Across town I was running late for any number of various tasks. I was
wrestling with a leather jacket and the weather. The other guys were
already on their Harley’s and spitting oil and exhaust waiting for me
to get going. We saddled up and took off for lunch. The ride was
cool, the day was overcast gray, and the cadence of pistons and road
was perfect. The sun was lost behind the haze of atmosphere but the
bike in its extreme vivid black so dark as to be bright in the
reflections and eye grabbing that it had the affect of rays of
sunshine beaming through the black.

Breakfast or lunch, the time of day confused the distinction between
the two, was spent with two cops asking questions that made him
squirm. Wanting to tell the truth but knowing what it would lead too. He
stopped talking, put up the front he had done so many times before,
part humble idiot part bad guy. He just nodded and acted aloof and
stupid to all of the inferences they were leading. They knew he did
it, he knew he did it and it was just a matter of time before the two
ends of that rope were unknotted and found to be the same piece. He
shut down and the cops, almost as uncomfortable as he, realized there
was no moving forward and just the continuous acrid eye burning
cigarette smoke, rotting garbage, bad coffee and questionable odors to
contend with.

I ran the meeting of overpaid executives with all the comfort and ease
of talking to my friends about fishing. The meeting participants
listened, asked questions, and accepted my point of view. Their minds
already made up, a decision without making a decision. Postpone,
filibuster, stall till the answer makes itself clear. Not all together
an abnormal day for me. I kept on with the task knowing the decision
wouldn’t render my future much different then the days past.

He sat on his dilapidated couch smoking cigarettes that tasted
terrible drinking cold coffee thinking about how he was going to get
out of what he did. The end was as bleak as his beginning. His
destiny never seemed very bright and this was reinforced every day of
his life. Everyone saw him as a thug; every one treated him as a burden on
society. It was as if no one bothered to ever see a future in him, a
dream, a life outside of the shit filled life he was executing. His
life reflected this. He looked around his apartment from the couch
his legs propped up on the coffee table covered in ash, beer bottles,
magazines, and scraps of a disorganized life strewn about. It all
looked the temporary life he kept. His squalid surroundings were
nothing he needed, nothing he couldn’t walk away from forever. Carpet
that looked like a tar truck had driven over it before it was
installed. Walls gray with the residue of the last 40 years of other
temporary people, the stink of his neighbors, the hollow walls that
seemed to amplify sound rather then deaden them. It was staged to be
desolate for the desolate with out him even trying.

After the meeting was done I gathered up my notes, took my accolades
from peers and executives. Glowed in their praise and enjoyed the day.
I walked down to the garage and threw a leg over the bike. The seat
felt firm, the leather felt comforting, a steady beat of the iron
underneath me felt strong and I was eager and ready to grab a handful
of throttle and lean into the corners of the garage and set off a few
car alarms with the exhaust tones. My riding partner’s 1976 Pan Head
next to me rumbled to life and clanged as it went into gear. We
decided on a route home, not the highway the back way. We’d burn the
streets and make a short trip a long ride back to the office. A cool
breezed swirled through the parking garage it felt good on my face,
refreshing and cool.

He put down the cigarette, went to the back of the apartment his
sticky putrid colored linoleum felt to hang on his socks trying to
slow him or stop him. Kneeling down to eye level with the off white
and gold sparkled counter top he opened one of the cupboards and
removed the never used baking pan to reveal the bottom of the
cupboard. He pried up the floor of the cabinet at the base. Took out
the steel black pistol, felt the weight in his hands. Looked at the
other miscellaneous contraband in the hiding place all reminders of
the decisions he’d made these things for a brief moment made him feel
powerful and then as quickly desperate to get away from them. Pulling
the chamber open he looked in the bridge, loaded, full magazine.

I wound my way down five floors of parking garage, enjoying the hard
right sweeping turns and the concrete walls amplifying and resonating
the engine exhaust off of the walls causing them to double in sound
and affect. Dave’s pan head set off a car alarm with the straight
pipes and we gleamed with deviant smiles and tried to get more car
alarms to ring. We were suddenly little boys with big toys. We made
it down three flights of cars before having to stop and wait for the
other traffic waiting to exit. We shouted over the exhaust about the
car alarms and laughed. I fumbled with gloves and wallet to get ready
to pay the parking attendant while balancing the bike between my legs.

