[sic]

There’s a part of me that’s really pissed and a part of me that’s really glad I didn’t understand what the guy yelled at us.

As Eric, Michael, Mack, Stephen, Ingrid and I in all our laidback IAAL•MAFness rolled west on 11th Street across Broadway sometime around 9 p.m. last night, a muddled bellow from behind us took us by surprise and I whipped around at the sound to find several people gathered on the sidewalk near the southeast corner of that intersection. I wasn’t able to figure out who said what or what was said. All I knew was that the voice was male and what came out was “Dah rah gizz bah caz,” and my first and main thought was all “whoa… better be last call for that fella.” Then when we just looked at them and they just looked at us and whoever it was didn’t follow up such witless mumblings with more, we just pointed our heads forward and kept on riding.

Had my comprehension of his statement been immediate, our quiet and casual and easygoing and fun ride around a mostly deserted downtown would have taken a decidedly noisy and confrontational turn as of course I would have peeled off, circled back and imposed upon the guy the following questions:

1. Did he have to work hard to be such a skinflute or did it just came natural?
2. Where the fuck did he get off coming up with the totally awesome idea of showcasing what a complete asshole he was?
3. Was he always in the habit of instigating shit by saying stupid things to strangers who just might opt to jack his ass up?
4. To what might he attribute the uncontrollable impulse to harsh my mellow: a) alcohol and/or narcotics, b) a lack of breastfeeding as an infant, or conversely a prolonged period of breastfeeding deep into his toddler years, c) some sort of compulsive syndrome, or d) all of the above?

But none of that happened because instead, it wasn’t until we’d gone to the next street — Hill — and turned right that Ingrid and Stephen and Michael mockingly repeated what the asstard had spewed:

“The road is for cars!”

(more…)

I have one of those  Swiss Army knives, the kind that has I don’t know how many blades and tools and such. Among it all there’s a pair of scissors, tweezers… even a little magnifying glass for starting fires should you require such functionality.  As a result of attempting to use it (not to start a fire) my left index finger’s tip is wrapped in a big bandage (that’s making it hard to type).

Sometimes the knife travels with me in a pocket or pack and sometimes it gets left somewhere… home, office, car. Of late it’s been in my office where I put it to occasional and successful use slicing up apples. Today I was not so successful slicing up a persimmon, one from a giant bag that a coworker had brought in and left in the lunchroom for any who wanted one. Or 12.

I suppose my injury could be so worse, but I couldn’t have failed in the simple act of cutting a piece of fruit more self-loathingly.

After opening up the longest of the knife’s blades without incident I placed the tip at the spot on the persimmon where I wanted to begin the cut. As it was a moderately ripe persimmon I didn’t have to apply much pressure to facilitate the downward slicing action.

Suddenly encountering unexpected resistance I “leaned into it” just enough to drive the blade all the way through and quickly to the table, where it came to an abrupt rest and right after so did my left index finger on what should have been the harmless back of the blade.

Should have been.

But no, see, what I had unwittingly and carelessly opted to do was for some head-shakingly unfathomable and painfully laughable lack of reason was invert the entire knife so the business side was up and the useless side was the one being employed to slash… thus the surprise increased resistance I met.

And speaking of surprise, what became immediately and unmistakably apparent to me in the form of a wicked cold-burning stinging sensation emanating from my left index finger was that its tip did not come to a stop against the back of the blade. Oh no. Instead it hit the sharp edge of the blade for that initial cut and then kept on going… or should I say the stainless steel blade kept going into my finger until I’d butterflied it but good.

Being that I was at work I was forced to cancel the parade of invective that immediately lined up to march out of my mouth. Besides, I had more important things to do than spew foul language in full reproach. Like bleed. A lot. I swear the only thing that bleeds as much as a head when wounded is a finger. I wish I didn’t know this first hand — ha: hand, get it?

Anyway, my injured digit and I adjourned to the sink in the lunch room where I ran cold water over and in and through the wound, hissing when it hurt, which it did. After some isopropyl alcohol spray, first aid ointment and a large fingertip bandage, all that was left was a cartoonish throbbing that served as punctuating proof of my stoopidity, and the uneaten persimmon — which I finished slicing without further injury but then threw out after one achingly astrigent bite.

