this is a motorcycle i like. it's "samurai" style. i could go on about the definition of a samurai-style motorycle made with an old american v-twin, but i won't bother you. it's just one thing i like today.
i like her today, too. i wonder what she was thinking when she took that photo. was it, "i'm so lucky to pay rent this month," or, "i hope he doesn't want me to suck his dick afterward?" if i was there, she'd be thinking, "now i probably have to pierce my other nipple."
yes, dear. and i am going to do that myself.
i like this a lot today. it makes me think fondly of a joke i tell when indigo calls me an old man. i say "stay off my lawn! punk kids!" it's a thing we do. anyway. this sign was made by me in the future, 20 years from now.
i really like this today. the whole ouroboros thing. i have one tattooed on the inside of my left wrist, with a woman wearing a corset, arms up and wonderfully ample breasts thrust forward, inside the snake eating it's own tail. the "tastes like chicken" tag is because it's funny. like the snake is telling you what his tail tastes like and besides, i've eaten snake. tastes like chicken.
okay, i have to admit. i like this today only because i can print von ditch. i mean van crutch. no. i mean so i could write von dutch. yeah. von dutch von dutch von dutch! i'm gonna be so cool and popular now! i make fun of you because you googled "von dutch" and found this photo. click it and go away now. for the rest of you:
boobies! gigantic, pierced boobies! i like boobies very much today. they remind me of jesus. hm. boobie jesus. he ought to star in an off-bradway play about himself. starring brad pitt, of course. bradway? get it? ha ha, motherfucker. the typo meter of the cosmos just broke. superman is way stressed out and spiderman? don't even. he's making a web so big it's gonna make an evil corporate ceo angry! and you think you know what you're talking about. please.
i like my dog today. i love him. his name is turbodog. he is named after my favorite beer. he likes me, too. that's nice. when i come home, he runs to get his rope and he brings it to me. if i don't take it, he'll sit there and hold it. photography did not steal any of his soul. glenn beck's soul?
no. glenn beck sold his soul a long time ago. or was it when he went to fox news? and yes, i like that. i like fucking whores. glenn beck is a stupid fucking whore. for money. when i'm king of the world, he's a diamond miner in south africa. fucking glenn beck. a whore will tell you you're king of the world when she's sucking your dick. watch the video above and see if you don't think glenn beck is sucking the dick of insurance companies.
mmmm. bureaucrasemen.
08.30.09 - 4:05PM CST
"made in america," a six-pack of boobies (we will have nun of that in this house!) and a brave, smart-assed chick
I was reading the news on an online biker mag where some dude was writing about how all the name brands were made in other countries but the generic brands, which cost less, were "Made in America," and I thought, "Wow! America is the generic brand for the world!"
Great. Now all we have to do is get rid of the red stripes on the flag and make it all blue and white, just like a generic product.
I understood where the gentleman was coming from but it is so much more complicated than simply buying something that says "Made in the USA." Most "American" corporations are manufacturing in other countries. It isn't how much money you make, it's what you can get with it. If it's cheaper from China, Americans are going to buy it. Ever heard of Walmart?
The CIA ranks the US Gross Domestic Product at 17th in the world when per person of the populace (AKA: per capita) is considered the mean. A bunch of European countries and a few Arab countries produce more per person than we do in the good ol' US of A. Norway produces more than twice the GDP per capita than we do. Norway. Where the sun don't shine and it's winter 25/366. Yet we still cling to the thought that we are some sort of economic and manufacturing powerhouse? At 17th?
Oh man! I'm always rooting for the 17th best team! Go mediocrity! You make it okay for me!
What about the GDP of China, Mexico, India, Taiwan and Japan? What about the countries we most blame for our sagging production? Stealing our jobs! None of them are in the top 20 until Japan appears at 25. We still produce more per capita than they do. Lots more. It's that they are more efficient and make more profit on what they manufacture than we do.
Interestingly, Jersey, a British Crown Dependency located off the coast of France, with a population of 91,000, produces more GDP per capita than we do. That's embarrassing because who the fuck ever heard of them? And what do they make? Fruit and vegetables, that's what. Do you know that some of our founding fathers believed America should focus on being an agrarian-based economy?
