Large Fella on a Bike

I gots blisters on my finners

For the last 12 months or so I've been thinking about what I did and what I didn't miss about creating music.

It's been quite a while away from it for me.  My last gig was in Sept. 1999... just a couple days before Chloe was born in October of that year.  At the time, I was extremely excited to be "taking a break", an indefinite break.  I was tired, getting sour, extremely opinionated (even more so than usually), much more interested in my about-to-begin family, wife and nesting at home than going out and humping drums & hardware through the streets of NYC.  The peripheral shit was wearing me down. 

Stuff like having to start breaking down my drums at 5pm, going and getting the car, bringing in around in front of where we live, double parking it, making 4 trips in & out of the building to load the car and getting underway by 6pm.  Sitting in rush hour traffic anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours, getting to the gig and circling block after block looking for an on-street space.  Slogging my shit from the car to the club-could be 60 feet/could be 2 blocks... through the club-making sure not to whack some poor bastard in the back of his head with my cymbal bag while he's eating his soup course, sitting the gear up... and hopefully getting all that done by 9pm... when it's time to hit.  Playing to a few handfuls to a lot of interested people but always with the obligatory people who are there for food, drinks, talking about work and other shit... never music.  The ones who actually try and compete volume-wise are the best... like it's some great feat to talk over 3 or 4 guys playing acoustic/unamplified instruments.  Playing 3 or 4 sets and then hanging for drinks, some shit that owner allows "the musicians" to eat (if you've never played music professionally... the "food" for the band is ALWAYS off the menu... way off the menu) and then repeat all the first steps in reverse... break down, load out, drive, double park, load in at home, park the car and then get inside, collapse, drink some more, wind down... go to sleep when the birds start chirping.

That's pretty much all the stuff I do not miss.

What I do miss... the music.  Creating it, communicating through a given instrument... The Moment.  The act of throwing ideas back and forth with other humans... not verbally mind you, through an instrument.  Conversing.

So, I've been thinking about slowly creeping back into this... very slowly and very carefully.  Baby steps.

I think I lost a part of myself when I stopped playing music... now that I'm getting other things back under control, in line and with clear goals... the time has come to examine the things surrounding music for me-why I left (beyond what I actually know), why I burned out so badly, why I started feeling bitter and resentful, why it was easier to not challenge myself than the alternative.

In all truthfulness: why, as the music became more elevated & challenging, I didn't want to follow it.

That's a hard one for me.  Hard to answer, to understand... to comprehend.  It's a scary place and not all that pleasant to visit.

Fruited Pains

It certainly sounds odd to me too... I never thought I'd be saying stuff like, "Honey, you know what sounds REALLY good for dinner tonight?  How 'bout some romaine lettuce, cut up bell peppers, carrots and cucumber slices... dipped into an oil-less vinaigrette?!?!"  But, it's true... that's how we talk these days.

I can suck down (and do!) bing cherries, seedless grapes and oranges like most people (reading this) suck down milk, cheese and ice cream (you know, all that good stuff that causes bad stuff).

I think we are clearly over all physical detox humps and only-very rarely-come across a mental moment of grief/regret/sorrow or pain... which is good!  Finally.

Not to be too graphic-but it's rather amazing what a diet like this will do for your poop... suffice it to say, if you've ever had a newborn baby or changed a newborn baby's diaper... well, you get the picture.  I'm told this is a Good Thing.  I do know this though... gone, all the days of EVER finding it necessary to grunt whilst 'assuming the position' on the CBoL (Ceramic Bowl of Love).

A couple weeks ago we were pleased to find that this company called Fresh Direct started a route in our 'Hood.  We signed up, carefully A/B checked their prices against what we normally pay for groceries (found that the prices were very competitive indeed!) and created an account & went to town!  What a GREAT idea and company!!  Picture this-

"Honey, we really need to hit the grocery store soon", you say... and then you hear, "Okay, I'll place an order through the computer and it'll be here tomorrow!".  How cool is that!  Besides the basics-they have really great produce... very fresh and you can actually specify how you want it.  For instance, you order bananas and you don't care for them ultra-yellow but like them somewhere between greenish and yellow... they take note of that and deliver them exactly how you prefer.  They offer lots of organic, vegan items and... best of all, rather than having 14,000 people driving their cars to the store... they drive one big-assed truck to you, your neighbors and neighborhood and deliver it when you want it delivered. 

On a cycle-related note... going to remove my front rack and reconnoiter my Schmidt E6 headlamp onto a fork blade w/a Peter White  lamp mount.  For 'hood riding, the front rack with shelf and Tubus racks are a bit much.

On a FBQ-note... I have 2 installments ready to publish.  One needs a couple more pics, which I'm waiting on and the other, needs well... a couple more pics-which I have yet to find.  Ok, "almost" ready to publish.

Look for 'em both soon... promise.

