Taking Away My Breath.

Stage Five - Rouen to Saint-Quentin

It's the evening of my 33rd birthday and all of a sudden I'm in my living room surrounded by folks who were also present at my 18th birthday, my 21st, my 30th. In deference to the others present we try not to reminisce too much, but the presence of folks who I've known for so long puts me at ease. We sit in the living room drinking tea. After last night's lack of sleep I'm pretty wrecked, and am already sensing that this is where the evening is going to end. And that's ok.

After folks leave I have a quick look at the stage profile. It's flat, barely a bump, and will almost definitely come down to a sprint finish. And look, I do love sprint finishes - I love the chaos, the drama, the elbows out full contact racing. But I don't love the preceding three hours of knowing that it's going to come down to a sprint finish. That's some boring shit right there. There's no way in hell I'm going to sit up listening to Phil and Paul confuse chateaus and castles for three hours. I grab Franny and Zooey and head to bed.

I'm enjoying the book so much that when I realize that I only have a little bit left, when the pages in my right hand feel thinner and thinner, I'm a bit disappointed. Salinger's great gift is that he makes you feel special, as if you're the only one in the entire world who identifies with the protagonist, and everyone else is either an idiot or a total phoney. It's a good feeling, but it's also isolating, and sometimes I think Salinger knows this, and does what he can to counteract it. That's why when relief finally comes to Franny at the end of the book it only does so when she realizes that the prayer she's repeating is to everyone, that there is no one out there who isn't Christ. I ain't one for god or spirituality, but I too find a sense of relief in imagining that there's some kind of hope in all of us, that we're all, somehow, in this together. It's a nice thought to have at the end of pretty great day. Like Franny, for some minutes, before I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, I just lay quiet, smiling at the ceiling.

And the next morning I reach for my computer and watch Sagan get tangled in a crash, Cavendish slip too far back, Gossy go too early, Greipel take another win.

Things Just Getting Good.

Stage Four - Abbeville to Rouen

Ok, so I didn't watch the stage last night. I had every intention to. I figured that there was no better way to welcome in my 33rd year than sitting up late, bleary eyed, willing my body to do things it doesn't really want to do. Some basic maths - and the TV guide - indicated that the stage would finish around the same time that I was born - 1.27am - and that I'd officially be a little bit older just as Mark Cavendish crossed the finish line.

Incidentally, I probably should've been born a little earlier - perhaps even on the preceding day. But my dad wouldn't let that happen. He kept urging my ma to keep her legs cross, to hold on just that little bit longer. He just didn't want his first son to be born on the 4th of July.

I went to bed around 11. I thought I'd read Franny and Zooey for a little bit, then fall asleep. But I kinda got caught up with the Glass family. There's this bit where Zooey talks about them all being so critical, how they all judge people so harshly, that they are all guilty of scanning the room for unbelievers. I've been guilty of that in the past, and was thinking about how it's impacted throughout my relationships. That's the kind of thing that keeps a guy up at night. I didn't get to sleep til around 4.

When I woke up I reached for my computer and looked up the highlights on YouTube. It didn't look like a great stage - when the most exciting thing that happens is a crash, it's a sure sign that it hasn't been one for the ages. Not even the highlights were particularly thrilling - they showed Cav on the ground without showing how it happened, and they showed Greipel taking the win without the preceding ten minutes of leadout chaos. I figured I hadn't missed much. It was, however, now my birthday. The text messages were rolling in and my mum had called. I didn't have much planned for the day, but KO hit me up for lunch, and that helped fill in the time. Tonight I'll likely miss stage five as well, because Hurley is in town, and he's insistent I party like it's my birthday. I'll let you know how that works out for us.

Don't Forget, I Know Just What You're Like.

Our correspondent from Standford, Cam McKenzie, takes the wheel for another Music Wednesday:




I think I spent a good part of my 30th year on this planet worrying about turning 30 and being "old". The other day I got there and it turns out it isn't so bad. If I was more inclined to reading, I'd have an aphorism readily available. Something about the constancy of life and the arbitrariness of the dates on which we choose to celebrate it. Instead, I'm doing music Wednesday, so I'm going to get nostalgic, misty-eyed and self-indulgent, and throw up songs that bring something back. This could have been a blog entry about past relationships and regrets and all the things I did right and wrong. That would be cloying and adolescent. Let's make it (at least peripherally) about bikes instead. It will still be cloying and adolescent, but fewer people will be mad at me. Here we go… anecdote, song.



I'm ready to make an admission. Not that long after I first started driving to bike races in my own car, I did a season racing handicaps and scratchers with Carnegie. Mitch V, my partner in crime, had a Justin Timberlake obsession. It was thus on the stereo constantly and I came to like it too. This is called the "familiarity-liking effect". Whenever I hear JT now I get flashbacks to being halfway between Narnargoon and Modella, checking which way the wind is going. If I'd been listening to The Bronx back then I probably would have won a lot more.







