illusions of speed

fast-twitch

You rise out of the saddle and tighten your grip on the bars. As your legs open the throttle, the drivetrain reacts sharply to the urgent request for acceleration, and the bike snaps forward, out from under you, as though it's trying to escape.
If that kind of euphoria ever wears thin, I'll take up golf.

one red thread

Cycling, just like any other wheeled pastime, is really just another glorified means of rolling around. There is no greater cause for which to strive, no lives to save, only rolling. But the truth is, it's saved me. Finding that indescribable sense of freedom in these mountains, through rolling and suffering, and suffering and rolling. Freedom saves. It is analogous to life in that through suffering, we are saved. And we are saved, because we are free.

This is why I came to Utah. Soon, it will be time to move on. 

"...had the itch to fly, so I flew"

Find somewhere new. Find that which saves you. And wear your helmet.

lot's sometimes

Bicycles are strange. And the people who ride them, even stranger. Fiercely communal, and fiercely maternal - almost to a fault. But the strangeness of the bicycle is more than a way of life; rather an extension of self-expression and freedom. And when our means to access the manifestations of those expressions are compromised - our bicycles are stolen, or our friends injured by a larger vehicular inhabitant of the roads we do our best to share, those strange instincts are provoked.

One month ago today, someone named Brynn Barton was riding her bicycle here in downtown Salt Lake and exercising her freedoms to be young and inspiring, when she was hit by a car. The driver fled.

Brynn was killed.

______ in the making

The way I see it, there are understood to be two schools of thought in buying a bicycle. The foremost, would be to attend a prestigious law school, whereupon graduation, sauntering into a bike shop and dropping thirteen thousand dollars wouldn't seem like much, after having already spent ten years in academia, hemorrhaging cash and common sense. "Getting back in shape," a justifiable and highly likely end to means of budding alcoholism and nipples buried in debt.

The second would be more deliberate. Less direct, but perhaps more personal. Carefully choose a frame. Buy it. Put it in a box. Tape the box shut. Do not take it out at parties or snuggle with it at night. Create a list instead. And then, every week or so, check something off that list.

The final step? Wait for Spring.

hibernation

as the rains come

Before and after the storm.

nothing gold can stay

teeth cut on 15 tooth dura ace

Riding as a messenger, it's pretty hard to go easy on your gear - the day in / day out routine definitely exponentiates the rapidity at which entropy attacks everything used to perform the job. Constant sliding of straps over shoulders tears through t-shirts, saddles wear out shorts, shorts wear out saddles, keys wear out the barrels which wear out the grooves in the keys, emergency whipskids tear through tires, and the occasional fall eats away the mess pack's coarse, waterproof skin. It's all completely inevitable, and a mostly unavoidable aspect of the job. But it used to bother me a great deal - so much more than it does now; that constant struggle to keep everything shiny and new slowly gave way to an appreciation for the grit of chain grease and u-lock scratches, and the balance in necessity of wear and tear - simple evidences of a life well used, and equally well loved.

Someday, we'll have only scars to remind us of where we've been.

love is for the middle class

"This is Alfred. He hasn't long to live."

...Or so I was told, upon receipt of my first potted plant. My neighbor was moving, and parting out what was left of the unkempt garden she'd amassed on the porch.

couple of wires in my heart are broke

It's hard to pinpoint where exactly this summer has gone. Without any bearing on where I've been or what I've done, it feels more like I've just caught myself after sifting through the pockets of a mess pack for my apartment keys, or my phone as it rings. Behind the oblivious scene on my white porch, the world moves as though in a time lapse, waiting not even for me. My hand finally stumbles into the keys. They jangle, finally finding the lock as I speak into the waiting phone. I look up, concentration broken.

And suddenly I realize it's August, and the sun is setting.

The DI is still very much alive and well. Thanks for checking back. Just couldn't find my damn keys.

trifection

As a kid, I guess it's kind of like collecting basketball cards. Worshipping these heroes--their prowess, exploits, and statistics on cardboard laminate, and then one day, finally getting courtside seats to the all-star game, with every last one of them in attendance.

For ex-angsty teenagers, I guess the same elation could be traced to music.

Definitely a weird feeling, spending the last ten years following the words and melodies of these three strangely dysfunctional heroes of mine, relating only through headphones and shitty car stereos, and then by sheer luck, seeing each one of them in the span of only a few short weeks.

jesus christ, that's a pretty face

this is the last straw

plugged in and ready to fall

Jesse, I've finally forgiven you and your band for dropping off the Japan '04 world tour date.

give up the grudge

So, I heard tomorrow was Lent. Now, not being Catholic, I wouldn't have known this, had one of my devoutly Catholic Facebook acquaintances not smugly announced he would be giving up Facebook for the entirety of Lent, and that he could henceforth only be reached via snail mail, carrier pigeon, or whimsically punctuated columns of white smoke.

