Standing on a crowded train near my bike on the hook staring off into space, glazed over, when the couple in the jumpseat asks me what the toptube pad says, what it means, what it’s all about?...
EXTREME, I say, it’s a road sign, highly reflective. Which leads to an exchange of bike things, bike stories, bike experience, bike wisdom. Some of which was lost in the heavy tunnel train noise. But here’s the gist of it:
-Yes that’s my bike, I tell them
-Oh we ride bikes too — 50,000 miles together ridden on our tandem
-Wow, I say. I thought tandems made people split up, driving them to divorce?
-No, tandems just accelerate the direction the relationship is already headed in. We’ve been together for 40 years.
-Right on, I say. That explains it well
Then they got off the train
I’m not a tandem guy. No thanks. I’ve been passed by tandems bombing downhill at 53 mph in the middle of Iowa. I’ve passed tandems grinding uphill at 7 mph in the middle of Iowa. I see plenty of fair-weather tandems on the Burke-Gilman trail.
I’ve seen entire families on bicycles built for 4 with a trailer for the littlest little kid in the back. A parent-child tandem ride brings a smile to my face.
I have a lot of respect for the frame builders of tandems and the mechanics that maintain them. But I have no interest in riding one. Even if the stoker is a teddy bear or a zombie or an olympic athlete or an inflatable doll on RAGBRAI.
My relationships are already moving in the direction they’re headed, they need no extra push, no extra pressure. I like to ride bikes to get away from horseshit. An escape. I don’t need a bike to accelerate my personal relationship horseshit one way or another.
Ride on
Rock on
that happy 50,000 mile tandem couple inspired this one-of-a-kind tandem postcard
Same crows, different day. Atmospheric Sciences looking for a snack from the electric ass mailman’s bike around 9:22 am. While waiting, one of the crows took a shit. As you can see. It’s right where the offramp from Exit 169 off northbound I-5 feeds into 7th Ave NE just south of 45th. In line with the scale of the map this turd is the size of a small apartment building.
Neither here nor there. Everywhere. All around. ONEWAY or another.
A little. A sprinkle. A dash. A skosh. Kinda sorta. Hinting.
A lot. A load. A fuckton. A metric fuck ton. Full-on. All the way.
I’m a little bit country.
I’m a little bit rock ‘n roll.
I’m a little autistic.
I’m a little alcoholic.
I'm a little bit of a slouch.
“Don't sell yourself short, you're a tremendous slouch.”
like Ty Webb said in Caddyshack
We’re all somewhere along the spectrum. Some of us are further along than others.
This little quiz will sum up your Autism Spectrum Quotient…
Here are a couple statements I plucked from the list and my answers expanded upon:
I notice patterns in things all the time.
—I strongly agree. I’m rolling around paying attention to things that a lot of people never notice. Patterns. Rhymes. Repetitions. Clockwork. Habits. From the static patterns emerge.
I am fascinated by numbers.
—I agree. I like numbers. But not all numbers. Fascination may be too strong of a word. Some numbers get my attention and stick with me. Street addresses, phone numbers, analog watches, digital clocks, VCR clocks blinking 12:00, zip codes, PO Box numbers, messenger numbers, hospital room numbers, coffee shop customer numbers, Lawrence Taylor's jersey number, dates and any palindromic numbers. Please note that up to this moment I’ve refrained from saying anything about 3.14159 this Pi Day.
I still remember the license plate on my mom’s 1971 Monte Carlo: CPJ 895. She sold that car in 1985. I remember the phone number we had as a kid for our yellow rotary phone: 328-2952. I remember my grandma’s old phone number too: 325-1209. Grandma had a wall mount beige rotary in the hallway with an extra long handset cord so she could pace around and talk on the phone for hours. Those were hard-hard wired land lines in the 509 of course.
I enjoy social chit-chat.
—I STRONGLY DISAGREE. I fucking hate chit chat. Can’t do it. Find ways to avoid it or I just walk away. It bothers me. I do not pretend to care about things that I don’t give a shit about. I’m not interested in what you did over the weekend. If I was, I'd ask you about it. But I’m not.
Sometimes when people are talking to me, I glaze over and stare off into space over their shoulder, then they turn and look around, wondering what the hell I’m looking at while they’re trying to tell me something important.