Agh, us faultless “entitled” humans. Practically every day I’m shown another example of how we think we do own the planet. This time it was on a rather small scale via an alert to residents of the next monthly Silver Lake Improvement Association gathering later this week.

As highlighted above, one of the items to be explored concerns “our coyote problems,” and you just have to know that kind of slanted, narrow sillytalk just chaps my coyote-loving hide enough to whip off an email to the boardmembers:

In regards to the item on the agenda of this coming Thursday’s community meeting, I may have to show up for once just so I can be one of those pro-animal hardcase voices in the wilderness that points a resenting finger at it being referred to institutionally as a “coyote problem.”

Sadly it seems I should expect members of the SLIA board to roll their eyes at anyone defending the creatures, but the fact is the coyotes’ presence isn’t their fault, it’s the fault of those of us who — be it inadvertent or not — provide them with predatory and scavenging opportunities.

And then there’s that little matter of burning down a huge section of their habitat in Griffith Park last May and forcing them to relocate. Lest we forget, that catastrophe wasn’t caused by a coyote that was careless with a cigarette, it was one of us human problems.

Will Campbell

UPDATE (3:50 p.m.): I ended up receiving a very nice reply from SLIA boardmember Lorraine Kells that demonstrated how easily I misconstrue irony when it comes to critters I heart:

Will,

I’m the guilty one.  I hurriedly made up the flyer with my typical Los Angeles tongue-in-cheek, ironic stance because the whole idea of having a wildlife specialist explain to people that the coyotes were here first and attracted by our garbage and wasteful habits is NOT their problem, but the problem of those who refuse to admit they live
in what was a wilderness scrub and home to mountain lions, bobcats, and coyotes which once thrived in balance should be obvious, but it’s not.  So, it’s our problem about ourselves, which we call our coyote problem.  Officer Randall does a great job of stating that.  You’ll enjoy him.

I don’t disagree with you, but I’m responsible for the irony which you took for intent; nevertheless there are many who view the animals as pests, so bring out your friends and fight for those critters.

Warm regards,
Lorraine Kells

To which I replied:

Thank you Lorraine. I fool myself into thinking I have an eye for irony and a sense of humor but it seems that’s never more not true when critters are involved. I’m familiar with Officer Randall and I’ll do my best to get to the meeting, but I’m also one of those fools that commutes to work (in Westchester) by bike (or even worse: carpools). Either of those crosstown scenarios might keep me from being there Thursday night, but I’m sure gonna try.

Best,
Will

Like most bullshit automobile adornment trends — the pissing Calvin, “Baby On Board” signage, bumper stickers that petulantly demand I accept that Jesus Is God while simultaneously commanding that I Read The Bible — I don’t know where and when they start. All I know is that they can never fade away fast enough to suit me.

The example of this type of stickering pictured below is certainly nothing new, but it’s one I don’t get on two WTF levels:

First off, dude: Duh. You’re driving a beatdown Toyota truck, what the hell else is it going to be powered by? Second off, dude: Nah. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss the press release crowing about how Toyota’s engines deliver 1,200 horsepower.

And bonus WTF, dude. Hic? Were ya drinkin’ much while applying that lameness to your truck’s ass or is that uneven, off-center warped effect on purpose? Nice!

Powered by idiots.

There’s something about the parking lot where the Ralphs is on Glendale Boulevard in Silver Lake that makes people silly. A couple years ago I apparently wasn’t crossing  in front of a stopped car fast enough because when I’d barely gotten by the driver gunned it past me and flipped me off and when I shrugged a WTF!? at him as he glared at me in his rear view he slammed on the brakes and made like he was going to open the driver’s side door but remembered what a chickenshit he was and kept on going when I took off towards his car ready for whatever rumble might have awaited us.

