Writing

We were out riding Saturday, hitting Lake Roland at Robert E. Lee Park. We were blowing down Bellemore Road in North Baltimore, a super drop. I mean, you’re running at 25 mph pounding the brakes, and you get back up 10 more miles per hour inside twenty yards if you let off the brakes. It’s not a drop for a problem. Toward the bottom, something sounded like it bounced off of my bike, my helmet visor and my glasses. Dan turned around. We stopped at Falls Road, and I wanted to touch my rims, to see how hot they were. Dan said he thought he snapped a brake cable, that something shuddered through his entire bike. I was like, “Yeah, you hit me with a rock!” I was thinking of how crappy the situation would have been if it had hit me in the tooth. We stopped for coffee drinks, hit the lake, chilled, cleaned out our brake pads and got moving.  A nice, relaxing ride.

Dan’s wheel was wobbling and hitting his brake arms. What the frikk?

We decided to walk the four miles home, rather than risk an injury or further damage. Dan was afraid that the heat of the descent warped his rims. I thought maybe he snapped or bent an axle. I mean, I can true a wheel like a sumbitch (for not getting paid to do it and having very little experience, that is). But I didn’t have any spoke wrenches on me.  We got home fine, though, and all was well.  I ate half a pizza for dinner.

Talked to Dan Sunday, and he found the problems. Bent axle, but also a snapped spoke. It was still attached to the nipple (huh huh huh), so we didn’t see it. No prob! We hit the shop, bought a spoke and went about getting it on. The freewheel was being a bee-otch and had to go into the bench vise.  The lockring tool had to, that is. That took a while. But then it came off, got cleaned up, Dan put the spoke on, and I got the wheel nice and trued up.  Working on bikes is a hell of a lot of fun.

Also, I was introduced to Lava Soap. Awesome.

[Also for Photo Friday: Professional.]

My youngest brother and I have the same birthmark on our shoulders: three moles in a diagonal line, perfectly spaced.  Same arm.  Same size.  Same direction.  Yesterday, I was watching “The Simpsons” with him at my parents house after having pizza with our grandmother.  During a commercial, he said, “John, you know that feeling like you crushing your fingernail?”

“Yes!  My @#$%ing finger has been hurting all day.  Is it your index finger?”

“My right one.”

My left finger was hurting yesterday, like it got crushed in something.  And, while I am clumsy, I know I didn’t crush it in anything.  Both our fingers hurt, for no reason.  His left, my right.  So I have to call our middle brother this weekend to see if both of his hurt, in an act of brotherly symmetry.  How creepy and…connecting that would be.

Frikkin cosmic.

I was in Memphis two years ago on Earth Day, during a blogging hiatus. Scored this awesome pin at the Hardrock Cafe’ because I am sometimes a terrible tourist, and I love to hit those joints. A lot has happened since that Earth Day — in my own environmental endeavors and the world’s. Too much to write about.

I mean, the whole “green” thing was hot last year. It’s hotter this year. Like a lot of people, I was worried that it was just a fad. That the fixie crowd would ditch their bikes, that organic food would dwindle again, that hybrids would get fewer and uglier. But it seems like it’s either a long-living fad or becoming the norm.

My initial concern is that I’m losing some cool factor. Recycling and buying recycled goods are getting mainstream enough that I’m not that awesome for wearing a recycled steel necklace and junk. Lots of people in Baltimore brave the traffic and the hills to cycle now. But this is something I’m happy about. I mean, “the more, the merrier” applies here as much as it possibly can. With my windows open on University Parkway, I constantly hear freehubs and old freewheels clicking by. I want to cheer everyone on, but there are too many. So I stick to yelling at joggers who ignore the empty sidwalk to run in bike lanes.

My other concern is that we’re all going to half-ass any green efforts. Ooooh, there are some recycled Coke bottles in my shirt. BFD — what are your jeans made of? Too much of the green craze revolves around buying shit, which is largely how we started messing up the planet so much anyway — material showing-off. [My TV is on because I wanted to hear a weather report and not get too into NPR to do what I need to do this morning. Ed Norton just said that plastic bags are the stupidest things we are doing. Hey, dude. Yeah, you. Heard of cars?] I know; I do that, too. I’m just saying. Driving a big SUV pretty much cancels out most of what else you do for the planet, doesn’t it? I mean, seriously, look at how much of your carbon footprint your car is, even hybrids, which are made of the same junk as any other car before you even buy them.