He pulled a blue hoody sweatshirt over his long white t-shirt. He
laced up his boots, grabbed his back pack, cell phones, wallet, lastly
the gun. He held it in his hand looking at it sideways. He marveled at
the calling it had on him, how it’s engineering and precise lines
beckoned him. It was alluring it was a siren sitting on a rock singing
him into the break waters. He hid it in the pouch of his sweat shirt
gripping it and feeling secure in its presence. It had become an
entity, a voice with out speaking.

He shook his head and exited the apartment like it was any other day.
The day was particularly bleak, gray, and windy with the leaves dried
and blowing like confetti. He sighed, tried to push down that feeling
of dread in his gut. Those fear that the phone ringing, the knock on
the door, the steps in the hall would be the police or worse coming to
find him. The dread of his life made him wonder why he bothered at
all. Others like him seemed to be able to brush off the fear with out
any hesitation. His ate at him. Haunted him, he tossed at night, he
dreaded the day, he hadn’t slept in what felt like his whole life. He
couldn’t remember the last time he remembered going to sleep with out
feeling hopeless and waking up comforted and rested. Sleep was a
nightmare, awake was hell.

We took way too long getting out of the parking garage. The cashier
couldn’t run two parking tickets at once she had to run each
separately, we laughed at the simplicity and complexity of the task.
The other two riders had left before us, we waited for the Cadillac to
clear the left turn and pedestrian traffic to walk by. We jumped out
of the garage, tires hitting the black pavement, gripping it hard and
pulling us left, we were in synchronicity in function and motion. Fuel
and air meeting and burning we let the motors do what they knew best,
propel us forward. We shut down a car coming up the block and slipped
out in front of it with room to spare, the thrill of being on two
wheels and pulling mild risk like this made the ride exhilarating. We
rumbled on turning left at the end of the block, watching traffic and
people as we waited for the line of cars passing us. We sped down the
block, the clean sidewalks, the hustle of four o’clock people going
here and there made the down town see important and electric. The
haze of the day seemed to brighten, it didn’t but it seemed too. We
came up behind a bus and slipped into a free lane to buzz around. We
grabbed an opening and slipped around the bus and took a hard right.

He stepped down the stairs, one after the other each weighing foot
step heavy on the steps. His mouth was dry he was twitchy and nervous.
His anticipation of what was next was sickening. He hadn’t eaten but
he had no hunger, his mouth dry, it tasted metallic, bad like nothing
would ever taste normal again. He licked his lips, they were dry and
bitter with the acrid remains of a cigarette. He hit the pavement and
started walking north. Cars raced by all going somewhere, all
seemingly infinitely more important and relevant then him.

We rounded the corner and finally got a chance to stretch the engines
RPM’s the tiniest bit before hitting another stop light. We chatted
at the light, nothing in particular, the stench of the bikes, the
slowness of traffic it was meaningless and light. We were smiling and
enjoying the gray of the day in an unusual way.

The bus stop was ahead, it looked like any other bus stop, like boring
dullness. He hated waiting for the bus; he hated having to sit there
in the glass enclosure. It felt like all the cars were driving by
looking at him in an aquarium, judging him, making decision on who he
was. They didn’t know him, they didn’t know what he liked what he
thought about what his dreams were and no one ever asked or ever
cared.

We stopped at the intersection; it was an ill conceived light timing.
Green ahead, red where we were, we would race to try to get the yellow
at the next intersection but it was just a game, we knew we wouldn’t
make it but we would try. Like a game of sprints but with 80 pounds of
torque. The light went green. We rolled our wrists and machines pulled
ahead pulling us at our arms as the bikes forward motion tried to
leave us behind.

He came to the bus stop, felt the now warm grip of the pistol in his
hands. The weight of the gun satisfying in his hands, his finger
running up and down the straight machined lines of the trigger, his
confidence. He sat down on the far end of the bus bench and watched a
young girl walk by with out looking at him. He felt dread, he felt
hopeless, he felt empty.

We raced to the second light and hit the red light and came to a
planned but abrupt halt. I looked left a green mini van just behind my
rear tire. I watched north bound traffic start to come away from the
light. I saw a girl walk past the bus stop. I saw a man sitting there
in a blue hoody. I watched traffic I sat waiting for the light. I
watched nothingness; I watched molecules bounce around and act like
life, saw the chaos and order of people going here and there, felt joy
in the motion.

The entity of the gun seemed to pull itself out of his sweatshirt.
The gun was there it was looking at him, it was singing its siren
song. It looked like an answer, it smelled like oil and steel. He
was suddenly feeling light, calm, at ease. He felt remorse, he felt
weak, he felt strong, and he could feel.

