Blogging From The Desert

Blogging from the Desert
By Cameron Weckerley


The following is a series of short blog entries posted over the course of two day chronicling a motorcycle adventure gone awry.
Introduction
For a long time I have wanted to take a long, solo motorcycle ride. There is something elemental and necessary to a mans soul in that. To get away from all that is super-imposed on our self images by the media, by the job, by society, and yes, even our wives. To get out there and be alone and self-reliant and get reconnected with who we really are and with the true nature of the life force within in us. Some would call it God, some The Tao, or Chi. It makes little difference really what it is called, as long as we can connect with some form of it and with our masculinity. Otherwise we have nothing to bring to the table in the other areas of our lives . OK, I can hear you getting ready to change the channel because I am sounding a little too much like Dr. Phil or Oprah. End of philosophy, here is a true story.
Blog entry...beginning of day 1
I asked for it! I found myself with a week off from my REAL job...ha! And called a magazine I know asking for a freelance assignment. Sure, they said, we have 2 but you have to go to New Mexico....

Ever eager to please I said OK... Now it use do be that I identified with the character in Neil Peart's book "Ghost Rider" and would often ride aimlessly for 800 miles or so thinking myself the Noble Man Alone. That was during my divorce. Since then my new and wonderful wife has been my faithful companion on the back seat of the Beemer logging 10s of thousands of miles with me.

Today I go long and I go far....alone. Good preparation for the Mexico trip in Oct. But as I write this the Black Beast is warming up and I am filled with loneliness and trepidation.

My intention is to report in from the road for the next 4 days or so. Hopefully I will have some good stories and pictures to share.

If only I knew what was about to happen!

Next blog entry 14 hours later

Well my friends here is how the story goes. After posting this morning made a huge navigational error and went about 40 miles out of the way. That should have been my first clue. Oh, you know those little pointers on the GPS mean something...duh. Having breakfast in Barstow, notice their is some liquid substance that has been thrown all over the right pannier bag. OIL....The source of the problem, worn our valve cover seal. Should have been my second clue...but hey no problem. They don't call that thing attached to my house Beemerman's Ghetto Garage for nothing. I am prepared! Silicone patch stops most of the bleeding just need to keep on eye on the oil level now.

Once on the 15 the weather turns lovely and as it is still early in the morning I avoid the 40 and go bopping down the Bagdad Café1 still there old 66.
...looking in worse shape than ever though. Has anyone in the U. S seen that move besides me? IMHO....Worst MOVIE EVER! Fortunately while passing through Amboy I notice some activity at the one famous Roy's which had been defunct. A good sign as it turns our very providential.

So I stay on the Old 66 as much as possible, almost to needles and get blindsided by gravel in the curve. Damn....thank God for crash guards and armored clothes. In the milieu that followed however I somehow lost my wallet! So far I had been pretty stoic about the whole thing. No more.

Empty tank, seven bucks in my wallet and no ID or credit card. I decided that my wallet must have fallen out while having fun on the 66 so I spend my 7 bucks on gas and go looking for it. I'm just about on fumes when I reach Roy's. Remember Roy's/?

As it turns out the place has been taken over by a kindly, aging, pony tailed hippy that drives around in an orange gulf cart with a spoiler on the top. He asks me if I need something, and I tell him yeah I need some gas but have no money. So he turned me on to enough to get to the next town...


To be continued.....

A bit later

Just to finish up. Between my wife and me we convince this gas station manager to let me fill up the bike on her credit card via remote control...and I put the last of the synth oil I was carrying in the motor. Made to back to .Barstow and because I had injured my back in the crash and picking up and 800 pound bike I had to stop.

Now convincing this little Indian man (no racial slur intended, just a physical description) to let me stay the night was a whole nother adventure in itself. But Here I am in Barstow. Trying to figure out what to do next. Do I figure out a way to ride on or run home? The magazine editor said I didn't have to do it, because I seemed "snake-bit" That sounds like a challenge to me.
I tired to explain to my wife that did Glenn Heggstad. Of "Two Wheels through Terror" quit. NO!
Did Dave Barr or "Riding the Edge" quit, No! Did Neil Peart of "Ghostrider" quit, NO!