Off my high-horse now because everyone I know has a car. So at least I retain some of my awesomeness, being the only (aside from my wife, of course) intentionally car-free person I currently hang out with or am related to. [Though Mr. D has gone mad car-light with The Mule and pedals around town constantly.] And I don’t pretend that environmental issues are the only reason I went car-free, either. A large part of that decision was my own neuroses.

I don’t mean to insult anyone, and I totally get some bummed rides all the time. Don’t send me hatemail because you love your car. I realize that my bike was made overseas, that my pedals, lock and tools are covered in vinyl, that the metal and plastic on The Duke didn’t grow on trees. I know my own shortcomings, too, like non-recycled, imported notebooks, my fleeting weakness for French bubbly water, my Tevas, my fondness for cheap pens in spite of my collection of Goodkinds, my failure to remember travel mugs, etc. Very verily etc.

But I’m not the only one with a long way to go.

What a wacky week! After Grandmom’s accident and her ensuing time at my parents’ house in Hampden and the surprise anniversary party for my parents two weeks ago and one of my brothers leaving for Warrant Officer Candidate school in the Bama, there is too much to tell. I can’t tell some, won’t tell a lot, and, you know, it’s not like blogs are always as…candid as they used to be, huh? Like I never was anyway.

My grandfather was buried Friday morning. Countless people that I care about came to the viewings and the funeral. It sounds stupid to say that you don’t know how lucky you can be until something bad happens and all that. But there you go. My family and myself — we have some very good friends, and we are very lucky in that department.

I didn’t get a chance to say “Goodbye” to my grandfather at the viewings Thursday, so I went up to the open coffin to do that Friday when we got there early. Most of the people there were family from his dead beast-bitch of a wife (sorry, Pop). As I was standing in front of the coffin with my wife, some fried-haired bitch of a woman came up and stood behind me. The room was practically empty. But she needed me to move. Right then. That’s the way things were with that damned family. People who were not a part of it but wanted a place in the will pushing the real family away. I don’t think that hag even knew who I was. She had a cross pendant dangling in her low-slung cleavage, too. I thought that was some kind of symbolic image, but I’m not really all that sure how exactly. I spent the rest of the events trying to catch her eye and give her a dirty look, but she’s not the eye-contact kind of person.

Pig’s family was and is just a bunch of tacky gimmees, nasty people with no tact, no manners, no decency. And, now, churchy types who don’t even know what religion they are even though they supposedly go to church a lot. Seriously.

Worse was the pastor. He was the same idiot who professed a deep understanding of people at Pig’s funeral in 2006 but then said oh-so-many untrue things about her and her life. I saw him at the hospital a few weeks ago. He made a point of telling Pop how busy he was but how he wanted to see him. My grandfather donated a travel-Eucharist set ($900 we were told by someone who really seemed interested in how much money Pop had) for folks who wanted to receive Communion but can’t make it to church, a nice thing to do, really. Did Pastor Dick bring it with him to Pop at the hospital? No. I guess he was too busy. Anyway, there Rev. Asshole was, making us all pray, holding hands. He held mine. Too tightly. For ten minutes. When I saw him leaving the potty Thursday, he didn’t say anything to me. He walked to his car at technically, Catholics.

He was mad that the funeral was at the parlor, rather than his hillbilly church. It was Pop’s wishes to not go to the church. Going from the parlor to the church to the grave for Pig was a circus, and he didn’t want to repeat it. So Fr. Jerkass took it out on us all with a long sermon about bullshit he didn’t understand. Apparently, Pig and Pop were “people magnets” because of their faith. I know better. Pig was a magnet because she put on a pity play and took people captive feeling sorry for her pathetic ass. Pop, well, because he was too nice to people he barely knew. By the end of the ceremony, I had twisted, torn and sweat on my double-programs until they were in two pieces. That this man spoke for any God and any faith made me want to cut the brakes in his land yacht (because you need an SUV with all the options to make housecalls, yes) and watch him fall into some kind of hellfire somewhere and probably get my 72 as a reward.

I took great pleasure in telling these hillbillies that I live in THE CITY. And I am not the only one who enjoyed their discomfort when some black members of my family and friends arrived. Stupid crackers.

I am probably a horrible person for writing all of this. I don’t think they have the internet, though, so I doubt they’ll ever find this. Plus, you know, I cover my tracks pretty well.  And it’s all true anyway.  I didn’t do any of this stuff.

After the ceremony at the grave, the priest was making his “I’m sorry” rounds on his quick escape to his huge SUV. (He was first to leave.) I turned my back to him in the hot sun and in my black suit when he headed in our direction.

I declare to myself today: The next person to make fun of me for not having a job or to make a remark about my long education. Yes. This person.

I am kicking them in the junk.

Why is it Okay to make fun of me for not having a job just because the Mrs. has one, and the bills get paid? What? Oh? It’s not. Yeah. It’s rude at best. Mean on average. It’s not as if I like not having a job.

And the education: making fun of. “All that education and…” Can you mask your jealousy and/or insecurity a little thinner? Yes, I went to a lot of school. Yes, I have a lot of non-practical knowledge. Yes, I read a lot. Yes, I think about things a lot. You know, this might be more of a good thing than a bad thing. I would be a jerk to make fun of people who didn’t go to college. But I don’t have a chip on my shoulder wherein I have negative thoughts about people without stupid letters behind their names. So I would have to fake it to make it up. Maybe I have anti-higher-ed tendencies at times*, but those come from experience, not insecurity and/or jealousy.

Of course, there’s the defense when someone calls me “college boy” that they are just kidding. Joking. That I’m too sensitive and can’t take a joke. Like insensitive people’s required standard of sensitivity means anything to me.

Well, fine. My kick in your crotch is a joke, too. Don’t be so fucking sensitive.

[* I am told.]

I am finishing up Bruce Chatwin’s Anatomy of Restlessness. Being jobless and stuck in my apartment most days while Mrs. P is at work, I found this book both thrilling and depressing. I am a big Chatwin fan, but I especially enjoyed this posthumous publication because of the honesty of a few of the pieces, such as “I Always Wanted To Go To Patagonia” and a letter wherein he spells out the plan for his great book on nomadism/restlessness that never got written. I mean, Chatwin was a little…pretentious at times, such as when, in The Songlines, he spelled out how awesome his black notebooks were in such detail that an Italian company was able to reproduce them ten years later. I mean, I confess an addiction of sorts to those little treasures, so I think this is a good thing. But in an interview, maybe. In the main text? Pretentious? Or maybe brave? A little soul-baring? Chatwin says that the man he was talking to looked at him, when Chatwin told him about his precious notebooks, as if he had never heard anything more pretentious. Did that happen, or did old Bruce imagine that in some kind of self-consciousness?

Maybe even when he is fictionalizing his “stories” he was still honest to some degree, more so than one would believe when I started writing this post. Maybe he was a complete liar. I don’t know. Either way, you should still definitely check out this book. Or anything else by Chatwin you can get your hands on. I found this book, first edition, sitting on a stack when I walked into Normals one day this fall, after looking for that book for a long time. I exclaimed out-loud, “I’ve been looking for this! It’s like it was here just for me.”

But now I am restless. Very. When I read the first essay last week, I went shopping when I was pretty sick (and got sicker) because I could not stand the idea of staying home all day after reading something like that. Is that sad? I have finally gotten around to filling in a travel journal from our research trips in fall 2006. They were a bit of a pain at the time, when I was trying to get a dissertation written. But now I wish I could go back to New Haven for another chilly Friday morning wishing I brought something other than sandals. Or to New York for a thunderstorm on Broadway, ducking into the largest Barnes and Noble I have ever seen. Or to Boston, within a mile of where I lived for two years, remembering all things I loved and hated about that place. Hours at my favorite cafe’ there.

For now, I have to settle for books and other people’s experiences. And, of course, remembering my own.

[Larger images here.]

Last night, I was walking home on Roland Avenue.  I saw a man sitting in a very modern car, with the engine running.  After a mouthful of fumes, I thought to myself, “What is this creepy guy doing sitting in his car?”

Yes, people sitting in their cars with the engine running kind of creeps me out.

I looked, and amidst all the colorful lights and dingies and flingies and beep-beeps [I imagine], there he was.  Quietly winding his watch.

How strange.

[Larger.]

Happy Valentine’s Day, from a happy little Valentine. I know, tons of people hate this holiday. It’s Hallmark, the Devil, the Man, the Machine, yes. I am sorry. But.
I don’t care.

I love Valentine’s Day.

That’s easy for someone with a soulmate to say.

I know.

I am sorry if I break your heart with my exuberance, I really am. I will give you chocolate and a hug, if you require. French press of coffee and another hug.

We are off tonight (after Mrs. P. gets off work, actually) to what I consider my (maybe not the; I don’t know) most romantic place to eat in North Baltimore, the Papermoon Diner. I went there on my first real Valentine’s Day date when I was a teenager. From there we proceeded on a double-date with my brother to watch A Pyromaniac’s Love Story, a film chocked full of mid-90s optimism and impossible romance. Too bad it’s not on DVD and that I don’t have a VCR. I own a VHS copy, which I should digitally convert and offer the world on my website until the Man shuts me down.

So many acronyms.

The Papermoon does not remind me of a person. No, it’s a feeling. I miss the 90s and our feel-good apathy and when coffee made you almost cool. Now we are all afraid and all over-caffeinated. You can get good coffee at freakin’ McDonalds. Geez. There is nothing special about drinking strong coffee after dinner anymore and knowing what’s in all those fancy drinks.

But I digress. We insisted on a $20 price limit for gifts this year because whenever we decide on no gifts, we both break that rule. Twenty bucks is for sweet presents. Thoughtful things. It was my idea for homemade cards. So I pulled out my watercolors yesterday and painted extensively for the first time in over ten years, decorating the craft paper gift wrap and making a card complete with red ribbon and superglue all over my hands. Mrs. P. made me a giant cookie card. Yum and dang.

I hope I am not the only one to have a nice V-Day.

[Also for Photo Friday: Infinity.]

[Larger.]

Do not adjust your screen. That is in fact a photo of two copies of the same book. Baudelaire’s Intimate Journals. I received a copy of it in June 2003 when I finished my MA from an old friend. I was excited about getting to read what I wanted to read between grad programs and was generally giddy about starting my PhD program. I finally read Kerouac that summer and listened to a lot of great music.

I was in a funk often during the school year of 2002-2003 wherein I was feeling very shallow, materialist, boring and cold. I worked too hard (really, I used to do that), lusted for things like more jeans than a person can actually wear and an army of coffee cups. I tried a number of things to get myself more, I don’t know, more alive.

One of these things was that, during the spring of 2003, I read poetry every single day. I found those cool little Pocket Poets series books at the Harvard Bookstore (no relation to the school) for like $4 and built a stash. Perfect for taking on the subway, when I was underground with no people and spring to look at. I read Whitman because I always liked his work. I was enjoying Rimbaud’s younger verses, perfect for April and May. I got into Baudelaire at the recommendation of a friend, and I found something very moving.

I’ve talked about Baudelaire before.

One day, I swear I will learn French. I have that software; you know the one. I will tell everyone that it is for my eventual trip to Paris. But it will largely be so that I can read Baudelaire in French. Rimbaud, too. And watch Amelie.

Anyway, my favorite passage from this book made it’s way into my dissertation, during the chapter on enemies bringing out the best in us:

A man goes pistol-shooting, accompanied by his wife. He sets up a doll and says to his wife: “I shall imagine that this is you.” He closes his eyes and shatters the doll. Then he says, as he kisses his companion’s hand, “Dear angel, let me thank you for my skill!” [Baudelaire, Intimate Journals, pg. 37.]

With spring coming, you might want to pick up some of the books I was talking about and which I wrote about very shortly after I began blogging. Read it here. You can sometimes find them cheaply at the physical locations of Daedalus, if you’re in the Baltimore area.  My stack has grown to around twenty volumes these days, though I don’t get to read much poetry lately. Don’t get to because I’ve been reading a whole lot of fiction. I’ll dig into my tiny poetry books soon, though.

By the way, my blogging history turns four tomorrow. Make me a cake please.

