page 11

I...
have dreams,
where all I wanna do--

--is caress you down,
Hold me down,

Lift me up, and carry me away,
Show me the sunlight,
And make it stay that way.

(uematsu nobuo - the place I'll return to someday)
I'm ready to ride out of here while I'm ahead, so to speak. By ahead I mean, you know, alive, all my digits and limbs, hopefully some money, and a way back ahead of me.

I just hope this card comes today. Or I'm gonna run out of jokes to make about it.

I was paranoid enough to have a dream about a cop bringing me in and messing with me, then getting upset and clamping down when I started asserting myself. Other bizarre, unrelated things, a dirt highway on another planet called the President's Highway for when the ranking politician took off and was gunned down before he could get away. Shrug. My head is a total trip, I guess.

(uematsu nobuo - frontier village dali)
After conversing with him some time upon indifferent subjects,
she gave him to understand that she wanted a particular kind of
stuff with a gold ground; that she came to his shop, as affording
the best choice of any in all the bazaar; and that if he had any
such as she asked for, he would oblige her in showing them.
Buddir ad Deen produced several pieces, one of which she pitched
upon, and he asked for it eleven hundred dirhems of silver. "I
will," said she, "give you your price for it, but I have not
money enough about me; so I hope you will give me credit till to-
morrow, and in the mean time allow me to carry home the stuff. I
shall not fail," added she, "to send you tomorrow the eleven
hundred dirhems." "Madam," said Buddir ad Deen, "I would give you
credit with all my heart if the stuff were mine; but it belongs
to the young man you see here, and this is the day on which we
settle our accounts." "Why," said the lady in surprise, "do you
use me so? Am not I a customer to your shop And when I have
bought of you, and carried home the things without paying ready
money for them, did I in any instance fail to send you your money
next morning?" "Madam," said the merchant, "all this is true, but
this very day I have occasion for the money." "There," said she,
throwing the stuff to him, "take your stuff, I care not for you
nor any of the merchants. You are all alike; you respect no one."
As she spoke, she rose up in anger, and walked out.

When I saw that the lady walked away, I felt interested on her
behalf, and called her back, saying, "Madam, do me the favour to
return, perhaps I can find a way to satisfy you both." She
returned, saying, it was on my account that she complied. "Buddir
ad Deen," said I to the merchant, "what is the price you must
have for this stuff that belongs to me?" "I must have," replied
he, "eleven hundred dirhems, I cannot take less." "Give it to the
lady then," said I, "let her take it home with her; I allow a
hundred dirhems profit to yourself, and shall now write you a
note, empowering you to deduct that sum upon the produce of the
other goods you have of mine." In fine, I wrote, signed, and gave
him the note, and then delivered the stuff to the lady. "Madam,"
said I, "you may take the stuff with you, and as for the money,
you may either send it to-morrow or the next day; or, if you
will, accept it as a present from me." "Pardon me," returned she,
"I mean no such thing. You treat me with so much politeness, that
I should be unworthy to appear in the world again, were I to omit
making you my best acknowledgments. May God reward you, by an
increase of your fortune; may you live many years after I am
dead; may the gate of paradise be open to you when you remove to
the other world, and may all the city proclaim your generosity."

These words inspired me with some assurance. "Madam," I replied,
"I desire no other reward for the service I have done you than
the happiness of seeing your face; which will repay me with
interest." I had no sooner spoken than she turned towards me,
took off her veil, and discovered to me a wonderful beauty. I
became speechless with admiration. I could have gazed upon her
for ever; but fearing any one should observe her, she quickly
covered her face, and letting down the crepe, took up the piece
of stuff, and went away, leaving me in a very different state of
mind from that in which I had entered the shop. I continued for
some time in great confusion and perplexity. Before I took leave
of the merchant, I asked him, if he knew the lady; "Yes," said
he, "she is the daughter of an emir."


YESSS! My cojones are pulled from the fire! TIME TO GO LEAN IT OVER!

(uematsu nobuo - fisherman's horizon (piano))

"One bike is practice. Two bikes it's a race."
-Sign at Wheeler's

"Everyone brings happiness to this office. Some when they enter, some when they leave."
-Sign at the Tail of The Dragon

I've never seen so many bugs in one place in my life. On my visor. I had to stop at the top of the Skyway and wipe them off, I was starting to breathe them into my nose.

It seems like I'm getting faster, but I'm starting to lose the ability to tell, I think as I sail down the 360. I glance down at my speedo at times, coming out of corners, to remind myself I'm doing 80, 90, 110.

I've never felt this way before, on my bike. Since I've come here, the feeling has grown. Feeling like it'll be okay. Feeling safe, like I'm not playing with my life. Ahh, I'm missing it trying to explain, but you know what I'm saying. I feel really good here.

I stop at the utility work flagman across the straightaway bridge, and he looks at me, with a half-scared smile. I raise my visor and smile at him, and look down the road. And look back at him. He looks at me eyeing him, and he puts the walkie-talkie to his mouth. He looks down the road, flips his sign over, and I fly past these workmen on the shoulder, somehow taking it easy at the same time.

I guess that's what I'm talking about here. The lines of safe feeling, between hauling ass, and taking easy, are being blurred as they're shifted WAY THE FUCK over to a faster line.