I heard it first, the distinct pop of the gun. I had heard it before
at the firing range the distinct sound of a center fire bullet in a
short barrel. I watched as the bus stop glass turned into a million
pieces of fragmented glass. A large distinct hole in the upper center
of the glass the only clear part amongst the shards that made the
glass look like webbing. I saw the red on the glass. I saw the man
in the sweatshirt turn read and fall against the glass and slide to
the ground like he instantly had lost all control of his muscle. I saw
the girl turn around look behind her and then take off in a dead
sprint. I gasped for air, the light turned green and the reaction in
me went wild with gas and air as I left the starting line of the light
and moved as fast as I could away.

I didn’t stop or slow till I had too. Blocks later I came to another
light and I shouted with shaking voice “Dave did you see that?” he
looked at me blankly he heard the shot, he didn’t see anything.

“Dave that guy in the bus stop just got shot in the head and I saw it.
What the fuck was that? Seriously Dave I think I just saw a man die.”
He shrugged and we moved on. I was gripping the handle bars as hard as
I could, I was cool and sweating. I was anxious and nervous. I kept
turning over the image in my mind. I kept asking questions, kept
holding on to that feeling. Wondering why I felt numb and hot and
electric all at the same time. I could feel blood rushing through my
toes. We rode in silence till we went our separate ways.

I went home, I kissed my wife, I hugged my baby. I told her what I
saw, I described it in every detail, and I left out nothing. I spoke
of the green van, the bus stop glass, the girl walking away, the man
in the dark blue sweat shirt, the million piece of glass, the clear
punched out perfect circle in the upper center of the glass, I spoke
of the gray sky, the cool breeze the blackness of the bike, the sound
of the throttle everything but the blood in my toes.

I watched the new, I never watch the news, I don’t like hearing about
the war on the ground, and I don’t like the sensationalism of
violence, crime, hate, death. It’s too much for me to learn and then
to look at my daughter and smile. I watched every detail of the news
nothing, no mention of a shooting, no mention of any disturbance. No
mention of the man in the blue sweatshirt. Had no one missed him, had
he not left any mark on this earth? For weeks I checked the newspaper,
the internet. No report of a man dying, no report of a shooting. I
must not have seen what I thought I saw. Maybe the glass was always
broken. Maybe the girl ran because she was late, maybe the guy
slumped because he fell asleep, maybe the sound was just a backfire of
a car.

Two weeks went by and I couldn’t shake the image. I became obsessed
with proving what I saw. I felt like a crazy man wondering why I was
the only one that saw it. Finally I called the Police, I hesitated I
didn’t want to come forward with details but no one else had and I
mostly just wanted to know. I asked about a shooting. There was a
shooting; a suspect was found at the scene with a gun in hand.
Another call to a Police officer revealed the truth.

He died by himself, in a bus stop shelter, on gray day in October, on
a Wednesday at 430PM. I sat at a light bathed in the gray of the day.
I saw him take his life. He was surrounded by hundreds of people and
died alone.

I hate it when I call someone on the phone and they actually answer the call. I would rather leave a message then talk to them. There are people that I know that WILL answer when I call – and so I won’t call them. Or I’ll wait till I know they won’t answer, like at 4AM.

Digital cameras, although awesome, have taken out the exclusivity of photographs. It used to cost money to buy film and develop pictures so you were careful and picked your photo’s carefully…Now I’ll take 40 pictures of my family to get one good one and then delete all of them except the one.

How did the word avatar ever come about? I’m afraid of that word, and tweeting. Tweeting is not a bird call any longer, that was an embarrassing discovery.

I remember my mom moving me away from people walking down the street talking to themselves and hand motioning in a crazy fashion – they were normally the clinically insane or really high. Today I just assume that someone is talking on a phone with some sort of wireless device. One day that’s going to be a very bad mistake for me when someone I think is talking on the phone tries to eat my face because I look like a mushroom….yes I sometimes think I look like a delicious mushroom.

I think the reason that people love TV so much as opposed to the reality that’s going on in front of them is that it’s sort of like a time machine. One second your in a hospital ward making funny jokes, turn the channel and suddenly your running for a touch down. It’s that instantaneous “I’m somewhere other then here” sort of feeling. When I’m at a bar and the TV is on, I’ll watch TV. Its a bar interesting characters, lots of movement, good conversation, beer, and I’m watching TV because its somewhere where I can’t be. Maybe a teletransporter is a better description.

