Open Thread - Friday, April 14, 2017
“At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.”
~ Lao Tzu ~
Well, the home proximity anxiety did not last long. Sometimes, it just takes challenging another part of the psyche. Saturday was Eurobike. A gathering of European, cafe racer and vintage motorcycle enthusiasts.
There were plenty of old farts, young punks, DFHs and other people whom I could relate with. I went on the Saturday ride and the competitive fire lit. Zooming down country roads and passing the slower riders was invigorating.
I gotta say, it feels funny doing the Friday Open Thread, but rarely stopping by. I just can't bear to stay current. The world is really fucked up. Capitalism is a failed system. And I don't want to spend my remaining days pissed off.
I will be finishing my 60th lap this year and feel like time is slipping away. Grabbing for the gusto has taken on urgency. It is better to burn out than to rust.
Let's roll!
Have a great weekend! The thread is OPEN.
Comments
yeah, I think about that every morning and evening
when I come here to read and click on the links and lose myself over and over in completely unproductive activities like eating up the shit of the world.
Good luck, you make it. I am not sure of how I will be able to do the same.
https://www.euronews.com/live
It is like a rip tide
In order to escape you have to swim perpendicular to the current.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
It sounds like you’re staying absolutely current,
just not politically.
Some classic lines here Tim …
“It’s better to burn out than to rust”
“Sometimes, it just takes challenging another part of the psyche.”
Enjoy!
[video:https://youtu.be/pJV2pWFyfn4]
Thanks for underscoring those.
You have the eye of both an artist and an art critic. Cool!
Thanks for your support of me and Tim.
I think artists of all varieties must develop the skill of being keenly critical in a way that informs and advances their studio practice, and generates insight. It also helps in understanding and appreciating the work of others. That probably goes for life in general.
My pleasure and my privilege.
I stole
One of the lines from Neil Young.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Good morning, Tim~~
Rusting is not allowed. Keep that oil can handy and keep on truckin'!
Have a beautiful Friday, folks!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good Morning
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
So your advice is to stay well oiled?
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Absolutely!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Absolutely!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
Good Morning, Tim and 99%'ers!
This really struck a chord with me today. It is something I have been personally struggling with for the last several months. And it really came home to roost after getting a bad bout of the flu and being unable to do my daily walks which I believe are a release valve for me.
There is a kind of inertia bred from frustration that there is absolutely nothing any of us can do to stop the insanity that we are seeing all around us.
Then I look outside and see the beauty blooming in my yard, courtesy of the foresight of the previous owner of this house. I see the birds at my feeders and my fourteen year old dog running across the yard like he is still a puppy for the moment. And for all that, I am incredibly grateful.
Tim, thank you for posting this always uplifting Open Thread each Friday. May you enjoy all that life has to offer. Drink it up and drink deeply.
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Bummer
About your walks. I have been averaging about seven miles, and five days a week. It is cleansing.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
I hope to get back
starting next week. It should have a great effect on my attitude. I hope to do about three to three and a half on my comeback. Seven miles a day is awesome! You are a walking god now, Tim!
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
It's all about motivation
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
The sun is out, gotta go
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Hey to all
Most of my buddies avoid the news. As a result they have no idea about how bad our country has become. About a year ago we were talking with some old friends here on a visit, and I suggested the US has become an evil empire...they laughed and smirked. However I bet with Trump as president they would agree. Funny.
Went on a long hike yesterday at Cloudland State Park in Georgia along the rim of the canyon. Wild Azaleas and dogwood in full bloom, Rhododendron just starting to bloom. Beautiful vistas. That's the way I like to clear my head and adjust my priorities. Kinda like Tim's bike ride I guess.
I do follow and try to dig into the news. In part because I don't like being manipulated. But I always need a dose of nature to regain my footing.
Here's hoping you all have a lovely spring unfolding around you!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I think some of the solution is the solitude
Whether out in nature or consumed by activity. Foot travel on thinking is one of my favorites.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
After what you just went through,
of course, you need time to rejuvenate. You've had enough responsibility and sadness to last a body a long, long, time. Do not worry about the world or the OT. There is absolutely no rule that says it has to be about current events. It is just a friendly place to drop it and say hello. The rest of the world will still be here (maybe ;)) when you are ready to join it. Until then, rest, have fun, and enjoy the mindful peace. We will look forward to you dropping by to say hi and to let us know how you are doing.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Thanks DK
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Just to be clear...
I am not giving you my blessings to NOT do an OT.
I am giving you my blessing to not worry about it. Capiche?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Heh
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Good morning, fellow soul (fine) freak. :-)
I have on my lap in real/actual time and space, the original, vinyl, fold-out covered 33 and 1/3rd RPM copy of Dr. John's Gumbo by the good Dr. himself. I am a YUGE life-long fan of this guy and saw him live.
https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_UYPu5RFXI
jockomo feena nay!!
Mr. Tim: Please don't stop doing these Friday Open Threads. We need the funky soul tunes now more than ever!! Rec'd!!
P.S.: Biker man aka hubby is planning a big ride in the Pacific NW. LA north into Canada. We shall see......
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Is it weird?
That everyone in my family knows the words and sings along.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Hey Tim. Need to get my motor running, looking for adventure, or
..."whatever comes our way."
Been lamenting how much my life has changed specifically in relation to how much I ride, now that I'm a full-time stay-at-home Dad, which is absolutely nil. That's not the reason.
Reason is, about a couple of weeks after he was born we had an amazing warm spell in the winter and I joyously pulled out the Low Rider to get to my gig. For 12 years that's primarily how I've gone to play my weekly show (all of my equipment is there, so don't need to bring anything).
On the way home the bike stalled twice on the FDR highway in Manhattan and the second time would not re-start. It's been a chronic problem that at least half a dozen mechanics have speculated on but none have fixed for good. I left the fucking thing on the side of the road, fed up, and hoped for the best. Trying to retrieve the next day was an essay worth of intense frustration and comical bureaucratic stupidity by the clueless police dept, (which ending with having to drive to a remote tow location in Bklyn, wait online interminably for a nasty clerk to tell us what to do and then fork over $300 to the city for that "service," and then another $125 to a motorcycle tow truck to get it back).
I have not even stuck the key in the bike for about a year and a half now, a combination of being still too disgusted and so up to my neck with baby responsibilities and the resultant tiredness from that. But more powerfully I'm itching pretty bad right now for another bike, and don't care if I can't sell this one right away.
I say all this for the context which has led me to want to give up on Harley for good, and look at one of those European bikes that you encountered. Will feel good to be done with that faux culture of lame mofo's who think buying a Harley (and worse of all, outfitting themselves like little consumer cog sheep, in all their official gear - what a bunch of suckers) makes them cool. Just the opposite: you're so not cool, affixing a corporate logo on everything you own like a lemming.
Got any suggestions?
Rust Never Sleeps. Didn't know until I read Shakey, Neil Young's biography, that that was a term Devo used to use, and Neil copped from them, during one of his discovery missions of hanging and playing with the current bands of the day in the late 70's.
What an album, huh? Think Ride My Llama is my favorite on that album (so trippy and unique) of so many amazing tunes. Neil has been my go-to more and more over the years. Then of course, the 27 year old Kurt Cobain finished his final letter with, "I don’t have the passion anymore, and so remember, it’s better to burn out than to fade away."
Keep riding, brother, and rocking. They keep us sane.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Rough stretch
I was mostly off the road during the chaperoning kids around years.
Check the Harley's battery ground. Most likely the end connected to the frame. If it is loose, you can get intermittent everything goes dead.
I have a 35 year old BMW R65 that I would take anywhere. It is dirt simple and never breaks. It is currently in the shop for a fifteen year makeover, which means bearings, shocks, oils, forks rebuilt, carbs rebuilt, ...
That being said, I went out and bought a 2011 R1200R and I am preparing it for a long trip. If I were living right in the city, I think the Ducati Scrambler would be calling me. Ducati uses hipster marketing, but underneath is an 800 cc V-Twin, in a light and nimble package. Better handling and more powerful than an 883 Sportster. It can hop curbs and is easy to get into and out of tight spaces.
BTW, I joined the AMA and BMWMOA, so there is someone to call, who knows who to call, when the motorcycle is not motivating. Especially, when I am in unfamiliar geography.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Thanks for the feedback, Tim.
Thinking about the Ducati (how weird, just almost wrote "Zuccotti" - OWS still on the brain).
Thanks for the tips for roadside assistance too. After all these years, Triple A is finally reinstating motorcycle tow services. Can you believe that for years in NYS they took it away? I left a long complaint with one of their telephone operators about how insane that was, given motorcyclist are way more vulnerable than cars in so many ways.
Off to play an early gig tonight, celebrating the music of Free.
First two tunes are these:
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Here I am, on the road again.
Cheers Mark. I had a hardtail Sportster for years. It to was a pill to start. But not as bad as the Velocett Thruxton one lunger 500cc monster I had a few decades ago. It had a compression release that HAD to be used.
Eventually bought a new 84 Evo and haven't had a problem since. 96,000 miles on it now, never failed to start.
Thanks Tim for the headsup on the Eurobike event. Never knew. Would have been a great ride with that Velo cafe racer.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Hey
Eurobike was very nice. A guy rode in on a Zundapp that looked like it was pulled out of a farm field. Unfortunately, my 1982 R65 was not out of the shop in time so I rode the R1200R. It is a weird beast too. No choke or anything. Just press the button and go. The R65 gets tricky in the cold. With the 20/50 oil, you only get a handful of tries to start. If you are close enough to ride the Velocette in, you are close enough for me to ride out. I hope to have the R65, later this month, and have a Parabellum windshield waiting. The R1200R dispatches the miles quickly.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Friend of mine’s beloved stepdad passed away Wednesday evening.
Diagnosed with cancer only a month ago and already gone.
Sad to hear
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Feel just fine about being here only Friday mornings.
It never once occurred to think, "NCTim has no business doing a weekly thread unless he posts more." I'm just happy to appreciate how elegantly and cleverly you weave together the narrative of your week and plans with your quote and your musical choices. I'd be stunned if anyone felt different.
Your insight about using a different part of your psyche to get past something is better than a year's worth of analysis. I'm glad your enjoyment of motorcycles helped rid you of your home proximity anxiety. You don't need it and, for both Jews and pagans, this is THE perfect time of year to clean house. Meh, come to think of it, it's always a good time to jettison stuff we don't need, especially when we put better stuff in its place.
Grabbing the gusto for as long as you can is HIGHLY recommended--but it doesn't have to be fatal, you know. As long as you are not stupid about it, like driving drunk, it's not at all inconsistent with a pleasurable, albeit less physically active, old age. Among many other things, I read once that people over 70 tend to be happier than the rest of us. That's pretty neat to look forward to, as are grandbabies. As my none-too-tactful Dad told me, "Nothing is more beautiful than your child, except your grandchild." And you know as well as I that you have at least one or two books in you to write.
Come to think of it, it's all gusto, just different kinds. I wonder why we're so programmed for an "either/or" thought pattern. A conversation in which I participated.
"If it's all or nothing, I always want all."
"Why even think in terms of 'all or nothing?' What about all or all?"
Sounds so good, but it's never been true of me. I finally had to let go of trying to find the answer-- and to let go of even the question. At the risk of committing both hubis and plagiarism with a single sentence: Like Yahweh and Popeye, I am that/what I am.
Sigh. I'm rambling, which means I'm avoiding what I should be doing. Time to get to it.
Glad you had a good week. Here's to "all or all," to going for the gusto while smart, to eventually enjoying the long game, and to next week's being even better than this week.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhxDQ1g964U width:350 height:350]
There is a passage in a Carlos Castenada book
About finding your power spot. Restless he moves about, and when he finally sits and grows comforable, the mentor says, "I see you have found your power spot."
No worries about me driving drunk. Always in leather and helmet too. I don't always obey the speed limit. There is something about being able to go from 55 to 90 and back to 55 in a hundred yards.
I too am perplexed by binary thinking. It takes the infinite and makes it finite. Insert JtC analog versus digital music dissertation here:
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -
Thanks, Tim.
Having your power spot be wherever you happen/have to be at any given moment is a real step saver.
(Back to work I go.)
Hmmm, a good excuse to read Liebnitz
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Why do we perceive decision points as binary?
[D, R, eg] If one has time to think it out, many more branches become evident.
I broke a 4 day fast with an omelette last night. 3 eggs, extra whites, grape tomatoes. That seems to have gone down okay. Slept in two chairs and on one sofa. New for me. Lazy morning here for me. Also my first-born's 31st Bday, a pentimento of a different time and life. He was a scheduled C-section, breech, big. I wanted labor to begin. It never did, and he was 2 weeks over due date. That may have been the last time he was late for anything. Other than that fifth year of college...
Bud swell evident in most of the trees. Leaf pop in some under-story trees. Daffs blooming, my planting of >50 bulbs two years ago is giving me rewards now.
I get my news mostly from FB now. Sift real from fake, news from editorializing. Harder than Presidenting. Cheaper, too.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Dunno, riverlover. Wish I did.
Maybe it's at least partly because the world presents us with so many binary choices?
Hot or cold -- no lukewarm water tap
Black or white
Good or bad
Democrat or Republican
Registered or un
Contrasts can be gorgeous, or they can be limiting.
Hope you are doing well, rl. :-)
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
I dig me some Dixie Cups. :-)
Scientific/Biological Fact: the human ear finds analog recordings warmer than digital.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
Psst, Tim, It's still out there, out back, heh
Tha tao is
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --