Friday, January 30, 2009
ugh.
The All Night Write (write all night!) was not supposed to go down like this, writing an overdue article for very low pay... I need to step it up a notch and get to bed, lest I sully the glorious idea.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
of mind and body.
An interesting conversation has been taking place about competition between mattio through No One Line, and the curator of Velophoria, a very well written blog about bikes. The latter writes:
To which M chimes in,
This conversation (to which my contribution has just been little practical advices of likewise little consequence) has started me thinking the question that so often becomes my mantra: Why do this?
When I graduated from school, I was still recovering from a bad bout of pneumonia that had followed me home one day. In the hospital, the doctors had said the X-ray looked like the lungs of a long time smoker (22 year old me who had never had a cigarette), and three months after being cured, I was still winded after running up a flight or two of stairs. I decided to take advantage of my youth and whip my lungs back into shape by force. I started running, which has always been a low-level hobby of mine, and I slowly became more and more enamored with the thought of a bicycle.
See, I grew up in urban New Jersey, where the main afterschool activity was bumming around on hardtail mountain bikes, starting trouble by stringing out across side streets to slow passing traffic, drag racing at slow speeds up the shoulders of highways, and using every kind of incline as every kind of jump.
Meanwhile, down in my grandfather's basement, and later in the stairwell of my apartment building, lived a thing of beauty: my father's mid-70's Bridgestone Kabuki. That bike was a thing of legend. If my father was Moses, it was his staff. If my father was King Arthur, that bike had been pulled from a stone. I knew every story: about how he had changed a flat tire at the starting line of the five-borough bike tour, about his tours up to Martha's Vineyard with my uncle John, drafting semi trucks the whole way... I knew about how he would drag race messengers in Central Park, and I knew that the proper name for 42 x 28 was "alpine gearing", before I knew there was a 42 or a 28. The bike exuded speed. As I grew, it began to fit me, and taking it our for a spin was like borrowing the keys to a Ford Mustang... It was scary and I wanted one.
So there I was, graduating, running on half a bank of cylinders, wanting a bike. Needing a bike. Fast on a bike was my birthright, was in my blood. And if I was going to make my lungs work again, what better way than a glowing, legendary machine that I couldn't resist? I started looking at modern bicycles, with their ergonomic drivetrains, exotic blends of material, thousands of gears and stealth fighter paint jobs. But then I found the perfect bike, a Raleigh just a few years younger than my Dad's Kabuki, exuding speed in all the same ways right down to the archaic shifters. This bike would do no work for me save amplify my legs and test my lungs. And I liked that about it. We became friends.
So how does this fit in? Well I started riding literally in competition with my own body. For-keeps style. And my first night out on the Raleigh, hammering away in the least graceful manner on a 52x13 top gear, I became so giddy with speed that I thought to myself, "well I simply must race." Competition was ancillary to the thrill of speed and the desire (in fact the need) to massively improve my body. I took my bike everywhere. Rode it to work, rode it out to play, rode it to gigs; I was slow, and my lungs felt like a limiter-screw turned too tight, but that was the point. Every day at the edge of my envelope was a day my envelope got larger. That was my only motivation. That and the pure joy of traveling at car-speed but still being able to hear, smell, taste the world around me. The only thing better than a convertible is a bike. I wanted to race, but only as a means of getting faster and healthier.
About six months later, I had a terrible breakup. Regular readers will know, my partner of many years left on a whim to marry someone else, and everything suddenly got very dark. In such a situation, everything either goes away or gets ugly. My riding got ugly. The man she left me for was (and I imagine still is) a triathlete, apparently a fairly successful one. Me, with the paper-thin frame and bum lungs, atop the 1979 steel clunker of a racing bicycle, I got ANGRY. I had a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. My legs were strong, my lungs were on their way, and I was going to train until I was razor sharp, and chase down everyone who could stand in as a proxy for that homewrecker. I, who had never seen my body as much more than a six-foot brain-stand, was going to become As Fast As Possible (all caps). It was silly. But the all or nothing instinct had been awakened.
In the course of a year, I gained about 20lbs of muscle, and got my lungs in what is most likely the best condition they've ever had. I started outrunning all of the casual cyclists I knew, and I started staying on the wheels of the racers I knew. I was fast. I was a good climber. I even got offered a spot on a team. But I was terrified to race, even when I finally did.
And it took reading the postings above to realize why... it wasn't about me and my body anymore. It wasn't about building and encouraging a holistic machine. The purity of it was gone, replaced by a drive to be the best, because I erroneously thought I had something to prove.
Malcom, and old racer and my bike-wrenching mentor once said to me something that an old guitar mentor once said to me: "It's supposed to be fun. If it's not fun, stop doing it, come back when it's fun again."
Racing is fun, last place or first.
I think I have a Criterium to register for.
My worst self sometimes comes out in competition. I tend to become very “all or nothing,” and to take losing -- and winning -- much too personally. Which is why I’ve stayed away from racing so far. If I trained for racing, I would likely take the whole thing ridiculously seriously, all out of proportion to my low level of experience and talent. And all because I can’t stand to perform one iota less than my ultimate. And – to give the full confession -- because I hate losing more than I love winning.
To which M chimes in,
For me, competing is still me with-and-against my body, and "against other people" is just the context... I view it as being more about controlling/stewarding/applying my body. I also take consolation in combining two facts. One is that compared to nonriders that I know, I am in amazing shape. God-like. I can ride a bike all day, climb hills, and sprint a bicycle over 35mph. The other is that I am the weakest of sauces compared to professionals, who are freakish in their physiology and ability. In a spectrum that broad I simply must conclude that a victory of mine, no matter how well executed, is in a large part due to the random or at least haphazard combination of other riders present.
This conversation (to which my contribution has just been little practical advices of likewise little consequence) has started me thinking the question that so often becomes my mantra: Why do this?
When I graduated from school, I was still recovering from a bad bout of pneumonia that had followed me home one day. In the hospital, the doctors had said the X-ray looked like the lungs of a long time smoker (22 year old me who had never had a cigarette), and three months after being cured, I was still winded after running up a flight or two of stairs. I decided to take advantage of my youth and whip my lungs back into shape by force. I started running, which has always been a low-level hobby of mine, and I slowly became more and more enamored with the thought of a bicycle.
See, I grew up in urban New Jersey, where the main afterschool activity was bumming around on hardtail mountain bikes, starting trouble by stringing out across side streets to slow passing traffic, drag racing at slow speeds up the shoulders of highways, and using every kind of incline as every kind of jump.
Meanwhile, down in my grandfather's basement, and later in the stairwell of my apartment building, lived a thing of beauty: my father's mid-70's Bridgestone Kabuki. That bike was a thing of legend. If my father was Moses, it was his staff. If my father was King Arthur, that bike had been pulled from a stone. I knew every story: about how he had changed a flat tire at the starting line of the five-borough bike tour, about his tours up to Martha's Vineyard with my uncle John, drafting semi trucks the whole way... I knew about how he would drag race messengers in Central Park, and I knew that the proper name for 42 x 28 was "alpine gearing", before I knew there was a 42 or a 28. The bike exuded speed. As I grew, it began to fit me, and taking it our for a spin was like borrowing the keys to a Ford Mustang... It was scary and I wanted one.
So there I was, graduating, running on half a bank of cylinders, wanting a bike. Needing a bike. Fast on a bike was my birthright, was in my blood. And if I was going to make my lungs work again, what better way than a glowing, legendary machine that I couldn't resist? I started looking at modern bicycles, with their ergonomic drivetrains, exotic blends of material, thousands of gears and stealth fighter paint jobs. But then I found the perfect bike, a Raleigh just a few years younger than my Dad's Kabuki, exuding speed in all the same ways right down to the archaic shifters. This bike would do no work for me save amplify my legs and test my lungs. And I liked that about it. We became friends.
So how does this fit in? Well I started riding literally in competition with my own body. For-keeps style. And my first night out on the Raleigh, hammering away in the least graceful manner on a 52x13 top gear, I became so giddy with speed that I thought to myself, "well I simply must race." Competition was ancillary to the thrill of speed and the desire (in fact the need) to massively improve my body. I took my bike everywhere. Rode it to work, rode it out to play, rode it to gigs; I was slow, and my lungs felt like a limiter-screw turned too tight, but that was the point. Every day at the edge of my envelope was a day my envelope got larger. That was my only motivation. That and the pure joy of traveling at car-speed but still being able to hear, smell, taste the world around me. The only thing better than a convertible is a bike. I wanted to race, but only as a means of getting faster and healthier.
About six months later, I had a terrible breakup. Regular readers will know, my partner of many years left on a whim to marry someone else, and everything suddenly got very dark. In such a situation, everything either goes away or gets ugly. My riding got ugly. The man she left me for was (and I imagine still is) a triathlete, apparently a fairly successful one. Me, with the paper-thin frame and bum lungs, atop the 1979 steel clunker of a racing bicycle, I got ANGRY. I had a chip on my shoulder and something to prove. My legs were strong, my lungs were on their way, and I was going to train until I was razor sharp, and chase down everyone who could stand in as a proxy for that homewrecker. I, who had never seen my body as much more than a six-foot brain-stand, was going to become As Fast As Possible (all caps). It was silly. But the all or nothing instinct had been awakened.
In the course of a year, I gained about 20lbs of muscle, and got my lungs in what is most likely the best condition they've ever had. I started outrunning all of the casual cyclists I knew, and I started staying on the wheels of the racers I knew. I was fast. I was a good climber. I even got offered a spot on a team. But I was terrified to race, even when I finally did.
And it took reading the postings above to realize why... it wasn't about me and my body anymore. It wasn't about building and encouraging a holistic machine. The purity of it was gone, replaced by a drive to be the best, because I erroneously thought I had something to prove.
Malcom, and old racer and my bike-wrenching mentor once said to me something that an old guitar mentor once said to me: "It's supposed to be fun. If it's not fun, stop doing it, come back when it's fun again."
Racing is fun, last place or first.
I think I have a Criterium to register for.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Just went for some hill-sprint training with mattio in Brooklyn Heights... a 50ft. rise in the space of a block (.2 miles) (about a %5 grade), he climbed it about 12 times, me about 8 or 9, freezing our asses (and fingers and toes) off, cracking jokes in between ragged breaths. It was a hell of a lot of fun, took about an hour including short breaks, and has me feeling pretty damn confident about racing this year. And something about the way this new bike transfers power has me climbing and sprinting in all sorts of fun ways.
I find myself trying to write a wedding announcement for two kids who have known each other ten months, met at the beginning of '08 and have been "inseparable" since, who say that after a month they are "still" madly in love. And I feel like someone watching a car crash about to happen.
Am I cynical here, or correct? or just wounded? or all three? The words she was saying in the brief phone interview were almost word for word L's dumb excuses for leaving me to marry someone new.
But also, in a lifetime measured in decades, what can we glean in months?
More importantly, how do I bite my tongue for long enough to write an announcement?
Most importantly, how did I get so damn jaded?
Am I cynical here, or correct? or just wounded? or all three? The words she was saying in the brief phone interview were almost word for word L's dumb excuses for leaving me to marry someone new.
But also, in a lifetime measured in decades, what can we glean in months?
More importantly, how do I bite my tongue for long enough to write an announcement?
Most importantly, how did I get so damn jaded?
Sunday, January 25, 2009
New Bike Day!
New Bike day.
It's new bike month over here. With the Viner now complete, we of course needed to find Elias a bike. And what a bike we found. An internet-friend of mattio's (and member of the inimitable fixed.gr forum) was selling a well-used but very nice Bridgestone RB-1. The RB-1 has a bit of a cult / cultish following, as it was designed by the maestro of Rivendell cycles, Grant Peterson. It was also a mass produced hand-built steel racing frame, in an era when racing bikes were aluminum or boutique steel (much like the viner, whose frame dates from the same era), sporting an eclectic mix of componentry. If the hype is to be believed, the RB-1 has a multitude of amateur race wins under its belt (chain?). It's a good frame of good steel, with classic racing geometry. And Elias now owns one. We spent the day cleaning it, setting it up, fiddling with shifters (always fun) and then taking a loop around prospect park. E is in love with it, and those kinds of new bike days always make me happy.
What also makes me happy is the Viner. Having gotten used to (and ridden some long and hard rides on) old fluted cranks, quill stems and 1970's frame technology, everything about the Viner just seems... solid. Stiffer. The cranks are more responsive. The bike turns on a dime. The handlebars will duke it out stroke for stroke with the bottom bracket shell in a sprint. The whole vehicle feels more like a coherent machine and less like a fast amalgam of parts. I love the Raleigh dearly, and will still ride it lots, will most likely race it again too. But the Viner is just a whole different animal.
So three beautiful bike now grace our apartment. We're fast running out of room.
It's new bike month over here. With the Viner now complete, we of course needed to find Elias a bike. And what a bike we found. An internet-friend of mattio's (and member of the inimitable fixed.gr forum) was selling a well-used but very nice Bridgestone RB-1. The RB-1 has a bit of a cult / cultish following, as it was designed by the maestro of Rivendell cycles, Grant Peterson. It was also a mass produced hand-built steel racing frame, in an era when racing bikes were aluminum or boutique steel (much like the viner, whose frame dates from the same era), sporting an eclectic mix of componentry. If the hype is to be believed, the RB-1 has a multitude of amateur race wins under its belt (chain?). It's a good frame of good steel, with classic racing geometry. And Elias now owns one. We spent the day cleaning it, setting it up, fiddling with shifters (always fun) and then taking a loop around prospect park. E is in love with it, and those kinds of new bike days always make me happy.
What also makes me happy is the Viner. Having gotten used to (and ridden some long and hard rides on) old fluted cranks, quill stems and 1970's frame technology, everything about the Viner just seems... solid. Stiffer. The cranks are more responsive. The bike turns on a dime. The handlebars will duke it out stroke for stroke with the bottom bracket shell in a sprint. The whole vehicle feels more like a coherent machine and less like a fast amalgam of parts. I love the Raleigh dearly, and will still ride it lots, will most likely race it again too. But the Viner is just a whole different animal.
So three beautiful bike now grace our apartment. We're fast running out of room.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Seymour Duncan is such a phenomenal company. They manufacture guitar pickups, and my beloved main strat, "Ella", has been decked out in duncans for years now. I while back, the neck position pickup on Ella died (constant gigging takes its toll), and I recently received a replacement as a gift. I wired the replacement up, and it sounded awful. Scooped and tinny, like something inside the pickup was mis-wound.
Well I just got off the phone with a friendly tech-support dude named Scott, and he was just like "huh. yeah that does sound weird. what kind of pickup do you need? OK, here, just send the one you've got to this address, and I'll get you another SSL-1 asap."
Awesome. Just plain awesome.
Well I just got off the phone with a friendly tech-support dude named Scott, and he was just like "huh. yeah that does sound weird. what kind of pickup do you need? OK, here, just send the one you've got to this address, and I'll get you another SSL-1 asap."
Awesome. Just plain awesome.
Choruses
Sometimes I forget that I wanted this blog to include bits about songwriting... In this latest round of band-work, I've had two songs that I've really worked on. The first is called "Raleigh", and it's pretty straightforward garage-rock song with a cool half-tempo pseudo-chorus. I call it a pseudo-chorus because there are no words to it, there are only lyrics in the verses. It's a concept I've been consciously playing around with for a little while now, and I like the idea, especially in a song where the verse lyrics repeat or reference similar themes. I first tried it for Life During Wartime off of B-Sides and Rarities, where the section that would have been the chorus was instead replaced by a noise guitar line. The verse lyrics rely nicely on each other without having to fall back on a chorus for a main theme:
There, I felt that a chorus would take away from what is a song with two manic verses in conversation with one another, a structure that would be better augmented with manic guitar squeelees. If a chorus is supposed to be the part of the song that serves as the topic sentence (i.e. the "in case you forgot here's what we're talking about") then this struck me as a sound way to go about it -- leaving it out.
Back to Raleigh. Raleigh is a fast-paced garage-rock song about a very sad thing. The choruses were thus left empty to let it breathe.
There, the pseudo-choruses work to keep the energy of the song and the topic of the song together. I'm very agitated in the verses, but the non-choruses are more reflective. Alternate meaning: there's nothing but this (the verse) to say.
The problem that I'm having is that this has kept me out of practice for writing good choruses. Both musically and lyrically. Not really a problem, but an unexpected turn in my songwriting, and its starting to play havoc with the second song I'm working on, whose verses are very sparse and need a (as yet unwritten) chorus for context. I think my next task is to learn to wield the chorus usefully again.
We spoke our poetry with mouths full of sand
'cause we were both a little seasick from the boys in the band
and if all the great poets are geniuses and fools
then I'm a bastard out there, trying to play it real cool
because if poets are talkers and if talk is still cheap
we should be rolling in money or at least just back on our feet
instead we're brake pedals groping for the floor.
(pseudo-chorus)
You said "baby, that's exactly what I need"
and I said "we'll keep bumping heads if we both stay down on our knees"
because, if givers are takers and if taking's still cheap
then we'll run out of excuses just like we run out of ink
because if all the great lovers are innocent and cruel
then we're the greatest of stories acting like the biggest of fools
we should be brake pedals groping for the floor
There, I felt that a chorus would take away from what is a song with two manic verses in conversation with one another, a structure that would be better augmented with manic guitar squeelees. If a chorus is supposed to be the part of the song that serves as the topic sentence (i.e. the "in case you forgot here's what we're talking about") then this struck me as a sound way to go about it -- leaving it out.
Back to Raleigh. Raleigh is a fast-paced garage-rock song about a very sad thing. The choruses were thus left empty to let it breathe.
If these memories of Raleigh won't let me sleep
Come take back his city
come and take it from me line by line
by line by line by
line up your suitors in chevrolets
and lie on me for days
if I'm missing from Raleigh how can you sleep
(pseudo-chorus)
Knee-deep in the city can't get no sleep
erase your face from the street signs
time and time and time again
line up my suitors on subway trains
to try to take away this pain
500 miles from Raleigh feels like 3 feet
(pseudo-chorus)
And if these memories of Raleigh won't let me sleep
then come take back his city
come and take it from me line by line
by line by line by
line up your suitors in chevrolets
and lie to me for days
You said there's no one in Raleigh how can you sleep?
There, the pseudo-choruses work to keep the energy of the song and the topic of the song together. I'm very agitated in the verses, but the non-choruses are more reflective. Alternate meaning: there's nothing but this (the verse) to say.
The problem that I'm having is that this has kept me out of practice for writing good choruses. Both musically and lyrically. Not really a problem, but an unexpected turn in my songwriting, and its starting to play havoc with the second song I'm working on, whose verses are very sparse and need a (as yet unwritten) chorus for context. I think my next task is to learn to wield the chorus usefully again.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Complete!
175mm cranks, buttery-smooth top-shelf modern drivetrain, wonderfully shaped handlebars; Time to hunt some sprinters.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Excerpts from New Years Resolutions, 2k9
- exceed personal landspeed record.
- close out a bar in a non-native city.
- Get Fucking Published (or at least finish a manuscript)
- Build a Treehouse
- the all-night write (write all night!)
- Fire a large caliber weapon
- Finish a bicycle race in the field sprint
- Overdress
- close out a bar in a non-native city.
- Get Fucking Published (or at least finish a manuscript)
- Build a Treehouse
- the all-night write (write all night!)
- Fire a large caliber weapon
- Finish a bicycle race in the field sprint
- Overdress
Monday, January 12, 2009
Winning the Internet
Elias just called me over to his desk. He said, "I just won. I won the Internet." Ordinarily, such a statement would perplex me. I was not perplexed at this moment, however, because on his monitor was the following.
This is what happens when you win the Internet.
This is what happens when you win the Internet.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
January
Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.
- William Carlos Williams
Monday, January 5, 2009
Today began the long, slow process of getting my lungs and legs back to race-strength -- a process complicated, I'm sure, by the fact that I was only at race strength for about two or three weeks last season. But mattio and I have our eyes on a criterium in Connecticut in March. Matt is fast as hell, he's just sharpening his edge. Me? I have to re-forge the whole damn blade. So late this morning, I slapped the tubular wheels onto the Raleigh, donned my Dad's old wool jersey, and hit Prospect Park.
Now, as far back as I can remember, I've performed poorly in the cold. I get this pain under my tongue, and my breath seems less... effective, for lack of a better word. It used to happen whenever I exerted myself, but that's long since past... I've never been able to get around it in the cold, however. This past Christmas Eve I was talking to my cousin, the jock of the family, and she was describing something similar, saying she had cold-induced asthma. So maybe that's it? Regardless, I've decided, for the meantime, to try to push through it. My lungs were definitely the limiting factor today, and I'm coughing now as I type this, but it ultimately felt very good to get some miles on my legs, reawaken the ten pounds I put on them this past summer. So we'll see. What's the worst that could happen, purposely egging on a possible asthma?
After a few go-rounds, including what would have been a very successful stalking of a carbon-fiber bicycle up the prospect park hill, had my lungs not given out at the apex, mattio broke off and did his thing, and I headed for home. The whole way towards which was spent trying to figure a way to mount a camera with a remote shutter release on my handlebars or helmet, so that I could post all the wonderful sights I see on my various training routes.
Cheers.
Now, as far back as I can remember, I've performed poorly in the cold. I get this pain under my tongue, and my breath seems less... effective, for lack of a better word. It used to happen whenever I exerted myself, but that's long since past... I've never been able to get around it in the cold, however. This past Christmas Eve I was talking to my cousin, the jock of the family, and she was describing something similar, saying she had cold-induced asthma. So maybe that's it? Regardless, I've decided, for the meantime, to try to push through it. My lungs were definitely the limiting factor today, and I'm coughing now as I type this, but it ultimately felt very good to get some miles on my legs, reawaken the ten pounds I put on them this past summer. So we'll see. What's the worst that could happen, purposely egging on a possible asthma?
After a few go-rounds, including what would have been a very successful stalking of a carbon-fiber bicycle up the prospect park hill, had my lungs not given out at the apex, mattio broke off and did his thing, and I headed for home. The whole way towards which was spent trying to figure a way to mount a camera with a remote shutter release on my handlebars or helmet, so that I could post all the wonderful sights I see on my various training routes.
Cheers.
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