yes, the erudite among you will recognize the orwellian reference. it's inversion is not inevitable as it was in the fable. but by fkn got, it's posit is always gonna be there!

ok, i hope you are as confused by that as i am, and *i wrote it*. the thing, as they say, is to keep the rubberside down.

now some folks say keep the shiny side up but i pass so many bikers, more than could be said, who ride older bikes. and it's a pain to keep the topside shiny. i'd hate, in this age of political correctness and inclusion to exclude anybody.

ok i'm confusing myself again. let me take it from the top.

a bike shop on the gandy bridge in st. pete florida. i put two hunnert down and get this 1989 yamaha radian missile of death, and all i hadda do was sign on the line.

i forget the name of the place, i forget everything about it, i forget how the hell i got there, all i knew is, i had a helmet and a motorcycle, and the horizon was... well she'd better be using birth control because i was gonna shoot right into that sunset... or sunrise... or pretty much anywah they was some lights on.... kinda like a moth to one a them electrical bug zappas

i drove home praying to god i wouldn't do anything stupid. and the next morning, i wobbled a few blocks over to where i knew there was a big abandoned parking lot.

i wobbled and wobbled and next thing you know: I AM A MOTORCYCLE ECCSPERT

and i immediately dropped the fuckin bike on my leg. thank god the muffler wasn't laying on me or the motorcycle gods woulda given me a right fk that day.

so i lay there for a bit with the bike running, trying to think, "OK This fucker only weighs 454 pounds, i can get it off me" but it's not working. and the bike is still running, and sort of vibrating and twisting, the back wheel is kind of chuffing... it seemed to go into false neutral when it fell by the grace of god.

and i'm starting to get worried because i picked a really remote parking lot, and i'm thinking fuck they'll find my emaciated dehydrated body here under the bike two weeks from now, and it'll suck because when i get to the pearly gates my gd dmnd mom will never let me hear the end of it.

and the rear wheel chuffs
and my calf feels like it's in a walnut cracker
and then the bike goes up on the handlebars and lifts
and i pull my leg out
amazed

i get up
no harm done
the god damned bike is still on it's elbows running
held up by some plastic
and the rear wheel is starting to spin pretty good
and

FLUH FLUH FLUH

down she goes

no more gas i guess

it took me a few tries to lift the motherfucker up
and then it didn't wanna start so i put it on it's kickstand
and went and sat in the tall weeds and contemplated this
gigantic mistake i had brought into my life.

THIS MOTHERFUCKER!!!!

i shouted, and ran over to the bike and even though it was not kickstart it was electric start, i had had a YZ80 when i was a kid so i held the god damn starter button down and jumped up and down with the clutch held in and jumped and jumped....

well to make a long story short, i spent more time looking at this black and gold monstrosity, and then finally i remembered the choke.

it's a jap bike, it likes choke, at least they did back then.

i flipped that choke and vroom up comes the sewing maching motor. maybe it was the choke. maybe it was being allowed to sit vertical for awhile. all i know is the evil heavy beast started back up, and i wouldn't have to walk the 2 miles back to my apartment and call my friend dan and ask him how do you bring a dead motorcycle home?

the radian woke up, answered every command, and got my wobbly ass home.

best fuckin ride of my life.

regards,
r