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

hairless cats 

need sweaters 

in July 

in Seattle

built in 

handi cap

tacked on

piggy back

throw back 

that is

clock work 

as if 

you have 

control over 

one aspect

dust spec 

on surface 

of universe 

psychosomatically suggested 

to me

surreptitiously by 

a humongous

pharmaceutical company 

you know 

the deal 

it puts 

the lotion

sneeze glass

face covering

covering face

flatten curve

stay strong

six feet

apart together

horse shit

surge space

urine soaked 

loading dock

condon hall

eye sore

poured concrete

brutalist architecture

state penitentiary

would be 

more welcoming

fuck millipede 

this isn’t

even my

final form 

a clean well lighted place    again

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 storefront 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 corkscrews 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 for 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 at 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, freelance 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 wrote this little ditty 16 or 17 years ago. It still speaks to me sometimes bubbling to the surface like on Monday when this line repeated in my head and actually came out of my mouth:

 “... all the junior-high shit that goes along with trying to run a business with employees.”

One day in early June I was looking at velonews as I occasionally do for amusement and I noticed the kids these days wearing giant goggles bigger than Lemond was wearing in 1989. 

and you may ask yourself “what is this POC?” 

and you may ask yourself “how do I work this?” 

I’m not a real internet shopper but I found those POC glasses like the racer kids wear selling for $230 and then I also found them for $18 on wish. So then I was wondering what the hell is wish and how can the same glasses be ten times cheaper? So I coughed up the $18 plus six more for shipping on a slow boat from China and I waited and wondered if this wish thing was legit. But 28 days later the glasses showed up with 5 different lenses and a hard case and a little ditty bag.  

is that bondo?

is that betty crocker whipped milk chocolate? 

is that a pint of jamoca almond fudge?

is that the look you’re going for? 

is that an improvement? 

is that all there is? 

a warm July evening on RAGBRAI 2009

a cold July morning in Rainier Beach 2020

patterns emerge from the static

they’re always there

if you can tune in

dial your frequency

pay attention and

they’ll present themselves

when you’re ready

I know I’ve told you the story before of the pink bike I first spotted on RAGBRAI 2006 then years later I ended up moving next door to the owner of that pink bike in Rainier Beach. Coincidence isn’t the right word for it. I prefer to think of it as just another pattern emerging from the static.  

RAGBRAI 2006

Rainier Beach 10+ years later

but I think it's Tuesday

Junior junior would like to draw your attention to his new helmet purchased a short time earlier at a thrift store. Most people wouldn’t buy their kid a used helmet but we’re not most people and this isn’t just a helmet. He loves the shit out of this thing. 

I’d like to draw your attention to the Cane Creek Direct Curve brakes on the front of Junior junior’s bike. This pair of calipers was recovered from the deepest corner of the archival milk crate storage system here at HQ. They’re the surviving pair from an IRO Rob Roy I used to know. Those brakes could tell you some old stories but now they're set up to write some new ones. 

I have 20+ years experience drinking tall cans on the curb and now in these unfuckingprecedented times I’m paying major-league-baseball-type prices for a tall can that they say is OK to drink on the sidewalk ad hoc. 

and I’m buying it. 

I’m not swallowing it whole or drinking the Kool Aid or blind faith spreading the gospel. 

When I say buying it I mean paying for it as in single handedly attempting to revive the local economy one beer at a time. Sitting in a proprietor-provided plastic lawn chair on the corner of Rainier & Ferdinand drinking a tall can. Is this some kind of joke? 

They say it’s OK in phase 2 to purchase beers “to-go”   As you know we’ve been purchasing beers to-go for years. Looking back on all the six-packs of tall cans purchased at all the mom&pops in the core for less than $5 this seems crazy. But I’m doing my part I guess to support the local establishments that I’d really like to see pull through this. I believe the liquor control board could have hired a few of us as consultants transitioning them through to phase 4.  