Then today coming across the lot in my car, southbound on the right side of the parking lot lane with a two cars coming northbound, the trailing car without reason or need justs pulls directly in front of me as if to go around the lead car, but then doesn’t and just stops. And so does the lead car who’s now waiting at my 10 o’clock for a car behind me that’s pulling out of a space.

Does Car No. 2 pull back in behind Car No. 1 so I can go by? No. Does Car No. 2 stop? No. Instead Car No. 2 keeps coming toward me  until there’s only about 15 feet between our front bumpers. Then she stops. And now I have to wait for Car No. 1 — who’s doing nothing wrong — to wait for the car to exit the space behind me. When that happens does Car No. 2 then pull back to the right? No. She sits there barely moving and entirely unwilling or unable to acknowledge she’s sorry or a tard until I opt to go to my left and around her and as I do I give her a smarmy look and say mostly to myself in my closed up cab with the A/C and Sirius radio going full blast: “This isn’t England ya know!”

Not the cleverest thing, but hey.

And she responds how?  Of course by fully animating in a nanosecond as if someone hit an on switch. In the blink of an eye she went from comatose or overdosed to sitting fully upright and jetting her arm out in a full-thrust extension toward me upon the end of which stretches one of the most adamant middle fingers I’ve ever been given. You’d think I’d just insulted her mother or her hair color. And for added emphasis she yells “fuck off!” for all she’s worth and loud enough for me to hear in my closed up cab with the A/C and Sirius radio going full blast.

And then I did this remarkable thing: instead of going ballistic I laughed at her and shrugged at her irate over-reaction and just kept on going to a space up ahead where I parked and got out. I laughed even harder when I saw she’d done the same thing and was glaring at me with  eyes in a head that barely cleared the top of the door frame of her sports car. Seriously if she was five-feet tall then I’m a hipster. King of the hipsters.

To make things even more ludicrous, she was damaged. I mean physically. As she got out in the open, headed thankfully for some other venue besides Ralphs where I was going, Ms. Gimpy walked with a pronounced limp.

As timing would have it as I was on my way out of the market she was also heading back to her car from wherever she’d been, limping and a-glaring at me and so ready to open a can of badmouth on my ass. I just shook my head and kept on going.

Recounting this latest afrontation/confrontation by/with a motorist yesterday has elements that are so similar with others past as to render it almost too boring to bother. But I have to get it out of my head so bear with me.

Where: Eastbound on Pico Boulevard after crossing Catalina Street; at approximately mile No. 40 of what for me was ultimately a 46-mile ride as part of an excellent tour put together by the fine Hot Knives fellas.

When: 4:55 p.m.

Who: A male in his early 30s, the driver and sole occupant of a dark Blue Honda sedan.

What: Honking at me from behind while riding in the doorzone along the parked vehicles in the No. 2 lane he pulled alongside me in that same lane and called me an “asshole” through the passenger side window then accelerated past me and when I gave him the international arms-wide-open signal for Christ’s crucifixion “WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR MALFUNCTION!?” he responded by extending a middle toward me and then easing on down the road a couple more blocks.

Until he had to come to a complete stop at the stack of cars backed up a block back of the red light at Vermont.

Tangental point of order: Why at this point of the group
ride was I going solo? Well, that was due to me gunning it
down a hill through Beverlywood a few miles back and
keeping a brisk enough pace to end up a few minutes
ahead of the other cyclists.

On approach I have to admit it was fun to see him panic like a trapped rat. They always do when it dawns on them that the little one-act play they directed is about to have a second act they neither bargained for nor want. At first as he realized I was going to catch up to him he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat and then started to swerve left to go around the car in front of him, but when he realized that wouldn’t allow an escape broke right and almost sissy fishtailed away south on New Hampshire Street. Finally resigned he straightened out and came to a full stop still in the No. 2 lane, whereupon I rolled up alongside the douche in his douchemobile and checked my anger as best I could to ask as reasonably as I could why he felt it was necessary to be such a piece of shit and A) Honk at me, B) Call me an asshole, and C) flip me the bird.

