Cyclist's Diary

Looking at Queen Anne hill from the bottom while riding a bike you realize you are about to get a review of the harsh laws of gravity. After you reach the summit—and I chose that word very carefully—you get some idea of what it may feel like to have a heart attack. I ride up this hill all the time. It is included in every one of my training rides, so I am very familiar with every inch of this hill. When I make it to the top and ride along the mercifully flat Highland Avenue I am gasping for air—every time. Not once have I made it to the top and said to myself, “That wasn’t so bad today.” It’s always bad.

I coast two blocks down Highland Avenue until I come upon Kerry Park. It isn’t much of a park; it is more like a little shelf built into the hillside. If you have ever seen a photograph of the Seattle skyline, it was probably taken from Kerry Park. As a matter of fact, if you have ever been to Kerry Park I’m sure that you have seen at least three photographers taking more pictures of the city.

I hit the drinking fountain in the park, as I don’t carry nearly enough water on my bike. I look over my shoulder at the skyscrapers and Mount Rainier and continue along Highland. A few blocks west of Kerry Park is another small park, this one looks out across the marina at Elliot Bay to the Olympic Mountains. My bike rides are an embarrassment of riches as far as scenic views go. Automobiles drive slowly along this street and are outnumbered by dogs and their walkers by a ratio of about five to one.

I fly down the back side of Queen Anne hill practically burning my brakes before racing across to the next big hill on my ride. There are two ways to climb Magnolia hill: the direct approach is to ride up the ridiculously steep Dravus Avenue. Just when you think you have reached the top there is a cruel dog-leg in the road hiding an even steeper section. Instead of Dravus I choose the scenic route along Magnolia Boulevard. It is sort of a rollercoaster ride but none of the sections are nearly as steep as pedaling straight up Dravus.

There is a small park along Magnolia Boulevard which almost always contains a tour bus or two. I wonder how many tourists have taken pictures of me riding up the final the hill in front of the park. They probably look at their photos and wonder why I look so miserable. I know why. It's gravity. Gravity can really suck some times.

From here I corkscrew up through a residential neighborhood that leads me to the gate of Discovery Park. The bucolic setting of historic military housing and an abandoned chapel give Discovery Park the look of a rural village in the middle of the city. Discovery Park also seems to be the biggest secret in Seattle because there are never more than a handful of people wandering around the miles of trails and abandoned roads inside the park.

From here my route will change depending on how much time I have or the mood I’m in (my mood is often dictated by how much time I have). Sometimes I will cross the boat locks over to Ballard. Bike riding isn’t permitted on the locks which means I have to take off my cleated shoes and walk barefoot for a few hundred yards, dodging the scores of tourists lined up to watch as small boats and tall ships are raised and lowered to move them from Lake Union into the Puget Sound, or vice versa.

I end my rides around Seattle by toiling up the back of Queen Anne hill next to Seattle Pacific University. 3rd Avenue West isn’t the steepest hill in town but it always seems extremely long. Although only a mile long, I guess that it seems longer to me because it comes at the end of my ride. I eventually make it to the top and accelerate through the little village at the top of Queen Anne and race across to the other side where I find myself again at Kerry Park.

I love to sit in the park at dusk on a summer evening at the end of my ride when all I have to do is coast down the hill to my apartment. The light is best at this time of day and the park fills up like a movie theater before a grand opening. My heart rate begins to lower to a non life-threatening level as the sun falls between the peaks of the Olympics covered in snow. No matter how many times I have ridden this exact route I feel lucky, like someone seeing it all for the first time. If I’m lucky I’ll get to ride it again tomorrow.

Running Out the Clock

The grand metaphor of staring blankly into a computer screen desperately waiting for inspiration while the battery slowly dies is not lost on me. A little less clear to me is any metaphor related to simply deleting everything that I began to write earlier because it was complete crap. Then there are things that simply are what they are, like maybe I need something to eat and more coffee. Getting a bagel definitely beats contemplating my fleeting existence and death, the stark metaphor of the battery. The less time I spend thinking about that subject the better, and if I had just brought along a power cord I wouldn’t have thought of it at all.

I still have 40% of my battery left, plenty of time to write a really good essay. At 40% battery life I’m still a young man, a spring chicken, strong like bull. I still can piss away some time looking through the newspaper or bullshitting with the employees here at the coffee shop. At this stage of the game I still feel like I’m going to live forever. I’m king of the world!

