The Bricks of Practice

Nothing like new opportunities to put some spring back into one’s step! Two exciting - all things being relative - fresh and challenging options have manifested. True, both come from the result of past efforts, a marketing campaign, the manufacturing of consent and several far away planets being properly aligned, but, I consider that to be a natural progression of sorts, maybe even a life-time body of work providing a resume-like foot in the door. It quite possibly could be sheer luck, good karma or that magical circumstance of being in the right place at the right time. I don’t know. What I DO know is this: That opportunities happen in relation to other events being set in motion, and as long as one keeps pressing, continues to pursue the dream, walks the walk and plants the seeds, one day, somebody somewhere will agree to the affirmative. The secret being to tirelessly, joyfully if at all possible, push the agenda in the right direction. The direction is confirmed daily and reinforced with every dedicated, disciplined, focused and purposeful act of perpetuation. In other words, every time we practice. 

If one’s passion is writing, if she, with all her heart and soul wishes to ‘tell her story’ then she must commit to taking the steps necessary to achieve her lofty goals. She must write. And read the writings of others. And write some more. 

If one’s passion is music, if he, with all his heart and soul wishes to perform live or score a rock opera, he must be willing to practice scales until, as Lennon, or as some say, Ringo, once lamented, ‘I’ve got blisters on my fingers.’ 

If one’s passion is athletics, if that one wishes with all their heart and soul, to be the best, win that event, claim that prize or find their true potential, then one must practice their sport, activity or event, every day with specificity and consistency. Twice if you’re serious and three times if you’re a triathlete. (Talk about blisters!)

The reason I am reviewing these obvious statements is, besides the fact that they are as close to altruistic constants as one can get at the place and time of our use, is that today is the final day of 2019, a perfect time to course-correct our trajectory and head into 2020 with a full head of steam, firing on all cylinders and with a lifetime’s worth of momentum. 

I have found that it takes very little to prime this pump, to jump-start a person who possess at least an idea of what achievement looks like. Someone, perhaps someone just like yourself, knows what they want, but for reasons unknown, or possibly as obvious as decay, distraction, hopelessness, addiction or disease, cannot quite maintain their footing along the path. They start, become frustrated or bored and run back to the safety and security of their DIY comfort zones. Never to be seen or heard from again, because in the circles where we hang, we hang with like-minded others usually with a positive vibration and attitude greater than our own. If you want to go slummin and crash the dive bars, that is your choice. One positive word or a sincere invitation to press onward is sometimes all it takes. 

Our choice is to make the best world we can possibly build for ourselves and those we love. We do this by daily practice. In exactly the same way that the writer, the musician or the athlete hones his or her craft on a daily basis, so do we. We practice compassion. We practice kindness. We practice service. We clean our bedrooms,  make pancakes for the kids and police the neighborhood. We do not, for political reasons, add insult to injury and pile additional suffering and hardship upon at-risk, compromised, 'different’ or ‘weak’ individuals. We feed the hungry and shelter the homeless. We respect the spirit in all of God’s creatures. 

This becomes our practice. We do it every day. With the passage of time, today is a perfect example, we augment our existing experience with the power of a new opportunity, a new day with which to smile broader, laugh together louder and invent new ways to make our lives better. Better for all. Every single one.  

Let’s lay one brick upon another. One today and one more tomorrow. Like the tea ceremony, lay the bricks with attention, awareness and gratitude. Make each one the most important. Lay them with all your heart and soul. 

This is our opportunity and this is our practice. 

Happy New Year my friends. 

We Can Always

First in a series of lasts. 

This morning was our final Monday session of the year. It has been a wild ride through high-intensity intervals, steady-state climb, sprints, pushes and even a few popcorn sets. Doing something so wholesome and productive, even if that ‘thing’ is but one day a week of the available seven, represents huge value. That is 52 hours of work, and no matter how you slice and dice it, that is better, bigger and bolder than than zero. Zero means nothing. No gain, no adaptation, no progress, no growth, no challenge, and nothing to bask in the afterglow of satisfaction that only comes from the sincere self-respect of a job well done. 

This is a state of being that I am very aware of these days. It represents a return on the investment in myself. There is always a payoff, some reward, no matter how seemingly trivial or tiny, that follows a focused effort. There is also a release of caged tension, that inner voice that relentlessly attempts to speak loudly enough or delicately enough, or diplomatically enough to capture our attention. After a period of time, as we feign to have a bad connection, we become master compromisers. Yes, we might say, I know I need more exercise, less sitting, better dietary habits and less consumption of liquid toxins, but I am so busy with the current project and…… and then….. and well….. Before we know what hit us, there are ten years of bad habits, the residual of which rests on our hips, bellies and butts. We even have the audacity to call the resulting heart attacks caused by all the sludge backed up in our systems, a ‘wake up call.’ How utterly quaint. And how potentially catastrophic. Interestingly it all starts upstairs. Inch by inch and dollar by dollar we start to believe the talking TV heads and plea-bargain our good health, fitness and self-worth for a chance to win the lottery. We put everything on Red Five. 

The odds are not with us. Nor is God, Buddha, the laws of probability or our definition of justice, luck, fairness or karma. In every one of those situations the deity in question rewards your effort in the face of challenge, not your luck in the draw. Money is not, never has been and never will be an indicator of success. One needn’t have the ability to count any higher than forty-five to see the truth in this. It is about service to your fellow man, and one’s ability to transcend the boundaries placed upon us by those who still play by the archaic rules that in order to become stronger one must prey on the weak. 

Clinging to the last remaining things we actually own, our thoughts, we see them in the constant struggle to organize, unionize and stand united in our individual struggles. That inner voice, sounding like a man fully formed or a mouse scampering towards the safety of a cave, is our last beacon of hope. It is the flickering lighthouse that keeps us from being shipwrecked at sea. It is the image of the light at the end of the tunnel, and here, so close, we don’t need to be thinking about digging more tunnels. 

Listen to that voice. Hear the call. Agree to its warnings, suggestions and intonations. That voice is your best friend. 

There are always a handful of ‘easy’ changes we can incorporate to our routines, a commitment to refine, reduce, reuse, rejuvenate or restore the critical elements that contribute to our ‘satisfaction.’  We can create addition by subtraction.

We can always exercise smarter, with more attention and consistency.

We can always clean up our diets. 

We can always drink more water.

We can always get more quality sleep.

We can always smile more and laugh louder.

We can always seek truth and beauty.

And my favorite,

we can always be more authentic and stop trying to please everybody on our Amazon.com shopping lists. 

Last in a series of firsts.

Good luck and God Bless. 