“You shouldn’t be on the road!” was his answer.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood and wondered aloud to him if there might not have been a better, less stratospherically retarded way he might have displayed his limited intellect, and he just blinks at me while his undersized and underused brain taxes itself to a standstill trying to help him sound out strat-oh-sfear-ih-klee.

(more…)

This is how it ended with the sub-compact sedan full of four 20-something punks: Me saying “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Either learn how to beat a red light or quit telling me to fuck off!” Then the driver of the car pulled a right onto Beaudry from 2nd and left me on my bike laughing at them as the twirps sped off.

How it began was a little bit east inside the 2nd Street tunnel. I was leaving downtown after a lunchtime whim of using one of Flexcar’s Mini Coopers that are garaged at 333 S. Spring for an hour at $10 an hour. Coming westbound I was about midway through the tunnel, riding in the right lane a couple feet from the curb. From behind me a good distance away a horn honks behind me and I check my rearview mirror to see a small sedan way back of me having just entered the east end of the tunnel as a second or two before.

I give the driver the benefit of the doubt that that sound was accidental, but I know better and sure enough when the car’s closed the distance between it and me by half the horn goes off again, longer this time. Get this: there is no other westbound traffic in the tunnel, leaving the No. 1 lane wide open for this jackass to use to go around me unimpeded. But does this happen? Of course it doesn’t. Instead the car gets right up on my ass, honks again, cuts left to straddle the white line like its sniffing it and as the driver guns the woefully inadequate and poorly oiled engine in a rattle of valves past me I yell hearty and booming “fuck you!” and the passenger punk yells what sounds like “pedal faster!” but very well could’ve been “I’m an asshole!”

And so I take his sugggestion and channel my adrenaline by kicking up the cadence for a couple seconds until I see that, sure enough, the traffic light outside the west entrance of the tunnel turns red and they have to stop, giving me pa-lenty of time to just roll on up on their starboard side all casual. When I do arrive the front passenger asks me “Why I had to go and say what I did?” to which I circled around to the driver side and asked the driver why’d she have to go and honk at me?

She kept her ignorant mouth shut but the passenger made some noise about me riding where I shouldn’t be.

“Come on man” I say. “You should know bikes have full use of the street lanes.” And before he can verify his obvious ignorance of that fact I look back at the driver and say “And even if you didn’t know that you had the entire lane to our left entirely free of any traffic to use to go around me without having to piss me off — but apparently you’d rather have an angry cyclist getting all up in your business than look in your side view mirror and crank the wheel just a tiny bit to the left and change a goddam lane.

She’s still silent. In fact they all were until the passenger said “So that’s how it’s gonna be then?” and I said “Action reaction. You get back what you put out. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” And then the light turned green and the ravaged synapse that controlled the driver’s speech center finally generated a spark because she punched the gas and the rattling of the valves almost drowned out her “Well fuck you!” And as the car lurched forward across Figueroa I heard all of them laugh like they really got me or something.

But they weren’t laughing as I rolled up on them stuck at the next red light at Beaudry, this time circling counterclockwise around the car as the passenger showed off more of his stupidity by making some lame argument about there not being any bike lane and I guess from that stunted logic that’s how he arrived at the brilliant conclusion that I shouldn’t be in the tunnel.

To which I said “Let me get this straight. Are you actually telling me that you think that anywhere on the streets where there’s not a separate bike lane it’s illegal for a bike to be on that street?” And he thought about it for a split second and in that span I think he realized his idiocy but was too proud to back off now and so he said “Yeah.”

I roared with laughter and that prompted another “fuck off!” from the driver, which prompted my closing reply up at the top of this post.

So I’m biking in to work this morning, I’m in the homestretch heading south where Florence becomes Aviation above Manchester and there’s a red light. In the right-turn-only lane for Manchester there’s a car broken down with its hood popped open and its driver solemnly looking down upon the conked engine as if trying to find a miracle. Coming up behind it is a sedan whose inattentive driver of course doesn’t realize that car is disabled until rolling right up on its bumper, and only then cranks the wheel to the left without looking and lurches to a stop in my lane in an attempt to go around the breakdown, thus allowing me the potential joy of crashing into its fender and catapulting over the hood, where if I was very very lucky I might have worked in a full twist with a round-off and stuck the landing. Fortunately the combination of my tortoise-quick reflexes, spongy brakes, some foresight and the extreme reverse thrust provided by the air propelled from my lungs to form a series of expletives supplied enough stopping power for me to come up just short of making contact. Whew!

