late season musings 2015

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almost done with bikes…the Indiana State Fair, or, Hoveround Expo 2015…bike racing little league and the powerful attraction of Patrick Swayze and the Cowboy Cut

So—I guess we are nearly finished with this season of playing bikes.  It has been fun.  Yeah…I have to admit it’s been fun.  I did not win any races but was consistently in the mix and took my pulls and never sat in the bunch and raced for a top ten like a patzer and that’s good enough for me and WHAT?  What, indeed.  What a bullshit statement.  I hate losing.  I do not like it when one or two or three people come around me in the last few seconds and I end up on the red or blue step.  I have never been satisfied with second or third and I sure as shit never liked just racing for a top ten.  

Why do people come out and race if they just want to roll in a third of the way down the start list and be satisfied that they beat some other guy that they had marked as better than them in some other ZIP code crit earlier in the year?  A race is, fundamentally, an activity in which the ONLY goal is to win.  That is fact.  That is definition.  It is a competition.  If your goal is to finish in the top ten or fifteen then what you are doing is a fast group ride for which you happen to pay money.  And that, folks, is why the breakaway is always composed of a mix of the same ten or fifteen people every single time we tow the line.  Those people want to win the race.  Or…maybe I should amend this philosophy.  I really should include those people…those teammates who sacrifice their personal ambitions to help a stronger rider win a race.  And they are many.  My own team includes at least five guys, including myself, who would give every bit of their own physical energy to help a teammate win a bike race.  So I guess the real philosophy should be that a bike racer is a person who races bikes as hard and smart as he or she can so that either they or someone else on their team will win the race.  And if said person does not win, everyone who gave their all suffers just a bit of disappointment.  I realize that this sentiment may cause some to call me an unsportsmanlike dick but before they do, please read this definition of the word “race” from the Oxford Dictionary: 

noun

1

A competition between runners, horses, vehicles, boats, etc., to see which is the fastest in covering a set course:

So…yeah.  Anyway teams are a good thing.  There are many strong teams in the region.  Even the Masters crowd has enough competition to make the season interesting (though, lately, it has seemed a bit repetitive…or maybe it’s just getting to be the end of the season and we are all bored with each other).  Apologies to Boggs, Andrzej, Ben, Don, Court, Chris, Tom, Harry, etc… but for feck’s sake I want to race some more interesting courses with some more interesting opponents.  So what do you think of the following: (?)

We begin construction on the traditional crit course at Eagle Creek but add in some badass obstacles and interesting Twists and Turns.  I know this will be met with much opposition but how about a loop, ala the Vortex at King’s Island?  We could build it at the downhill section just after the left/right snakey thing just before that final downhill chute into the left turn before the uphill finish.  I think it would add some much-needed excitement to the course and possibly even some carnage.  We could install bleachers on either side of said section and sell booze and sausage and people will come, Ray…people will come.  It’s only twenty dollars per person.  They'll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they'll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They'll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines (curves in the road), where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes (poor people who race bikes for awful payouts and scabby flanks). And they'll watch the game (race) and it'll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters (Sunking Osiris). The memories (mosquitoes) will be so thick they'll have to brush them away from their faces.  (F.O.D)

And after the race is over, Fausto Coppi will stride over in his leather shoes and sloppy, pomade-streaked hair and say “Is this heaven?”  And I will say “No…it’s a place where middle-aged men come to compare the size of their dicks and where their wives make them cookies and cheer them on and then they have to go home and mow the lawn!”  And Coppi will say “whoah dude…at least in Italy I had an eighty year old man to rub down my legs after I did this shit.”  And I will reply (with enthusiastic gusto), “We don’t have a cornfield here into which you can disappear so I can drive you to one a couple miles away if you like but you cannot smoke in my truck.”  He will decline my offer, steal Harry’s Yamaha, and barrel at full-speed toward the newly-constructed loopy-loop ramp and launch himself toward the western sky where there is a legion of Hell’s Angels waiting to escort him back to whatever afterlife realm from which he came.  All he will leave is a burnout mark on the road and a bunch of waxy crud in the bathroom from fixing his hair.  We will all look at each other with wry grins and knowing winks, turn around toward the trees, piss rainbows for two full minutes (beet juice), get in our vehicles, and head over to the Clarks for some righteous karaoke and bourbon.  And I promise it will be worth it.  Harry’s man cave is the bees’ knees and he has Twisted Sister on vinyl and Bri does a mean Dee Snider impression, complete with the blonde wig and clown makeup.  Ooooooohhhh the weirdness will be awesome and I will do my best to not turn into a whiskey-soaked singing werewolf but I cannot promise anything.  These things happen.  