Bread

Pane d'Amore

Interesting occurrence this morning in the local bakery. Sunday morning, another cold, gray one. I pull into one of the angled parking spaces that are impossible to use on weekdays and walk in the bakery. I visit them once every two weeks to indulge in a loaf of their expensive, but wonderfully delicious, home-made bread, either the Hearth Deli or today’s choice what they call Grandmas White Pan Bread. 

On very special occasions I will also splurge on the purchase of a croissant or a chocolate-walnut oatmeal cookie. Today I was in the store en route to the Barn where we would be doing a 100 minute bike ride while watching Free Solo. I decided to splurge on an almond croissant in addition to the Grandma’s White. 

I place the order, asking for the bread to be unsliced and in a brown paper bag, I add that it's quite OK to put the croissant in the same bag. Maybe save a penny. The counter gal flashes a toothy smile at the gesture and tells me that my two purchases have totaled exactly ten dollars. 

Yikes, I respond, moving into my tired routine of complaining about inflation, adding flirtatiously that I might have to get a real job if I expect to do this again next Sunday. 

Unexpectedly, she says she knows exactly what I mean, as her situation is similar. As she is painstakingly folding the top of my bread bag, I look down at the almost empty bean can acting as a tip jar on the counter next to the register. She sees this and makes a comment about the dramatic difference between the tipping customs of Europeans, which she admires to being, and those of Americans. 

I feel a wave of connection and dig back into my pocket to find a dollar to drop into her jar. As I am fumbling with my stash, she grabs the jar, puts one hand over the top and tells me no, a tip is not necessary, simply sharing the interaction is enough. 

I am flabbergasted, but finally relent and turn to leave wishing her farewell and good fortune. Hope to see you next week. 

I had not noticed that a woman had walked in while we were conducting our transaction and was standing directly behind me. She was evidently eavesdropping and says loudly enough for us each to hear that she agrees that the European’s have the right idea and that tipping is vile. 

I stop in my tracks. I look at the counter gal. She gives me a look dripping with compassion. The lady orders. I turn to walk back to my truck. After one step I stop, turn and address the counter gal. 

I hope you don’t consider my humble offering to be vile, as that is certainly not the way it was intended. 

No, no, not at all. I understand. 

OK. 

Celluloid Villains and Heroes

One lasting credo for artists of all stripes, be they authors, musicians, sculptors, filmmakers, painters, graphic designers, dancers, athletes (yes they are artists too) or anyone attempting to create something out of nothing, is to know when to stop. That innate ability, most often learned the hard way, through experience, that gleefully announces that the project is complete. It is just so. Done. Needs no more ornamentation, polishing or anything else. Walk away. You have given it life, from inspiration to reality, now let it go, allow it the freedom to fly away. It is after all your baby, and it now has an identity of its own. Go have a ceremonial cigar and a sip of champagne, take five. 

With this golden rule etched onto the marble slab of my consciousness, we are shooting the closing sequence tonight at sunset. I know, I know. Please forgive as I stand guilty - with explanation. 

I have had the video, Cardio Cinema III, more or less in the can for a couple of weeks now. Since the event was infamously cancelled, the adrenalin rush relentlessly pushing the project towards completion turned into a fairly normal flow of plasma. I have gone back in twice to add a touch of sweetening and to apply a more delicate transitional segue where glaringly needed, and -this was the fun part - slapping on the cans, sitting back in the big leather chair with one bad roller, and watching - as objectively as possible - the sixty minutes from start to finish. Each time I have found it, well, pretty dang decent. It is fun, cracking with energy and the paper-thin plot forgiven after all has been said, done, filmed and edited. 

I was working the closing credits last night, tweaking the title crawl, synching it with the ending tune, Celluloid Heroes by Ray Davies and The Kinks, when I get this vision of what ‘could be’. Argggh. I can let it be and compromise the importance and potential of the closing scene - and that would be fine - or I can try the vision and see what it looks like. Take a chance, roll the dice, bet on the dark-horse long-shot. All it will cost me is one more shoot, on the beach at sunset with a bon-fire as lighting. Maybe an hour's worth of production time for the gamble of leaving the audience with something very special. 

This is a no-brainer despite the long-standing ‘rule’ quoted in the opening. I just invited my neighbors to ‘star’ in this scene but they are busy with a baby shower, meaning that I will once again have to be both in front of and behind the camera for this important cinematic denouncement. I should have the acting chops to pull it off as all it requires is to stand behind the fire and look skyward as the sun sets over the sound and into the Olympic Mountains. Because…..

…..I wish my life was a non-stop Hollywood movie show. A fantasy world of celluloid villains and heroes. Because celluloid heroes never feel any pain. And celluloid heroes never really die. 

Words

Any new words in here? 

I don’t know about you, but when I hear a new word, one that I am not familiar with, I do two things. One I try to unravel its mystery by taking it apart. Is there a root I can use as a clue, is it of foreign origin, have I heard it before but lazily glossed over it and soon forgot it was ever uttered? Two, given the opportunity - many times these delights of diction come from an audio book - making it both difficult and unsafe to jot them down in my notebook, it takes one or two ‘tells’ before I decide that the time time is at hand to learn the new word. But even then (and this is the second things) I take a stab at, using its context as a clue to ‘toss a defining dart’ at its meaning. Most of the time my tosses end up on the wall. Especially when said word I cannot even pronounce properly or has unnecessary syllables. 

It is with this as backdrop that it happened again yesterday, with a weird twist. As I mentioned earlier in the week I have been absorbing Miyamoto Musashi’s The Book of Five Rings, and ancient (1645) text on the martial arts and in particular swordsmanship. It can be a bit dry and repetitious but it is full of detail and wisdom. Despite finding a treasure trove of audio books at the most recent Library Sale - including Kesey’s Cuckoo’s Nest - I decided to delay the entertainment gratification and listen to 'Rings’ a second time. It is only three discs and less than three total hours. It is well worth the time. However, on this listen I caught a word that was new to me. I remember hearing it the first time and thinking it is most likely something from centuries ago that has fallen out of modern usage. Still it lingered in my mind and I considered if my ‘dart’ was anywhere close to the bulls-eye. Last night I heard it again on the second listen and make a firm mental note to look it up as soon as I next sat at my desk. After all, Google often gives me thousand of choices in nano-seconds of research time so I have no excuse. 

Perhaps some of you also partake of Dictionary.com and their wonderful service called word of the day. They conveniently show up every morning, providing - at no cost - an extraordinary value, and here I get to test myself with new words. I do the drill. Do I know it? Is my definition correct? Have I ever seen it used in print or heard it used in an audio book? Do I like the look of it, the sound of it? I consider how it might incorporated into a future piece. Or is it pretentious, pernicious or pompous? Some words are like that. 