I actually had to use imdb.com to help me with this one. But as it turns out it’s a short few jumps

Elvis Presley was in Blue Hawaii with none other then Angela Lansbury, who was in Murder She Wrote for about a hundred years. Adam West did one of the Murder She Wrote episodes and was Batman in the original Caped Crusader TV shows. Who else was a show stopper on Batman none other then the Green Lantern AKA Bruce Lee.

So now, how do we get Kevin Bacon into the mix?

Elvis was in Speedway with Nancy Sinatra who was in Wild Angels with Peter Fonda. Peter Fonda was in Easy Rider with Dennis Hopper who was in Apocalypse Now with Martin Sheen who was in Wall Street with Charlie Sheen. Brothers Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez did Men At Work (some of there best stuff). Emilio Estevez was in St. Elmos Fire with Demin Moore who was in A Few Good Men with Kevin Bacon.

Bruce Lee fought Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon. Bruce Lee and David Caradine worked together in Lone Wolf McQuade. David Caradine who now lies 6′ feet under was in Kill Bill with Uma Thurman who was in Pulp Fiction with Bruce Willis. Bruce Willis worked with Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys (who can forget that) and of course Brad was in the Mexican, Oceans 11, 12, and 13 with Julia Roberts who was in Flatliners with none other then Kevin Bacon.

Feel free to mix an match as you like. See a better jump from Bruce Lee to Elvis Presley with Kevin Bacon in the mix. Send it to me.

Believe me Mark Hamil to Patrick Swayze took me a while. Here’s a few directions that I took this (with some help).

Mark Hamil was in “Star Wars” with Harrison Ford (the only one to have an active career afterwards) was in “Apocalypse Now” with Martin Sheen who was in “Wall Street” with Charlie Sheen who was in “Red Dawn” with Patrick Swayze.

If you want Demi Moore in the mix, you need to go from Charlie Sheen who was in “men at work” with Emilio Estevez who was in “St Elmo’s Fire” with Demi Moore who was in “ghost” with Patrick Swayze.

Richard Dreyfus and Demi Moore: Harrison Ford was in “american grafitti” with Richard Dreyfus who was in “stand by me” with Keifer Sutherland who was in “a few good men” with Demi Moore who was in “ghost” with Swayze.

Harrison Ford was in Mosquito Coast and Indiana Jones with River Phoenix
River Phoenix was in My Own Private Idaho with Keanu Reaves
Keanu Reaves was in Point Break with Patrick Swayze

A few weeks back I needed a new garage door opener. I went to Lowe’s -there it was in its beautiful shining glory. For $175 it would be mine. But wait, due to technology they had the same thing at Home Depot. So I asked the cashier lady if I could have a discount instead of going to Home Depot I would buy it for 10% less at Lowe’s. She called the Mill Department who said no.

I left and went to the Home Depot, same exact garage door opener – same price. I went up to the cashier, and asked him…Can I have 10% off since Lowe’s has the same thing. He said yes, rang it up and I left the store happier then I’ve been with a big box chain in a very long time.

Well Home Depot, congratulations, you are my one and only home improvement center. Not only did the cashier not have to call anyone and make me stand around waiting, but they gave me 10% off for asking.

Now I buy everything I can from Home Depot and Ace Hardware (I still love the feeling of an Ace Hardware).

Coffee – You can buy Pike’s Place for $9.99 a pound, or African Sawali blend for $16.99 at Starbucks, but I didn’t see any free-trade coffee. Alterra on the other hand, has Free Trade, Shade Grown Guatemalan for $11.00 a pound. New coffee provider = Alterra.

And that’s that.

TearDown….

This is how it looked when I got started. Removed carbs for cleaning/re-build, pulled engine to adjust valves , dissassembled frame for cleaning and check inside engine. Documented all parts I would need and began to Plan my attack with theme, color, and look. Thinking “euro-cafe” with an “american dirt track” feel for a theme-just a thought.

Everything came out very well, much easier than I expected and I really had no reason to afraid. When the bike is down to the frame like in these images, it’s really easy to imagine what the final look could be. Imagination is the only barrier and my imagination is running wild-yahoo! This will hopefully be really cool and it will be mine!

More to come.

Late

Yo,

So I took on a project this year. Since I had a little extra time on my hands and very little money to commit to a new bike, I decided to take a class at MATC and learn a little more about motorcycles and small engines. The class I took had an extra benefit, as a student, I could bring in my own projects and work/learn/repair them also. That means the old 79 motorcycle that “AC” and I own will get some well deserved TLC as I further my mechanical knowledge of the internal combustible engine and other mechanical crap-Sheeww.

I’m going to chronicle my experience in upcoming posts but for starters I’ve included pictures of what the bike started out as. It’s your common run of the mill 1979 Honda CB 750F Supersport with 31,777 mi. That’s only about 1000 mi/yr, but I don’t think the plethora of owners before me have ever taken to “good-a-care” of the ole gal and hell, It’s a motorcycle that needs work; what is better than that!

The basic idea: new gaskets (squelch that annoying oil leak), Valve adjustment, Tune the Carbs, new tires, adjust brakes, remove everything that isn’t necessary and basically freshen up the bike into something respectable. With the economy in the tanker and the “redo-old-bikes-into-something-cool” craze hotter than ever, it’s a great time to take on a project like this. Plus I’ll get that personal “man-satisfaction” thing that every guy loves and it’s cheaper than buying a new bike-LOL.

Anyway, stay tuned for the progress.

Late…

LM

I wasn’t very well versed in Civil Engineering when I took my first job as a lowly paid intern. But I had an idea of how to make it work. TKL had told me that when you don’t know what you are talking about just ask for “the standard” whatever you thought that meant in any realm.

Throughout the years I’ve tried to apply this, not all situations worked out 100% of the time.

For instance the first time a General Contractor called me up and asked if I knew why the decking was all ½” short. Not knowing I said “well that was the standard size” of course that was the wrong answer and for the next 30 minutes I heard about how that decking and my bowels would soon become one unified pair.

There was a wrong number that called me and started talking like we knew each other and he was explaining to me that the delivery was going to be delayed for something that we were going to be doing on a bridge. To which I laid out my well versed and now twice applied “well does that meet the standard” to which he paused and then replied, well we’ve never had a standard for when a driver is killed in a construction accident where we have to get the delivery to you. Oooh…sorry, maybe I should have listened closer.

When recently talking to a police officer about the break-in at my garage. He asked me what was missing and I was rattling off a list of items. Then I came to a startling discovery, my mannequin was missing. So I told him that and he says to me “is it standard for you to keep a mannequin in your garage?” he must have gone to the TKL school of how to react when you just don’t know.

I get into these situations where someone will ask me a question and I’ll either catch only part of the question or I won’t understand the question either due to a foreign language or a speech impediment. But do I ask for clarification? NO, that would be way to easy. I instead try to piece together the 3 words I do understand. My vet asked me if I knew something to which I didn’t understand the question, based on the answer I would never have gotten in correct, but I said “well its sort of the standard around my house” apparently the question was “is there often blood in the pee?” so you can see how my answer may have been startling.

Lastly was the time I was talking with an engineer who worked for Ford and he was going on about some FMVSS (Federal Motor Vehicles Safety Standard) that I didn’t know about but probably should have. He’s asking me about the test procedure and how we’ll run it. I said “we’ll apply the standard battery of tests” but I didn’t stop there then I added “and we’ll do some voice of customer evaluations to confirm the results” apparently he had been asking me about a test that involved firing a human head shape at the interior of the car. This of course met with a long pause followed by “do you know what your talking about?” and my answer to this “of course it’s the…standard”

So Russia getting all fat and happy on their new found best friend the USA went off and started marching around Georgia (a former Soviet State now gone independent and a little bit Country and a little Rock and Roll) thinking no one would notice…Except that the world and I have an interest in the one thing that Mother Russia has in abundance British owned Petroleum (aka BP)- I own stock and Russia decided to tie a knot in one of the train rails that brings beautiful black oil from the interior of Georgia to the sea to be turned into such glorious things as plastics and fuel. So no oil from this reserve which means lower stock price from BP, which means less money for me, which means Russia hates babies. Watch and see what the price of gas does now. Not to mention it’s just not nice to do. I don’t go next door to Creepy Neighbor’s house and declare his yard mine just because my dog poops there. But I’m also not a huge nation with lots of guns and my neighbor isn’t a 12 year old girl (my akin to Russia & Georgia).

One last thing I’d like to do, is wonder aloud, how many people out there think that Russia has somehow invaded the deep south of the US and don’t know that Georgia is also an Eastern Block Country? I’m going to go out on a limb and say Paris Hilton, Brittney Spears and Jessica Simpson are all probably avoiding the state of Georgia right about now.