I look over to my right at the driver who’s not surprisingly oblivious to what just barely didn’t happen. Not only that but of course there’s a cell phone involved in one hand as well as a cigarette in the other. But not for long, because before I can say so much as “good morning” or “well you’re an extra-special kind of idiot aren’t you?” the gabbing driver flicks the half-finished smoke out the open window in a trajectory that brings it to my pants leg where it bounces off my thigh and falls at my right foot in a shower of ashes and sparks.

Emerging from an immediate dumbfoundment, I check to make sure I haven’t caught fire and when I’m satisfied I’m not I yell “Just go ahead and put that anywhere!”

Still blissfully unaware and still in mid-conversation the driver doesn’t do more than glance momentarily in the direction of my voice.

So then I ask, “Why don’t you use your goddam ashtray instead of treating the street like one!?”

The driver waves me off like I’m nothing more than a bothersome insect. I take a deep breath. It doesn’t work. My eyes go all Marty Feldman. I start turning green. My shirt rips. Hulk mad.

“Your damn butt hit my leg, you filthy twelfth-level jackass!”

In retrospect I have absolutely no idea what I meant by “twelfth level,” but at least that outburst has finally gotten the driver to say “hold on” to whoever’s on the other end and with undivided attention leans to the window and addresses me with a fully extended middle finger and a slightly weary “Just fuck off, OK?” as the light turns green.

“OK,” I say agreeably, “but just one more thing,” and as the driver turns away from me and the car starts to move forward I bend down, pluck the still smoldering butt from the asphalt and pitch it through the window where it sails over the steering wheel and drops out of sight to the passenger side floorboards, apparently right next to an open container of gasoline or gunpowder keg or something because the fireball that engulfed the car was really huge. And hot. And bright. I mean, dang you know in comic books when something goes VWOOM!! or VWOOSH!!! … well that’s just what the sedan did: VWOOMSH!!!

No, not really.

Instead what happened was brakes were slammed and a frantic dive was made across the car’s interior while calling me a sonofabitch to which I answered “I’m gonna go fuck off now, bye!” and got going around the car and across the intersection where I looked over my shoulder expecting to find the sedan in hot pursuit but instead the driver was still trying to retrieve the projectile and was now getting honked at by the backing up traffic.

My ride home tonight was decidedly less eventful.

So yesterday Susan and I head downtown to the Laemmle theaters on Fig north of Fourth to catch a matinee of “Casino Royale.” Unaccustomed to such gridlock-less convenience, we found ourselves with more than a half-hour before showtime and so went for a brief exploration of the Marriott Hotel, which sits atop the subterranean theaterplex.

Inside we appreciated the hotel’s expansive and well-appointed lobby space and migrated our way towards the south end where a flat-screen TV was broadcasting the Colts/Cowboys football game. To the right by the entrance to an eatery called The Back Porch was a bar with a couple smaller monitors showing the same game where sat several patrons. With time to kill Susan asked me if we should indulge in a pre-movie cocktail and I said why not. At the bar she took a seat upon one of the stools and I stood behind the other, more interested in getting our drinks and adjourning back to the center area of the lobby where there were tables and more comfortable chairs.

The initially cheerful barkeep, a tall dark-haired woman, came over without delay and asked what she could get us. Susan ordered a bloody mary for me and a cosmo for her and the mixologist went right to work mixologizing. Sometime during her efforts another gentleman came up and stood behind the empty stool to my left patiently waiting his turn to order. When the bartender delivered our cocktails I was somewhat engrossed in a nice Dallas defensive play and so when she asked if we “have a second or do we want to pay now?” I wasn’t quite clear on what she was asking and initially I was curiously left wondering why she would presume we wanted a second round before even starting our first and also why would we have to order a second round before paying for the first.