Now where was I?  Right…second on the list is the state fair.  The state fair is an agglomeration of wayward farmers, curious people from zionsville, carmel, and fishers, and people who cannot walk but who seem to be able to eat mass quantities of corn, kettle corn, corn syrup, sausage and peppers, funnel cakes, and a variety of fried candy, all while weaving around on those silly Hoveround scooters they advertise on television and which YOU TOO CAN GET FOR NEXT TO NOTHING through your medicare or medicaid or one of those other add-on insurance entitlements we get when we turn decrepit and decide we no longer want to use our legs.  Vote democrat, right?  STRIKE THAT!!!!!

So my beautiful wife and I went to the fair today and had a great time.  We walked around and ate a variety of terrible foods (with which I was completely satisfied), saw many miserable animals in cages or pens, waded through the six-thousand hot tubs for sale (why?) and absorbed the smells and the off-putting sights of short-shorts on people who, at best, should be wearing baggy overalls.  This is the fair.  And I love it.  I have always loved it.  I actually love all the things about which I just wrote.  I love the pervasive stink of the midway.  I love the super fine brown dust that irritates my eyes and nose when we walk close to the track.  I love eating sausage and peppers and corn and shake-ups and whatever the hell else my stomach mistakenly thinks would be good.  It is a nostalgic experience like no other in my life.  And it (the fair) is basically the same thing it was thirty years ago.  I have been in the Hooks drug store museum at least that many times and the licorice I buy there is, I believe, from the same batch from which I picked back in 1980.  But it’s till chewy so I assume it’s good.  And one of these days I will steal that bottle of laudanum that’s been sitting behind the counter forever.  That will be a fun day!  

So…the fair was good.  grimy…but good.  You should go.  Go and ride the Himalaya and listen to them blast Poison at top volume while you spin around a bean-shaped track at 40 MPH while you break a rib or two and just let the joy overcome you.  And it will.  You will begin to smile after about two minutes and then you will start to scream a war cry from the gut after another couple minutes and then, finally, you will tear off your t-shirt and spontaneously sprout a fully-formed spike-mullet and adolescent-stache and your summer will be complete.  (don’t worry, the mullet will fall out after the last day of the fair, when the rooster crows fourteen times…twelve times for midnight and two more to demand two more shots of tequila from the guy who operates the Himalaya—and who also happens to be Chris Gaines…aka Garth Brooks.  True story, man.

Okay third topic:  

It is transfer season in bike racing.  Not just in the pro ranks, but around here also.  Patrick Swayze’s legacy is attempting to seduce some of my riders away so that they can become one of approximately thirty five spokes in a wheel that has been pretty true throughout the years but has, recently, begun to realize that there are a couple of other wheels on the market that are <maybe> stronger than theirs.  It is possible to bring down Goliath, you know.  Shit…that’s two analogies in one paragraph.  But the sentiment is true.  And it’s also a bit annoying.  Patrick Swayze can acquire all the riders he wants but if he gets everyone he wants, who the hell will he race against?  Also…why is it that no one can seem to dodge his well-advertised roundhouse kick?  He does it in every damned movie he makes (made…may he RIP) starting back at Point Break and maybe even Dirty Dancing.  And, Roadhouse!  That was one of the most ridiculous fight scenes ever.  Two white guys who happen to be Karate experts (according to them) fighting to the death on the banks of a river?  HA!  Why the Karate?  Why not just shoot the bad guy in the knee or something?  Silly movie…ROADHOUSE!  But let’s think forward here a bit.  I don’t mean to downplay the success they’ve had throughout the years but come on, man!  Y’all have plenty of firepower and a great system in place.  Stop trying to steal people.  Or I might just stop eating your delicious cowboy cut sirloin steaks.  And, anyway, I hear there are some vacuum cleaner company employees who may be out of a job soon.  Go after them.  At least they are clean and their wheel decals match their kits.  And that says something.  I don’t know what it says but probably someone does.  

