A Few Thoughts From the Road

Road bike that is...no this isn't the post I promised about the evils of my bike, but that's coming...

I was riding my bike back from Troy on Highway 8 this afternoon. The shoulder is virtually non-existent this time of year, covered with the gravel that's been on the road all winter. Although even when I'm riding the white line, there's still plenty of room for cars to be passing me going both directions.

I was about 75 yards from where I'd be making a left turn, so I glanced over my left shoulder to check traffic behind me. One car about 150 yards back. No one in sight up ahead in the opposite lane. I swung my bike across both lanes and ended up near the left shoulder to make my turn. About 10 seconds later a black Mercury, the car I'd seen behind me, passed in the right lane. And he blared his horn as he passed. Not the friendly two-honk of "Hey how's it goin?" or "I approve of your activity," but the long, sustained, "I'm pissed at YOU, Matt Gaither."

This reminded me of something I've noticed this year. What are horns in cars for? If you asked a Ford or Toyota employee they'd probably say something like "To let someone know they're in danger," or something to the effect of preventing an accident. I disagree. Far and away, the most common use of horns that I've seen has been to express one's annoyance with something that's already happened. It has the frivolous use of getting your buddy's attention, or like the honk I didn't get, a friendly hello to a stranger. But when do we get honked at most? After we’ve been cut off. After someone turns into our lane without signaling. After the guy in front of us stops short. The horn is just there to say “I AM ANNOYED WITH YOU” in one single bleat.

You may be asking: Have you ever been in an accident or seen one? Or seen one avoided by a horn’s use? I’ve seen two since I’ve been in Moscow. The first was pretty awful. It was early in the morning and I was on my bike heading towards the intersection of 6^th and Jackson from campus. When I was about 20 yards from the crossing, a minivan heading towards me collided with a loaded semi moving about 40 miles an hour. The truck continued through to the other side unaffected while the minivan spun around almost 400 degrees. Turns out that the sun was rising just behind the stoplights and the woman in the van didn’t see the red. No horns.

A few months ago I was riding my bike up 3^rd St. near the old Co-op as a station wagon inched its way out of the parking lot, trying to make a left turn. They were quickly caught in the middle of the lane, perpendicular to traffic, stopped by cars heading the opposite direction. I knew there was a car behind me and to my left, and sure enough it passed me, locked up its brakes and slid right into these people. Again, no warning horn.

It seems like horns are just there as a release valve to regulate people’s frustration on the road. When faced with a possibility of actual danger, we’re too focused on avoiding the danger to think about tapping the middle of our steering wheel. I think about this every time I’ve had a near miss in my own car. I actually specifically think about how I didn’t think to use my horn. It was the furthest thing from my mind.

So I say, do away with the things. That’s right, this is my proposal to remove car horns from our world. Anything that gives us another outlet to be spiteful to one another I can do without, thank you very much. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me it’s the condition of the heart that’s the problem, and that people will just find another way to express their anger without their horns. That’s fine, but until we shape up, let’s at least keep it quiet.

Think of Me, Think of Me Fondly....

This guy would like to ask for your prayers this weekend. He has yet to finish a road race in the great state of Oregon without leaving a bit of skin behind. He's just riding for fun this year and doesn't expect to break any land-speed records, but he'd appreciate your prayers for safety. I mean look at him, he needs all the help he can get.

Color

Say Hello To Canada, Eh?

I put up a few pictures from our trip to Vancouver. Asher, Nick, and I went up to see Jesse Beck and the greater Vancouver area. We were interviewed by Pakistani TV show hosts, ate ourselves silly-full of delicious Asian foods, and scoffed at the Canadian dollar.

There are also a few shots from Josh and Paula's wedding.

For If You Rescue Him

This really isn't edited very well, but I've had the idea for a while and just wanted to get it out. Suggestions and criticisms are welcome.

For If You Rescue Him

“Man it’s so good having you around again,” said Kyle.

“Tell me about, it’s cool to have this time to just hang like we used to,” replied Jake with a warm smile.

The two were sitting in Kyle’s parents’ living room with the TV on, making wry comments about date shows that popped onscreen.

“So Washington’s pretty cool huh?” Kyle asked, staring at the screen. He sat in the same position that Jake always remembered him in; leaning on his left arm, remote in right hand balanced on his bent up right kneed and left leg folded under him.