In a world where we are running out of oil and where there are traffic and road problems that seem like they will never go away, maybe part of the solution is to stop giving every idiot with a birth certificate and proof of a residence a mf-in driver’s license.

Take the stupid bitch we have all heard about recently who killed a cyclist, apparently on purpose(?), while drunk behind the wheel. She was driving on a suspended license from getting caught driving shit-faced before. Wtf? Yeah, I would apologize for my nasty language, if you could tell me a better term for this, this thing.

See also the hag bitch whose car killed the police officer here in Baltimore on New Year’s Eve. It’s still not clear if she was driving(?), but why the hell did she still have possession of her car? She was arrested for not showing up in court for a drunk driving charge after the death of the police officer. They should have taken her car away when they caught her drunk driving, no? They should have gone looking for her when she didn’t show up for court. What is the lesson? That you can drive drunk in Baltimore, not show up for your court date, and you can just go about your business — unless someone kills a police officer with your car, at which time they will drag you out of your house, cameras filming your old saggies falling out of your shirt and your fried hair blowing in freakishly warm January air?

I would give up all the nice new bike lanes we are getting in Baltimore, the signs, the bike route markings, the reminders to drivers to not kill us. I would give it up if the money got spent on keeping scum like this off the road. I mean it.

Besides, I almost got hit by the same idiot who also almost caused an accident with cars this weekend — twice. Because he didn’t know where he was going. Because the fact that he did not know where he was going somehow excused him from darting out into traffic (almost nailing me), cutting people off to change lanes, stopping, darting back out of traffic (causing me to skid hard, and, damn, thank the gods I lock my arms when I stop like that, lest I would have gone over the handlebars).

I would hope that, with time, people think more about who else is on the road. But they won’t. They don’t even think about other cars. This jackass yesterday caused a problem for more cars than the two bikes he nearly wrecked.

Most* people are stupid when they are in cars. I know. I was, too. I used to sit in my car and plan out stuff to buy, think about people I hated, listen to music and drive around the country to forget problems I did not want to think about or deal with. I would sometimes get aggressive, blowing the horn at morons in Carbondale who did not stop at STOP signs, apparently one of only five people in that town who used the car’s horn. I honestly drove several times when I was too damned tired to be driving and probably put myself and other people at risk in doing so. But I was in a car, so I thought I was unstoppable. I don’t know; maybe cars only made me a jackass.

I hope peak oil means less idiots driving around in metal boxes that can kill people. We have lots of roads cyclists can use. How freakin sweet would it be to ride up 95 to Boston for my 40th birthday, in a dozen years? I like the idea of riding across the country on former highways. Sort of evokes something from Fight Club and puts me in mind of a hot-air balloon propelled by bike, so I could ride to Paris and look great when I got there. All buff and stanky and really in the mood for a nice cafe’ au lait.

[*Calm down. I said, "most."]

Holy Oily Sand, Batman! Shell’s CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, admits that peak oil might be here in seven years. Read the story and letter here.

What is “peak oil”? “Peak oil is the point in time at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically.”

That means that we’re running out. Guess who’s going to get oil when it really starts to disappear? Not you, not me. Probably the airlines, industry, the government — all groups who should have freakin seen this coming. Maybe rich people will be apple to get oil. Probably. I can see all the cars in Hampden and Roland Park disappearing for tiny versions of their former selves, more bikes (which now sell for two thousand dollars), then the huge houses down the street from me on University Parkway having land yachts with combination locks on the gas tank doors and armed guards circling them. The engines left running as a disturbing display of wealth.

Not to mention things made of oil like plastic. Starbucks might charge you for that lid soon, man. Plastic will replace gold for bling!

What? You just bought a big SUV or hovercraft? That sucks for you, dude.

I know. Everyone thinks I officially hate summer and must therefore love winter. I am trying to like summer, though, at least the hot weather. I mean, this is central Maryland, and it’s not like the climate is getting colder around here or more predictable. But summer certainly has its charms.

I have always liked hot drinks and sweaters and cold weather. Recently, I have given up my sweater pretentiousness in favor of the flannel that I think I am genetically pre-disposed to prefer. Must be something with the buttons or chest pocket or something. But, as I get older, my hands crank and flake, and I find that my feet get cold on the old wooden floors in my apartment. To say nothing of the extra cycling gear you have to strap on and tug around in the winter.