She didn't get it...

What do you think guys...it's a matter of honor now....do you agree?
And with that I took a couple of the narcotic pain pills I carry for emergencies and fell into a restless, drug induced half=sleep.

Day 2 Blog Entry 1


Good Morning Friends...

After have slept on it I have decided to carry on with this ride and this assignment.

My long suffering wife is currently on her way up from Bakersfield to replenish my funds and oil supply. Have re-sealed the gaskets hoping they will hold up until I Can get to a BMW dealer.

As they say in AA, everything happens for a reason. I was doing a lot of praying yesterday for "Just a little help" And I got it in the form of the ponytail Good Samaritan and the understanding. but also bizarre individual that works here. This was not my plan, but again as the say in AA,"if you want to make God laugh tell him your plan..ye ha.


Day 2 Final Blog Entry

Not giving up...just postponing.

In Glenn Heggstad's book, "Two Wheels Through Terror," Heggstad is on a "'round the world ride and while traveling through South America is taken hostage by the ELN and tortured for six weeks. His release was finally negotiated by the Red Cross and the thousands of people who were following his online journals all expected him to come home. He did exactly the opposite thing. His support team back home air freighted him a new bike and he carried on with the ride. Hundreds of e-mails flooded into Heggstad's website following this event from people whom he inspired.

I was hoping to carry on this tradition today, but the bike was leaking too badly, the front brakes were failing and my wife, who does not say these things lightly, told me I looked like I did not have the stamina for it.

So for those of you who have been following this journey for two whole days I apologize, but I plan a second attempt next week.

Yet there are some lessons to be learned here. I think the most important one has to do with the experiential connectedness we bring to a piece of art, like a book.

I have read every motorcycle travel narrative I have been able to lay hands on but, while always reading them with great interest, have maintained a sort of detachment from the reality of the story. "Gee, that must have been scary," my mind half-heartedly says to itself at some hair-raising episode.

But yesterday I got to experience in a small way what some of those other writer must have felt. To be on a damaged, leaky bike with almost no fuel and no money alone on a high desert back road with darkness falling. There is REAL fear in that.

The other lesson is...don't carry a duct tape wallet...they are slippery.

Beemerman out...


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} The film was shot at what was then the Sidewinder Cafe in Newberry Springs, California. Since then, the cafe has become something of a tourist destination, and has changed its name to the Bagdad Cafe. A small notice board on the cafe wall features snapshots of the film's cast and crew. The actual cafe is almost identical to the one in the film, although there is no hotel out back and the water tower was specially built for the film ---Wikipedia

Super Bikes!

Last weekend we were honored to be invited by Super Bike School founder Kieth Code to attend a session of the school at Willow Springs. Willow Springs is a nine-track complex located in Rosamond, California which is also the home of Edwards Air Force Base. Because of its location in the high Mojave Desert, wind season begins on Januray 1st and runs through December, 31st.

We went over on a Friday night and because of family and motorcycle maitenance issues we got off to a late
start. Even though it has been a warm spring the tempature still drops like a stone once the sun goes behind the hill. By the time we got to Tehachapi Summint we were freezing our asses off and the wind was howling like a Banshee. After getting some food and warmth at the local mexican resturant the Wrench Wench and I went back to the bike, layered up and hunkered down for the rest of the ride.

It was really pretty freaky riding directly into a headwind without a windshield. Actually the headwind was so powerful I had a hard time getting the Frankenbeemer above 40o0 RPM. We finally arrived at the Hotel California (see previous blog entry) and listened to the wind howl and bang things around outside.

Taft Motorcycle Club

“It is a Quonset hut on Petroleum Club Road,” Harley Dude said.  “Ok,” I replied, “where is petroleum club road and what is a Quonset hut?”  So began the first visit to the Taft Motorcycle Club.  Harley Dude and I were supposed to go together to the meeting to check out the club for some content for our podcast and I had just gotten the green light from the editor at Friction Zone magazine to do a spotlight piece on them.  Just about the time I was going to head to Taft to meet up with Harley Dude he called from school and said he was tied up.  I already had a commitment to go so we spent some time looking at maps while we talked on the phone and I got a general but vague idea where I was headed.  Hey, not big deal.  It is all part of the adventure.  So off goes Beemerman to look for a Quanset hut on Petroleum Club Road.b

Actually it was not hard to find, but I found it intriguing that there were no bikes parked around.  I walked in just as the meeting was starting and was greeted warmly as Lewis because he had made the initial contact and that is who they were expecting.  After getting that cleared up they had their meeting.The highlight of the meeting was a presentation by Michael Berg who is involved in the California Trail Users Coalitionb or CTUC who works with government agencies to preserve public lands and the rights of those who want to use them for motor-sports.The CTUC produces there own maps and puts on a number of events each year.  More information will be provided as it becomes available.  And, we got free T-Shirts.After the meeting I got to speak with several of the members.Most of the current members got involved in the club because they had always heard about it and word was getting around that is was about ready to die out.  Another reason people became interested in the club again was because Taft is an off-roaders paradise and their trails were getting shut down.  The local ranger who they were having trouble with made it clear he would deal with them but only if they were an organized club.I spoke to Darren who has been a club member for about a year and a half and he outlined some additional goals of the club.  In particular he stressed the goal of forming two divisions of the club, street and off-road.  The belief being that all riders need each other for the purposes of countering anti-motorcycle sentiment among the public, education and mutual understanding.

Responsibilities

What an awful word.  What can you make out of that?  Fun?  Excitement?  The makings for either word aren't usually included in the  emotional baggage that often accompanies such a hefty group of letters.  Especially when "family" is attached to it.  Today I briefly weighed "Dad's birthday party" (with all siblings and their families) vs. what promises to be a fun motorcycle event in the coming weekend.  Aah...the temptation weighed heavily for a second.  I explained the conflict to my usually less level-headed spouse, expecting a sigh of resignation that we really should go to the family event.  To my surprise, and without hesitation, he said it was no problem.  There will be other rides to go on.  There I was, listening to the unwavering voice of responsibility coming from the man who put "fun" back to the front of the line in my life.  He sat there smiling and thoughts began racing through my mind-we're talking about "my family".   Most of the men in my family, the in-law ones and exes, have a history of avoiding such activities.  Could he actually be thinking that this may be an enjoyable event, at least one that would be tolerable?  Or is he doing this because it's the "responsible" thing to do?  Either way, it says a lot for this guy I married a little over a year ago.  He gave me the nudge I needed to do what was right, despite the temptation to do otherwise, and the OK to not feel guilty about it.  Cool.  Another reminder that I got it right this time.

Target Fixation

Target Fixation

by Lewis Gillham aka "The Harley Dude"