“Yeah, I’ve been loving it. Lots to do and it’s gorgeous.”

“You’ve been doing something at like an old folks home right? I think I heard that from your Mom, I ran into her the other day at the mall.”

“Really? Yeah, a friend invited me one day, shed been going for about a year and reading to some of them. That’s what I went to do my first day, but I ended up just talking with this guy that grew up in Oregon and was always out hunting and hiking and stuff, so we just talked about all that. Since then I’ve just gone back and hung out once or twice a week.”

“Isn’t that a little…weird? Just showing up to talk?”

He laughed. “Yeah, it felt really weird the first time I went back just to “talk,” like I was some counselor, or patronizing them, but they love it. All the nurses think that I’m some wonderful humanitarian for doing it, like it’s this arduous task, but it’s actually pretty cool. When you live as long as some of these guys, it’s hard to not have gained some kind of wisdom or insight that they love to tell you about.”

“So you’ve got nurses swooning over you these days?”

“Sure,” he laughed.

Sitting in the room brought back a lot of memories. But since this was largely what they did when they hung out, it was more like one memory, really densely remembered. Ten minutes passed with a few laughs and witty observations on the lameness of reality romance.

“Weren’t you doing something with the homeless before that?”

Jake sat forward in his chair with both hands on his near empty glass, looking down into it. “Yeah, it was hard. I really had this overwhelming feeling that what we were doing for them wasn’t what they needed. Basically, I was getting pretty annoyed at them and the situation,” he added in an attempt to bring himself down from the pedestal that Kyle’s questions had built a ladder to the top of.

Jake was getting a little uneasy, like most do when something unpopular is on their mind, but curiosity won’t let the thought dissipate.

“How’s your Dad doing?” Jake ventured.

“Alright, we’ve been getting along ok since I’ve been back. He’s not around too much, but he was kind of a prick last night about me coming in late with this girl.”

“Becky, right?”

“No, that kinda fell apart this fall, it was just this chick I met at Sanke’s party last night. Which you should’ve been at, with ME,” he said, pointing at Jake with mock authority.

“Wow, that sucks. You guys were together for a while, what happened?”

“You know, just weren’t clicking anymore, arguing about little things all the time. It just wasn’t fun anymore.”

“Huh. Too bad.”

Jake looked around the room, taking in the general “rustic” appearance of the place. Huge, pointed bay windows overlooked a small lake, barely visible in the moonlight. Wood planked walls and gigantic rafters, coupled with the chocolate colored carpet and sparse lamplight gave one an overall sense of “Brown. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” On the wall which Jake’s chair sat against, there was some kind of deer-like mammal’s head. If he glanced up at it, he got the impression that the beast was about twenty feet high and in the process of stepping over him on its way to more important matters.
"Look at this crap," Kyle said, nodding at the TV. "They tell you this wax takes out scratches that have gone almost through the paint. Did I tell you about that?"
Jake looked back and shook his head.
"Oh, dude, so I come out of work last Tuesday and as I'm coming up to my car I see a long line from the driver's door almost to the back quarter panel, but it looks like just a reflection. But when I got up next to it, it was a friekin scratch, I couldn't believe it, you know how I always park way the hell out away from everyone just to avoid that. Doesn't matter, some jackass still managed to completely ruin my ride."

Jake glanced out the window at his '88 Trooper. He thought about saying that he just lets the layers of mud and salt cover up the dents and scratches, and did you ever consider that maybe it's because you park out in the sticks over three or four parking spaces that people wreck your car.
"That's too bad man," was all he could manage.

It was getting to be about lunchtime, and both Kyle and Jake decided to head into town for some eats. As usual, Kyle drove, with his seat pushed as far back as his legs would allow, maximizing the cool-slouch look. Jake wondered if it would be gangsta rap or cookie-cutter angry rock in the CD player. It was a mix of the two.

Being back in this car with Kyle driving brought back the memory that Jake had been fighting off all day. It was about three years ago when Kyle had screamed through the parking lot of the school in front of Jake and stopped, asking if he wanted a ride. It was unusual that Jake did, but that day his car was getting worked on and he did in fact need a ride after practice.

"Cool, I'll meet you back here at 4:30," Kyle said and took off towards town.
There was a familiarity about Kyle's tone and the way he cocked his chin upward when he recognized Jake. Jake had seen it before, and it always reminded him of how basketball players acted towards one another when there was a lot of talk flying around the court. It was a puffing up of the ego, like a porcupine making itself look bigger to say "Back off." Jake knew Kyle well enough to know that it wasn't him that Kyle was puffing at, it was residual puffing from a recent challenge of some kind, and Kyle never ignored those.

