Step 2: The Cause

If you've been following along, dear reader, there were three steps. There's always three. The first and the third are self-explanatory. This is about the second one.

To prepare for my motorcycle permit test, I watched a bunch of motorcycle crashes on YouTube. They were obviously terrifying but not because I was watching with tensed muscles and frightened teeth. They were scary because I felt my role as the subject of the video was unavoidable. Not the crashing part; the riding part. If you knew that the possibility of a fatal collision was a near certainty and all you have to do to avoid this danger is stay off the bike, you would have to have a tremendous purpose for getting on the fuckin thing. Let's take a tour, shall we?

Although I'm mildly obsessed with death, I don't have a death wish. It comes up a lot when I write and it sobers me when I take a step back and look around. But I don't want to die on a motorcycle - I don't want to die at all. Not right now.

Maybe then, it's the adrenaline. Near death! I've never been an adrenaline junky although I enjoy the elation of rock climbing, cycling through New York City and traveling to Africa. No, it's not for thrills.

Crotch-rocket. When I think of rockets, I think of the dandruff that falls off a phallus in Cape Canaveral. When I think of crotches, I think of baseball, athletic cups and stink. That one's not for me.

Old bikes? nope. (but maybe)

Big bikes? nope. (but purpose will come up later)

Maybe it's working on the bike. (we're getting closer)

Scooters? Helllll no. (I might not want the 2100cc Harley Tour-master but I'm not riding a fucking mo-ped.)

When I work on my bicycle, the only satisfying part is cleaning and tuning the simplest, strongest, purpose-driven gems. The cassette on my back wheel is fantastic. It does one thing and it does it really really well. Cleaning the grease and dirt off it so that it'll snuggle up with my chain silently... it's magic. It's pure! The rest of the bike maintenance is an exercise in self-control. All the rusted/plastic pieces of shit that shipped with it eight years ago should have died on the idea-table and I have to stop myself from setting the whole thing on fire. So why should I even bother trying to clean something that came out of a suck-fest factory 6000 miles away? It barely makes a difference in the ride and it's going to deteriorate and break no matter what I do to it. But the cassette... Oh the cassette. Rock and roll.

I don't love fixing things unless they are simple, elegant and smart. One purpose, built well. Bicycles can facilitate shifty parts living next to solid ones. Motorcycles don't have that luxury. I wouldn't straddle my refrigerator-with-wheels doing 65mph down a highway unless I was confident in all of the parts that make it run. This is my long-winded way of saying that fixing and taking care of a motorcycle is part of the appeal. Lots of smart, well-built little parts working in harmony, like a band. Yeah, fix it up. Take care of it. Pure. Simple.

Alright, enough is enough. I'll just say why I want to ride a motorcycle so badly:

I want to cruise.

I don't need to ride 100 miles an hour. I don't care about flashy plastic all over my wheels. I don't plan on joining a gang or spending every second working on my bike (although there will be a fair amount of tinkering). Mostly, I just want to roll on the throttle and move through space. Like a dog out a window. They're practically asleep. I just want to cruise.

Cowboy of Yellow

I've done so so many stupid things. There are moments I look back on: experiences drinking too much, where I ran out of gas, out of money, out of friends and I thank God that I'm alive. And yet, like a lot of other people, I come up with totally new ways of being ludicrously stupid on an almost daily basis.

I hate the subway. Well, that's not exactly true. I hate the morning commute on the subway. You gotta walk fifteen minutes to get to a train, wait ten minutes because you just missed the last one, ride next to shit-stink people, stand next to annoying people, listen to cell-phone people, push up against unpleasant people. And then you switch trains! Your packed like cattle. Angry, intelligent stupid cattle. And I love the motherfucker who reads his paper all over the place despite the train-car being packed with 150 people. My friend Chris times his departure from his apartment so that he gets to the train (which follows a schedule, believe it or not) exactly when it arrives. Otherwise he sweats on the platform before he's even riding down to work. So yeah, that's awesome.

When it's not the morning commute (6 train), the subway is a gift from the heavens. Gets you where you wanna go faster than a car and costs relatively little (despite recent fare increases). Breathe in, turn on the music, open your book; you're in a vast field surrounded by mountains. Sort of. I ride my bike every single day, rain or shine. My boss says the 'rain' part is a big statement about how badly I want to avoid the subway. With the exception of the 2nd Avenue gauntlet, I ride across different streets every day to and from home. New smells, people and stores abound. Freedom of the human machine supplemented by near-perfect design. I have clothes at work, will wrap my wallet and phone in a plastic bag if it's pouring, and I get to work in half the time that it would take via subway.

Cabs are cows. That includes the slow, stupid ones. That includes the poisoned dangerous ones. That includes the rabid ones. As we all stampede down second avenue, they stay in line for the most part and you can accurately see how they're going to move and where they want to go. Occasionally, you get the random bull who jets across packed lanes. I push next to them, herding them, racing in between them. When you're all moving forty miles an hour (the fastest my bike can pedal in the highest gear), you all think you're not moving at all because you're staying in one place relative to each other. You forget you're doing forty until something gets in the way doing zero.

So stupid. Oil spills, pedestrians, potholes, mechanical explosion. Like horse-flies, they're all right there, buzzing around in the three inches between me and the taxi next to me as we jockey for the lead. Did you know that in New York City, a bicycle is entitled to an entire lane of traffic? That's true! HAHAHAHAHAHA. So fucking stupid.

And tomorrow,

I will do the same thing.

Because I,

am a Cowboy of Yellow.

Too Funny Not to Post

A friend of mine is coming to New York this weekend. I wrote him the following email:

I think you're staying for the whole weekend...

I think you're not running off to hang with a billion other people in NYC...

Thus, I think WE should go to the Astoria Beer Garden on Saturday for sausage and Belgium's finest brews. Sound alright?

On a serious note, if you are meeting up with other people, that's totally cool - feel free to use me and my apt as a home base for all your New York adventures. See you in a few days, brotha.

And he wrote back:

Dude, had I planned on seeing other people, I think the sound of an Astoria Beer Garden for sausages and Belgium beer is enough to blow of my appointment I had with Hilary Clinton. That sounds awesome.

I didn't really have any plans to see other people. I have a bunch of "acquaintances" in NYC, people from college that I was "friends" with, but no one I am itching to see. I may shoot a couple people an email and let them know where in the city I'll be in case they want to meet up, but I'm not going to crash and dash. I was thinking of staying thru Sunday, probably leaving sometime in the afternoon/early evening. Other than that, I'm totally free if you want to take me to other incredibly awesome male events that may or may not include beer, meat, naked women, and non-dance clubs while I'm there (male events to exclude would be the statue of liberty, times square, the empire state building, and any club where I need to take ecstasy to fit in). Looking forward to it!

Everytime I read this, I laugh harder and harder.

Three from Westport

1 - Much needed fun.

2 - An unanticipated reevaluation of priorities and goals. Normally, I talk about reset buttons and go real fluffy but this was quite literal. I realized I have to stop spending all my money and get out of debt. In fact, I have a three step plan: Step 1, get out of debt. Step 2, get a motorcycle. Step 3, follow Ilana around. Talk about literal, that's the first time in this blog that I've mentioned her by name. Weeeeee! The corollary to the three step plan is to see what the wind-up does. We've got a record coming out that we're all extremely proud of. It's a very very cool thing. So if that takes off, amen. If not, see the three step plan above.

3 - Tons of music ideas for Big Show 2009 and a great hand over hand way of making those ideas reality. Giddyup.

Long Lonely Drug

Rock and Roll.

The words are my wingman,

my friend,

my brother.

My affirmation of the present situation

always with a smile of stale beer and crooked teeth. I look at the inbox, the traffic, the fever and when I turn to myself I can mischievous grin rock and roll. The car is started the sunglasses are on the girl is in the passenger seat and

I hear rock and roll.

41 minutes.

That's the best weekend in the world, isn't it? It's the only thing that does the trick these days. There's no upper

or downer,

smoker or drinker, just a setlist and cymbals turned into lightning lava.

As long as the aud1ence has one person, 1t doesn't matter 1f they're alone or 1f they're wedged 1n w1th a hundred and fifty others.

And Saturday night was one for the record books:

I had a moderate fever, a bandaged hand, blistered fingers and a fiery throat. I was zombie tired from insomnia, sick from dinner and anxious as hell about the people staring up at me. I forgot my snare drum.

Frantic.

Manic!

I called my roommates and begged them to get into the cab I called moments before. "Tell the driver it's life or death." I promised to pay moments before realizing I was dead broke. Scrounging together fifty bucks from every person who knew my name was embarrassing and exhilarating.

(Fuckin shameful.)

And then, down the block, a black car racing the wrong way down the street...

.esrever ni

I ran to greet my drum and my roommates-turned-saviors. The show started and it ended. Sticks broke, strings bent and voices cracked and I just wanna say it, say the words, say it sayitsayitnowsayitohgodsaythewordsyessayitsayit

And now it's Monday. Monday is a state of mind not unlike "old man." A sunny Wednesday can be a Monday if a bird shits on your shoulder. My hand hurts more than it did last week, the pile of work at my desk had babies and

my watch is broken.

My bike is broken.

My girlfriend is gone.

The veggies have rotten.

Maggie is sick.

Peter's not gonna make it.

wait, too far, lost my concentration

oh yeah

The subway costs more and my meds are terrified of my anxiety. And yet for forty-one minutes on Saturday night, I was a God.

Say it out loud as you read it try it on don't be scared it won't bite but it might fuck your face

Rock

and

Roll.

And we're back!

That was certainly an interesting few weeks. Depression, anxiety, Efia, roommates, drinking, work, drums, falls, movies, wedding, sweat, composition, sleep, couches, Mets and post-it notes abound.

The transition from a high school life where the world made sense and the path was narrow onto an adult life where nothing seems real and the path is a desert.

Very few things have choices associated with them: I'm not going to quit my day job. I'm not going to leave my band. I will make my lunch at home most days. I think that perhaps college gave us all a preview of the lack of choices. Amidst being able to party all the time and go out every night and choose any major we wanted to, we never noticed that the dining hall closes, departments only offer certain classes every semester and friends come and go like October leaves.

And love hates choices. So you're not allowed to make any. In love, out of love. You don't get to watch all the movies you hoped to. You won't get to pick the restaurant. Most importantly, love will grind logic and reasoning into a fine paste to garnish your baked potato. Tastes good but it's not the steak. Reassurance! If you can't control it but can't escape it, then you don't have to worry about it.

Keep riding the ride. Life is a crazy parade. Four years, three months, eighteen days. "Efia, me yire, me do wo paa."

A quick note

Monday was the highest point of both my life and my career so far.  Since the two are magically held together with Music, the highs and lows of one always correspond to the other.  I want to talk all about it but haven't had the time to sit down and write it all out.  I will, however, give you two points:

First, last week was terrible (as you can see from reading my entries about breaking points and Victoria Asher).  This week was amazing, exclusively due to Music.  Next time I feel so down, I'll have to remember that as my beautiful sister Jen says, "Life is a crazy parade."

Second, I was asked last Saturday after stepping off the stage, if I enjoyed playing the drums.  Anyone who's ever seen me play knows the answer to this, or so I thought.  In any event, people match their instrument.  Most trombonists are intelligent, most french-horn players are unique and most trumpeters have a fantastic sense of humour.  If I had my way, I'd love to play a flute based on it's size compared to a drum set but I'm not a flutist, I'm a drummer.  The drums are my most direct connection to Music.  They are the building blocks for the bridge to Music as well as the shoes that let me dance with and mold Music.

To answer the question: yes, I enjoy playing the drums.  More importantly, they allow me to expand.  They help me excavate the energy of my surroundings and reshape it into whatever I choose.  There is no other instrument or method of communication that would allow me to express myself so fundamentally.  They are dynamic and beautiful and deeply rooted in human history.  But above all else, I love the drums because they chose me.