While I can't say that I'm disappointed that my main page feed will no longer showcase his hilariously inane Vatican news updates, and grossly politically incorrect theories on the "perfect submissive wife," I was raised protestant, so the whole concept of Lent has always been of great curiosity to me. At first, it was my understanding that its observers were simply to take an aspect of their lives and 'fast' in the same way the Christ fasted in the desert for 40 days. The first ever example I can ever remember of Lent was a friend who gave up pickles. "But I really like pickles!" she insisted. I was twelve at the time, and also loved pickles. She was such a martyr.

shadows and r******

What is it about the 'r' word, that we as humans can't seem to bring ourselves to admit to having?
It's as if a mistaken utterance might suggest a portion of our life was lived in error. In vain, and we're left to mop up the repercussions. Who's to blame for insecurity uttering that classic two word cliche (well that, and "everybody wang chung tonight") at the end of the bar? Defiantly, on the edge of a cliff? Or maybe it's just a parachute, deployed at the moment pride has finally had its fill, puking rebellious brains out in a stranger's bathroom. Our lives are already so clogged full of stupid shit--some productively stupid, other amounting to far less so. Why are we so hasty to suggest that these stones left unturned, or swatches of paint left undried, the ultimate cause of one's undoing?
Maybe it's laziness leading us to believe this is a by-product of poor choice, or even a choice unmade. On the contrary, I'd rather think it's a manmade emotion--a manufactured fail-safe whose sole purpose is to defer that inner conflict--protecting the ego from being held responsible for any genuine fuckups along life's way.

I spent 32 months in Okayama. Acquired nearly seven full days of music, filled three Moleskines, lost 18 pounds, and took nearly 10 million photographs--5,769 of which I kept. And now it's 4:15 in the morning. I drank too much coffee after dinner, and I'm staring the results in the face. Actually, what I'm staring at is a window--outside it's raining, but all I see is black. Occasionally, a flicker of lightning in the distance. Reflected in the glass is my face, headphones covering ears, their outline illuminated only by the glow of my computer screen. I have proof. It's not hard to find.

I barely remember why I left. Barely remember why I went there in the first place. Ironically, I've been watching a lot of Lost since I got back. And for as much of a painted-into-a-corner clusterfuck the third season turned into, it still offhandedly serves to remind that life will always boil down to ebb and flow. The simplicity of X's and O's on a blank sheet of college rule. Success and failure.
And how some things, for lack of an immediately plausible greater reason, are simply meant to be. When life takes us to these islands, be they hopelessly off course, or just off a peninsula, there exists a great equalizer to all this: reason.

Or at least there goddamn better be, otherwise, not even thirteen more episodes of Evangeline Lilly would be reason enough to get me through season 4.

the bookend

"Someone I swore I’d never be

who trades his dreams for security

walks this city blindly...

What you need is a sharp knife, son..."

the traveling salesman

I like the sound of the hallway fish tank.

The perpetual filter trickle reassures the stale air, drowns out the scratching pencils, scribbling on to higher education, but lower expectations. Numbers and facts, displaced; a process systematically unlearned along the way. Unbuckled, the heart from above the legs. Six months in, and four months dead. Eight months gone, twelve months ago. Two strangers hurtling across the nightscape at separate speeds from opposite directions, and towards the same station. Who derails first? Learned for a moment's use, and gone. Like glass on a fire alarm, a purpose fulfilled in the most dire of circumstances. It now wanders the tarmac with empty suitcases, waiting for a better reason.

And now? Just gone.
With time as currency and the exchange rate falling, the sun sets on another career of selling ice to eskimos.

life in the waiting room

Waiting for the bus, waiting for a train, waiting for that flight. Waiting for the weekend, waiting for payday. Waiting for the rice maker, the doorbell, for the chime on the microwave. Waiting for the postman, waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting.

Like a list on some drawn-out game of bingo, we tick them off, one by one. Start waiting on the next. Maybe when it amounts to enough, we get a shot at going back to the drawing board.
Assuming some waiting/reassembly required.


