lobbyists escalate their anti-bike rant: “Bike right! Get out of my away! Watch out lest you become roadkill!!” It’s tantamount to confessing, “We don’t know what the hell we’re doing yet will never stop, so you better perform extra well to allow for our incompetence.” Presumes bicyclists can while motorists can’t.

Bicyclists retreat to back roads or wooded tracks, along with deer or other wild animals guided by instincts alone, though nowhere is totally safe. Don’t ever call for roadside service, since even though covered for first 10 miles, bicyclists will be extorted dearly for more cash than they carry for any mileage beyond. Drivers fear open spaces between car, home and office, spend <1% of their time outdoors, where they’re statistically safer by an enormous factor, and might soak up oxygen and sunshine for health’s sake.

Bicycling elevates one's brain derived neurotrophic fact (BDNF), dopamine, number of brain cells, and serotonin. According to prestigious medical journals, as little as 15 minutes a day, perhaps a short commute to work, fights ADHD, Alzheimer's, cancer, cardiovascular, fibromyalgia, Lou Gerhig's, and Parkinson's diseases. Furthermore, pedaling boosts mood and fights depression, main manifestation of mental illness considered nearly nominal since it’s so prevalent. Being in best of health benefits entire society, reduces demands upon doctors, hospitals, insurers, and nurses, which thereby elevates level of care for all. In this among many other ways, bicycling fosters better citizenship and opens eyes to cruel reality.

Meanwhile, insane terrorists spread germs and tamper with unsealed foods and products at points of sale for viral hits. Cybercrooks and scam telemarketers work nonstop to cheat rubes from ready cash. Websites pose as government resources or innocuous portals, then phish for details or identities to steal. Promise of an internet that offers free information to enlighten curious has long been betrayed by greedy businessmen, corrupt politicians, and dastardly predators. Even stalwarts, especially saints, can’t be trusted, because all have agendas against injustice and hate vulnerable you in lieu of unassailable enemies.

So what’s the point in trying to share relevant observations? Only going to attract miscreants or be ignored or misinterpreted by audience you hoped to reach. Nobody believes in friendly, platonic relationships; all mistrust anything different and suspect underlying sexual urges. Seeing world as it is and stating how it disappoints leaves you angry and bitter. Sometimes saying nothing serves you better.

In the end, what you did and you yourself will be overlain by depressing strata. Maybe some future archeologist will dig up your primitive artifacts and find a cherished gem while sifting through tons of wasteland overburden for bits of bone and specks of metal.

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius , 121 -180 AD. Not much changes among men over 2 millennia, but tough to stay balanced when crowded by eight billion among whom two billion are mentally disabled.

Backpedalane

Pedaled backwards along a long forgotten lane; decided to relent to assumed duties one last time. Googled current bicycling culture. With internet now heavily populated with facts and folderol, these searches have become too easy. Wasn’t at all so during mid-90’s when Labann began; meant going to college libraries and retail shops, and interviewing other cyclists. While bike musical compositions have trailed off, probably because no global heroes have emerged from America since Armstrong’s disgrace, new topical books overflow, including several about enduring Tour de France, more than you’ll read in 10 years and not mentioned. Here’s a significant smattering of late breaking others (does not constitute an endorsement of any):

Anonymous, The Secret Cyclist: Real Life as a Rider in the Professional Peloton, (Random House, 2019, 224 pp.) - “...try write a warts-and-all blog about your office. Question how the business is run, make sure you remember to call your boss a moron, and then tell me how it goes.” Management dissatisfaction probably applies to every team sport, as it surely does in most businesses, until some board or committee members, stakeholders, or whistleblowers wise up and work together to end tyranny. Can be projected to a national scale, since, as Peter predicts, incompetents rise to their highest level, though you’d overlook and tolerate them on their journey there until damage is already done.

Evan Friss, On Bicycles: A 200-Year History of Cycling in New York City (Columbia University Press, 2019, 264 pp.) - Reminds readers that no sooner than the first laufmaschine arrived from Germany its use in Manhattan was banned in parks and on sidewalks, only to return 50 years later as French boneshakers that captivated public and paved streets for motoring.

