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

1981 Soma Competition lugged steel made in Japan to roll 27 inch wheels. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times. I got this bike at Bike Works at the 10-9 sale in 1999 when Adam Smith was the entire shop staff in that cute little non profit yellow house bike shop. A bit later at Counterbalance Bicycles, Adam helped me drill out the fork for a recessed bolt to run long reach dual pivot calipers on 700c wheels. Twenty years later I’m squeezing big fat tires in there beneath those calipers and going on and on…

… because I will tell you all about this bike but I don’t want to hear about the gravel bike hall of fame or the e-bike race calendar or whatever iteration du jour will save the bike industry. Kinda sorta exactly like Mark Arm says in the Mudhoney ditty

You got it

Yeah, you got it

So what?

Keep it outta my face 

let this example serve as a parable

or more like a trigger

unleashing two years worth of shit

irritable 

bucky

syndrome

saved up   masked up    pent up 

piled up   atop everything beneath that

like Tina said “it’s not about the cheese” 

one way

or another

what’s next? 

the Bengals made the playoffs and won a game

last time that happened was January 6, 1991

six degrees plus or minus Jon Bon Jovi

ask me about Cincinnati pilderwasser history 

empty cup holder

full of potential

completely comfortable

continuum carousel 

cupping coffee             or

coozied cans

sincerely

for real    really

PW Asser

President Emeritus 

Profile Design Cup Holders Club 

the angle of incidence = the angle of reflection 

 a swisher wrapper sitting in a puddle is comforting like an old song that takes me back to another time in my life and it beats the shit out of a soiled KN95 or a taped down directional arrow

Bill Watson rolled through Seattle this weekend so I took out one of my analog bikes and rode it up to the 98105 to meet him for a Big Time beer or three. 

I gave him a couple one-of-a-kind pilderwasser branded thrift store scores. And he gave me this coozie which will help me work a little more RAGBRAI into my daily life in gas station parking lots and on park benches. 

my next tattoo

until further notice

please wait here

on your left

mind the gap

six feet bitch

pivot to remote

instruction     expect to 

return in person

free beer tomorrow

consumer price index

cost of living

out to lunch

public health experts

proof of vaccination

total shit show

resistance is futile

Alistair probably knows the guy that built this bike and or the guy that was riding it when I took the photo in 2008

ran into Al from Perkins Coie today as he was on his way to King County Superior Court to actually file some documents with the clerk.

old school o rama

which brings me to this shot of me & Goldsmith circa 1998ish  taken by another Wa Legal messenger as we all three were standing by at 1201 waiting for Perkins to call in some sort of last minute rushes to King County and all the opposing counsel chuffers around town. 

cry me an atmospheric river redux

swamp ass

snot nose

trench foot

coworkers crinkling around in big wet diapers

disciples of Cliff Mass

bring me your tired   your poor  but

please don't bring me to rain pants

my bartender calls it an IPA

my barista calls it a tall drip

my old lady calls it boring

I call it dependable

predictable

like clockwork like  

routine   consistency 

hard wired  

muscle memory

call me crusty

autopilot

player piano bro

r  e  g  u  l  a  r

it’s not that I love routine

I’d rather direct my energy 

toward other things

At my local Brew Pub the bartender “G” has a pint of Scarlet Fire pouring as I walk through the door and it’s in my hand long before the tourist family that’s inline in front of me finishes sampling and tasting and asking questions about each and every beer on tap.

At one of the only coffee shops that's open on campus these days the barista “B” has a tall drip poured for me long before all the Health Sciences undergrads order their white chocolate mochas and 2.67 pumps of vanilla foo foo moo choo drinks. When she sets it on the counter for me I get some looks because there were no words exchanged between us and my drink is ready before the six people in front of me.

Once upon a simpler time I frequented a coffee shop so often that they named one of their bagel sandwiches after me. Then they went out of business. Correlation,  but let's not jump to causation. 