I went to a bike race recently with a (non-Australian) team that didn't exactly get tactics, or controlled aggression, or bike racing. They watched their diet and their power meters but didn't watch the race. I was in the car with one of the team officials trying to explain what the problem was. In the end I just plugged in my ipod and said… look… if you're not the sort of person who might like this song, you're not going to be much of a crit rider.







When I was 22, I was at Berkeley for a year. I went to an awards night with the cycling team in fancy dress. We almost got the team banned from the next year's party for getting too rowdy and dressing inappropriately. One of the girls on the team had chosen the theme for us: "sluts". I just went with it, but apparently a mesh singlet was not appropriate at a sit down dinner. Towards the end of the evening, the DJ started playing rap and when Regulators came on I was in the zone and dropped several verses. One of my friends exclaimed: "you're an impostor, you must be from California, that's not Australian". It's a beautiful thing to feel like you're a part of something.






When I really empty out in a road race, I sometimes collapse afterwards. It's happened a more than once. The worst I've ever emptied out, I ended up cramping in both legs and rolled past the finish before collapsing in a bush, hiding from my team mates and crying. I wasn't hiding and crying because I was sad at losing. It wasn't pain either, that was over. I was just empty. A couple of hours after that kind of race, I mellow out and think about things… it's meditative, and I find my head is clearer. Mellow music is good for a mellow mind.






I worked a summer at a bike warehouse, fetching things to ship and building bikes. It was blazing hot and boring as hell and slightly claustrophobic. Plus you were on your feet all day. The upside was, I worked with Sean the Man so the music was usually pretty solid. Probably the most maddening day in there was stocktake. I counted more than 1000 helmets that day. During the process, I found an aero helmet that we couldn't put in stock, because it wasn't Australian standards. It had been a spare for a sponsored track rider. It also had a visor that rendered the wearer unidentifiable*. Sean, I need to admit something. I was aero helmet ninja. It was me that jumped out, punched you in the balls, and yelled "aero helmet ninja strikes again". It was also me who crash tackled you into a pile of empty cardboard boxes, but I think you knew that. Stocktake can make a man do crazy things. In the warehouse, we listened to a lot of Public Enemy and a lot of Wu-Tang. I think BB has already posted the entire PE back catalogue, so I'll make a different move and chuck up a song from the third most played album in the warehouse.

*This may not be true.

In 2010, I lived three months in Pasadena, out on the edge of LA, next to the mountains. There was noone around and my research didn't work out. It was kinda boring. But riding up into the mountains was amazing. Spectacular elevation gain. You could climb from 150m to 2000m. I spent a bit of time doing that, listening to Grandaddy sing songs that complain about LA… several of them were clearly written about the terrain through which I was riding. It was spooky.

I'm In A Bad Mood.

Stage Three - Orchies to Boulonge-Sur-Mur

I've been in a bad mood all day, full of fidgety irritation, ineloquent frustration and occasional bursts of anger. I'm blaming the copious amounts of Vitamin D - I have all this bursting energy all of a sudden, but it's creeping through me, as if I've had too much coffee. Some of it dissipates over lunch with Jen Jen, who laughs at my predicaments and listens while I vomit semi-formed sentences all over the restaurant, but by the time the evening rolls around it has returned.

Fortunately Rolly is in a similar mood, though hopefully without the excess consumption of dietary supplements, and he has decided that heading down to DISC to watch some real-life bike racing is the tonic for him. Well, that and a couple of sneaky beers. He makes one of the beers ginger and I'm in.

Down at the track the numbers are good. There's lots of folks in each grade and the racing looks kinda hard. Decent people are sitting in the stands and my mood is lifting. Sometimes, but not always, it's enough just to be around people, to make polite conversation, to enquire about someone else.

Wary of more alone time - not something I'm usually fussed by, but today seems to be different, so I'm being cautious - I drag Rolly and Dave back to mine for the stage. We pick up some Cokes and some snacks from the Seven-Eleven on the way. Boys set for a big night. At the Seven-Eleven there are a bunch of kids hanging out in the parking lot. Just old enough to be able to drive but still too young to figure out where they should go, they stand around the car, grunting insults at each other and leering at anyone walking past. But we're in our thirties; we have already figured out where we should go.

I mention to Dave and Rolly that I'm already starting to regret writing this tour diary, because the entries have already started to take on a numbing similarity. But that's the first week of the tour. The race starts, a break goes away, it gets brought back, there's a (sometimes uphill) sprint. I ring up some people, they come over and we talk shit, the conversation drops because we're getting tired, we get excited by the end of the stage, folks go home. Tonight is no exception. I only wish that Dave and / or Rolly had figured out their victory salutes before they had come over. That's right, making it to the end of the stage without falling asleep, despite work the next day, they should both consider resisting sleep an achievement worthy of public celebration. They should've done a little dance that pays homage to Forrest Gump. It would've ruled.