I sleep better at night on a day that I’ve ridden.At one time, I might have attributed that to the afterglow of intense concentration, or to simple exhaustion, I now think it has to do with where I look.As Robert Frost has “been acquainted with the night,” and as J Alfred Prufrock knows the restless, etherized, hotel nights after teacups and coffee spoons and novels, I’m well aware of how the hours pass between midnight and formal morning: the facades of fun at closing time and after-hours clubs – or, less appealingly - the talk-shows on screen and in my head – the shelves of books I’ve searched through looking sometimes for answers and sometimes just for sleep. The existentialist night-owl is one who, according to Camus himself, simply cannot sleep because he’s caught “The Plague” of modern displaced man, whose world-view is caught between the rationality of scientific dialectical materialism and the sub-rational drives of the atavistic unconscious.A motorcycle is nothing if not rational – a product of engineering, powered by geology, governed by the absolute laws of physics. And yet, as far beyond thought as the Zen satori or the yogic trance.After my first few rides, I found I was sleeping better than I had in years. And those first few rides, if you can even call them that, were no  paeans to freedom, exhilaration, or fun. Having had no instruction, I barely knew where the controls were, when to shift, and definitely not how to corner – or even, really, to steer. I had what I’m tempted to call terminal “target fixation,” although “terminal” would be hyperbole. And I’d heard about the concept, along with the geometry of balance, and the importance of searching and evaluating. But that kind of knowledge was worse than none at all.“Don’t fixate on what you want to avoid???” OK, fixate on not fixating, then, right? Like notthinking about the things you’re thinking about at 3 AM when you’re trying to get some sleep, because sleep is what you need for then next day, when you have to concentrate on all the things you mustn’t think about tonight. Not to think, perchance to sleep. There’s the rub.In whatever it is we glibly call “daily life,” which is, I suppose, the life in which both feet are more or less literally on the ground – that is to say, on the concrete floors of offices, classrooms, boardrooms – wherever we earn our daily loaf – the habit if fixing on problems  is part of the bread itself. At least it has been for me, for many years: the underachieving student, the justly disgruntled colleague, the unbalanced budget. Or, loser to home and heart, the uncompleted project, the distressed companion, the sick or dying loved one. But none of these problems are addressed, let alone solved, or even avoided, by thinking about them – or by looking at them.The magic spell, if there is one, is to look beyond them. Not from absence of feeling, or shallowness of perspective, but because the mind magnifies the things to which its vision attends – for good or for ill.Now, to say that “we create our own reality” is both a New Age cliché and an the most untenable solipsism – as asphalt’s undeniable reality will undeniably attest. But, just as undeniably, we go where we look. Toward the threat, or around and beyond it.As I learned that on a motorcycle, I learned it off one. And, as with the actual practice of Yoga or Zen – or , or that matter, brushing one’s teeth – only through daily application. One long ride on a weekend is illuminating, but it is no substitute for the daily trip around town, with its van-loads of soccer kids and cell-phone daydreamers; blind alleys of the mind, and parked cars of the soul.All of which are just to be looked past, and leaned around.Nothing to lose sleep over.

Risk--From Podcast #1

Risk

by Lewis Gillham aka "The Harley Dude"

The first chapter in the MSF handbook is about risk – making the point that every human activity involves it, and that awareness of it is the first step in managing it.When I read that, I wasn’t sure if the point was “watch out,” or “don’t worry.” It’s probably somewhere between the two. Calculating risks is what insurance companies do – at the level of high science.That’s the difference, someone once explained to me, between insurance and socialism. The later says, “whatever happens, we’ll take care of you.” Maybe at the cost of some freedom, some choice, some quality – but always and everywhere. The former says, “freedom involves risk; risk is a gamble; gambling involves odds; we know the odds,” and so should you.As I listened to Diane __________ talk about the scenario in which a customer expects a level of coverage he didn’t pay for, this came to mind.Ever notice how seldom people talk about “buying” insurance? Instead we hear people say they “take it out,” like a loan, I guess, or maybe like a date. Or that they “have” insurance, which makes it sound like a vital sign. Or that they’re “covered,” as if by a warm blanket. A security blanket.And there is a sense of security that comes with the policy. But it’s not therapy. It’s a product.When you buy it, you enter the game of chance of weighing the odds you’ll need it against the odds you won’t.And there are, let’s be honest, some people at one extreme who decide that the best way to play these odds is not to ante up at all. It’s the “catch-me-if-you-can” mentality that says, “well, I haven’t had a crash yet.” Not all these people take that stance because of being unlicensed or undocumented.A few years ago, I was rear-ended by a native-born citizen who got out of his car, produced his license, admitted fault, and then said, “But I don’t have any insurance.” I called the police, reported the accident and the statement. The dispatcher asked if anybody was hurt. Not really. So she told me to officers would be out to the scene. So much, I thought, for the threats in the DMV manual about all that can happen if you don’t carry liability insurance.I had, and still have, the insured motorist coverage we talked about earlier in the show. I used it, of course. No deductible. End of story.I don’t know what happened to the guy who clipped me. To be honest, I really don’t care. Is it a major social justice issue that he didn’t pay out that $1200 a year, and I did – including, probably, ten or twenty bucks to cover an incident with a guy like him? Not to me.Having bought the coverage, I made my gamble, and that one paid off. Just like the gamble I take that, sooner or later, a rock will hit my windshield, so comprehensive coverage is worth paying out for.Just like the gamble I take that, sooner or later, a rock will hit my face shield, so I flip it down on when riding on country roads. One did yesterday.We all talk about the inherent sense of freedom that comes with riding. But is it freedom to, or freedom from?For me, it’s freedom to. To feel the wind, the road, the magic/scientific forces of the gyroscope and the centrifuge. Freedom from is a slippery slope. “Freedom from” always seems followed by some word or other that ends up meaning responsibility.And if I wanted freedom from responsibility, I wouldn’t ride at all. Nor would I want insurance; I’d want socialism. If I wanted socialism, I’d be opting out of freedom. As the old saying goes, ya pays yer money, and ya takes yer choice.