I believe I vocalized my distracted wonderment with either an “Ahh…?” or a “Huh?” or a mixture of both. Susan was non-plussed as well. And having failed to provide a definitive answer in the minimal time frame the bartender surprisingly required at the helm of an unbusy hotel bar on a lazy Sunday in an obscure slice of drowsy downtown, she followed up with a tersely clipped “Are you on the run or do you have a second so I can take this man’s order,” indicating the one standing to my left.

By now Susan and I had figured out that what she meant had nothing to do with additional rounds, but both of us were equally left agog because not only did Susan have a $20 bill out on the bar ready to go, but as far as my experience as a bar customer is concerned the bartender/drinker communication breaks down in this smple progression regardless of how busy or not a bar is:

1. Customer orders the drinks
2. Bartender makes the drinks
3. Bartender delivers the drinks
4. Bartender asks if customer wants to run a tab
5. Customer indicates yes or no
6. If yes customer provides credit card upon which tab is to be run
7. If no bartender communicates the cost for the drinks ordered
8. Customer provides cash or credit card payment for drinks at hand
9. Bartender provides change or credit card slip for signature
10. Bartender moves on to next customer

Certainly if a customer is seated at the bar and planning to stay the bartender may decide to move on and serve another customer after delivery of a drink order, returning later to pick up at No. 4 where they’d left off, but never in my history as a drinker has a bartender amended that format in such an inquisitional and attitude-heavy way as was being inflicted upon us now.

And the indignation only got thickerer when we still did not provide her a proper response (though I don’t quite know how Susan’s cash on the figurative barrelhead wasn’t proper enough). I instead looked at my watch to see we had about 15 minutes before the show started and Susan gave me a look that said “What kind of rare idiocy is this!?”) and rather than the barkeeper chilling she just huffed a petulant “Fine! You want to pay now!” and quite literally stomped in a bit of a tantrum over to the register to ring us up.

WHICH — HELLO! — IS WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE JUST BLASTED DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE!

As she did this I turned to Susan and said something like “Wow! I’ve never felt so guilty about wanting to pay for a drink…” and Susan said “No kidding!”

I’m not sure what, but something happened that broke the bartender’s fever — maybe she heard my comment or maybe it was the realization that tip time was nigh. For when she came back over to announce that the total was 54 cents over the twenty that Susan had proferred (that’s right: $10-plus for each drink which is a separate yikes in itself), she was moderately calmer and certainly suddenly more personable. Susan quickly delivered an additional fiver and was ready to bail leaving her a $4.50 tip but I was more than willing to wait for the change, and in the interim toyed with the ramifications of grabbing the four dollar bills and leaving her the 46 cents as her just reward for such craptastic service.

But I’m not that big an ass so I withdrew the coins and a couple of the bills and left her with the rest and whatever conscience she has to mull over how much she sucked. Thankfully and appreciatively, her drinks didn’t.

Early on into last night’s weekly bike boogie my crap pre-ride eating habits (or rather lack-of-eating habits) caught up with me and my blood/sugar level nosedived only a couple miles into the 17-miler that took us throught the dankiest and stankiest parts of Vernon, Maywood, and other parts previously unexplored. Plus I was an idiot and didn’t bring anything to cram down my piehole such as jerky or a nutrition bar or even gum.

So I just had to tough it out, especially considering the unwelcomes we got coming through some of the sketchier neighborhoods. In front of one factory one of a group of assembled workers on break advised us that we were “in the wrong neighborhood” as we passed. And later from the shadows of an auto repair place we rolled by came the disconcerting bellowing of “ET Phone Home! ET Phone Home!” And I’m not even counting the high number of unintelligible yells/calls/shrieks/whistles/growls generated from various porches or parked cars along the way.

Basically these were not the places to park it and make my fellow IAAL•MAF’ers sit and wait out my spell. So I just kept rotating one foot in front of the other on the pedals and I managed not to collapse. But I certainly was experiencing everything a decent hypoglycemic wallop can lay on ya: malaise, fatigue, shortness of breath, fever, elevated heart rate, narrow vision, shaking… and let’s not forget irritability. The best I can describe the sensation that results from such a concoction is a mix of wanting to simultaneously take a nap and fight and eat.

