Years ago, when I was trying to make a living as a musician, I spent a lot of time on the road. In my car, often late at night. Early in the morning might be a better way to say it.

One night I was falling asleep behind the wheel so I pulled over into a hotel parking lot to get some shuteye. I had a car full of stuff-my tux bag, trombone, mute bag, a small suitcase, a bicycle, various other items and probably some McDonalds waste as well.
At 4:10 in the morning (I had a little digital clock on my dash) I was wakened by the sound of rapping on my driver’s side window. Squinting through my bleary eyes I made out the shape of a cop, shining his flashlight through the window into my eyes. He had his right hand on his holster.
As I rolled down the window, I noticed another officer behind him, also shining a flashlight at me. I said, “what’s up?”
“Who are you? What are you doing here? Is this your car? I need to see your license and registration and proof of insurance. Why are you here? Where are you going? What’s all that stuff in your car?” etc. etc. etc.
I’m beginning to grasp my position by now-I’ve noticed another officer outside the passenger’s side door, also with a flashlight, and a fourth man behind the car with his flashlight as well. I’m surrounded.
“Let me see your hands. What are you doing here? Who are you?’” The questioning continues.
I start to explain, “Well, see, I play the trombone. And I had a gig with KENNY PAULSEN (the previous county sheriff, who runs a dance band), and I’m driving home after the show, and I got sleepy, and I thought I would just pull over here for a while and rest, so that I wouldn’t fall asleep behind the wheel and CRASH MY CAR AND KILL EVERYONE.”
“Oh,” says cop number one.
“Here’s all the documentation you asked for.” As I hand him the things he had asked for (all current and proper).
“Well, we’ve had some thefts reported tonight here in the parking lot. Somebody has been going around breaking into cars.”
They thought they had their man, I guess. He stepped aside to his cruiser to call in the report and check my creds, after which he gave some sort of “all safe” signal to his buddies, who were visibly relieved-the flashlights went down, holsters were snapped back closed, and they all turned away to other concerns.
“You’d better get out of here,” he said, “and drive safely.”
And I left.

Another time, I’m driving down the main East-West road in north Burlington at 3:00 in the morning, almost home, and in the middle of the road I see a Possum. A big, hairy, no, make that HUGE, almost BALD, honking bull possum.
I’m not going to hit that animal if I can help it-it’s going to do some serious damage to my little 240Z, and memories of a deer hit some years previous come to mind. So I hit the brakes pretty hard, and start to veer right. As I’m passing the animal, I see that it has already been hit, and is bleeding and staggering and it looks to me like suffering.
What am I going to do about this? Ignore it, go home and get to bed? Find a big rock and smash it’s brains out? What about a big stick? I cant’ just let it die there in the middle of the road...even if I can forget about the suffering, that guy is big enough to cause some serious damage to someone's car. What if someone hits it and crashes?
Hmmm.
So I went home. Got my BB gun. A BB pistol, actually. Went back to the scene, parked in the middle of the 4-lane road, installed a fresh CO2 cartridge, chambered a ball, and shot the possum right between the eyes. He collapsed in a heap immediately. Then I repeated the procedure.
Then I heard the engine. rrrrmmmmMMMMM, from behind. I stood up, turned around, and two blocks away, coming right at me, a mass of lights-white, flashing, red, and blue...flashing.
Oh, shit. Three in the morning. Middle of the road. Pistol. Large dead thing. Hmmm.
I put the gun down on the hood of my car, turned toward the police car, and put my hands in the air.
The cruiser pulled up to about twenty feet away, lights all shining right on me, the driver’s door opened and the officer assumed his defensive posture. One hand on his radio, the other hand on his revolver, no doubt.
After a minute or so of wondering how this was all going to turn out, I heard another car coming at me from the opposite direction. I turned my head around to look, and there were the lights-white, red, blue, all flashing.
When the second car arrived and its driver had assumed his “defensive posture,” the first officer came out and approached me.
“What’s going on here,” he wanted to know.
“Well, see, I play the trombone. And I was on a gig with KENNY PAULSON, and I’m driving home, and I see this animal here, and I, uh, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but, uh, it didn’t look like a good place for a big animal to die, so I went on home and got my BB gun and came back to finish it and move it off the roadway.”
“Oh,” says the cop.
And I just stood there, and enjoyed watching my story sink in.
“You’re a trombone player?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“And that’s a BB gun?”
“Yep.”
“Hmmm.”
Long pause.
“Well, we’ll take care of this. You can go home now.”
Which I did.
A cop’s job is full of danger, violence, and tragedy. It takes a special person-when there’s trouble, who do you call? When there’s danger, who is the first to step in? The night shift is the worst-all the rats come out of their holes and darkness hides what isn’t presentable in the daytime.
The police didn’t ID me, didn’t check my registration or insurance (actually, I don’t doubt that he radioed-in my license plate number), didn’t look at the pistol. In retrospect, he may have regretted not inspecting things a little more closely, but I suppose he was just shocked at the novelty of the situation, relieved that it wasn’t at all what it first appeared to be, and surely he was looking forward to telling the story back at the station.