"...it's all headlights and vapor trails, and circle K killers"

the prosecution and the defense

"Please describe in as few words as possible, the nature of your relationship with the defendant."

guiding a borrowed missile by stolen satellite

We know the formula better than anyone. Easy to feel empowered when they've entrusted us enough to pad these designer pockets. And so we push. After all, we've pushed enough of these kids through the test tubes to know exactly who and how they will succeed. And now there they are, formed in neat rows beneath the stage, being called upon to reach forth and seize the ropes to their infallible prepubescent dreams, joining the march toward a desk or filing cabinet in the skies of glass and steel above. I look at their faces, trying to pick out who, in untold months from now, wouldn't be able to take it anymore. Where is the boy who would crumble under the pressure, placing himself under house arrest for months on end before finally being coaxed off the proverbial ledge, and returning to class? Or maybe it would be one of his classmates--the pretty brown-eyed one, with long raven hair, until the stress caused it to start falling out. The cost of meeting expectations--graduation from a college of good reputation, a full decade from today, an academic record forged from remaining at the top of classes that no one will ever remember. Innocence. From children who were taught everything from every book--everything but how to grow, and learn to make mistakes on their own terms. In our adult rush to earn a reputation by introducing them into society and to the top of the boardroom, we forgot to show them how to seek, and inquire, and discover for themselves.

the choir sings... as gunfire rings...

All the young expats I've ever known in my experience with Japan lived painfully normal lives. They took their girlfriends or families to Royal Host following sunny afternoons at the park, and dutifully paid their city taxes--even giving the unscrupulous NHK man his due. They faithfully endured discriminating office politics, eventually working their way through the company till they'd saved enough to afford a Vespa and a 50cc driver's license. In some sense of the word, even hitting the glass ceiling was "making it." 'Stability' on a path others found unstable or unlivable could be counted as an accomplishment of its own. Yet nowhere in the scripted "living abroad" life manual have I ever seen anything about a Ferrari on unpayable loans from the bank, multiple high-rise properties, or the exorbitant, winner-to-gutterball swinger lifestyles that seem to be happening in that one 'other' famous expat metaphor. All the dime-store romanticism derived from taking a chance, with all the stakes not earned, but conveniently on loan. No sooner conveniently returned, none the wiser.
Guess I picked the wrong country.

...and you tell me you're so weary...

The old man in front of me scratched his graying stubble with a leathered fistful of ten-thousand yen notes; the two handcarts at his side piled high with boxes--all, needing postage labels. He had carefully balanced white styrofoam ones at the top, and thicker, corrugated cardboard ones on the bottom. Eavesdropping, I heard him tell the clerk he was sending fresh fish, and they needed to be rushed. "Might they arrive in the morning?" He hoped.
His galoshes, still wet from the rain outside, squeaked on the tile as he lifted each chilled husk from the cart to the window. With only a few minutes to go before midnight, he would be one of the last customers of the day. Him, and an American standing behind with only an envelope. He places the first package on the scale.
I found myself truly wanting to know. There had to be more to this man than just fish. More to the chase than just the expectations of the catch. More to living than just arriving.

...more like scratching lyrics on paper plates

break the code

I get a lot of curious onlookers and potential visitors asking about Japan--what it's like, how I've made my way, and if I've enjoyed my time here. They're all loaded questions really, and so more often than not, my respective answers are guilty of being appropriately laden with bullshit. Not the "lies" sort of bullshit one might come to expect, but bullshit of the more oversimplified nature. Mostly because in general, I think the only thing that matters less than the collective weight of my own personal experience, are the assumptions gleaned from my pithy summaries. Truth is, when we're free to stake our own course--our own naked reality (outcome notwithstanding), why would you want to just get your feet wet if you've got the whole deep end of the pool to flounder around in? In response to this metaphorical fist of ham, the DI has loaded two shells of bullshit into this old analogous rifle. 

Commencing turkey shoot:

the DI looks up "analogy" in the dictionary...

Call it a "roll." Less like a wheelie, and more like a welded ballerina in rubber tires doing pirouettes on concrete. Yuji has been trying to hit this trick for the better part of two months now. String together all the photographs I have of him mid-attempt, and pull out the ones of his crashes, flats, and busted rims, we'd probably have a full length stop-motion film of him rolling like steel on stage with the Nutcracker. The particular attempt above is no exception to the reality. He ghosted it less than a half a second after the shutter snapped. But that's the beauty of a photograph--a medium wherein the subject's outcome is nowhere near as important as the execution captured in progress; ultimately what would (hopefully) make any photograph worth looking at.

...fails to locate

And just the same--granted the shutter speed here is slower, but the effect is the same. We've got an uncharacteristically serene Okayama ekimae, and two young girls under umbrella refuge, all soaked in the surrounding neon glow. Ingredients familiar enough for anyone who's been to Japan. A snapshot. A summary, of sorts. Just as before with Yuji, at only a glimpse of the photo, the viewer is left to interpret as they see fit, the skill of the rider, or the exotic allure of the locale. We're still not privy to the full understanding--the picture behind the picture.  