A Mild Burp

" ...there's a man in the judgment chair, got his ass-God's right arm in some... "
-C. Whitley

We had a couple days of fucked up back-sliding... actually quite interesting how far we've come.  Amazing how all food is way, over-salted... took a bite of a sub and nearly went into sodium-induced shock.  Dreamed the entire night of swimming the width of the Atlantic Ocean like a basking shark... with my mouth wide open guzzling h2o.

Drank a double espresso [do I ever learn?] and noticed that the milk left an oily film in my mouth similar to what the aquatic life must have experienced in Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez popped.  The caffeine alone prompted me to ask Amy to grab her "work bag" and don her stethoscope to take a quick listen and make sure I wasn't about to do the old Clutch-n-Drop.  I sat up on the edge of the bed (waiting for the caffeine effects to lessen)... from 12:47am until 4:11am rocking back and forth [think: A Clockwork Orange/Malcolm McDowell/"Reconditioning" scene in the theatre with the scientists]...not pretty.

Lessons learned, Thank You much.

FBQ Update

I take the hit for not staying up on the FBQ... 100% my fault.  I got busy with other things and then had computer problems (which have never been solved completely and still randomly plague me) and then I got bummed out about life stuff and now... trying to switch my personal Operating System from Meat/Junk Foods 98 to Vegan/Whole Foods XP has certainly thrown my day to day doings into an ass slide of strangeness.

All of that said... I do have some remaining interviews left to edit and publish but the list has grown short & thin.

I do/did have a few great subjects left for the series but honestly and straight up I'm tired of trying to politely remind (read-beg) some of these Gents into taking 20-30 minutes out of their day to complete the thing and press "Send" to get it off to me.  They shall remain nameless (but you-if you know custom builders that is-probably know who is AWOL from the series).  Most have promised me the completed interview countless times to leave me wondering if I should yet again risk being annoying by contacting them and asking if they sent it.  Fuck it.  They apparently see it as trivial or they're just too busy... so be it.

Sadly, the worst experience in the series-and potentially one that could have affected these last stragglers-has never come to light.  Let the light shine now brother!

Back around the 3rd or 4th installment in the FBQ series, when I was "outing" it at a certain forum board I happened to come across a thread by a guy who had just taken delivery of a new Vanilla cycle (which obviously you know I think are totally crap bikes from the beautiful intro [my opinion!] I gave Sacha on the FBQ installment featuring Vanilla, right??!!).  He had pics posted as well as a "review" of his first ride(s).  The pics very much made me think that the bike looked small for him... also, I thought this because he had quite a bit of  seatpost/stem showing.  Besides that, he had put up one of those reviews that are just (in my opine) completely silly.  You know, the standard pap about "plush ride, the bike steering itself, snappiness from the frame helping me climb hills" and the Grand Poobah of all hyperbole, "Power Transfer".  Do ya like the bike or not?  Does it ride nice and make you happy?  Good, great... now shut the fuck up and ride.

Anywho, I called him out on his piss-poorly written thesis, plus made the heinous mistake (apparently) of asking... "Did you get properly measured?  The bike looks small for you?"

Sweet-assed Mary did that begin a shite-storm for me.

Here's the entire thread in all its absurd glory...

And if that wasn't all enough the guy then went on to try and turn frame builders away from me and the "favors" (his word) they were doing me by participating in the series.  Hmmm... yes, I found the FBQ enjoyable (otherwise why the fuck would I do it??!!), informative (for sure) and fun too BUT it involved 100's of emails, anywhere from 2 to 4 hours per installment for editing, following up on addendum's from certain builders, requests for seeing it first before publishing it here at LFoaB, receiving and/or hunting for pics online, writing emails for permission to use said pics, editing/photoshop'ing said pics and lastly triple checking every answer, address, phone number, etc ALL before publishing the thing.  Added to that, I don't get a blog for free (yes, I could use a free service like Blogger but as is always the case when something is Free... they have limits on uploads for photos, bandwidth, traffic, etc or they are just plain slow and I don't want that) nor do I get a blog for free because I'm a perpetual professional student (like Jim over at Oil be for Sissies)... nope, I want something good, robust and dependable that can be customized, so I pay for this puppy.  And with the added traffic from the FBQ and stuff like photos, etc... I pay/paid extra to boot.

Yeah, builders doing me a "favor"... my ass.  I did it to have fun, help builders out (if I could... and as a sidebar kind of thing) and *mainly/actually* to inform people out there as to what's available in the world of "Custom" cycles.

So here's what "that guy" then went on to try and accomplish by disparaging me, my name and this blog.  Read it Here.   Read the whole thread BTW.

And then the guy goes to the Serotta Forums and tries again...

Here

And then the threats and insults started to pour forth.  About me, the blog, my wife, my daughter, my custom Bob Brown, etc...

