two wheels turning
It's red. My helmet is silver. I don't have the jacket yet. It's not a kick start motor, you have to push a button and it's 'put-put-puting'. There are scratches all over it and there is a fair amount of sun damage on the paint. It doesn't "roar" like a Harley or fly down the highway like a street bike ready break the sound barrier. It's not going to get me laid in road houses or at bike rallies and I doubt that anyone will ask for a ride unless they are stranded in the middle of nowhere and they are bleeding and I just happen along.
I have dreams about riding it all the time. When the Oompa Loompas have all gone back to their favorite crack house for the night and their police escorts have all left the city core for suburbia, I am left with the barren downtown city streets to ride around on. There is a huge volcano with a scenic highway running along side it that is a few moments away if I wanted to go. I love this bike and I know that I am going to fuck it up before I ever get my permit to ride it anywhere legally. I can not be stopped. So sayeth the Percher.
The rest of my day is spent in a constant battle with corporate America and trying to find a way to make a real life in a city with little to no corporate involvement. However, all I do at the moment is shop at retail stores filling my Perch with goods that I need. Even the Perch is tainted with the stench of corporation - The lights, internet, carpet, paint, and water are all corporate. The food is corporate. No matter how much I fantasize about a life free of legal BS, or who or what I think - I am in the system. Even my beautiful Ascot is a bike from a corporate entity. WHO am I foolin' here?
I need less and less to make me happy, but the things I do need, are getting harder and harder to find. Mostly because the things I need, even those things that ARE corporate, are hidden from me by little demons that work for "the man". I have written about them before and I still hold to the belief that if you work for the man, you ARE the man and are worth all the backlash that you get from that representation. That's just the way it is. You work for a large company and someone has a problem with that company and they decide to talk to you about it - you earned it! Don't feel bad, it's paying the bills. Right? All the names, profanity, insanity and threats - They're yours to keep. You were hired to take it so that the people above you don't have too. Look at those harsh words and threats as part of the anti-benefits package that the company didn't tell you about when you sold your soul to them.(a few shouting customers is worth 15% off all store merchandise, isn't it?)
Did you know that Wal-mart employees have to sing a pro-Wal-mart chant every morning before their shift. They even spell out W-A-L-M-A-R-T with their bodies like you do when you sing, "YMCA". It's meant to boost morale, teamwork, and company loyalty. Just like saying a pledge of allegiance before school or singing a national anthem before a sporting event. It's indoctrinating.
It must come as a great shock to people when they get the brunt of someone's rage while they are working. I'm sure that you have to feel some smugness towards the person attacking you and I'm sure you have to explain away their rage as their problem and not yours. It's a shame that rage has become so centralized. It's okay when we feel it, but it's a sign of insanity when others show it.
I am thinking about all of this when I am on the bike. Even when it's not on and I am just sitting on it. Riding around a town full of little corporate countries filled with little loyal solidiers that won't help me fuck over their country. Not that they even know how is behind the curtain or who is pulling the strings. Even if I wanted to fuck them over, I can't find them amid all the smoke and mirrors. They are invisible. And on this bike, I feel just as invisible as they are.
The only reason we care about what corporate countries want is because we have a new boogie man and his name is Credit. He is the newest and most effective method of legal racism, bigotry, sexism and facism. We do what we are told because the fear of bad credit is so strong that most of us dare not speak of it for fear that we would jinx ourselves. We aspire for better credit because we are told too. We are told to find ways to make our credit better. They have even given us a credit score to identify us. We are no longer names we are a score between 450 and 850. The higher the number, the better the treatment you will recieve from your king.
We fear bad credit because we know we can be told "no" to housing, food, travel, "inclusion" and "the pursuit of happiness"(as it pertains to purchasing power). We do what we are told because we don't want to incur the wraith of the king's royal brut squad - the collection agency. It's as if they were going to come to our door, like the mafia, and shoot us for being late on a gambling debt. The fear is that ingrained in us. And from the back of this bike all I see is a way out.