This morning is the first time since yesterday's vow to look-up the word that Musashi was so fond of. I log on and there waiting patiently in my e-mail box, what we used to call a news-feed, is Dictionary.com and their promised word of the day. 

I don’t even need to tell you, right? 

Shilly-shally. Same one. THE word. Out of the 171,476 words in our language, THIS one shows up on THIS day. Math is not my strong suit but I think you will agree that those are some odds against this happening. 

This amazes me as my delighted soul is reassured that the same magic Musashi spoke of in 1645 remains alive and vibrant today. 

Also please be advised that this is the only time I will use it. You should investigate this thoroughly and put it into immediate practice. 

Don’t be shilly-shally. 

The Dotgov

I am trying my best to comply with the requirements. On Tuesday, Christmas Eve, I braved the local traffic, all 22 RT miles of it, to pee in a cup. The urinalysis being one of a handful of tests required to land a(nother) position with the Federal Government aka dotgov. As detailed yesterday the paperwork, a serious PIA if ever there was, I had to do twice because my lousy wifi signal terminated the first attempt as I was about to electronically sign, seal and send. Oh, well, I slugged it out with as much patience and understanding as I could manage, given the dinosauric questions and formatting straight outta the Stone Age. Maybe they are already monitoring my communications so I should probably not troll them just yet. I heart the dotgov. 

I got a return e-mail from the lead hiring agent at 0730 this morning, Boxing Day, asking for me to be in their office for fingerprinting at 1000. Their offices are south of downtown Seattle and I live on an island a 35 minute ferry ride away. OK, sure. I print out the four page document containing all the code numbers and a page of chain-of-command people to be copied, round up the dogs, drop them off, speed to my free parking spot, run to the boat and settle in for the sail. It is 34 degrees in Seattle with a brisk headwind as I navigate past a few of the old haunts, past a slew of new buildings and the downtown construction project that has witnessed the demolition of the waterfront viaduct and total reconstruction and re-routing of the ferry terminal. Big time stuff. I don’t even recognize most of it and I have been living here, full-time since 1979. Yikes. 

I get to the main office with three minutes to spare and ask for directions to HQ. A guy pushing a cart points straight ahead and signals with his thumb to go right once at the dead-end. I find the door, pick up the phone to dial the access code and am immediately met my a lady who welcomes me with a cheerful, ‘we’re so glad you’re here.’  Finally some love! “I’m glad I’m here too, where’s the coffee?’

As she is filling a styrofoam cup with what appears to be tea, she starts in on a rant about the recent volume, lack of quality help, limited parking and construction downtown. I am thinking I could end up being a manager here in less than as week. She finishes off her diatribe as the fingerprint coordinator turns a corner and walks to meet me with a huge Filipina smile and an outstretched hand. We shake, I toss a tagalog good morning and I follow her into a tiny office that immediately reminds me of my old office behind the downtown theatre in the middle of the Indian Ocean. That was a government job too. 

We go through the computer to find my newly established presence but she needs a routing number that is not on the forms I was instructed to bring so I call up my e-mail communications and provide it for her. She smiles, a touch embarrassed and I think I will be GENERAL manager by New Years. 

We finish with the primaries and slide over to a small desk that carries only a laptop and what I suspect is the fingerprint machine. After a few mistakes, one must align four fingers along a small space and mine are not those of a classical pianist, but finally we make it through the process and she sighs an exhale announcing that we are done. 

Great, I say, that was easy, ready to be assigned an ID badge and issued my first assignment. 

Yes, we’ll get back with you in about six weeks, have a nice day. 

On the way home I check the ferry schedule to find that I have 45 minutes before the return sailing. I stop in a new cafe that has risen from the ashes of what used to be a popular Italian bistro. I order a double Americano and a garlic bagel with cream cheese. I sit at a table next to a brick wall that I am sure I once used as a backdrop in the attempted seduction of a sweet young classmate. That might have been thirty years ago. I get up to look at the art on the wall and see Bruce Lee, one of our more prominent natives. The barista calls me for a pickup and I turn my back on the Dragon to fetch my breakfast. As I do an odd echo reverberates inside my ear. 

We’ll get back to you in six weeks. 

I turn around to sit at my table and glance up again at the photo of Sensei Lee. He is trying to tell me something. I look closer but can’t quite read it, so I shoot it with the phone thinking that maybe I can magnify it and read the inscription, because I am sure by now that I must hear his advice. Have a nice day?

“Love and Kindness work. When it’s time to dance, you dance. When it’s time to cry, you cry. When it’s time to kick some ass - you kick some ass.”

All of the Above

One trick Christmas question.

Is it more frustratingly difficult to:

A) Try to teach a neurotic dog to obey when she has figured out that the electric fence is broken.

B) Fill out government forms on-line for potential employment.

C) Ask detailed questions of the Department of Social and Health Services on the phone. 

D) Respond to a change of address request from the County Clerks office. 

E) Eat healthy this time of year.

F) Carve time into the above schedule for exercise. 

That was my day yesterday. The trying, filling, asking, responding, eating and carving took most of the short day. Toss in another bout of the ‘weirds’ a recurring symptom of what we have, over the course of the last five years, rendered down through the process of elimination, to be triggered by the aging process. I guess. We don’t know and I have assumed responsibility for my overall health and mental stability. Which is, of course, why I was filling out forms, navigating automated phone systems and responding to bureaucrats requests for updated data. And chasing the dog. 

Eating was supposed to be the easy part but even that got muddied as I really wanted to finish the report/proposal that I promised to club management on Monday. I got half-way and became irritated by the banality of items A through D and before I knew it the sun had set, the dog was gone, there were four more forms to complete, copies to send, stamps to post and my last shot at a run in the park, lost. 

By the time that the dog was found, the forms sent, the questions answered, responses prepared  and the acknowledgement of failures to eat good and run slow accepted, all I wanted was a beer and the safety of the couch. And a bag of pretzels. And a football game on TV. 

If you answered ‘All of the Above’ you win. Congratulations. 

And Merry Christmas. 

Traffic

Traffic. The automotive variety not the award winning movie or the gold-record producing British band. For the record (this a digital version) whenever anyone asks me why I moved north from LA in 1974, it will inevitably include the relentlessly building volume of it as one of the top five reasons. Too many people and too many cars. Confined to too small a space and creating an atmosphere both unclean, unhealthy and ultimately stressful. 