Anyway the point is that everyone is recruiting right now and that includes us.  We aim to have a top-notch squad next year, capable and ready to compete at the regional and national level.  The team is growing and improving faster than I thought possible two years ago.  We have amazing sponsors who share our vision and dedication and I know this is sounding like a pandering sort of screed but it’s true.  I’m super excited for the off-season and for next season and preparations are well underway.  

That’s all I can muster for now.  Let’s go let’s go let’s go, buddy-roo!  

Stuart Scott

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Sitting here watching ESPN getting ready to ride the trainer and I hear about Stuart Scott passing.  May God Damn this sort of thing!  Cancer.  Always always takes a guy like him and leaves jerks to inherit the landscape of good health.  

My hands keep going up to my eyes.  The corners of my lips turn down and quiver.  Why am I so affected by this particular death…this particular person?  Why has this tipped me over this morning?  Why am I sitting here crying while I watch ESPN’s retrospect instead of quietly thinking “another one bites the dust.”?  I can’t really say.  I did not know the man apart from what I saw on TV or at the Heroes Gala last year—almost one year ago exactly.  I don’t know what he was really like apart from what was presented to the public.  I don’t know that he was especially more important than anyone else in the world…any better person, or father, or even broadcaster.  But something is making me really sad about this today. 

Maybe it doesn’t matter how important or good a person is to the world.  Maybe it only matters how good or important a person is to you.  Or how a person positively affects your life or the way you look at the world.  And then maybe it is our responsibility and privilege to pass that affectation on to others.  The vast majority of us can only reach a limited number of people, after all.  I guess Stuart Scott must have affected me in a pretty big way.  I know I liked his presence on ESPN.  I know I liked his on-air personality.  I was impressed that he took time to come to the Gala last year, looking as thin as I’ve ever seen him.  I was impressed that he was so magnanimous and seemed to take the event very seriously.  He was passionate when he spoke and very gracious when people pressed him for autographs or photos.  Maybe it is because I sensed genuineness in him that I am so sad today.  Genuine people are, in my opinion, uncommon in these times.  And for some reason, I think he was a genuine guy.  BooYah.  

I am not a fan of celebrity, or being famous.  I think it breeds egotism in almost every case.  And I don’t think that anyone in the world “deserves” recognition for doing good things.  That is not a socialist statement, either…or maybe it is…I don’t really care…it’s just a stupid word.  I just think that people should all do good things and be fulfilled by the knowledge that maybe those things enriched someone else’s life in some way.  So—I don’t think that we should necessarily glorify Stuart for anything in particular.  But I do hope…I very strongly hope that people remember him and let his life and his work be reflected in the way they live.  

They say that cancer doesn’t discriminate when it takes people away from us.  I don’t know…it just doesn’t seem that way to me after today.  

123114 Kentucky was fun

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Nope.  No sappy end of year memoir here.  A lot of people feel compelled to take stock of their lives and publicly review them in blogs and social media posts.  I will not do this.  I will not subject people to that terrible sort of cliche.  Not that you are a subject just because you chose to read this.  Anyway, I don’t believe in socialism or plutocracies or totalitarianism or communism or any modern forms of government for that matter.  But I will tell you about a recent ride in Kentucky.  It goes like this:

I was in the great state of Kentucky for the holidays with my wife’s family a few weeks ago.  For those who do not know Kentucky, it is basically the most convoluted system of roads and hills and valleys and creeks and limestone cliffs and rivers and tobacco fields you have ever seen.  I have heard that it is also filled with secret marijuana fields and something called Kentucky Colonels.  These Kentucky Colonels are not actually Colonels in a military sense…rather they are people who have been formally recognized as contributing something significant to the state of Kentucky.  The title has it’s roots in military organization but that ended in the 19th century.  I shall speak no ill of the organization as my father-in-law is a Colonel himself.  I do think the whole notion of Colonel Sanders is funny, though.  And his bow-tie is certainly stylish and non-functional, as any form of tie should be.  

