Album Art

I grew up on LPs. Saved my first lawn mowing money for Kansas' Point of Know Return, Rush's Exit Stage Left and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.

Part of the enjoyment of the record was the album art. Ozzy's The Blizzard of Oz, I bought that without even having heard Crazy Train. I just knew Ozzy from Black Sabbath and the album cover flirted with exactly the sort of sacrilege I craved when I was eleven. It was Randy Rhoads' guitar playing that made the record the centerpiece of a new religion for me — he took the heavy riffs you might hear on a Black Sabbath record and made them sit up and beg, roll over, speak Spanish and walk like an Egyptian.

But it was the jacket that got my money.

I used to spend the entire time my records played absorbed in the album covers. Frampton Comes Alive, Steppenwolf Live, that ridiculous egg on K-Tel's Southern Fried Rock. For that matter, the hottest porn in my house when I hit puberty was Herb Alpert's Whipped Cream and Other Delights (that and the J.C. Penny catalog's lingerie section).

Maybe it's partly how I became a graphic designer by trade, I've always been fascinated by the package. Even notebooks, steno pads, I was totally geeked out by the stationery section at the drug store when I was eight.

So we were in the thrift store the other day and I meandered into the albums expecting to find real temptation. Should I part with a quarter for this piece of art?

What I found was shockingly un-tempting.

Yes, some of the LP covers of years past were awesome. The other day, I was listening to an interview with Toni Iomi, plugging his memoir, and I thought about how I could be suckered into buying a Black Sabbath boxed set. I would buy such a thing. Then I realized that my daughters' generation wouldn't even know what someone meant by 'boxed set.' They think of music in terms of downloading a tune, not buying a record with a dozen of them even if you only want the one track.

Even CDs are on the way out, which means they miss out on even the album art at a humiliating reduction to less than five inches wide.

Looking at the album covers in the bin I realized my nostalgia has a lot of survivor bias. For every great album cover there were a hundred shitty ones. Guys at RCA and Atlantic and whatnot didn't know if they were shot, fucked, powder-burnt or snake-bit, but they needed a picture on the cover of another godawful record. Wives and girlfriends may have been drafted for models. Uncles with 35 mm cameras and nephews aspiring to careers in the graphic arts collaborated to generate some of this garbage, I'm pretty sure.

Jim Nabors, aka Gomer Pyle, can't even have his teeth cleaned by an airbrush in this throw-it-against-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks world of 33 RPM record production. Surprise, surprise, surprise anyone would want to hear him sing in the first place, let alone see his freakish mug in such vivid detail.

I almost bought the Kate Smith album because I felt it was the most of something: a middle-aged woman in a fashion refugee costume singing songs of the 'now generation.' The copyright date was 1969, the year I was born, but there was never a year when Kate Smith was part of any 'now' generation. At least not in a dress like that.

Maryville

I drove with Corinna to her event in Maryville. She'd have ridden there, but she had events in KC the day before and the day after, and Maryville is an honest day's ride. About 111 miles by a bicycle-able route.

We could have ridden to Maryville on Thursday, or back from Maryville, but not both.

We stopped to try and get some magic hour shots near there, and spotted a fantastic wind farm in the distance. Also stopped at a good thrift store near St. Joe, too, where I found a good pair of work pants and a really nice silk shirt.

The poetry event was great. Once we figured out how to turn off the TV in the student union, anyway.

Last winter, in Columbia, I judged* and there was a problem with poets not understanding the criteria they were being judged on.

This time, the poets were pretty much all on topic, or at least found ways to construe their poetry as being germane and relevant.

I was struck, and I guess it shouldn't surprise me, at how young college students have gotten. When I was in high school, I felt like I was an adult, and college students, they were even older and more mature than I thought I was.

Now these students all remind me of my own daughters. Three years isn't that much of an age gap. Don't get me wrong, it would be huge if we're talking some nineteen year old guy dating my sixteen year old daughter—that's an age gap that could prove fatal to a dude.

But anyway, the kids were great fun.

As was the Asia Project, an act booked to the same venue a couple hours after Corinna's event. She wanted to stick around for it and it sounded about as appealing as picking butt hairs to me, but I'm in love so I gave it a shot.

The part that impressed me more than anything, actually was Asia's response to a cell phone going off during his performance.

As if it were written into the poem, he looked at the offender and said, 'I hope it's Jesus.' Then he continued with his regularly scheduled program without missing a beat or a breath.

*Not unlike beer judging, a poetry judge has to evaluate the poet less on personal tastes and more on the target defined for the competition. And being a BJCP beer judge for around fifteen years, I entered the world of poetry open mics with more judicial experience than John Roberts had when he was made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Dance

Mo is hit and miss at dance, but this time she was hitting. Doing the stuff the others were, seeming to enjoy herself.

Warmth

Not that long ago, I wouldn't ride alone in the dark. Hadn't even thought of riding in the city, or for that matter, considered my bicycle as practical transportation for even the shortest errand.

How long ago were these rules in place? A year ago, this would have been inconceivable to me. My friend Heather in Chicago, I thought she was shot out of a cannon because she rode to work (downtown, on the Loop, about as urban as it gets) all the way down to 25ºF.

I have good gear. Lobster claw mittens, a rain suit, balaclavas, etc. The coldest temperature I've ever ridden in was 2ºF, and that's plenty cold. But the suckiest weather to ride in?

Dark, 42ºF, raining and a stiff northwest wind. That is a big bowl of shit no matter your gear. Psychologically, it helped that I had Corinna's car at my disposal. When I got off work, knowing the weather was like this, I could have easily hopped in the millstone and driven home. Driven back to work the next morning when the weather wasn't much better, too.

I had two close calls on the way home, one a UPS truck that passed me very closely (I assume he didn't see my seven flashing lights, professional drivers are usually the least of a cyclist's worries), another a car turning in to a UPS facility on James Street in the West Bottoms. I'm guessing that one saw my lights but didn't realize I'd have to slam on the brakes to avoid being a hood ornament.

Anyway, with all my lights and helmet mohawk and all that, I felt like a drowned Mardi Gras float when I finally got home.

I hung my gear up to dry and went upstairs to the best warm-up meal ever. Corinna had made Dump & Stir burritos with pico de gallo with the last peppers and tomatoes from the garden (along with tomatillos, cilantro, etc. from Bonito Michoacan). The pico de gallo was the hottest I've ever had (our garden had almost no mild peppers this year), which was kind of nice as I defrosted.

And best of all, she'd bought some Guatemalan cream on the way out. We usually get Mexican crema from the butcher counter, but when she remembered, she was already at the checkout. The Guatemalan stuff is more expensive, no doubt because it has to ship refrigerated from the equator, but it's fantastic. The nutrition label reads like straight butter, and the first three ingredients are heavy cream, cream cheese and sour cream. It's salty, too, probably helps it travel well.

I doubt my burritos would have been as good if I'd hopped in the millstone and driven home.

Bias: You Can't Smell Your Own

I have yet to meet a liberal who actually sees liberal media bias. I can't even convince friends of mine who work in liberally biased mainstream media jobs that the problem exists. Casually passing by a radio this morning, I heard NPR's Cokie Roberts illustrate the phenomena perfectly. This is a direct quote from Cokie's analysis of Congressional political strategy:

So, you know, Republicans who might have wanted to keep the economy bad to skewer the Democrats are now worried it could affect them and it could affect some of their key constituents, and they're not so sanguine about just letting it get worse. And Democrats who wanted to just, sort of, demagogue against Republicans on Medicare cuts are worried it might all backfire.

I'll give you that her cynicism extends to the Democrats in this statement, so I'm sure in her view this is balanced. I'm sure politicians from either side would indeed allow people to suffer a prolonged recession to advance their own narrow interests, but the statement relies on these assumptions:

1) That the Democrats have policies that would improve the economy quickly.

2) The Republicans know that if only they enacted these Democrat-advanced policies, the economy would improve.

Maybe if there were an editor or even a mailroom employee at NPR who was politically to the right of Al Gore...

25th

Heartland was celebrating its 25th anniversary last week. I didn't get the 'x' in the 'beautiful' until I was downloading the pics of my camera. It's the ironing board they used as a lectern at the first services the church held in a basement back then.

I guess the ironing board Heartland's answer to the Hewlett-Packard garage. Anyway, I thought the giant numbers were cool. Wonder what they're doing with them after they're done. They could make interesting yard art.

Partying @ Boulevard

Corinna took me to Kansas City's Got Talent at the Boulevard Brewery. It was a corporate talent show, and really I wasn't expecting much talent to be on show, but I figured the food and beer would be good.

The talent show was actually quite good. Some of the companies participating were big enough to have company talent shows to decide who would represent them here.

The facility itself is amazing. Boulevard was already a Kansas City institution, but when they built what Stephen Pauels calls the 'big ass brewhouse,' they also built to large banquet facilities with taps and full kitchens. There was a deck we could walk out on to see the city, and you can see down into the brewery.

And on the deck, you can smell the boiling wort from the latest batch going in the coppers below.

I wasn't disappointed in the food or the beer. Houlihan's catered it, a variety of finger-food comestibles. I would have thought that mini-Chicago dogs and sliders, by nature, would lead to a bit of portion control. But I think I ate more than I would have because it didn't seem like pigging out to have just one or two more...

