world naked bike ride 2019 Portland.

Wow Ya normally don't see so many folks coming out to the park. Tonight the families were out in droves to old Laurelhurst park. Maybe it's the thousands of naked people everywhere. It looks like a real cultural phenomenon.

I never seen so many grandparents smiling ear to ear. Folks were out in the yards cheering the cyclists on. Good times.

Urgent business at the naked bike ride Medium

Today a kiddo was so excited she cracked the car's front windsheild with her little head.

Today a kiddo was so excited she cracked the car's front windsheild with her little head.
 It was outside our Pie Spot Pie Shop gig. She was no worse for wear. She thought it was funny. 

Mom says it's a loaner car since her husband got rear-ended in the family hoopty just yesterday. 
Our first show (At 2 sisters cafe) was packed but the second one at Pie Spot only drew two. 
Normally we would pass out a couple balloons and thankyous then split but these two were superfans. They could write our setlists for us if they wanted to. 
There is no way we will let them down. 
We did a show for them on the tables outside Pie Spot and performed like it was for hundreds. Passersby looked confused. Lots of people driving by waved. I had an enchanted time
. Everyday feels like a movie but today looked like it as well with the sporadic rain showers filling the air with smells and colors. Olive was radiant and incredible to watch as usual.

 Flamingo balloon. wonder where the kid got that idea?

 We love the Pie Spot. We love the story about them building a bakery up from a food cart. The pie shells were created to not need much packaging. It's great. They also pay us well even though we don't often pack em in. They pay us double what most do. They treat us like royalty. The great thing is that they will treat you just as well when you walk in the door, My fave is the Chicken Pot pie. There's no pot in it but I love that dish anyway. #PieSpot https://www.pie-spot.com/

I was cursed with growing up having the big family bible living right next to 36 encyclopedias.

I was cursed with growing up having the big family bible living right next to 36 encyclopedias.
The encyclopedias regularly contradicted the good book I'm sorry to say.
China never mentioned a global flood in centuries of existence. kangaroos? dinos?
Also it was pretty clear that the plagues described by the Moses story were actually volcanic activity.
My favorite was the people turning into pillars of salt in a place where everything routinely gets covered in salt.
When I was a kid some priests pulled me aside and we all discussed ancient Mediterranean public affairs.
They were saying
"The spirit is strong in the youth, he should join the clergy."
I will never forget that day. I wish I possessed the words back then to properly explain myself.
To make them happy I studied harder but what I should have said was
"I just appear to be enlightened, actually you just suck at Iron/Bronze age. It's terrifying that I have to inform you about the existence of the Silk road."
Maybe they should have read more than just the one book.
It was stressful when all the adults believed in a petty, vengeful, invisible space monster. Even more scary to learn that presidents and school principals actually believe in hell. How can you steward an organization when you think all the folks who don't subscribe to your religion are lost and or going to Hell? Disqualified! lol
That was in Texas. It happened again for the same reasons 7 years later in Tennessee. I was gonna be a clergy.
I guess I studied too much.
My takeaway was "Why aren't we following the Romans. They had representative govt. A military run by command and control with tactics, engineering and specialists, a path to citizenship, didn't demonize sex.
Why are we stuck in this Hebrew/Bedouin comic book?
The Romans actually existed and very well could have know what happens to the sun when it sets (unlike their superstitious counterparts).

Found this garage sale across from Reed college.

2019 Multinomah county bike fair

Last night I was sitting on the porch enjoying solitude and the night sounds.

I can't be seen from the sidewalk but I guess I can be smelled. I heard the telltale sound of middle aged ladies walking by while speaking in thick "dinner wine accents".
"Oh do you smell that ganja?"
"Mmhm, smells divine."
"It's definitely something I need in my life....just not with those creepy clowns."
They all laughed and so did I.
HAHAHA!
Then they got all quiet for some reason, #neighbors

My partner keeps me honest.

She is more into equality than I am most of the time. Like yesterday, we were out busking and communing with the Ptown denizens.
I yell "AAh Olive, I just stepped on a frikkin bum turd!"
And she responded "Why is it automatically decided that it's a homeless person crapping on the path. Drunks and tourists come through here all the time."
I would have loved to explore the debate about my phrasing but at the moment my social blunder wasn't first on my list of priorities.
"Bum turd" is Clown House jargon that is still in my head.
We used to live on Mississippi ave. next to a huge homeless encampment by the tracks.
We had a shaggy dog called Bear who loved nothing more than rolling in a fresh mound of hobo dung and then shaking off in our livingroom.
It's a hard phrase to forget.

Jazz funeral procession for fallen cyclists

I was happy to paint the Behemoth (my bike) flat black. We had a great time meeting up with our peeps and taking a slow march through downtown to The Department of Transportation. We met at Pioneer Square but quickly the cops showed up and told everyone we would be ticketed for "unlawful assembly" if we didn't disperse. So we moved a block away and hoped the rest of the folks arriving would find us. After some speeches we slow marched. The downtown denizens has a range of reactions most of them very pleasant.It's hard to argue with the amazing sounds of a brass band. We made it to ODOT and after a moment of silence we had a jazz dance party. I love life in the Portland. Big thanks to http://www.bikeloudpdx.org/ 
.

Horror movies never scared me because the real world is terrifying enough.

The scariest thing back in the day was the Jay Leno "Jay walking" segment. He would walk around asking people simple questions and everyone would laugh when the lady didn't know Africa wasn't a country. 
I wasn't laughing. 
The dummies on screen reflected a lot of people I knew. Having so many uninformed people should have been ringing bells and alarms. 
Now half the people are poor (in the richest country) and the world is on fire. 
Even more frightening is that people are still on board with the corrupt leaders and they are still most critical of the ones working for positive change.
 I study a lot of history and I'm pretty sure these conditions rarely turn out well. 

People should require more than a bumper sticker slogan to have an opinion. Happy Friday.

Life is a nature documentary.

Most folks who encounter us treat us with love and kindness, some don't know or care about us and even fewer respond with abuse. It's water off my back. In today's doc we were on our bikes trying to get our car tire fixed. As I waited for Olive to negotiate, a lady (on the left) approached me and started asking about Pedalpalooza.

I wasn't amused that the little bit of money we made today was going to maintenance.
Once a week we use our car "Matilda" to get our kids to the other side of town and back. Last trip we caught a flat. Talking about bike events makes me happy. But unfortunately I didn't get to say anything before this other woman (on the right) walked up saying "I'm sorry, you stink! You usually smell really bad but today you smell worse than ever."


I never seen her in my life so that was odd.
The first lady split quick I suppose thinking something was about to kick off.
I said nothing but internally I was amused. I'm downwind of her and in a strong breeze, no way she smells anything. Bad odor must be her excuse to protest my general existence. I'm a long way away from the days of deliberately smelling bad. It used to be a form of rebellion. Gutterpunk tactics are obsolete these days. Also I'm a gorgeous woman's comfort object, Olive isn't hip to any bad smells on me and when I do sweat it effects her in a way that is too hot for Facebook to describe. I can take criticism but this one isn't even close. :) I just smiled and the lady stood there staring at me waiting for the reaction I would never give up. Then Olive and I went to a nearby cafe. Out the window we see a homebum park his garbage can and sit directly across for a man.

It was an awkward moment for him but entertaining nature doc for us. We waited and watched the nature doc to see how it turned out.

Eventually one of the baristas noticed and asked the man what he was doing "waiting for the cops" he said. But nobody called the cops so they never came. After some more tedious moments the fuzzy fellow got up and took his trashcan away. We didn't get the photo of the smile of relief that the customer had when he got his personal space back.

I'm glad my traffic cam was rolling when this stuff went down. Great nature doc. :)
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