Sunday 7 July 2013

DO I THINK TOO MUCH, DO OTHER PEOPLE SEE THE SAME SHIT AS I DO . . . . OR IS HISTORY JUST A RANDOM COLLECTION OF UNRELATED EVENTS . . . . ARE PHOTOS REMEMBERED ONLY FOR THEIR OWN SAKE AND NOT THE NARRATIVE EXISTING BEYOND THE PICTURE . . . . IS THE WORLD IN WHICH WE 'EXIST' SO PREOCCUPIED WITH INSTANT GRATIFICATION AND THE 'NOW' THAT DEDICATING TIME AND THOUGHT TO A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING SIMPLY DOESN'T FIT IN ??

"GREAT ART ALWAYS DELIVERS MORE THAN THE EYE AND THE EAR INITIALLY CONCEIVE"

Everyone's already seen this brilliantly shot little clip of Mr Schaaf for BF5, a bloke, a bike, a book and a beer . . . . and a town, a passion, a feeling, a connection, a sense of place and the history of the place, the splinters of your past that bury themselves so deep in your mind they are omni-present and constant companions, subliminal exclamation marks and reference points in your continuing journey through life . . . . stopping at a corner store to pick up a brew that triggers thoughts and memories so strong and crystalline that you can literally feel yourself tumbling through the fabric of the time/space continuum to a place you never were but always wanted to be . . . . or do I just over-think stuff ???

7 comments:

  1. To quote noted philosopher Tom T. Hall, life is all about:

    "faster horses, younger women, older whiskey and more money..."

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    1. I'd only ever managed to memorize 'old dogs and children and watermelon wine', but that's a pretty useless quote I suppose by comparison to your gem.

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    2. Thanks to an old stoney friend of mine, I have, "cigarettes and whiskey and wild wild women...will drive you crazy, will drive you insane..." etched into my skull. As the whiskey started to have it's desired effect, he would break out into this little ditty.

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  2. "Duhhhhh, I just look at the purdy pitchers!" he said, with one eye blinking slower than the other.

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    1. Yeah, that's just what I figured . . . he said with a decided chuckle to himself.

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  3. Oakland has a lot of history attached to it. It survived the big quake a lot better than neighbor San Francisco did. Definitely got the biker history...gangs, violence, never ending freeway repairs.quakes,and lot's of people who somehow manage to survive it all. After watching the vid, started flashing on a warm summer night circa 1983, yeah 30 years gone .... I'm on a 1983 Kawa 750 Turbo, out for a midnight run from Sacramento to the Bay area, to beat the heat. Bike is brand new, the second and last new bike I've ever owned. Supposed to be 'breaking it in', but got into a roll- on contest with a guy on a Laverda on the Davis causeway just out of Sactown.So much for breaking it in easy. After being smoked several times by the Kawa, the guy on the Laverda must be figuring out that there must be something not so stock about that 'GPZ 750' he thought he was racing...hehehe, yeah the turbocharger...
    A couple hours later I'm lost in Oakland thanks to freeway construction detours, in an industrial area that looks a lot like the area the video starts in...I'm sitting at a light that won't change, because the bike won't register on the sensors. to my right is a bus stop with some really big unfriendly looking dudes hanging out at 2:30 ish in the morn...I'm wondering if buses run this late/early?? They start making unfriendly sounds and one of them pulls a chain out and starts swinging it against the bus stop sign, I'm beginning to feel like a skinny mostly white dude on a rice-rocket really don't belong in this 'hood. A police car is coming up from the other direction. The lights still red. The guys start lumbering zombie-like towards my direction....So much for the break-in..wind it up a 'skosh, drop the hammer and smoke the tire as I proceed to run the light in front of the Oakland P.D. I'm pulling a wheelie as I scream by the cop with a nod of my full-face helmet, screaming "good-bye Oakland!!". Yeah, Oaklands an interesting town.The cop didn't even give me a second look, probably the end of his shift. A couple months later one of my riding pals is telling me that a friend of his just got rid of his Laverda, cuz some dude on a Kawa smoked him on the freeway a while back...funny world sometimes...yeah that vid certainly got me thinking...

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    1. Laz . . . brilliant, thanks for sharing it, sometimes the gods are on side just when you need it most, that scenario could've gone tits up for several separate reasons. Having spent five days in Frisco on my honeymoon in '97, I'd love to go back and do the other side of the bridge, Sactown, the whole area . . . touch wood and crossing things, one day.

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