I will save the events leading to my first departure for a later re-telling as well as the much more dramatic second escape. I say dramatic in the personal sense as well as the natural because as I sat on a 747 halfway between my birthplace and my future, Mt. St. Helens was erupting. The metaphor for which has been used in myriad metaphoric, lyrical and poetic ways, even showing up in a Haiku or two. That moment in time convincingly taught me to never look back, and in this case because you wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway due to the ashy plume of volcanic spew. 

The infamous traffic of Los Angeles in the rear-view mirror a thousand miles behind the smoke, and a new start at hand. That was 1974.

In video editing we use a technique called the ‘flash forward.’  A powerful digital tool employed primarily when pacing requires a lightening like jump-cut over time (years sometimes) place (sometimes as flashback) and emotion (catharsis, change, loss). As the primary videographer and lead editor at world famous PowerBarn Pictures, I have the distinct privilege of putting the age-old Hollywood rule ‘shoot to edit’ into play. This simply means that when the tally light is on capturing exciting, revolutionary and stunning high-definition footage, the photog has the opportunity and challenge, to consider the post-production flow as it relates to the editing suite. This naturally leads to a ‘what happens next’ bigger picture view hoping for, or ensuring, a smooth transitional segue in the final sequence. Say one from Hollywood to Puget Sound interrupted by a fucking volcano. If I thought that leaving LA because of traffic was going to change my life - with a cataclysmic volcanic transition - to the over-saturated splendor of Puget sound, where everyone rides fixed-gear bikes and strums acoustic guitars, my flash forward might have been premature. Upon landing cars were backed up on a gray tarmac of highly abrasive dust from Vancouver to Portland. And the wind was blowing east! Mamma mia. 

Yesterday after class I am heading out to buy gas, twenty cents per gallon cheaper on the reservation, and to do the usual last minute Christmas shopping. I have decided to turn off the audio book and drive sans aural distraction, mostly because I am mentally working out the details of the report, in proposal form, of my ‘state of the state’ submission to the club. It is a dirty gray day. A Mazda with ski racks and expired California plates has been trying to pass me for five miles. These days I drive with as much attention as I can bring to the chore, keeping an apparently unorthodox extra few yards behind and ahead of other vehicles. I lose focus on the proposal and drift back to the days leading up to my departure from the jambs, re-routes, fender-benders and frustrations of Southern California and how I am now seeing very real signs that a percentage of those realities have also made the move north. They are here. They have found us. The secret is out. Poor Emmett Watson. Poor Boeing. Good-bye quality of life and hello road rage. 

I get about two miles from the boxy store where I will shop and find a steady stream of Fords and their make, model and year internal combustion cousins (with all due respect there are a few hybrids and one or two SmartCars). It appears that there is about to be an automotive convention on our single, and occasionally double-lane ‘highway.’ I can see cars up ahead turning around, giving up, aborting their missions. I can almost hear them compromising: “We’ll just have tuna instead of turkey.” I try my Zen best to rise above the reality that the gas I drove eleven miles to buy at a discount is now providing no movement other than blowing heat through Whitey’s interior. I casually press the turn signal indicator announcing my decision. Enough. Basta cosi. I will have tuna too. 

Traffic. What next, a volcano? 

Apply It To Your Practice

"[There is] evidence that environments, schedules, and rituals restructure the writing process and amplify performance… The principles of memory retrieval suggest that certain practices should amplify performance. These practices encourage a state of flow rather than one of anxiety or boredom. Like strategies, these other aspects of a writer’s method may alleviate the difficulty of attentional overload. The room, time of day, or ritual selected for working may enable or even induce intense concentration or a favorable motivational or emotional state. Moreover, in accordance with encoding specificity, each of these aspects of method may trigger retrieval of ideas, facts, plans, and other relevant knowledge associated with the place, time, or frame of mind selected by the writer for work. Gratitude is the trigger. What do you have to be grateful for today? Right now?"

Great piece of writing by Wendy MacNaughton for Brain Pickings talking about the important roles that ritual, routine and a habitual daily practice play in our practice. Be that practice writing, training, martial arts or anything else that demands dedication and relentless pursuit of continual improvement. 

As we stand on the eves of Christmas and the New Year, there might not be a better time to take an introspective analysis of our daily routine to see if any opportunities exist for refinement. I know I could do a cleaner sweep of my late early evening routine. 

The idea of gratitude being a trigger for the retrieval of associated emotions, including muscle memory for the athlete, is a solid one. It thematically dovetailed in nicely with the primary concept of class this morning, which was, of course, gratitude. Being in the warm golden glow of gratitude as we go about our practice is one of the perks of the activity. As dopamine and endorphins are released into our bloodstreams we feel the unmistakable vibration of that mysterious magical state known as dynamic flow. When mind, body and spirit are harmoniously humming along in three-part a capella. If this emotional release of associated memories brings back the instant and profound olfactory recall of chestnuts over an open fire, you got it. If it googles-up the long-forgotten sound of your Mothers voice, you are there. And when the one snowflake that has been waiting for all of eternity to softly land on your nose triggers the memory of your finest love, you have made it so. Right place, right time. 

In the audio book currently keeping me company, the Martial Arts Master Miyamoto Musashi

is putting words to the Samurai oral-tradition of swordsmanship. In it he talks about the difficulty and challenge of taking the spoken word, handed down for 300 years before it reached his ears, and transcribing them onto the blank page. As he describes the rituals, drills, mindset and discipline necessary to progress along the honorable path, he concludes every insight with these words: Therefore investigate this concept deeply and apply it to your practice. 

Investigate the concept of gratitude being the trigger for enhanced awareness and apply it to your practice. 

Football on the Radio

It might be, like fire, that it can be used for beneficial purposes, or destructive ones. In yesterday’s post I tried to capture one simple, fleeting moment in time and investigate, forensically perhaps, its nuance. The synchronicity of happenstance, of one song recurring in my life, separated by forty years (one has to wonder how that would look on the sheet) is a tiny thing, one atom among trillions. BUT, what made that one song memorable was the action taking place around it adding color, emotion and eternal association. I will never - and I don’t say that a lot - never forget the time, place and cellular detail of listening with the specific intention of fusing it into my consciousness. I wanted that moment to become a part of me. Calling it the soundtrack of my like is closer to the actual reality, but I prefer to look at it as simply paying attention to the swirling minutiae of relentless change on the eternal human platform. I prefer to believe there to be a reason, perhaps one as simple as my soul searching for reasons to choose joy when angst might be a far easier reaction, or even a gentle reminder to seek the magic in the mundane, everyday routine. Truly, I do not know. However, much like our clumsy and frustratingly futile attempts to define quality or love, anytime, anywhere for any reason that the magic shows up, I pledge to embrace and engage with it. To merge it into my reality.