I can’t figure out which I prefer, but I think that’s Okay. It’s not like I get to pick a season and for Baltimore to be that way forever. I suppose what Thoreau wrote in “A Winter Walk” is true:

The wonderful purity of nature at this season is a most pleasing fact. Every decayed stump and moss-grown stone and rail, and the dead leaves of autumn, are concealed by a clean napkin of snow. In the bare fields and tinkling woods, see what virtue survives. In the coldest and bleakest places, the warmest charities still maintain a foot-hold. A cold and searching wind drives away all contagion, and nothing can withstand it but what has a virtue in it; and accordingly, whatever we meet with in cold and bleak places, as the tops of mountains, we respect for a sort of sturdy innocence, a Puritan toughness. All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. Its greater fineness and purity are visible to the eye, and we would fain stay out long and late, that the gales may sigh through us too, as through the leafless trees, and fit us for the winter;—as if we hoped so to borrow some pure and steadfast virtue, which will stead us in all seasons.

After our weekly band practice, the boys and I hit the Dunkin Donuts on 41st Street in what is technically I-don’t-know-what but what gets counted as Hampden usually. We enjoy our treats and coffee/hot chocolate standing at the bottom of the steps there at Tower Square. We even have our customary standing spots. I lean on the railing, and Paulie stands on my left against the wall, Dan against the wall on the right. It’s as much fun as band practice, and the ritual helps us unwind, I think. (Pictured here and here.)

Last night’s practice was a little frustrating since we intend to start recording and soon. We were doing some rough-draft recording already last week and this week. Put in some new monitor speakers last night and got a late start.

Anyway, there we were last night. I heard Dan yell, “Oh, shit!” and I heard the rustle of a plastic bag and steps on the stairs. A fractional second of silence and the unmistakable sound of a head hitting the sidewalk.

Thud.

I know this sound because, well, I’ve hit my head on the sidewalk enough to know and have the scars to prove it. (For the record, several of these happened after I decided to major in philosophy, thank you.) But last night, it was as loud to my ears as if it were my own head.

We rushed over, and there was a man with silver hair and blue eyes sprawled on his back, eyes rolled back and mouth wide open. I know what I thought. I thought he was dead. I had never seen anyone’s eyes roll back like that. I know from talking later than Dan and Paulie thought so, too. That we just saw someone die.

I have been told I am calm in emergencies, like changing a tire along an interstate at night, someone bleeding like a hog, etc. I take that as a compliment. So last night, I don’t think I panicked enough, in a bad way. I was a dud at first. I found myself standing over this guy looking at his eyes for signs of movement while dialing 9-1-1 on my cell phone and waiting to hit SEND. Dan did the right thing, though, and tried to get the guy to talk and come to, which he successfully did. He got him to say his name. Warren. After a few minutes, he regained some consciousness, and we got him propped up against a wall. He left blood on the sidewalk and a smear on the wall. Paulie got him some napkins, and he was wiping the blood from his own head and telling us he was “all right, believe me.” For a head wound, he was not bleeding very much at all.

He was clean-shaven but had snow in his jacket and blood near his ear, which must have been from a fall other than the tumble down the snowless stairs we were congregating at. He smelled like booze but was coherent enough to have gone to Supercrap to buy toothpaste.

With some struggling, we got him to his feet and tried to talk to him. To see if we could take him home, call someone for him, maybe the doctor. He got slightly more coherent and thanked us dozens of times, with at least seven rounds of handshakes. I noticed that we all silently avoided the blood on the back of his right hand, for which I felt badly later, even though there were probably good reason. He left up the stairs he fell down, and we saw him go around the whole mess and start down Hickory, hopefully toward home. Hopefully not toward bed, lest he would have gotten a blood clot and died in the night, alone, with a bag of toothpaste.

We were talking yesterday about living in the city when we heard two men arguing over the same steps. Sometimes other people’s drama can be entertaining, when they drunkenly argue over who is the best friend and then “go down Falls Road to prove it.” But when people crack their heads on the sidewalk, it’s just downright scary.