Cardiac Arrest.

Stage Two - Vise to Tournai

Yesterday was the first real day of school holidays, and as such I had a list of things to do as long as my arm. Blood tests, new jeans, picking up a script at the chemist - the general detritus of everyday life. Only the last deserves any comment - as part of yet another attempt to fix the sickness that has plagued me for almost two years now, my sports medicine doctor prescribed me a course of Vitamin D tablets, the first of which represented approximately 166 times the recommended daily dose. I've been in a slightly better mood ever since.

The stage tonight looks flat and boring. A breakaway will go, Lotto will chase it down in the hope of getting Greipel a win, and the last five minutes will see the dogs of war unleashed all over the road. Before it starts I get talking to Ella online. She has one of DC's books, and I mention that I'm probably going to go into the store in the next day or two. So she swings by and I once again get some water boiling.

We sit and listen to records and exchange scene gossip. She went to school in Newcastle, knows all the punks from up there, and was down in Melbourne when I was living in Montreal. A lot of gaps being filled in tonight. She also knows all of these people I know from the bike world - mostly the mountain bikers - so we pretty much have an endless supply of people to think and talk about. It's a pretty good time, and neither of us are really paying much attention to the flashing colours of Belgium.

With about eighty ks to go the conversation starts to drop. I figure there's about another hour and a half of racing. I don't have what it takes. I offer Ella the Hurley Bed - aka the couch - but she knows Sean, so wisely declines, and heads off home. I stay up for a bit longer, putzing around on the internet, but eventually my body takes charge and I head to bed.

And the next morning, when I wake up, I watch the final kilometres on YouTube. And it's rad - some of the best, craziest yet safest, fastest sprinting I've ever seen. Cav has no leadout but still comes from absolutely nowhere - at least 30 riders back at 1k to go - to take the win out of Greipel's hands in the final metres. That's good racing, an incredible ride, and I kinda wish that I'd stayed up.

Fancy Things Won't Ever Come In Between.

Stage One - Liege to Seraing.

Now that the tour has started proper, I figure I have to pay some attention. So I wander over to The Inner Ring, which has the best run-down of each individual stage, as well as the most insightful cycling commentary I've ever read. Whoever it is who is responsible - some cycling insider, no doubt - has suggested that this stage, though flat for the most part, has a nasty little kick at the end that will rule out the pure sprinters, and make things interesting. It sounds like a stage I should probably watch.

But I'm still wrecked from the Prologue the night before. FJ has gone over to his mum's house to look after the dog, and will be gone all week. I'm pretty sure I won't make it on my own. So I ring up Rolly, who I know will also be feeling a little worse for wear. He swings by on his way home from the laundromat. It's Sunday night, and he has to work the next day, so he reckons he's not going to stay long. When I show him the stage profile, however, his commitment to a relatively early night seems to waver.

The first few hours are pretty boring. We debrief about the evening before, delicately discussing the facts and gossip emanating from the evening. I make us tea and we kick our shoes off, settling in for the evening. There's a breakaway off the front, but it's nothing more than a TV break - no one thinks they're a chance of staying away.

But then, with about sixty ks to go, things start to get a little interesting - a good fifty ks before I thought they would. Trains of riders were sliding up the side of the peloton, trying to take charge of the chase, perhaps even attempting to shell some of the pure sprinters. I do suggest this to Rolly, but then before I can even finish the sentence Andre Greipel has come to the front, doing a mountain of work for (insert this year's product name) - Lotto. I have once again confirmed my status as the worst predictor of cycling tactics in the world. A bunch of teams are worried about the hill to come, and rightly so - when they hit it, the race breaks apart. Folks are getting popped out the back like popcorn. Cancellara hits it, but my favourite Peter Sagan is hot on his wheel. Eventually Eddie Boassen Hagen bridges, but he's spent from the effort, and when Sagan goes he can't follow.

Across the line the precocious kid does some weird chicken wing dance. I'm into it. He's young, he's destroying all comers, and he's brash as all hell.

Rolly calls it a night. He regrets nothing, but on posts a lot of instagram pictures of empty coffee cups the next day.

When There's No One Around.

Prologue.

I'm writing this with the double edged sword of time passed - sure, hindsight helps, but my memory ain't so great. FJ and I had been riding earlier in the day, and apparently this fatigue sickness isn't abating as quickly as I'd like it to. In short, I was wrecked.

At around 6pm we headed down to Docklands to watch Essendon play Footscray. It wasn't a great car ride. FJ sung along to the stereo and I stared into the road ahead. When the fatigue strikes I'm pretty much useless to anyone - I can't talk, I can't move so great, I can barely think. There was only one thing for it. Artificial stimulation.

