Oh How I miss the good old days when we all scattered like roaches under a Table, Desk, or deep below the house practicing our quiet complacency whilst the missiles fall  to earth and crater the entire city in a cloud of glowing ash. Peaceful as Hindu cows we all go down to cower and hide, while "The Numbers" go up.  Remember when Pink Floyd's "The Wall" showed spooky gas mask clad school teachers and children without faces falling in line like soldier zombies, as they went peacefully into the meat grinder.  Yep, It's like that.
Traumatized?  Yes, Have some...  PPE, may be the single most traumatic takeaway so called "Normal People" see in their nightmares.  Legions of people sweating, fogging, and writhing behind PPE. Is it a good Idea to use it?  -- Yep Sure. Should you live in fear? Well, that depends upon what outcome you were hoping for.
A year ago a friend asked me, (how) "...the children will be changed by such a monumental shift in their social lives".  My first answer was rather flippant, insensitive, even crass... "They wont be affected much", ..."they don't interact as it is..., so they will just get better at socializing online". 
He said, "...but thinking about the masks, and the fear, and the distancing... I worry about how generations will change fundamentally because of COVID, what can we do to get them back to normal".
"Act Normally" I said. And it was at that moment, that I envisioned Slim Pickens as Major T. J. "King" Kong riding a Nuke down from his bomber in Soviet Airspace to MADden up the place.  Mutually Assured Destruction, can only happen, if you let it... (right?)
I became a student of the Cold War and began studies in an era of Mutually Assured Destruction, (M.A.D.) and One's desire to play a proper role in this circus reinforces many life lessons which we gave a big shit about back when, but  we now know to be blase', self-evident, trite. As we say, "the concept of ignorance being bliss follows, with a collective sea-change, or in the least, everyone playing along needs to happen first, ...and we will get there.
1. The other kid can't get under your skin, if you ignore them. Check!
2. Ignoring your work will only lead to more work later. Check!
3. Homework (like all rules) suck, and so if we all just ignore it, they can't fail all of us, right?
Check!
​COVID, like the clever participants who manage to ride this bomb down to mutually assured destruction, soon come to discover that they could leave their basements, travel, explore, exercise, and even fuck like humans used to.  Not like Porn Stars, and not like Actors on T.V., but like humans did before they shopped for face masks, rubber gloves, sanitizers, test kits, PPE, and vibrators.

Look!, you're never gonna sleep with that trainer from your Peloton Bike, so you might as well assume the siren is clanging outside and venture out to find someone outside to do. 

It turns out that when I truly consider the concept of COVID19, I keep returning to the "19" Thing -- (NINETEEN) Bloody Hell! 2019 was a fucking lifetime ago.  As we peek out from under the covers of 2022, let's straighten our backs from the 2020 YOGA position called: "Cowering Under the Desk", and do some shit... Today, I realize that my life has really not changed significantly since 2019, except for all the B.S. after-burn ingested, and politics we've became accustomed to in our new Cold War / Post-911-land. Here, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge sounded the Orange Alert Sirens for another Terrorist Attack every fucking day and every fucking night for a decade -- Early in the decade we all learned to remove belts, and shoes, and laptops... and then tune this shit the fuck out.  A clever Brother of mine reminded me of the genius (The) Onion  Article Dated February 26th, 2003, illustrating just how important our government and media are in a time of crisis:

Orange Alert Sirens To Blow 24 Hours A Day In Major Cities
"These 130-decibel sirens, which, beginning Friday, will scream all day and night in the nation's 50 largest metro areas, will serve as a helpful reminder to citizens to stay on the lookout for suspicious activity and be ready for emergency action," Ridge said. "Please note, though, that this is merely a precautionary measure, so go about your lives as normal." "Go about your usual business," Ridge said. "Of course, while you do so, keep in mind that we are just barely this side of Red Alert, the highest level of danger possible." ( -The Onion c. 2003)

It may come as no surprise that the genius dark comedy  "Dr. Strangelove" never won an Oscar, but won loads of parallel awards abroad.  Shit gets lost on the lay public, because they are watching the ball drop, instead of the Hottie next to you. It's no surprise either that "Dr. Strangelove" never made it to your dumb-shit Netflix hit-list, For twenty-four tedious COVID months whilst you scarfed takeout, and scoured for more Czech Cop Procedurals, The Good Stuff eluded your occluded path toward agoraphobic redemption.  Later, in awe of it's social relevance and posthumus brilliance, in 1989 "Strangelove" was selected, by the United States Library of Congress  as one of the first twenty-five films for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". They had to wait until the sting of hiding under our desks had worn off, I suppose.

The thing is... with the latest 2019 mechanism thingy called "Omicron" set to destroy you and everyone you know and love, wouldn't it be good to actually feel something first? I mean, right before you go on life support, what would you rather be wearing...?

Today you can roll those sleeves up, peel off the latex, and learn to love Someone, Something, or  some more PPE -- But you cannot shake that creepy  prophylactic feeling that you've been "playing-along" with gloves on far too long. In your second anniversary sedentary social experiment bound by latex, and isopropyl, set to the soundtrack of re-run laugh-tracks -- Your New Year's Resolution should actually be to quit your sterile rubber-glove love-dramas altogether -- Touch someone with your bare hand, grab a hug as the bombs are falling, ride that cool breeze down to earth, and  learn to love the fucking bomb. 

Cough!... #COVID22

P.S. You know Putin is going to get real Bond Villian Soon, and we'll be back in the shit-show watching the war again, so enjoy your so called freedom whilst it lasts, and I'll meet you under the desk in March.

If you are a youngster, then you wont understand this anyways..., But There is this phrase "Jump The Shark", and it refers to the extreme length one may go to remain culturally relevant, and in short summary it refers to the final claxon which clanged a death knell for the late 70's Sitcom "Happy Days". Who, lacking any social currency in a changing demographic, simply had a leather jacketed wimpy tough-guy ski-jump over a shark pool to boost viewers. The ratings were up, and then the show ended.