Before I answered the questions, I had an idea of what my score would be and it was spot-on. I have an idea of what some of my friends and coworkers’ scores might be too. There are a couple guys on my mail routes that would crush this thing. Outta the park. Off the charts. I wouldn’t want to see things from their perspective, because I can guess what it’s like. But I’m curious to learn more and I’m not just talking shit. This little quizlet has already helped me laugh at my own habits and anxieties. And I think it will help me see things differently, to walk a mile in their shoes, so to speak. Let them try to walk a mile in my blown out Sambas.
Please take 90 seconds and complete the 50 questions. Upon conclusion there will be no opportunities to enter your email and win a $2 Starbucks gift card. Your score is not important, it's just a place to start the conversation. It's not a pass-fail. It's a dipstick. But it is what it is. You can't add to it, or run low. You are you. You are here. You don’t have to share your score. You can share your score if you want. Or share it anonymously. You can tell me someday and buy me a beer. Then I’ll tell you my score and buy you a beer.
The UW Mailing Services Bullitt, affectionately called an Electric Ass Bathtub, was invented to help the USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL and Amazon deliver parcels the final fifty fucking feet.
this FUN FACT T-shirt is brought to you by the Medicinal Herb Garden Guy at UW. Those in the know know that's Keith.
Keith has achieved the zen-like state of not-giving-a-shit. This is a state of being we all strive for but rarely achieve, aside from momentary glimpses, lapses and chemically induced imparement. Through years of work, repetition and dedication, Keith is there. And he might soon have the T-shirt to prove it.
As you're shopping for your new T-shirt to be more like Keith, you might want to throw in a few stickers from Stevil too.
Signs with proper punctuation and spelling just fade into the background like elevator muzak or white noise. But when you tack on an extra S or two, you might get my attention as I pause and mumble the words to myself. Then you might even get a chuckle out of me.
I’m not sure who made this sign which lives on a cart in the mothership at my POE. But it catches my eye almost every day these days.
Within this negative image inversion of Mark Wamsley’s bar-napkin sketch of Emily Wamsley, I’d like to draw your attention to the kickstand hoodie.
And now I’d like to draw your attention to one of Emily Wamsley’s latest works of art. Around 24" x 48" it’s her largest piece ever and she said “it’s heavy as fuck”
I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. But I plan to on March 14 at RedWing Cafe deep in Rainier Beach. You can see it too along with some of her other works on display for a few weeks.
Here is a book I had in my hands last week at the University Bookstore. But I didn’t buy it. Now I’m #41 in line for the Seattle Public Library’s ten copies. Which means I can go back and buy the book today, read it this weekend and then pass it along to three or four friends before I’d ever see the book from the library.
It’s a quality of life issue.
editor’s note: I bought the book today and both employees behind the counter gave me the thumbs up good choice way to go good call and on and so on:
07 days later &
07 hours later today
double oh seven
this time it’s for real sincerely for real really in my hands and I can cancel my hold on a SPL copy
“the possibilities of my current situation had not occurred to me before now”
-page 14
just diving into the book now. it’s a compact 120 page bird-in-hand to the outside observer. but it’s not light reading. there are no redundancies. No fluffy fluffies. No poofy poofies. 120 pages of questioning, pondering, re-reading, asking, absorbing, soaking…
we’ll talk more later...
In the photos below, is a book I saw in the Miller Library art book show last week. Letter to Crow by Dorothy McCuistion. It wasn’t really in my hands. But they let me turn the pages if I was careful. This one-of-a-kind book was not for sale and if it was it’d be way beyond my discretionary funds.
Recently, the back cover of a catalog in the recycling bin caught my eye. Actual beer goggles. Fatal Vision goggles, marketed to high school health science teachers to teach their students the perils of alcohol consumption by simulating impairment.
For only $169.00
This cracks me up. I’ve got a better idea kids. Why don’t you give me $169 and I’ll pick up a six pack of tall cans and you can experience actual impairment. No need for simulation.
Yesterday I released this postcard out into the world via USPS. Directing it over to the 98103 and Mischief Bicycles. As Dr. Chris discusses beautiful fully-custom titanium bicycles with his clientele, Q-factor, crank length and riding style, he is not tweaking the chainstays with his trusty ball-peen hammer. All that and more is why this image in a high-end Ti bike shop brings me joy.