While my tanked system can be counted on to restore itself to acceptable levels eventually (quicker when you have some protein and/or sugar to restoke the fire), indeed most of the other symptoms abated after a few miles. But the irritability is always the last to go, and by the time we rolled up to our standard Little Tokyo post-ride sushi stop after 10 p.m., not only was I starving, but I had taken a sullen grumpiness that had settled in to an almost sinister level.

Having run a red light at Central and Second because I was just in no mood to obey traffic laws anymore, I was the first of our party of 10 to arrive at the eatery and I parked The Phoenix and hastily arranged some tables in the retaurant’s outdoor area for all of us before plopping down in a chair. I did not notice the dude with the guitar who I’m guessing had been set up and spare-change serenading the courtyard prior to our arrival. As everyone else arrived and parked their bikes my first introduction to the guitar guy comes at the end of some sort of mini-dialogue that I missed until the last thing I hear him say is “Well if any of you get run over, don’t blame me.”

Having to get up to turn off lights I’d left shining on my bike I dispatched a probe to scan for any trace elements of humor or sarcasm residue in the wake of that bullshit statement but in finding none, I said something like “Don’t worry, we’ll only blame you if you’re the one driving” and when he declined to engage I selected the fuggitaboutit option, re-took my seat and commanded my hackles to stay down.

Outta sight outta mind he went. But not really. A minute, maybe two later I’m perusing the menu and I feel the presence. Someone’s standing behind me. At first I think it’s any of the revolving area homeless that linger around our perimeter and ask us for money each week. But when I look up in the reflection of the restaurant window I see its the musician. And he’s just standing there surveying us. And standing there some more. Silently. Everyone else is successfully ignoring him, but as I’m already edgy to say the least I’m beginning to get creeped out and I reference him to no one in particular and express that I’m about freak if he doesn’t leave.

Just then he pipes up with some socio-geo-political platitude about how it’s “all about oil!” He says a few other uninvited things that we shrug off but the sense I get is that he’s just not impressed with us and our two-wheeled dealings. That somehow we’re poseurs with Hummers parked around the corner, totally illegitimate. Maybe that’s part his fault and part my evil grumpiness flavoring his tone to suit my antagonistic needs. Maybe he just didn’t like us parking all around the area he was using as his stage. Either way he was a jackass and I took the safety off my mouth, turned and fired back.

I started off by cracking that we’d just pedaled through Vernon and Maywood and the Alameda Corridor and lived to tell about it so anything he had to offer would pale in comparision to the receptions we received there.

He seemed slightly impressed by Maywood but before he could rebut I asked him to tell me if he got a bigger kick out of playing the guitar and being rude or playing the guitar and being nice. He considered that sincerely for a moment before answering the latter and I informed him that he and I must have gone to different schools of thought because if he thought he was anything less than insulting to us he was sadly mistaken. Then I turned my back to him, raised my fist and shouted “Maywood!” repeatedly until he saw I was a bigger jerk than him and retreated.

But not quite. As he shuffled away with his guitar I watched him go and in one last moment of torment he turned and faced us and looking right at me I made out the word “motherfucker” he mumbled under his breath. When he saw me smiling and shaking my head he asked me what my problem was and I pointed out that since I’d just seen him call me a motherfucker my problem was him. There was a couple beats of silence and then the guitar guy was miraculously visited with more wisdom than he almost knew what to do with

“Well then I’m just going to leave,” he said. And the heavens opened and the angels sang and the nine cyclists and one raging post-hypoglycemic complimented and congratulated him on a truly capital idea.

And leave he did.

And in his wake my man Mack Reed opened wise from across the table with “Making friends everywhere you go Campbell,” and I almost took offense to that, but the waitress showed up and took our orders.

EPILOGUE: If there’s a moral to this story it’s that by nature I do not suffer fools silently, but perhaps I can suffer them better if not on an empty stomach.