"Hey." Same chin cock.
"Hey, what's up?"
Kyle shrugged his shoulders with his hand at noon on the wheel, legs almost straight out to the pedals.
"That Avery kid is a punk man. If he doesn't back the hell off there's gonna be trouble."
"What happened?"
"I was walking down the hall today with Beck(at this, Jake imagined Kyle’s walk, a loping swagger, dipping each shoulder with every step) and he opened his locker door right in front of me so I hit it into him on accident. Then he got right in my face and we exchanged some words. I didn't want to get into it with him with Beck right there, but man he wanted it."
"Hm."
"Man, why do people have to be such pricks? It's shitty." Kyle was gesturing with fingers together and making jabbing motions forward with his free hand. His entire face was tight and eyebrows were almost furrowed together in anger.
"Yeah."
They rode the next five minutes with only the sound of Lil' Somethingorother in the car.
"You've gotta be kidding me," Kyle said looking in his rearview mirror.

Jake leaned forward to look in the side mirror to see a rusty Mitsuhondyota right on their bumper. Josh Avery. Kyle slammed the gas to the floor and took off, only to have Avery creep right back up. This went back and forth a few times, with plenty of expletives and thrown fingers from Kyle. Jake sat and wondered what would happen. Then he saw the car pass them on the left, and got a glimpse of Avery, in a similar position as Kyle, giving them a quick glare before pulling in front and hitting his brakes. Kyle reacted quickly enough, and came to a halt a few feet back. Before they'd stopped moving, Avery was out of his car and halfway to them. Kyle had his window down to maximize his fist shaking and bird throwing, and Avery came right to the door and started punching through the opening over and over again into Kyle's face and hands and arms trying to protect himself.
Avery got in five or six punches before Jake was on his back, pulling him from under the arms away from the car. Jake wasn't a very big or strong kid, and Avery could probably have turned on him and laid him down. He just struggled instead, then whipped his body around, swinging his arms towards Jake. He fell back into the road, just in time to see a pickup lurch forward on its brakes four feet from him.

Avery and Kyle screamed at each other, while Kyle held his nose in the nook between his thumb and forefinger trying to slow the blood. Avery reared back and kicked in Kyle’s door. He marched back to his car and sped off leaving Jake on the street with his heart racing and Kyle in his car, still buckled in, catching the blood seeping through his fingers with his other hand. The driver of the truck looked nervously at them, and leaned out the window.
"You guys alright?" praying they'd say yes so he could be on his way and not get mixed up in this.
"Yeah we're fine," said Kyle, muffled by his hand.

Jake had left town for college a few weeks later, and they'd had little contact in the time in between. They pulled into the parking lot of the small soup and sandwich place they used to hang out in. As they walked in, Jake recognized the server behind the counter as Chris Parker, a teammate from high school. Kyle went to the bathroom while Chris and Jake caught up.
"Is that Kyle, from high school?"
"Yeah, it is."
"Man, he hasn't changed much. Looks kinda ticked, like always."
"Yeah, he's always been kinda easy to set off. Takes things a little too personally, you know?"
Kyle had emerged from the bathroom and was coming up behind Jake.
Chris smiled and laughed, "Yeah, well, I hope this guy I hit in the Best Buy parking lot doesn't take it too seriously."
"What happened?" Jake asked. By now, Kyle was behind him and to the right listening to the story.
"Sheesh man, I had kind of a crazy night on Monday, and I had to be in at work over there Tuesday morning. I was still a little, you know, 'not all there,' and I saw this idiot that parked way out in the middle of the lot over three spots. You know, those guys that think their car is some pimped out work of art. Anyway, I wasn't really thinking and I just smoked past the car without really caring if I nudged it, and I actually ran my bumper along the driver's side on accident. But then I kinda laughed about it, you know?"

As Jake looked around to his left to see if Kyle was out yet, he heard the soft sound of rubber soles on the stainless steel counter, the swish of tearaway pants, and a surprised yelp. He quickly completed his 360 degree turn to see Kyle land on Chris and disappear behind the counter. Jake planted his hands on the counter to launch himself over and almost ran into Kyle's back as he stood up quickly with his hands raised. Chris struggled to his feet with one hand pointed at Kyle. As Jake came around them he saw that in that hand Chris had a large butcher knife. Jake found himself between both of them, with insults and challenges flying back and forth, his hands up on either side of him, palms facing Kyle and Chris.