I was thinking this morning in the shower about that whole “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” thing. You’ve probably gotten a similar email like I have, which is supposedly written by some guy who was in the Vietnam War or the current situation in Iraq or some other official war. This alleged soldier talks about how great life in America is, how terrible it was in Iraq. How we are so free and Iraqis were so oppressed and how everyone in Iraq is so much better off since we invaded their country, overthrew their leader and screwed up everything so badly that suicide bombs and shootings don’t even make it onto/into most mainstream American media outlets very much anymore. This person who claims to be a soldier of some war (and the wars change, while the email does not, proving at least half of it a lie) goes on to talk about “protesters” and other people who speak their minds. It goes something like this:

“Boy, I sure don’t know why you’re saying that and blaming us for how screwed up Iraq is now. I mean, it was not our President’s fault, not my fault. It was the bad guy’s fault. [That things have only gotten worse without the bad guy is, evidently, irrelevant.] Can’t you hippies just shut up? But, you know, I am over here defending FREEDOM, your freedom. I’m fighting for your freedom of speech. And then you just use it against me. I don’t understand. But I am a better person than you are for fighting for your free speech that you throw at me, and everyone who put me and all these guns here is right and better than you. We have Jesus on our side, one nation under God, etc. etc.”

The email I’m paraphrasing is about free speech, obviously.

So I was thinking of flag burning and how that is related. I mean, do we have freedom of expression or speech? I mean it; I don’t really understand. And what kinds of expression are Okay? Am I free to express my anger at racist bungholes who do everything but drop the N-word and then say, “What? I’m not racist. I didn’t call him a n—–. Don’t be so sensitive”? Because, you know, not liking negative talk about “them blacks” makes me a sissy. Am I free to express my rage when some jerkass on his cell phone almost flattens me with his SUV making in illegal right turn while I’m out cycling somewhere? Or when some yuppy can’t control his or her kid in a coffeeshop? Rather, my question is not whether or not I can express my rage but whether I can do it with fire and/or destruction.

Of course not. I am not free to hurt another person’s body or property. But that’s my point.

Maybe advocates of flag burning are invoking the wrong American right (funny, I know). Maybe it’s not our right to speech but our right to property they should cite. A nylon piece of material with colors on it is a piece of property, no? No one can take a flag that I own. But I can do what I want with my property, so long as it does not hurt anyone else, right? So maybe we have the right to safely, within fire codes and laws, of course, burn whatever piece of our own proptery we want to, so long as the taxpayers don’t have to pay for that hook and ladder to roll up and put out all our flaming crap?

Better keep your receipt.

Dan, F and I took a nice long ride Sunday for the North Baltimore Bike Brigade’s first ride of 2008. We met at the Watertower after F and I exchanged something at Atomic Books and headed down University Parkway to San Martin Drive, to Druid Hill Park, around the park and neighborhood and then through Woodberry and up the long hill to Roland Park.

On University Parkway, there are bike lanes where I live and new ones in front of the stadium at Hopkins. Between 40th Street and the new lanes past San Martin Drive, there are bike route indicators. I was feeling good about this as I rode over one. While they are not as nice as bike lanes, they raise awareness. And now the wanker that gives you shit for being on the road can be reminded that cyclists in Maryland are afforded the right to be on the road — though not to hog it, you asshole tight-pants weekenders riding three across because you’re scared of the big bad city. Anyway, I was admiring the raised paint when some jackass almost hit me. He wanted to make a right onto Tudor Arms, and he/she was not looking at me and almost ran me over at least a hundred feet from his/her turn. I gave him/her the extended, full-arm and verbal single digit salute, once I realized that I almost got run over. I was in the front, and Dan and F yelled, “John[ny]!!” I could have keyed his Volvo, he was so close.

Hmm, maybe I should make a Freddy-styled pair of bike gloves with old keys on the tips for such bad drivers who deserve their precious paint on their cars to have F. U. C. K. U! scratched into the side.

Wait, that might be hard to scratch while riding. But I could at least pay them back for their almost flattening me with something to remember me by, in addition to the bike fat finger.

Anyway, we had a great ride. The part of the city we live in is one of the highest points in Baltimore, so there are lots of hills to race down and to muscle up. It all, all of it, the whole thing, builds character. Despite the cold, we were sweaty and thirsty at the end. So we celebrated in my apartment with some Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout.