Riding a bike and an experience with a mentally handicapped bar fly

About six months ago I started riding a bike. It was great. Cheap, easy to park, and great in traffic. Apart from having to put up with the endless judgments from those people who show they care- because they usually do- by insisting you listen to their opinion, which comes from their mothers mother, I couldn't understand why everyone wasn't on one. In most cases, at least in Australia, people choose to drive a car, spending half their salary on fuel, more time in traffic, and doing more walking as they find their way back from where they had to park- which was probably two blocks away.

But cars do offer something a motorbike doesn't despite all their benefits: a sense of security. You know the statistics are on your side. That if you were to get into an accident, your probably going to be fine, as long as you didn't hit a semi-trailer, or do anything really stupid- and hence the popularity of SUV's (ie their size). Or, to put it another way, you feel big.

About a month ago I meet a man who was obviously a biker. I hadn't really met a serious biker until now, and I was exited before he even opened his mouth. From the tattoos on his arms, figures and neck, he rode a Harley Davidson, hated the police- something we shared at the time- and didn't like authority figures. We were going to be friends, I could tell.

He came to the bar to order a beer. I spoke first, asking him what he was ridding, already having a good idea from his neck tattoo. He told me, in English I took to be the result of a few he'd had on the way, that he wasn't riding anymore . He said he couldn't get a licence after a crash he had last year. "what happened?" I asked him, hoping to get some clue about what I shouldn't be doing out there. He started his story and talked me through his accident, explaining where the cars were, how they hit him, and how long he was in hospital afterwards (about seven months).

After a while, when he'd taken a seat and everything in the pub had started to slow down for the lull between lunch and dinner, when everyone seems to be either on the way out or the way in, I noticed something about the way my friend was sitting. It wasn't how he positioned himself, but what he seemed to be doing in his seat, which set him apart from the others at the pub. His head was moving. moving to the music coming from the bar. This was only the beginning though, soon he was out of his chair and moving his arms, his hips and his legs as well. The show had begun.

This scene wasn't talking place in a club, or a funky RSL like you might think, but somewhere anyone with few job prospects, a gambling problem or in need of serious psychiatric help will have seen, and at least spent a night. It was somewhere a girl between twenty and thirty, who wasn't sporting any tattoos, would be afraid to enter let alone have a few drinks. Somewhere where it wouldn't be uncommon to see a Dog tied to the bar while his master was getting a pint. But it was the last place you'd expect to see someone enjoying themselves to such an extent that they decide that to start dancing is the next logical step. So seeing my friend take the floor, completely alone and completely inspired, made me think there was something else going on.

After talking to my Friend about his accident and seeing him dance, or rather freestyle (maybe brake's the word...), something began to stir in that place in our brains where our most primitive emotions are, like fear. I had to put all this together. I had to decide what I thought was going on and what it all meant. From the expressions of the people seeing my friend for the first time, as he hit each beat as well as he could- considering how much he'd had to drink- something was amiss. But apart from that, as I slowly began to put these things together, I also started to feel really uncomfortable. Not from what was going on in front of me- everyone enjoying my friends most recent move, performed to an audience that didn't exist- but about what it meant.

Everyone I know on a bike seems to have a story to tell about the day they came off. A scare from an operation or something, testament to how vulnerable you become on a bike in traffic. None of that ever worried me. Maybe I didn't think about it but this- what was happening in front of me- was different.

What was happening that day wasn't a scare you could pull out at parties or when your with your bike mates. It was something you lived with, however much you didn't want to. Something people could see in your expression and your eyes. It was different from all the other consequences I've witnessed hitherto which come from riding. It was scary.

Art

Funny men looking serious. Roy and HG.

Harmony

Ever noticed while you were listening to someone else's conversation (cause everyone does it), how two people can sound like their singing a song?

It's not really something you notice by listening to what their saying. In the words of my year three teacher "it's not what you say, it's how you say it" In this context I think I was sugesting by my tone to my teacher that she needed an enima to remove what ever it was stuck up her arse- which was something I might have been thinking at the time- but not something I'd be able to put into more subtle words, or any words, being in year three.

That never really made sense to me as a child though. Surely what I or anyone else have to say, is more important than the tone that I or they chose to use. But not to my old teacher. She would have been happy to listen to someone telling her she looked like something from the house on the preary, as long as they phrased it like they were offering her a piece of cake...

Someone like this will change their tone, which will contain just as much- or more- meaning than their words. It's almost musical. The way a conversation will move up and down (and it is up and down, not back and forth) till it reminds you of a boyband you heard in a shoping centre somewhere. The tone that one speaker decides to finish on, is the tone their friend will always start with. So the whole performance becomes one production of harmony.

To make a point sometimes someone will change their tone. They wont pick up from the place their friend left off. Their friend, and who ever else is listening, will pick up on this too. It will make more of an impact than what the speaker has actually said. The sound of their voice will become more important than their meaning.

At what point does a conversation become a song and a song become a conversation. Are these really seperate things or do they just exist at either end of a continum. And where the hell does poetry fit in...

Capacity

Someone told me today that woman are better at multitasking than men. That being female gives you a genetic advantage when it comes to trying to squeeze a bunch of things into your day. I asked them to explain why she thought this was the case and they assured me that they were right and I was wrong (them being female had nothing to do with it). So I asked her to demonstrate her gift by way of saying the alphabet backwards- which I assured her used to be a method in Australia and the US of establishing DUI before the advent of Breathalysers- and catching the balls which I would cast in her direction before throwing them back. She took her position about three feet in front of me, being on either sides of a table, and put out her hand which I assured her wouldn't have to do too much work. I didn't want to look like I was assaulting my friend or anything. It might draw some sympathy from the crowed or something (it was a pub). So off she went.

This might sound easy if you happen to be particularly good with English. Maybe you spent your years in preschool and kindergarten pouring over those alphabets they always stuck on the wall, or your a natural with languages and spoke three by the time you were in year three, or maybe you haven't thought past the first three letters "Z,Y,X", because after these this becomes one of the most difficult things someone could ask you to do. The police were obviously eager to get people off the road when they decided to use this as a means of determining whether or not someone was fit to drive. In the words of Bill Hicks "I'm not drunk but I'm obviously to stupid to be driving goddam it".

My friend had started, and they had started well. I was taken by surprise, they had said at least ten, and I hadn't expected them to be doing this well. Here was someone who was obviously more talented with letters then Bill and myself and on their way to proving their theory. Being completely unable to repeat the performance I would have no choice but to concede defeat and acknowledge the weaknesses of my own sex when it came time to multitask. Unless...

The balls had been going back and forth and she hadn't had any trouble. Returning and making changes to them she started to get a small smile on her face. She knew she was getting close. Her smile was growing. I decided to start moving them around. Once I had her going she couldn't argue I was avoiding her. She was already struggling from the last throw so it wasn't me, just her own momentum. As she came back from the last throw I was putting it in the direction she was moving. Then, as she came back from her third attempt to steady herself I put it in the place she had just come from, putting her off balance. She swore at me, reached out her other hand, while someone called out from a crowd near by that it wasn't "m" but "n". I hadn't actually been paying attention, being completely focused on what I was going to do if this test was too easy. Her eyes closed as she realized what had happened. "mmmm, good show" I said, reaching out my hand.

I was glad I managed to put her of balance, even if it did screw up our test. But I was also glad no one had mentioned the sex of the person from the crowd who had called out the mistake.