Where does the time go? I just lost 5% more of my battery just in that last paragraph which I freely admit was pretty weak, but I wrote that in my youth and we are all allowed a few youthful transgressions. There comes a point in life when it’s time to put the nose to the grindstone and get to work. I’ve always been a slow starter, ask anyone who knows me. Most people who know me will say that they are still waiting for me to start. To my critics I must point out the parable of the tortoise and the hare…or was it the ant and the grasshopper? Anyway, there was some story or other by Aesop that spelled out in fairly clear terms that it is perfectly acceptable—perhaps even preferable—to fuck off pretty much right up to the end of your battery’s life and then finish in a grand flourish, making all of those who have plodded along assiduously from the start look like total idiots.

I’m down to 29% and I just ordered a bagel. Not eating will kill me faster than old age but I do have to choke it down fast and get back to work. No problem, I work better on a deadline anyway. There is no need to panic at this stage. Kurt Vonnegut is still writing novels and he has a lot less than 29% of his battery remaining. No one has ever written anything worth reading while they were panicking as anyone who has studied the literature of distress signals can tell you. About all you get out of panic victims is a lot of pleading and requests to tell their loved ones how much they will miss them—not exactly page-turners. No, it takes a calm, cool head to write great literature. Try to have a little dignity.

That reminds me of a funny thing a friend of mine once said about dignity which went on to be our entire philosophy of military service. My friend said that after he got out of the military he needed a job that would help him to regain his dignity. He figured that giving out free blow jobs to bums at the bus station would be a good start and a vast improvement over the lack of dignity inherent in military life.

Holy shit! I got a light flashing on the panel of my laptop. This could be the end, people. There is so much I wanted to do but I fucked around staring out the window watching a crow eat a cigarette butt instead of buckling down and writing something that will give me a little bit of immortality. Speaking of immortality, I haven’t even saved this yet. What the hell was I thinking back when I had 40% of my battery? Isn’t there anything anyone can do? I would give my left arm to have another 20% of my battery back. 6% remaining, it’s all over, folks.

Talking Myself Out of Time Travel

I have always been fascinated with the age of the great sailing ships. Everyone probably fantasizes about time travel to one historic destination or another. Combining these two ideas I have decided that I would like to go back in time to be a pirate. I have ordered the time machine from the movie Napoleon Dynamite so expect a report from me on that trip sometime soon.

Perhaps I haven’t thought about this enough. Perhaps I shouldn’t just slap on the time machine apparatus and take off to pirate days. Perhaps I haven’t thought of the downside of being a buccaneer. Until now all I have considered was the upside, and it’s a pretty good upside. I’ll list the pros and cons of the life of a pirate and then maybe I can come to a more informed decision.

On the up side you have rape, pillage, and plunder—or the big three as they say in pirate circles. Rape, pillage, and plunder are what get pirates out of bed in the morning. First of all, it isn’t rape. That’s just what the port wives tell their British Naval officer husbands. To the pirates they just scream out “Please…don’t…stop” with extremely ambiguous connotations. Most non-pirates don’t even know the difference between pillage and plunder. What idiots! Pillage is stealing anything that isn’t nailed down, and plunder is the rest.

Pirates rarely bother themselves with plunder—too much like work. Plunder requires tools, but with pillage all you need is a wheel barrow to haul it away. Being a pirate is pretty much a cash industry so who needs anything nailed down? What is a pirate going to do, steal a gazebo? I would personally forgo the plunder and just burn anything I don’t pillage.

To a lot of people, getting to talk like a pirate would be a big incentive, but I personally can’t stand their vernacular. I mean, “avast,” what the hell is that? That’s not even a word. Talk normal! On my ship we’d speak proper English, and so help me, if I heard one fucking “Arrrh” I’d toss the offender over the side. They wouldn’t even get the dignity of walking the plank, just “one, two, three…heave.” I may even shoot them before they hit the water. My father taught English, so work with me on this one people.

There are some drawbacks to the life. Scurvy is a big one. I won’t kid you about scurvy, scurvy sucks. If you are looking to find a bright side to scurvy you’re in for a long wait. There is also a lot of talk about hanging pirates from a yardarm. I don’t know what the fuck a yardarm is but I can only imagine that hanging from one isn’t pleasant. I’m starting to talk myself out of this little fantasy.

