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

still life with pedal wrench

still life with ChemE

still life with what's the g for

still life with Brad 

I’m the last man standing, said the blueberry. You call that standing? and you’re calling yourself a man, the 1991 STP Tyvek® jacket said. Shut it tyvek boy, said the keychain bottle opener, Mr. Blueberry is taller than you are in the third dimension. You guys are all so full of shit, the pointy half of a pink plastic easter egg said, is this a joke or what? get to the punchline.  

Pay attention to the signs said the shift supervisor condescendingly wielding a fucked up fake sense of superiority as there was a mandated 17 minute work stoppage and I was the last to get the memo I gathered so I stopped what I was working on and stepped outside through the side door where all my coworkers and a bunch of generic government worker like people I’ve never seen before were gathered in a narrow alleyway next to the building reveling in any chance they could get to avoid doing any work so I had to squeeze my way through them thinking what the fuck is this as far as social distancing while I was munching on a handful of almonds feeding them into my mouth with my left hand one at a time beneath my N95 mask and I wasn’t wearing any shoes but I had on a thick pair of wool socks that seemed to do the trick as the ground was damp but not wet and then I woke up from just another stress dream in these unfuckingprecedented times yesterday morning and then before work I looked at insoles to add to my thrashed work-a-day work shoes and 4 hours later in the bushes outside Atmospheric Sciences I spotted a pair of insoles my size NIB just torn open unused so of course I picked them up. no joke. I’m not making this shit up except the dream part because I didn't have a choice on that it’s as if the search engine triggered the drone to drop the shit on my route and not charge me for it like a promotional item that gets me hooked so I won’t be able to say no but no really I have the insoles in my shoes right now. I’m wearing them like you're soaking in it.  Sincerely. For real. Really. seek and you shall find or be careful what you wish for or walk softly and ride a big cargo bike or just pay attention to the signs.  

in the comfort of a swivel chair looking back with the luxury of tuning in or out of what i want to remember and what i long ago chose to forget i’m an active member of the phantom nostalgia syndrome commission because right now old school makes so much more sense than anything further than 10 feet in front of me don’t get me wrong the 10 feet right in front of me   ie   my family means everything to me     it’s all the other horseshit beyond that that i’m looking backwards past and focusing on older old school shit kinda like listening to shitty classic rock radio is embarrassingly more comforting than even NPR because all the news is fucking bad news so here’s to these two characters who as I choose to remember were making their way south from the 5 point around 9am 15 years ago somewhere along their own coffee-beer-hard-liquor continuum cheers to that and here’s to this

roundabout 12 hours ago Junior Junior was moving office furniture around 50 feet or so with no dispatcher and no commission and no real destination only his internal motivation and when I said I want to get a photo he said no thanks bro

meatloaf sandwiches in the shade

a meatloaf sandwich in the shades

reflecting Mark McDermott Plaza

a table for one and a couple crows

from 3 feet

Every bike tells a story and this Arrowpace had an interesting story I’m sure before my old lady bought it ten years ago at BikeWorks with drop bars and downtube shifters. I stripped it down and built it up with some cheap chinese knock off deep section wheels and a 1st edition DANK top tube pad (see hand stitched tag in photo below bro) and a few days later she rode it work at 1221 E Pike and both wheels and the top tube pad were stolen during her shift. It was rebuilt with whatever wheels I had sitting around as well as full fenders for her Seattle commute to work.

Ten years later like the day before yesterday my old lady said she really liked the big tires on her other-other bike, could we make that into a single speed? And i said it’d be a lot easier to just put bigger tires on the Univega. She has been riding around a lot with Junior Junior and Junior too through bumpy alleys and grass trails and random cul de sacs and the skinny 700 x 25 tires were not doing the trick.  So I ditched the full fenders and the skinny skinny tires and put on some Panaracer T-serve 700 x 35 tires and that made all the difference.  As you can see in the top photo it’s now floating on a 73psi cloud of air writing a new chapter in its story book. 

Little Kitty

Little kitty lost

In a forest of trees tall

Little kitty lost!!!

--Junior Pilder  7/11/20

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