Around the same time, Toothaker was enjoying a cup of coffee on Capitol Hill. Here are his own words to describe it:
The young barista at little odd fellows said to their coworker, 'after work today my boyfriend and I are going to Bike Works to get bikes. He's ok with buying whatever bike is available but I can't do that-I need to feel the pull of the bike I am buying. It's a relationship thing'
This brings me joy for other reasons. That barista was spot-on. I’m all about feeling that pull. I shared this with Steve G at BikeWorks because he knows a thing or two about used bikes and their pull or lack thereof.
BikeWorks is a special place. It kicks ass. And not just in a 501(c)(3) way. It is tapped into the amazing aquifer of used bicycles in Seattle. I had my hands on thousands of them over the years I worked there and volunteered too. There are bicycles that give off great energy. There are bicycles that need to be heaved into a dumpster. And there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bikes in the mid range. But it won’t take long when you walk into the shop or warehouse to feel the pull of a bike that’s right for you and build a relationship.
Marching forth this March Fourth — Fat Tuesday on into Ash Wednesday — on into giving up non-alcoholic beer for the six weeks of Lent. Ready to spring forward like the Easter Bunny, more than ready. With countless shipping containers full of plastic easter grass, plastic eggs, plastic baskets, plastic Jesi and all the other single-use plastic shit that people need for 90 seconds on Easter morning before they chuck it in the ocean like a dental pick.
stand by
have your cake
eat it too
stunt double
you’re doing it wrong
I’m happy to see February in the rearview mirror. Sincerely for real. Really. Fuck February.
Last week I got my hands on a new safety orange hoodie with plans to screen print all over it. So Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to give the new hoodie some black. But when she came there the black jar was bare and so the new hoodie would just have to wait a while.
Friday at Artist & Craftsman Supply I found a fresh jar of black ink but I also found a jar of fluorescent orange, a color never before screened through my screens. It was calling out to me from the shelf. “Look up here. Look up here. Look up here.”
The two new oranges (hoodie & ink) will not be working together directly but they’ll be in the same space at different times. They are works in progress as we speak.
Orange whip?
Orange whip?
3 orange whips
Last year I pulled from a recycling bin a 1981 US Navy Marine Climatic Atlas of the World. It has been an upcycling gift that keeps on giving postcards and various art projects. Chock full of 12” x 20” maps for each month of the year featuring world-wide means and standard deviations. One man’s junk is another man’s orange whip postcard catalog.
"we now join our regular commute, already in progress"
February 21, 2025
Another epic commute to work
A herky-jerky train ride sandwiched between two short bike rides like this and like that and like this
And then 9.5 hours later, do it all again in reverse order like this and like that and like this completing the round trip so to speak
And then 24 hours later do it
ALL AGAIN AND AGAIN
As often as necessary
Reading The New Yorker cover-to-cover or any random book dujour like The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (thanks Cat) “no man is an island - every book is a world”
Wordle & Spelling Bee & Connections
With plenty of slack-jaw thousand-yard stares off into space. That’s how I roll in the groundhog-day hamster-wheel work-a-day rat race rut rote route routine
if I had a can of spray paint that's not where I would go with it. I'm more of a lowercase g guy. but as I parked the electric ass bathtub beneath it every day this week at 1320 NE Campus Parkway right around 11:27 am, it's made me smile for various reasons
This book was published in 1972. Chock full of exploded view diagrams and classic hands-on black & white photos of bikes and tools and tools on bikes. I got it at a thrift store some time in the late 90’s. The book was pretty cool, but the cover kicks ass. The go-go boots, the inverted bike repair chat in the park, the all-ages joy ride and on and on and so on. It was an original painting, specifically done to be the cover of this book. When I go back and find the artist’s name, I’ll let you know. Or you can get your own copy on ebay and let me know his name.
The other day I was about to chuck it in the little free library when I flipped through it one last time and noticed a few pages of diagrams had already been hacked out. They were probably cut and pasted into an issue of dickstank some time in the late 90’s.
Here and now a few more of those exploded view diagrams are on their way into upcycled postcard status because I decided to tear off the cover and put it in a thrift store 8" x 10" frame to hang on the wall and collect dust like “art”
I wasn’t looking for this book. But I guess it was looking for me when it found me at the local library. Now I suggest you look for it. Neko Case is a true rock star and she grew up right around here “raised by two dogs and a space heater” She spent a lot of time in Whatcom County and Washington state. And much of that time she was alone.
I’m halfway through it but it’s not too soon to recommend that you read it too. This week’s book of the month. This month’s book of the year.