Rant against agribusiness corporations deleted. The independent farmer is practically gone from the American landscape. Almost deleted, anyway.
Since the website I was reading is largely dedicated to American-made motorcycles (a factor in determining our industrial production), let me share something else. According to the CIA, our growth rate is 148th in the world. NAFTA really helped us out, didn't it? To put that into perspective; Kazakhstan ranked five spots higher than us and has a growth rate of three and one-half times more than ours in terms of industrial production. Person-for-person, their populace is kicking ours in the ass in terms of manufacturing products.
Per capita, we are also overweight. I bet they are not.
The only thing that keeps us from social and economic collapse is an expensive, foreign-deployed armed force that increasingly costs more and more to keep us from having the countries we owe trillions to from calling in their debts. War costs money and lives and reduces our standard of living. Let us not dwell much upon the CEO's of "American" corporations raking in billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan while standing in the blood of our soldiers, claiming they are creating freedom and helping the world as they dine behind giant, razor wire-lined walls. With their bodyguards and tanks in the street to help keep them from being killed by the grateful and newly-freed populace. This is where I mention double-edged swords and a catch-22 and revolution, but I think you get the point.
Okay, now for the bigger point. No, not the one on the top of my head. Just because it says "Made in the USA," it does not mean it is really American made. Take Harley-Davidson for example. They get parts from Japan, Mexico and other foreign nations. Because they are assembled in America, it's labeled "Made in the USA." I take umbrage with their definition of what is "made" and what is "American." Many "Made in America" products use this slight-of-hand tactic in what our government allows to be called "American Made." Is the steel in your American-assembled bike frame from Ohio or China? Is the fabric in the teddy bear you bought for junior from Massachusetts or India? And all that Harley-branded clothing, from t-shirts to jackets to boots, try finding a "Made in America" tag on any of those products. But their bikes are "American," so everything is!
USA! USA!
Even Budweiser is now owned by a European conglomerate. Michelob, a Bud brand, uses imported hops in it's beers. You can find that out on their own website. But Bud is American? I'm not so sure.
Now guess how many parts from India, Mexico, Canada, Japan and Taiwan are in a car assembled in Detroit? I don't know exactly, but it's hundreds of parts.
Got a compact disc of a movie filmed in America, starring American actors, with an American soundtrack? The cameras they filmed on were made in Japan. The plastic and paper were assembled in Taiwan and shipped to you so you can see how a movie lot in the San Fernando valley can be made to look like New York City.
If you aren't angry by now, you're frustrated. Me, too. So little of what you see is really what it presents itself to be.
The way to circumvent the "Made in America" deception is to buy locally and finally realize that almost nothing is honestly American made any more.
To write an American book, I had to get published by some little press in San Francisco that used American-manufactured ink and paper. I wrote the book on a 1929 Royal typewriter. That heavy and beautiful piece of machinery was made in America, fully, 80 years ago. Every piece.... Shit. Where did I get the paper I wrote it on? I don't know. Walmart? Fuck. Maybe my book isn't American after all....
Are the graphics I design or these words I write not American made because I created them on a computer stamped with an American corporation's logo but filled with parts manufactured from Bombay to Guadalajara? Nothing I do is really American made. All I've got is proof I was born here.
Economic globalization will further reduce our standard of living while raising those of other countries. It is the fiduciary equalization of every citizen of the world that banks and governments seek. In the end, nobody is going to care where something is made, as long as they can have it. The ubiquity of want.
Fat. Uneducated. Stupefied by slogans and imagery.
Not all is lost, folks. You can go to your local farmer's market on weekends. You can find a local brewer and probably find great beer there. You can research and visit the shop manufacturing bookcases five miles away. Anything you want, just google it. Make some phone calls. You've got unlimited minutes on your iPhone, manufactured with parts from 30 international companies on three continents, right?
Worried about helping Americans keep their jobs? What's better than shaking the hands of an American when you purchase a product of their hard work? From your own state or town. It will cost more and you will possess less stuff, but it will be as American made as you can get.
Maybe that's the lesson after our decades spent living in excess.
