Perusing the Forums for a few gear recommendations, I took a wild trip through the mysterious "curmudgeon zone".  
Bike-Packing is theoretically fun, and can be a blast with proper preparation, But it's possible to age out of this sport without knowing the lexicon of why.
Preparedness to go it alone into the wilderness, or merely rural America, doesn't require the Prep a "Prepper" may do in anticipation for the  next apocalyptical MAGA revolution. ...But proper preparations will verify one has Just what is needed, and nothing more, for this adventure. This process assures Comfort (and every practical chance of survival), while counting ounces, to prevent becoming a soggy "Pack-Tard".
​When you have everything laid out, you'll again begin to purge back all the sundry shit that definitely wont get used, and is for sure not needed.  These tableaus of sundry shit are way popular so I thought I'd quantify just what you will not need, once you delve into the rabbit-hole of 'Bike-Packing'. There is always room to reduce your pack volume.  This is where you may decide, (for example), That the Saw, The Axe, Air-conditioner, Bug-zapper, Camp-Chair,  and your neglected pack-raft, need to stay behind.   ​

 'Bikepacking' would like to remind you that this is No country for old men.
But these are smug fucks from Berkley, and The Outer Sunset, and not practitioners from enchanted tribes of indigenous American bush-craft.  Just pot-heads slinging Instagram moments on radically ordinary geri-bikes.
The Bike-Packing Curmudgeon Zone reminds me of a few college bike co-ops, where I would become a "member" to access a work-stand, a truing-stand, or a few spendy tools I didn't have the money to buy. These primitive peoples were never "My Crowd" and they were not genuinely life affirming, nor very welcoming -- Any more than a crabby bike shop Mechanic is today.  In fact it is proven that basically every Bike shop mechanic is genetically linked to this prehistoric Co-op's ancient DNA, which formed the silent resentful tribe of the first Curmudgeon Peoples from what is now The Franco-Italian Monegasque Riviera. (A Border area between current Italy and France, where banners still wave for Pantani, and Merckx.
People like to sugar coat things while evoking the Term "Birth-Channel" -- As in, "I came into adulthood fully formed through the "Birth-Channel" of perhaps the world's most dysfunctional Bike Shop.  Mick Jaggar, famously used the endearment "Toothless Bearded Hag"... But whatever your right of passage, it's fair to tell you that I know a few things about what I speak.  It is also bad form to diminish any mother with such a grotesque idiom.
​I know, Right?

Anyway, I have been immersed in the back-bile of the bike shop ooze, and have formed views from the walls of that passage. Perhaps I'd tagged those walls myself.  Today, as a veteran, I can say that Mechanically speaking -- Bike shops are a sort of galactic incubator for Odd Fuckers. Each one with an ankle bracelet made by KMC. Which has a lot to do with why they struggle so much. Smart ones come and go, but lifers become the wrench. Much like your favorite coffee shop -- Where else can you regularly be insulted, berated, and flat out loathed before Noon? All while a smug fuck side-eyes you for a 28% tip on your parents debit card?  
​
And so back to History 102: At the last half of the 19th century; starting perhaps with Wilbur Wright, in America's pursuit of a bike that can fly -- Wacky creations were coming hot and fast. Perhaps as rapidly as the primitive glottal stops born from shop mechanic failures and frustration the Franco-Sussex language tilted into full-monty-expletives, such as "What the fuck do you think this bike needs Ma'am?" to, "Just Don't Talk, I'm the F.N. Mechanic here, Emkay Brah?"   This is how the modern Brand "Muc-Off" adapted their kitschy lube brand from the ancient Latin Noun: "Velo Mech" whose etymology stems from the Proto-French Phrase: "Va te faire foutre,  which is the Old franco-anglo term for "Fuck-Off" So 'Fuck Off', is where bike-packing gear searches will lead you. This slippery slope may be similar to searches for P.C.T., and A.T. Adventure gear.  To come of age in a millieu where D-Bags pretend to own the master recording, and are not selling any records, is a headache of inclusive High-fives.  Fun Fact... There is no secret sauce to Bike-Packing.  One need only bring a sense of adventure, on a normal bike, sporting a bag and tent, to get into the club. It turns out that you don't have to lean toward wacky, not tilt toward the lycra skin-suit. You can have it all as soon as you step out that door.

Fast forward three decades where I now own basically every imaginable tool, and bike gadget -- The trick becomes to pare down all these "necessities" like the axe, and the bar end mirror, back to "the essentials".  Today, forums such as BikePacking Dot Com lean heavily into that gothic rock genre of sporting Flannel, Waxed-Cotton, Tarp-Camping and some strange-ass bespoke cargo-bikes; Most with small front wheels. What you may not find there, is a modern gravel bike, a drop bar bike, or a self styled bike-packing bike. What you will discover is a lot of gear recommendations adorning hard-tail mountain bikes.
Here comes the fairy-tale overlap with that 'One High-school guy' who'd alleged to be listening to vinyl from bands who, "hadn't yet been formed". Later he would become your neighborhood Bike Mechanic.  Obscure bike Brands,  "...you couldn't possibly know of", peddled for obscurity's-sake.  Once you enter this coven, resentment rears for riding any more "main-stream rig" on actual road-ways.  Bike Packing needn't bend so far into the Brooks zone, as it has -- However there is definitely a deep damp musky Birkenstock scent which pervades this subculture. As for popular websites, which masquerade as Granola-Grungy, while taking huge sponsor dollars and paid click-ads to send people deep into odd-ball remote bleakness -- BikePacking is at the apex of it's curmudgeon game -- Balancing the canvas Circus tent with Dyneema.

Show me a kid struggling above poorly set training wheels and I will despair for the future. Show me an innertube, and I will show you a problem which didn't need fixing. 
Show me a throttle bike and I will show you how a good stick fits neatly between the spokes.
Show me a vintage Steel Bike and I will extoll it's obsolete yet elegant virtues. 
Show me a new gadget, and I will destroy it, just to see how it had been made, and once worked. 
But Show me a  Shaved-kitten Tri-geek in a skin-suit pumping their Shiv-Machine under a mirrored lens aero helmet -- Water bottle tucked neatly between their ass cheeks, and I will show you someone who should perhaps learn to swim better.

 The Mepps Aglia is an international currency in sport-fishing -- Often cast frivolously like a coin into a fountain, with a single wish. 