Harry Pearson, The Beast, the Emperor and the Milkman: A Bone-shaking Tour through Cycling’s Flemish Heartlands (Bloomsbury Publishing, for release February, 2020, 272 pages) - Accounts of Belgian racers of yesteryear, such as The Beast Eddy Merckx, and Jules Vanhevel, who led a World Championship drive until he collided with a cow.

Jet McDonald, Mind is the Ride (Unbound Publishing, 2019, 368 pp.), non-traditional bike book of the mental journey, not a travel guide, during a tour from England to India. “The Virtual Triangle... A bike shadow is a cyclist’s best friend. It’s an X-ray of the rider’s imagination Its never -changing geometry follows just behind or ahead, on an icy road, a desert plain, a dual carriageway. And at the peak of hunger and the depths of exhaustion, it begins to talk with you. It begins to turn you inside out.”

Jools Walker, Back in the Frame: How to get back on your bike, whatever life throws at you (Little, Brown Book Group, 2019, 368 pp.) - Autobiographical blogger Lady Velo compiled her trials as a black woman fighting depression, prejudice, a stroke, and such tough stuff to suffer from.

Lorenz J. Finison, Boston’s Twentieth-Century Bicycling Renaissance: Cultural Change on Two Wheels (UMass Press, 2019, 304 pp.) - Chronicles challenges and revives disavowed voices of black cyclists, environmental and social justice activists, and women breaking into male-dominated professions of bike messengers and mechanics.

Michael Kranish, The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero (Simon and Schuster, 2019, 384 pp.) - Whatever complaints the Secret Cyclist may have, none could match Marshall Taylor’s struggles as a black champion during Jim Crow era. This new biography was unknown to Labann when he wrote a recent article after a personal visit to Taylor’s old haunts.

Somehow also stumbled upon an old song that suggests, though never specifies, bicycling per se. Journey, Still they Ride, Escape, Columbia, 1981; subsequently released as a single, hit 19th on Billboard Hot 100.
"Jesse rides through the night / Under the Main Street light
Riding slow / This old town, ain't the same
Now nobody knows his name / Times have changed, still he rides
Traffic lights, keeping time / Leading the wild and restless through the night
Still they ride, on wheels of fire / They rule the night
Still they ride, the strong will survive / Chasing thunder
Spinning ‘round, in a spell / Woah, it’s hard to leave this carousel, ‘round and ‘round and ‘round and ‘round
Still they ride..."

Shocks Sarbane

"This may come as a shock..." constitutes as cringeworthy a phrase as, “Tell me if this hurts." Brace for a beating; face stress building. People prefer ghastly lies over a nasty surprise. Yet many ignore dire warnings deemed predictions of gloom from prophets of doom. "Tell me some good news," they importune, though they rather it be nonsense or silence, because ignorance is bliss, "No news is good news." Then well laid plans go amiss.

Spent half a century in quality assurance, Six Sigma trained, totally committed to scientific method of observe, hypothesize, experiment, gather data, repeat, analyze, theorize, codify, form corollary, surveil for exceptions and failures. Unappreciated are measuring, monitoring, and sweating time consuming tasks. Jumping to conclusions is easy and quick. Learning from mishaps dissolves into trying to avoid.

Not very sexy, nobody's much interested in constant measurement, data maintenance, due diligence, or statistical assessment. Details cause countenances to droop, eyes to glaze, and jaws to yawn. As author, editor, illustrator, technical writer, and webmaster, spent 50 years rechecking and verifying minutia. Still make mistakes, but trust process when permitted favorable conditions and hours to apply logic and tools, although impatience rules and turns everyone into fools. Even when you cover all contingencies, things still go wrong. Total incorruptibility tags the saint for crucifixion. The more unconscionable and unforgivable you are, the more likeminded lummoxes like you. Worst gangsters rise fastest and highest.