Going back through the Dragon, I burn past an S2000 stuck behind a Maxima. I believe what Phil was saying, an additional reason for knees. They're also a safety, a way of letting you know when you're about to run out of tire. If you start to get pressure on your knee, you can push off a little and reset yourself. I also think there's something to the aerodynamics, but that could be anything.

If you're leaned far enough, the bike will turn itself, and you'll have to countersteer in the other direction. There's a school somewhere in California that claims to have debunked all other methods of steering except for countersteer with a bike that has a set of locked handlebars. However, they ignore the fact that on a bicycle or a motorcycle, you can move your body without touching the bars in a way that will induce countersteer. [edit: they were speaking of precision, and indeed, the owner of the school acknowledges that countersteering is just the 90, 95 percent most effective way to make a steering adjustment.]

Psychologically, it's also a great feeling. Hanging around on the inside of a corner, if you know what I mean. I asked Darryl why this one rider stuck his knee out kinda early when we were watching the GP race, and he said there could be any number of reasons, specifically mentioning getting himself set for the turn. Every rider has their style, he says. You get yourself stable and you look at the turn, cheek by jowl as my mom likes to say, with your bike.

Those hairpins are still TIGHT, though. Fuck! I'm not going to get intense on those unless it's at the track.

I stopped in at the Tail and asked 'em if they'd seen a wallet, and hit paydirt. He handed me my wallet and yelled at me about leaving all the crap in it, and I was sufficiently contrite. All the good stuff had been taken, but it had my license and other junk, so I was good to go.

I rolled down to Robbinsville, got gas, and headed back. My front brakes are starting to make me nervous, but they seem to have plenty of pad left. I set the offset one click back to see if I'm just not getting enough yank on it. I'm really thinking hard about a steering damper.

There'll be plenty of time to soup up and bling out my bike when I get back, though.

I'm going to check out the 411 tomorrow, if it's worth riding, buy my gifts and souvenirs (this is a place that can get 'em outta me, I think), and ride off into the, uh...direction of sunset. Take a bunch of pictures, I guess.

Other stuff? Uh, there's a guy who seems like an old buddy of Wheeler's who's got a shirt that says "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle..." with a picture of a guy on a naked bike all crouched over his gauges, a guy on a cruiser leaned into his handlebars, and a guy on a rocket in the middle just sitting, driving normally. That kind of attitude kind of explains the way some things work around here. Everyone is very laid back about what is going on. Just enough excitement, just enough throttle to come out of the corners golden, eh? Too bad I lost all the email addresses I'd written down and tucked in my wallet. I hope those nutty Canucks send me something.

I'm leaned a little into a long corner and I see a truck coming. He's hugging the double yellow, and I'm not too far away from it either. I eye his mirror and duck, feeling the wind bubble fly over me. Hohoho. Yar.

I'm stoked to leave. Because I've hit the limits that I wanted to find here, and don't intend to get faster by leaps and bounds. I'm pretty fucking fast, it seems, already. Or I'm just full of shit. It's possible either way.

I guess places that are really something, like Honolulu and Deals Gap, are really more fun than you can get a handle on in even a concentrated week. It's the first and only time you'll ever hear me say that I'm overdosed on fun. I think it's only because I haven't had enough sugar.

But I don't know what kind of future awaits me, in the direction I'm heading. I'm excited but unknowing. Just that there's somebody west of here who might like to see me alive again. That's worth it. To be able to do that for somebody.

It'll be fun, though, won't it? Been a while since I've gotten my rocks off this way, and certainly the one who was riding the rocket when it arrived had never done these things before. The one who's leaving will certainly have a lot more going for him.

Approaching every corner humbly, on one knee, yet determined, looking only to what is ahead...

...

(uematsu nobuo - the oath (piano))
I look at this bike, and I say, "Look at this crazy machine." You know what I'm saying? Maybe. All the different impressions you get of a thing, especially the living tools that we humans, some of us more than others, have made. Like how my impressions of things like the M16 rifle have changed. Looking under the hood of a car. I can see things that maybe to others aren't there. Maybe aren't really there. But that's part of being human, right? All kinds of crazy networks in your mind. I look at this bike, and I say, "Look at this crazy machine." I look at it in a new way because it's a part of me now. In the way that there's a place in me for where it goes, a whole lot of things that are ends until they attach to the bike.

I was thinking when I rode down the 360, and almost forgot...
(I also thought, "Jesus, I'm certifiable. Nuts!")

I was thinking about the thoughts I'd thunk on all these roads before and thinking again about trying to show you all of this. And I realized when I started thinking about cameras again what it was. Where I'd really like to put a bullet cam is right there, in my eye socket, but then, even that wouldn't do it, I'd have to put it at the end of all those neurons where somehow it's supposed to be stabilized and corrected and fucked with until it looks like the one vision of one person, right?

That's human experience. All the world, all the music, all the feeling, of the entirety of human existence, contained within one life. In any one life? I don't know. But that's what it would be worth. To be able to convey one human life to another, wholly, just once, would be worth it.

To show you exactly, to be able to show anybody, exactly, what was going on. To finally, truly stand in each other's shoes. To hear what our voices sound like from the inside, right?

Because otherwise all of our worlds will forever remain our own, locked away by the million hands of Time, even if we can enter each other's and share as much of them as we can for a while.

And that's not good enough for me. I want to give my world to you, to have.

Love, joy, and admiration,
and a whole lot more.
-T.

the life that is woven in and out, more than any of the channels of experience could provide...
the life separate and together.