"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction." A. Einstein
Al really nailed it on this one and many others too. My mind tends to wander often much to the chagrin of those around me. I tend to think probably too much and I find myself qualifying and validating why I do things a certain way. My artistic proclivities lean towards the chaotic, confusing and are generally odd or at odds with those of the mainstream. I enjoy things that really do not make much sense nor have much use other than being eye-candy or have the ability to wrench a strong emotion from the audience. Indifference is the worst reaction I believe that anyone can have to anything. I would rather have my efforts hated than nothing. Thus I have always recoiled at the concept of decorative art. Art should not match yr couch. It should be provocative, maybe even scary and shake the viewer up. That is the way I prefer it.
In contrast when it comes to functional items in my repertoire I am mad for efficiency. I am with old Al above in that I like things simple. In my pantheon of values placed on the hardware of my life vocationally (dentistry) or leisurely (cycling) the three most important are durability, performance and value. Durability trumps all for me. I am a big guy; I play rough and my jobs/sports are brutal on equipment. I think warranties are dumb; use whatever yr gone use and take responsibility when you trash it. That is not say that I do not think manufacturers should not stand behind their work if there is a legit material/manufacturer's defect. Yet, warrantying (really insuring) some piece of equipment that is abused or pushed well beyond what it was designed for is just dumb. Everyone was "just riding along" (JRA) when their bike broke in half just like everyone in prison is innocent. I expect things to work as they are purported to, but I will not sweat when whatever it is goes out after I have worked it over.
In expecting things to work I want them to possess a high level of performance. I want my bikes to hold up, but I want them to perform the duties I bestow on them at the tops. Many people get weirded out by the fact that my bikes are not very light. They are not ridiculously heavy, but far more so than the magazines would have you believe is acceptable. Again durability is king, but I want them to handle the terrain I frequent like a surgeon's scalpel. (There is a bike called a Scalpel, but it never really turned me on...that's another topic though.). I want the drivetrain to pop off shifts with authority, the tires to grip like like a hungry pit bull then predictably break away and the suspension to swallow everything yet not flop around like a bed in cheap motel. At work, I want my instruments sharp, my handpieces powerful with lotsa torque and my burs or files new. I want to be able to move rapidly through whatever procedure I am faced with. Inefficiency wastes time and money. I want the best for these efforts for work or fun.
So what is the best worth and how do you assign a value to this? I am not cheap nor am I flashy so I do not need the latest flavor every other minute. Many people I know fall into this mentality. Many of their got-to-have-right-now items end up on eBay or collecting dust in a closet or garage. I don't care about bleeding edge stuff; it will be there tomorrow it if works. I have no problem spending for something that I believe will serve the above definitions well, but I do not just spend willy nilly. I was not always like this. Falsely I thought I could never execute the high quality of work I wanted to provide or really have a great ride without the best of the best. I met a dentist whom I talked to about working for awhile ago. He owned a pretty lavish practice in a very nice location. Lotsa bells buzzers and whistles filed his ops which I gushed over. He was quick to say that he could do the dentistry he does in a sewer if he had to. You only have to want to do good work; all the rest is just icing. I took this to heart and it changed my attitude. I try to minimize the amount I pay for the icing and focus on what I "the cake" can do better instead.
Random 10 songs in my soundtrack lately:
Hemlock 13: "Someone I Care About"
Tales of Terror: "Deathryder"
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club: "Took Out a Loan"
The Damned: "She"
TV on the Radio: "Wolf Like Me"
Mission of Burma: "That's When I Reach for My Revolver"
...just you? I have never given a shit about most organized sports. Even going back to when I played football from elementary community league through lettering in high school I never like to watch it. I did not like most of the other guys on the team off the field and a few I despised. I liked playing the game then, but that was it. When I graduated high school I walked away from the last of any team sports I would participate in again. All the while I had become far more immersed in individual athletic pursuits such as running, weights and more importantly skateboarding and eventually mountain biking. Cycling in general is a purely individual sport. You plus bike. Thats it. Yes, I know about the basic mechanisms in road race strategy and how you must rely on yr team mates, drafting, yada, yada. However, in the end it just you and the bike. This holds true even on group rides like one I did today. Sure it was no race, but we all jockeyed for position on different sections of the trails. If you had to stop eventually the others would be waiting for yr (or my) sorry ass, but they cannot do anything for you. Its just you and the bike. You develop a continuous goal list throughout the ride. "Make that climb, hit that drop, jump that log, stick the landing, carve the turn, don't lock up the brakes, don't slide out, get in the right gear", etc. etc. One of the riders who joined us this morning had not rode the trails before and went missing not long after we started. We doubled back and forward yelled and looked all over for him. Eventually we continued on realizing that he could only help himself by either returning to the car or potentially riding a different section at his own pace. He choose the later option and we found him as we were nearly back to our cars. It was just him and his bike. The James River Park System trails have been around for along time and I have mentioned them here before. I still love the original Buttermilk trail section the best as it is really virtually unchanged from when I first rode there in the early 90's. The trails were in great shape, nicely tacky from an early morning shower and the weather was sunny, but not miserably. We met up with Jay who runs the CCVA website and forums. We played on many of the technical sections and lil' jumps along the way. I sucked wind up some of the climbs, but still did well overall and made up for it in the nasty sections. Ten random songs from my ride playlist:
The Pretty Things: "Come See Me"
Zeke: "Chiva Knievel"
Ikara Colt: "Don't They Know"
Buzzcocks: Ever Fallen in Love"
Gang of Four: "Not Great Men"
X: "The Hungry Wolf"
The Dirtbombs: "The Sun is Shining"
The White Stripes: I'm Finding it Harder to be a Gentleman"
Sunday, mid-morning. I grabbed a small amount of basic supplies. A 3-way wrench, tube, CO2 inflater, tire lever, a Gu pack, a water bottle, id, a 10 dollar bill, and my cell phone. Considered doing a legitimate tire air pressure check, but just gave 'em squeeze and took off. I should have added a lil' air. The churches that lace the main street were doing a lot of business. Their attendant's cars blocked the lane closest to the sidewalks making things a bit sketchier.Cut through a neighborhood to avoid a bad intersection. Couples walking dogs. A woman in a sweatsuit with headphones and a fanny pack with two goldens. My front wheel is outta true. Made wrong turns cutting through the naval base. Guys driving late model Mustangs. I enjoyed hearing Poison Idea's "Lifestyles" coming from my helmet speakers.
Sang along. Thought about the irony of getting a workout while listening to band that has had several members who weigh over 3 bills.Thought about how flat everything is here. The two bridges I climb during the loop do not count. My front wheel is even more outta true, but it does not matter since I have disc brakes. It looks like someone taking a licorice whip and flopping back and forth.Considered stopping for an espresso, but felt trendy and decided against it. One engine rattled down the tracks. Sounded like a cow mooing in the distance. A Hispanic man lie on the sidewalk at a bus stop bobbing his torso back in forth. Many potholes. Spokes are starting to make noise. Front wheel looks even worse. I hate waiting at lights. Five police cars went past in less than two minutes. Sat for the light then, but ran the next three. Made the left turn onto my street across three lanes of traffic going both directionswithout stopping.Took off my glasses. Rolled inside.
I cannot remember why as a silly junior high student who was trying like hell to be cool I ever bought the record Talk Talk Talk by The Psychedelic Furs. Most kids were still into what would later be known as Classic Rock and lord knows it was not cool to step out of the favoring crowd's tastes as you would be quickly labeled a social pariah, a fag or whatever stupid insult your peers could lob at you. I had already begun to embrace The Ramones, The B-52's and DeVo at this point, but as I have mentioned, those bands while quirky were not considered threatening to most. I really do not consider the Furs to be threatening, but rather haunting and moody. I feel like their sound always had a long standing influence on my tastes and no matter how hard, nasty and heavy any of the bands I came to like I always retained a soft spot for softer moody dark musical pieces.
Singer Richard Butler's gritty baritone and John Ashton's noisy guitar howl are the two elements that define the sound on Talk Talk Talk that I really feel that the Furs tried hard to capture again and again only with varying success after this record. Their later efforts become much smoother and pop-laden; losing the tension that this album is filled with. I put Richard Butler in my top five list of all-time favorite singers. I have tried to mimic his sound without adding a fake English accent as I am in the same register if not deeper. He has that scratchy sound first heard on blues records that scores of people have imitated over the years. Yet, his is laced with punk anger and his accent gives it a whole different level of claustrophobia.
John Ashton's guitar wailing is splattered all over this record. He created tons of texture with jagged soft/loud juxtaposition and clever use of effects without sounding over-done. I can draw a pretty direct line from his playing here and the cacophony of bands like Sonic Youth who mined similar territory albeit with far more brutality.
Talk Talk Talk is one of my go to albums for its melancholy feel. I do not think it is depressing; rather it becomes a foil for me when I am feeling down, insecureor confused. At the same time it has a very sexual feel too with the tension that abounds. It overall yells about issues, but more to a mirror than to everyone else. It is an inward-looking anger as opposed to the outward screaming that characterized the first punk efforts by bands like the The Sex Pistols and The Clash. Many Joy Division fans also seem to like the Furs, but the Furs were always more "poppy" and more accessible. So get mad, but keep it to yourself and give this a listen.
Today I rode at Freedom Park after a long day. As usual the traffic to and from sucked ass, but I was somewhere else so it did not seem to annoy as much as usual. I reflected on times past, good and bad, old friends and the path that lead me to driving in the sunny 80 degree weather to go sweat like a pig after a busy if not harrowing work week. I could have just as easily gone home or put my head down anywhere and fallen asleep. However, I needed to clear the cobwebs and reshuffle some of the resident demons in my head. I had not rode my trusty Nomad since doing shuttle runs with some of the nutty Richmond DH/Chainsmoke crew outside of H'burg a few weeks back. That did not really seem like my bike though as I had kitted it out for the trip with DH wheels and tires giving it a completely different and much "heavier" feel. I returned to its normal set-up with the addition of a ti-spring from DSP. I am not really sure why I did this, but I had made a little spare kale selling some bike stuff on eBay so I figured I would treat myself. The Nomadizer rode fantastic today. I stuck everything I tried save one large barrel roll I bailed on and the bike floated like never before. It did seem to feel different then when I had a steel spring; overall much smoother without feeling "gooey".
The ride while intense allowed for some much needed solitude. I rocked my usual soundtrack and everything just flowed. Lots of "Sweet Air" to rip off Napoleon Dynamite. I saw not another soul. I suppose they all were headed out of town, or to BBQ's or whatever the choads around here do. I did see at least a half a dozen deer over the almost two hours that I rode. Maybe they were "stimulated" by the nice spring day. Fortunately none of them attempted to bust any of the moves exhibited below on me nor was any French spoken.
I know that I have been working hard as my forearms are very sore. Kinda like "Tennis Elbow" except for dentists. Maybe "Dentists Elbow". Often I daydream of less complicated times with the intensity and demands of my days now. I see pictures that get posted of me from years ago on social network sites and it seems like it was yesterday. It is likely that I thought everything was "too" complicated back then too, but who knows? Pour yrself a strong cocktail and listen to one of my favorite hate-filled numbers.
I often ask myself this question. I am "in it or on it"? I cannot stand bicycles that you feel like you are riding "on" them. I want to feel like the bike is moving with me in concert responding to my input in a predictable way as if I am a part of it, in it. This is especially true for full suspension bicycles. A bike that you are "on" just bounces along willy nilly with little regard for the terrain or yr commands. I do not wanna be a passenger.