Gender

Gender

By Lewis Gillham aka The Harley Dude

Looking back over the last hundred years of changing gender roles, we can easily mark the shifts in common perceptions of masculine/feminine identity: from the first response to Freud’s call for the end of sexual repression, through the rumble seat love of the 20’s, the road-ramblers of the Great Depression, Rosie the Riveter, the Brooks Brothers man, to the “liberated women” and “sensitive men” that emerged from some of the countercultural foment in the fabled years of the 1960s and 70s. More recently, men have sought to reassert a deep masculinity in the post feminist climate of the new millennium, blazing and following paths that range from Robert Bly’s mythopoetic, neo-Jungian drumming and howling through the fundamentalist-filled stadiums of Promise Keepers to the syncretistic balance John Eldredge has tried to strike in his best-selling Wild at Heart.So, what does any of this have to do with motorcycles? In a word, everything.In the time when war-weary men of the late 40s and early 50s sought security and found identity through marriage, mortgage, and membership in the growing American Middle Class common culture, a relatively small incident in Hollister, California, made headlines in Life magazine and inspired what many would call the first of a seemingly interminable series of biker flicks – The Wild Ones. Marlon Brando’s film persona moved slightly further out - from that of salt-of-the-earth Stanley Kowalski, whom he had played in Tennessee Williams’ Streetcar Named Desire—to the existentially troubled, but physically and metaphysically free, eponymous antihero Johnny. Johnny’s rebellion – expressed most memorably in the Socratic dialogue “What are you rebelling against?” “What have you got?” is nihilistic only if isolated from the limiting roles to which post-war masculinity itself was confined. Indeed, what did men have?  Conformity and responsibility to a very gray world of machines -- industrial,  economic, and social -- that enclose us: the factory, of course, but also the office cubicle; the mass-produced business suit; the suburban cul-de-sac; and maybe most to the point, the respectable four-door sedan.  Thus, the matrix of the so-called nanny government, sheltering her little boys from harm and from any unneeded risk is really The Mother Machine.The motorcycle, by contrast, is held by is rider – not insignificantly, between the legs, knees on the tank – and is thus a very different kind of woman from mom.When Kathy, Johnny’s love interest in The Wild One, says to him, “I’ve never ridden a motorcycle before. It’s fast. It scared me, but it felt good. Is that what you do?” the sexual metaphor is both obvious and laughable, but more enduring five decades later are the other dimensions with which her question reverberates: What is it a man does? What is it, now, after five decades of sexual revolution, liberation, and deconstruction of what postmodernists self-consciously call “gender, as distinct from sex,” that characterizes the masculine? The feminine?In “The Art of the Motorcycle: Outlaws, Animals, and Sex Machines,” Ted Polhemus has argued that the cultural icons of leather, tattoos, scruffy hair and flowing beards, and body piercing which emerged first in the early post-war biker culture extolled in The Wild One are really the last plumage – perhaps the only one enduring through the last half-century – of the ancient and wider-than-human reality of The Peacock Male.Might we also say that Kathy sang the swan-song of the equally repressed “female eunuch,” as Germaine Greer eventually named the post-war wife of the corporate man? A woman whose proper skirt and sweater set could, by analogy, be replaced by the tank top and leather pants of the biker babe, legs wrapped around her driver, as his wrap the machine that moves them both?Moreover, women are no longer confined to the role of pillion – or some less savory term – for non-steering passenger. In the last five years women are purchasing motorcycles and acquiring operator’s licenses in record numbers. How will this change the roles of men and women – both those who ride and, through the influence of popular media – those who don’t – in the next fifty years?In this show, and in some shows to come, we’ll explore the role of women – and, of course, of their male counterparts – in riding.