No number of congressional SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) Acts could keep accountants from destroying American industry over last two decades. Khrushchev has his revenge from beyond the grave. Once engineers designed anew just to improve continually this technology zoo. Acquisitions, insurers, mergers based upon global greed doing bean counting at the expense of what matters - increasing reliability and saving lives - destroyed incentives and eclipsed impact. SOX’s very existence even without enforcement, only voluntary compliance, still rankles conservative cheaters. Legal practices and poison pills mean stockholders never in fact obtain company ownership. Great potential has been gutted on purpose in a battle against intelligent stewardship.

Things are so bad weavers would rather make disposable socks and pick your pockets than maximize comfort and wear. Can't find any that don't pinch off blood vessels by being too tight, which results in foot burn, poor circulation, and possibly blood clots, and get threadbare faster than FedEx can resupply. Sumptuous merino wool may be best, but makers betray by tweaking mix of nylon and spandex, and split sizing of Med-XL that sacrifices perfect but unpopular XXL. Black old style pair with little white homunculus show wear points on foot to almost see-through thinness at ball edges, heels, and toes. Makers could examine to redesign and reinforce, but they don’t care. Greed for profit forever surpasses need to serve all classes when competitors are few and customers are stuck with bad or no choices. Whatever happened to, “Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back,” as an inducement? Afraid to buy a replacement, spend too much time damning and darning. Shouldn't have to include sewing among bike handling skills.

Boomers bowed out too early, believing they knocked out social injustice forever, since 20th Century was a clinic on how bad leaders who gained supremacy based on empty rhetoric hurry next catastrophe. Those who jump ship might drown, sink to bottom feeders, such as Peterson’s orange clawed lobsters. Crustacean hierarchies don’t describe human societies or prove male primacies. Big fish eat little fish only beneath the seas. Too many from this generation left country or withheld votes, as if that might work. Only meant a small cadre could seize power. Nixon’s vampire protégés took over, will never leave voluntarily, won’t summer by the sea lest they lose their ghostly and superior whiteness.

“My rhetoric is better than his. My rhetoric is the best ever.” Donald Trump, 07 August 2019, present POTUS, schoolyard bully, supposed leader of the Free World whose schadenfreude for your suffering knows no bounds.

Exactly what in this brand appealed to his base? “Base” by all connotations, MAGA cleverly marketed improvements, though delivered none even with congressional backing, certainly created social ogres while stoking unreasonable fears, and currently promises to crush them should he be returned to office for another term. Almost as laughable as a cartoon villain, he's too reckless a menace to dismiss. Can nobody see through this scam? Can’t say, “You’re fired!” SOX didn’t compel him to disclose soviet contracts concerns or tax returns. Casinos are ideal setups for money laundering and people torturing. Why bother to investigate? Can talk his way out of any indictment. Wiggy presidents are only lightning rods that draw voter charges away from country’s secret bigwigs.

Can’t say you’re disappointed when you’ve foreseen inevitable outcome, except for donkeys, who won’t present anyone you’d want, just lame ducks, spring chickens, and war hawks. For the birds! No viable alternative attracts attention. Rap enough, some of what you say will seem prescient or visionary, since unresolved issues reemerge repeatedly. Was really the moment in history to introduce a whole new progressive party, but nescient citizens blew it, and world has been reset to a century ago on brink of annihilation. Well, screw it. Bike through it.

This time around marching army can’t rely on decent socks, something of a meaningless distraction until they are shot dead paying more attention to toe agony than foreign foe. Charities collect socks for vagrant foot applause in a vain gesture that does nothing to alleviate root cause. Meanwhile, traitors in Senate thrive, those who supposed to be representing you in crucial decisions of protecting and spending. Aw, shucks, who signed you up for awe, hurt and shocks if not them? Why did you not foresee and knock footing from under them? Could see some sacred cow tipping about to commence.

“Down by the railway the bicycles are there, an apocalyptic fair for the alive. It's a sign, the messengers they bring with their stainless steel wings on a 45 that plays our lullaby. Man made moons, they go on, one by one, when the sun is done for the day.” Amy Millan, Wayward and Parliament, Honey From the Tombs, Arts & Crafts, Int., 2006, inspired by serving brews at a coffee shop on Parliament Street in Toronto.