quality of life issues

12 x 1.75 tires at 35 psi

pilderwasser sticker stuck

Bologna Sandwiches


A few days ago a friend said “So I assume you like bologna, or at least it doesn’t make you sick.”

His assumption was correct; although I don’t really like bologna, it doesn’t make me sick.

I smiled and agreed with him, but I couldn’t explain why. I began to consider the reasoning behind it all. The motivation, the purpose, the true meaning of bologna. As I discovered the role it plays in my life, it became obvious that there is so much more going on here than just my lunch.

Given the choice between a bologna sandwich and just about any other food I would drop the bologna in a second. However on any given day you can probably find bologna in my refrigerator. I often eat it for lunch and I have eaten it for dinner on many occasions.

Bologna is the bottom line of lunches. It is the slacker of sandwiches. It gets the job done, it exists, it fills the void and that’s about all. One bologna sandwich is much like another. After a while the taste is irrelevant. Bologna takes on the taste of its surroundings: bread, cheese, mustard. Before the sandwich, my stomach is empty, after the sandwich my stomach is not empty. It is not a dining experience, it’s a fill-the-void experience. No thought is invested, no creativity required.

I eat bologna not because I like the taste but because I don’t give it much thought. The process does not begin in the break room where I eat my pasty little sandwich and pretend to be interested in the same old women’s magazines that I’ve read twice before. The process does not begin in my kitchen when I put the sandwich together in a grumpy haze where the preparation of toast and jam for breakfast seems to conflict with the mustard and cheese of lunch. The whole bologna process begins in the grocery store.

This is the place where decisions are made. Choice, variety, options, there is much to choose from and several variables to take into account. By the time I arrive at the store I am ready to leave. The people, the musak, the lighting, the whole scene bothers me. If I make a list I usually leave it at home and end up buying a few random things on my way towards the exit. I know exactly where the bologna is in the grocery store. I know which brands are cheap. I know the turkey bologna from the pork, chicken and beef byproduct bologna. I even know the German style bologna and I do not recommend it. Once I secure the bologna, all I need is bread and I can make lunch for a few days.

It is not for the lack of sandwich knowledge that I stuck with bologna. I know there something better out there. I have tasted it.

If I wanted to I could make a great sandwich with tomatoes, sprouts, lettuce, onions, cucumbers, avocado, turkey, ham, Dijon mustard, mayo and a few paper thin slices of kosher dill piled high on nine-grain bread.

I spent a  couple years making sandwiches for other people. Turkey, ham, roast beef, corned beef, tuna salad, tarragon chicken, BLT, Reuben, hot, cold, toasted, extra mayo, no mayo, no mustard, no lettuce, extra tomatoes, for here and to go. Would you like soup with that? Or maybe a salad? I recommend the tarragon chicken. The tuna salad is excellent, if you like tuna. Would you like that on honey wheat, sourdough, light rye, dark rye or nine grain? Perhaps on a baguette or bagel? And your choice of cheeses: cheddar, swiss, jarlsburg, havarti, cream cheese or no cheese at all.

Before that I worked the graveyard shift in a really bright kitchen making hundreds of sandwiches each night. I made 25 at a time. I was a sandwich machine. Fifty slices of various kinds of bread all laid out, ready for the stuff. It was important to work quickly because the bread, once exposed, would soon dry out in the harsh environment of an industrial kitchen. First I applied the spread, a proprietary mixture of mayonnaise and Dijon mustard, to both slices of bread. (the dijon/mayo ratio was critical) Next, I applied one ounce of cheese per sandwich. The cheese acted as a moisture barrier between the contents of the sandwich and the bread. Then came the meat, two ounces of turkey, ham or roast beef. Finally, tomatoes and lettuce. I had to make sure the lettuce was sliced correctly, not too cole-slaw-thin and not too thick. Then I put the sandwiches together and cut them in half at a flattering 45° angle. A sandwich looks much bigger when the halves are nice isosceles triangles. I placed the sandwich on a polystyrene tray with the sliced surface of both halves facing the same direction, clearly displaying the contents of the sandwich. Finally, I added a garnish. Then shrink wrapped and labeled and priced each one. Then I did it again, and again. I came back the next night and did it a few hundred more times.

It is not for the lack of sandwich knowledge that I am stuck with bologna. I have made enough sandwiches to know that there is something better out there.

Bologna is the baseline. It is the point at which lunch cannot get any lower. In that sense it is comforting. An old friend. A dependable lunch date.

It is not for the lack of funds that I am forced to eat bologna. I am not forced to eat it. I can afford to buy turkey breast, or corned beef, or veggie burgers. I sometimes eat bologna three days in a row, then go out for lunch, order pizza for dinner and spend a week’s worth of grocery money drinking at the bar.

The potential for more is there. It has been there from the beginning and I assume it will be there in a few years. Past experience has proven that something more is possible.

I can talk about it, dream about it, write it down and plan ahead. But it all comes down to a decision, a choice. It takes some thought and a bit of effort. It’s a stretch and then it’s a commitment. When faced with a decision I tend to look way down the road to what I view as the final product, leaving out all the intermediate steps. Most of the time the final product is talked down, discounted and viewed in a poor light. I can talk myself out of something in a second because I make it seem difficult and not worth the effort. Then I fall back on the old standby, the sure thing, good old bologna.

Make a plan for the future and then act on it. Whenever I have a definite plan, an objective, a goal, I have no problem achieving it. However, what I have here is… a failure to plan. Baseline existence. Getting by. Just being. Going through the motions with no goals for the future and no attempt to connect to the grand scheme of things. I have been to the grocery store many times. I can put whatever I want in the cart and buy it. But what do I want?