Fuck them. I have my bike. I have a volcano. I have music. I have memory and I have dreams that are not owned by the system. I can find a place.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." so sayeth a former perch-er in a time a long, long ago.
The bike speaks of freedom from every 'put' noise coming from it's engine.
I have dreams about riding it all the time. When the Oompa Loompas have all gone back to their favorite crack house for the night and their police escorts have all left the city core for suburbia, I am left with the barren downtown city streets to ride around on. There is a huge volcano with a scenic highway running along side it that is a few moments away if I wanted to go. I love this bike and I know that I am going to fuck it up before I ever get my permit to ride it anywhere legally. I can not be stopped. So sayeth the Percher.
The rest of my day is spent in a constant battle with corporate America and trying to find a way to make a real life in a city with little to no corporate involvement. However, all I do at the moment is shop at retail stores filling my Perch with goods that I need. Even the Perch is tainted with the stench of corporation - The lights, internet, carpet, paint, and water are all corporate. The food is corporate. No matter how much I fantasize about a life free of legal BS, or who or what I think - I am in the system. Even my beautiful Ascot is a bike from a corporate entity. WHO am I foolin' here?
I need less and less to make me happy, but the things I do need, are getting harder and harder to find. Mostly because the things I need, even those things that ARE corporate, are hidden from me by little demons that work for "the man". I have written about them before and I still hold to the belief that if you work for the man, you ARE the man and are worth all the backlash that you get from that representation. That's just the way it is. You work for a large company and someone has a problem with that company and they decide to talk to you about it - you earned it! Don't feel bad, it's paying the bills. Right? All the names, profanity, insanity and threats - They're yours to keep. You were hired to take it so that the people above you don't have too. Look at those harsh words and threats as part of the anti-benefits package that the company didn't tell you about when you sold your soul to them.(a few shouting customers is worth 15% off all store merchandise, isn't it?)
Did you know that Wal-mart employees have to sing a pro-Wal-mart chant every morning before their shift. They even spell out W-A-L-M-A-R-T with their bodies like you do when you sing, "YMCA". It's meant to boost morale, teamwork, and company loyalty. Just like saying a pledge of allegiance before school or singing a national anthem before a sporting event. It's indoctrinating.
It must come as a great shock to people when they get the brunt of someone's rage while they are working. I'm sure that you have to feel some smugness towards the person attacking you and I'm sure you have to explain away their rage as their problem and not yours. It's a shame that rage has become so centralized. It's okay when we feel it, but it's a sign of insanity when others show it.
I am thinking about all of this when I am on the bike. Even when it's not on and I am just sitting on it. Riding around a town full of little corporate countries filled with little loyal solidiers that won't help me fuck over their country. Not that they even know how is behind the curtain or who is pulling the strings. Even if I wanted to fuck them over, I can't find them amid all the smoke and mirrors. They are invisible. And on this bike, I feel just as invisible as they are.
The only reason we care about what corporate countries want is because we have a new boogie man and his name is Credit. He is the newest and most effective method of legal racism, bigotry, sexism and facism. We do what we are told because the fear of bad credit is so strong that most of us dare not speak of it for fear that we would jinx ourselves. We aspire for better credit because we are told too. We are told to find ways to make our credit better. They have even given us a credit score to identify us. We are no longer names we are a score between 450 and 850. The higher the number, the better the treatment you will recieve from your king.
We fear bad credit because we know we can be told "no" to housing, food, travel, "inclusion" and "the pursuit of happiness"(as it pertains to purchasing power). We do what we are told because we don't want to incur the wraith of the king's royal brut squad - the collection agency. It's as if they were going to come to our door, like the mafia, and shoot us for being late on a gambling debt. The fear is that ingrained in us. And from the back of this bike all I see is a way out.
Fuck them. I have my bike. I have a volcano. I have music. I have memory and I have dreams that are not owned by the system. I can find a place.
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined." so sayeth a former perch-er in a time a long, long ago.
The bike speaks of freedom from every 'put' noise coming from it's engine.
posted by Daniel Loomis | 3:23 PM
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