Say Hello To Tomorrow's Lunch

Hell's Gate Duathalon tomorrow in Lewiston. Wish my legs luck. Much to everyone's dismay, I may have to trade in my full spandex costume for something a bit warmer, as the the temperature at the race start is forecasted to be 38F.

All You Need Is Compliance

I was looking for a paper on archetypal criticism that I wrote last year but instead found one where I used Marxist criticism to examine Moulin Rouge. We were limited to a page for this, and I know that there are too many commas and that they're mostly in the wrong places. Try to enjoy it.

Attempting to apply a literary criticism that stemmed from the pro-communist movement seems like a stretch at first. But after realizing that the driving force of most stories is conflict, and that Marxist criticism focuses exclusively on class-conflict, we can quickly pick out parallels between them and the world. In Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, the characters are presented to us in a very distinct class system and more importantly, their attitudes genuinely reflect class struggle under a Marxist lens.

We’re first introduced to the proletariat, who make up the vast majority of the cast, portrayed by a group of Bohemian artists who call themselves the “Children of the Revolution.” We can see this as the lower class’s way of dealing with their poor status in the system by seeing themselves as artistically superior where they’ve been financially and materialistically inferior, and ushering in a “Revolution.” Christian, Satine, and Harold are also members of the working class, but in different positions. Christian is a penniless writer, Satine an entertainer and prostitute, and Harold the ringleader of the Moulin Rouge. While all three have different day to day obligations and responsibilities, they all share one thing in common: They are all trying to please the Duke, the only symbol of the bourgeois in the film.

The Duke provides us with the most interesting ideas for Marxist criticism in Moulin Rouge. He obviously has the most pull of anyone in the film, as everything seems to revolve around him and what he wants. Christian and Satine have their relationship, but always around the Duke, always knowing that it’s big trouble if he finds out. Harold may run the Moulin Rouge which seems like the most powerful position in the context of the movie, but even he scrambles to keep the Duke happy at all cost by lying to him about Satine and Christian and signing the Moulin Rouge over to him as insurance. As the Duke begins to become aware of what’s happening, the story reaches its most profound points.

First of all, the Duke only realizes what’s going on between Satine and Christian when a dance-girl, a member of the proletariat, lets him in on it by asking “Why would the [girl] fall for the penniless writer? Oops, I mean sitar player.” The Duke is seemingly clueless until that point. Next he does something that embodies the style of the bourgeoisie almost perfectly. He demands that the play be re-written with Satine falling in love with the maharajah, understanding that Christian is writing the story exactly how the love triangle is really playing out between himself, the Duke, and Satine. Here we see the essence of bourgeoisie interpellation; obedience without heart. The Duke sees that things aren’t going his way and will now use his power to have them “act out” what he wants, totally aware that Satine doesn’t love him. He would rather have obedience and maintain his position over a real love with Satine. We see this again the end of film when the Duke tells Harold that he will have Christian killed if Satine doesn’t come to the tower to be with him, again we see that the duke doesn’t want actual love, his ideology is that the mere action of submission is all he can hope for now.

You Were Laughin At My Gollum Face

I enjoyed it. Highlights included Philosophy, Chris Mills, and a personal tribute in song from Ben Folds himself to the great state of Idaho. There are a few more pictures from the show at my flickr site.

History

A few years back, my Mom, Dad, sister, and brother traveled down to Georgia to visit some family on my mother’s side. We were staying with my aunt Joanne in her new house just outside of Atlanta in a small development called Newnan. This was quite a different setting from her old house in Peachtree City, where we’d stayed almost every summer when we lived in Germany. I’d grown so familiar with that house, its size, the winding, wooded driveway from the road, the in-ground pool with blistering hot concrete all around it, and my favorite, the old rectangular trampoline.

Peachtree City was my only experience with the United States growing up, the only time I saw commercials on TV, caught lightning bugs, watched Major League Baseball, and got sunburned. I remember my overwhelming feeling being one of Moreness. Not in some anti-materialist nonsense that I would’ve preached a few years ago, I just remember the States having more of everything. More channels, more streets, more cereals with cartoon characters, more people that spoke English, and so on. I was enthralled with American television as a kid. The idea of 44 channels blew my mind, which I’m sure was becoming more and more jelly-like every summer we returned.

