dig if you will the picture of a picture in late December when a spot of sunlight makes it all the way to the basement through a doorway and down a narrow stairway onto the wall onto a castoff print of a mellow non-objective non-controversial non-confrontational composition seen in places like dentist offices that cater to older clientele a print framed in uv-resistant glass that hasn’t seen the sun for 30 years as it’s been reflecting the fluorescent light radiating from government issue fixtures in a basement office until now where it’s lined up to be set free as surplus property and that spot of sunlight is just a taste of what’s out there.
taking a step back from practicality paused and took a photo of the loading dock surface at Gould Hall to get this artwork that exists in the layers of recycling compost garbage and architecture final project overspray
if I took a stroll around the art building I might see the remnants of some kid’s final project oversprayed on the sidewalk but for some reason it’s more-than-just-ok over at architecture and construction management too to get a little sloppy which is interesting not in a-participant-observer way just-an-observation way. I’d like to think those art students are learning some process in relation to a final product in the romantic context of art history while the construction management kids are cranking out final products in another more business-like mindset. I’m dumbfounded because in just 10 more steps they could get to the asphalt parking surface where their spray paint pet project wouldn’t matter much or if they couldn’t walk that far at least splay out a few copies of the Daily and save the loading dock surface for fermented compost concentrated coffee grounds and warm beer foaming out of all those spent Georgetown kegs that those architecture people really know how to drink. Does anyone notice this? Does anyone give a shit? Just another turn of the academic calendar on the eve of finals week.
Just about exactly 28 years ago I was riding home from work in the rain and dark of a Seattle winter around 6am atop Queen Anne. Done with another graveyard shift in the grocery store deli cranking out hundreds of sandwiches and salads in individually wrapped convenient containers (but that’s another story) I had a clunky Cateye headlight with two C batteries that gave off a sickly yellow light for about 90 minutes before it began to fade to black. It was clamped to the handlebar of a GT Continuum rolling 700D wheels (but that’s another story) I was nearly hit by a car at a 4-way stop because I assumed they could see me. In 0.33 seconds it’s the: she sees me she’ll stop, she sees me she’s just a shitty driver, she’ll stop, she’ll stop, SHIT. she’s not stopping, she doesn’t see me, she actually can’t see me, she never slowed down, she didn’t stop, she didn’t see me.
Just about exactly 28 hours ago I was riding home from work in the rain and dark of a Seattle winter around 5pm. Done with another shift on the electric assist bathtub at the education factory (but that’s another story) I had a small rechargeable headlight that gives off a bright beam, a wicked bright rear Knog light, a little blinky light on my backpack, a completely DOT reflective toptube pad made by DANK bags from an old road sign, reflective strips allover my jacket and reflective bands strapped to both ankles. Two cars blew right across my path as I slowly rolled across a side street that feeds into a Rainier Ave because they didn’t see me. When I stopped just short of the second driver’s window he rolled it down and said “you are not visible” I didn’t say anything but I thought “welcome to Rainier Beach” and I know there are not enough lights or reflectors in the world to make a cyclist “visible” in many a car context.
I actually drive a car sometimes and I’m more aware than ever how invisible pedestrians and cyclists are at night from the driver’s seat point of view through a windshield slathered in rain and condensation. 28 years ago I thought the act of clamping on that crap Cateye meant something. 28 hours ago I thought it was the thought that counts or something like that.
Please open your textbooks to page 369 and follow along as I read aloud: Modern use of Thru originated in American English as a phonetic and simplified spelling of Through around 1839. Thru is mostly used where the preposition through could be used (e.g. Monday thru Friday); it is less common as an adjective or adverb (I'm thru with the vacuuming). It is rarely used in formal situations, except in cases where brevity is wanted such as roadway signs.
If the bike wheel is a clock the fender struts are the hands always reading somewhere between 3:07 and 3:11 blurring the lines between Tukwila and Renton a lot of people aren’t sure where that is and steer the conversation elsewhere to avoid uncomfortable situations especially at the dinner table around the holidays but it’s a scenario that stands out only because it’s constantly compared to one that exists only in Currier & Ives prints or instagram horseshit.
The property manager purportedly put a positive spin on it pointing out the fresh paint job and new carpet however the prospective tenant picked up the off-gassing in the hallway long before she even entered the apartment and declined to sign the rental agreement for a studio where the windows don’t open and the “fresh” air is supplied via HVAC ducts installed in 1972 when a long sequence of variables began to fall into place.
The first step is denial same time different daze like clockwork purple hemp milk mocha no whip schmaltzy coffee klatchy shut up and listen idle hands are tools of the coozie it turns out it’s all been a series of short errands strung together into a life cycle in the margins of utility cycling taking the path that sucked less has made all the difference like pedestrian overpass utilitarian underpants your 35 year old brake pads are grabbing 27” steel wheels on a long descent in the rain so don’t ask me about the lowest coefficient of friction ever recorded because you’re totally fucked.
This one’s raspberry and this one is marionberry said the barista to the woman in front of me.
Oh i’m glad you can tell the difference because marionberry would make my throat swell up she said.
My mind went to anaphylactic shock. Then retroperistalsis. Then poking the EpiPen into the meat of the thigh and remaining calm.
Then my mind said “bitch set me up”
Pondering the differences between Marion Barry and marionberry I was smiling in my own world when the barista turned to pour my drip coffee. There’s a punch line in there somewhere. I could tell the difference between a raspberry and a marionberry if they were growing in the alley behind my house. But when they’re slathered on a pastry in a coffee shop I couldn’t care less. I’ll be eating marionberry jam on my pb&j in a couple hours watching the sun come up over the cascades behind Husky Stadium. If it was raspberry jam the sunrise wouldn’t look any different.
As a lowly intern walking the streets of DC in the fall of 1990 I saw Marion Barry t-shirts featuring variations on the bitch-set-me-up theme for sale at random street corner stands allover town. Mayor Barry was in the tail-end of his 3rd term and hadn’t gone to jail yet. Those shirts are still available online in neoretro knockoffs. They don’t make my throat swell up but they still make me chuckle 30 years later.
When the factual narrative gets boring it’s important to explore the landscape of memory which is often prompted by the poetry of petty details.
Spotted this Spot yesterday. Took a photo because it was clearly the coolest bike in the rack. But upon further review it wasn’t as cool as I thought. I don’t read bike reviews or bike magazines very often and live in a thumbshifter retro world so I had no idea the acme has been around for a couple years. Spot has a special spot in my mind because they used to advertise in the outcast which made them cool by association and they were right here on the I-5 corridor. Their bikes were unobtainable so I bought one of their t-shirts. Now 20 years later they’re in Colorado and their bikes are made of unobtainium or actually dontreallywantium.
This bike is cool for sure. But I wouldn’t award it ultimate urban utility bike status because there are too many incompatible doo-dads. I like to visualize riding a bike across Iowa in July and I have a mechanical issue and roll into the one and only bike shop in the small town I happen to be drinking in at the time and the mechanic smiles, reaches up on the shelf and grabs the exact part I need and sells it to me for $5. In my standard visualization the part has never been anything hovering around an 11-speed internal hub or a gates carbon drive. In the visualization where I'm stuck with this bike the mechanic looks at the gates belt and says “shit, the vacuum repair guy went out of business right after WalMart came to town. But I bet he could have helped you with that thing”
Ron Sutphin used to tell us about Albert Eisentraut and the “one cubic centimeter of bullshit” that is an important addition to anything you do.