cheers

a place for

everything and everything

in its place 

drilled for schrader

going anaerobic licketysplit

dehydrated since 1997

six of one

halfdozen the other

a horse apiece

on the flipside

on your left

on your breath

waxy yellow buildup

simple chronic halitosis

feedback loop feeding

over the shoulder

over the hill

over the rainbow

you talking to

me you talking

to me you

not walking walker

backslapping big talker

oozing schmooze schmoozer 

full of it

you activate my

innate bullshit detector

Bevin Keely knows

Mike Nipper was

loaded for bear

discarded nitrile gloves

antimicrobial cloudburst treatment

overboard overdose overload

the pendulum swings

too far left

too far right

for a moment

in the middle

it feels alright

taking all that

traffic gives you

flowing like water

far cry from

pushing the river

work in progress

Li Po search

results in liposuction 

not quite bro 

one less care

right on target

what she said

what’s the problem?

what’s the frequency?

what’s your vector? 

cost of living

return on investment

location location location

seven layer dip

doric ironic corinthian 

ways of seeing 

all good but

here’s the kicker

quality of life

it’s a bird

no actually that’s her shoe squeaking when it contacts the crank arm with each revolution of the pedals 

it’s a plane

no that’s an amazon drone dropping your package in the neighbor’s driveway so you'll still need a human to take it those final fifty fucking feet

it’s a slug

no that’s just a gelatinous blob of hand sanitizer drying out in the sun

putting it on

it’s a put on 

I thought I saw someone moving around in the office as I was delivering their mail but it turned out to be my own reflection in the window of the locked door accessible only to authorized personnel with key card access Monday through Friday between the hours of 7am and 7pm.  

The way the light reflects off the wall becomes more interesting than the wall and the writing on the wall fades as the original intent is lost in the sequence of events unfolding to create something completely unexpected. 

putting it on 

it's a put on

here's a digital reproduction of the grainy photocopied printing of some of Andy Voight's photos from CMWC 2003 in Seattle as they appeared in kickstand #17. the top shot features Mr. Toothaker with what he described as the very first 520 sticker applied to that helmet. And Steve is correct the photo below is Mr Toothaker at the Dead Baby race 2004 where as you can see the helmet collected stickers for nearly a year. 

the Clif bar version is: I found this old sticker yesterday and took a picture then texted it to Toothaker and he texted back the shot of that gnarly helmet. 

the longwinded memory lane version will be a couple three chapters in my next-next book. 

took a picture sitting in my favorite plastic lawn chair in the garage bare feet on the cool cement floor enjoying a beer and the angle of the setting sun just right hitting the cargo bike that’s collecting dust in the corner. 

I could say something about steel frames or the number of links in an average chain or retrogrouch some 8-speed shifter remark or tell you some stories that remind me of a funny thing that happened the other day but I won’t at this time I’ll just leave it open for interpretation. 

--this space intentionally left blank--

87 just sent me this fake fake selfie in these unfuckingprecedented times full-on see no hear no speak no mode as he knows all about Mad Fiber levels of sensory deprivation and a bit about legal messengers giving legal advice so I started to flip through the photographic memory for a triptych to put up as if I had nothing better to do and landed on this and that and as you know there is more in there but you have to draw the line somewhere in any case no collection would be complete without the clown to the left of me stoned Ronald shot one thing leads to another one way or the other and if it’s not one thing it’s another

Erik Jahnz used to constantly quiz me rhetorically…

You know what hard work gets you? 

More hard work. 

When we worked together as hourly legal messengers, Erik’s years of experience as a commissioned messenger made him slow the fuck down because when you're hourly it all pays the same. I still need to be reminded of this in my current role as a post-apocalyptic-electric-assist mailman as there is no difference between being a total fucktard and working hard. There is no monetary payoff for internal motivation or innate efficiency.  

speaking of fucktards, once upon a time I was enjoying a tall can with Steve hiding in plain sight at 510 Pike when a cyclist rode by and flapjack yelled something at him. the cyclist quickly stopped and turned around and rolled right up to Steve and me and said “what did you say?”  and we said "it wasn't us, it was that guy” and we pointed to flapjack. 

I haven’t carried a U-lock for months now because there hasn’t been anyplace to stop on the way home and lock up my bike outside while I step in for a happy hour beer or three. But now in phase 1.377 there are a few places to fill up a pint glass and I might need the old ass-pocket-U-lock again.

Tom Bice used to always say kinda like Loverboy "everybody's workin for the weekend" Tom also used to say "don't start your weekend too early" 

Well here I am starting my Friday about 26 hours early headed into happy hour with no U-lock.  So I'll be borrowing a bike lock for a few hours. 

is it raining?