Reality.

But even if you could know, would you still want to? Is a 1/60th second summary enough for you to decide? Wouldn't it be better to buy a plane ticket, or get on a bike and just start cranking wheelies to find out for yourself?

My own snapshot... Finally growing monochrome.

den-den to nowhere

I've been in and around Japan for almost 5 years now, and if that cavernous black hole of time has taught me anything, it's that Japan is a consistently difficult place to photograph. While it may be set against some of the richest scenery and architecture the world has to offer, when you spend all your time navigating tricky viewfinder angles to crop out bothersome pedestrians, telltale concrete, obnoxious signage, or the ever-present crisscrossing electric lines, you start to wonder if the Japanese are even aware of what they've clearly spent the last 100 years systematically ruining:

At the same time however, I've decided that the "crop and avoid" photographic strategy effectively denies its subjects the honesty they so deserve. For example, without these power lines, you just have some lazy clouding, scattered across a Monday afternoon's fading daylight. All assumptions considered, this could just as easily be sunset over any European or North American city.
But with the power lines, you have the one thing that makes this photo more distinctly "Japanese" than any seaside, shrine, or mountain that could have appeared in its place.

The reality of it is sad; as any inevitable reality should be. But even reality, when taken at face value, can potentially produce a photograph that manages a subtle measure of zen--a distinct elegance at the end of a meandering, Japanese clusterfuck.

only if she calls

...And you can tell Jane, if she writes,

That I'm drunk off all these stars and all these crazy Hollywood nights.

That's total deceit, but she should've married me.

And tell her I spent every night of my youth on the floor,

Bleeding out from all these wounds.

I would've gotten her a ride out of that town she despised.

You tell that to Janey, if she writes.

But boys will be boys and girls have those eyes
That will cut you to ribbons sometimes.
And all you can do is just wait by the moon
And bleed if it's what she says you oughta do.

You remind Anna, if she asks why,

That a thief stole my heart while she was making up her mind.

I heard she lives in Carolina with the cool,

Goes crazy over that Southern scene on Queens Avenue.

But I used to wait at the diner, a million nights without her,

Praying she won't cancel again tonight.

And the waiter served my coffee with a consolation sigh.

You remind Anna, if she asks why.

You know it's hard to tell you this.

Here's looking at you, kid.

tell all your friends of the boy from which your accent comes

Have you ever thought about humble pie? Wondered if it were actually a dessert dish? I mean, pie should just be pie, right? Apple, peach, blueberry, lemon meringue, key lime--a fruity universe of choice. But what if it were more of a meaty, crusty, zesty, dinner-worthy entree? An agonizing chore to douse with ketchup and choke down before going to watch Full House? I oft wonder if the response to this humble conundrum is not unlike the "glass half-empty/full" metaphor. Well anyway, it's taken me the better part of 18 months to eat all the way down to the pie tin, and I still have no idea. Seems like all I've got to show for it is an unpleasant metallic aftertaste, and these ketchup stains on my shirt.

Time in the Japanese language has taught me a lot about my own native English--usage of adjectives and their synonyms, mostly. The ongoing process that began a little over five years ago, has been an exhausting trial in patience and frustration, as well as a grim lesson in frivolity, complete with all the haphazard convenience most often tucked behind a blaring red "As Seen on TV" sticker.

I've recently begun to liken the experience of learning a foreign language to a human being learning to walk (a period in my life I remember with miraculous clarity, smartass). It begins with painstaking first steps, as learning patterns are established, and a basic foundation is laid. With the passing of time, your ability and confidence slowly grow. Then, knowing neither physical limitation nor fear of failure, you learn to run at a reckless, broken pace. Head filled with pride, naivety, and the reassurance that you've finally got everything figured out, you pack your life in a suitcase and move to a land of fellow walkers to put your newfound ability to the test.
Upon arrival, you find that it's a place where everyone already knows not only how to walk, but how to run, how to climb up and down, how to balance the low-wire, the high-wire, and the checkbook. They can cartwheel, shimmy, samba, and perform a nearly unlimited range of other movements available exclusively to those with long legs and a pair of feet (ostriches, kangaroos, and Jesus lizards notwithstanding). But somehow the expectations were different. You hadn't expected them to take these gifts for granted. Your raging hard-on for bipedal locomotion quickly deflates with the enthusiasm on which it rode, as the realization that all the time in the books was spent towards giving you a skill that everyone else has innately possessed since spilling from the womb.

So the hastily-concluded moral to my anticlimactic shitpile of a story, still fresh in its telling?

Two feet, do not a record-setting Olympian make.