NOT REALLY QUARANTINED DAY ____.
“No sympathy for the devil; keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion: Tune in, freak out, get beaten.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas
I’m in an apologetic mood. Don’t get too used to it, it won’t last long. But I feel as if I owe those who may have found this shit show of a blog via an actual cycling blog, or other outdoor-related forum, an apology, or at very least an explanation about myself.
Many of you have come here expecting a dude babbling bout bike parts, mountain bike racing, riding, adventures, etc. As you can clearly see, that is not the case. I’ve been writing this blog for fifteen years on one platform or another, and these I am just a fat man with a camera who is more comfortable hiking in search of a good shot of a fucking bird than caring if he can ride his bike for hours at a time. Riding still happens, but only when I genuinely want to. Given my history of obesity, blood clots, depression, and now high blood pressure, I am happy (enough) just to be here. I guess.
There was a day in that you would have found all that stuff here (more so on Soiled Chamois v.1). I was obsessed with riding, training, and racing, and despite my completely forgettable talents at all three, I felt the need to blather on about it. For that, I am sorry, and I continue a penance of daily self-flagellation to make amends for those writing sins.
I don’t know (most of you), but I’m sure many of you have come here and seen me–especially since the events of 2016—ranting about our current state of life on this shit-fuck hole of a planet. I have a feeling that none of you really care to read words written by some uneducated, depressed half-wit goofball. Many of you probably don’t agree with me and would love to kick my teeth in. Part of me longs for you to kick my teeth in. I probably deserve it. But if I can get a kick or two on you, before you knock me out, that would be fine by me.
“In a nation run by swine, all pigs are upward-mobile, and the rest of us are fucked until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time
See, this blog, this one-time cycling site, has become a place for me to say whatever the hell I want. Things that I’ve been dying to say for years, but because of social niceties couldn’t possibly voice to many friends, family, open carry fuck faces, MAGA hat-wearing douches, hate-spewing, fear-mongering evangelicals, homophobes, xenophobes, and misogynists without fear of being shunned, disowned, or killed. There are surely debatable societal benefits to all three of the latter.
In some ways, I probably come off no better than the miserable keyboard warrior trolls that can’t hear a song or see a photo or YouTube video without putting down the creator in an attempt to feel better about themselves. But there’s a difference that I hope you can see: I’ve spent most of my life holding back how I feel about things in the attempts to be kind, or at very least just looking for normal old human interaction. Meanwhile, many of those same people I was trying to be nice to have walked all over my emotions with little regard to how I might feel.
And here is the critical difference. I pay the rent here; this is my digital home, and sadly my brain. Unlike me, at so many dinners, events, parties, etc., you can leave, and I don’t care. There’s no awkward apologies, family strife, or holiday blow-ups. I’m not asking you to like me. Fuck, I don’t even like me, I don’t expect you to! I’m not trying to change your mind about anything. All you have to do is move on to the next blog or website that is more your taste.
Do I need to make my brain puke public? No. Should I stop? Yes. Will I stop? Probably not. Why? Because I’ve been screaming a ton of this shit into my empty skull for over 48 years and because of that no one knows how I feel. If no one reads it or sees it, then I might as well just be screaming into that same old hollow void wrapped in alcohol bloated face fat that keeps my lying sleepless at 2 AM. Plus, what would I do with all the photos I take of trees, leaves, and fucking birds?
I have many friends that don’t think the same way as me, and that is completely fine. We are all individuals with our own belief systems, loves, wants, craves, desires, dreams, wildly perverted sexual fantasies, etc., etc. These people remain my friends because they feel the same about me. We’re friends, but we are and can be different. And it’s these friends that I write this post for. I don’t want them reading the rubbish I write, and feeling put down or remorse for having given me their friendship or love. My rants are aimed at the people who have never given me the chance to be myself. Never do that to someone. THAT is one thing I WILL tell (or at least ask) you to do, and one of the many things that after a lifetime of being fed unrequested opinions and told how I should feel and what I should believe, I am continuously working on.
If you don’t know what the hell you just read, it was kind of sincere apology to those who read my stuff and have been hurt. I hope that there have been very few of you, hopefully none. Now, if I’ve offended you because of my language, humor, or lack of maturity, that’s a different story. Go read Highlights or the Reader’s Digest. By the way, did you see all the fucking birds I took photos of today?
Keep on safely pandemic-ing, don’t lick any shopping carts, and don’t suck on any airborne viral spores shot forth from a stranger’s pie hole.
Later.
NOTE: All photos were taken during my hike at Meridian Park yesterday.