With this as back-story, it happened again last evening.

This festive time of year, I volunteer to taxi folks to and from the ferry terminal connecting our island with the mainland, downtown Seattle. Early yesterday the call came into central dispatch that a pickup time had been changed to a 1645 pick-up for a 1700 drop-off. Not a problem I instantly replied, see you then. In making the correction to my trusty day timer I quickly see that there IS a problem. A BIG one. The last game of the season, the swan song for Coach Pete, the Las Vegas Bowl, kicks-off at 1635. If I am to provide the free ride, it will come with a trade-off.

The internal debate takes all of ten seconds. I was very much looking forward to watching the game from start to finish as I suspect that the augmented emotion might just propel my Huskies to their best, or at least most spirited, contest in what has turned out to be a disappointing and frustrating year. All I have ever asked of this team is to play with passion and high energy. If there was a single quality that, given the opportunity, I would preach and teach above all others, even above blocking and tackling, it would be to play the game with relaxed focus, know where you are in physical time and space and let ‘er rip. All this happens naturally when one practises with consistency and dedication. Athletically its natural progression becomes dynamic flow, or what serious fans call mojo. Like quality, love and magic, it is hard to define but easy to see when obvious examples are present.

I am listening to a weak FM signal as I drive to the pick-up location. I arrive and am immediately met with an apology. No big I say, having already sworn to avoid the elephant in the car. We politely converse about the rain here and the sun there, the holidays, family, all the usual. I drop them off and we hug good-byes, so-longs and ho-ho-hos.

I have been thinking about how to play the next phase. Behind the wheel of their beautiful new AWD Subaru - with a heated seat - I can haul-ass back to their place and watch the game on their 65” rec room TV, drive directly home and watch it here, or take it back, put it in the garage, hope back in Whitey and return home to watch with the dogs I am 'supervising.' By the time time I get back the decision has been made. I lock their car up and fire-up Whitey’s four-banger twisting the heat and defrost knob to full and doing same to the volume on the radio. I carefully back out of the drive and onto the curvy, twisty, dark streets five miles away from home.

I decide to delay the inevitable and enjoy the night instead of setting a new island land-speed record to reduce the number of plays I will miss. I relax into a night-time version of road-flow, noticing the decorations, Christmas lights and the wind pushing gray clouds past the moon. I am feeling good despite the scratching throat that has been lingering for two days, and recall the story about Rikki. I smile, pleased with my patience and appreciation of this magic moment, one that will surely make me feel better when I get home.

And I turn the radio on.

TOUCHDOWN HUSKIES.

I turn the radio off.

And smile.

Me and Rikki

Maggie was power blue with rust!

I am driving my new truck, a 1948 Chevrolet 1/2 ton pick up. It is 1974 and we are finishing up the apple harvest in north Central Washington. I have saved enough to make the $500 payment on my new rig and also purchase a $99 Craig cassette stereo and a pair of Craig 10” speakers. During the harvest we work, under normal conditions, ten hours a day for six days and take an optional half day off on Sunday. I spent my Sabbath installing the stereo any by sunset she was ready for a test drive.  

Summers in the Washington’s Okanogan Valley are special. Hot, clear and full of life. When the sun finally dips behind the Cascades a pallet of colors brushes the blue sky in magenta, pink, saffron and burgundy. In the midst of this natural masterpiece I am cruising down a long stretch of back-road impeded only by the occasional coyote or crow. Well below me the Columbia River snakes lazily along in no huge hurry. Maggie, my newly named rig is purring right along, no signs of excessive oil burn, and I am settling into ownership and hence stewardship of her. I like the way she tracks allowing a left arm window rest as right wrist atop her helm easily keeps the tack. From out of a place I cannot fathom, I suddenly get the feeling that I am totally, completely and unabashedly happy. I can hardly take the levels of dopamine that have suddenly pulled off a joyous emotional coup d’etat. I have a job, free rent, a girlfriend, a new (to me) truck that purrs like a jaguar and maybe fifty bucks in my sawed-off Levis. And then I remember that the best is yet to come, I reach down, and unwrap Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan’s magnificent third studio album, crumbling the cellophane and tucking it into my pocket. I had mounted the unit facing up, between the bench seat and floor shift, allowing easy access and visibility to me, as pilot, while limiting the view of those seeking easily removed electronics. My security at the time was limited to a white t-shirt casually tossed over the unit when not in use. I insert the tape and prepare for the test. In those days we were limited to three knobs of equalization, the volume, balance and bass/treble controls. It was not especially great sound, but absolutely magical noise. By the time that Rikki Don’t Lose that Number came on I might as well have been swinging on a hammock just inside the Pearly Gates. I remember very clearly singing along, in the golden light of life where freedom and magic meet. It is a feeling I will never forget. 

Fast forward forty years. So many roads along this long, strange trip. A marriage, a divorce, two trips around the world, a stint with the Department of Defense, the magic of magazines and the movies, bike rides, Ironman racing, the cabin in the woods, Julie, many cars, several trucks, a couple of motos and even an RV later, I am in a brew-pub after an all-day shoot in the Poconos Mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania. I sit alone in a booth where the bartender seems to take an interest in my table-top collection of notebooks, cameras, GPS devices and assorted mounts, clamps, tripods and my laptop. I am conducting the all-important electronic debrief and have selected this lonely dive as the rendezvous point. She asks about it and I provide a thumbnail sketch version as I order a locally produced pint of IPA and a cheese pizza. She instantly recognizes that I am hungry, tired, thirsty and busy, dancing away to satisfy two of the four. 

As the video and data download to the laptop I make hand-written, detailed entries in my spiral notebook. Once this crucial task is done, with mechanical pencil still in hand, I suddenly feel the urge to write something other than the harsh objective facts of the day’s work. I want to record how I FEEL about it all, not just the time, place, distance, and GPS coordinates. As a thought pops into my head about feeling good and appreciating the opportunity to do what I really like to do, the barkeep kicks through the kitchen's double doors and finds just enough room at the center of my table to plop down a delicious looking pizza and, without asking, places another pint next to my less-than-half-done first one. I look up at her and smile. She returns mine with an angelic, sparkling, sincere one of her own. I go back to my thoughts wanting to capture the moment and its meaning. As I do the house system is playing.

Rikki Don’t Lose That Number. 

Simple Facts and Ordinary Moments

Buy this book!