That makes me think about suits.  Why do people wear suits?  There is absolutely nothing functional about them.  They are terribly uncomfortable, they do not move well, they are normally accompanied by the wearing of a tie, which is basically a collar and short leash for a person, and they all look basically the same (despite what their makers may tell you).  But people spend much of the money they make (in the corporate world) on these restrictive woolen garments in an attempt to, presumably, impress clients, bosses, and even their equally-leveled co-workers.  But the very people on whom the impression is meant to be made actually only feel either envy or contempt when confronted with the competing garment.  Once this miniature rapport is established, and the silent judgement begins, the Dow Jones will move up or down a few points based on completely fictitious circumstances, one of the parties shifts his gaze slightly downward (this is such a small movement that only the contest winner actually recognizes it…the loser does not even know he just averted his eyes) and immediately check himself into rehab for three months before seeking work at a bike shop.  I find the whole notion to be ridiculous in the most literal sense of the word ridiculous.  The thing is…I will actually wear one in two weeks when I attend a black-tie-optional event in the name of charity.  And I will fidget the entire evening as my shirt migrates up and down and around when I sit down or stand up.  I will itch the next day from the wool collar touching my neck.  And I will wonder why in hell did people pick this form of garment for large get-togethers and corporate work environments instead of something really comfortable and conducive to productivity…like a felt jumpsuit or flannel pajamas.  

So…back to my ride.  My ride was great.  Probably one of the best rides I’ve done this year…and in December, no less.  But the thing is, I am basically flying blind whenever I do a long ride down there.  I am beginning to get a decent mental map of the four or five counties in which I ride around Beth’s parents’ town but only in a very general directional sense.  For instance…I know which way is North because moss only grows on the north side of all the roadside ditches in which the hundreds of goddam huge mongrel dogs wait to ambush me.  These dogs live at every single one of the tobacco farms and rooster concentration camps around the areas in which I ride.  They are obviously an ancient breed…probably a crossbreed of pit-bull, timber-wolf, and razorback hogs.  They are fast, huge, and nearly silent as they begin their attacks.  I have grown accustomed to them, though, and my ears have become finely attuned to the sound they make as they rush at me.  This is called sprint training.  Their carcasses litter the sides of the larger roads, killed instantly as they try to attack combines and tobacco trailers.  To effectively evade the beasts, you MUST be willing to stop and fight.  If you are not, they will sense your fear and become overwhelmed by blood-lust and crazy-eyes.  Sort of like the curious mania that develops when network or cable new stations get wind of a white policeman kicking the shit out of a black, so-called perpetrator (who in hell knows whether this person actually committed a crime because as far as selling advertising, that fact is about as important as whether or not Ndaukong Suh is playing fair or dirty when he bludgeons a quarterback…the point is that violence is being done, and violence always creates a polarized situation and that can make or break the Nightly News (or ESPN)…especially if the poles are different colors).  

Anyway my ride was great, as I mentioned earlier.  Even with the dogs.  Some of them have actually gotten to know me a bit and I think they even appreciate my presence.  I always make sure to wear blue as even the dogs are UK fans in that area of Kentucky.  Actually…it seems to me that EVERYONE in Kentucky is a UK fan and NO ONE is a Louisville fan.  Am I correct?  No matter I guess, but it is a weird thing.  I have not met one single person in Kentucky who would root for Louisville in a UK vs Louisville game.  I am sure they exist but something tells me they all live in Clarksville, Indiana.  THE RIDE!  I actually have lost the impetus to write about the ride.  Suffice to say that I went up and down many, many hills and was chased by many, many wild dawgs, as they say in Kentucky.  I even made it up Thunder Road Hill, which is a very steep road that was presumably created as a joke by the DOT.  It is approximately a 40% grade and is completely formed out of what can only be described as jagged charcoal and solidified rooster shit.  As a matter of fact, at the bottom of the hill is one of those bizarre rooster-camps I see all over the place in central KY.  I don’t know why they exist.  They are always fenced in and guarded by a Great Pyrenees Dog (huge white fluffy dog from Belle and Sebastian).  The roosters live in blue 100-gallon barrels and are sometimes on a chain and collar.  They may be bred for fighting…or maybe just to be used as Foghorn Leghorns.  Every hen-house has to have a man around to fix stuff and ward off the chicken-hawks, right?  Right…so that was the ride.