To catch fish can take some time and what better way to squander some time than to learn to cast, properly?

A shimmering gold coin coveted by committed anglers. A French trinket treasured by dads, nearly as iconic, subtly popular, but as sustaining as the Eiffel Tower -- The MEPPs Aglia hails from Paris, then from Nice, and then from rural Wisconsin, where it swelled like orange cheese in popularity.

Curiously under-celebrated, This Lure is more enduring than most popular brands -- MEPPS and in particular the "Aglia" [Super Shimmy] rotating spoon, remain both the Air Jordan and the Coca-Cola of anglers. MEPPS have been the gold standard lure longer than most notorious brands. These spinners are at once ubiquitous, elegant, and intrinsically valuable.  It is fair to say that every single tacklebox has once held this 'Classique' in it's accordion tray. The Original MEPPS Spinner has caught more trophy fish than any other casting lure, except perhaps the lowly worm. Nearly as many people have suffered the indignity of snagging one upon a branch or a log. And the frequency of this mishap is owing solely to it's ubiquity, and lack of practice. Perhaps because a MEPPS is a "Secret Weapon" for those with and without fishing skills of any kind, MEPPS are often rediscovered along shorelines and in strange sand castles.  If you can't cast, and you cannot golf..., at a certain age, you can blame your Dad, for both, but the blame wont fix that void.

Practice.

For many children, a parent's selfish cruelty is first revealed beside the water's edge. Here an unwitting kid haplessly tosses a cheap popper, or a snell and bobber with a plunk! -- Frightening the fish, parents will shush...! their children, teaching them nothing but the quiet zen of patience. Soon, Dad will snag his second precious spinner on a reed, or a branch proving one should practice what they preach.
To learn to cast, is a cruel school without good instruction, and every novice believes they have skills, until they lose a favorite lure. This is a lesson imparted from one patient person to the next, but who has patience any more.  Skill cannot be learned on youtube, only the mechanics...
Most amateurs steer clear of fly fishing, and Tenkara, because they never graduate Spin-Casting 101. Most people never advance beyond the Zebco 202.

From the perspective of a child of six or seven, subtle subterfuge from Dad would seem inconceivable. That a $3.50 lure would be his guarded secret -- Even lorded over by a parent is soon discovered by every child. Concealed like a chemical addiction -- A parent keeps the good stuff (the real lures) for themselves, as if to guarantee their catching success.  This very same discovery is shared by children all over the world every spring. 
By Mid-Summer, the "family vacation" predicts that a small child will bear witness to another inconceivable parental phenomena. Shortly after dad snags his secret lure on a branch with another bad cast... All the rules of fishing become moot.  The very mistake he'd tried to prevent his kid from making, brings brief madness, as dad works to recover his "precious lure". He pulls-up a tiny anchor winds tightly his reel's drag, and then literally powers his small craft toward the stuck lure by reeling-in alone.  Aghast, the silent witness attends to dad's imminent cursing. When suddenly with a screech, Daddy lurches losing his footing as he breaks his 12lb test,  mid-route to an out-of-reach lure snagged up on a branch. 

There it hangs, glistening and lovely, but just out of his reach.

With 12 more Jigs, 2 Rapalas, 9 Plastic Worms, and 1 lil' Cleo,  in the tackle box, any sober child would find no reasonable excuse for dad to be so bereft at the loss of one tiny lure... Yet there it hangs, glistening and lovely, but just out of his reach. Alas, with such a setback, the day is called off, just as an unwitting child hooks a bass.

Et MEPPS alors? 
André Meulnart, ingénieur chez Peugeot, passionné de pêche et de mécanique, à l'époque de l'avènement du lancer léger dans les années 30 met au point pour son usage personnel des cuillères et des moulinets à tambour fixe (le Vamp et le Baby Vamp)
Son succès grandissant, il crée en 1938 une entreprise à Paris : la Manufacture d'Engins de Précision pour la Pêche Sportive (MEPPS)

The English Translation: www.mepps.com/information/aglia-dressed-aglia/121#B3%20G
André Meulnart, an engineer at Peugeot, passionate about fishing's mechanics, at the advent of light throwing in the 1930s, developed both spoon lures and fixed drum reels (the Vamp and the Baby Vamp).
His success growing, in 1938 he created a company in Paris: the Manufacture d'Engins de Précision pour la Pêche Sportive (MEPPS)

I am no Muscle car, but this July Fourth, rears fearful memories of rednecks peeling out of the corner bar, where they'd just cashed paychecks. Angry Americans who've slammed several beers, right before racing to the state line to fill Nova & Chevelle trunks with lethal fireworks. History is littered with such cautionary memories. Masculine, yet shitty cars define the 'american man', and perhaps America. Defending dumb-shit nostalgia, and un-deserv-ed freedoms, is the 'American Operating System 1.1'
​Me personally,  ...I am perhaps a Pontiac Fiero..., A decent enough looking attempt at a sports-car, but just as lame.  The facsimile of something fast, but wimpy, and scaled-down -- perhaps effeminately sexy, but with no redeeming features whatsoever, except that it doesnt look like a pick-up truck, thank god!

America is a has-been muscle-car, obsolete, uninspired, and in need of nut and bolt restoration.

Like a Corvair, or Karmann-Ghia. I am underpowered, dim, and anemic, ... [you know, like a Fiero]. My interior is spartan, dashboard confusing, and the AC is broke.  I was built in America, mid-day Friday, right before the holiday weekend began.  No skilled labor on this production line, and no one is trying to impress management the day before a July 4th holiday. This factory is working it's way towards the door, not towards Quality.

Just before Pussy Fiero sales fizzled-out -- This relic, (a pretend muscle car in drag), was perhaps briefly cool. Today the Fiero, and so many other Pontiacs line the bottom of the scrap-yard, even their second-hand parts go un-used. Which is basically where America now celebrates independence.
In the 80's auto workers hustled to slap sections together, wandering the factory floor beneath day-dreams of charcoal briquettes, potato-salad, and picnic blankets -- But never working on car quality. So it happened that my underbody immediately began to rust through -- my clear coat fades by the day, timing chain was slack, and the cylinder head split. But I know who I am, and that I live in a strange republic full of red-necks, risk, and dark forces.   Independence Day means different things to many "Americans", but to me, it means sticky vinyl car-seats, plastic-chrome window cranks, leaky metal coolers, and pre-catalytic smog. It is a season of snagging carp, piss-warm shit beer, and mosquito bites.  There isn't much else to regale on "The Fourth", but its fair to mention I don't feel half as free today as when this Fiero rolled off the line.  I'd feared a small part of America back when I was young, but now I shudder at most of what I witness.