God bless America, founded by revolutionaries who did not agree with the ruling class.
Now, about your credit card debt...
08.29.09 - 1:08PM CST
four years ago today
it was new orleans. katrina. we were there for three days. on the last day, the girls cried, sobbing, frightened. i was as strong as i could be as i took their hands and told them we'd be fine. we didn't take a bus. we didn't wait at the convention center. we walked. we were picked up and driven out on back roads, sometimes around fallen trees or power poles, to texas. i remember the generous people who saved indigo, her punk kid and me. on the way, we saved a scared cocker spaniel. then, we were a new family.
today i remember family and what it means to struggle and pray to live.
our humble home, a 150 year-old house off magazine, the day before katrina.
a lot has happened for us since august 29, 2005, but it doesn't feel like it's been four years. sometimes i see something or hear something and it all comes flooding back and i cry. that's all i will share. time to remember. time for a beer...
our humble home, ten days after katrina.
08.25.09 - 11:43PM CST
because you have probably never seen this
the confederate fighter combat.
i know. it sounds like some kid from arkansas in 1985 named it while judas priest played on his boombox as he drank a warm beer he stole. but fuck. what a radical motorcycle. 120 cubic inches in a 45-degree v-twin. the gas tank is also the frame. the front end is unlinke any ever created.
some say confederate owes their style to the past. i know the owner, matt chambers, would agree. indigo and i met him in new orleans in 2004. he gave us a tour of his shop. the newest bike they were working on, what bacame called the "wraith," was a few sketches in a studio and raw framework with the craziest front end i'd ever seen at the end of the shop, under a wide window, illuminating the spectre from six feet up the wall. mister chambers did not want to tell us much about it except to say the frame would be the fuselage for both gasoline and oil. wow. that was enough to blow me away. as for bikes that were in production, he showed us improvements and upgrades on two hellcats that were being assembled. he spoke about his love of early bike racing. like way early. like turn of the twentieth century early.
it is interesting that he has created such aggressive bikes. those old board track racers were seriously feminine. look:
they flowed. his are angular. right triangles and rules that made pyramids. i wonder what that means about him? who cares. the fighter combat is the most incredible, most badass, most unique manufactured motorcycle on the planet.
120 will be built. each by hand. they cost well over a hundred grand.
they are going to race a fighter at this year's bonneville salt flat races in utah before october 10th. confederate/matt chambers wants to beat the record they allegedly set last year (if you've got proof, email it so i can print it here and credit you as the source) with their wraith at 166.5 miles per hour.
dig the seating and leg position on the wraith compared to the fighter. one is a racer. one is a cruiser.
a co-worker of mine was run off the road this weekend. i was run off the road on july second. another co-worker was run off the road in may and before that another was in january. three in three months. four in six. this is what his bike looked like in it's original form:
he had it tricked to be more of a cafe racer. i never got to see it. he finished the build and brought it to work on saturday, my day off. that night someone ran him off the road. he has pins in his collarbone and a busted rib.
you fucking bastards. when i'm king of the world we'll catch you all and beat you up, leaving you with the same wounds your inconsiderate and idiotic motorcar driving skills left us with. then we'll take your cars and crush them in front of you and give you a motorcycle just like the one we rode when you so fucking selfishly ran us off the road.
for him, a wrecked 200cc honda thumper. he was getting on the freeway, just as i was. i will destroy your car, driver of the white audi tt, and shave the skin off your hands and arms, light the wounds on fire, give you a black eye, and break your left foot as a giant machine crushes your car while i wail on you as a national audience laughs at you during the live feed, transmitting your pain like the joke you are to their fat, pink, spittle-dripping prime-time guffaws.
there. that corey feld better, man.
nobody thinks that's funny but me and the band "circle of power."
enjoy your 1800cc v-twin beast of 720 pounds, audi fuck. try talking on the cell phone while driving that.
as for the dude wearing a tucked-in polo shirt who ran my friend off the road this weekend, enjoy your broken ribs and collarbone. see how you feel riding 200cc's on the freeway at sixty. bitch.
oh yeah, you see that font below, where it says "misteradiant?" i see it everywhere now. god. that graphic is two years old. and nobody thinks i know what's cool years before it is. go. check my archive. see it the first week of september of 2007. i love that font. but now everybody is using it. crap. now i have to find something new.
you bastards. get out of my way and leave me alone.
and feed me, fuck me and drink me.
then smile and ask for more.
bastards. i had it first.