When I write a book, aside from my coffee table books about discarded dental picks and garbage cans overflowing with bags of dogshit, I’ll write a book that’s kind of James Tate mixed with Patti Smith. A book that leaves the reader wondering if any of that really happened or it was all a dream or if they call it poetry then anything goes. A book that stumps the librarian because it defies classification. A book that doesn’t fit in on the nonfiction shelf at one of the few remaining brick and mortar bookstores so they have to display it on a folding table near the checkout line. A book that contains more than just one cubic centimeter of bullshit. A book that contains a bit of truth but dumbfounds because it’s written from the point of view that hovers on the fringes and sits in the corner watching the petty details of everyday life.
They’re 33.3% DWI’d why not go all the way? I’m not sure what the question is but drop bars are not the answer. It’s all in the wrists rolling on the hoods all day in her own way. When shimano came up with STI this is not what they envisioned for total integration. Bikes are cool because they can be half-ass jerry-rigged cross-threaded slap-dash ad-hoc zip-tied and people love them the way they love them.
Dutch Oven
Stare at your phone download the app tap swipe scroll repeat. They’ve got you where they want you. Don’t ask questions.
There’s a lot of jibber jabber about the last mile especially during this holiday e-commerce shopping season. But they’re only going 5230 feet.
I’m taking it the final fifty fucking feet.
It would be depressing if it wasn’t so comical.
I find this point of view has helped me deal with Seattle in general over the past ten years.
Repeat the question. How can people take this shit seriously?
No euphemisms here.
It’s all fucking horseshit.
No tip toeing human relations eggshell dancing
It’s fucking horseshit.
The UPS truck is parked in the bike lane but you’re getting your amazon package in 2 days or less. The UPS truck is parked in the bus lane because you’re getting your amazon package in 2 days or less. The UPS truck is parked in the alley but it’s OK because you’re getting your amazon package in 2 days or less.
If it’s not UPS it’s FedEX USPS DHL OnTrac or some independent contractor chuffer in a U-Haul slinging boxes onto front porches that may or may not match the address on the package.
Submit
Don’t ask questions. Please submit your questions in writing and one will be randomly selected for comment during the last week in February (excluding leap years) If your question is chosen you can surrender all your personal information for a chance to win a $3 Starbucks gift card
Eight years ago today. You load 16 tons and what do you get?... another year older and so on and so on but not 87, he is ageless, timeless. He's been 32 years old for about 24 years and he still is. But that kid on the right is 8 years older and growing like a weed and today is the 8th anniversary of that Halloween in 2011.
just as it would not be Christmas here without the photo of Wilson & the Sonics cheerleaders, it wouldn't be Halloween without this photo that says it all and has said it every year. year after year. day after day. all the livelong day.
At the corner of Burke-Gilman and 15th Ave NE there’s an all you can eat buffet of obliviousness open from 7am to 7pm Monday through Friday. Featuring 30,000 students staring at their phones punctuated by juiced up roadies mashing back to Kirkland as well as psycho commuters, casual Lime Bike chuffers and angry Jimmy Johns with seemingly something to prove to someone somewhere.
Throw me down the stairs my hat
The fog lifted
Your eyes adjusted
No one noticed
All of the above
There’s a card key that will grant you access to the exterior door. Once inside locate the lock box down the hall on the left and jiggle the key just right because it was cut during Reagan’s first term. Inside the lockbox you’ll find the key to the mailroom attached to a retractable leash. Unlock the mailroom and locate the light switch on the back wall and then unlock the second mail cabinet from the left. Inside the mail cabinet on the upper shelf clearly labeled “incoming mail” place the Fingerhut catalog and proceed to your next stop. Don’t forget your keys.
Step into my office… ...actually it’s more like one of my breakrooms in and around the sprawling 700 acre campus. These days it’s not too crowded because the furniture is wet but that doesn’t matter if your ass is already soaked and you’re dressed properly.
Same time different day.
One of those crows is my friend. He enjoys everything bagels with no cream cheese and or apple fritters. He doesn't drink coffee, he drinks rainwater that pools up on the handrails. The other crow is in training and likes whatever the first one likes.
with all due respect to bull's head 1942 this is no-eyed deer 2019 (58" x 33"x 6"). the bike parts have been kicking around the garage for years and were displayed for a while in a dark corner with the horns sadly drooping down. The gold frame found at a yard sale has been on the wall for a couple years with nothing but dull blue paint within. But this weekend it all came together when the wall behind the frame got some fresh red paint and the no-eyed deer got a couple reflector brackets to secure its horns to the wall in their full and upright position. For the holidays I plan to ziptie on a little red blinky light to create the red nosed no eyed deer. Ask me about shopping days 'til Christmas.
Just last week a driver from the government job said to me “I saw you riding down Brooklyn, looked like you’re just out for a Sunday ride. You guys don’t even break a sweat on those things do you”
I thought shit I was coasting downhill toward an intersection, my bike was empty, my route was done, it’s fucking Friday afternoon what are you talking about? But what I said was “I’m not a Jimmy John, I’m not in a hurry” and I had to stop myself from trying to explain anything more. It all pays the same and it might look like I’m riding slow but I’m actually the most efficient person in the room right now.
To the untrained eye smooth efficient movement doesn’t register and nobody embodied smooth efficiency like Tim Mason did. Cutting graceful lines and arcs through the core making money or winning races. The epitome of smooth.
Just the other week I was riding on the Burke Gilman at 7:11am toward the mothership when some guy yelled “your bag’s open” and I thought was that some joker I know joking? Was that guy just being a dick? Or did that guy think he was actually being helpful pointing out something I was not aware of? In any case he was annoying. I’m a crusty commuter with an ortlieb backpack and I ride with it open all the time unless it’s really really raining. Is it raining? You’ve seen Jackie and Jason rolling with open ortliebs all over town.
In 1998-99 I had an ortlieb backpack I wore to work as an hourly legal messenger but I had to take it off and put it on hundreds of times per day digging for documents and binder clips and affidavits and exhibits so I soon went back to a one strap bag and I sold it to another messenger after I wiped all the Keith-Haring-like-painted-design off that I put on because it seemed like a good idea at the time.
In 2019 I roll an ortlieb because it was a free promotional item for all Bike Works employees in 2014 or something like that and it still works and I only have to take it off and put it on a few times a day.
Just a couple hours ago I cut the lower third off the legs of a pristine pair of bib tights that I got at Bike Works NWT for $125 less than retail because they were a donation from a semilocal bike shop that went out of business. I’ve never been a big fan of bibshorts bibknickers or bibtights but the price was right and now they’re knickers. As the weather is getting cooler and layers start to layer up bib tights remind me of a story this messenger from Copenhagen told me. (the guy on the left) One wicked cold winter day he was layered up in various spandex getups including bib tights and or knickers as well as multiple jerseys and jackets and he had to take a piss. He made it to the mens room but by the time he began to peel off all the necessary layers to get down to business, he pissed his pants.
