friday’s post of cool stuff #49: a prayer for timothy and an inappropriate beginning to thank *** in the end

cool stuff!

usually i don’t know where friday’s post of cool stuff is going to go. the plan often follows in this manner:

1. wake up around noon
2. drink coffee, read news, f**k off in facebook, text with my girl, check email
3. find something in email or facebook for quick post
4. hit quicky mart around three or four for $2.00 40-ounce of olde english and $2.50 can of purple alcoholic stuff – i don’t know what it’s called but it has a gothic T on it and it calls me like anything that says “extreme!”
5. 40-oz goes in freezer as i guzzle can of purple **** and start cool post in silence
6. back to qucky mart around eight for another 40 i swore i wouldn’t need but dammit, i’m not done writing and i’m out of liquor!
6. you all know what happens next: poetry, revolution, hurting bankers, conspiracy theory, thomas jefferson or charles bukowski quotes, half-assed photoshop “art,” etc.
7. ta da!

let’s see if you can tell if this missive was written more unplanned as any other before.

the tree of write and death

i don’t know where to begin with the following bike. i have two images of it and both are of the right side. i want to see the left! where the frame goes. where the rear brakes are. the suicide shifter. and other things! arrrrrrg!

honda cb360 chop from tropical willie’s | photo: vintage customs

i dig it. if anybody knows about the bike or builder, please email trent at bikermetric.com or comment below. thanks.

[EDIT 02.25.12: the bike was built by john at spider racing. read about it here.]

yes. suck that lollypop.

kayla jane from cyclegarden

and now for something completely different.

i remember a moment in my life in the early 90’s. living in hollywood pretending to be a rock star but being a pretty good coke, meth and alcohol junkie. problem was i didn’t like to work much but had friends where my charm worked enough to bring me to timothy leary’s house.

some of you know a part of this story already but i have a point and what you know isn’t it. it’s in the white of my eyes.

timothy leary, 1994 | life magazine

on my first visit, dr. leary, “call me timothy, please,” took a shine to me. i had a $500 sharkskin dress jacket i stole from my dad, tore the sleeve off, put it back on with safety pins, painted a question mark on the back, and had a photo cut from an old rolling stone of bowie and burroughs also pinned to my lapel. when he first met me, he went on about the photo and loved it. he put his arm around my shoulder, took me to his kitchen and asked what i’d like to drink, much to the dismay of friends who had been there numerous times and barely much past a generous “hello.”

i’m sure i was already stoned. at this time, timothy wasn’t much into anything but a lot of alcohol. as a fan of kerouac and bukowski and what dr. leary had done as a legendary counterculture figure in the 1960’s, i felt i’d hit a million dollar jackpot playing slots in vegas.

when you come ’round to make me whole, send my soul away…

linear concepts only exist in your mind. time creates the non-linear and cannot be escaped until we find another definition for creation. and all that creation stuff is up to debate, isn’t it?

anyway, timothy was a west point cadet in 1940. one early sunday morning, the hung over young man supposedly stated that he was “dying and would never be able to make reveille again in his whole life.” the cadet “honor committee” charged leary with honor violation and “silenced” him because he would not resign and leave the academy. with this judgment they forbade other cadets from speaking with him. timothy was taken in by the first black cadets, also silenced due to military racism in the 1940’s. at this time he began to study philosophy and wrote a book based on arthur schopenhauer.

arthur schopenhauer – 1788-1860

what does this have to do with ***? you didn’t know this was about ***? it’s in the title. *** is how most of the world relates to what arthur wrote about; that the universe is not a rational place. i believe that because that is true from my perspective, and we find or create *** to rationalize irrational behavior into a nice place where there is a reason for it all and we just don’t understand. in the face of a world filled with endless strife, schopenhauer thought we ought to minimize our natural desires to achieve a more tranquil frame of mind and a disposition towards universal beneficence.

“do your work, then step back. the only path to serenity.”

ah. the “disposition towards universal beneficence.” that’s what jesus did. he dies for us that we might be forgiven? he comes to “save” everybody? no matter who you are? w***** and tax collectors? jews and gentiles? seriously?

seriously.

and all you gotta do is believe?

yes. and it’s easy to do. for a while.

getting to the point; i’m “facebook friends” with a guy out there that’s been around, “cochise.” he’s hardcore and hangs with the same. he’s had his ups and downs and you know, just because you believe in the promises jesus/yeshua made it does not guarantee peace or success or money or honor. if you believe, it guarantees love. somewhere. some how.

that’s it. that’s the promise. everything else is for priests and politicians to use for their own success or money or honor.

cochise has a biker mag. yes, it’s all american v-twin but he doesn’t know until he reads this that i want a column for the metrics. maybe he’ll say okay, motherf***er. maybe he’ll just grin and be glad i’m doing here what i am this evening.

purple | limpe iven photography

come on. you knew i loved jesus. i know in these 800 pages i’ve stated as much somewhere when i was drunk and heard a song and wept and cried out to ***. it was poetry and you didn’t see it? yes. got saved in 1999. was getting divorced. it was a sunday. october 31. same day i got my first tattoo ten years earlier. same day i met the woman four years later who still, inexplicably, loves me. halloween. the day of death to remember and to dance for the lives that are all saved. because i believe in a *** that did not create us in vanity simply to worship “him.” because i believe the irrational world we perceive is a mirror of our souls and free will was never a guarantee of rationality nor peace, only love. which is by definition, irrational. but love is what i got. unbelievably.

i could write a book about this. oh, wait. i have.

anyway, mister cochise has come and gone and knows how hard it is to continue believing and therefore seeks to offer those in need of loving in the name of our savior a place and a person to hold hands with and let it go. give it up to ***.

in an irrational world, filled with greed and lies and suffering, let it be is more than just a beatles song. but here it is anyway.

what does this have to do with timothy leary? nothing but a prayer for his soul. i know how he died, what he did his last days, and what he said. a life of alternative ontological research and experiment led him to simply getting high on anything constantly to the point he wouldn’t sleep for fear of not waking and on his last psychedelic trip shortly before his death he said he “went to heaven, and william burroughs was there.”

see? i always have a point.

when i was a boy in socal, maybe five years old and getting frowny faces on my kindergarten papers, my mom and raul bought me this album, “the point.” there was a great picture book and i’d put on the giant earphones with wire that stretched to the closet and i’d close the door and listen in the dark about a kid with a pointy head in a land where everything was round. he and his dog are banished for being pointy. i still believe that troubles decompose you and taste like tears.

only my belief in *** makes it okay. otherwise i’d hurt you all. starting with bankers. the f***ers.

Get the best of bikerMetric directly in your inbox, once a week, every week.