“A clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower.”

American Anthems steer us 'down to the levee', but the nostalgic levee is hot, dry, and masked ICE agents are waiting below the bridge to arrest dissenters.  Awkwardly, we all gather around as friends with a few kilos of TNT to celebrate how things used to be.  Because... why not blow some shit up to celebrate our freedom to blow some shit up?

"If we had a fast car -- Maybe together we could get somewhere".       ​-Tracy Chapman.
​

Whatever your opinion of American Muscle cars, the best ones are well in our past, despite what Corvette & Mopar owners may claim -- And perhaps, the past is where they, and their owners belong. Stellantis, doubled down on gaudy muscle cars heaving Hemi Engines, from zero to sixty, and eventually... Regardless of the 'Turner Diaries' reconstruction, America will abandon stupid muscle cars altogether. Gasp!, Stellantis is looking at a few billion dollar short-fall this quarter, mostly on throwbacks, and muscle cars.  Eventually even tacky boxy NASCAR crap will be Electric. Sometimes, on a holiday such as this, the "glory days" is just so fucking unbearable. Watching people cling to the past. Watching drunk paralytic tongues resuscitate Seeger anthems, imagining themselves stoned in a pit-crew, spraying fuel into a fake muscle car, tells the tale.  The cars rolling around the actual track are so far and away from what you can buy at the dealer, that the game of pretense that you are 'kind of' a race car driver, is a joke.  Post apocalypse, the same proud red-necks who'd frightened youth, are still with us, but they are now running "government". While one may hope that they expire in a blaze of inglorious petrol on a riding mower... This dumbass muscle car never goes out of style. Your neighbors are pushing the same white-cleanse agenda from before the noughties. The mass extinction of masculine hubris will alas take more time to fizzle out.

Around this time four years ago, Charlie Sykes said during an appearance on MSNBC, “A clown with a flamethrower still has a flamethrower.”, and that is where we sit to celebrate our "Independence".

  To me, the pageantry of the Independence Day parade, (which is full of clowns by the way), is where we reflect upon a trunk full of ice,  beer, wieners,  and quarter-sticks of dynamite. July Fourth is always framed in front of a hot grill,  with a masculine maniac in a mullet squeezing a can of Gulf Lite into a blaze. It is a fearful season marked by a fuck-ton of potential energy, that can (and does) go really quickly the wrong way.

Relax...! this is all senseless drivel, and America is stronger than ever before. 

But the Clown still has a flamethrower...
Setting the whole shebang ablaze is the birthright of All Americans, and for anyone named Larry, Gary, Don, or Rod, as these clown names require no Green Card, nor Citizenship documents.   
Self Immolation of American evil cannot happen quickly enough, and it's fucking hot out today. And... Oh,  "The Clown still has a flame-thrower..."
But fireworks, and hunting rifles are merely prequel plinking practice for America's next celebrity school shooter. Here in america, we get a break from the media clown-car only when liberal bastion gets shot up, or flooded.
A Rocket's Red Glare will soon bring us together around a funeral, and a  celebration where C.C.R. & Eagles anthems, along with white pride, fill smoky skies. The sulfur themes of racial enslavement are coming up the rear. This year, [on the 4th] we will blow some shit up, just before  our hangover wakes us up to the fact we are no longer free -- So what's with the fireworks? We are so un-free, that even "South Park" is pulling punches, stating, "I don't know what else we can say about Trump", (or even Trumpism).
Strange to celebrate civil liberty, when we are far from free.  Not in the press, not in public, not free to protest, and not free to travel, not free to worship... We are not free from taxation without representation, and we are certainly not free to love whomever we desire. So grab a can and burn some shit, because fire is cleansing.  Man it's hot outside!
​ 

Every Billboard on my holiday drive is for Fireworks, and Personal Injury Attorneys. Which is to say plainly, more than a bit ironic. People role play, burning shit down,  blowing shit up, and shooting things, perhaps so that they don't advance to the next round.
When Independence Day rolls around [again], people either stock-pile dangerous explosives, or are trying to escape those with them.
As I steer cautiously toward a rural cottage beside a lovely lake, I understand that the sweaty Orange sunset will soon bleed with purple, pink, and brown... while explosives smolder It's fore-ground. two inches to the right and we would have moved away from our dread... but today we fear the desperate red-necks more because the gloves are off on white pride.
I’d suppose in the whole of the world, there has never been a paradise like America so enamored with its sordid conquests, slave history, neck tats, and danger that we celebrate, NOT independence from autocracy... And our freedom to fuck shit up.  Sweaty drunks coated with bug-spray and sunblock, squirt lighter-fluid, unleashing wild flames and ruin upon a lovely landscape. Children dance and twirl sparklers, and here again we slump, to gaze over our gut as the lit wick of independence sputters out.

Independence day, and the vacancy of government, are a  mirror of America's disrepair. Seriously, who drives a Chrysler "muscle car" anyways?

"But, I can't go for that."   -Hall and Oats

And why shouldn’t our “leaders” posses the full measure of our basest instincts. Waxing an old muscle car, like polishing a gleaming weapon, is how we lovely Americans now relate to our post apocalyptic World. We have strange cars, strange tools, and stranger Fashion. Those who still do their own car repairs, and their own grocery shopping, on balance betray our belle-epoch with fistfuls of refined sugar, warm beer,  wieners, and vapes. 

From our revolutionary war through the cold war, fashion never revealed so much [sigh] about American supremacy as it does today. Beneath a proud muffin-top, a track-suit, a tatted neckline, and velour airport pajamas -- Free expression in America's fashion defines the coach-class slave we are today. We see ourselves as celebrities,, influencers,  but we are pretty vacant. Everyone rides in Steerage, imagining themselves as influential. Today, haute couture is measured in Fleecy slippers, Ironic T's, and it's washed down with a 96 OZ Big Gulp thermos.
American celebrity status is measured by "limited edition" Sneakers, stretch-pants, and elastic waistbands. Our true brilliance reflected in a gleaming gigantic Costco shopping cart.  To see one's reflection in these thin chrome bars is at least a bit slimming.