I was busy transporting people around last night and re-watching the current project to ensure cinematic flow into the dramatic conclusion (!) when I realized that the DNC debates were on live. Irritated that I had spaced I turned on my weak wifi in time to hear Joe offer up his favorite opening line. You know the one. “The simple facts are…” Dear Joe, and anyone else running for any office, anywhere, please drop this tired, demeaning and totally obsolete cliché immediately. It is ten times worse than a stammering ‘well’, a hundred times worse than “ya know” and a thousand times more cringe worthy than the patronizing and combative, “look…’ 

“Well, ya know, look, the simple facts are…..’ This is what we know, Joe: THERE ARE NO SIMPLE FACTS. 

In the same way that Dan Millman, in the Peaceful Warrior saga had the student Danny meditate outside Socrate's garage in the freezing rain until his legs were numb to come up with a meaningful thought. Danny tried and tried to relax into a deep state of peace and understanding in order to accomplish the assignment, twice running back inside to tell the master of his enlightened wisdom and success. Each time he was rewarded with the reality of his failure. Finally, after sitting all-night, he slowly, with grace and presence, walked into the garage and stood before Socrates who was finishing a tune-up on a ’65 Ford F-150, and announced without a note of gloat, that, ‘THERE ARE NO ORDINARY MOMENTS.” 

He was immediately dismissed and instructed to go and get some sleep, his assignment completed. 

It might be a stretch to compare a political debate, despite its volatile urgency and global ramification, to one line from a spiritual how-to book, or perhaps more accurately a spiritual coming of age work of fiction, yet at the same time they share one important commonality: Nothing is easy, everything relentlessly spins in perpetual motion, changes, evolves, deepens, expands, heats and cools, lives and dies, making all this the exact opposite of simple, truly the epitome of dynamic. Facts? According to who? Facts as I see them are somethings, often, the flip side of the same coin. You say yes and I say no. You say high and I say low. If ever there was a legitimate constant, an absolute, to add to the short-list of universally accepted proverbs, currently containing only death and taxes, it might be wise, true and necessary, to amend ‘there are no ordinary moments’ and maybe even, with debate, ‘there are no simple facts’ to them. 

This follows nicely the First Noble Truth that life is suffering. With these obscurities at the forefront of our collective consciousness this damp, dark and soaking wet Friday morning, let’s line them up, select the batting order, mash-up the set-list and see what we got. The Official and Absolute, official size and weight, pro-style, menu of earthy constants, aka things that everyone, without exception, will experience at one point or another:

1) Life is Suffering.

2) Death.

3) Taxes.

4) There are no simple facts.

5) There are no ordinary moments.

Carry on and continue your practice. 

VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT

Number Three in humiliation

No big. For just the third time in two hundred and forty-two years our elected representatives in the Democratic led House impeached a sitting president. Nixon of course had vision enough to resign after reading the writing on the wall, so as treacherously tricky as little Dickie was, history remembers him primarily as a crook. Only Andrew Johnson, for being a racist, and Clinton for being a recipient, are remembered as the two blowing their jobs. Prior to last nights partisan vote. Which makes three. Three of the forty-five presidents we have elected, via popular vote or the institution of lower learning, Vote Tech, the electoral collage, have now suffered what I am sure Kurt Vonnegut would have called a fate worse than death. Doubly humiliating when this ignobly occurs in said POTUS’ first term at the helm of America’s Democracy. 

The fallout from this is delightful. The corrupt loyalists comprising the party formerly known as republicans, or as they like to spin it, The Party of Lincoln, went down in another animated show of united arrogance. Their strategy, if you can’t beat ‘em, yell and discredit, scream and insult, misdirect and distract, paid yet another dividend of debt. Not only are they morally bereft, unconscionable and spineless, they have pledged allegiance to one thing, money, one idea, power, and one man, their pathetic leader. I would find all this to be of high comedy value if not for the fact that it is happening right now, today, in our United States. To the Republic for which we stand. The Land of the Free where we are supposedly guaranteed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

In actuality we have people losing their homes and life savings because of illness, children at the borders in cages, the worlds largest population of imprisoned felons and that pursuit of happiness leading to the nearest Wal-Mart for the latest shiny, sparkly gadget. Naturally the economy is robust but less than 40% of Americans own stock so coupled with the tax cuts for the rich in another real-time demonstration of the reverse trickle down effect, the people who voted for, wear stupid red hats and promise to vote again for a deceitful demagogue, are the ones getting hurt most from the hypocritical charade this administration calls policy. 

All the pain, every bit of suffering, the unnecessary obstacles created to simply vote, the ravaging of our fragile eco-systems and removal of safeguards policing the environment, gross domestic policies, pandering to the oil, energy, health care, pharmaceutical and gun lobbies (e.g. bribes) allow what Hillary sealed her fate in calling the deplorables - the low-lifes, racists and bigots - to run amok, celebrating and reveling in their cult of ignorance. This 41% of America is known as his base. They were cheering in Michigan last night as their King obscenely lashed out in hallow projection at the populace who fail to blindly and unquestionably follow his words. Not his actions, as leaders do, but his violent, racist, bullying, deceitful, harmful and destructively dangerous rhetorical ramblings of hate, fear and manifest destiny. 

To say that Number Three is a turd would be a discredit to our amazing gastro-intentional biological waste removal systems. He is a pile of it, a bag of it and a sack of it. I have bad news for the folks not knowing it could be stacked that high: It can. Donald J. Trump, a crooked imposter that makes Tricky Dick look like an angel and Bubba Clinton like a celibate monk, has neither Nixon’s gift of political savviness nor Clinton’s policy acumen. That leaves a mafia-boss interested in his family only, in daily battle with those that consider the constitution to be a pretty fair blueprint of governmental ideals. 

I am not gloating, this is a sad state of affairs for the USofA. We should have had the foresight, as the founders did, to take the necessary steps to ensure that our beloved democracy is faithfully upheld in time of greatest need. Incredibly, through an unfortunate  series of avoidable events - I cannot help but look back at Gore vs Bush - we find ourselves having to once again defend the sanctity of our freedom and maintain the value of our lives by-establishing the validity of the pursuit of our national happiness. 

The Senate under Moscow Mitch will never vote to remove. These evil twins share a bed with Putin. Even if Hell were to freeze over McConnell would hang around and sit on the ice. We are here on day one of the Impeachment Number Three. That humiliating stain on trumps legacy will never be removed. And never is a long time. 

Between now and then, we the people (remember us?) have the power and the obligation to execute the one deciding action that will seal their sordid fates in the history books and Wikipedias permanently. An act to remove us from the pain and suffering caused by a corrupt cabal of criminals:

VOTE THE BASTARDS OUT. 