Anyway... there is some FBQ remaining-look for it starting next week-and then there will be no more.  There were a few "big fish" guys left but they are apparently too busy and lastly... there are insane motherfuckers out there riding bikes (customs and carbon fibre included) who, given the smallest provocation, will anonymously email really hideous shit to people (including death threats... happy thoughts Scott, happy thoughts!) over things like asking if their (or their buddies) bicycle fits them properly.

Moral of story...

i.e. The sun is starting to set on the FBQ.

No good deed goes unpunished... Sparkles & Moonbeams

Interesting...

Sorry for the lack of posts... been busy detoxing, freaking, slowly pulling my fingernails out one-by-one, watching the Tour de Lance on OLN (Original Lance Network) and working up the spanking new LFoaB banner you should be seeing right above this blog entry.

In a further effort to understand food addiction, the Smoke & Mirrors of the food industry, how it takes hold of us and then, how it spreads... I came across this interesting article on food flavoring.  Here it is.

Crunchy thoughts...

We are barely hanging on... it's like being pinned to the ass of a wild boar and we're trying our bestest to hold onto the GD thing.

Commercials, people, delivery guys, people in our building, next door, next door to them... they are all trying to derail us (they don't know it) and we are still trying.

Quite a few of the detox symptoms are back (I'm told, this is very normal as they can last upwards of 6 weeks [most cases], a few months [a few] or even up to 6 months [very few... thank god])... Amy and me both are jonesing for salt again and a bit of sugar.  Chloe's getting VERY desperate for some sugar.  Poor thing, she's into this new way of living but last night she got very angry out of the blue, sat down on the floor and announced, "I miss sugar!"  We talked to her and she then said, "This healthy way sure can be unfun sometimes, I really do think so".  She's a trooper though.

Interesting factoid to all you "meaties" out there reading this... Did you know that cattle are fed cattle shit, cattle bones, cattle heads, eyes, brains, hooves-diseased or not-on feed lots?  Yep, it's true and it's the leading cause of Mad Cow disease too.  And besides the 2 "known" and documented cases of MCD recently reported in the USA... there is no way to actually know how many cows have gone undetected.  Take that into account with the fact that slaughterhouses "process" (i.e. slaughter) over 1 million head of cattle per week (!!!!) just to provide McDonald's with the necessary beef for their American locations (this does not include any other fast food chain, mom & pop, upscale, etc restaurants AND also excludes supermarkets!) and you just got to wonder what's in YOUR beef next time your cooking it in that pan or on that grill?  Yep, all in the push for feeding us shit, making us off the Richter Scale in obesity, cancer and heart disease among all other countries (both developed and undeveloped) in the world... science, the government, lobbyists for the beef, poultry, dairy and fluid milk councils have figured out a way to make a natural herbivore-the lowly peaceful bovine-into not only a carnivore but a cannibal to boot.  Now that's progress in the name of science!

You want a revolution... fuck the car versus the bicycle, because even a skinny motherfucker on a cycle is gonna drop eventually, and it's way more likely to be from cancer or heart disease than getting hit by a SUV... fight for the truth about food, the marketing of food and the special interest groups with millions of dollars invested in keeping us all unhealthy, uninformed, fat and heading straight for major life-threatening illnesses and the further crippling of our (already ragged) healthcare system.  Oh, and also educate our healthcare system about honesty regarding food/diet & health and what ACTUALLY works in being preventative instead of trying to bat clean-up with reactive fixes that mostly never work. 

And THEN lets ride our cycles.

Happy eating!!

I eat plants

who woulda thought?

I eat and drink plants.  I drink water.  Beans, lettuces, fruits, flaxseed, some nuts...

I start my day with 2 glasses of water and a smoothie made from a fistful of blueberries, strawberries, a banana and some water in our Waring blender.

Lunch-I eat 2 heads of lettuce (usually romaine hearts) and peppers and/or cukes/carrots dipped in vinegar (white/apple cider/red wine) mixed w/fresh herbs  and drink water.

Dinner-I have some squash or zuch's with some chick peas and crushed tomatoes sauted in a pan with black pepper, fresh lemon juice, cayenne pepper, garlic & onion powder.

The shit actually tastes great.  I'm over the detox hump.

I'm down 17 pounds and feel light as a feather.  My energy bumps up and down and I get tired easily but that's all supposed to settle in soon.  With all the changes and stresses to my body I did-unfortunately-pick up one helluva URI.  So now I've got a full nose, plugged ears, and the occasional huge hunk of lung-goo coming up when I cough.  Fun!

So far these changes have been extremely hard as well satisfying and made me very positive in my outlook on things.  As soon as I can take a deep breath without needing to cough I'm ready to start riding... really riding.

I gotta say, I mostly feel... pretty damn good.  Getting over the hump was a bitch though... one of the more mentally trying things I've experienced.