08.22.09 - 9:47PM CST
philadelphia eagles, michael vick and their corporate sponsors
08.17.09 - time is a human construct created to keep us from losing our minds
taking me seriously means you want to send me money. seriously. click that link.
spending time on love
like love gives a man money
not if you're an executive working seventy hours a week
like you're an artist on a friend's couch
an executive for an oil company
the artist with a preston motor on his friend's kitchen table
and he knows his girlfriend would fuck him
but he won't
he loves her too
but if he showed it
he'd have no place to rebuild his motor for the cafe racer frame he's built in the garage
songs i've written in my head
a story like elanor rigby but with a blowjob
and never sung for anybody
as much as they might need to hear it
as much as i need to sing
at the top of my lungs
sometimes remembering something from the past will only make you cry
so please don't tell me
i remember
they don't call me heart attack for no reason
i see it in their eyes
even if they are in the e's of their and they and therefore
god
only god understands
not you
i've tried to make you
console you
poke you jab you laughing see
freedom or death
it's all i've got
like you
do you at least have somebody to love you?
i read the news today
oh boy
nothing like seeing your photo on the front page
and the words cheese and pitchfork in the headline
a shadow on the sun
because of the beer
it's round and shiny in my tumme when it come sout in pee
because someone loved me and made me dinner
there was a dolphin and it sprayed it's blowhole in my girlfriend's face
and i yelled "jey! ('cause i'm mexican) that's what i do!"
she laughed and i took a photo with my mobile phone
so i ate a tuna sandwich the next day to make it okay
vote independent and quit thinking i make sense
i do
you just can't handle it
that's why you never write
godzilla would have to be as big as me
and i'd still kick his ass
the deliverance of forgiveness
my struggle with christ
08.15.09 - 9:50PM CST >>
billy lane and the pursuit of happiness
Yesterday was a bummer for Billy. If you don't know anything other than he is an incredibly talented custom motorcycle builder, let me tell you. He has Associate of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and with that knowledge has created some incredible bikes, including the famous one with a hubless rear wheel. He's written two books and has been on the boob tube numerous times since 2002, when the custom chopper craze began. Missradiant and I met him in New Orleans in 2004. He was quite a celebrity by then, things were good and he was just walking around the Superdome looking at vendor displays by himself. He was as gracious as could be when she asked for a photo with him. It was a happy day for all of us and it is clear why he has a reputation in the industry as being a great guy. He is also someone that spends a lot of time and money in charitable endeavors for the military, seniors and more, including Big Brothers and Big Sisters and the Make-a-Wish Foundation. His generosity is well documented and his fame in the industry is only rivaled by Jesse James.
But Billy fucked up. Badly.
Billy Lane likes to party hard. Beer and babes. It's part of the biker lifestyle for many of us, including me. For a while, some bike builders were like rock stars and it's well documented how rock-n-roll and sex and drugs and alcohol mix in a sometimes-volatile concoction. His license was already suspended for speeding violations and other traffic infractions, but he'd never been busted for a DUI. He was just having as much fun as he could and I guarantee you he never wanted to hurt anybody. Now he has been sentenced to six years in prison, his driver's license is revoked forever and he will be subjected to random drug and alcohol tests at least through three years of probation. All he wanted was a good time, but those times are going to be over for the next decade, if not forever. He is not selfish. He isn't a jerk. He fucked up. Sometimes fame makes you forget that shit can happen to you, too.
Shit happened in Florida on September 4th of 2006 while he was driving his giant Dodge truck from his Choppers, Inc. shop to his home. As he crossed a double-yellow line to pass some vehicles at almost 70 mph, he struck and killed a man on a moped. Park Ranger Gerald Morelock was 56.
Billy had been drinking all day and the police took his blood, to which Billy protested, finding it contained more then twice the legal driving limit for alcohol. According to published reports, Billy had to be held down by a few cops for them to jab him.
That is what this story is about; the pursuit of happiness and it's effects on the individual and the masses.
About the masses:
I'd like to make it clear that taking Billy's blood when he forbade it was in violation of his Fifth Amendment rights. It's an unconstitutional act to tell somebody that they must submit to a test that might prove their guilt. What part of "nor shall any person be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" didn't these cops understand? To best that illegal act, if you don't submit, most states call it an automatic admission of guilt and suspend/revoke your driver's license. State courts cannot defy nor suspend Federal constitutional protections.
Legal protection against self-incrimination was founded by the common use of torture for extracting information and confessions in England. The shift from widespread use of forced confession came to a head in 1647 when "The Humble Petition of Many Thousands" was presented to Parliament with thirteen demands, of which the right against self-incrimination was listed third.
Before that time, anyone refusing to take a specific oath swearing innocence, usually before hearing any charges, was assumed guilty. Puritans, already fleeing for the New World, were refusing to cooperate in taking the oath. Their movement led to civil wars in England and the beheading of King Charles the First. They brought this belief against forced self-incrimination to America and this philosoply was later incorporated into the Bill of Rights.
Why are police using tactics of kings from over 400 years ago in the United States today? Why are Americans forcibly made to submit to a test, without a court-issued warrant, that would incriminate them? Why, if they do not submit, are they assumed guilty and their licenses suspended?
The Fifth Amendment protects witnesses from being forced to incriminate themselves. To "plead the fifth" is to refuse to answer a question because the response could provide self-incriminating evidence punishable by fines, penalties or forfeiture (Counselman v. Hitchcock, 1892). Being forced to give blood is a test which clearly falls within Fifth Amendment rights.
In addition, because blood tests must be administered by violating a person's physical state, they are, as well as "breathalyzer" tests, unconstitutional. The Fourth Amendment makes it pretty clear: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I can find no information that the police had a court-ordered warrant to take Billy's blood.
Mind you, I am Libertarian in my political leanings. We have a Constitution that must be used as a foundation for states to build their own rules upon. How can a state enforce a law directly opposed to the Bill of Rights? Why are the people allowing this?
Billy was forced to give blood, forced to do something that made him a witness against himself, without a warrant to insure that he was secure in his person, and the information illegally gathered was then used against him to fine and penalize him. Talk about blood now. Mine is boiling.
Bikers have a deeply-rooted sense of freedom. I do not understand how Billy's attorney did not file Fourth and Fifth Amendment abuses against the state of Florida in it's case against him. It is my understanding that the Bill of Rights trumps state law. I also like a good fight, and if I were Billy, I'd take this as far as it would go. He probably won't. I'm sure he simply wants to move on.
He will be in prison for one count of vehicular homicide. All that drama with the blood and it isn't even what he goes away for. Let's trample your civil liberties and then forget about it, okay? No.
Regardless, Billy Lane doesn't need to be our hero. He has his own shit to deal with now, even if our freedoms are being eroded like so much sand in a hurricane. We need to do this ourselves. Vote and write to those who "represent" you.
About the individual:
Don't get me wrong, I am not condoning what Billy did, and neither is he. Shortly after the accident, he went to the family and made a personal apology. As the years have dragged on with this case, they have all become close and Billy has promised to start a charitable organization to benefit kids, something that Gerald Morelock was passionate about. At closing arguments yesterday, Gerald's family asked the judge to be lenient so Billy could be better able to help kids. Lots of good he's going to be able to do now that he is in prison.
I don't believe that fame or money should buy freedom, but fame and money can be utilized in ways that benefit society more than what taxpayers are burdened with by paying for one more prisoner. It is going to cost Florida taxpayers almost a quarter of a million dollars to put Billy behind bars for six years.
Billy Lane won't be able to drive again. He also won't be able to shake what he did on that carefree evening, when he should have been more mindful. He has to pass the intersection where Gerald died every day and he's stated that it often makes him weep. It is then, Billy says, that he prays to God for Gerald's soul.
Billy Lane has also stated that he takes full responsibility for what happened, that he was careless and does not seek pity. That's what a good man says and believes. I believe Billy Lane is a good man and it's a shame he will spend the next few years in prison instead of out here with us, driven by what the darkness of his own soul has wreaked, seeking the light. I see the light in Billy Lane's eyes and I am incredibly sorry for him, for those who love him, and for Gerald Morelock's friends and family.
I pray that something good can turn out from all of this. I pray for happiness for Billy and those who have been touched by this tragedy. I believe somehow, some day, that will happen.
08.09.09 - 4:09PM CST >>
a movie poster
he was from another world, where the rulers did as they pleased!
watch him terrorize hot retro chicks, smearing things all over their quivering bodies!
witness the destruction wrought from his lies!
weep with those who believed in him!
hope for survival!
will you make it out alive after the man from planet xxx comes to your town? only god can save you now!!!
08.08.09 - 4:33PM CST >>
it was 40 years ago today...
... when the beatles strolled across the street while their photographer perched on a ladder a few yards down and clicked his camera a few times. it's an iconic image that has been copied a hundred times by the likes of the red hot chili peppers, the simpsons and even sesame street. when this album was recorded, john lennon was struggling with heroin, paul mccartney was doing coke, eric clapton was screwing george harrison's wife and ringo wasn't smiling a lot. sesame street? i love it.
i could write an essay on the social importance of this photograph. instead i'll only write that the cover of "abbey road" also spawned the "paul is dead" phenomenon and the music fucking rocked. i was 13 when i first heard "come together" on the radio. it was 1981 and the radio station in billings, montana, played it every afternoon at the same time. i bought the album - yes, vinyl; before compact discs were invented - and would listen to it with giant red headphones over and over again. that song, on that album, where i could see what they looked like, changed my life. it was then i found i shared the same birthday as john lennon. then john was dead.
in remembrance of the day that photo was shot and for the days when i first heard the beatles, i offer an mp3 of "come together."
08.07.09 - 11:52PM CST >>
to fight death and seek change
in november, missradiant and i got back together after almost eleven months of separation. she was in austin. i was in phoenix. on november 24, i flew her to phoenix. the day before my brother, his wife and my best friend helped me load the truck with my bike and a house full of furniture. the next day, she came and we hung out at my dad's home. the next morning, i drove her, my adopted cocker turbodog and our belongings sixteen hours through arizona, new mexico and into central texas.
when we arrived, i had a couple grand in my pocket left from a little freelance web design gig i got in phoenix and i tried to get a job in design in austin. yeah, right. indigo was working as a bartender in a strip club so i spent a few weeks riding around austin on the bike and drinking beer with naked women. it was good.
we all got colds and by the middle of january i thought i had pneumonia because i wasn't getting better. it was difficult to do anything, even walk, without feeling i was going to pass out. i finally went to a doctor who merely sat me on a bed and called an ambulance. i had an advanced pulmonary embolism and was close to death. great.
i had inherited a blood deficiency that my father contracted in his fifties and it almost killed him, too. lucky me, i get it eleven years sooner. it clots the blood and that gave me the pulmonary embolism because the clots were blocking up my lungs. after four days in the hospital, dozens of shots in the stomach and lots of pills, i was discharged. my lovely woman picked me up and we went home to watch the latest "lost." half way through the show, i had a stroke.
my right arm suddenly went numb and it freaked the shit out of me, almost literally. we rushed back to the hospital. the deal is that everybody is born with a little hole in the wall separating the right and left ventricles of their hearts. for most, the hole heals but up to 30% of us never heal. some end up with heart murmurs and other issues that make the hole apparent, and many live their lives being active without ever knowing they have a hole in their heart. i was one of those people. that night, a small clot got into the right side of my heart from my lungs, went through the hole into the left side, and was pumped to my brain. that's a stroke.
i am very lucky. while my arm went numb, i had control over it. as time has gone by, most of the feeling has come back and i can do everything i used to be able to do with no problem. i can type, ride my motorbike and shave my face easily. i had heart surgery to repair the hole and a filter was placed in my inferior vena cava vein below my right ventricle to keep any potentially harmful clots from entering my heart again.
the day i got out of the hospital i started working at a bar on sixth street as a doorman and bouncer. how's that for a comeback? it's a fun job. i'd grown weary of sitting at a fucking computer all day for the past decade. the owner pays me pretty well. even though it's only part-time, i make more money than some guys i know in i.t. per hour. i also clean the place and the owner has had me do some design on the side. i make very good money doing that. so far i've created a new menu, a sidewalk sign, a t-shirt, and custom matchbooks. hope to do a new website for him soon.
then on thursday, july 2nd i was riding home after 2:00 in the afternoon. i was feeling good, having had a great letter to the editor published in the austin chronicle that day. if you read it, you'll find irony in the rest of what i am about to write.
while getting on the freeway, some douchebag in a white audi tt swerved four lanes without a turn signal and knocked me off the road. the photos of my hand below is what they both looked like as my 750-pound bike and i slid down the ramp at over 40 miles an hour. my arms had wounds just as bad. i wear a little helmet, and while it is no where near dot approved, it helped. while i slid, i put my hands down to keep my face from rubbing off on the pavement as i wondered if i was going to lose my left leg, which was trapped under the bike. when i finally came to a stop, the audi kept on rolling and the cars behind me did the same thing. i pulled my leg out and was thrilled that it did not feel broken and the jeans and boots that i wore did not seem to be too messed up. filled with adrenaline and bleeding, i stepped around my bike and lifted it. the left side of my drag-style handlebars were bent all the way back. the left side of the bike was pretty scratched and dented. i managed to wheel it to the left side of the onramp and whack the kickstand. cars kept passing me.
thanks, austin! stay weird! assholes.
i pulled out my phone from inside my right boot and called missradiant. she called an ambulance and her boss drove her to me. finally, somebody stopped but he left the moment the ambulance arrived. i did not get his name. i was dazed, as you might imagine. i wouldn't let the emt's take me to the hospital. i figured i was fine. i could walk and i'd have a lot of pain, but fuck, i had enough hospital bills i couldn't pay already. but my love, her boss and then my boss, whom i called to tell i wouldn't be in to work for a while, convinced me to go to the hospital. my blood deficiency means i take meds that keep my blood thin and this kind of trauma could easily cause internal hemorrhaging. ok, i thought. fuck. take me to the god-damned hospital.
i went and didn't have to wait in the emergency room too long. indigo's boss kept telling the woman at the desk that due to my leiden-5 blood deficiency, i could be bleeding internally and dying. within minutes i was brought in. after they drugged me with an iv, they x-rayed me. then they put me in the ct scanner. then i waited. then i waited some more. my emergency room doctor came in smiling and said, "you are one lucky bastard!"
take that, death! i mock you!
in the mean time, i've mostly healed and missed less than two weeks of work. in my time off, i got drunk a lot, ate a bunch of vicodin, and repeatedly emailed the editor of bikernet. while doing that, i somehow managed to score a story about a vincent drag racer being built in hollywood that he is going to publish. vincent drag racers are legendary machines and if this bike breaks any record, my article will be the first thing written about it. additionally, bikernet gets over 325,000 unique visitors and eight million hits every month. i'm pretty excited about the opportunity. a lot of people are going to read my story. i'm even going to use capital letters at the beginning of sentences. after that is published, i will work to get on as an editor because, while bikernet is filled with a wealth of fun and important information, it is rife with typos, misspellings and sometimes needs a fact checker. they know that and the owner, who gets my drunken missives, has told me that he'll find a spot for me on his staff after the sturgis rally. i should have something good going this month.
there is so much more to tell but that will be it for now. i don't really feel like making misteradiant.com the peephole into my life any more. that's why i haven't written anything here in nine months. i want people to pay for my words from now on. i'm simply going to slap some nifty links and stories and youtubes with some personal commentary in with more of the graphic art i've been laying on you all for the past few years. you know; sex, religion and politics. maybe a little about motorcycles. maybe a crazy poem. it's okay. you just went nine months with nothing. i can't believe you're here any more. don't worry, i'll link to new things i write in other places. you should be happy for me.