"Happy Days" Shot in mythical Milwaukee's beer empire, sadly only sipped malts, and chewed fries, but it remains The namesake for the Baby Boomer's misplaced generational Nostalgic dick, from whence it's rosy world was populated by White-Bread, God-Fearing, and Secret-Keeping laugh-track zombies.  To understand this, Picture Ash Wednesday cultists roaming the earth wearing crochet'd ponchos, carrying Purses donning fringe, or tassels and harry armed men and women sporting ultra-large horn-rimmed Harry Caray Eyewear, with a drop-sided temple.  These bearded Church-goers, became altar-boys, and Nuns, and served their higher calling, (even in public parks) Spreading their gospel whilst relishing in when: (A)Merica was homogenous, homophobic, and hyperbolic. During the "Happy Days" era, we celebrated yet again winning a war, (decades ago), whilst concealed our naughty bits: Racism, Sexism, Classism, blurring the line between puritanical and Capital "H" Hypocrite -- revised history met the sharp end of a  tip-eraser.  Everyone drank the Kool-Aid, (along with black coffee & pale beer) and everyone was complicit in a scheme to defraud the country of authenticity in favor of canned Soup Casserole's, TV Dinners, and Jiffy-Pop.  America ripped a hole in it's last sack of "realness", and set about to white-wash it's gritty history in favor of a false narrative where strapping dudes in bomber jackets descend from the clouds like flying monkeys to appropriate the Krinkle-Kut French-Fry as a bona fide American cuisine.   But we had decent Beer. Then Consolidation happened, and corporate greed appropriated every brand into the bland blondness of Anheuser Miller Coors PBR and the like.  Before Micro-brewery was a term of endearment, there were not yet hip upstarts to meet the chipper-shredder of the great IN-BEV simulator. In search of something less blasé,  our sordid youth was spent searching for better options, from whence brands like Becks, Brand, and Samuel Smiths had only begun to sit beside Moosehead, and Molson.  And so we, the bridge-drug generation understand the odyssey to acquire taste, and perhaps gain the right to say, "I drank that before it was cool" (commercially speaking).  But Blaachhh! -- I'd take a piss-warm skunky St Pauli, over the milky monster-mash we are regaling today. 

Back to Basics in our 'Hoppy Days', The Milk Man, and The Butcher fucked the Maid, whilst men and women smoked and flirted at the office. (It wasn't yet termed the workplace) Pale Lagers which formerly poured from neighborhood Bars on every corner, became replaced by "Country Clubs" excluding the untouchable races, and classes. And this barely touches the salty tip of the "Happy Days" America. Here, this sacred nostalgic fairy-land is where white men from Rumsfeld to Trump want to re-deploy. Reveling in the glory-days of your imagined mis-spent youth is not only tacky but dangerous, but it begs to be unsettled, or even unseated from your throne because the world changed while you were reading Sports Illustrated on the toilet.

Beer can make the rough edges of everything a bit smoother, right?  Beer blissful and simple like the lonely tortilla chip which hoists a tangy salsa into your mouth -- Is merely a vehicle for the alcohol which it delivers.  Beer of any ABV can help to pass the time of your self imposed quarantine, it can make your friends seem more charming, when you do eventually mingle, and Beer can tell you a lot about a person, by the bottle they choose.  But Beer does not need an equal measure of water to hops.  We have the Stout Drinkers, and the Pilsner People, and we also have the indulgent Double and Triple Crowd who's ABV bring you swiftly to your knees.   While I'm not a fruit beer drinker, Anything with actual fruit in it, not made by actual Monks Is not beer, but a "special hooch" akin to flavored tobacco, and vape pens. Nearly every flavored beer is a Gateway (transitional housing) coddling youngsters to a truthful beer epiphany. Where real good beer may bring someone over from the dark side -- A real beer revelation requires a transition from the Cosmopolitan, or the Coriander of the Christmas Ale, to the simple pleasure of a Kölsch. Then. there is the Lightweight Beer lifter... Someone who orders the Loaded Nachos, whilst tacitly counting the calories of their Michelob Ultra.  DO NOT lend this fucker money either!

'Nothing against light beer...  I have nothing against white wonder bread either, so long as I don't have to consume either. By observation and from research, one can easily find that it's not the fat that is killing America, nor is it their blatant consumerist lack of good taste -- But it is their willingness to roll over and die from diabetes, heart disease, and cancer from what we willingly choose to consume. As statistics will bear out, Light Beer won't kill you directly, Nor will that White Claw, but it will show your friends that you lack good judgement, as you polish the sixth pale malt beverage, flinging chicken wing-bones into a greasy red plastic wicker basket.   

For Me a light beer is a Pilsner, and a darker beer like a Guinness Stout has less calories and less alcohol than most light beers today, or a White Claw for that matter. I also don't count calories, because there is no accounting for taste. Back in "Happy Day's Land", when America was "Great" the first time around, and there was a bar on every corner where locals drank from a single tap, brewed locally.  The choice was a bit less like the toothpaste aisle, and a bit more like a desert gas pump, serving regular or unleaded.   A Beer (dark or light) was something which took the edge off of the working folks, and made their soon to be future spouse look, act, and even smell better -- This worked marvelously.  Hence the Baby Boom -- An explosive mixture of Strong Beer, Catholic dogma, lack of "Choice", and the hushed secret stigma of American human sexuality.  Because, well... Why talk about anything anyway?, It's better to pretend that babies come from storks, which like God, dwell up in the clouds, until they surprise you with six fucking children; one after the other, until ...well, you guessed it  -- Beer No longer works to take the edge off, so you move to the hard stuff, and he moves out.  And so here we come full circle to the story of how America ran amok, and then ran aground.
Beer is a good metaphor for so many things because like rings on a tree, it has been keeping score for thousands of years.  Atilla The Hun used to brew yak's milk into a beer of sorts which Marco Polo said tasted (as you'd imagine, "...Like a shitty Fucking IPA"), but it took the edge off.

Today, the children are running this ship full-steam directly toward the shore, and along the way they are appropriating everything from bad fifties haircuts and eyewear to far worse facial hair and dress-code.  They un-ironically look like my parents did, or basically anyone from Happy Days, besides perhaps The Fonze. (The fucker who was supposed to jump the fucking shark) -- Except They/Them wit  ironic throwback pleather jackets behind their facial hair, are out of shape, hypertensive, and pre-diabetic.  Is it any wonder then -- That their single embellishing contribution to the new beer dialog would be to reach even further back to the Mongolian Empire, and remake fermented Yak's Milk?, AKA Hazy IPA?

Jump the Fucking Shark Already.

