Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Osibisa
I saw them live in New Zealand. The audience filed in quietly, well-dressed, white hanky wiped noses, read their tickets, found their seats, took them, right foot next to the left, throats cleared, armrest negotiations complete, dark, curtain, bright light color and sound explosion! Everybody dancing ... everywhere, seats empty. Nobody ever the same again.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Rovers
He drives his Rover all over ...
... over and over and over.
But it wasn't yet over for the Rover when he rolled his Rover over.
[Listen] 1:40
... over and over and over.
But it wasn't yet over for the Rover when he rolled his Rover over.
[Listen] 1:40
Saturday, January 17, 2009
The answer to diets flogged on late-night TV.Friday, October 17, 2008
My Blair Witch Project
I had rebuilt my bike's rear derailleur shifter once before, after getting seaweed tangled in it. I was a mile down a very remote beach and it twisted and mangled the derailleur right into the spokes. I used my bare hands to twist it back and was able to ride back to the car OK. When I got home, I hammered out all the parts and reassembled it. It was not quite like new but fine for the next several months around town.
One Thursday afternoon, I was out on a trail, in a very rough, remote, deeply wooded area and did not bring a map. The spiders were thick, and I was completely wrapped in webs. I was five miles further down the trail than I had planned, and was hoping I would find another connection to the roads. The end of the trail was a decayed gate and fence at the back of someone's ranch, deep in the woods, riddled with oxbow lakes, filled with large reptiles. The gate was absolutely 3-D with banana spiders, barbed wire, sticks, and serious posted threats against trespassers. [Listen]
I turned around and decided that my survival now depended on my being able to make it back the way I had come, seven miles through rough log-strewn trails with low branches and webs every ten feet. I was standing on my pedals for speed, and also because my butt was now aching from the very bumpy trail. I had to keep my head up though my back was horizontal, to keep an eye out for logs on the trail and low branches and the webs I had missed on the way out.
I usually take plenty of water but this time I was down to the last inch in my bottle. I tried to hurry but my tongue hung out and I got more thirsty. So I slowed down a bit. With six and a half miles to go and the day turning to evening, some grass from the overgrown path got stuck in the idler pulleys under the rear gear cog. In a split second the entire derailleur was wrapped half a turn around the axle and into the spokes.
I figured I had really gotten myself in a mess. I decided that I would do what I could; walk out and even drink the reptile soup from the oxbow lakes if life depended on it. The woods were getting darker and the trail very poorly marked. I could get really turned around at night, in there.
I hunted for natural tools. I needed pliers, hammers, anvils, levers, pry bars. I found most of these in the form of sticks, which I broke into one-foot lengths. I held them parallel in both fists and gripped the steel parts between them and struggling, slowly bent each one a little closer to its original shape or location. It was a mess and the chain could barely pass through the tangled steel. Finally, by fighting it for ten minutes and by putting the chain on the largest front cog and the smallest rear cog and shaping the pulley holder to let the chain pass with the least amount of gnashing and crunching, I figured I would give it a try. The drive slipped a bit, so I gave it a few more twists. Now it was getting darker. I vowed that if I could just get on the bike and get it rolling, I would willingly drive right through all the webs . . . and it would be OK.
This time it worked and so I crunched and ground my way down the trail, occasionally dropping onto the seat when the chain slipped over the cogs, losing its grip. I ducked for branches but rode through the spiders, feeling many of them scramble around my head, neck and shoulders before leaping to or getting caught in their neighbor's web. Standing on the pedals, back horizontal, neck and head assembly stretched up to vertical like a stressed turtle, tongue hanging out, webs, sweat, and dusk obscuring my glasses, I moved through the woods like a crazed banshee. I pedaled for five miles like this, stopping for ten seconds twice for a metered semi-demi-hemi micro-sip from my water bottle.
Without low gears, I had to dismount halfway back up out of the creeks I crossed and run up the remaining hill, hopping back on again at the top.
At a quarter mile from the road, I met a couple. They were relaxed, so while I caught my breath, I told them of my close call and my being out of water. They looked at me all covered with this strange yellow string and sweat and decided that it would be better to let me die before giving me a swig on their bottle. They said that they were a "long way out" and only had a little water left.
