Wednesday, July 20, 2005
Biking
Okay folks,
Welcome to the Blog. If you're here, it's because I asked you to come and listen to me rant for a while. To be honest, I don't read blogs, but everyone seems to have one nowadays. So I'm gonna try. Maybe it'll be funny and cool, and you'll tell your friends to check out Zak's fucking heeee-larious blog. Maybe.
This week's post (I'm gonna try and do one a week. I think they're called posts...) is about biking. Now, as many of you know, I was without a car in Los Angeles for the better part of five months during the heaviest rains Southern California has ever expereinced. I could write a book on what a miserable experience it is, but I'm sure some sweat shop employee or junkie prostitute would write a book about their lives and make mine look really petty and lame.
So, I spent the winter riding east and west on Beverly Blvd to and from my workshop in the torrential rain. I'd have to bring extra shoes and socks because I didn't have booties. It was pretty dire. I think the only reason I kept at if for as long as I did is because my father rode a bike every day of my childhood. Every day. Rain. Snow. Frogs. He'd get on his beat up beach cruiser and ride to work. So I guess it didn't seem that out of the ordinary to be a cyclist. Also, I think I have some Chinese ancestry somewhere.
Here's the funny part. Now that I have a car ( a pimping '87 Toyota van. You know, the ones that look like a space buggy) I still ride my bike everywhere. What's up with that?
Well, there's a couple things.
1. I don't have to look terribly good at work. I'm not going to lose an account by schvitzing a little when I get to the studio.
2. Turns out, I need the excercise. The weight I lost and muscle tone I gained over the months of carlessness was reversed in about three weeks of owning a car. And contrary to what you may have read, a Rubenesque abdomen doesn't attract the ladies as well as you might think.
3. More on excercise...I feel so much better when I get that much excercise. Endorphines fight depression. I'm actually not sure that's true, because if it were, why are jocks such agressive jerks?
4. I guess I kind of like the rush of having a near death experience several times a week.
5. This is a little pretentious, but true. I enjoy not burning fossil fuels. I feel like I'm slaying Goliath, or at least sneaking into the back door of some hipster club. What I mean is, everyone is stuck in their cars, pounding on their steering wheels, running their hands through their hair, cursing the traffic from their Escalades, and I'm actually part of the solution. That's a pretty good feeling.
But it's not all good. I mean, I really wonder if you translate the amount of carcinogens I've ingested by riding with traffic it would fill many cartons of Camel unfiltereds.
Oh, but here's something funny. I'll leave you with this. When I didn't have a car, I used to be embarrased, imagining that people were looking at me thinking, "God, that poor guy doesn't have a car". Now that I have a car, but choose not to use it, I never feel embarrassed. I just feel like kind of a bad ass. Strange, huh?
Welcome to the Blog. If you're here, it's because I asked you to come and listen to me rant for a while. To be honest, I don't read blogs, but everyone seems to have one nowadays. So I'm gonna try. Maybe it'll be funny and cool, and you'll tell your friends to check out Zak's fucking heeee-larious blog. Maybe.
This week's post (I'm gonna try and do one a week. I think they're called posts...) is about biking. Now, as many of you know, I was without a car in Los Angeles for the better part of five months during the heaviest rains Southern California has ever expereinced. I could write a book on what a miserable experience it is, but I'm sure some sweat shop employee or junkie prostitute would write a book about their lives and make mine look really petty and lame.
So, I spent the winter riding east and west on Beverly Blvd to and from my workshop in the torrential rain. I'd have to bring extra shoes and socks because I didn't have booties. It was pretty dire. I think the only reason I kept at if for as long as I did is because my father rode a bike every day of my childhood. Every day. Rain. Snow. Frogs. He'd get on his beat up beach cruiser and ride to work. So I guess it didn't seem that out of the ordinary to be a cyclist. Also, I think I have some Chinese ancestry somewhere.
Here's the funny part. Now that I have a car ( a pimping '87 Toyota van. You know, the ones that look like a space buggy) I still ride my bike everywhere. What's up with that?
Well, there's a couple things.
1. I don't have to look terribly good at work. I'm not going to lose an account by schvitzing a little when I get to the studio.
2. Turns out, I need the excercise. The weight I lost and muscle tone I gained over the months of carlessness was reversed in about three weeks of owning a car. And contrary to what you may have read, a Rubenesque abdomen doesn't attract the ladies as well as you might think.
3. More on excercise...I feel so much better when I get that much excercise. Endorphines fight depression. I'm actually not sure that's true, because if it were, why are jocks such agressive jerks?
4. I guess I kind of like the rush of having a near death experience several times a week.
5. This is a little pretentious, but true. I enjoy not burning fossil fuels. I feel like I'm slaying Goliath, or at least sneaking into the back door of some hipster club. What I mean is, everyone is stuck in their cars, pounding on their steering wheels, running their hands through their hair, cursing the traffic from their Escalades, and I'm actually part of the solution. That's a pretty good feeling.
But it's not all good. I mean, I really wonder if you translate the amount of carcinogens I've ingested by riding with traffic it would fill many cartons of Camel unfiltereds.
Oh, but here's something funny. I'll leave you with this. When I didn't have a car, I used to be embarrased, imagining that people were looking at me thinking, "God, that poor guy doesn't have a car". Now that I have a car, but choose not to use it, I never feel embarrassed. I just feel like kind of a bad ass. Strange, huh?
# posted by immensetalent @ 12:15 AM 