I apply this logic to most of my endeavors. I was recently a panel member for a salad taste testing for the culinary section in our local newspaper. Three salads from local eateries that received highest number of reader votes were chosen for our group to try and pick the "best of". My "in vs. on" theory worked here too. I found that the salad with dressing that sat atop the ingredients instead of integrating well was the least pleasant of the three. Although the other panel members may not share my same tastes, we all agreed on this issue with the particular salad. The article will be in Virginian Pilot on May 31st.
The only place that I can think of that might counter this approach would be with musical instruments. Sometimes I believe that an instrument's limitations in design and feel forces one to play in a way that the might not have been considered if it was too easy or comfortable. My favorite quote in regards to this comes from Southern Culture on the Skids guitar guru Rick Miller: "You can fake a lot of things, but you cannot fake sounding cheap." I have my work horse guitars; reliable, predictable, and easy to play. I try not to forget to bust out the freak show axes now and then for something weird.
Speaking of weird cheap music, I am going to Memphis to see the Gories/Oblivians reunion in June. This should be unreal. I saw the Oblivians back in the day and they were great. Neither band has played in over 10 years and my pal Bobasaki and I scored tickets to the Saturday night sold out show. No bass all night; treble melt-down.
It has been quite awhile since I posted anything here, but I swear I have had a pretty busy schedule and have not just been a slack motherfucker.
Everyone is aware of the economic shithole America is in, however oddly my work has been busy or busier than ever. Dentistry was one of only two professions in 2008 that remained profitable. Our staff decreased in size, but our work load really has not. No complaints, but it means many long hours.
When I am not at work 5.5 days a week 9-10+hours a day, I try to spend some QT with my lil' guy who is now over 7 mos old. No, neither my wife or I have gotten much sleep since his arrival; yes, we are nutz about him and yes, we like being parents, but don't always like doing it. The PC-minions out there would likely feel such a statement means that we are bad parents b/c we aren't overjoyed by every aspect of having a new child. My wife and I have careers and want to work as well as many pastimes we are passionate about. I have never given a rat's ass about being PC, so a big fuck U to anyone who wants to point fingers. Usually, by the time we have gotten Sam off to sleep, fed ourselves, walked and fed the dogs and tried to clean up the place its getting into the 10-11 PM range. Sam wakes up b/t 5-6 AM and we have to get up to get ready for work around then too. Unfortunately Sam still occasionally wakes in the middle of the night and is not always easily coaxed back to sleep. I am not bitching here; just stating facts.
The above conditions have put our spare time at a minimum. I still try to at least get in one solid multi-hour trail ride each weekend and I ride to work 2-4 days a week, but the days of several weekend rides and after work rides seem a distant memory. My music endeavors went on hiatus as Sam's arrival loomed last year. I am looking into new possibilities now, but it is slow going. I did purchase a nice gizmo for cataloging the noises in my head, but I have yet to hunker down to really use it yet. I am trying to be optimistic, but that is a challenge being a generally cynical character.
There are somethings I have been pleased with regarding my avocations. As you can see I updated title photo and for the observant ones out you'll notice that all of the bikes are sporting Rock Shox forks. This is quite a change for me as less than 6 years ago I would not have run any Rock Shox fork if you paid me. However, I now believe that they make the best forks out there with the most reliable and efficient tuning system available. Rock Shox put out some real crap prior to bike mega-corp SRAM purchasing them, but the have turned around 180 degrees becoming industry leaders with top racers/riders the world over rocking their products. SRAM has something besides money that is huge...great customer service and this has allowed even a few miss steps to be overlooked.
Speaking of service, I used do my own fork repair and rebuild work, however the aforementioned time constraints have made me seek out a 3rd party to do this as I would rather ride than tinker. I came across Suspension EXperts out of Asheville, NC a few months back and cannot recommend them more highly. They know their stuff, they work on every brand of fork or shock out there and their customer service is fantastic. I had them do rebuilds and some minor tweaks on my Rock Shox Lyrik and Recon (on my Nomad and Spot respectively) and the ride is terrific. Check 'em out. Keep the rubber down and try not to let life get in the way.
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