At this point I considered myself "back at the car" anyway and was not looking for water, though I was thinking pretty dang hard about that nice cold water bottle in the cooler in the car. I also had an extra uncooled bottle in the car, but I would be passing a faucet about a hundred feet before the car. Could I make it the last hundred feet and wait until I could get the door and cooler open or should I not risk it and stop at the faucet? I skipped the faucet (imagine being fussy at this stage), made it to the warm bottle (just could not get the cooler open in time), then the cold one; then the faucet; then refilled them all from the faucet (not so fussy by then) and drank more two of them. Aaaaahhh.
I took the front wheel off the bicycle, put the velocipedic remnant into the trunk and headed back home, as the last bit of western skylight departed from a most memorable day.
One Thursday afternoon, I was out on a trail, in a very rough, remote, deeply wooded area and did not bring a map. The spiders were thick, and I was completely wrapped in webs. I was five miles further down the trail than I had planned, and was hoping I would find another connection to the roads. The end of the trail was a decayed gate and fence at the back of someone's ranch, deep in the woods, riddled with oxbow lakes, filled with large reptiles. The gate was absolutely 3-D with banana spiders, barbed wire, sticks, and serious posted threats against trespassers. [Listen]
I turned around and decided that my survival now depended on my being able to make it back the way I had come, seven miles through rough log-strewn trails with low branches and webs every ten feet. I was standing on my pedals for speed, and also because my butt was now aching from the very bumpy trail. I had to keep my head up though my back was horizontal, to keep an eye out for logs on the trail and low branches and the webs I had missed on the way out.
I usually take plenty of water but this time I was down to the last inch in my bottle. I tried to hurry but my tongue hung out and I got more thirsty. So I slowed down a bit. With six and a half miles to go and the day turning to evening, some grass from the overgrown path got stuck in the idler pulleys under the rear gear cog. In a split second the entire derailleur was wrapped half a turn around the axle and into the spokes.
I figured I had really gotten myself in a mess. I decided that I would do what I could; walk out and even drink the reptile soup from the oxbow lakes if life depended on it. The woods were getting darker and the trail very poorly marked. I could get really turned around at night, in there.
I hunted for natural tools. I needed pliers, hammers, anvils, levers, pry bars. I found most of these in the form of sticks, which I broke into one-foot lengths. I held them parallel in both fists and gripped the steel parts between them and struggling, slowly bent each one a little closer to its original shape or location. It was a mess and the chain could barely pass through the tangled steel. Finally, by fighting it for ten minutes and by putting the chain on the largest front cog and the smallest rear cog and shaping the pulley holder to let the chain pass with the least amount of gnashing and crunching, I figured I would give it a try. The drive slipped a bit, so I gave it a few more twists. Now it was getting darker. I vowed that if I could just get on the bike and get it rolling, I would willingly drive right through all the webs . . . and it would be OK.
This time it worked and so I crunched and ground my way down the trail, occasionally dropping onto the seat when the chain slipped over the cogs, losing its grip. I ducked for branches but rode through the spiders, feeling many of them scramble around my head, neck and shoulders before leaping to or getting caught in their neighbor's web. Standing on the pedals, back horizontal, neck and head assembly stretched up to vertical like a stressed turtle, tongue hanging out, webs, sweat, and dusk obscuring my glasses, I moved through the woods like a crazed banshee. I pedaled for five miles like this, stopping for ten seconds twice for a metered semi-demi-hemi micro-sip from my water bottle.
Without low gears, I had to dismount halfway back up out of the creeks I crossed and run up the remaining hill, hopping back on again at the top.
At a quarter mile from the road, I met a couple. They were relaxed, so while I caught my breath, I told them of my close call and my being out of water. They looked at me all covered with this strange yellow string and sweat and decided that it would be better to let me die before giving me a swig on their bottle. They said that they were a "long way out" and only had a little water left.
At this point I considered myself "back at the car" anyway and was not looking for water, though I was thinking pretty dang hard about that nice cold water bottle in the cooler in the car. I also had an extra uncooled bottle in the car, but I would be passing a faucet about a hundred feet before the car. Could I make it the last hundred feet and wait until I could get the door and cooler open or should I not risk it and stop at the faucet? I skipped the faucet (imagine being fussy at this stage), made it to the warm bottle (just could not get the cooler open in time), then the cold one; then the faucet; then refilled them all from the faucet (not so fussy by then) and drank more two of them. Aaaaahhh.
I took the front wheel off the bicycle, put the velocipedic remnant into the trunk and headed back home, as the last bit of western skylight departed from a most memorable day.
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