Dismissed

It was a bittersweet moment this early dark-thirty as we put another sixteen weeks of Super Eights to rest. More bitterness from the fact that due to declining attendance (I will attempt a marketing take down the line), not only did we wrap the set of S8s - our class has been cancelled as well. This was it, end game, no mas, last man standing, over and out. It was a painful reminder of the aphorism citing the only constant being change and the truth of impermanence. 

I brought gifts for the folks that made it through the entire sixteen weeks, asking them to recall the days when the starting protocol asked for a mere one thirty second bast of all-out power, and to visualize the adaptive process of adding one per week until we got to eight, a plateau we then navigated for eight weeks. I pointed out that the physical changes, while impressive, come nowhere near the increases to their self-confidence, awareness and ability to accept challenge. It was truly a magnificent journey.

And now it’s over. We did it, made it through the detours, the blind corners, up all the hills, over the potholes, past distraction and in the face of sloth, indifference and fear. We knew, as I knew waking this morning at 0300 with a sudden dose of endorphin flow hinting at the work, and its degree of difficulty, that lay in waiting. We rose, packed our kits, made it to the club and walked in. In full cognizance that this was going to test the limits of our abilities to execute, voluntarily, an hour of mental, physical and spiritual challenge. 

Taking us full oval to the present reality. What has changed in the five years since we would regularly fill the room to capacity every Wednesday? I will guess as follows:

1) We were negligent in attracting a recruiting class to replace the one currently in decline. Our core group is aging-up no longer needing to get in an early spin before commuting to work. They are retired and enjoying the hard-earned sleep-in time they acquired along with Social Security. 

2) Technology has stepped-in, rode-in actually, offering high-quality indoor smart trainers, much as we did at RacerMate, makers of CompuTrainer, thirty years ago, but this time with live video streams of professional trainers (models) leading virtual classes. I have often joked about this, asking semi-seriously, why would anyone come to my class at 0530 if they could stay at home and dial up a smoking hot session at their convenience, at home, and with their own set lists? I will ask it again at this time. Why?

3) Sadly, as I mentioned this morning, we do this protocol because it offers the best bang for the indoor training buck, a ROI of speed, power, endurance and camaraderie. The reality exists that perhaps it is too hard, eliminating most of the club membership as a result. After all they can always take a sauna and sit on a physio ball as an alternative to high-intensity intervals. We might call them Super Easy Eights and test the theory one day.

4) My style and my music are not everyone's cup of tea. I get this. It was easy to stick with the formula that for almost twenty years packed every club I worked, but one these days that might be getting tired, long in the training tooth. I don’t know and I am not 100% sure that I want to find out. 

5) The bikes, stereo, cycle room are all showing age as well. Parts wear-out, speakers blow and paint fades. If left unaddressed they will eventually have a negative effect on participation. 

6) Changing Island demographic. I have witnessed this phenomena over the course of my thirty years here. We have recently completed (I trust) a growth spurt that rivaled Seattle’s, we are after all, a bedroom community of the Emerald City, just a thirty-five minute ferry ride away from the riches and corporate power of Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon and Expedia. To name but a few. The numbers game should have created dramatic increases in both club membership and participation in group exercise classes. It hasn’t. For reasons I am still researching. 

There are six solid possibilities, chances are the analysis is some combination of them all. I hope that number four is not the prime example.

Either way, I, once again, wish to extend my ‘gratitude for and pride in’ the small group that completed our last session today, the fifteen that preceded it, the entire year, and every one of the Wednesdays since we took our first steps down this incredible path so many long years ago.

Straight up in the saddle and shoulders back. 

Dismissed. 

What If?

Camera, not a gun!

I have extended the deadline because it no longer is one. Less than four weeks ago, after the successful second showing of one of my video mash-ups cleverly disguised as a film, I (and NOT we) selected Thursday, Dec 19 as the third date in the ‘series’. In hindsight, thinking that I could dictate both the content, frequency and scheduling without first getting expressed written permission from the club, or its middle manager who’s idea of instructor support is limited to jockstraps and sports bras, was frustratingly naive. I assume full responsibility for its failure to launch. After the smoke had cleared from the verbal firefight, I returned the the business of finishing said video, because, well, once begun, one best finish. Even if she never sees the light of a projector throwing images on a makeshift screen. You do the work, create the art, script the story, pen the song and carve the sculpture, and THEN look for response. Only the big-shots do it in reverse, and this only after years of acclaim. In sports terms only the five-stars get signing bonuses. 

On Friday I was within striking distance of completion, starting the closing sequence, rolling the credits, reviewing the hour-long piece and making fine-tune additions, corrections and necessary revisions. Polishing. And then something interesting happened around Saturday afternoon. I slapped on the cans, my trusty headphones, and hit the home button, re-playing it from the top. Looking at the images assembled and the music to accompany them in the intimate privacy of the exclusive screening room in my brain was a roller-coaster ride worthy of everything this side of Disney’s Matterhorn. I practically pounded my palms raw in drumming to the tribal beat of the soundtrack, annoying I am sure the two canines and the pair of felines with whom I share this sacred space. It was, to coin the all-time cliche, cool. So naturally, as I paradiddled 4/4 time on my Levi’s, I would make the occasional note that at such and such a point on the time-line, another approach, a smoother transition, a cheat shot, or a contrasting clip might further sweeten the pot and up the dramatic ante. Yes, I could feel the urge, and as much as I tried to accept and enjoy the reality of its current form, the arch-enemy of artists, that nagging voice had squeezed its self between the cans and my inner critic, asking in unmistakable soprano splendor, ‘what if?’ 

What if what? I blurted in response, more what?  Faster, louder, with more saturation and camera movement? More dialogue, less narration, more action, less meandering? More highlights and fewer shadows? More raw and less refined? More showing and less telling? More sex and less violence? More story and less exposition? More caffeine and less red wine? 

So I added a closing plot twist (as storyline) to wrap it all up and tie it all together. Which means shooting the final sequence. Which means I will miss the deadline of Thursday. Which means I gave in to that bastard voice inside my head. I could have, should have, finished it off Friday and spent the weekend sweetening and wrapping. After all it Tis The Season. But no, I had to listen to the voice asking,

What if? 

Once Upon a Time in El Segundo

As announced yesterday, it is my sworn duty to report to you an opinion, mine, of the epic movie we watched yesterday as we rode indoors. We call it Cardio Cinema, and despite the gray-area surrounding the Hollywood standard disclaimer threatening severe civil penalties from unauthorized use - piracy is not a victimless crime - we accept the risk and ride. I am sure that neither Brad Pitt nor Leo DiCaprio will be forced into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich diet as a result. Frivolities aside, here is my review. 