“There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.” - Bertrand Russell


Beyond the question of a "liberal media," which Chomsky has quite thoroughly debunked, one wonders why have we not heard more good news from Iraq, heard more of the "good works" of our soldiers.

Could it be simply that the stories are being suppressed? I doubt it-those charged with censoring news would kill the BAD news, not the GOOD news. Certainly that is the case with government and military censors, but probably also with network censors, who often simply repeat what they are told by sources.

Could it be that the audience is just not interested in good news? Perhaps. What are the demographics of mass media audiences? At the risk of stereotyping, are there more conservatives or liberals watching ABC Nightly News? NBC? CNN? More christians or secularists? Moslems? Atheists? Educated or not? We know who listens to Rush Limbaugh and Mike Rosen-do their "reports" include the good news? What does the audience want to hear? What causes ratings to spike? What sells product?

Nobody is blaming the soldiers. Nobody is shouting "baby killers", or spitting on them. It is widely recognized that our military is the best and most professional ever in the history of the world. I believe that the military tries very hard to avoid "collateral damage," but they have been given an impossible mission. Anyone who pays any attention knows that even though the bad news is the big story, it's not the whole story.

Could it possibly be that there just is so little good news that it's lost in the flood?

The war in Iraq, cost so far in USD: over $450,000,000,000. The amount of that each U.S. citizen owes (not including interest): $1,500. That's about the size of the check I wrote to Uncle Sam on April 14. I could use that money, personally. That's enough to feed all of Africa for a year. Enough to pay for three million eight hundred thousand 4-year college degrees, money for which would actually stay here in our U.S. economy. Enough to totally refurbish Walter Reed with about 300 billion left over. (talk about supporting the troops!). I could go on...

Has the coalition built a new school for every one it has bombed?
Has the coalition fed and educated a child for every one it has killed?
Housed a family for every one it has slaughtered?
Built a house for every one it has leveled?
Are Halliburton, Bechtel, Arlington, and others operationg efficiently?
Are they using local labor at $4/hour, or crony labor at $250/hour?
Are they using local materials, or flying-in 2x4's and readi-mix on C-130's?
How much money is missing?
Has anyone learned anything from this?

Who to watch out for.

The worst drivers in town are on the street that passes in front of Wal-mart. Rude, unyielding, ignorant. Downright dangerous. One of them pulled up behind me at the stoplight exiting the parking lot and leaned on his horn. After he passed me (horn blaring) I chased him down and leaned on his car at the next red light. He opened his window and said, “get your hand off my car.”
I said, “what’s your problem?”
He said, “don’t you know, bicyclists are supposed to ride on the right hand side of the road.” And he pulls out his cell phone. Points it right at me, like he’s gonna shoot me with it or something.
I said, “no, you’ve got that wrong. I can ride anywhere in the right lane I want. The whole lane is mine. The WHOLE LANE. If you doubt that, you can go to the public library and look it up in the code.”
He said, “get your hand off my car or I’m calling the polics.”
I said, “why don’t you go ahead now and call the police?”
He said something else.
I said, “call the police. RIGHT NOW.”
He said something else.
I said, “CALL THE POLICE OR I WILL.”
Then the light turned green and he honked his horn again and got out of there.
I got his license number, but by the time I got home, it’s like, “whatever.”

Another one was entering the roundabout a block east of Wal-mart. A lady driving a new Honda SUV, inching forward through the yield sign into my right of way. I saw what was going to happen so I grabbed my pump, held it up over my head and charged right straight at her, like I was going to smash her nice car to bits. She finally found the brake pedal, and I continued on past victorious. And I gave her a nice wave.

A third bozo cut me off right there at the roundabout and I gave chase. Just about the time I was about to catch him, I grabbed my water bottle with the intent of giving him a good squirt right through his driver-side window. But he made a quick u-ey in front of the Church of Scientology and headed back toward the roundabout, fast as he could. Maybe he just hangs out there and messes up traffic for a hobby?

A FOURTH moron, actually a dim little old lady, driving one of those four-door pseudo-luxury USA-mobiles looked right into my eyes before turning right in front of me. RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I had to slam on my brakes or crash. Well, she wasn’t very hard to chase down-I got her in the Wal-mart parking lot as she was opening her door, and said, “you cut me off back there, why did you do that?”
And she said, “Oh, I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t believe it. She was SORRY!

A gal came up behind me on a residential street nearby, passed me then made a right turn right in front of me.
I’m getting a little tired of this, now.
I chased her down, knocked on her window and when she opened it I asked “why did you cut me off back there?”
She said, “I didn’t know if you were turning or not.”
Hmmm. Guess I didn’t use my GO STRAIGHT SIGNAL!