Now it’s time for New Year’s Eve which is a celebration of booze and broken dreams and Dr. Neil Clark Warren just loves it as he chugs lemon-drops and sings Auld Lang Syne and swims in his e-Harmony money.  The jails will be full tonight with mean drunks and despondent loners who only care that they just spent hundreds of dollars to be at the coolest party in Indy and ended up behind bars instead of between the sheets because they were on the wrong side of point zero-eight and probably the wrong side of the road.  It’s a rotten sham and we all ride that train in our twenties and thirties because hangovers really don’t get serious until you make over 50 grand a year.  (side note:  when you make over 200 grand a year you may drink in the morning to rid yourself of the hangover)  

We are going to a friend’s house tonight.  We actually like these people though and it doesn’t really matter if it’s December 31.  We would go anyway.  And i won’t have a hangover tomorrow.  

Time to go now….

22 Lucky Years, The wheel follows the eyes, Fat and Skinny is still a Great Event, and I think I think these things…

22 Lucky Years, The wheel follows the eyes, Fat and Skinny is still a Great Event, and I think I think these things…

In no particular order:  

7.  the doctor pepper 10 commercials are my favorite.  followed by Gary Busey talking to his pants.  

3.  pro cycling is super boring.  almost as boring to watch as golf.  i have recorded a few events this season and with the exception of paris roubaix and flanders i always fast forward to the last ten k.  this is especially true of stage races.  

18.  amateur racing, like what we do, is awesome.  always craziness and never predictable (unless TRH brings a full squad) and i find myself more and more in love with this level of the sport.  it has been so rewarding to create the team (First IB Cycling) and watch it grow.  the guys and gals are doing well (the ladies are particularly impressive this year) and the diversity of personalities is super fun to be around.  

7.  cody lundeen is leaving dual survival and that sucks because that super-wanker joe teti is now the anchor and they’re bringing some desert-dwelling tarzan in to take cody’s place.  guarantee that show is toast and i liked it.  

7.  i’ve really become a tea guy…or tea person.  loose-leaf all the way with the cast-iron pot and everything.  golden assam mixed with a bit of jasmine white is a really nice blend.  i drink it all the time and i can tell that the antioxidants are protecting me from all manner of diseases and evil spirits.

1.  i hate crashing…especially when it is not my fault.  even more especially when i am in the winning break of four on a sunny day at one of my favorite events with a ton of spectators and hosted by some of the nicest people i know.

so i have been racing for 22 years (since i was 18) and have crashed maybe three times on the road and a couple more off-road.  i have had lots of stitches and had a torn rotator cuff but never broken a bone.  at masters nationals in louisville a few years ago i dislocated my finger with a lap to go when some jerk off went down in front of me and my hand jammed it’s way through his rear wheel when i went down.  but never a broken bone.  

well so much for that.  sunday in the masters crit at fat and skinny up in warsaw i went down due to the ninth-dan numbskullery of one of my breakaway companions.  the front wheel generally follows the eyes and those eyes apparently wanted to look behind after exiting a corner at high speed and just as we were accelerating on the backstretch.  why?  i don’t know.  we had plenty of gap and were working smoothly and taking even pulls…a win was assured for one of us.  disappointing and painful but…shit happens, as the pope always says.  we all make mistakes.  the key is to learn from them and not make the same mistake ten times in the same race like said numbskull.  

anyway i went to the ER and sat for an hour waiting to be seen by a real doctor.  this did not happen and after someone repeatedly came in and told me they were sorry for the wait and  that they would get me something for the pain, i was finally convinced that either i was not, in fact, in a real hospital, or that all the doctors were at another hospital.  so i walked half-naked to the nurses station and told them i was leaving.  they were very concerned and also frustrated at me because i did not appreciate their ruse.  but no matter.  i’m used to that personality type…i work in the bicycle industry.  so i know how to handle them.  in this case i just had a box of wine brought in and, while they were busy, shredded my intake forms and left silently with help from mr. mcclary.  silly old hens…

my REAL doctor back home told me to come in first thing in the morning and he would assess the situation.  so after a somewhat painful drive home and a very uncomfortable night’s sleep i went to see the doc and get an x-ray.  this confirmed the clavicle fracture with dislocation and splinters.  bad stuff.  surgery required asap.  doc scheduled surgery for wednesday and i mucked my way through the next two nights as best i could and waited for my wife to get home from a business trip in miami.  she’s great.  she takes care of me like a champ and is super helpful and would do much more if i would let her.  she even tried to mow the lawn, which i have forbidden as mowing the lawn is one of the primary outlets for my undiagnosed OCD.  but we’ll get that taken care of later.  so surgery:

surgery was super fun and i had a great time with the anesthesia as always.  here is what anesthesia is like:  

doc:  “i’m going to make you a little sleepy now while i ask you a few questions.”

me:  “okay…oh wow i can feel it starting to……”

doc:  “all done mr. richter, how are you feeling?”

me:  “ooooh you rotten bugger you tricked me again…and why the hell are my pants wet?”

doc:  “perfectly normal stuff there, mr. richter…would you like a soft drink?”

me:  “i demand to see your phone this instant!  and why are we in an elevator?  this building is only one floor.”

doc:  “hmmmmm…mrs. richter?  he’s all yours.”

that was yesterday.  they put a nerve block in my shoulder so i had no feeling and no motor control of my left arm yesterday and last night which was disconcerting but did eliminate any pain until it wore off around mid-morning.  i had fun trying to wash my face at the sink with my dead left arm just sort of sitting on the side wanting to slip off when i moved.  weird.  and when i was sitting on the couch watching tv last night with beth i kept looking over to check on it and it was never where i thought it was.  

and that was that.  it’s now the end of the second day and my neck hurts like a sonofabitch.  i guess they were wrenching around on my neck and shoulder muscles trying to get the clavicle straight (so said the PA when i asked her why it felt like i had whiplash).  hope to sleep a bit tonight.  pain meds and me don’t get along very well.  

i gotta go man.  promise i’ll write something better soon…

oh wait!  i wanted to say thank you to rob and nancy gast and everyone else responsible for the Fat and Skinny Tire Fest (version 11).  as always, this is a really wonderful event with huge crowds, a super fun festival atmosphere with loads of food and drink and plenty of diversions for cyclists of all disciplines and abilities.  and it is held in one of the most idyllic settings in indiana, the Village at Winona Lake.  just a really great event and one that i always love doing.  if you have not done it, try it next year and i promise you will love it!

Goodbye Brett

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Dear Brett,

Jesus, buddy!  What the hell happened?  I think I can safely assume that you are probably pissed off right now at the manner of your demise.  I can imagine what you might have thought at the last moment.  Probably something along the lines of “This is such bullshit!  Please, God, let me have two more minutes…just TWO MORE MINUTES so I can run and grab my .45 and blow a hole through that guy before he gets away!”

You were such a good dude.  I feel sorry for the way you died.  But I don’t feel sorry for you.  I think you had a pretty good life.  You can tell when someone is having a good life.  It’s in the eyes and in the voice…the choice of words and inflection they use when they describe their day, or their family, or even another person.  Even when you and I would make fun of other dealers I knew that you had no animosity toward them…it was all just snarky observation and silliness.  The way you told the story about Nathan and the way we embellished it together every time we recounted it.  Or the one about Whiskey Bill.  So great.  And your laugh…such a great fucking laugh.  It made me laugh.  The way you would walk in the store and sometimes we would just look at each other and start laughing.  And the way you would walk in the door, straight past me toward the bathroom for a thirty-second piss and you would just say “be right back.”  So funny.  

We were both on the road, though you were there a lot longer…a warrior as they say.  Coffee is for closers and all that bullshit.  And you didn’t even drink coffee!  But you were the most caffeinated person I ever met.  We had met so many of the same dealers, been in so many of the same bathrooms, met so many of the most interesting, ridiculous, good, bad, ugly, and awesome personalities in this beautiful and heartbreaking industry that there was never a shortage of material for a good conversation.  Sellers, Baer, Nancy, Nathan, The Time Toilet (a little inside, I know), Tom T, fucking Looney Tunes parade, man!  Overture!  Curtains, lights…  Fuck me, are you telling me I can never have one of those conversations again?  Because I know for a fact that there is not another person alive who saw people in quite as similar fashion as I.  And that just sucks.  I am selfishly pissed off at the miserable, filthy bastard who did this.

Your cars…how many fucking cars did you go through in the years I knew you?  All those awful retired police cruisers for so long!  You would brag about how cheap you got them at auction but all I saw was a piece of shit.  But you didn’t care because you were a road warrior and those were your war horses and war horses are meant to be filthy and mean and ridden to death and that is what they expect and hate and that’s okay because God has a special place for them and for the men who ride them.  Well…at least for you.  Those cars have no doubt been melted down by now.  

I never met your family but I like to imagine they meant a great deal to you.  I imagine you loved them very much and I feel very sad to think that they will miss you.  I can’t fathom how shocked they must feel.  I pray for them in wordless mourning because how can you use words ask God to assuage what they are experiencing.  To attempt to do so would do a disservice to the awful depth of despair that accompanies the violent taking of a loved one.  So I guess I just want your family to know that you were a connected person…that is to say that there are a lot of us who feel a huge sense of loss right now.

I never ordered stuff from J&B Importers.  I ordered from Brett Walquist.  Your prices were always higher than QBP and I always found mistakes in the product you shipped.  I think it was because you relied on your memory, which was prodigious, to input part numbers.  Like the time you shipped us about twenty 3-way Torx wrenches.  WTF?  Or all the times you send us the wrong kickstands…the ones with the flat plates instead of the s-shaped ones.  But you always made good…”Oh don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it, you’ll see something show up next week with the same value but there won’t be a charge!”  Shyster…  

If I still drank, I’d throw down a few bourbons for you.  It is New Year’s, after all.  Instead, I think I’ll go out back and burn all my J&B catalogs and fire off a few rounds of the ol’ 9mm to say Goodbye.  You take care now and stop fucking pacing around so much!  Relax, buddy, the hard part is over.  

-Richter

Sunday Morning Coming Down

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Can you start a piece with an interlude?  Well I will:  That pseudo-song call and response piece of dung called “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros is playing on the radio at work and it is so very awful!  That bit in the middle when they talk to each other…I just ground my molars to shards and my left eye just shot across the store.  I voiced my displeasure and the boys started laughing.  They said they were surprised it only took 30 seconds.  Shame on them for being tolerant of this auditory tripe.  

It’s slow here this time of year and I’m quite jumpy.  Music is powerfully mood-altering to me.  If it were just me in here there would be only Jazz and Reggae and maybe Johnny Cash when he did those cover albums as an old timer with that quivering old voice that was forged in a crucible of tobacco, pills, booze, and the kind of desperate longing that only a sinner of the worst kind can know.  That sort of man has hated himself for so long that the years and the “mud and the blood and the booze” have erased the memory of the original reason for that self-loathing so that all he is left with is a broken soul and a bone-soaking darkness that is never more than a half-smile away.  A man like that can never truly smile because he knows that the smile is held captive by a terrible spiritual malignancy.  He can never be reconciled because he doesn’t remember what it is that needs to be reconciled.  And so he is left to God’s mercy in the end and until that day he takes a wife like June and sings epic poetry and if he is lucky he stays away from booze and dope.  Jesus, this is me!  So it’s Cash for camaraderie, Jazz and Reggae to sooth the jerky nerves.  Sunday Morning Sidewalk.  Sunday Morning coming down…reality barging its way back into your life after you’ve done your best to run and hide and hide and hide and your mind lies raw in a pool of horror...or terror…sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference...but there is one. 

I quit drinking this year.  I haven’t done drugs for many years.  Booze was always the best for me…and the worst.  I can remember the rush, the euphoria, the acceptance.  I remember the anticipation of drinking.  I remember lying to myself about how much I would drink that night…or day.  I have derailed so many trains in my time I can scarcely believe I’m alive.  Never a daily drinker…just a drinker of vast quantities.  Ten beers would be chump change for me.  How the hell can I function around these people with only ten?  I need the walls to close in.  I need the blurry, fuzzy vortex of noise to be close enough to rub my cheeks.  The din of two hundred voices all stirred up together and swirled around and around until they are an indistinguishable boozy noise blanket.  And I wrap myself up in it and it all looks homogenous and I can pick out whichever one is least threatening and touch it.  Colors and sounds and fragmented memories of shapes of wooden floors and glasses and shirt colors and bar-rails.  That dark brownish-burgundy color of fake leather and cheap pool table felt.  