One the other hand, pirates got to wear cool clothes. I’m super-conservative in the way I dress now so it probably won’t suit me to dress in pirate garb. For one thing, I don’t accessorize, I don’t even like to wear a watch, so earrings and gold medallions are out of the question. At 5’ 9’ I feel that I am too short to get away with wearing a hat and I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a bandana on my head. I suppose that it is all about confidence and the way you carry yourself but I don’t think I could pull off dressing like a pirate. I would just feel like one of the Village People if the Village People had a pirate.

So unless there is a pirate ship without syphilis or scurvy, where everyone talks like English graduate students and dresses in dorky Kenneth Cole department store clothes, I’m probably better off with the boring life I have now.

Walking, Biking, and Driving: Part 1

I have 128,827 miles on my car as of today. It’s been about a week since I drove last which means I haven’t driven this year. I plan to document every trip I take in my car this year, every one. That isn’t likely to be a lot of trips. I once drove an entire year without exceeding the miles necessary to go over the recommended mileage for a single oil change. I’m sure that over the course of a year a lot of people use their jet skis more than I use my car. I find driving tedious and stressful.

For the most part I see our roads as rivers of death and destruction that pedestrians must cross at their peril. Even the sidewalks of our cities are cluttered with the requirements of the automobile. Parking notices, traffic signs, and parking meters crowd the already crowded walkways. Bike paths are few or nonexistent. We have one bike path in down town Seattle on 2nd Avenue which is a one way going south. To get back up north you’re on your own.

Since the advent of the automobile our cities have been built to cater to the needs of that particular inanimate object. All you ever here about is traffic flow. People flow, that’s something that is rarely discussed. We just left the century of the automobile and if we learned one thing it should be that we need another solution to personal transportation.

In 2003, the last year for which statistics were available, 38,252 Americans died in automobile related accidents and 1,925,000 people were injured. That’s like a September 11th tragedy every month of the year yet we rarely hear a public outcry against the tens of thousands of deaths caused by automobiles. We seem to think that 38,252 deaths is simply part of the transportation model we have created and that is that.

Not only do I not drive very often, when I do drive it is not in a very intense driving environment. I either drive around town where speeds rarely go above 40 mph or I drive on uncongested highways. When I do find myself driving on a crowded freeway all I can do is wonder about how people are able to do it every day. On some stretches of highway drivers are probably in graver peril than our soldiers in Iraq.

Although I must admit that I have a morbid fear of dying in an automobile accident, my main concern is the advantages of a pedestrian lifestyle. Cars take us out of contact with other humans. The other day I was in my car waiting for a family to vacate a parking spot near my apartment. The husband and wife seemed self-conscious of how slowly they were strapping down their two kids in the car seats before they could allow me my spot. I wanted to assure them that I was in no hurry, but trapped inside my steel box all I could do was smile and nod my head like an idiot.

Drivers don’t have many options for interacting with anyone else outside of their vehicle. Their communication with others is limited to honking the horn or giving someone the finger. On foot or on my bike I have the freedom to talk to other pedestrians. I can compliment the ugly pug the old woman in my neighborhood takes for a walk every evening. I can give directions to a lost tourist. In my neighborhood I often find myself explaining the intricacies of the parking situation to visitors to the Seattle Center.

There are alternatives to the way we now build cities. I came across a Dutch concept the other day that I would like to introduce to anyone who hasn’t heard of it. Woonerf translates as “living street” and refers to an urban design in which cars and pedestrians cohabit the same streets. There are no traffic signs or posted speed limits, drivers simply understand that they must share the road with pedestrians, and even children playing in the streets. Drivers voluntarily lower their speeds to around 15 kph.

These are in strictly residential areas but I have also written about the Parisian “quartiers tranquilles” which are entire neighborhoods that have excluded all but essential automobile traffic. These tranquil zones are now bustling shopping districts that have become major attractions for local residents, other Parisians, and tourists like me.

In the coming year I will think a lot more about personal transportation and how this relates to lifestyle. Most Americans don’t think much about transportation beyond what kind of car they will buy. For most Americans the automobile is their sole source of transportation. I think it’s time we all start, at the very least, to think of alternatives.