While not imperative that one actually lived through the turbulent times depicted by Mr Tanantino in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it certainly helps. Setting the scene is an important part of establishing the ‘mood’ of any film, and Q does it as good as, and more often than not, better than anyone on today’s short list of ‘name’ directors. Adding to his impressive talent with simply this phase of the overall process is, as few credits do these days, remind us that he was both writer AND 

director. 

His ear for dialogue is matched only by his eye for detail. Watching, spinning, enjoying the tracking and dolly shots of the two mega stars cruising down the Sunset Strip in a yellow Caddy high on nothing but the thrill in the challenge to play actors playing actors, is something - matched with the soundtrack of Paul Revere and the Raiders admitting in 'Hungry' that “I can almost taste it’ - is ten miles past sublime. Sure there was a flimsy plot, the affected star and his faithful sidekick get involved with the nastiness of Vietnam, Hollywood and the Manson family, but the beauty of this film was in the location, much as LA in a different time and place was to Heat. As yes, Al Pacino kills his role as a Hollywood producer the same way that he did as a homicide cop opposite DeNiro. 

If you are not a fan of Tarantino, and there remain a few, the film’s masterful drive into and out of another time and place is a fanciful feast of cinematic pleasures. And let’s face the facts, 1969 Los Angeles was in major league flux, race riots, Nam protesting, regular skirmishing pitting hippies against rednecks, surfers vs nerds, jocks vs brainiacs, gays vs straights and Angels versus Dodgers. On some mornings the local AM DJs (I was a KFWB channel 98) fan would actually recap the prior days box-scores. Toss in the violent dementia that Charles Manson served to his family and the absolute terror they sprinkled on the City, and you have a perfect recipe for disaster, mayhem, chaos and the outline for a monumental story. 

I was never disappointed. In one scene as our hero is flying back from doing a series of spaghetti westerns in Italy, the narrator announces that the Boeing 747 is about to land in El Segundo. WHOA, where? Vintage Tarantino dialogue. I asked the class this morning if anyone who had seen the movie, most hands waved in the affirmative, if they ‘got’ the subtlety. No one ventured a guess. My hometown, is separated from El Segundo by none other than the Los Angeles International Airport, LA fucking X. Westchester and Playa del Rey are to the North and ‘Gundo’ to the immediate South. I almost verbalized what would have been classic Q line by saying that El Segundo is home to, and famous for, Georgie fucking Ballgame. Hall of Famer George Brett. Who, incidentally, was the star in the Gundo baseball team that knocked my team out of the CIF playoffs in 1969. What delicious irony that would have been for the handful of people recalling the episodic drama of that competition!

The first two hours of ‘Hollywood’ provide a sweet shuffle along the walk of the stars before the inevitable - remember Manson is lose on the streets when not scripting a sick plot at the Spahn Ranch - and Trantino plays the build-up of suspense much like the Beatles built up A Day in the Life, to a climatic bloody crescendo. And I do not mean that in the standard British sense. 

I was once again awed at QT’s artistry and his production of the project. From sparring with Bruce Lee to cameos by Michael Madsen, Bruce Dern and Damian Lewis, heck Mama Cass even showed up at Heff’s, I found Once Upon a time in Hollywood to be a terrific slice of nostalgia and of course, masterful filmmaking by a maestro of magic and mayhem. 

I will, however, caution those unfamiliar with ‘typical’ Tarantino, that they consider going to the smack bar for the final ten minutes. 

2:40 with Q

We have scheduled Once Upon A Time in Hollywood as our Sunday movie ride in the PB this morning. Tarantino’s masterwork, in my humble opinion, Inglorious Basterds, is a barn staple that we enjoy every winter. It seems that Q’s epic storytelling usually means at least two hours of long, steady saddle work, with today’s fare clocking in at 2:40. The beauty of this, natch, lies in the value of endurance rides in December, when outdoor variables can be harsh, and possibly dangerous. Dark, wet, cold and surrounded by BMWs, Benzs, Teslas and Subaru Outbacks, does not make for an enjoyable ride. Our solution is to take it indoors, gaining all the benefit without the risks. Some will argue that this approach is somehow of lessor quality than toughing it out and braving the elements. Or that it builds character, ruggedness and other manly traits. My answer, as diplomatic as I can orate, is…..have at it. Good luck, stay safe and enjoy the ride. Seriously I have zero desire to up my T-levels doing something with frozen toes and distracted holiday shoppers in SUVs a foot from my flank. 

Last night I visited the new facility of a local pro cyclist who has opened a training center less than two miles from our own. There was as good crowd, a BBQ, live demonstrations and white wine. Kids toasted marshmallows above the roaring fire in the pit. I saw many old friends, our communities cast of usual suspects, and enjoyed my short stay. The irony of this was not lost on several of the attendees, whom we know as PBers. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, especially as the pro cyclist, now facing the reality of staffing the facility while he and his fellow female pro partner spend a good deal of their time on the road racing. Who will mind the store when they are a continent away? I was invited to do so. With all the humility I could muster I replied to the affirmative, saying that depending on the schedule I am sure I could squeeze in a coupe of sessions per week. So we’ll see. At the very least I was honored to have had the invitation. 

I was asked several times my opinion on this event and all that it translates to. I stated to them as I will now to you, that I think it is great. Creating wholesome community-based exercise opportunities, especially those that cater to kids, is a wonderful thing. I am proud to be even slightly associated with the organizers. That the facility is in direct competition with my own is of no concern to me. If, at the hand of my competitors success, I am forced to close my shop, so be it. We have been doing our thing for almost six years, offering interested and dedicated locals the option of riding indoors to keep fit, get stronger, burn calories and mix it up socially with like-minded island neighbors. It has been a wild ride and I am overjoyed to have had such a good, positive, successful and enjoyable run at it. I would add profitable but that was never a goal or concern. Ever. 

This is like, I quipped with one of the guys last night, as if I had been operating a quarterback camp in downtown Seattle for five years, and then Russell Wilson opens one right across the street. Would that be a form of flattery or enemy action? Do I fold the tent and pack up the circus? Or do I adhere to the principle that theorizes competition making both sides better? 

It may have been easier in 1969 in Hollywood, but I doubt it. I will ponder this over the 2:40 running time of this morning’s cinematic accompaniment and let ya know. 

By the way, I was living in Los Angeles in 1969 and know the vibe, the players and the events. From my formative years of 1-8 we lived next door to one of Charlie’s gang members who was later bused for trafficking in stolen motorcycles and turned state’s evidence that sent CM up the river.