Aunt Joanne’s house in Peachtree was probably very “modern” when it was built in the early 70’s. Lots of angles and weirdly sloping rooflines dominated the all brown exterior. The master bathroom had a bidet (which I allegedly took for a fancy, Matt-sized water fountain at some point), and a huge marble bathtub which matched the floors and walls, surrounded by mirrors, and equipped with jets. The main living room, which I only remember as a place to run through between the Marble Wonderland and the kitchen, had vaulted ceilings and a huge fireplace that I never saw lit. These were the days when Uncle Bob and Aunt Joanne were still together.

Here in Newnan, the new house is, well, a new house. Lots of white, new furniture, the carpet looks like one should never tread upon it, and the sod in the lawn still looks a bit suspicious, like it might pick up and scamper down the street at any time. Everything felt exposed, without the tall pines I remembered from the old house. This was after we’d been living in Wisconsin for a few years, so Georgia was no longer my only vision of America, but Peachtree City was still my only image of Georgia. Bob was gone, and this was all different.

As I was growing more and more used to American things being normal, something still struck me as both American and foreign: Alarm systems in homes. Aunt Joanne showed us all how to disarm the thing within thirty seconds of coming into the house with a secret code. That part made sense to me. What was confusing was that during the day, any window or door that was opened produced an authoritative bleep from the alarm box. Even while the system was shut down; it seemed like an over zealous mall security guard, informing us that, yes I had noticed that window being opened in sector 17-G at 3:17pm, even though I’m on my break. This was pretty noticeable since Georgia in the summer demands lots of heading outside to cook in the sun and back inside for more iced tea. If I ever move to the south, God help me, I’ll end up just sitting on my porch drinking tea all day long. And when my metabolism decides to be reasonable, I’ll become a blob.

One night found me in my temporary bedroom, the sunroom of the house. There were two sets of French doors leading into it, split by the ever useful Southern fireplace in the living room. The couch I was sleeping on that week faced the doors and a television, which was on the other side of the fireplace, facing the windows. It was late, and my fascination with cable TV still hadn’t worn off so I was flipping through the trash at about one in the morning. Everyone else had gone to sleep hours ago, and I needed to soon. Everything I could see of the house through the glass doors was black and still.

Then I heard it. The unmistakeable bleep from the kitchen. Something had just opened, and the blackness suggested it wasn’t a sibling rooting about for a snack.

*BLEEP*

The second one came before I had even properly formed an argument in my head against hearing the first. There was no doubt as to what I’d heard.

I thought about flicking off the television and inching my body down to a prone position on the couch, so as to render myself invisible to any intruder.

But oh how the bladder betrays. I was suddenly painfully aware of the immense, uncompromising pressure that bellowed “Try to go to sleep now and you’ll be sorry.” I was stuck. There was a murderer in the house and my own body was betraying me. The fear of a bloodthirsty marauder battled with the possibility of social destruction. With no options left save colossal humiliation the next morning, I sat up, bolted through the doors closest to my goal and sprinted through the house into the bathroom without looking over my shoulder into the kitchen. After locking the door and taking care of business, I was struck with a new problem: Now what? Surely the bandit heard or saw me streak in here, and he’s waiting to pounce as soon as I come out. I looked around my tiny prison for inspiration, and settled on the towel rack. There were four full sized towels for the drying pleasure of all the guests this week. My gaze drifted from them to the bathtub, and back.

Towels + Bathtub + Locked Door = Safe Bed for The Night.

I fashioned a little nest for myself in the tub and settled in, using the last towel as a blanket.

A few hours later I found myself squinting in harsh white light at a quizzical face poking around the door. A relative (whose name I don’t think I knew even then) was peering at me with a look of complete bewilderment.

“Matt? What are you doing in here?”

The fantastic embarrassment of the situation had jolted me wide awake in the millisecond it took to recall the night. However I still thought it best to put on quite a show of confusion and mumbled words, acting as if I were still somewhat asleep as I pulled myself out of the tub and stumbled past her to my couch, any fear of an intruder long gone.

The next morning I had to give an account for my actions, and these words came out of my mouth:

“Yeah, I don’t know how I ended up in there, I must have sleepwalked or something.”