TRAFFIC SOLUTION OF THE DAY:

How about walking? Talk about a cheap solution. There are about a million ways to encourage people to walk more. Something as simple as a crosswalk may sound like a stupid thing to write about, unless you live in an urban environment and a crosswalk serves to calm drivers and reassure pedestrians. At an intersection in my neighborhood planters filled with flowers choke the traffic lanes slightly, make the crosswalk more visible over parked cars, as well as make the street look more like a place where pedestrians are welcomed—not a bad return on a couple hundred dollar investment.

Only on the internet can you get from here, to here, to this article in Wired.

How to Build a Better Intersection:
Chaos = Cooperation

1. Remove signs: The architecture of the road - not signs and signals - dictates traffic flow.
2. Install art: The height of the fountain indicates how congested the intersection is.
3. Share the spotlight: Lights illuminate not only the roadbed, but also the pedestrian areas.
4. Do it in the road: Cafés extend to the edge of the street, further emphasizing the idea of shared space.
5. See eye to eye: Right-of-way is negotiated by human interaction, rather than commonly ignored signs.
6. Eliminate curbs: Instead of a raised curb, sidewalks are denoted by texture and color.

Difficulties with Girls

Mohammed Bouyeri, the 26 year old assassin of Dutch filmmaker, Theo van Gough, was a supposedly integrated, Dutch-born son of Moroccan parents. He had done fairly well in school and appeared to be on his way to living a life like any other citizen of the Netherlands, one of the world’s most liberal and progressive countries. Instead Bouyeri chose a life of religious fanaticism, hatred, and murder.

It is interesting to me that he chose as the target of his hatred a man who had focused on the hatred of women in Islamic culture. Theo van Gough was gunned down and had his throat slashed by this lunatic because of a film van Gough had recently aired on Dutch TV called Submission, an 11 minute short describing the violence directed at Muslim women by their culture, and often their own families.

If I had to take a guess as to why Mohammed Bouyeri snapped and went from an up-and-coming member of Dutch society to a murderous religious fanatic, I would have to say that he did it because he wasn’t getting laid. I’d bet the farm that somewhere in Bouyeri’s recent past he was jilted by a young Dutch girl because of his medieval attitudes about the role of women in society.

Dutch women are about the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Instead of revising his primitive thoughts about women and making a go at courting another Dutch beauty, Bouyeri chose the opposite path. He chose the route of the Islamic extremist; he chose to accelerate his misogynistic views which he posted on militant websites. If Mohammed Bouyeri had enough charm to get laid, perhaps Theo van Gough would still be living, and Bouyeri would be a lot happier himself instead of being the murderous shit bag that he is.

The September 11th terrorists were reported to have spent time in strip clubs in the U.S. before they carried out their horrible deed--a deed they felt to have religious connotations. I’m an atheist but I fail to see how going to a strip club prepares you for a religious act.

When some people say that the Islamic extremists hate our freedom they are partially correct. I think what they hate is our freedom to have sex when we choose, with whomever we choose. I doubt that any of the September 11th terrorists ever had sex with an American woman without perhaps paying for it. Men who can only have interaction with prostitutes must surely hate women. If any of the terrorists had an American girlfriend he would have surely called in sick the day he was supposed to fly an airliner into a building. Women will do crazy shit like that to a guy.

Lack of pussy makes dudes crazy--Muslim or otherwise. If you have ever been to Israel you know that Israeli women are gorgeous. I’ve heard that they are fairly promiscuous. I didn’t get lucky when I visited Israel but I certainly tried. I only spent a week there and I moved around a lot. I don’t blame myself and I certainly don’t blame Israeli women. Palestinian men, on the other hand, are in close proximity to scantily-clad Israeli women all the time and they never get lucky. That would drive me nuts except I wouldn’t get violent about it. I would buy some new clothes or start up a boy band in an effort to make myself more attractive to Israeli beauties.

Look closely at any picture of Palestinian demonstrations and all you see are dudes. The same goes for Iranian, Iraqi, or any other political demonstrations in the region—no girls allowed (and none welcome).

I’m not one to give out answers; I’m more interested in asking the right questions first. The question in the Theo van Gough case is why would a native-born Dutch child of Muslim heritage commit a murderous act of religious hatred? Could it have had something to do with difficulties with girls?