I'd been out on the bike all day, and it was a very blustery day, so that probably contributed to my overindulgence.

And of course there were taps of Boulevard's fine products. I might or might not have lacked portion control on that stuff, too. I certainly didn't feel intoxicated when we left, but it was one sluggish ride home.

Patch Party

I usually try to ride with at least three spare tubes. But I'd been falling behind on patching tubes, meaning every time I was getting flats, I was having to buy a tube or two to make sure I was covered.

Corinna, too. She hadn't realized how low she was getting on tubes for her mountain bike until we came off a levy and she'd picked up punctures in both tires and had only one spare tube in her pack.

So we were way overdue to have a patch party. I think we patched tubes for about an hour, not sure how many tubes that yielded. But you figure a patch costs around a quarter (and is way easier to put on in the basement than out on the side of the road), and a new tube costs around five bucks. So we saved ourselves probably $50 or $60 passing a pleasant hour at home on a cold and rainy night.

Pepperoni Sandwich

Mo talked me into this. At Wal-Mart, they had these enormous pepperoni sandwiches on bagels about a foot in diameter.

I'm sure I could have bought bread of a less eccentric shape and filled it with pepperoni and cheese for less, but Mo asked like four times and the more I tried to tell her why we shouldn't get the pepperoni sandwich, the more I wanted to try it.

Ripple Up

I love throwing bottles in the Ripple dumpster. It's such fun to shatter glass.

Apparently I'm not the only one. This barely had any bottles in it the last time I made a recycling run, maybe two weeks ago. It's pretty much full up now.

Captain Jack

Ran into Jack Sparrow. Or a reasonable fascimile, with braided beard, has the walk down and everything.

Turns out, he shops at Wal-Mart. Actually, I guess he was there to promote the Subway franchise inside the Wal-Mart.

They sell rum at Subway?

Germexican

This started with a German recipe Corinna's mother makes. But then Corinna started throwing in tomatoes from our garden, queso fresco and noodles from Bonito Michoacan, and it kind of morphed into a delicious Germexican type thing.

Some more of the late tomatoes were in the tomato and onion salad, and the few sweet potatoes the garden yielded were roasted with some of the last beets.

The pink/orange stuff is a cactus salad with carrots and raisins in it. Quite a spread, especially considering how much of it came from our garden this late in the year.

Utopia?

I'm skeptical of all utopias, and this video definitely reeks of utopia. At the same time, without getting into arguments about peak oil and global warming (if those are legit concerns, that's a pair of high-voltage kickers you may ignore at your peril), just imagine 10% of the people contributing to gridlock in cars on our freeways deciding to get on a bike instead.

Cycling For Everyone from Dutch Cycling Embassy on Vimeo.

Ten percent. That's a number that can be reached if the cyclists in question refuse to ride when the mercury is above 95ºF or below 40ºF. Also rain, they can beg off for rain days.

I begged off for a rain day Wednesday. A tire on my fiancé's car went flat and while she had a full sized spare (if anything could ultimately prove we're soul mates, it's that), I had to get the three-week-old tire that went limp to the garage we bought it from and still pick up my kids on Friday.

The Bad Kind of Taco

Edward moved Daisy free of charge, so I can't complain too much. But somehow during transit, her back wheel got tacoed but good.

Her wheels were basically junk off discarded Wal-Mart bikes at this point, and given her design she will eventually need hand-built tandem/touring wheels with at least 40 double-butted spokes on double rims with stout hubs.

A neighbor a couple years back left a wheelset from a Wal-Mart special on my doorstep as if it were a favor, and I only let them collect dust for a year or so before I got rid of them. Could use that back wheel now, as it'd be better than nothing.

Double Decker

Quite a piece of engineering. It appears to have some sort of hydraulic system for raising the lower deck, but I'm not sure I see how it works.

Día de Muertos

The Day of the Dead.

Beautiful evening to ride around the West Bottoms. We stopped at a park that tells the story of a ferry full of escaped slaves that sunk near here. I gather most of those on board escaped slavery either by getting to Quindaro or dying.

I had heard that Quindaro was where escaped slaves washed up, and I pictured a regular thing, folks jumping in the river to say 'take this job and shove it' with a raft or a barrel to hold onto, as opposed to it being just one big group of shipwreck survivors.

Scars

I take my camera everywhere, and I do mean everywhere. I didn't realize how beat to hell it was looking until I was going through the graffiti shots and found this one I took with my spare.

Fluff

It was time for a new helmet, being I'd had an impact in my old one. I'm skeptical of claims that helmets need replaced every few years because the Styrofoam degrades. As far as I can tell, the stuff won't even biodegrade. But having a crack and compression from a crash, I can buy that this would affect future performance.