Independence Day means that America is now free to consume buffalo wings, lick it's fingers, and then lose them to a firecracker. All we 'Free Americans' need to understand this holiday is found scrawled along the rural-route through Indiana, or Georgia. Banners for Injury Attorneys, Casinos, Fast Food, and Fire-Works, beg allegiance. That Star Spangled Banner yet waves, yes -- But it has been defiled, misappropriated, and soiled. Luckily it comes with extra bacon, and ghost pepper sauce.
Even the mega-church is seeking new parishioners, but they too fly the flag  upside-down out on the lawn -- An unsubtle nod to restoration of America's white racist Christian  tyranny.
Bright-sides...!, you can now hire an attorney with or without missing fingers using a QR code whilst speeding to the E.R.
Any reasonably advanced civilization,  Is measured by it's cart-size,  waistline, and heartrate.  We are growing, so to speak, into our role as a "has-been" empire, ruled by a has-been emperor like Jabba.

Healthcare is reactive.  Statins, E.D. Drugs, Glucose Monitors, Dialysis, and botulinum, are OTC self-care without question for their medical efficacy. We can do it all ourselves while romancing a Half-Pound-Dog & Big-Gulp super-combo.

"Happy Fourth", he said awkwardly.

Wherever a screen-door slams, into a sweaty July 4th, “has-been” America is simmering in its transitional juice from scrappy republic, to nostalgic smug-fuck, to short-lived social disaster, to political holocaust.  We watch the fireworks, together, as the whole empire collapses under it's largess.
For me, little pink houses, screen doors, picket fences, and swimming-holes, still mean something… but not in that, twangy “set a spell”, way… Perhaps in the truly affirmative knowledge that what we have lost to recent tyranny, will not return to an immoral majority, so I try to find value wading through elegiac feelings. What we have forgotten to do today, lives in the music, somewhere. We have forgotten how to be free. We should adore simplicity, inhale its majesty, feel awe, and touch something meaningful. But we just want to blow shit up, and blame others for a wet fuse, our own failure to launch.  Behind the glare of a glowing gadget, is a world pressed like a flower -- desiccated, and well beyond resuscitation.
Independence, is perhaps now only the freedom to imagine the past fondly, where we once  heard freedom ring -- Where we'd looked out for one another. Where we are at now, is a fucked up capsule, sealed off hermetically from whomever we were supposed to care about.
Since the "Civil War" we have been trying to outdrive rednecks that resent those of us who can type.

When I drive a car, I enjoy the privilege of knowing I am (of course)  the only good driver, and everyone else is a motherfucker. ...And we are all trapped beneath glass and steel, shouting at each-other. Today, we all live in the same conceited capsule. hiding behind the machine.  And we are all driving them poorly.  We believe we are free from influence, and sovereign in our own thoughts, but we don't have original thoughts any longer.  We are wasting our time talking about politics, and who we pledge allegiance to.  We cannot all become stoics overnight, and hence, we are doomed.  We are not free, because the machines, have already won. They have already picked out your cheeky cut-of shorts, what explosives you will buy, and how you will light them ablaze.

Independence means different things to different people.  Here in America, freedom means you have the right to choose your own facts, your own explosives, and perhaps what janky car you'll drive aggressively --  But you cannot outrun the genetics of this failing republic. Since the "Civil War" we have been trying to outdrive rednecks who resent those of us that can type.  Ignorance builds relic muscle cars, in the face of far more efficient machines. And although fireworks only show up in the darkness, a redneck will still set some off midday.
This holiday,  instead of celebrating independence day; Just say, "Happy Fourth", without any feeling, and then blow some shit up.

We've got your back, and will keep your fingers safe in a ziploc.
​

Superstition /soo͞″pər-stĭsh′ən/
noun

1. An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.
2. A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance.
3. A fearful or abject state of mind resulting from such ignorance or irrationality.

Consider Golf. As with most male superstition, Large Club Size has the mythical aberrant of fulfilling a promise of competence.  But, ability comes from practice, and perseverance,. and not specifically one's gigantic tool. I once knew a guy who'd walk onto a course early spring, or late autumn, with range balls, and two clubs... A seven iron and a wooden shafted putter.  He'd shoot PAR or below without a pig-skin glove, dorky shoes, or blousy chinos. He'd play 7 or 16 avoiding the cups closest to the clubhouse, because he was playing for free.  Practice makes the difference, as in most endeavor... But we still seek advantages, even status, from cool gear instead of putting in the work.  Every year the department store sells a pre-strung tennis racket which likely won Wimbledon the year prior, and yet, most hold out for the latest un-strung technology.  This is to say that we are easily tempted by marketing, and superstition, [mostly Bull-shit], to hit further, drive straight, and go fast.  We ignore the lessons of raw talent, and hard work, preferring to believe that the latest gadget will ease the pain, open the door, and create opportunity.  I am in awe of those raw talents who approach nearly every endeavor with patience, and a watchful calculus, like local surfers bobbing behind waves, waiting for the right moment. 
By contrast I get exhausted in the waves climbing on every one.
I have a friend who rides a shitty bike,  refusing to upgrade. He deserves it, but some monastic celibacy precludes his ascendence. Just the same, he is a terrific cyclist. We all know a guy who betters seasoned riders without any sophistication, or even practice. (His initials are J.B.)... But for most... 'hard work', and NOT 'hi-tech' makes the difference.
​Laughably I seem to be heading way too fast toward some end-game, where I cannot be helped.

Twice, each year we get a reminder of the things we have not yet accomplished:  New Years Day is spent in quiet reflection of one's regrets, and missed opportunities -- We double-down with resolutions to change. We approach our Birthdays with the reluctance, of a doctor's check-up -- We lift our drooping chin in a morning mirror, with the confidence that we are aging gracefully. These days, we fidget reflectively, pensive, if a bit disappointed in our results.
I want to be adored, we all do... and I work tirelessly toward that end, BUT with my poor technique, and nasty nature, I fail. e.g., people tend to stay clear of my cloud.
​
Most days,  I know that I am not special, nor deserving of adulation.  Should we stumble upon our birthday and not feel worthy of a party, it's likely that we are well past our "deserving phase".  There will always be some adult twat who believes they are intrinsically special, and should be adored daily... especially upon Birthdays, but most of us will simply buy ourselves some new stuff in hopes of improvement, and keep our head down. Me, I'm still waiting for my bionic upgrade and my Jet-Pack, "Happy Birthday, dumb-ass!, Take this shit... you will need it!"

I've always been mediocre,  and at nearly every endeavor, I could use a little daily affirmation to feel whole, or even competent. Alas, I don't get much positive feedback.  I get zero "Kudos", zero "Likes", and far less adoration. Nevertheless, I try a lot of things on, in hopes of finding a competency which fits me well. Alas with my figure, nothing flatters.  So, I've settled upon the maxim that it's better to be lucky, than to be good at anything at all. Mediocrity inspires my defeat, which brings a strong head-wind, and no aero-bike will fix that.

Aero is Bullshit anyway -- As are gigantic club-faces, brand-new shitty surfboards, Electric Fishing Poles, and $400. baseball bats. To get good at something takes practice. The right swing, and proper focus.  Struggling to get good at something which one has no business attempting is bull-shit too. One need only scan the Running path for evidence of the un-adapted. I have been trying to "get good at" so many things simultaneously, but have come to realize my repeat defeat cannot be practiced into competence.  Realizing that I have no business in marathons,  a swimming pool, transmission repair, golfing, or hang-gliding... I've settled into my mediocrity.  

Taboo talisman that it is... "Aero" is the "Surround-sound" end game of a dying hobby. Aero was invented to level out the classics, using Time Trial bikes as marketing for strange tech, that no mortal will ever actually ride. Aero was created for D-Bags who cannot swim nor run, but want to gain 9 watts.

What wont make me a better cyclist is an Aero Bike; nor aero anything for that matter. I keep my head down, and bring my elbows in, when riding in my drops. I tuck down low while descending, but find no gains from novel aero sanctuary.
Aero Bikes are the New "Surround-Sound", a giant club for lonely men, which has in a few decades outlived it's usefulness, and has alas marketed itself to death.  This began with a "kick-ass", (but shitty sounding) college stereo, pointing a Cerwin-Vega speaker out of one's window, in hopes of Bro-recognition... (Lonesome men hoping someone will share in their relish of "Rush 2112"), These lonely guys gobbled up the Surround Sound Evolution, like cheese fries at a rave, and Soon enough "Red Barchetta" broke into "Quadrophenia", which gave way to the inevitable Subwoofer. Before too long, music and film were dissected into tiny packets, and spread over a shit-ton of stupid anemic speakers, paired with subs, birthing 5.1, 9.1, 9.2, and even 12.4 channels of soulless surround-sound, Too Fucking many marketing guys in the incubator, killed the whole titanic shit-storm.  Today we have stupid shitty sound-bars, and tiny Bluetooth portables which sound impressively tinny, like a squirrel is locked in a bucket... and today, nobody even buys a kick-ass stereo. 

(Well, except for lonely old guys who'll likely buy an aero bike and a rear-view eyeglass mirror, without much convincing).

Death is the inevitable end game of any hobby which evolves unnaturally from Fat 'club-face" into sticker adorned Aero -- Or Surround Sound. Aero is what they sell you, when you've forsaken that cool vintage bike in your garage, believing you have graduated into velo-topia.

Taboo talisman that it is... "Aero" is the "Surround-sound" end game of a dying sport. Aero is the Gigantic Club Face which wont make you a better golfer, but promises you will get noticed,  (...for all the wrong reasons).

Long live the Kool kids who ask their parents for a Bike for their birthday. Viva the natural talents, and the jalopy riders.  Today, let's celebrate those who ride bikes well into their old age!, even if they wear tacky neon, tennies, as long as they DO NOT ride stupid-ass aero bikes.

When Specialized re-introduced the Shiv, with a "Nutrition Pouch"  the die was cast to dismantle cycling's dynasty for the last time. As if the throttle bike wasn't bad enough; That too will soon be aero. 


P.S. 
​
Trump Don't Surf !

In the same vein, ETSY --  loosely defined as [A garage-sale of crafty crap scattered across a country lawn in a tornado], will be truly fucked when people have to pay double and a half for crafty junk they didn't need or want anyway. This goes for Dollar Stores, Harbor Freight, Farm and Fleet, and most cottage industries, held and adored by MAGA voters. This Sudden death is real, and the trickle-down of the stand-off will be epic.
The real fact is that MAGA's quiet enablers lack the fortitude to bear this burden. Former Dollar store shoppers, will be having a fuck-ton more rummage sales, bake sales, and the like, to make ends meet. So what happens when a steady stream of broken exercise equipment, and HSN debris stops flowing into 'Merica at below what it could possibly cost to produce?  What happens when his entire constituency run out of debris to decorate the lawn? Who will save them when they can no longer buy more cheap junk to decorate folding tables out front?  When there is nothing to feed the chickens with?

Archaeologists mostly uncover society's trash piles to reconstruct ancient cultures. Likewise it is an accurate method to get to know a trump voter parked on the shoulder to stroll their Yard Sale.  In a world where nobody cares much for history, "Proper Rummage" will elucidate his legacy, just before being burned along with any books about it.  In a sense, a 125% tariff on China is the most ecological leap of faith, a Republican lawmaker has ever made.

To believe that pulling a tariff lever will make naive consumers prefer shitty home spun brands to imports is bananas. Another classroom prank in the chaotic arsenal of a boy who never knew a consequence for stupid. 
Anyway... Who would purchase shitty trash, just because it's cheaper, more sugary, more disposable, tasteless, even orange, simply because it costs less... Hmm?
Well -- That trick ONLY works on "Stupid Americans".

​...So I suppose he may be right to keep his tiny hands on those levers.
​

Fiction is a drug as misunderstood as how I feel today. A vacant messianic Netflix squeezes a billion bad books into a luke-warm screen-play syrup, reconstituting re-runs with .2mg of botulinum, 5 mg of THC, a half Xanax, Hyaluronic acid, and a splash of Sauv-blanc.  Disturbingly average actors pour piss-poor lines over ice, Abysmal algorithms shake them, and we sip this bitter antidote for the blahs. Bad news comes as fast as their top ten, just before rumble strips rattle me awake.
[Are You Still There?]...

​Every sleepless night, I startle awake, half-asleep at the wheel -- Desperately patting in the dark for the controls, as it rests loosely in my other hand. I'm on the couch, and should be in bed reading. Anywhere else. Today, I can't seem to keep my head above my Netflix dashboard, (likely because Netfilx sucks), But as water fills my car again, I wonder, "will the next episode entertain me?", "Will the water wake me?", "Save me from myself? ...Just before I drown here half asleep?"
Fictional elixir briefly reconstitutes our desiccated dreams, with drippy third-rate screenplays.  We are becoming something dewy & damp, glistening, slouching, as slowly as lichen devours a stone. Alas, I feel the urgency to pause, and I stand up to go piss. I'm thinking of my moist springtime, and why I can't escape the muck and mire to alas cancel Netflix, and head out to another live show... But I suppose it has something to do with the endless back-ground montage of bad fictions. Fictions which box me in a dry cell, fiction of any kind as a drug, a remedy, a sanctuary, from thinking too much. Summer may not come fast enough. Today another Protest March. Everyone is upset, some for the right reasons, Most not enough.
​Rom-Coms like baby food, require no work, nourishing us to defeat the blahs through rosy soft focus, and deliberately awkward dialogue. Banner descriptions boast tacky flavor notes like: dry, witty, eerie, smart, addictive, but it is all mush. Each chick-flick auto-starts like autonomous taxis, merging into my exit-lane, far too robotically to be safe -- and so I remain on the neon highway.

DOCUDRAMAS WONT SAVE YOU!

Every so often, we wash down another dehydrated film franchise with a luscious golden Sancerre, then we nod off again. So was the winter of my discontent, where fiction could not save me from loathing the fall of America, but it kept me alive just to witness it's end.

["Are you still There"], urges my raison d'etre. This, my streaming simulacrum of planet Earth, as safe as space ice-cream... Dry, crisp, powdered -- Not quite Neapolitan, Not even cold, but somehow each flavor tastes remarkably like the real thing. My freeze-dried room-temp brain-freeze brings a Netflix stupor which is decidedly not as labelled  -- This "Sexy Thriller", is as sterile, as dry "Ice-cream", yet nothing drips on my sofa.  I nod back to my safe place, asleep again at the wheel, biding time, wasting it.

FICTION WONT SAVE YOU!

Netflix is my clueless Lyft driver, from some small town, never watching the road... taking me for a ride around my own block in an endless loop.  Netflix is our substitute teacher who rolls in the steel hammer-tone TV cart, pops in a docudrama, and watches everyone put their heads down.  She is the mean baby-sitter, The bad nanny,, my worst fucking nightmare -- But I have nowhere else to be tonight. Another date alone with myself..., I'm neither awake nor unconscious, micro-dosing episodic fiction, where each "feature" is rated worse than the last. Remakes, reruns, prequels, procedurals, sequels, foreign versions, numbing subtitles, Serbian Cop shows, even M.A.S.H -- all failing me... Netflix is a collage ransom letter demanding my submission.  Netflix is a college job in a book store, where I've read the back of everything, but never finished a book.  Netflix, I love you but you're bringing me down.

"Kill Your Television  Do Something", my phone is jealous.

My Phone is warm... I think my phone is too warm, I think it may be overcharging, because I have nobody to call at this hour. Someone save me from Netflix. 
Netflix is the taxi-driver nightmare running the meter on a desert drive where I'm trapped in their trunk.

[When the] T.V. flashed back to life... I knew the end of the fucking world would begin right then.
​
It is an elixir as quiescent as beer-nuts -- urging another glass to wash it all away,  but there is no place to pull-off and pee.  I implore my driver to find a flooded quarry someplace, and drive us straight over the ledge.  Bleak bland and momentary, we never stop to ask what the hell we are doing squandering so much free-time, in retarded reverie.  Netflix, you are killing us softly with re-runs.  Like watching SNL's smug duds -- Not smiling, hoping to laugh, but Jost's snarky jokes never land, do they?

SNL WONT SAVE YOU!

Alas another hour lost to time, as I gel under the gravity of a neon red "N".  I'm in the Uber, and I didn't buckle-up. I'm going no place, gridlocked, I'm made of stone, my seat-belt is stuck, I'm still waiting for my driver to confirm my drop-off time. My desire, Gone! My free will, Gone! My Drive, Gone!, My joy, Gone! Rainy spring evenings wasted, watching effects-driven film franchises, pantone red and vanillafied previews -- dried, ground and powdered.  The Thrill is not only gone, it is a soulless whey protein. Fake Flowers, the dumpy stand-in's for a real hot meal. A plastic tub of International Coffee's sugary ash, dissolving me into a thick manilla solution -- Sanka single-origin stripped of what it once was. Powdered creamer heavy and hopeless.  Unmoving, I'm sipping Huel, or Soylent, as a saccharin cloud of adult baby-formula scatters like ashes over deceased screen-writers, whose dramas fetch the lowest bid.  

DRUGS WONT SAVE YOU!​

However you feel today about your healthy habits, The fate of the world, Your unhealthy binge watching, it's all hopeless. Another White Lotus, Dexter, Bad Sisters... whether you merely dip your toe in it, or you wade out into Adult Swim..., You are FAR deeper than you think. You are Losing your edge,  we are all losing time. Convenience is killing us all.

NETFLIX CAN'T SAVE YOU!
When I was a kid, My uncle's suburban home was the beta-site for a marvelous and revolutionary invention. The wireless remote control. When the adults left the room for shrimp cocktails, and cold duck, I climbed onto the recliner, reached to the TV table, and  hefted a new prototype Space Command remote control. As I clunked its prominent chrome buttons, and the T.V. flashed back to life... I knew the end of the fucking world would begin right then. I never thought it would take this long to take effect, but I now know we are all doomed to watch our own annihilation unwind on T.V.  

"We owe nothing to the past but wasted time". Clicking through our chaos --
[ARE YOU STILL FUCKING THERE?] Fuck My T.V.!, Fuck my Space Command Remote, and Fuck Netflix!
​
The End is Nigh.
​
​

The Eighties was full of shit, full of so much shitty trauma that it made people believe it was (perhaps) the end of the world.  But every generation thinks it's their last -- Every generation believes it's the end of the fucking world. Rounding the corner to the noughties, a new decade held the promise and hope, which (in some strange concentration), brought people to believe in optimism. Belief, yes... because in truth it wasn't that different than the prior years, as far as epochs go. Anyways that optimism, like the sex, freedom, nudity, and drugs which liberated the 60's and 70's from dogmatic white Christian racist tyranny, landed everyone in a decade's-long hangover where most people put their clothes back on and retreated from view. Risqué returned to it's closet, and divorce was discussed quietly under one's breath.   Nearly everyone bought curtains, and stayed at home, or holed up in a cabin in the woods, in a sense people sheltered in place. This era of retreats, was not new, but rather ubiquitous.  Much like Doctors who'd fled NYC after 9:11 to upstate bed communities, such as Cooperstown.

"Heading Up North For the Weekend?"  became THE most popular late 80's catch-phrase. next to the concept of "Retreats", which were veiled attempts by your neighbor to start a cult.
Seemingly everyone was hiding from their past traumas, fear they may be exposed, and perhaps a backlash against previously exuberant free-love indulgence, or for sanctuary of simply feeling good for the first decade in about a century. Fortunately for them those hippie documentaries wouldn't emerge until Ken Burns became a messiah.
Punks and Skaters were always in police crosshairs, or in custody -- and even post-pop-punk bands like Black Flag spouted blatantly racist drivel. This was done because they had nothing legitimate to bitch about.  Counter culture drove a bit deeper below ground, and everyone with normal haircuts were at surface level indoors sleeping it off. Meanwhile, famous republicans (aka white Christian racist tyrants) realigned with "D-Cell" metal flashlights under white blankets, promising broad-ranging behavioral modification, V1... They even re-kindled Bourbon, with every permutation of the name  "Jim", e.g. Jim Crow whisky was born. This contraction remains the ebb and flow of our American ruin.  So it seems odd that everyone cannot recall just how recurrently shitty the world has been to itself in the low troughs of our banal tyrannical-freedom. The give and take ledgers are paid with red ink and baseless currency which we harvest from the clear blue sky to pay our debts. Or more appropriately, we pay our debts with our debt. This Fantasy-Land which we all participate in, is half the time raw with resentment for the other side fucking everything up. Or sleeping it off. Today, as then... we spend the other conscious half wallowing under the covers from shame, and fierce reprisal. And, (perhaps) the third half taking pictures of ourselves.

Wait!  Does it sometimes feel like everything you do, write, and say is meaningless?

​My friend Chelsea says that childhood trauma is something you may wish to share with any random stranger on the bus. That even Creepy family trauma is just a natural casualty of the human experience. That life is so full of that sort of shit that it’s perfectly fine, (even recommended), to share shit with any imperfect stranger. It is a time-bomb to hold on to our trauma, As if this unique burden defines your brand, lest it control our days. The preceding and following "generational flow fails because they carry their 'woody-allen-daddy-diddle' trauma with themselves everywhere". "Why was it so traumatic?", "Really?  Are you OKAY?"  "You look OK...", "So suck it up and move on".  Chelsea says, (before bearing her soul at Karaoke) [that] "...People need to be more open, to be in touch with their emotions", "Let that shit go". Share & shed your repressive shame of (perhaps) simply being raised catholic, you think you have to?. Think of it like a micro-dosing cure for sleepless deep set mental anguish.  Curiously, but unsurprisingly the entertainment which most sells to the couched and coddled post-modern churchgoer are a limited PBS series, a podcast, or books, full of other people's trauma. "Their Story" about survival... is a strange therapy. While the other side adores horror, and John Wick. In my version we all kill the monster, and take a few gratuitous kicks to his nuts. What is so fascinating about someone else's dirty anguish? Do we really need another podcast about church abuse, Russel Brand, or Hip-Hop celeb molestation?  No we do not.  "Share!", she says -- "And set yourself free".  But by sharing, you make everyone more aware. Let that shit go.

Now, I know that is a wacky perspective, but it is not wrong.  People pay big bucks to their online shrink, Psychic, Hypnotist,  or even a pedigreed counsellor to emerge from something they could have dropped-off on a perfect stranger in coach class seat 22B.

Increasingly America turns to fictionalized memoir — Novels full of other people’s trauma, pain, and misfortune to feel alive, to feel anything at all besides defeat.  It is Defeat which rears when the world tips to the dark-side. Today that is totally understandable.  But perhaps letting things go is merely scratches on the surface of a Fight Club methodology.  To be in tune, to really get in tune requires coming to terms with anger, frustration, fear, anxiety -- But also Wonder, Fascination, Awe, and Joy.  It is an unpacking of sorts.  Memory perhaps is the operant which we most need to tame.  It has been suggested that most memories are conflated by trauma and become inflated monsters casting far larger shadows against the walls of our safe spaces. How we remember our traumas is perhaps as much to blame for fucking us up, as are those who have wronged us. Was it really that bad? Like mistakenly being flown to a super-max in El Salvador?
In the Nineties, we used-to tape everything in some strange philately conservation, ostensibly meant to cherish our memories a bit longer. To make it last longer so to speak. A mix tape to share one’s raw emotions, a VHS tape of a birthday party, or recital, perhaps using TiVo Hard Disc to record a big event.
Americans obsessed during the noughties over preserving better times — perhaps simply to bathe in their glow, became the oddest phenomena of Human Kind. Fetish level universal obsession with recording everything everywhere, in lieu of being present.

Within the 90's Boot sector of our human condition needlessly photographing everything all the time deserves a silly noun like 'philately' is to stamp collecting. Perhaps "Phillatiography" will become the catch-phrase for human-kind's obsessive photo collecting. From Doorbells to Ray Bans, everything is loaded with a lens. 

Meanwhile somewhere in the late Noughties, literally all of our tapes were tossed to the waste bin, or “donated” to a charity resale shop. If we had only ascribed more meaning to them -- throwing them away could have been so much more cathartic.  If we were smarter back then, we'd have burned them, as tiny, poignant magnetic effigies, just before Y2K destroyed humanity.  But we didn't think of that, in our frenzy to clear the historic record. Those of us who yearn to come to terms with destroyed evidence of post-Reagan perversity, can be trapped within their imaginations. Relax!, All the evidence is toast.  Alas that long lost history is only an oral one, (tongue-firmly-in-cheek). Fortunately now, your newest greatest trauma's are forever uploaded someplace. Your device will remind you daily through "memories" of how well you are aging.  ...And The ONLY good outcome from our big fat orange permanent record is perhaps that a few survivors will reflect upon our dead empire. Hopefully, they'll drop that trauma on some unwitting stranger on the bus. "You know the story, the one about those billionaire dickheads who'd boiled our oceans, and torched the countryside, before blasting off in a fiery space ship. Let the record reflect how they'd burnt this place to the ground, before they flamed out in space.  This is all sharable, (of course) while you are snapping pix of your Musk Burger and Putin Fries, and Orange Cheese.

Bright sides: Some precious memories, later become snarky Greeting cards in some clever stationer, bearing ironic phrases -- Anonymized awkward strangers sport ever more ironic hair-cuts.  But the nostalgic novelty of our worst eighties exposure has been doubled-down by commemorating every single thing one does today. It seems that we cannot get free of the 70's fascination with capturing ourselves from every angle. Ego, Vanity, or "vainglory" is merely a form of self idolatry where someone likens themself to greatness, Pictures, constant pictures are the modern equal to some idiot carrying around a mirror everywhere. This Vanity is a construct to guard against feeling piteous. "Vanity well fed is benevolent. Vanity hungry is spiteful."[5] -Mason Cooley

The Noughties, were a period of vanity's revival wherein the world emerged from the regressive oppression of 80’s disaster politics, Reaganomics, several hundred million suppressed egos, and an adjacent series of recession… Right about then -- Everyone began recording everything, especially themselves perhaps to trap these better times like specimens under glass. A dried Flower, pressed between volumes which would soon be burnt by our Government. Archiving our tattered taxidermy of a soon extinguished golden era -- Kodachrome came to capture our better times in vivid hues, where we breathed cleaner air, drank cleaner water, and enjoyed an idyllic togetherness. Government by the people and for the people encouraged the EPA and the FDA to guarantee our public health.
But, barely after America had learned to bake cakes together, road-trip together, relax together, being blissfully together manifest a strange outgrowth — An obsession to preserve our good times, at all cost.  The world went Coo-Coo for cameras. Taping everything went haywire. Americans, started to do precisely what they'd disparaged proto-Japanese tourist memes for doing in the early eighties... We began to capture everything, and print the shit out of it. We even got duplicates for free, so we could share how great we looked in one out of every thirty-six frames. 
Today everything is memorialized well before it is even experienced. Every meal, every scenic overlook, every party. Time stamped. It's even likely that the chefs are taking cell-phone pix of the meal you are currently taking a photo of right now.
These recordings are rich vibrant, 3D, 4K, HDR, and also boring as fuck! They include every Texture, every photon, every grain, every crumb, of spreading butter upon toast, and yet they taste like nothing at all.
Nothing matters more than what you ate for dinner, and nothing matters less than what it actually tasted like.
Nothing is intrinsically important about our collecting banal memories like butterflies on a wind-screen. Our obsession to collect (good) memories, began with Kodachrome, expanding into magnetic tape, hard-discs, and (gasp) THE CLOUD, (wherever that is). The insecure cultural obsession born of a nervous cult(ure) searching for meaning, nay belonging through rewinding, is bonkers. Your "Cloud Memories" are like a remedial memoir for illiterates.  We are all doing it, and each and every photo, video of every concert, fades just as fast as our liver will metabolize a sixteen-dollar cocktail.  Nothing at all is being recorded and posted at such a frenzy, that reality is suffocating beneath the huge vacancy of experience.

The joy, even awe of lived experience is lost to the process of manipulating every meaningful moment through a filter, and getting that shit out in front of everybody as fast as one can — Literally everyone. But nobody cares, and everyone just keeps doing this thing, without knowing why, or even that they are doing it -- Like a roller rink without getting to cop a feel.

But seriously -- literally everyone gives zero fucks about what you had for dinner, nor even that you've eaten, just that your capture outshined theirs.  Vanity, is where flavors are delivered in the form of praise, or not at all.  Coo-Coo, right? 
So, part of our potential energies could be implemented to delete all that we wish to no longer remember.  While a smidge of our idle energy could be used to own up to some or all of our mistakes.  The rest of that shit, (namely the trauma) simply needs to be dropped on a perfect stranger -- And this can be done just like "Donating" your old video cassettes, computers, photos to the thrift store.  Like a shitty memoir, or The Moth Radio Hour -- others may benefit from your shame.
The time we kill, is killing us.
Delete the history of your trauma along with those pix of tonight's "small-plate courses"  You'll never see them again, right? Let that shit go.  Share a dark secret with a total stranger, just before choking on the: #BEST-BUFFALO-WINGS-ever?
When the person next to you breaks out pics of a pet, or toddler... why not start out fresh with, "That looks like a proper shithole... Let me tell you a story."

This is a Pixies song about a Phone, right?
​
​

No More Food for Bomb-Sniffing Dogs, Abandoning Pediatric Cancer Treatments, and More Genius DOGE Cuts c. 2025

By Charles P. PiercePublished: Mar 17, 2025 1:59 PM EDT
Reprinted without permission, but full credit to Esquire Mag as below:

Anna Moneymaker//Getty ImagesThe ever-essential Margaret Sullivan points us to this remarkably delusional headline in The New York Times. Now, I find all of the president's attempt at charm to be offensive, but I don't think that was the NYT's point anyway. But let us take a look at how the charm offensive was going this weekend.
Our own Logan Airport apparently has been turned into an immigration black site, complete with enhanced interrogation. Dozens of stories have emerged of the human costs on the ongoing DOGE and pony show--graduate schools rescinding acceptances because federal funding for programs has been cut, Social Security recipients being denied benefits because somebody, somewhere declared them dead, pediatric brain cancer patients are being abandoned mid-treatment, court orders are now being routinely ignored to the point where tinpot Central American presidents are mocking them. The president is now threatening to ignore the lawful pardons granted by former president Biden, basing this latest power grab on a theory even more laughable than the one he used to justify his reverse human trafficking to El Salvador. Arlington National Cemetery and the U.S. Army scrubs its website records of black and Hispanic and other minority military members, including the 442nd Infantry, the famous Nisei unit in World War II that was recruited from Japanese Americans out of the detention camps where they were being held. He's demanding that Columbia University knuckle under even more than it already has, and has said quite plainly that Columbia is merely the lab rat for a genuine assault on the country's colleges and universities. Bomb-sniffing dogs are being denied decent nutrition.
Charming, wot?