Call me crusty. I call it kickass customer service for a consistent customer.

Look over there (where?)
There, there's a lady that I used to know
She's married now, or engaged, or something, so I am told 

I wasn't looking for this book

but it found me   at my local library

now I'm passing it on   like a song stuck in your head

Right about roundabout just about 25 years ago this ad appeared on the back cover of Iron Lung, a Seattle bike messenger zine.  Shortly after Kathleen said “fuck off Charles” and just before she opened her own bike shop right around the corner from Wright Bros. 

25 years ago I was a messenger wannabe, still three months from my first messenger job. I was working at the Elysian inside Game Works and applying to grad schools. I wrote a little note to the editor of the zine and they reprinted it on page 2

here and now I'm re-reprinting  

I know now what I knew then 

but I didn’t know then 

what I know now

2/11/97

Hey

I’m not a messenger but I have So much respect for those who are. I identify with them more than all the damn CBC- neonclad - “on your left” - STP -rearview mirror on the helmet- Burke Gilman - Gregg's Greenlake - weekend warrior gomers I see on the road. I appreciate the individualism, the freedom, the attitude and the day-to-day grind of riding for a living, even though I don’t do it. I don’t own a car. I own 3 bicycles. I ride to work everyday and I ride for fun too. I got a $47 ticket for not having a headlight on the way to the bar. It was 10:30pm on Capitol Hill and the damn cop spent 20 minutes lecturing me on bicycle safety and about his first bike in 1955 and how it came with a headlight. The aesthetics of my stripped down bike were lost on Officer Friendly: no lights, no reflectors, no fenders, no derailleurs, no toe clips, no stickers, no decals, no name brands, one speed, one hand brake. The ultimate bar bike. 

I picked up Iron Lung at Wright Bros. But now I’d love to have it mailed to me. I saw the bike zine article in Bicycling Magazine… …when popular culture finally gets around to looking at what’s really going on, it’s usually stale. And it was. 

Thanks

Mark

slept past my stop

forgot to get a transfer

front and center at the foot of the altar

cathedral        stained glass sunbeam

illuminating Our Lady of What Might Have Been

pinching rosary beads for what will never be

praying Patron Saint of Potential Unfulfilled

racking up credits

on a pinball machine in a dream

feeding the feedback loop

shoulda-coulda monster under the bed

waiting                                   hibernating

another late night visit from the Regret Fairy

pillow sprinkled with magic indecision dust

hocus pocus

can’t say no

afraid to say yes

the fence makes the grass look greener

hard deadlines all in my mind

arbitrary expiration dates

best if used by 1997

commitment contract concession

giving up unlimited nights & weekends

offering anytime minutes anytime

replay relationship conversation

you

me 

us 

we

never said

it goes without saying 

maybe not every day

but   most days

I'd say

You know what they say… 

…don’t judge a neurology journal by its cover  

But that’s exactly what I did. A quick flip through the pages of Continuum and I realized I have no interest in plowing through its contents. But the cover is a keeper. 

The artwork is a bit stodgy and square, computer generated like a minecraft character my kids created. But it gets the point across and gets me thinking about procedural memory. Which is something I  never think about. Like riding a bike. Procedural memories are all the things we’ve learned how to do and do without thinking. Like walking or chewing and swallowing. Muscle memories, now subconsciously hard wired. 

Stir in some semantic memory: general knowledge about the world that includes facts, concepts, and ideas.  If you surveyed the entire population of people that ride bikes on earth, there would be some cross-cultural differences but a whole lot of similarities. 

To top it all off,  sprinkle on some episodic memories. Like that beautiful sunny spring day 32 years ago when I took some acid and rode a bike around in circles for hours on an old outdoor ice rink. 

seamless transitions along the continuum

word

"speedy delivery"

or not

what's the difference?

if a rush    falls 

in the mail room

and there's no one around

to hear it

does it make a sound?