Meanwhile, the helmet mohawk Corinna gave me was showing the effects of a 4,000 miles of all-season riding. It was faded and dirty looking. It wasn't even dirt, it was just the sun-faded tulle clinging to the last remnants of pink dye.

Corinna bought some bright pink tulle with a denser weave and used that to make herself a new one a couple months back, and I'd been debating about it. I liked our fluffs matching, as they once did, but I don't dig the denser tulle that much and in any case, I was thinking a change of color would be nice.

I got a yard of purple at Wal-Mart and some nylon thread that resememles twine in thickness, along with a big, pink plastic needle and improvised my way to a purple mohawk.

It seems a bit taller than the old one, and it's attached somewhat differently (better, I hope). I bet some of that tall will work its way down with riding. I might try doing a multi-color next time, almost did this time.

The Helmet Worked

Crossing railroad tracks like this, you want to be as perpendicular to the tracks as possible. Which is tricky where the rails divide, presenting multiple angles to try and cross.

If you screw up and hit it too obliquely, two rails maybe two inches apart will grab your front tire and try to guide it. Some sand between those rails is really bad news, because when you try to correct your front wheel, the sand acts like so many little ball bearings, and your front wheel will be out from under you before you can realize that popping sound was your helmet cracking on the asphalt.

At least that's been my experience.

I know so many riders who don't use helmets, and I know bicycle helmets aren't as protective as motorcycle crash helmets, but you never get fucked up worse for having one on. This is exactly the kind of accident a bike helmet is for.

I wasn't going fast, there wasn't a car in sight. I doubt it would have killed me or anything like that, but who needs an unbuffered blow to the temple like that?

Luckily I didn't break my collarbone. First thing I thought, this was exactly the kind of crash Roj had when he broke his clavicle. I got off with a bit of road rash, a bit of a lump on the thigh where I must have landed on a piece of gravel, and some whiplash.

Reload

I had a flat the other evening going home, and Corinna thought I was silly to unload the bike to change it. But for eight miles, give or take, I'd been battling a 100% back 0% front weight distribution owing to the fact that I was carrying a half a case of paper in copies in addition to the usual TMS.

I could have laid it down on the panniers, but the way a half case of paper was strapped on there, I figured it would slide out of the straps and I'd have to redo it all anyway.

Then, about a week later, I was making a Wal-Mart run and realized that eight two-liters far outweighed the saddlebags and moved the panniers up before strapping down the bottles. Leads to a much more balanced ride.

I've had that front rack for five months now, and I'd only ever used it when I had four panniers on the bike for touring.

Halloween

I don't feel like I really 'did' Halloween this year. I put on my purple yolk to hand out candy, and Mo put on her pirate costume from last year over her regular clothes and asked to go trick-or-treating.

We'd been over this. I got a lot of dirty looks the last few years, Mo being as big as she is. But I really like taking her, and you see a few high schoolers out doing it. But it really is, and should be, a holiday for little kids, and a freshman in high school who can share clothes with her mother doesn't qualify, I'm afraid.

It was basically a matter of drawing the line somewhere, arbitrary I suppose. Maybe I should have taken her one last time, the last time Halloween will be in this neighborhood for us.

I loaded up on candy to give out, knowing the weather would be perfect (I don't buy early anymore, a few years ago it sleeted on Halloween and I was stuck with several pounds of Mary Janes, a candy I don't even like). Big bag of Reeses cups, big bag of Kit-Kats, and a truly colossal bag of the low-caste stuff, suckers, jawbreakers, bubblegum and whatnot. I think the total was over 300 pieces, and I gave at most two out to each kid until the very end, when it got to be ten minutes or more between and the kids got to be at least as ridiculously old as Mo is to be out pestering strangers for candy.

By then there were just a few handfuls of the garbage candy left, and I let those old-enough-to-drive kids have it all so I could turn out the light and focus on the Chiefs game.

Em had play practice and wasn't allowed to dress up for that, Mo and me barely dressed up, no jack o'lanterns were carved, but it didn't turn out to be such a rubbish Halloween. Taking Mo around on the begathon the past few years, I've mostly missed out on handing out, especially to the kids who are young enough to be super-cute. I had a unicorn, a mermaid, and a cowgirl who couldn't have been older than three. I also had three or four Ironmen (and almost as many Spidermen), a Bubba Starling, a hobo, a pair of Bavarian Barbarians and a pair of dice. It was great fun, especially quizzing the less obvious kids.

What's your costume? I asked one kid. A college student?

"I'm a character from The Hunger Games."

Okay, Mo's big sister is reading that, so you're too old. That's why you got a rock.