what was that? is that all there is? who is this? this is it.

out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the itsy bitsy spider stripped down to two t-shirts sitting on a park bench eyeing little girls with bad intent.

you’d want my job on a day like this but I don’t want to talk about it almost as much as how much you want to tell me the opposite in the rain. They’re two sides of the same coin and I’ll just keep that coin in my right front pocket. 

at pilder’s coffee shop you can order whatever foo-foo espresso drink you want but you’ll get a cup of black coffee. 

kinda like the ancient proverb I wrote a few years back:

he who run fast 

catch crowded elevator 

stop on many floor

he who chill the fuck out 

get the next one

get there first

the other-other day I went to my favorite brewery and purchased some tall cans to go because that’s all you can do now until even further notice and it's all I can do to help the proprietor survive this shit show.  then I delivered the tall cans to the baristas at my favorite coffee shop. it was a win-win-win situation slipping through a wormhole in the coffee-beer continuum and coming out on a park bench in the sun. 

blah blah blah blah blah

Sitting here in 2020 looking back to the WTO festivities of November 30, 1999 it was like a whiff of the future: a premonition.   It’s easy to say in hindsight or maybe that was just a whiff of tear gas. 

Happy Birthday Steve. It feels like your golden birthday was just the other day or maybe it was a lifetime ago. Sitting here in 2020 timelines are out the window. 

In the 1970's, an English mailman still delivers his parcels on a bicycle.

...The prime motive for using bicycles in every country except the United States, is always economics, because the bicycle is the only inexpensive way to transport people from home to work or school. Most bicycle owners in time learn to do their own running repairs, and it is not a drain on their earnings...

pulled from page 117

THE BICYCLE that curious invention 

Sybil and Stephen Leek

1973

"the art of getting by" Mark W photo

On vacation in this lockdown shutdown shitshow blackout wipeout rainstorm fuckfest that is 2020 I’ve had a chance to catch up on things I haven’t been able to get to like placing this book I've had for years on the table and then making a cup of coffee and flipping through it like a coffee table book. It's a keeper.

In addition I was able to make this list:

Tony Danza

Tony Hawk

Tony Soprano

Tony Randall

Tony Romo

Tony Parker

Tony Award

Tony the Tiger

Tony Toni Tone

Toni Braxton

Toni Morrison 

Toni Basil

Toni Kukoc

Tone Loc 

Tone Deaf

It's the most wonderful time of this fucked up year so I like to get stuck on Toni Braxton in that red turtleneck. In addition I'd like to say I savored a bottle of Corona but it sucks in such a way that can only scratch the surface symbolically 2020 as I played Goatfish again and again with Junior and Junior Junior I sucked it down and hardened the fuck up. 

Then in a rare moment of alone time I cut a fat line of diatomaceous earth and snorted it through a rolled up $2 bill 

When my breathing started to return to normal I stuffed a ceramic bearing up one nostril and a steel bearing up the other and beared down to compare the bearings’ sphericity. The results are still coming in or blowing out.  Which reminds me to remind you that when you place your Mad Fiber wheel order make sure to specify which bearing you prefer. If you leave that field blank an extra $3000.00 will be added to your order which will never be fufilled either way any way one way or another. 

Finally I took a moment to reflect and share here and now

What did you do today? 

Outside the Center for Urban Horticulture I stood in the rain with a half inch of standing water contained in each shoe. Rain dripping off the brim of my Double Darn cap and onto the bundle of mail I was about to deliver. I briefly contemplated the difference in footprints created by shoes that are merely wet on the surface and shoes that are filled with water. Taking a moment to consider the squishy sounds soaked Sambas make on the clean dry flooring of empty locked down buildings. Just then an actual human exited the building and said “man, even though it’s raining, you have the greatest job around” and I smiled beneath my wet disposable mask and said “right on” 

A couple hours later I took a picture because it'll last longer on the loading dock at MolES when the rain let up,  the sun came up and we were getting dry. Almost let a pickup truck nearly pass us by. 