Once we'd pulled into the parking lot, bought tickets and located our seats, we set about hitting up the snack bar. The "Healthy Foods" section was disturbingly empty, but it serves themselves right for not having any vegan options. We settled on some dubiously vegan chips and a couple of Cokes. It didn't solve the problem, but it was close enough - no regrets. I also picked up the Footy Record, and let FJ do the wordsearch while we waited for the game to start.

When the opening siren went it was obvious that the game was going to be a one sided affair. There were some pretty smooth skills on display, but only by the Bombers. It was good watching from an aesthetic point of view, but there wasn't a whole lot of passion involved. We kicked back and relaxed, made some vague comments about the game, tried desperately to stay warm and stretched out. The Footscray fans in front of us left at half time, so we were able to kick our feet on the seats, sprawl out a little. Even the security guards didn't seem to care.

Eventually the final siren sounded and we found our way out of the stadium. Rolly had organized a party at Duggan's house, in part to celebrate the beginning of the tour, but mostly to celebrate his birthday. After we drove around West Melbourne for a while, trying to find Duggan's place, we stormed up some stairs and burst into the house, to be greeted by a ten foot screen and box upon box of beers, both ginger and otherwise.

The only thing missing was Rolly. Apparently he had started at The Worker's Club - a bar I swore off when it stopped being The Rob Roy - and was having a little trouble leaving. He missed the first couple of riders, but really, the prologue was a 6.4 kilometre time trial - pretty much nothing interesting was ever going to happen until the last hour or so - and even that was a generous estimation.

When he eventually rolled in - no pun intended - he had a whole bunch of rad blokes with him. The noise in the apartment skyrocketed. Gene promptly snuggled up into Duggan's swag and fell asleep. Benzy was drinking some ridiculous Vodka Cruiser flavour and gave it a surprisingly positive review. Sime and FJ yelled to each other across the room. Rolly danced in front of the screen. I was still totally wrecked, and no amount of ginger beer could recuperate me, so I pretty much just kicked back and enjoyed the lolz.

In front of us - in pretty close to life size - cyclists were tearing themselves inside out. Sylvan Chavanel, with his strangely aerodynamic face, set a hot time early, but was destined to be usurped as the big guns stepped up. First Wiggins - the former track pursuiter, no stranger to turning himself inside out over comparatively short distances - took over the hot seat, then Cancellara made it his own by a massive seven seconds. The rowdiness in Duggan's living room increased significantly - except in Gene's case, because he was still asleep.

As last year's winner, Cadel was last out of the gates. He'd already talked down his chances, and he had a point - the course was far too short for him. By the time he'd finished he was eleven seconds or so down on Wiggins, but three weeks of cycling is a very long time, and he didn't seem too concerned. Nor did any of the rest of us. We piled out the door and into the street. I went looking in my bag for something and found a handful of mandarins. Before I knew it folks were pelting them at each other in the cold, cold night. Man, getting hit by one would've stung.

Federal Bureaus And Fraternal Orders.

Friday Roundup blah blah blah, cycling blah blah blah, Tour de France blah blah blah, who gives a flying fuck? Ryan Gosling is in town! I have the next two weeks off, and I intend to use that time to camp out in Docklands, waiting for him to stroll by. Then I'll casually bump into him and we'll fall in love. After that this blog will be all about our beautiful life together.

Alright, second only in importance to Ryan Gosling being in town is the surprising news that it is my birthday next Thursday. I'm not having a party, however, because on the same night my friends Kit and Big Al are having their going-away party. That wouldn't be such a big deal, if they weren't going away on their bicycles. Still not such a big deal? They're going to ride all the way around the world. It's going to take them two years. That, my friends, is a bona fide fucking adventure. Check out their site here. I especially like the bit outlining their agreements to ensure they get along.

My family also seem a little too distracted at the moment, given that the Saturday after my 33rd birthday marks the 1st birthday of my only nephew, Blake. I'll be heading up there to continue what I see as my major role in his life, which is to convince him that he is named after Blake Schwarzenbach. Whose best song I only just this morning decided is From A Tower. Controversial!

Friend of The New Timer and a dude who remembers me making out with Bernadette Neulist in year 8 Dave Hogan has also started writing a blog. The dude writes exceptionally well, which is the main reason I'm linking to it here, despite it's subject matter. If homebrew is your #1 jam, you should check it out.

Not much else going on this week, folks. Well, other than FJ and I, in different houses, on different sides of the city, totally independently unaware of each other, shaving our heads in unison. Now we look like the dork twins from dork town. However, like I mentioned earlier, starting today I have two weeks off, and FJ doesn't mind turning up to work sleep deprived, so if you're up late watching The Tour, you should drop us a line.

These Broken Guitars.

xbbx: Alright, so FJ, it's been fucking ages. Let's talk pro cycling!

FJ?

James?

Jamesy?

FJ: HELLO

BEEN TRYING TO BUY FOOTY TICKETS

xbbx: Oh yeah? I thought cycle racer types didn't like football.

FJ: That is incorrect. Footy is a great game. I like going to games and yelling MONGREL and BALL a lot.

Xbbx: Do you ever go to cycle races and yell out MONGREL and BALL?

  

FJ: It depends if Gene is racing or not, but generally, I'll yell something about sandbagging, and occasionally I might accuse someone of not pulling a turn. But as the great Steve 

Duggan says, "Speak with your legs". This is, unfortunately, where I run into trouble.

Xbbx: Your leg mouths don't work?

FJ: Not very well no, they kind of wheeze a lot.

Xbbx: Maybe you should get an asthma pump for your legs. Apparently they're all the rage in the pro peloton. Which, incidentally, is what we're here to talk about.

FJ: Yeh that's true. Thoughts on the state of peleton?

Xbbx: well, the Tour de France is coming up. I know, because Rolly told me about it. It sounds like a pretty big deal.

FJ: It's like the Giro, but with a more respectable jersey colour, and the stages are more boring.

Xbbx: Totally. Though this year a bunch of the stages are a bit shorter, which is nice. I don't need to wait six hours to see the breakaway get reeled in and Cavendish win a stage.

FJ: Man all the tour nerds will hate that. They love nothing more than watching 9 hours of grainy footage of very skinny men ride through sunflower fields. I prefer to sleep and watch the highlights. That way all the boring stuff (cycling tactics) is gone and all the good stuff (crashes, tears, and winning) is all present. It doesn't mean Wiggins' ankles are gone though. They're still there, weird as ever.

Xbbx: Those ankles are likely to win the Tour, Jamesy.

FJ: Yes but consider the style Bailey. Evans won the tour too. But what are we talking about? His chin, and his dog. I will concede, however, Wiggins has excellent sock height

Xbbx: If I hear another word about fucking sock height I will fucking quit cycling altogether and just drive everywhere forever more. Oh, wait...

FJ: Socks are important Bailey, you can't just rage quit cycling because no one likes your Adidas ankle socks.

Xbbx: EVERYONE LIKES MY ADIDAS 4 FOR $20 ANKLE SOCKS.

FJ: Yes, yes. anyway. What do you think will happen to Cadel?

Xbbx: I think he will crash at some point, cry at some point, and eventually do something heroic that makes us all love him, but he won't win.

FJ: Yeh, either that, or he will just flat out suck. Like, I’m talking falling off eight times in a time trial Alex Rasmussen style

Xbbx: Nah, see, I think he'll go alright, but won't win. Because if he won, he'd no longer be our 'little Aussie battler', and the Herald-Sun would start to be all blase about him.

FJ: Yeh, it's true, we love ourselves some battlers that win, but we love battlers that don't win even more. Like the Anzacs at Gallipoli. I'm the first to admit that even my steely, ice cold heart was melted when Cadel won last year, but I'm back with fresh poison and cynicism and I reckon he's gonna choke. Meanwhile Wiggo will take his little ankles and pedal his way to a certain flawless victory. Or, alternatively, and I will admit that this is less likely, Cavandish will win. This will only occur if he just keeps riding after his sprint victories. He'll make up a lot of time that way. He ain't too clever, so I think this is probably an outside twenty to one chance.

Xbbx: You may be on to something there. Cavendish may have mellowed a little bit due to fatherhood, however. I'm also concerned that he's peaking for the Olympics, and won't be on song for the tour. Have you seen him lately? Dude looks skinny as all hell.

FJ: No, I don't look at in form athletes because I am flat out fat right now (sorry Duggan). That said, he does seem to have less of a pot belly. I reckon he'll race the first half or so of the tour, then fuck off to recover for the Olympics, where he will inevitably realize, at some point during the road race, that cycling in the Olympics is like tennis in the Olympics, which, by the way, is like wearing a beret. Fucking retarded. He will then probably leave the race to go eat pasta. Or maybe a cornish pastie. And good on him.

Xbbx: I gotta say, I'm pretty stoked to see Peter Sagan in the tour this year. Remember how excited everyone was about Phillippe Gilbert last year? Yeah, if you take everyone's excitement, and distill it down into one person, that's me about Peter Sagan. Dude is a mad dog. I wanna see him take a lap on the Champs D'Elysees.

FJ: He probably will. I love that guys twitter account. I feel like there might be some real theatrics from people like Sagan

Xbbx: There better be. Because the tour is so important it can be a little dull at times, hey. One day racing is so much better.

FJ: Exactly. It's make or break. No time to consider, no time to let settle in. In the tour, so much is on the line. Sponsorship, team deals, money, that people are cautious. The only real excitement comes from either nobodies who are looking for their 15 minutes, or from the GC riders when shit gets really real. But that's usually like about half an hour collectively over 70 hours of racing. Like I said, plenty of time to make tea. 

Actually, I never said that, sorry

Xbbx: So why do we all get so excited about the tour then? Is it just because it's on every night for three weeks? That's like three straight weeks of Christmas!

FJ: I’m not sure. I think because of the drama that is created. It's like the theatre. Actually, no, it's more like a soap opera. You tune in to see what the next installment will bring. You spend three weeks watching humans, just like you, but nothing like you, slowly but surely bury themselves for a myth, an image: to be the best. To become an immortal. People bullshit about cycling being the modern day gladiatorial conflict, which is rubbish because there are no lions or Christians. But there is a sense in which these guys are trying to immortalize themselves. History is so entwined in the tour, perhaps because it plays out on the same stage every year, that it develops a sense of narrative. Legendary climbs become so much more than, say, a 9% average gradient. They become a story. And that's what we tune in for.

That and Gabriel Gate

Xbbx: Fuck James, that was, like, poetry n shit. I reckon that might do us for tonight, in fact.

FJ: Now I sound like a wanker.

And for the record, Gabriel, we all know you're in Frankston

YOU'RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE

Xbbx: Beautiful. Thanks FJ!

Whose Music Will You Run To For Shelter?

Goddamn, I woke up in a bad mood this morning. But then I remembered Public Enemy.



Sure, this is recent PE, acknowledged universally as not as good as classic PE. But hell, it's a banger, and has the triumphant horn sections that the Bomb Squad are famous for. Rumour has it that PE's production went downhill with the advent of tighter copywrite protection of samples, when the legal industry started taking note of what rappers were up to. Rich white dudes suing poor black dudes, attempting to take away what was a fierce form of personal expression, the Black CNN, which happened to call out those rich white dudes? Yeah, let's stop pretending that was all about protecting the rights of the original artists, shall we? Kinda reminds me of what happened in Iraq, where the first laws enacted under the new Mission Accomplished American Regime were copywrite laws. Not laws determining how the new government would run, not laws defining how elections would run, not laws to ensure the population would be fed and hydrated and housed, but laws protecting the Iraqi people from the scourge of pirated copies of the Lion King.



I was already pretty politically aware by the time I discovered PE, and it was initially the politics and aggression that drew me to them - it was like punk rock with beats, big fat cacophonies of noise, blasting through with righteous lyrics that I could shout at teachers when they were, like, trying to oppress me, man.



But as I got more and more into them, it was the production that kept me there. Those layers of sound, those James Brown breaks. In the "Welcome To The Terrordome" movie there's a sweet bit where the band are all sitting in the back of a van. It's real early on in the PE timeline, and they're all real skinny and wearing all black. Someone puts on a James Brown track and they all just start really getting into it, nodding their heads and generally feeling it. It's a killer moment, and it makes you just a little more aware of their musicianship, how they are songwriters first and political orators second.



There's so much PE on YouTube that it's difficult to find individual songs - for example, I've been looking for the above clip from that movie for months now, without success. I was looking for an example of how the band eventually overcame the sampling problem, and eventually I remembered this clip. I guess by this stage PE were rich enough and famous enough to simply call the guy who made the original, and see if he wanted to play on their new version.



Plus, it's a nice mellow track to end on.

I Hope We Don't Change Too Much.

That's my left hand up there, and apparently you can't tell too much about me in the present day from my left hand. According to some streams of palmistry the left hand represents what you were born with, your genetically predisposed personality traits, the nature rather than the nurture. On this hand you can see that the worry lines are deeply etched, the relationship lines permanent and unflinching, the heart line serious and unbroken, the small finger stretching wildly away from the other three. Make of this what you will. I don't believe any of it anyway.

Strangely, as a cyclist I have next to no superstitions. I don't have to put one shoe on before the other, don't need my stuff laid out in a particular way, don't have a lucky pair of knicks. Sure, I have a routine before a race, places where I like things to go, but this is more about ease than anything else, and if the routine is thrown off I won't bat an eye. What I like most about racing is that purity of focus, how you're not thinking about anything else while you're out on the track. In fact, here's an excellent summation of what I'm thinking during a race:

Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Waitwait. Waitwaitwait. Waitwait, Waitwait. Ok. Ok. Ok. Yep. Now. Now! NOW! NOW!

You will note that there's no room there for me to wonder whether or not I'm wearing my favourite pair of socks. If I spent three seconds thinking about whatever stupid superstition I have, I'd likely miss the move and my race would be over.

But in my regular life a few little things sneak in. Whenever I forget things at my house, and have to go back to get them, I always stop and wait a little bit. I'll be standing there, having just retrieved my phone or keys or computer cable, just waiting. Because there's a slim chance that this twist of fate may mean that I've somehow avoided some catastrophe that would've occurred had I continued on my way. If I had've remembered my phone, had it been snugly in my right hip pocket where it always is, I would've kept driving to work up Victoria Rd at 8.22am and probably would've had a car accident. But because I forgot it, and had to go back home to get it, I was driving up Victoria Rd at 8.27am instead, and missed that potential accident by five minutes. The act of just going home, however, isn't enough. I always wait a little bit, just to make sure.

I'm also suspicious of folks who claim to "have a feeling" about a particular situation in the future, about portentous signals or signs of foreboding. But I will go months, even years, without accidentally cutting myself (or deliberately, for that matter), and then all of a sudden I'll be covered in bandaids, a series of clumsy accidents resulting in bloodletting. Going back over my journals, times where I have been cut and scraped and grazed have nearly always coincided with times of dramatic upheaval, of serious things changing. The more blood drawn, the greater number of cuts, the shorter period of time in which they occur, the more significant the changes.

The other day I dropped a table and it clipped my knee, leaving three tiny lines of red. Later that night I was doing the dishes and was a little too enthusiastic with the blender blades. Minutes later I walked into the living room to change the music and stepped on a needle and thread that FJ had dropped while sewing. An hour or so further on I dropped a glass on the edge of the dining table, ruining our Tom Boonen tablecloth and slicing my finger open. The laundry basket was heavier than I expected post-wash, and as it fell from my hands it clipped the knuckle of my thumb. The dry air has wreaked havoc with my hands, and shoving my fingers into my pocket to retrieve my wallet tore some of the skin around my fingernail away. I started to worry about blood loss, so sat myself down to some sweet black tea.

Sipping at the Irish Breakfast, I begin to worry about what the future had in store. I still don't know. But I know that something big is coming. Well, perhaps I feel like something big is coming. I might be wrong, and another superstition might be disproved. I'll let you know.

I Wish I Could Peel Away Your Humid Human Skin.

My nephew Oskar, who is seven, has this friend called Isabelle, also seven.  Isabelle has down syndrome.

Isabelle had a couple of guinea pigs that she loved more than anything in the world, spending a lot of her time talking to them, hugging them, chasing them, and generally having a great time.

The other day Gillian, Isabelle's mum, heard a strange sound coming from the garden.  She ran outside, and there was Isabelle.  She was covered in fur, and looked a bit concerned.  On the ground next to Isabelle was one of the guinea pigs.  It was limping a bit, and making an awful squeaking sound.

Turns out Isabelle had hugged the poor thing so tight that its ribs cracked.  It died.

Isabelle had literally loved the animal to death.

Isabelle learnt a lot about death that day.  She did something bad, to be sure, but there was none of the usual fanfare.  No tears, no scolding, nothing broken.

But one of her friends was dead, because of a mistake she didn't know she was making.

As life lessons go, that's a fairly morbid one to go through at seven, especially when you have other uncertainties about the world around you.

I mean, Oskar just lost his dad, and he's obviously coming to grips with it as any seven year old should.  By shouting a lot, followed by occasional moments of vivd introspection.  But he's a switched on kid.  He knows what's up.  As hard as the next few months and years are going to be in some sense, he's going to be ok.

But Isabelle is another story.  Isabelle has to work harder to make sense of the world around her.  Sometimes she makes mistakes.  That's ok, we all do.  The difference is that Isabelle doesn't know what to make of the end result.  Her mate is gone, and it's because she did something wrong.  But what was it?  All she did was love the animal with all her might.

I feel like the worst thing that could come out of this situation is Isabelle coming to believe that you can kill something by loving it too much.


 

Radio, Radio, Sing Me Something I Know.

Whoa! I know, right? It's been two whole weeks! But that's right, it's once again time for another Friday Roundup. Lots of advice about what to do when you're stuck indoors this time around, because I know that I'm sure as hell not going out in this weather.

Ok, ok, maybe I will make one exception. The Melburn-Roobaix is on Sunday! But really, chances are that if you're reading this blog, you already knew that. I'll be down there helping out at the Brunswick Cycling Club tent. FJ will be there trying to sell Masis. And, even though you've just met him, and it is crazy, you should give him your number, then call him Jamesy.

Dirty Deeds (and I) got a sweet write up in CX Magazine the other day, but the presentation sessions really highlighted the need for folks to read this blog post on podium etiquette by friend of The New Timer Monique Hanley. She's one of the good ones, that Monique. I wonder what kind of music she listens to. Maybe I'll see if she wants to do a Music Wednesday. 

Award for best new tumblr of the day goes to When In Melbourne, which rings disturbingly true.

But it's also good to see Liam posting again in his most excellent Swine! Before Pearls blog. This entry about the use of X-Code imagery led me through the internet rabbitwarrens for hours, and is especially pertinent because it uses Sime's logo for Dirty Deeds as an example. This ain't no diss of the logo - I think it's brilliant - but it's always interesting to suggest where inspiration has come from, and if it was deliberate or not.

Ok, so KO is out of town, and Rolly just texted me suggesting that when she's out of town everyone just stays inside and watches DVDs all weekend. Which, incidentally, was already exactly my plan for tonight. To make us seem less dependent, however, both FJ and I will be heading to the FOA pre-Roobaix mixer at 99 Problems on Saturday night. Kicks off around 9.

And after that, some time around 12, we're going to Charltons to do Karaoke. You should definitely come to that. Someone has to save me from myself.

They Keep Calling Me.

Petie Hyde and Mark “Parko” Muscat had a fistfight. It was at a party out at James “Gibbo” Gibson’s farm outside of Stawell. Some words were spoken, Parko swung his fist around a bit, but there wasn’t much in it. It seemed like the damage was probably more emotional than physical. So when Petie stormed off into the night, I figured I should probably go with him. We didn’t really talk about much. The walk was about five miles.

When we got into town he’d calmed down a bit. I left him at the taxi rank down the bottom of the mall and began to walk back out to Gibbo’s place. At the top of the mall, across from the Commercial Hotel, I saw three or four guys run out of a basement flat. I’d been in that flat before – it used to belong to a friend’s older sister, and we’d go there when we wanted her to buy us beer.

A girl stepped out of the flat. I stopped and watched her for a while. There was something not quite right. She started swaying. I asked her if she was alright. When she didn’t reply I walked a bit closer. She was bleeding.

I lay her down on the concrete. She was trying to say something. I looked at her wounds. They didn’t seem too bad. She was clutching at her stomach. I lifted her shirt a little, just to reveal the area around her hip, and saw the great gaping hole in her flesh. A couple of inches higher was her tattoo – a lightly drawn outline of a horse’s head.

I talked to her a little bit, held her hand and stuff. Before too long the guys came back. They’d called an ambulance. There was a guy still down in the flat, waving a kitchen knife around. No one knew what to do if he came out. We waited for the ambulance to come. The station was about seventy metres away, further up the hill.

About half an hour later I left her with one of the guys to go get a cold cloth from inside the Commercial. When I came back the ambulance guys were picking her up. I sat down on the kerb and watched. One of her friends went with her.

The cops came and took my name. Melissa Wilmott came out from the pub and put her arm around me. Before too long I remembered that I’d left all of my stuff out at the farm. So I walked out to the edge of town, then started running. I was a bit healthier then than I am now, and used to run in and out of town pretty often. It wasn’t such a big deal.

When I got back I saw Gibbo’s mum, Nan. She asked me what was wrong. I can’t remember what I said. Somehow she hooked me up with Kimmy Muscat and Lynley Hoiles, who were catching a cab back into town. They dropped me off near home.

It was mid afternoon when I woke up. I told my parents I had to go to police station, but wouldn’t tell them why. They’d heard some talk already, and had a vague idea of what was going on. They offered to drive me, but I decided to walk. It was a nice day outside.

Her friend from the ambulance was inside the station, waiting to be interviewed. She recognized me from the night before. She had followed the girl all the way into the surgery. The hospital was understaffed. They didn’t have enough hands. The doctor kept asking her to press down in different places, to hold together different parts of her friend. There was so much blood, she said.

We let the conversation lapse.

The doctor came in. It was my doctor. He looked at us, and shifted awkwardly. There was nothing we could’ve done, he told the noticeboard behind us. Her injuries were just too serious.

Her name was Kim, which was the name of my Canadian girlfriend. I can’t remember her last name.

The next day I went to school. It was a stupid decision. Aside from a cursory hug from Lynley, no one acknowledged what had happened. It was hot. When the end of the day came I walked up towards the mall, stopping to take my shoes off on the way.

My teacher Jeff Cameron must’ve seen me out of the staffroom window. He stormed out the front doors.

       Where are your shoes.

       They’re in my bag.

       Put them back on.

       It’s after school hours, and I’m off school premises. I don’t have to put them back on.

       Put them back on.

       I’m sorry Mr Cameron, but no.

I continued on my way. He said something triumphant, then stormed back inside.

When I got home that night my parents told me I’d been suspended. Deliberate disobedience. My punishment was a day. I took a week.

The next fortnight was school holidays. I rode my bike in the mountains, wrote, slept.

Two weeks later, just as school was about to go back, my grandmother died. My dad asked me to be a pallbearer. I declined. I took another week off.