Well, it's half past deadline again and I've got nothing besides a bunch of half-formed surly rants about the idiocy and mendacity of Bush cultists, so I'm gonna wing it.
Had a nice weekend, although the good weather is well and truly over. Yes, it's become hot and sticky again. My wife thinks it's just fine, I think that humidity is a blight sent by the devil to ruin otherwise nice summer days. And around these parts, the blight is thick enough to cut with a knife.
It was a good weekend precisely because we had nothing planned. Did our grocery shopping, cleaned the house, I went to Home Depot and bought 120 bricks which I then used to ring the flowerbeds in the garden. Yes, in the humidity. Yes, it sucked. But the flowerbeds look nicer now.
We did not have people over or go out to see a movie or really do anything other than sort of basic home maintenance activities which were tackleable at our own pace. It was very nice. Monday we went to the home of some friends who were having a small BBQ, and everyone admired the baby while he spread drool all over a new household.
Americans don't relax enough. I mean, come on - ten holidays and ten days of vacation per year? That's just uncivilized. Hard work is great. If I had a million dollars I would start my own business with it, because I like to get things done. But our culture has really erred on the side of work in the whole work/life balance thing.
We had 'Rolling Thunder' here in the D.C. area this weekend; thousands and thousands of motorcycle riders from around the country converging on the city to cruise up and down the mall and remind us that soldiers deserve our remembrance. Apparently, they remind us of this through our teeth, by rattling.
What's the deal with Harley-Davidsons anyway? I like a cool chopper as much as the next red-blooded male, but riding a device deliberately engineered to make a great deal of unnecessary and supremely annoying noise... I suppose back in the day it said 'fuck you' to the world, but nowadays most Harleys are ridden by fifty year-old proctologists, on account of Harleys costing more than automobiles. Real working-class Americans ride fifteen year old Hondas because that's all they can afford to keep running. You show me an ex-convict with a new Harley-Davidson and I'll show you someone who played a lot of golf behind bars.
I am, of course, grossly overgeneralizing. There are a number of scarred ex-cons, sunburnt Free Riders, auto mechanics and long haul truckers and one of the two steelworkers left in the United States who do ride Harleys. But I'd bet money that the vast majority of Harley owners have never used a bottle or a chain in a fight in their entire life.
I asked the woman at our butcher shop, who is a devoted motorcycle rider, has that fifteen-year old Honda which she keeps running because she can't afford anything else, if she was going to the Thunder. No, she said, she couldn't take the time off. Neither could the guy in line behind us, tall and sunburnt from his time on his old bike. Nor could their friends.
They had to work. Rather than do what they love best in the company of a few thousand of their fellow bikers, for one day in memory of other Americans who died on behalf of our nation.
Yeah, there needs to be a little more life in our lives, and a little less work.
- Sun Ra