We made it to the 4:00 show yesterday at Central Cinema. The kids and I but we did not ride there in or on a cargo bike. The film was pretty great. I like cargo bikes. I like bikes. The film brought me to tears a few times when it touched on parenthood themes. The changes that come along with hauling around a kid or two. The changes that come along when the single life on a bike changes, when the simple life ain't so simple…
The production time of the project was long enough to show her kids growing up from two toddlers smooshed in the cargo bike to two preteens riding off on their own bikes. And that was pretty great to see.
The film also made me smile and nod in agreement when it touched on the whole idea of sitting in cars and the insulation and isolation from the world and things around you.
we didn't hang out for the panel discussion following the film because my kids were really ready to get the hell out of there. we were the first ones in and the first ones out.
It was a helluva hella corndog that day before the other day. Matt put on a good show with only three days notice. I wanted to take one photo outside Wa Legal but I didn’t then I actually tried to take one sitting in Louisa Boren and my device was frozen inoperable touch screen no touchy touchy so no photo bro. If I did take that photo it would be here side by side with this Hella photo from 12.5 years ago featuring the same Louisa Boren overlook and the same Rob Fury my fellow quinquagenarian. You’ll have to visualize it.
I didn’t wake up the next morning with a corndog tattoo but I know a few people that did.
A highlight for me was having a couple beers with Mr. Corndog on memory lane and talking about the old days of the Seattle that used to be and how there is no job that comes next after being a messenger. There is no promotion because dispatching sucks and so does the office and the mailroom at Lane Powell is not an option. There is no job that years of messengering specifically prepares you for and there is no job that even compares or offers all the little things.
I’m not a messenger but I used to be. Now I’m the final fifty fucking feet guy on an electric assist bathtub so I still get to walk in to offices and deliver things and walk out. Just this afternoon I walked into an office and kind of had to hold my breath as to not inhale too deeply the perfumes, colognes, microwave popcorns, air fresheners, aerosolized feces and simple chronic halitosis that stews and festers and makes up the atmosphere of indoor air and when I got back outside I shook my head and took a deep breath and reminded myself why I’m glad I don’t fucking work in there.
Here's to you Steve. this bud's for you and this 1999 commercial sums it up you'll just have to change the names as you hum it to yourself and put in all the security guards, traffic cops, receptionists, elevator operators, paralegals, court clerks, US marshalls, bank tellers, baristas, bar tenders, dispatchers, office workers, mail room dudes and other messengers that give you the subtle nod of recognition and respect that you've earned over the last 20 years.
as we talked about. my next coffee table book will focus on photographs of individually wrapped single serving sized bags of dogshit overflowing garbage cans in parks, playgrounds and public spaces.
but my next next coffee table book with feature photos of junior junior proudly holding up Swisher Sweet wrappers that he's spotted in situ.
don't even want to discuss my next next next coffee table book featuring photos of discarded dental picks.
I don't do a lot of book reviews but this is worth it. This is the good shit. James Tate will sit well on the shelf next to Joy Williams who wrote a book that appeared here and was perhaps the last time I talked about a book worth owning. Pour me a beer someday and ask me about the line between poetry and flash fiction or the line between prose and journalism or the line between a bike lane and a sharrow.
Can't say I knew of James Tate before this year and if I did it was lizard brain level. But when I saw his work in Poetry, then Fence, then the New Yorker it seemed to be everywhere preceding the release of this book. So I bought the book and then I learned more about him and saw his 10 or 12 other books available at the library.
I prefer to auto pilot back burner low bandwidth subconsciously lizard brain muscle memory pigeonhole all the stupid petty bullshit of everyday existence the workaday subsistence whenever I can. It’s often easier said than done but when it goes down it opens up a little space for the good shit.
Being 40 hour work week weak I don’t really care about your weekend plans or the idle chit chat that seems to be considered normal and or friendly. All that banter is an energy suck.
You can make it yourself at home, it takes about nine hours.
or
You can buy a 10lb chub of it at Safeway for $2.49.
Don’t ask me about $400 12-speed cassettes spanning 10-50t or the derailleurs that go with them. You’ll get nothing. Ask me about 7-speed freewheels and thumb shifters and shortcage XT derailleurs. This little number Steve set aside for me at Bike Works opens up possibilities to transform my monstrous single speed Rock Hopper into a 1 x 7 or make my kid’s Mt. Lion 1 x 6 look a whole lot cooler.
Which reminds me, I like IPA. I like Caddy Shack. I like Caddy-Shack-inspired names for IPA. In this big beer vortex we live in there are endless choices. But the colorful packaging graphics and great names are often far more impressive than the actual beer. this time the beer is as good as the name.
“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["the perfect riser bar"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the handlebar involved in this case is not that." Paraphrasing supreme court justice Potter Stewart’s famous quote. I’ve been digging around recently for a riser bar to neoretro-retrofit a bike I’ve had for 20 years. I cannot and will not try to document the metrics in millimeters of rise and degrees of sweep. I’m more into eye-balling it as I pull it from a milkcrate packed with used handlebars. Visualizing it and how it fits in on any given bike with particular attention to the stem it'll be stuck in. Visiting Bike Works yesterday I was surprised by the lack of packed milkcrates in both the warehouse and shop as they recently cleared shit out in their fall sale. Recycled Cycles actually had more used bars to look at this week and that hasn't happened very often in the last ten years. The search continues. I'll know it when I see you get nothing and like it.
“pickup a rush roundtrip from the ACLU going to 44 West Mercer. Wait for the signature then take it back right away. We need you in the core to cover Nooners!”
Who is this we? We only have two riders and the other one called in sick, again. And 44 West Mercer my ass. Bad addresses are no problem and We’ll be there right away. Labor costs are down while caloric output is steadily increasing in this December weather. It’s coming up Burberry everywhere, but where is the accompanying warm fuzzy holiday feeling I read about in the paper?
Oh yeah. It’ll be a quick little jaunt out of the core…
“Copy ACLU and the story to go with it”, I chirp
There used to be a little patch of nature on the way to LQA, a wetlands preservation greenbelt. It was one of my favorite strips of asphalt in Seattle. Surrounded by trees with a short descent into a sweeping right turn and no traffic on the smoothest road ever. The city recently sold the land to developers after the river dried up and there wasn’t really any wetland to preserve anymore. Then budget shortfalls heavily outweighed the weak protests about the loss of greenspace in the city. The loss of a place to sit down and actually feel like you weren’t in Seattle. The loss of a place where you could pull off the road to take a piss and easily disappear into thick undergrowth and maybe say hi to a few happy raccoons and some crazy looking birds and chirp out. The loss of a place where a Vietnam vet I once met, could campout for months.
“Base to Matt!”
“I’m still 4 blocks away” I say, “it‘s a bad address anyway”
“Swipe it once!”
What? Swipe what? I’m not exactly sure what that phrase means, but in this context, I catch his misinformed drift. No 10-9 needed. This job would be a lot cooler if I didn’t have to talk to anyone on the Nextel. If I wanted to talk on the phone, I’d work in an office. Now I'm starting to smell a little stress. The attorney I‘m looking for, if he even has an office on West Mercer Street, and if he's in his office and available, will most likely take his time signing these documents, especially since the ACLU appears to be hounding him. It’s all the same to me, but I don’t need any added stress direct connecting me. 44 West Mercer? Is that a typo or what? It’s not like it could be confused with “eighteen” over the phone. And it’s not as simple or recognizable as the old 1911 2nd Ave dyslexic slip.
I’m almost there or where it would be but this road doesn’t go through. Maybe I can take the stairs and they’ll spit me out up on Mercer...
I open my eyes and look at the clock, it’s 12:03 so I guess we don’t need to worry about those Noon rushes anymore... But I’m not sure where I am. These stairs could be in any building built within the last 30 years. There are no windows but the floors are clearly labeled on each landing. I try the doors on each floor, until I find one that's unlocked on level M2. When I step out of the stairwell the temperature is 20 degrees warmer and the stuffy air reeks like Graham & Dunn. The walls are covered with O’Keefe impressions and bad bleached bone desert scene murals. Around the corner I find myself in that Azteca we talked about earlier. Only it’s no longer an Azteca. But it obviously used to be. They just taped over the name on the sign and wrote the new name --Guadeloupe’s--in sharpie. If this building wasn’t even here three weeks ago how could Azteca already go out of business?..
I’m just trying to find the out, the way, up to West Mercer.
A woman in a hound’s-tooth coat with matching earmuffs is leaving the restaurant with a stack of Styrofoam clamshells to-go. She gets up in my personal space and tells me there’s an elevator that goes up to Mercer. But I didn’t even ask her a question. When I approach the front counter, the hostess and a two busboys are gathered around a large Anasazi ceramic bowl filled with individually wrapped peppermint candies. But these aren’t the good kind, they’re some cheap Chinese knock-offs that look stale. When I reach for a mint, the busboys laugh at me and mumble something and before I say anything, the hostess says she’ll show me the elevator. She walks around the counter once in a clockwise direction then into the restaurant. I follow her but have trouble keeping up. The place is packed. The aisles are full and the tables are too close together. The third aisle is less crowded so I make my way through and bang my messenger bag against the back of several people’s heads as they eat their lunches of chimichanga combo platters and nachos mega grande. Nobody says anything they just get very angry, Seattle style. Near the far wall I come upon a large bald woman with the heavy shadow of a recently shaved moustache. She’s wearing a fake tuxedo T-shirt and the bottom half of a Snuggy held up with an old innertube. I can hear Simple Minds blaring on the one earbud she has in, but it doesn't remind me of Breakfast Club. She’s sitting on the floor and she's in the process of breast feeding a kid in a Houston Oilers helmet with an Earl Campbell jersey that‘s too small for him. No matter how far I extend my leg to step over her and the kid, the cleat on my shoe keeps snagging on her shirt because of her enormous breasts. After a few attempts looking like karate kid, I’m committed and finally ready to shift my weight forward with a little hop off my left foot, my right shoe pulls her shirt down. She says, “I see an alligator” but I keep walking, scared to look back because I assume she’s referring to one of her tattoos that is now exposed. When I eventually get out of Guadeloupe’s, the hostess is long gone and all I can see are non-descript cement walls and rows of planter boxes containing no plants and no soil but filled with exhausted inkjet cartridges. There are piles of expired fire extinguishers stacked neatly here and there. Walking and walking the vacant office plaza there is nobody in sight.
Pondering various maladies that could cause me to feel like I’m walking in quicksand wearing cement shoes and a lead suit. Expending so much energy and accomplishing so little. It’s no longer stressful, just frustrating.
I have no idea what time it is and I can’t remember where I locked my bike.
a sweet sweet Italian steel frame with a Campy Record headset punctuated by a threadless stem converter, a stack of spacers and an adjustable stem maxed out to eleven clamped to a drop bar with interrupter levers.
It’s not so much a commentary on bilking the taxpayers. That story is worn out and worn thin. Key words are replaced and rearranged and it runs again. So much so it’s no longer interesting. Like Inslee’s presidential campaign expenses. Although this has to be one of the most expensive bike racks in the state of Washington, with room for six bikes to get out of the rain. I see it used once every other month or so. The only bike rack I can think of that costs more taxpayer dollars is a car on the light rail that has hooks for only two bikes with room for a total of six bikes on an entire train.
I’m more interested in light and shadow and the angle of the sun in late August at this latitude. Negative space. Parallel lines. Groups of three. Triptychs and Guided by Voices lyrics.
What are we waiting for? We’re not waiting for godot we’re waiting for our supervisor to walk by with yet another americano. That’s how we roll. Those lines painted on the road are suggestions that some people follow. I got a sharrow here bro but nobody is really sure what that means. It’s not piffy, it’s pithy as in concise or terse. Occam’s disposable razor. Single use throw away culture. Nepotism runs in the family. The map says “you are here” how did I get here? Dead reckoning from the last known fix in 1997. A nonspecific length of innertube wrapped around then covered in electrical tape and secured with neatly trimmed zip ties. I’m not making this shit up I’m just the conduit moving it around town.
Lately I’ve been thinking about the final 50 feet and this photo that Craig Etheridge took ten years ago gets the message across.
An autonomous vehicle could find 1201 3rd but it couldn’t get the documents up to Perkins Coie. A drone could find 1001 4th but it couldn’t bring those four boxes up to the 21st floor and stack them behind the paralegal’s desk. The on-trac robot won't catch the typo and will be circling the block near 2nd Ave West when it should be going to 2nd Ave South.
Lots of logistics experts and transportation planners sit around conference room tables and talk about streamlining delivery, improving loading docks and traffic flow in dense urban areas. But they still need a messenger to take that theoretical shit the final fifty feet. I can assure you there were no experienced messengers sitting in on any of those meetings.
I think it would be tough to find a messenger that could stomach one of these meetings and there's a $15,000 buy-in for a seat at the table
Most experts agree that the final piece of the puzzle will not be automated for many years.
give me your tired, your poor, your old eyewear from a previous team sponsorship that you can no longer wear because of your current contract
August 6, 2019
Jonny Sundt’s Axleys finally bit the dust. August 5, 2019 10:27am I reached down to retrieve them from the bottom of the cargo box but because their right arm was pinned under a box of books it bent backwards beyond repair.
Since whatever year (2006ish) Mr. Sundt gave me these shades they mostly sat in storage and came out once in a while in the summer months. I believe they made at least one trip with me on a great bike ride across Iowa. But recently they’ve gotten more daily use because the sun reflects off the large laminated campus map affixed atop the cargo box on the electric assist bathtub I roll around in Monday through Friday giving everything a sunny disposition.
Pilder junior junior has developed a keen eye for Swisher Sweet wrappers in the wild as you may have seen 15 or 20 photos of him here holding fragments of varying flavor and size. I have not gotten him hooked on hunting dental picks although it wouldn’t be hard to do. I have however gotten Dr 37 Mike to see them all over the place because once you see them you can’t unsee them and they’re everywhere. He recently sent me photos of a bike ride on a pristine wilderness trail where he rolled up upon a dental pick.
Poached the photo above from a book I like but I’d like it even more if its constructions were constructed with only things found on the ground.
My next coffee table book is going to be photos of garbage cans near schools and parks overflowing with hundreds of colorful bags of dogshit and photos of entitled dog owners setting just one more little doodie bag on top of the precarious pile.
the ponytail won’t hide the bald spot but the beret will
taciturn fecundity
psychosomatic consumerism
how many different routes can he walk from his office to the men’s room
She obsessed compulsively over the details delusional in thinking that if she stuck to the routine she’d have some control over the outcome the results the events unfolding yesterday today and everyday
Nomar Garciaparra
Step out of the box
Idle hands are tools of the devil
Set an alarm but be sure to wake before it goes off
TMJ-inducing stress dreams somewhere along the coffee-beer continuum
When your first stop this morning was your last stop last night
Dead men don’t wear plaid
(Your Name Here)
arial rounded italic bold
numerous variables must fall into place for the two commuters to meet each morning at the same time in the same place on the Burke Gilman Trail
plug n chug
dig deeper
get in the drops
the broken clock on the wall behind the bar keeps catching my eye subconsciously noting the passage of time or lack thereof same time different day
free beer tomorrow
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I’m not angry I’m disappointed
Is it anxiety? Is it creativity?
it’s the other side of the same coin
Yin Yang this bro
Franklin claims Kenny G but Garfield had Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Lee
Ask me about entitled millennials on electric assist cargo bikes
Ask me if I had a good weekend
Ask me about your learned helplessness
it’s a steep learning curve but any one-eyed dyslexic monkey could do it as long as they can ride a bike and pretend to differentiate between 353650 and 353560 as well as 355630 and 355360
do me a favor - don’t do me any favors
separate they’re three simple words used in a variety of contexts but when they’re strung together just so they invoke feelings of dread and disgust like no other. Those three words are: South Lake Union
Proceed to the point of the turn
This too shall pass
On your left
broken social scene behind blue eyes
servings per container alcohol by volume
as of 7/30/19 Patsy Swayze is kicking the shit out of Merce Cunningham
Yesterday I delivered a shovel to Life Sciences which was a 5 minute jaunt but it reminded me of the guy that took the photo below, the guy that rides around town with a shovel and a rake, a hori hori and a pair of gloves. But the real highlight of the ride was Patsy Swayze. G&O has nicknames for the electric assist getups on the bikes they build. The fleet we’ve had features the Merce Cunningham which is based on the EZ front hub motor. And now we have two new bikes featuring the Patsy Swayze built around the GMAC rear hub motor from GRIN Technologies. This thing kicks ass. It’s powerful and ideal for hauling heavy cargo with the regenerative braking. Coasting down hill you’re actually pumping juice back into the battery and not burning through brake pads every two weeks. It was designed by gear heads and bike geeks that actually get outside and ride. Not by a bunch of chuffers sitting at a conference room table discussing trends in the bike industry.
one of these custom made caps not hats you've seen on instagram made its way into my zipcode and soon packs of them will be making their way across Iowa from west to east
The people who went down from above and up from below and down from above and up from below are the people who did not go up from below nor down from above nor up from below nor down from above.
Excuse me, do you know your way around campus or are you just a delivery guy?
I'm not sure what you're going to ask me next but I already know that if I do know the answer I don't really want to tell you or talk to you or help you out.
In dense urban areas bike messengers are rolling Thomas Guides full of local knowledge but they're also magnets for stupid questions from tourists and bros. And when the questions are loaded with attitude and condescension it's best to just say "I don't know"
I even made a silkscreen 13 years ago and printed it right on my bag. I don't know
I do know that Tapatio will always remind me of Stevil, even when it's in individually wrapped single serving sized containers and that this is more than I ever wanted to know about Pantone 18-3737
stumbled upon this book at the library and I like it enough to suggest it to you if you're into writing and words and introspection and the petty details of everyday life and the ways that it all inspires bigger questions
An ode to Bike Works this is and all those other nonprofit bike shops out there asking for donations. I’m not a yourbikesucks shit talker unless you can’t keep it out of my face and your bike really does suck, then I will gladly point it out. I have pulled 10000 donated bikes out of dumpsters and rolled them, bike trailered them and driven them in trucks and vans back to base as well as walked them from the Ferdinand fence over to Hudson Street on repeat repeatedly so I feel like I earned the right to talk shit about adjustable stems and blown out front suspension of disbelief. An upright comfort hybrid doesn’t speak to me the way it did to its original owner. Seattle sits on an aquifer of cycling, which is great because the donations roll in. However, while the board of directors is bragging about bike donations the foot soldiers are out there diving into dumpsters full of tangled piles of rusty shitty bikes extracting them one by one and it kinda sucks sometimes. I have a great deal of respect for those that continue to work in small nonprofit bike shops.
There’s a brief stretch of time in June between the end of spring quarter and the start of summer quarter when 30,000 undergraduates disappear from the habitrails in and around the education factory and a fellow government worker refers to this as the most wonderful time of the year.
If you’ve looked at this page here once or twice over the past 12 years you probably know that I cannot string most-wonderful-time together in a sentence without visualizing Toni Braxton in a red turtleneck. If you’re having trouble seeing what I’m seeing this will help.
Found this rock near the Meany loading dock and it says I should post a photo on the Yakima Valley Rocks facebook page. But I don’t do facebook.
Plausible deniability grows on trees in Rainier Beach and the trees grow well down there on the edge of Skyway. Sally took this photo of a beautiful sunset in early June and I cropped a couple characters out of it but that’s another story and maybe you already saw it all on instagram. I know an attorney at Perkins Coie and she can comment further on the importance of hand position and a proper toe point but that’s yet another story. That’s me in the corner bracing for impact focusing on my beer in the OH NO 5 - 0 mug that was presented to me earlier that evening. The mug was still in that same spot the next morning full of beer so perhaps I just set it down and walked away only to forget where I put my beer so let’s just say I have no recollection of the events in question and therefore I can neither confirm nor deny any allegations.
it's the same on the weekend as the rest of the days except the seamless transitions along the coffee-beer continuum occur at slightly different times as today is my Saturday but yesterday was my Friday
I stumbled upon an 18-8 stainless steel double wall vacuum sealed spill proof coffee cup designed in Montana (made in China) at a thriftstore for a small fraction of the MSRP and then when I stuck this sticker on it became a throwback that fits fine in the Profile Design cup holder holding hot things hotter and cold things colder longer just don't ask me about #vanlife fucking horseshit photos of coffee cups and french presses in the woods
I've had a cargo bike at home for 8 years and I've resisted the electric assist trend because I really like simplicity and also because I don't ride it very much at all in 2019. I'm very happy I did not choose an electric get-up back in 2011 because by now it would be so outdated I'd have to upgrade two or three more times to keep up with the technology if I was the kind of person that felt like they needed to keep up with trends and technology. My plan is to keep on keeping it simple going with the go slow grocery getter powered by a 1 x 8 drivetrain with pedals pushed by my feet.
the future on the work cargo bike front looks like a GMAC rear hub motor from GRIN. I can tell you more about it when I know more about it. But I can tell you that the electric assist is an essential part of the job as a nonessential government worker
this is a little list I made 2009ish as there wasn't much bike messenger work so I was always scribbling in a notebook...
...ten years later I'm delivering shit rolling around on an electric assist bathtub and the list continues. It never ends. I just get another notebook.
just yesterday morning...rolling the Burke Gilman at 7:13am a few blocks from work and I heard a booming "pilderwasser" so I stopped and turned around in a RAGBRAI flashback and there was Ian. I knew Ian as pickle-roll-yerba-mate-pickle-juice & rum across Iowa long before I knew what Bicycle Benefits were but now I see him in random places at random times in this time zone for a few minutes every few years or so.
there is no fucking evite but this is an electronic reminder and please note the start time may have changed since you got your paper invitation in the mail two months ago and because I still see things in a hard copy way a printed paper cut & paste like scissors and glue way and a how will it look photocopied seventy five times way I’d like to think I could print this out and put it in an envelope and have a messenger deliver it or I could just fax it to you.
The dream is always the same... (I cannot string those words together without noting the Risky Business dream sequence)... I’m walking out of the Henry and it’s 10:23am the gallery isn’t open yet but City Grind is and in my left hand I’m holding a cup of coffee and brown bag containing two small breakfast burritos at the same time on my right index finger I’m twirling my bike keys on a AHTBM key leash much like a bored lifeguard home from college for the summer twirling his whistle on a lanyard endlessly as I ford the passing period river of undergraduates flowing to and fro I stutter step and the keys go flying off my finger on a high arcing trajectory then everything goes into slow motion and the keys soon land deep in the bushes just past the Schmitz overpass.
this recentDANKbags photo brings to mind from deep in the photographic memory another second avenue bike lane shit photo bro from a simpler time when horses walked the streets, a 6-pack of tallboys was $5 and the bike lane ran in one direction
some day a real rain will come and wash the pollen off the rubber baby backup bumpers on the loading dock at Meany Hall until then little light sprinkles like bike to work day rains will just swirl the pollen soup creating small patterns on surfaces that remind one of a bigger picture out there
When I was your age they called it “Bike to Work Day” which in my mind translates as “honey can you pick me up after work because it might rain later day” But now they call it “Bike Everywhere Day” or something like that. Which brings me back to this red bike, the most piece of shit bike I’ve seen in a long time. If this is your bike please don’t take it personally really riding a bike, any bike is great and it beats driving or taking an uber or riding the bus and I hope to see the proud owner of this bike cruising across campus someday because as you can see they love their bike and lock it up with not only a u-lock but two cable locks too. I’ve seen a lot of bikes that suck and this one really really really sucks. I’ve pulled thousands of bikes out of tangled piles in donation dumpsters. I’ve seen some shit bikes but this is the cheapest possible cheap shit MSRP completely full of cost cutting measures right down to the straight seatpost the lack of bottle cage bolts and the bolt-on front hub the bottom bracket and the welded on fucking crap chainring. A bike like this retails for about $189 at walmart but it costs about $14.50 to produce in a factory in China, even less if you up your order to 10,000 units. The coaster brake allows the kid to putoff the look of a brakeless fixed gear which is hilarious because it’s so Fast Friday ago and this kid was in 1st grade back then. But in reality this bike is unsafe at any speed over 7mph. Parked on the bike rack at Atmospheric Sciences I just can’t stop staring at it and shaking my head because it’s such a piece of shit painted red as if dumping a gallon of febreeze in the alley behind the dumpster will mask the smell but it only makes the alley smell more like piss and shit and vomit with a hint of febreeze. For $189 you could buy a solid used bike at a place like Bike Works and ride it to work everyday for a long long time.
I prefer to take a holistic approach to my compartmentalization. This site has been up for 731 weeks or as I like to say 14 years. Since 2005 not much has changed here and not much will change. you cannot make this site mobile friendly or download the app or do whatever the kids are doing these days while they stare at their phones.
Some things however have changed out there on earth and they're growing like weeds.
little plastic wrappers on the little plastic straws on the little plastic juice pouches
May 6, 2019
recently I’ve been noticing piles and piles of spent toner cartridges stashed in the corners and closets within the seedy underbelly of the large education factory that I roll around most weekdays. But the other day I stayed at the house of a friend’s friend and in the morning had a convenient cup of coffee and since then I’ve been visualizing thousands of kiddie pools filled with cashed keurig k-cup pods in a seemingly endless variety. I know it’s just a drop in the bucket just a scratch on the surface of the tip of the iceberg of our insatiable appetite for shipping containers full of plastic shit from China. If in one weekend visit I burned through four of those cute little fucking pods pulling the spent one and chucking it in the garbage only to replace it with the promise of a fresh clean convenient pod… ...what if I stayed at the friend’s friend’s house and saved them up for one year in kiddie pools in their backyard? How about 5 years? Just one little tangible indicator of consumption. Like toner cartridges tossed aside by 80,000 students, faculty and staff. And they say we’re moving towards being a paperless society. Yeah right, and the fax machine will kill the bike messenger. Or how about how the fucking mountains of styrofoam coolers and packing material those guys at molecular engineering collect reminds me to remind you to ask those guys down at DANK bags about their 6-pack ring collection.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not claiming to be some kind of green guru environmental expert on recycling or something or anything or something I’m just noticing things. Ask me about disposable diapers and asswipes and how anything that says “flushable” is not even close to ok to flush. I drink a lot of coffee and sometimes I use a reusable cup. I drink a lot of beer so I have a kegerator but not because I’m worried about saving the earth. Finally, in closing, I ride a ride a bike but not for environmental reasons, it just makes sense.
each time I pass an armored car that's parked in a random bullshit spot I mumble to myself "I heard those guys are dicks" and I smile thinking of Seth
I like to say phantom ass-pocket-U-lock syndrome which is a specific form of phantom nostalgia syndrome, poets like to use the word saudade, but that guy in the hard hat is on the phone saying "please send 25 over to link together a grip of starbucks straws with a wad of gum on the end so he can fish out the five dollar bill that's down there"
sometimes reading a book review is enough and there's no need to read the book
It’s easy to poke fun at office workers when you get to pop in and out paying only brief visits once or twice per day. Long enough to smell what was in the microwave or who wears too much perfume or catch a snippet of empty conversation about parking or traffic or TV or the weather.
some offices I visit once a day evoke strong feelings and reminders of why I am not a 9-5 office kind of guy.
"The phrase is sometimes used without derision, when a person's activities might be perceived as merely reinventing the wheel, when they actually possess additional value. For example, "reinventing the wheel" is an important tool in the instruction of complex ideas. Rather than providing students simply with a list of known facts and techniques and expecting them to incorporate these ideas perfectly and rapidly, the instructor instead will build up the material anew, leaving the student to work out those key steps which embody the reasoning characteristic of the field." -wikipedia bro
I like to think a HCDE student spent her entire winter quarter designing a bottle cage and 3D printing it. She got an A- on the project then took it over to Recycled Cycles and got $5 store credit for it. The next day I picked it up and took a photo then chucked it back in the bucket and bought two Profile Design cages in pristine condition for less than half the price of her big project.
my friend neighbor got this at a thrift store a few months ago and brought it over to see if I could revive the blownout brifters but I could not and it's been in my garage ever since collecting dust. I did take it out to take this photo. Viewing this bike through the eyes of a bike mechanic that refurbished a shit load of used bikes I feel just a bit shy of tepid. As my former mechanic self I might not touch it and sell it dirt cheap as-is. I might strip it of its useful parts in order of excitement for me they are: the el diablos, the rear derailleur, the brake calipers, the stem and the cranks. Then I'd chuck the frame as far as I could. ( I did suggest my friend take his new used bike to Bike Works and have them set it up just like he likes ) This bike doens't do much for me except remind me of 33 John because he rode one in 1997 when we both worked at Elliott Bay. If anyone can delaminate carbon fiber 33 John can. exploit the bond between carbon and aluminum. enjoy the strange creaks and crackling and croaking of a frame pushed past its limits. ride a bike into the ground remove the parts you like and repeat. Strong-like-ox 33 could play Grizzly Adams in a bike messenger centric remake. I remember when he was working Zen Courier and he destroyed the hood of a Honda with his fists after the driver cut him off and he would have gotten to the driver too if the construction workers building Benaroya Hall didn't call the cops. I remember when 33 was dispatching at Elliott Bay and he took a minute to sing the Gilligan's Island theme song on the mic repeating the opening line many many times in a row cracking himself up. I remember the "promotion" to dispatcher didn't suit 33 too well, sitting in a small windowless room with a phone and a radio is a long way from roaming the streets on a bike especially when you rip gnarly farts all day everyday like 33 John.
One hot summer day in September 1987 about 1:20:43 pm I was delivering a small copy machine and seven three inch binders to a residence in Redmond for Davis, Wright, Tremaine. It was such a nice day I thought I’d bike the long way around on the Burke Gilman Trail. I got as far as downtown Bothell when a chicken came out of the brush and ran under my front tire. With the extensive weight on myself and the bike the front wheel ran over the chicken injuring it and gave the tire a flat. With only nine minutes left to make the delivery, I strapped the dying chicken on top of my satchel hoping to find a vet hospital on the way to my delivery. I threw the bike over my right shoulder, carried the copy machine under my left arm and satchel on my back with the notebooks and chicken. I ran to Redmond and made my delivery, but it was too late for the chicken. I called in to dispatch and Chris Van Damme answered, I told him of my plight and Chris being an animal lover, sent me off to give the bird a proper send off. So I started on my way back looking for a nice place to dispose of the chicken. On my way through Woodinville a sign caught my eye, CHICKEN. I ran over the train tracks to where I saw the sign and lo and behold ARMADILLO BBQ. We threw the chicken on the grill, slapped some sauce on it and I’ve been in love with their food ever since.
I'm not creating the bullshit I'm just moving it around town
April 4, 2019
today I read this little ditty I wrote 20 years ago and what sticks with me now is how much has continued to stick with me like reaching into my tool belt for the same old worn out tools mumbling those same phrases to myself 20 years later like that crazy lady at the bus stop I'm still juggling the petty details of everyday life just as I was in 1999 making good time but not making much progress on the personal road to inner peace
today before I set out for work I said to myself I'd like to get myself a Free Range Cycles T-shirt and I'm not going to buy it on Amazon I'm going to buy it from Free Range Cycles a truly local bike shop and then I thought maybe I can bring them a souvenir of yesteryear like an issue of kickstand with a Free Range ad designed by Mitch in the late 90s. In the archives I found a pristine copy of issue #8 so I notarized it and then I hand-delivered it via bicycle to the shop at 35th & Phinney and along the way I read the little ditty about bad coffee contained therein.
Free Range doesn't have T-shirts but they will some day
between Robert Aldrich and Kenneth McCaffree that's me lost in the petty details of everyday living tuning in and out of long winded stories about something or other how your mom named you Carroll but you went by Chuck then you served on the Faculty Senate for six years until that incident ended your run zoned out like your Husky Card down to its last $2 when you entered the three digits for your bag of sriracha ranch potato skins and the bag jammed in the double corkscrew hanging by one fraction of one corner your card now down to $0.25 unable to purchase another bag to hopefully push out two you summoned help from a bystander to tilt the entire vending machine forward to March 31, 2019
Most people size-up the situation as they approach the 4-way stop and they may or may not stop exceptchuffers on lime bikes that blow through full speed exploiting the forcefield that they believe enveloped them when they downloaded the app
John Forester encouraged transportation planners not to use the phrase “except bicycles”
Traffic was gridlock except bicycles flowed freely
There will be no parking provided except bicycle
Anytime an arterial in Seattle is redesigned it shall include bike lanes except 35th Ave NE
The link light rail was planned out 27 years ago with forethought for everything except bicycles
Seattle is a great place to ride a bike except in Rainier Beach
two bike messengers walk into a bar 25 years later but the bar is gone and in its place is a five story condo featuring street-level retail that includes vegan ice cream and organic pet food
in the early 90s I bought this little guy in the cake decoration section at Fountain Drug in Bellingham. His name is boy on phone and I like to think of him speaking not only on a land line but on a rotary phone in a simpler time that only exists in my phantom nostalgia syndrome memories.
these days when I see everyone walking around staring at their phones and stepping into the street in front of busses, garbage trucks and cyclists I'm dumbfounded but I smile and think of boy on phone.
I met the owner of this solid state Ross the other Monday and she calls it her "tank"
she's had it since 1982 and she'll probably still have it when all the local bike shops go out of business because the bike industry goes completely on-line direct-to-consumer-mail-order delivery via On-Trac independent contractors and bike repair will only be available from mobile bike shops
the cool thing is she won't need much repair work done on this beauty in the next 30 years
i had a dream i was day dreaming near the bike rack in the tunnel at Two Union. as i listened to the rain and stared into space one of the stodgy security guards in an ill-fitting blue blazer came out and said to me sternly "Sir, I need to move your bike, it's blocking the loading dock" but as he reached for the handlebars and braced for my over reaction, i just chuckled because it wasn't my bike
to a simple time before amazon prime robot grocery stores and drones dropping your immediate gratification shit in the neighbor's yard a time of one inch threaded headsets when a pair of wrenches was all you needed and your dog was dropping his shit in the neighbor's yard because dogs roamed free and coke was 50 cents and coffee was a dollar and there were not 5 or 6 choices of what fucking kind of milk you want with your 142 boost and 5 or 6 hundred headsets to choose from in the qbp catalog
two parallel lines wrap around a perfect cylinder coming back around the end becomes the beginning a commencement of sorts sort of rolling over to Albertsons for a free cookie only that's not Albertsons anymore it's a Metropolitan Market and they don't do the free cookie thing bro but the elegant simplicity of the formula to calculate the volume of that cylinder is like a stack of cookies
i've often pondered the fine line between genius and insanity and i've always been a big fan of lists and collections. last week i finished reading Donald Antrim's piece in the New Yorker after starting and stopping it a few times because it's not exactly uplifting reading first thing in the morning
but his list cut & pasted below is a good one.
Depression, hysteria, melancholia, nervousness, neurosis, neurasthenia, madness, lunacy, insanity, delirium, derangement, demonic possession, black humors, black bile, yellow bile, the black dog, the blues, the blue devils, a brown study, the vapors, a funk, a storm, the abyss, an inferno, Hell, a pain syndrome, stress, an anxiety disorder, lack of affect, an affective disorder, a mood disorder, panic, loneliness, bad wiring, a screw loose, a mercurial temperament, irritability, schizophrenia, unipolar disorder, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit disorder, borderline personality disorder, laziness, pain, rumination, grief, mourning, malingering, unhappiness, hopelessness, sadness, low spirits, invalidism, despondency, dysthymia, detachment, disassociation, dementia praecox, neuralgia, fibromyalgia, oversensitivity, hypersensitivity, idiocy, an unsound mind, cowardice, obstinacy, apathy, recalcitrance, spleen, a broken heart, battle fatigue, shell shock, self-pity, self-indulgence, self-centeredness, weakness, withdrawal, distraction, distemper, a turn in the barrel, a break in a life narrative, bad thoughts, bad feelings, coming undone, coming apart, falling apart, falling to pieces, willfulness, defiance, thoughts of hurting oneself or others, the thousand-yard stare, craziness, rage, misery, mania, morbidity, genius, suicidality, suicidal ideation, aggression, regression, decompensation, drama, breakdown, crackup, catatonia, losing one’s mind, losing one’s shit, losing one’s way, wasting away, psychic disorganization, spiritual despair, shame, raving, the furies, a disease, an enigma, a tragedy, a curse, a sin, and, of course, psychosis—suicide, in the past and in our time, has been called many things.
Even when the hair grows back it’ll still be 3:33 and in my time zone it will never really be 4:20 bro my clock runs slow or fast depending on how much horseshit is in the room and on hallmark holidays half past a monkey's ass inverse proportionally even directly it was psychosomatically suggested to me by a pharmaceutical company and i said i see the consumer feedback focus groups came up with another spectacular name for the thing placebonoyoudiunt placebo yes they did if you think it isit is a high resolution digital photo of a black & white line drawing of an analog watch inked seven layers deep in the skin no more no less 3 x 1 = the magic number
the white knuckle commutes kinda suck up a few extra calories but they're nowhere near as exhausting as the endless conversations speculations calculations about the weather.
this shit makes me appreciate a normal commute to work kinda like getting kicked in the balls makes me appreciate all the times I didn't get kicked in the balls.
In May 2016 this cover appealed to me for several reasons. I like the artist I like the art I like the subject summed up so well in a clean attractive package.
In February 2019 I can add a few more reasons this image appeals to me as I slowly roll around an amazing 700 acre campus on an electric assist bathtub making my way from place to place picking a line through thousands of college kids staring and their fucking phones. I have a carabiner full of keys clipped near my right front belt loop and unique perspective on the ivory tower as well as a behind the scenes pass to visit the not so scenic underbelly and daily nitty gritty of a very large university.
30 years ago I was a clueless college kid with some half baked ideas of what a college education would mean to people out in the real world. I now know what it means to me and I don’t give a shit what it means to other people and I know what I want to be when I grow up
I wanna be free
I wanna be free to do what I wanna do
I wanna be free to ride
I wanna be free to ride my machine without being hassled by the man
And I wanna get loaded
fucking forks in the road (ffitr)
1990 Unpaid Internship
One semester at the Gallagher-Widmeyer Group in Washington DC. they offered me a job as soon as I graduated and I said "no thank you. DC is not for me"
1991 Unpaid Internship Offer
full-time unpaid internship at a PR firm in Bellevue. I turned it down so I could continue my grocery store deli job and continue to pay the rent
1992 Interview for Internship
I slept through it, as in, I woke up hours after I my interview was scheduled
1993 Application for Internship
I was in contact with a bigwig Anthropology professor at WSU about archaeology research blah blah blah. He called me and got my machine, as in, answering machine with the cute little cassette tapes and the message on the tape was Mudhoney's sample of the Wild Angels speech. Professor said "the first thing you need to do is change that message" and I never returned his call
1997 Graduate School
I got accepted to a Masters in Teaching program and got a job as a bike messenger in the spring to work through the summer and start school full-time in the fall. When I received my financial aid statement and saw the bottom line on the loan I blew off grad school and worked as a bike messenger on and off and on and off until 2010.
Shaggy just sent me this photo of a bag he made for the Stupor Bowl. it looks to be rather labor intensive and I have a feeling he's happy to be done with it.
and now a little Shaggy reference point to a day when it wasn't -55°F
This Sunday past I stopped by the Bike Works warehouse sale for about 4 minutes and saw some people I used to know (see photo bro) I also looked over the piles of tires frames forks stems bars levers pedals jerseys and complete bikes and took a deep breath and smiled happy that I only had to spend 4 minutes glancing at them and not relocate them 157 times and then try to sell them or recycle them or re-donate them or find more storage space for them. I have a deep appreciation for those folks that do.
And about 12 hours earlier I had a dream I was starting a new job soon in a bike shop owned and operated by Rob Kittelson (see photo below bro) it was a TMJ-inducing bad bike shop dream. On the bright side my new coworkers would be cool and there was this naive sort of enthusiasm and optimism that comes with the opening of a new bike shop a glimmer of hope that “this one will be different, this one will succeed, this one will bring something fresh” only to be crushed by the bottom line that is reality and the fact that it will most likely be out of business within 18 months.
one of the guys down at DANK bags was taking an online quiz the other night to qualify for the Jeopardy Bike Messenger tournament when he stumbled upon this stock photo featuring the well known Perkins Coie attorney Molly Foster fka the well known bike messenger Molly Foster
standing on a street corner Wednesday rain dripping off my helmet into my short americano with a thousand mile stare I couldn't help but think of 18 and a conversation I often had with him many times unspoken or boiled down to very few words the gist being "I'm getting too old for this shit"
the Hunter style in a classic understated grey wool perfect for January in Seattle under my helmet each and every day all day long and simply cool enough to wear around town without a helmet as in without a bike as in I'm not trying to always look like a chuffer commuter cascade member you know like a hose clamped milk crate douche bag expecting respect from a bungee corded pickle bucket Dexter Avenue warrior.
these photos are years and years old but we also got new caps for the whole family including the pizza print the sushi and a 4-panel cap in the most comfortable flannel ever.
when I showed this to the guys down at DANK bags they agreed with my horseshit assessment and pointed out it's about 20 years too late
if anyone knows anything about coozies over the past 20 years it's those guys at DANK and as president of the profile design cup holders club I know a thing or two about making seamless transitions along the coffee-beer continuum with a few well placed botttle cage bolts.
this site has been up for 712 weeks. ask a fucking millennial to convert that to years for you. it's 2019 and there are a lot of questions but Joe Biden is not the answer. sitting in a car the other day driving past 411 Fairview North...holy shit