The dry mouth and twitchy sleep of 4AM and that awful breathless time lapse between the dissipation of the BAC and the onset of the hangover.  There is a period of time when there is perfect, painless clarity (or at least perceived perfect sobriety) at that point.  Chemicals being processed—eliminated…some new chemicals shoving in to fuck with your eyes and your stomach and, worst of all, your mind.  The vertigo and the acute anxiety and depression dance around sickeningly and taunt you and all you want to do is sit under the warm shower and know that it’s hot and sunny outside and maybe it will be until you feel better.  If you’re going to be hung over, do it in Summer.  Winter is worst for that sort of thing.  The grey skies are just a tombstone over your emotional grave and there is not a damn thing you can do about it but embrace the dread or drink again.  And you probably will…for twenty or thirty years until you Allow yourself to realize how pathetic it all is.  Until Sunday Morning Comes Down for good.  You pray for Sunday morning…the one that Johnny sang about.  He didn’t sing about it in a literal sense.  He sang about it metaphorically and that is what most people miss.  I missed it the first hundred or so times I ever heard that song but I get it now.  Sunday morning is God’s presentation of grace and maybe redemption to you.  Even when you think you are the worst person in the world at the time.  The smell of the chicken frying, the laughing little girl playing, even the cleanest dirty shirt.  Those things all point to something new and brilliant and maybe soul-cleansing.

But not everyone is ready for that just yet.  It takes that man whose heart has been frozen for so long that even the slightest whisper of love or even concern from another person ignites some ferocious longing deep inside his soul.  And I do mean ferocious.  That kind of longing functions as both a fire to melt the frozen heart and a protective monster to guard what it has thawed.  It is a built in Mother Bear…or maybe it is God working through us and we only think it is a thing we create.  Those who Believe tackle this question every day on some level.  It’s a tough one.  I have beaten that question back into the darkness so many times I can’t believe it still pursues me.  I simultaneously love the longing and hate it with everything I can muster.  You see, it shakes up my belief paradigm and makes me very uncomfortable while also allowing me a faint glimpse of something better and beautiful!  But I am comfortable in the dark stasis of this person I’ve created.  There is no work to be done here.  It is anesthesia.  Pure, numb apathy.  Not bad and not good.  Nothing.  Some people think that is what hell is.  But then that piercing light shoots through a crack in the ice and blasts you in the eye and you see something familiar.  You have no idea what it is, though you can see it quite clearly.  All you know is that it is familiar and warm and I’m not sure what the other thing is but it’s some sort of happiness.  Either happiness or peace I think.  

But as I was saying…not everyone is ready for that just yet.  For some people, you just have to reach down to the bottom of the well to where you think you’ll find your own damned redemption and you don’t need anyone’s help Goddammit!  And that’s what is so confusing.  You will find water down there but a man dug that well and that water probably filtered up through the bedrock from miles away.  There is nothing special about that.  It’s just plain physical processes.  Rain falls and soaks in and gravity pulls it down to the depths and heat pushes it back up.  Dinosaurs die and rot and turn into oil and diamonds.  Birds are not magic…they are aerodynamic and use their wings and thermal updrafts to fly.  But we all continue to look for the Answer in those things.  Four leaf clovers and fire and rockets and elementary particles…the Higgs Boson.  We observed all these things and we even created computers that can beat Garry Kasparov at chess.  We will continue to advance our manipulation of the observable world.  Will there be a point at which we know so much that we cross a threshold where God is plausibly deniable to everyone alive?  I doubt it.  Because I think we have all seen that beam of light every now and then and it still makes us wonder.  We still get precious glimpses of that thing which is so familiar yet so unrecognizable.  Johnny and I have something in common there.  We both sat at the bottom of the well for a long LONG time just clawing away deeper and deeper because we were sure we could find ourselves if we just dug another few inches.  He got tired and went on one last bender and woke up one Sunday morning and the sun hit him in the face and he started to climb out.