I live in bicycle heaven - a good thing too, for i own no vehicle other than my Asama bicycle, and my CA DL expires in one week · lucky me. I did not own an automobile until i was 23 years of age, which in California time is the equivalent of getting married at the age of 40; i forget exactly which was first, a mini cooper, or the 67 Chevrolet Impala station wagon i bought from Mr. Edwards next door to where i grew up. Had i been wiser, i could’ve been still driving that car, but on my 1st excursion to San Francisco from OC, my ignorance of the importance of oil to an auto seized the motor outside of San Luis Obispo. Whoever said “life is nothing but lessons,” wasn’t lying. It has been a good thing that my twisted mechanical comprehension favors the simplicity of bicycles, for at my age, given my prior renegade lifestyle, keeping my heart rate up daily is the only thing that stands between me, Covid-19 and senile depression - a state of mind id’ve rather been less conversant with than i am and a retrovirus i’ve been told is lethal to my demographic.
Yeah, whaddya gonna do - the nazis in DC are making big noise about making off with my lifetime contribution to SS, and i don’t mean the ‘merican version of the Schutzstaffel however much that pissant wannabe Jabba the Hut in office would like to say it has been. I washed dishes when _rump’s daddy was paying lawyers to declare little d’s bone spurs were too severe to serve - at least i had the testicles to ignore the registration, and to this day i’ve no idea how that conscientious decision wasn’t met with similar consequence that my elder brother faced refusing to muster to Vietnam: May my dossier reflect such for the fascist goons managing data for the corporate overlords too fucking pink in the cheeks to even know what i’m referring to -
“Bicycle Heaven,” you too-dumb-for-consumer-fodder-running-dogs is how i remember where i learned to ride in Old ‘merica; the kind of place where your father wouldn’t let you drive his bright red Mustang Mach II, not because he didn’t love you, but because you didn’t pay for the privilege and he still required its ride for his failed real estate speculation entrepreneurial escape from the social tedium of teaching literature to mooks who’d rather be watching “Soupy Sales,” grooving to the “Beach Boys,” or trying to fathom Bob Dylan, rather than listen to a soon-to-be-forgotten minor poet out of Bellflower CA on his 2nd marriage plumbing the rising wisdom of the indigenous voice in reactionary Orange County California.
It is a complicated world we are leaving too soon, and i remain at a loss as to how to prevent unnecessary mayhem. I believe that it has something to do with daily exercise which my magic bicycle yields as long as i possess discipline enough to apply, though old habits die hard and the noble beast should have more oil more regularly than that which i grace it. I’m still trying to get my head around smoking less, and drinking for flavor, much less minding the mechanical g_d which in her infinite wisdom has bestowed on my later years. It was difficult enough to de-couple from a family constellation that in many regards was as noble as any one might find in history or literature. The reality though has been much different, for the recurring recrimination i find in strangers faces too much resembles the disdain reflecting my siblings conceit about my place in my funny little tribe.
I am getting better though and accept how awful it must be for my own brethren to suffer their collective delusion that my weird ways have been intended as destructive; i, at this late date am doing everything in my power to preserve the kindness, however brief i learned at the feet of my elders. I understand now that they were and are dealing with demons and likely wished to blunt the same suffering i have discovered - not of my making, any more than deliberate behavior on their part - how fucking awkward is that¿ I am petitioning forgiveness for people who behaved at the time with their best intentions · a truth to which i can close my eyes and recall hearing nearly 40 years ago by a stone carving journeyman whose own rigid view of his place in history allowed him to disallow my 7 year’s of apprenticeship carving stone and deny me journeyman status, but still i love him for what he taught me that day · “they are doing the best that they know how.” LIKE US ALL I AM SURE . ..
jts 10/09/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
reprinted with permission - all rights reserved
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