To fully understand what has happened you will need to understand another appropriation which seemingly has no historical analog.  The Youth in my town; The same kids with the ironic police moustaches, are misappropriating the vomit inducing herbal remedy Fernet, from a Norwegian Winter warm-up shot -- simply because Jägermeister remains still too close in the rear-view to be a true Throwback.  There is (apparently) a rule about borrowing from prior cultures, and although I don't understand it fully, it does state that one skip at least two generations before pulling that box out of the attic, and trying on something old (again).

So what has become of the toxic melding of Hipster, with the current toothpaste aisle & pop culture?  It's a bit like leaded gas... It was a brilliant solution to the problem of engine Knocking lubricity, but delivered a carcinogenic death knell to humans and the planet for more than 2 generations.  The same generation which inspired such awesome innovations as "Clean Coal" Happy Days, White Supremacy, Global warming, and Jell-O with tiny marshmallows could now celebrate ash fucking Wednesday every fucking Wednesday.  Thank you Clean Coal!

So... Before we dig through our grandparents attics and basements to find our next throwback treasures, Let's at least have a toast to what they may have done right.  Beer was Beer, Cheese came unsliced, (even unpackaged) Vegetables though rare didn't come in a large non-disposable clear Plastic dish-pan, Everyone was thin, and Nobody "Asked their doctor if (%$#!@&*) was right for them... Because There was scarcely a person on the block who needed a drug to fix their lethargy, or impotence, because Amphetamine was abundant. If your grandparents did watch a Throwback nod to "Happy Days" of yore, they did it for an hour and then got up and walked down to the local bar for the only beer on offer, with a whisky shot.

This brings me to the over-reaching misappropriation of too fucking many choices, and should any choice but MILK be completely and eternally opaque?
Today there may not be a local bar on every corner, but you will find a 10,000 calorie Starbucks drink, every 800 feet in any given town, Or perhaps a "Dunkin" serving the same whipped diabetic shock, only loosely related to the original calorie-free Black Coffee your grandparents brewed. Thank you humble Sugar Cube.
Today, you're just as likely to find a newly minted brewery without any redeeming recipes dotted between each and every Starbucks, such that the pattern picks up a plaid check as follows: Starbucks, CVS, Brew-Pub, Dunkin, Chipotle, Walgreens, Starbucks, Target, Dunkin, CVS, Brew-Pub, Walgreens, Chipotle, Starbucks.  If you Love the new tapestry delivering Caffeine (which is harmless on it's own), followed by Diabetes,  Heart disease, COPD, Hypertension, etc... It sure is great to know you can fill your script,  at a Walgreens on the same block.  

The real great news is while you wait for your prescription, you can have a pint at the local brewery, as long as you can find your COPD medication, because they are brewing that Yak Milk fermentation, Using enough Hops to preserve a youthful Cher for another century. Hoppy Days are here again.

Look!, If you are a winding down Hipster dwelling in your parent's Basement and there is nothing you can actually do well, then all is not lost. You can always get a teaching job.  ...And, If you cannot teach, then you can probably teach Gym class.  IF you cannot teach Gym, then perhaps you can Bake -- being a baker is cool, noble and useful, but -- Oh hell... Baking is part art form, and part science -- So you will probably fuck that up too.  You may wake up on the couch one morning pissed that you have no beer money, and say, "Hey!, I'll boil some grain or Yak's Milk in a pot and make some Hooch.... yea!, Now you're talkin'.
Alas, when you can't make or bake anything good, and you've failed teaching Gym, and when dulled taste and a consistently good beer evades your social stanine -- Well, then... if this new hip school on your corner called the "Brew-pub" offers a class, and you fail at making  even a piney IPA, because yours' tastes like Fermented Yak Reflux -- Well, all is not yet lost, because everyone in your age range likes your ironic cop mustache, and your white vinyl belt, and they want you to put your ironic visage on this new beer-ish invention -- This, your mélange of milky bits floating amidst a cloudy jizz-fizz of pine tar, tobacco, and acid reflux shall be called a "Hazy IPA", and it will overtake all good sensible former beer drinkers, with its soupy consistency of wheat chafe, and baby-dog drool.

At this, your matriculation from sub-par subterranean gamer to ironic brew-master, you alone will shift the conversation from a clean refreshing beer to the toothpaste aisle. This sadly begs the question: "Because One can..., Should One?, and Shall we serve both a "Shitty Shandy", AND a "Hazy IPA" this New Years, or simply crack a crappy pale lager, like your Grandparents drank?   

Fear Not!, young dandy, Your Grandparents no longer pray for "Happy Days" to return, nor for you to find a job -- but now they pray for a global Hop famine. 

For the French Speakers in the room, well... You will have a tougher time with this one, because you first have to forgive 'their' desecration of your elegant language, whilst They destroy French pronunciation, and also make a general mess of your language. You'll need to absolve me for sins of pronunciation and pronoun-ciation. French & French Speakers (I've come to know) strictly speaking, don't despise Anglicans, nor Americans, but rather they (Plural) ask simply that 'one' (singular) at least attempt momentarily to convey their idea in French, just before forgiving them (you) and switching back to the Queen's English. It is after-all rather comical to observe we Americans order or ask directions in French. I personally don't care too much for the red meat by any other name, but my Brother-in-Law will insist to a French server in Cannes, or Nice that the proper pronounciation for the strap of beef along the spine is pronounced (Mee-jaahn_, and not Mignon (/ˌfiːleɪ ˈmiːnjɒ̃/), with a stout 'i' a quick 'o' and a silent 'n'. Sigh...
The French can now grow rouge with rage as we bring to their parlay yet another cultural black hole. This, our dreaded hack of unknowing one's own preferred gender pronoun can be a road-block to fluid parlance. Not that they (the French) want to become acquainted with us at all..., but Madam (/ˈmædəm/), and Monsieur (/məˈsjɜːr/ mə-SYUR; we can no longer rely upon you, lest we offend. Which brings me to another lunatic point. While we are handing out trophies to everyone who've changed their minds, their gender, or their native language last year -- And, regardless of whether you've deciding to stop shaving, showering, or even leaving 'one's' parent's basement... We happen upon another onerous rhetorical missile so culturally uncouth, that it threatens to forge Oxford Grads into Forest Gump's. This disaster is of course the truncation of 'LY' from our lovely lunatic lexicon.

To quote One Writer's English grammar manual:
"Mistakes Happen: As long as you are earnestly putting forth effort (As most French speakers should expect); To be respectful to someone’s pronouns, small mistakes can be forgiven (as long as you learn from them). Being aware of gender pronouns expresses to individuals that you are an ally. People are allowed to be people and ask how to be addressed since that is inherently their right. Or better expressed: "Since that is that Motherfuckers right". Right?

With this friend or foe handshake over with, let's discuss the destruction of another important part of speech which we once took for granted. Perhaps this bastardizatrion began with the description of something so rapidly rocket-like, that we needed to spit the words out like a bullet. ...And so we articulated 'Fast', instead of 'Quickly'. Once this slur occurred, we'd forgotten how to merely truncate 'LY' from Quickly; And we moved directly from 'quick' to 'fast'. e.g. "You catch that COVID shit fast if you ain't careful".
There is no part of lay speech today where we lazy Tweeting Americans are not saving ourselves fractions of seconds every day, to later piss this away trolling instagram, And so we continue cutting beautiful adverbs into nasty bits, to consume them.
So we end up with They, mostly out of laziness, as with most of our sloppy mod lexicon.
We no longer teach cursive -- Fine!, you can exchange that for keyboarding, but today it seems that everyone is "All Thumbs" and we are perhaps struggling to keep this car on the road.  In a bygone era of Cold War, espionage, we developed the secret weapon "They" to refer to the Gestapo, The Government, The Man, and even the fledgeling Internet to refer to anyone who was watching you for a mistake.  To be sure that your allegiance remain pledged to the right state control.  Now, we believe that "They", is all, "Over there someplace" meaning we exchange convenience for privacy, and WE do not give a fuck if "They", (Google, Fakebook, The NSA, or the CCP), read our private messages.  We no longer care that as we've become products, "They" keep us in line by controlling what we read on the internet; Dropping us into sugary silos, like dipped mini donuts -- Allowing us to surface only long enough to buy more shit from "Them". What flavor is your glaze?, Vanilla?  Yes Vanilla... I think. 
"THE MAN" whom we used to call "THEY / THEM" was real (at least in my youth), and still is for most eastern block nationals, and "THEM" (the collective they, as in They are watching) <Meaning> the not so secret police, assured  us that even your dear grandmother would narc on you for disparaging the dictatorial apparatus.  
Whew!, well I'm  sure glad that the "They Them" that I used to fear no longer exist, and that The current marshmallow version is too proud to give two shits about what I think or say.
I can Trust Google, Facebook, Tic Tock, and others with my passwords, my social status, my  logins, my very likeness, after all, I am nothing in real tangible life  -- Online I am amazing.  They follow me everywhere showing me just what I want. to see.. Or rather that version of me which they'd hoped I'd become.  They warned me against getting a 5G chip implanted with my vaccine. 
Freedom, means giving in.  Giving up, or perhaps just giving up control. 
​In my youth the scariest moment was believing that someone  like Donald Sutherland would single me out with a pointing finger. And now, we will all hunt Dave Chapelle because he shares his honest insecurities, pointing out why it's OK to have "your own point of view"... which YOU find repugnant.  YOU believe D.C. should love you, just because... but that's bullshit and you know it. 

 
Why all the tension about tense, and  grammar, then.., when I'm the only one who matters? -- And my feelings are the important story here? Right?  "It's OK", as the saying goes, "I see dumb people everywhere, they are living amongst us, and they don't know they are stupid."
​
My real adversary is the adverb, and I'm going to fuck that thing up too.
​
Not unsurprisingly the English word 'Adverb' derives through French from the Latin adverbium, from ad- ("to"), verbum ("word", "verb"), and the nominal suffix -ium

If you listen to anyone today from News Anchors to "That one Motherfucker over there..." You will find that basically everyone changes the way they describe action today as follows:
Quickly changes to Quick
Slowly to Slow
Crispy to Crisp
Fatty to Fat
Loudly
Briefly
Shortly
Rapidly
Sluggishly
Selfishly
Disparagingly...
All get stripped of their ADD-ON to yield Despair... this short speech strips our adverbs bare without 'LY'. Hence, 'they/them' are left both naked and afraid. And without a unique pronoun, what are we?

But not the adverb "Stinky"... Why? I suppose in dropping LY, we are left with stink, without tense, nor context. "That shit stinks", is what we now say, and even "dat stank!" Whereby every adverb becomes an adjective again, or simply a noun, or even just some short hand version of how we "Should Speak". My Brother recently bought a new home with a Giant Topiary shaped like a Penis on the front lawn. Later removing this phallus' balls, required a landscaper to neutralize said "Gender Threat" to the neighborhood, Lorena Landscaping groomed the bush, removing the so called nasty bits. He (my beloved brother) did this to keep peace in the kingdom, and NOT because he gives two shits about Their Pronouns. After-all, in all of my youth any Bush could have been interpreted as female, or most "Bushes" were simply pussies, with rich parents "holding office".

In English, adverbs of manner (answering the question how?) are often formed by adding -'ly' to plain adjectives, but flat adverbs (such as in: drive fast, drive slow, and drive friendly) have the same form as the corresponding adjective; drive quickly motherfucker!, or drive slowly homie.

So much language evolves out of laziness, because we no longer want to labor in a description. Hence we have created ugly & pejorative short-speak to express a concept, and look what that has done for us as a society. e.g. "That Asian Girl over there" -- Instead of, "The dark-haired person in the yellow jacket". Or, "The person of color wearing yellow", or simply point, and say "Them!". Where could we trim the fat from laborious speech without the risk of offense, let alone prejudicial stereotyping. Simply shutting the fuck up would be a solid start. Nay, "That scary man over there" sets the balls rolling where handing this description to local Police could lead to many bad outcomes. (You Woke Prick).
So where does this all shake out? As long as we are short-sighting our language for They and Them, AKA the Bushes -- Could we not have easily expressed them as "This One", "That Individual", "This Person", "That Human", "Dude", "Beotch", "Highness", "Majesty", or simply 'It'... Could we not stay the course and protect people from the dogma of all stereotypes. 'This Black Dude', 'That White Chick', 'This Person of Color', 'That Honky White Bitch...' The person seated upon the Bench, The one next to the Bouquet, but behind the Champagne tower. Let's Learn from Samuel L. Jackson, and just call each-other Motherfuckers.

We will always use short speech to shorten these expressions, rushing our precious ideas over to another human as quickly as possible. For those of us still circulating out of doors, should we actually interact, (Gasp!) -- We could do a lot worse than to try a few new things out. ONLY, 'Them' to me remains plural. While my daily speech will nearly always offend someone, or at least lead to a bad outcome, I will certainly try to get it right, and you could try a lot harder to forgive.
Consider the expression people often use for me: "That Smug Fuck"... Born from the puritanical intent to not express my gender incorrectly, Those who are not quite sure where my XX or XY, lie simply substitute "Smug Fuck" for Highness or Dude. (Which by the way is also Gender Neutral). Could we not simply call each-other 'Fuckers?' or 'Motherfucker?' Our beloved Samuel L. Jackson Built an empire on this Majestic Pronoun.

"This one fucker"... "That one Fuck" is blissfully easy to spit out. Notice I don't use "Fat" in operating this machinery as in "That One Fat Fuck", BUT the universal "One" is still prevalent, As in..., "That one stinky fat fuck"... Which remains appropriate particularly when we tacitly remove the offensive "F-Bomb". What remains is just as handy and useful as 'They', and 'Them'. Right? You see I am truly trying here, and appreciate your plight, but Don't touch my gender, simply call me a scrawny smug fuck.

I was recently taken to task on this (my) misappropriation of 'Them' from Plural pronoun to Singular sensation, by my beautiful niece, who thinks I am "too stoopid and insensitive" to get all of this lexicography. But, I do get all of this, and if you do as well, then we should be slightly slighted that we didn't chisel out a little part of the grammar universe for our own special Pronouns back in the 70's. Can we not just use: One, Individual, Human, or It, as in "It's eating dinner now, can It call you back later?"
Here is the hard math:
Is it ‘its,’ ‘it's’ or ‘its’ ?
This is a common question. Here's the answer:
Oh Shit NO sir it's never Its' That will not fly.

1. It's is a contraction, meaning a shorter or "contracted" form of "it is" or "it has." (Example: It's going to rain.)
2. Its is a possessive pronoun meaning, "belonging to it," or a "quality of it" (Example: The carrier lost its license) or (Example: Its color is red.)
3. And there's absolutely, positively no such word as its'.

These rules seem simple, but sometimes cause pain. That's because when most English speakers want to show possession, they add an " ’s " as in "We took the pilot's license."
But guess what? If you write "it" and you want to show that "it" owns something, you don't write "it's," you write "its." Yikes. That's just one of many quirky rules in the English language.
And if that's not enough stress, try this---when you want to show that a group possesses something, the typical way to do that is to add an apostrophe to the end of the word. For example, if you go backstage to the place where performers get dressed, then you've gone to the " actors’ " dressing room.
No wonder then that many English speakers naturally want to use " its’ " to mean possession by a group. But that's wrong, so remember—there's absolutely, positively no such word as its’. If you mean singular or plural possession, just write "its."
For answers to other questions similar to this, refer to:

• Purdue Grammar Guide

If you've got comments or questions about this, please contact:
Dr. Bruce V. Corsino
FAA Plain Language Program Manager
Phone: 202-493-4074
email: bruce.corsino@faa.govwww.faa.gov/about/initiatives/plain_language/articles/its/

No Shit... this brilliant primer appears in the FAA Handbook!

Nostalgia is laziness wrapped in pretty wallpaper ...Or, is it a constant reminder of your better self? -- From whence you came, so to speak. Back when you were a good human. Well before things hijacked you.
Our brains are wired to track motion.  Our empathy built to covet nostalgia. Struck by the gleaming-yellow glow of a Schwinn LeTour, steaming down the bike path -- Canvas Chuck Taylor's trace small circles around a shiny chrome chain-guard. This Bike's custodian mashing a pair of sharp steel rabbit-trap reflector-pedals... The clacks of its maxi freewheel winding down to pause for pedestrians. They are smiling. You are staring. You become lured by your past... transported to a cozy cave with your power animal. THIS, perhaps was your power animal, but you can't see it. The chattering background of the city softens to a numb murmur. Vision vignetting as you stare through a road cone of softened edges towards your past. Tunnel vision, indifferent to surroundings. Time silently slows, and then seems to rewind like magnetic tape. A moment ago you were considering your watts, and that nagging leak of air from your front Tubeless. Now we cut close to your soft eyes coddling something you used to cherish. An old friend perhaps?, confidante?... No longer considering the watts?, your watts?, their watts? No you are not doing douchy calculations. because there are no watts at this moment; Just a bike. Like a tree you'd carved your name into ages ago. An Oprah moment.
"Can you recall where it was when you met your first real bike?," She asks? A second hand store?, a Rummage sale?, Another hand-me-down?. You contemplate. You consider being locked in your safe place... In your cave trapped with two others, perhaps they are your brothers, and you are wearing hand-me-down jeans, and a plaid shirt with pearly snaps for eternity. Stuck for eternity without a bike, without a road, without an exit. Huis Clos / No Exit... Because you are a dick -- You've become a dick.
Summer Fades like facebook, as dusk falls nearer to Six than Nine, A buzzing cicada, like a dimming fluorescent sets the back-track. Banana Popsicles melt into the shirt of a kid you used to be. Soft buzzing, leaving your conscience like adrenaline --So subtle you nary notice that you are a dickhead, as autumn colors your daydream drifting to a skinned knee, climbing trees, and the awkward parkour you mastered to climb aboard this yellow bike which you could hardly even stand over. That magical day you developed a technique to dismount your hand-me-down bike, while in motion. Look!, I'm rolling through space aboard a time machine. A Banana-Yellow Schwinn LeTour, or was it a Collegiate Sport? Spokes increment a mechanical odometer bolted to the fork.
Nobody counts watts from a LeTour, right? But this one counts the clack of the hub rotating.  Details are smoky, and vaporize in fits and starts like a choking lawn mower. You're contemplating the wide 5-pound, 5-speed chain -- Maxi Cranks ratcheting around, while static cogs latch, click after clack attached to a fifteen pound chrome wheel. Glazed orange brake-pads chatter textured rims to a halt... As you (the one you thought was the better you) sip your electrolyte punch daydreaming in a pit-stop upon Memory lane, squeezing some boutique energy gel between your clenched teeth automatically. Like a gagging force fed bird.
​And there she is... The "Roller Girl" dressed in clothes you'd expect from when you were Ten or Eleven.  Her brown suede skates with orange urethane  testing tricks, and twirls, distracting  you momentarily from the bike.  The Vintage bike you may have actually ridden.  She drops to one skate, leg extended bobbing to the rhythm of some track enveloped by giant closed headphones.  Both of you isolated in a daydream, until she rolls past, and touches the pavement, losing balance.  Headphones slipping sideways as she regains control over a tumble -- And you catch the slightest bit of the track escaping her open ear.  Did you hear that right?  No way! she is actually listening to "Cruel Summer", by Bananarama, as she swiftly skates past. They/Them, (Bananarama) cementing your crush on this moment, and all its participants.

Moments ago you were admiring your Matte Carbon Stealth fighter-bike, Contemplating Wattage, VAM, Pace, or some other triviality robbing joy from a bike ride. Now, you are just staring at the better traits you'd left behind when you moved out on your own. When This bike was handed down, SoulTrain, Roller-skates, and Generic's lined the stage of  your youth.  This crude but elegant bike you'd loved and then spurned when you began to climb the ladder of smug.
At 19 you knew that you knew everything.
At 21 you swore "to have one of those too".
At 30, you began collecting stuff.
​Now you have more stuff than free-time, and more vices, than friends. Have you bothered to check yourself?  THIS nostalgic pause should certainly take you someplace simple. Someplace beyond your self, as you consider this classic -- Your banana yellow ghost of cycling past... Whiiiiissssstt!.... It just Passed you by. This, your allegiant ghost bicycle; Your loyal 45 year-old 65 Lb. steel contraption asked nothing of you, and it would have taken you anywhere -- And it did (perhaps), before you left it for dead in your parents garage, along with your better self.
Today you are too good for this braised bionic banana. This is your past life, encapsulated. Your last hand-me-down. Fueled by adventure, selflessness, and joy, and now someone else is using it excellently. This steel transporter of happiness is perhaps superior to what you are riding today, as it is certainly more durable... than your fragile carbon ego. And yet, you will not concede this until you come of age. Your old Schwinn, LeTour, Raleigh, AMF, or Huffy after-all, is not cast aside annually for another piece of carbon jetsam. Today, last years tech is no longer holding your gaze, so you keep flipping the page and searching for the next one. "N" Plus One, and over again... But you failed the gobstopper test long ago. you are now indifferent to loyalty. Perfectly content to shed those who don't share your point of view? Capable of tending to oneself, but not to others. A pile of stuff tossed to the curb, perhaps a new bike every year? -- But never enough friends. Concede, fold, give up, You've lost.

Being true to 'oneself', means that if you were actually a good soul you'd be enjoying whatever 'bike' you own. The scrap-yard that you'd thought became the forever custodian of your first ten speed, did in fact spit-up the bike you'd forsaken.
​Your Parent's call to '1-800-F'CK-JUNK' gave a new lease on life to your cryogenically frozen Banana Solo. Old yeller Bike loved you, and today you nary consider it's welfare, let alone feelings. Then BAM! you realize you -- You are a piece of shit, not simply for having cast aside your first real friend, but for doing it over and over again. This bike keeps time, and keeps-on keeping-on without your bad energy. But then, you knew that. This bike is going no place gently, and has more lives than your college futon. Today, You really DO need to take a moment and marvel at how it could be that the bike you struggled to straddle, now fits just as awkwardly beneath a far taller and more awkwardly upright version of yourself. Drifting back in time to when you were kinder, gentler, and without judgement. It is a battle with existential demons. As with all things "Terminator" from the slag-heap comes a groovy re-visited & re-wrapped Benotto festooned robot of white hot burning metal. It is here to destroy you. Melt down your carbon toys, like charcoal. Your bike is here to destroy you...? Wait!

STOP!

For me it seems to have taken forever to realize one maxim of adulthood... That After one first learns to ride a grown-up bike, it will take another forty years to get over oneself. Wisdom it seems, means coming of age when a person comes to terms with the fact that oneself is not the center of the universe. Shedding ego, awkward ideology, and misguided consumerism will take an average human more than 40 years. Men far longer than women. Of course, If you've never yelled at another driver through the mute glass of your own motor-coffin, then you can stand and take a bow now, and sit this one out. If you are like the rest of us, you are but a pushing, drinking, munching, pill-popping, yelling, toiling misanthrope. You will find this fact out only slightly before you make the final Grande Departe.
"Give it away Give it away Give it away now..."

We cannot mend the fence of our own selfishness until we are either too weak to maintain the pickets, and it falls down -- Or we begin to leave the gate open. There seems to be three events in life worth remarking upon at the end of this "Cruel Summer".
1 The first time you learn to ride a bike, and find freedom.
2 The First person to love you, whom you love as well, (After your own mother of course).
3 The day you realize that you've become a selfish prick, and then this person fades into your rear-view.

For a cyclist finding and battling demons often means riding beside them, with them, or right on past. Pushing pedals through hardships, clawing back up the proverbial hill toward friends and fulfillment can be one's epic journey.

 Looking down, we discover Newtonian irritation in, well
...basically we are irritated with you.

The Thing is... Everyone does the work, right?  struggling to the summit; We wait at the top for our friends... then We all coast.  We go someplace to earn barely enough for a new bicycle, and some of us will use it properly. We ride someplace on it for fun... A waterpark, lunch, a church, a hike, perhaps a bike ride up to the top of Mt Crumpet?  Then, reluctantly we return to our caves, with stupid stories and stuff acquired along the way.   Perhaps a Medal or a jersey laden with sponsors whom we don't give a shit about.

​  A filthy Medal, Lactate burning Lungs and Legs, Some Costly Carbon Bling... A Sour-Patch Stomach rumbling beneath a snug lycra uniform... A few gummies, a new Gel or a Gooey Tonic, enhance and unsettle the whole mess. But it's you. We are cheering for you.
​We all strive a bit -- Some on Strava -- carefully stenciling the outline of our beloved's chin on a real roadway. We may choose to live an illusionary drama through pretend "Likes". citing data to prove we were there first. Others suffer in their lonesome basement with a Virtual ride atop a $10K mail-order bike strapped to motors and such, following Fake Plastic trees, atop magnetic mountains in upside-down land. 
Many give it their all on a real road, without keeping score -- Without fanfare.  With or without "Likes". A loathsome few, actually ride their bikes into the wind and rain, because they like to feel something real. Pissing of their bike-shop mechanic who nary gets a summer day out of doors to play nor suffer.  These "Outsiders" do it to enjoy the ratcheted spree of a whirring freewheel, and the separation of thought from action.