Just this morning a car passed me doing about forty, and the dirtbag passenger leaned out the window and shouted, “HYBDUG LACHNIAZ PSHNORMBID WLKCUIUNYH UP!” What a rude thing to say, I think.

More Night Ride Stories

You run into the strangest things while riding.
A few years ago my mechanic and I were out on a night ride at Red Rocks. We were on the road and came around a corner, and there was a pretty bad car accident right there in front of us. A Honda (as I remember) had spun out on the corner at a fairly high rate of speed, sideswiped a telephone pole pretty hard, and then ran into a dumpster. Totalled the car-just about folded it in half and bashed in on at least two sides, all the windows smashed, busted up the dumpster and maybe broke the pole as well. We thought there must be someone dead, but looking into the car we saw only broken glass and cassette tapes, miscellaneous trash. And blood. The driver had egressed through the moon roof, leaving a trail across the top of the car and the hood, to the side of the road, where he (she?) sat down to “pool” his thoughts. Or put his arm back together. Or something.
(This sequence of events I am reconstructing from the blood trail)
After sitting for a bit, he got up, walked (or crawled) to the car, and ripped off both license plates, evidently with his bare hands (again, surmising from the blood, and the fact that the licence plate screws still held the corners of the plates). Then took off down the road.
While examining the scene, we watched down at the bottom of the hill, maybe a half-mile away, a car pull over to the side of the road, sit a minute, then take off again towards Morrison. Had he called a friend?
We followed the trail down the road a few hundred yards, where it disappeared into the ditch-we guessed that the person had cut across the field to the lower road, right about where the car had stopped. Or maybe he saw us coming and jumped into the bushes? We had pretty bright headlights on our bikes, but saw nobody.
We rode down to the Conoco in Morrison, found a cop parked there, and gave him the story. He already knew, and was on his way there. Gave him our names and numbers, and never heard a thing about it again. I watched the paper for a week or two, but never found out what had happened.
Whoever owned that car, hopefully, got some cash from their insurance, and surely felt the loss anyway. But I can tell you, that thief got the short end of the stick. Big time.



Another night-ride story:

We were coming back from Apex one night, maybe 8 or 10 o’clock, and it’s just starting to get dark. Driving in the left lane on highway 6, maybe 65 mph, and RIGHT IN FRONT OF US (!) this SUV flips over, rolls twice, ends up on its side sliding backwards down the road.
Couldn’t believe my eyes. My buddy says something like, “Holy ShXX!, Did you see that?!”
Sparks flying. Broken Glass. A big gouge taken out of the asphalt where her tire had failed and the rim caught. It was a Ford. Bridgestone tires? I don’t know.
Well, I hit my brakes, turned on the emergency blinkers, and parked right there in the left lane. Got out, left my door open, ran up to the scene, I’m the first person there, and here’s what I found:
Two kids, a girl (maybe 10) and a boy (6?), standing in the window, on the pavement (were they wearing seatbelts?) absolutely terrified, panicked, crying, screaming, but OK. I lifted them out one at a time-some people had arrived by then, and they took the kids off to the side of the road to try to calm them down.
And a woman in the driver’s seat, still seatbelted in, still talking on her cel phone.

buying Chinese

Selected words screened out of Microsoft’s Chinese web portal, as reported by Rocky Mountain News:

Capitalism
Freedom
Liberty
Demonstration
Separatism
Democracy
Human Rights

Shooting the Gappers

A few Sundays ago I was coming up the Platte River Trail. Near Mineral there were a couple with a baby stroller in front of me and coming at us from the opposite direction, not twenty feet away, two more people with a pair of leashed dogs. Everyone out to enjoy a warm weekend. I slowed down to wait for the two parties to pass each other, so that I could proceed safely around the stoller and then ride on to work.

And what do you suppose happened? Two posers in their flashy team apparel passed me going about 25 (speed limit 15) and SHOT THE GAP with maybe twelve inches to spare on either side! I couldn’t believe it. What the hell? Why do you think there has to be a speed limit posted there? Why do you think people bad-mouth cyclists on the path? Because of idiots like them. If one of those guys had tagged someone and crashed, I’d have been the one to tape their sorry butt back together and you can be sure that I would be there to testify against them in court.

Ride smarter, people!

The Art of the Seatcuster

Here’s a neat bike:



This is a ca.1973 Mondia Super, I picked up cheap (really, I don’t make a habit of picking things up just because they’re cheap, but look at that paint!). Off came the tubulars, Off came the chintzy old breakamatic handlebars, Off came the ten-speed Nuovo Record. On went the fixed-gear rear wheel, On went the clinchers and handlebar, etc. And now I have a(nother) “saved” old bike to ride.

It seems heretical to put new components on frames like this, and anyway since it’s Swiss, or French, or some combination thereof, it probably wouldn’t be very rewarding anyway. The old Mafac brakes work fine (not good) as long as you keep adjusting them, and leave plenty of room for fenders, so now I don’t have to get my Pista all smutty when it’s wet out. You might say, “Well, how can you justify getting your nice old Mondia dirty when it rains?” If you saw the mudflaps I have on those fenders you might think that it really Doesn’t get too dirty... And besides, I don’t have any other bike that will take that little T.A. rack (it bolts right onto the brake). Come to think of it, that little rack is one of the biggest reasons I ride the bike at all; every time I look down I think, “Cool!”



Look at that wraparound cluster. Other Mondias I have seen are similar, yet this technique is more common on British frames. Defaced by the serial number; an odd utilitarianism within the framework of beauty.
Those lugs are known as Nervex (company) Professional (model) and are often found on the fanciest of older frames. They are French, I believe. Although this one is pretty fancy with that paint job and such, the finish is second-rate, with minimal filing at the lugs and a typically fragile paintjob. Pinstriping on the main tubes was done (evidently) by a master, being nice and straight and clean, but then the frame was handed off to a hamfisted apprentice, who blotched on the lining around lugs.

The bike rides great. We haven’t learned much about frame geometry for decades; I’ve measured this thing up for dimensions and angles (see the little “73” marked on the top tube?) and it’s not far away from the supposedly “modern” geometry of Le., or Tr., or Sp., or Gi., or any other Johnny-come-lately “sport bike”; they’re just copying what came before. (I didn’t include Bi. in that group because they are now 120 years old, and really are, arguably, largely responsible for influencing the Italian school of design).




1978 Bill Davidson
Burly. Italianate (esp. with the painted window). Graceful yet strong. Big fat stiff stay-ends with brazed caps, not plugs. Brazing those stays onto the sides of the cluster make for a wider space at the tire. Extremely clean, crisp edges.



197? Bruce Gordon
This lug shouts, “American!” Highly-reworked Cinelli lugs. Somewhat avant-garde, with the binder bolt hidden on the opposite side (see below). Insuperable form. There is a photo of (presumably) Mr. Gordon’s hands filing a lug in The Custom Bicycle, by Kolin and de la Rosa (Rodale, 1979), which shows what hands look like after a million hours of detail work on steel frames. The radii of these lug mouths are impeccable, near-perfect, thinned down and profiled to tiny points, dispersing the stress risers of the lug neatly into the tube. This photo doesn’t do justice to the frame.



You can get an idea of the number of miles on this frame by the wear marks in the cluster; it’s a testament to craftsmanship that it survives today. And a dramatic upward Swoop! on the backside of the lug adds a little support to the post and, again, helps disperse a stress riser where seatposts occasionally break off.

This old guy is currently serving as a fixed-gear cyclocrosser!



2000 Serotta
Optimized. Lug mouths and points not much larger than necessary. Stays that go not beyond the bolt. A lug profile which almost disappears into the line of the joint, just millimeters away.



1979 Austro-Daimler
Some makers use a plug at the end of the stay with their company name, or some other motif.



2003 Bianchi
Typical modern cluster, tig-welded of course. Strong, light, inexpensive.



1969(?) Bottecchia
Italian. Not top-of-the-line, but still the manufacturer cared enough about the product to chrome-plate the ENTIRE frame and detail the lugs in red. Note the little hiccup in the line of the descending radius-no filing done here, just brazed together and sent on to paint. The stay-ends are sliced open and the outer flap folded over and brazed down to form a closed end.



197? Peugeot
Nervex Pro lugs. Somebody hammered in the wrong size of seatpost and now no amount of twisting, torching, and penetrating oil can free it. A mechanic friend suggested soaking in Coca-cola; I’ll try that one day.



191? Iver Johnson
Early American bicycle. Compare the basic form of this to the Bruce Gordon and Serotta frames above. Usually called a “fastback” cluster.



198? Schwinn Sidewinder
Just for comparison; strong, cheap. I understand that’s actually a brazed joint, whereas the rest of the frame is welded. Ugh!



198? Univega
Modern spartanism with an attention to crispness, and artistic flair. Medium-long points with a filled cutout.



And this is kinda interesting. Nice, even dirt buildup around the break-that fissure has been working its way around for some time. The clean break around the belly of the downtube is pretty fresh, and the exciting new sensation from the pedals alerted the rider. If I got back on the bike and cranked around the building it would probably finish it off. Hmmm.



199? Cannondale 2.8
Here’s another seat cluster, this time in aluminum. The paint has been stripped and the frame sanded, wooled, and polished. Which is a lot of work and I don’t recommend it. But what a striking result! This bike reminds me of a character in a Terminator movie.