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this little ditty was written in 1994 when I lived in Bellingham. It was inspired by eating many lunches in the breakroom at Whatcom Pathology Lab with Dr. J Lonner.

brown bag lunches and a breakroom entered my workday existence once again in 2010.

I still eat bologna sandwiches.

69 photo

This is re-reprinted here again because I finally quit that messenger shit once and for all. Originally published in kickstand six or seven years ago...but   you know, it's that same as it ever was.



When I finally quit this messenger shit, once and for all, I’m going to open a bike shop. A big bright historic space with huge store front windows and high ceilings and wood floors. With passive solar heating in the winter, and well placed shade in the summer. I’m going to work there all the time, six or seven days a week. The shop will be beautiful, stocked with every bike tool ever invented. French, Italian, Japanese, you name it, I will have it, hung neatly on the shop walls. Everything in its place. A place for everything. I will have two Campagnolo Cork Screws with Cherry handles. I will have seven different kinds of bike tool bottle openers. I will have four brands of headset presses. The 3000 square foot work space will have work stands and tools for 5 full-time mechanics, so I can work on 5 of my bikes all at once.  Two air compressors enclosed in sound proof cases. Truing stands bolted down to work benches 42.5 inches off the ground. I will have two Phil Wood spoke cutters/threaders. There will be cement floors and drains built in so I can hose it all down when the kegs overflow or the chainlube explodes or the cat pukes or the shit hits the fan. I will have shop dogs and shop cats. The bike book library will be monumental. The furniture will be well designed, attractive, comfortable and functional. There will be no non-dairy creamer. The coffee will be good. The beer will be cold. There will be wholesale accounts with everyone and everyone. Paul, Phil, Chris, Grant, Brooks, Mavic, Moots, Sachs, Sidi, Swobo. For me and my friends of course.

I will be at work all the time. I’ll show up 5:30am, or 3:00pm, or not at all. I’ll spend the night. I’ll stay for two weeks straight. Or take a week off if I feel like it. However, the shop will not be open to the public. The sign on the door will say “closed”, and if you flip it over it‘ll say “closed”. I’ll also have a large neon CLOSED sign, and it’ll be on all the time, like a beacon of freedom constantly sending its message, at all hours of the day and night. I’ll be in there working hard on my own bikes. Or on poetry, free lance writing, silk-screening, carpentry, cooking breakfast, pondering or drinking beer and pondering. The shop hours will not be posted. The phone will not be connected, so people cannot call and ask about the shop hours. And there will not be any employees because I won’t need any. This will eliminate any potential human relations issues, staff meetings, communication failures, personality problems, scheduling conflicts, and all the junior-high shit that goes along with trying to run a business with employees. Fuck that.

I will be in the shop but I won‘t be selling anything. Retail bullshit will not enter my sphere of existence. The windows will have incredible displays of bicycle art and elegant simple functional bikes because I like window displays. And I’ll spend hours creating them for my own enjoyment, not to attract customers. I‘ll be in the shop, reading the NY Times, listening to Miles Davis, or the White Stripes, or the Minute Men, or Bob Mould, or Guided by Voices, or Modest Mouse, or Guns n Roses or NPR and drinking coffee and beer and beer and coffee. Customers with stupid questions or flat tires or sheepskin seat covers or cracked carbon fiber forks can knock on the door all day long and I might even notice them between Hüsker Dü songs playing on the Bose Wave Radio, but probably not, and if I do, I’ll give them a half smile then get back to my work. My work as a sole proprietor and my work drinking beer and pondering.

The back door will be unlocked and open whenever I am in the shop and friends can stop by and bring their dogs and work on their bikes and add or subtract to the cold beer in the double wide Sub-Zero fridge or hit the bottomless pot of black coffee. The shop will include a beautiful stainless steel commercial sized kitchen. And a sleeping loft and an amazing bathroom with more magazines than a news stand, and I will not have to worry about customers fucking it up, because there will not be any customers.

I could purchase this attractive half-pint container of boiled linseed oil at a high-end art supply store or I could purchase a quart at any hardware store for just a little bit more. Just like buying a fancy green tube of Phil Wood grease at the local bike shop or buying a mondo tub of grease at any auto parts store. Now’s the time to ask yourself, What would Ron Sutphin do? It’s a quick cost-benefit analysis, taking into account margins of utility, unused inventory, hip-cool-trendy-nowness, waste and stupidity. How much boiled linseed oil does a weekend warrior need? Well what weekend are we talking about? Do you think the clerk at the art supply store will chat you up about spoke prep? Or the clerk at the hardware store will want to talk about mixing oil paints? Do you think the threads on your bottle cage bolts know who Phil Wood is? And and and finally,  do you think the guy at Schucks cares if you’re buying a half gallon of multipurpose blue marine grease and you’re wearing your bike helmet in his store?

SpokePrep   it’s what Larry would do

You might say red  you might say blue

I’d say non-drive side  and  then  drive side

learn more at roues artisinales 

this is Mr. Adrian Garcia aka AG who came through with the artwork yesterday after taking good care of all three panels of it and even changing homes with it several times through various zip codes in the Seattle area over the years since CMWC 2003

word

thank you
thank you
thanks again AG

right here  or   there in the shop that produces the finest bike wheels in the world one may occasionally see a retired wire spoke performing tasks that spokes are good for, like fishing in valve holes or letting the air out of tubular tires’ valve extenders or picking turkey out of teeth, as the possibilities follow the versatility and the utility  and  and  and  here’s to the concept the idea the memory and or the theory of driving brass nipples clockwise in the name of uniform spoke tension in and for the County of King residing in Seattle

see Wheel Fanatyk for photo and info on FSA tensiometer

AHTBM hat in situ