A pencil-thin Puerto Rican pulls past into oncoming city traffic, slick wet pomade on raven-black hair, No helmet to douse the sheen. Carbon tri-spoke front wheel -- Some Blue spoky abomination behind it. Zero Brakes... Back-stroking to slow his single speed, with a final inhale, and his last kick-back before his fixie pride and his perfect hair land atop the hood of a Lexus.  Thud!
He will survive his lunacy, (sans brakes), In-fact he will roll off the bent hood and blame a Soccer-Mommy for his hobby.  But he will never know the thrill of the coast. The Buzz of the pawl heating up against a hardened circle of tool steel, as the descent becomes real. Really loud clicks purr, tears tickling cheeks, as the doppler fades whirring clacks to black numbness.

It's all in the coast. Rolling without regard for time, work, or worry.  The descent is where we all level out.  Fat fucks, Clydesdales, and Scrawny dicks, we all drop like stones as velocity heats beneath our calculated braking.  The ratchet winds up to the ultrasonic pitch of a hummingbird's, We scream down a slope for 20 full minutes numbing hands and minds.  The Coast... It's all about the coast.

The fixie fanatic, is an enthusiast, true, riding the razor's edge through traffic to feel something. To impress oneself with the unchallenged feeling of invincibility. Sovereign soaking head-nods from adoring friends for swerving just in time.  But enlightenment never comes. The coast will elude this kid until they come of age.

We are ALL FAST IN THE FUCKING DOWNHILL!.   Aren't we? 
​
...I identify as Fast Motherfucker, so please afford me this one moment and Get the Fuck out of my sight on this one descent.  Unless of course your jersey plainly states: "I'm doing this for Pussy" or has a Cigarette or Whisky sponsor, then you can cut in line, of course you can.

IF, you use your bike like a dildo, rolling through the motions on a magneto in your basement throughout summer, citing humidity and covid as a reason to remain "sheltered in place", You are not the problem, just stay where you are. You may be the VR analog of the clown-like pubescent kid that just guilted a coffee-clutching Yoga Mommy into 400 bucks for a bent fork --  But you will not know what it means to ride, without a freewheel. You suck only slightly less than the fool who races me in the downhill. DONT RACE ME IN THE DOWNHILL, Dumb-ass.  We are all fast in the downhill, Duh!... you fucking idiot.  Lithe, fat, thin as a triathlete's aero ass...  we all have to do the work to get up the fucking hill, and the just desserts for said spent energy is this moment -- My Moment, The Coast.  Kick Kick Coast.  We the people, celebrate this sublime recipe of spent energy.  We WORK toward this moment, because we are sledding, we are skitching, we are skiing slalom down the hill and we didn't bring an E-Bike to this gunfight.  We earn the summit & the downhill.  So my friend, could you please spare us all the humiliation of your smug face passing me on the interstate at 60 MPH and queue up behind my ugly gleeful ass... because my silent scorching ratchet whirrrs for me alone, It's mine..., and I need a bit of space to walk through my buzzing Zen garden alone melting brake pads tiny hot pawls and all, in a perfect whine. WITHOUT seeing your smug ass 2006 jersey from some Team-building exercise, or your Fake KOM jersey sponsored by some orthopedic hospital or worse an investment firm.  Please! 
I need you to kindly stand the fuck down while I listen to my ratcheting freehub warm with the lightening-fast click of the surrounding cicadas.  I've earned the right to descend "My Mountain" with MY thoughts and even if we are on the same Fucking Fondo... I'd appreciate some respect as I burn some lithium grease without your fat spooging waistline rolling up beside me.

I'd like to descend alone, and without consideration of your chamois, your pseudo-sponsored jersey, and your unmatched bar-wrap.  Leave this to me, and I will try not to encroach upon your decal'ed cloud.

No gripe with you folks who don't know how to enjoy yourselves out of doors. Hand Solo at home...? I'm good with you. No issue with you monkeys pressing backwards to avoid obstacles across town on your fixie-bike which never coasts.  What IS annoying, however is the heavy-weight who has something to prove whence he arrives upon summit, and is dead-set to make up his sloven performance on the hill-climb.   Really?  My complaint is with the fair-weather downhill roller.  My complaint of course,  (Mr. Portnoy) was with my right to climb and plummet and contemplate my own chamois chafe without some hack making up his glacial ascent time in a tuck, while I'm forced to consider his in-grown thigh shag.

Peace is afforded when we all do the work together, but alas we descend alone, and when we all grant the space to enjoy the fruits of that labor, within the intimacy of one's descent we are whole.
​Lay back! ...Lest I get my super-tuck on, and glow past your damp ass with a whirr only the cicadas  respect.  

We are all fast in the descent, aren't we?  ...And as with skiing, there is a flat beer waiting for the first fucker to cop my line in the downhill.  We know who you are, and we don't appreciate you ruining what we have worked for.

In an era with so much pent up potential, why is it that struggling "Artists" cannot find adequate ghost writers? With so many people spending the greater part of a year alone with their thoughts, it would seem to me that there would be both a surplus silo of creative content, and a crippled coven of shitty artists in deep malaise seeking a new Muse to lift them out of incapacitated stupor. As we emerge from our Cheeto coated cave It dawns on me that there is a symbiosis here, which should have been well brokered, even a cottage business to introduce the under-equipped "popular class" who drive internet clicks, with the fully competent cloistered mousey clan, who write just fine. (For the Bernie's to sell the Elton's their next hit.) In Upside-down land This might have been the special sauce which should have protected us all from a headwater of sewerage breaching the bank of good taste. Put plainly, Today there is both nothing to watch, and nothing to listen to. The former being understandable because in the past 14 months nobody wanted to stand beside, (let alone stage kiss) a pathogenic Nicholas Cage... On any given movie set -- The latter seems unfathomable, because most music can be made with a MacBook, and a small mixing console. Any given film does require a few more willing bodies. In a void of anything authentic, it happens that we have all been watching shit, with our daylight-sensitive weary brains. We have been consuming, commenting, even recommending all the new re-runs & canned shit-shows which would never have breached daylight, were it not for Covid's cessation of the entire studio production apparatus.