Essentially essential until you’re not then you’re fading into the background another anthropomorphic grey zombie in the distance non-essentially mushy muzak cover of a Tears for Fears song vague memory lost with a jpeg attachment in a footer of a string of reply-all emails stacked too deep to dig through.  

there's a room where the light won't find you

holding hands while the walls come tumbling down

when they do, I'll be right behind you

stepping back out into the rain humming and or mumbling the wrong lyrics because the mushy muzak version on the elevator was all instrumental it’s so far gone it’s almost subliminal but the smell of that girl in 9th grade comes back for a second and I have to ask how my brain jumped from here to there and back again

point of view

peek a boo

put ‘er there 

president emeritus 

profile design

product placement

vector

tensor

scalar

droolinator

tongue depressor

gag reflex

acid reflux

a wee bit of

puke in my mouth

should we talk about the weather?

ask me about wardrobe decisions

overthinking the second guessing

And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"
And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife"

gas powered   leaf  blower

turn clocks back one hour

it's not just the smell of piss

actually         it's full-on piss

as well as shit 

mucus & blood & vomit

welcome to the U-district

find a penny    pick it up 

lurking on the fringes

edging in on 

cool kid conversation

trying to talk the talk

falling             short 

doesn’t measure up

shut the fuck up

walk   the   walk 

order of operations

playing with parentheses 

the   p-lam   delamed 

razor sharp edge exposed

asymmetrical alliteration all

up   in   my   face 

what’s your excuse? 

nice try   fuck off

concentric circles 

nesting neatly

three squares

the arrows know

jockey pulley teeth

honed throwing star sharp

over miles and miles

ground down

road grime infused

greases and oils

flat blade screwdriver

backward crank rotation

peels off a blueberry sized 

gob of goo

roll between finger and thumb

before you chuck it

in the bucket 

with a satisfying thud

more or less

12/17/08

Less is more   or less

overdressed   underdressed

confident comfortable

I’m impressed

nothing more   nothing less

pedestrian chicken dance

duck duck         goose

say hello to my little friend

Mr. Jim Beam

he lives close to another friend

Major Lee Housed

Out in left field

Out to lunch

Out in the cold

sitting on the steps

the only thing between me and hypothermia

the only thing between my ass and those steps

a fat stack of divorce papers

fortified by fatass lawyers

insulated with inflated billable hours

belching away the one and only chance

to make a good impression

on a mind that was made up long ago

Raise your hand if you’ve

eaten the special at the Logan Deli

and Café Zum Zum

in the same 4 hour stretch…

a normal man would be in the hospital

it’s all about me

it’s all about calories

What should I do?

do what you say

or do it the right way

Do what you love

and the money will follow

that thing you love

right out the window

You can’t afford to

You can’t afford not to

jody

unknown - 10-23-20

jody passed today. completely unexpectedly. out of nowhere.  he went to the bridge.

he was the most chillest of chill cats. jody came to us from the shelter and fit right in right away. he put up with two kids and a dog hassling him. he put up with the name jody. and now here and now we're all missing him.

 10-22-20  9:33:12

 6-5-20  9:37:55

issi thump

platform pedals. I prefer the molded pegs as opposed to the replaceable metal peg option for $10 more. Because these little plastic jobs are more than enough and those sharp metal studs tear the shit out of your shoes as well as your shins when you’re trying to Sheena Easton onto the train in the morning and you need to scramble for an available bike hook. If I wore orthopedic shoes all day or big work boots those metal studs would do the trick but I don’t so they won’t be on my bikes. 

A little while back I refurbished a friend’s bike and reached into the magic milkcrate for a pair of platform pedals and there weren’t any. So I had to pluck a pair off one of my personal bikes and that set off a ripple in the used bike part continuum that I haven’t seen or felt for nearly 10 years. I used to be positioned well in a spot above Seattle’s underground aquifer of used bikes and bike part donations and I could just reach in for another heaping helping when the need arose. But I’m no longer in that position and I recently bought some brand new pedals at full retail price to put on my bike.

I’ve been pushing issi thumps at work on the electric assist bathtub for 14 months or so and I believe one sign of a good pedal is you no longer notice them. They seamlessly melt from your consciousness and become part of the big picture as one of the only points on the bike your body actually touches.  Pedals make a difference and I really like these pedals. 

icky thump

who'd a thunk? The White Stripes sixth and final studio album. I’ve said it once before but it bears repeating, I’m a Jack White fan. White Stripes, Raconteurs, Dead Weather, Jack White 220/221 whatever it takes. The fact that both these photos I poached this morning are black & white and read allover is no coincidence it just happened that way for reasons that may or may not reveal themselves later.