I know that I am not alone in lamenting the consumable crap which should have better remained upon the shelf -- So I won't list every marginally shitty show I've watched ten minutes of, in hopes of some dismal improvement, only to find that even the Romanian overdubbed sci-fi crime dramas are pissy shit. Not because they are not compelling stories in their own right, but because they are basically the re-hashed Eastern euro-trash version of a shelved (Nicolas Cage) Western drama, which was stolen from the Better BBC version before, being retold in another language, with laughable and pornographic overdub of English voice actors, from an eastern bloc language school.

So the 2020's shortage of anything worthwhile in entertainment, bled into the 2021's black hole which successfully sucked any nutrients from our starved brains -- We are left with cushions coated in chip residue, the occasional cracker or crust, and more bottles and cans than the recycle bin can hold. This ritual we do ungracefully to fend off the penultimate awfulness, whilst we await daylight.
So, today, in celebration of the Summer Solstice, strengthened by your MRNA re-code, it's time to cast aside the blue glow of LED's For the Warmth of a glorious yellow sunshine.
To Quote Van Gogh in one letter to his brother Theo, " For want of a better word I can only call it yellow -- Pale Sulphur yellow, pale lemon gold, How beautiful Yellow is!..." So in complete contrast to what we know, there is this lovely light at the end of our cave, igloo, or tunnel..., It is best to begin your journey forward before you learn a foreign language by the  Netflix immersion method.
As a caution toward your blind thoughtlessness, and underexposed consciousness, I will assert what I find to be the talisman of what evil can come in a sort of "Ghost of Christmas Future", warning... Wipe your glasses, or better yet grab your far less chic Ray Bans, for here beware the ides of June.

If, upon this Solstice you should find yourself yet languishing in your cave hoisting hot pockets, and shaking the chip bag into your mouth like a baby bird -- Then what follows is quite literally the most outlandish defilement of our remaining filthy façade of fake cultivation -- What you will be left holding is The worst middle-school notebook scrawl, the most adolescent shit-story-board for bad lyricism. Whilst you were sleeping we've sent this "artist" to your dreams to deliver to you direct warning from his dumpster of reject writing. Your best reason to book a ticket, or host a party. You have been warned, but while you were in your virtual office, we've been waterboarded with this gibberish, and so here it goes:

​"I've been waiting on a war since I was young
Since I was a little boy with a toy gun
Never really wanted to be number one
Just wanted to love everyone

Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this
More to this, more to this than
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war?

Every day waiting for the sky to fall
Big crash on a world that's so small
Just a boy with nowhere left to go
Fell in love with a voice on the radio

Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this than that?
Is there more to this
More to this, more to this than
Just waiting on a war?
Just waiting on a war?"
-Foo Fighter Extraordinaire

Please select your preference:

A. “On what day did God create Dave Grohl?, and could be not have rested on that day too?”

B. “Shit Sandwich”.

I won't argue that a good concert is precisely what we all need right now, Complete with bathroom-stall make-out session, smuggled whisky, and psychedelics. But if entertainment as an escape, is useful for a well formed soul -- Then a great performance does not equivocate great songwriting. In fact great songs are not (necessarily) required for a solid rock show. A great concert can thereby be pulled off, with showmanship, stagecraft, smoke machines, and decibel's, (even if most of the tracks are crap). We can hereby all just agree to self medicate until they/them, "Play their fucking hit already"... But please sweet baby Jesus save us from this hideous plague which has infected our brains. This vacuous scourge has made it not only possible to create such trash, but to take a cold bath in it, and thus accept this spiky ball of shit to bind to our brains. It's not your fault if you find yourself singing along to Madonna's "Borderline" Because we are all desperate for Something, Anything..., and heck!, "Borderline" is a good track, even in an elevator.
But the 'King Foo'?... Wow!  when did "Borderline" became the breached border wall of quarantine, and why are we now forced to suffer the indignity of yet another junior-high notebook doodle, cum garage-band from that "Bearded Nirvana Drummer guy"?

You can do something before you slide so far down the slope that your friends catch you tapping your toe to this track.  Before they can no longer help you out of the muck... Just say no. Being desperate for the company of good music does not mean that we should so readily lift our skirts for just any track (with or without a toy gun in it) -- Lest it be from this guy,  This Song even smells like Fluorescent Lights and Blatz Beer, On-stage -- Hurling saliva droplets upon my 5th row VIP experience. 
"I've been waiting on a wristband, since I was young" -- And to cuddle 3000 awkward strangers in the mud for the first Rock Show in 16 months.  This has it's therapeutical advantages -- But, I'm not waiting on, "Smells Like Teen Spittle".

Play drums? Yes.
Form a Band? OK.
Be the front man if you wish -- But when you absolutely cannot conjure anything better than this banana hammock drivel, you need a friend to pick your next outfit. Stay home until you have something presentable.

Is there more to this than that? Fuck yes there is. It's called the back catalog by anyone, maybe even Nirvana.

To celebrate the summer solstice Open your Window Shades, Stretch, Vaccinate, Vacuum, Trade-up your TV for some Records. If you need some help with selections, phone a friend, or better yet have them over.  Because friends don't let friends listen to crap, or Loverboy. But if you want to place your speakers in your open window sill, and "Blast" the neighbors, and it has to be Loverboy, Fine! just don't let it be the aforementioned "boy with the toy gun".  Because well... Just Don't!  It's the longest Day of the year, and it's a Monday -- So don't waste 4 minutes and 34 Seconds of glorious sunlight with this track.

"Relax, relax, relax just a little pin-prick, there'll be no more Ahhhhh... But you may feel a little sick".

Generation P (It Looks like The Meek shall Inherit All This Shit)

Are you out of breath pouring Oat milk over your cereal?

Who the fuck can afford cereal?, ...oh that’s right you live in your Mom’s basement.

So Bored with, "...How other countries still like fucking exist” and "how is it they have a completely different (if real) set of crises"?

Nobody Suffers like I do bro..., "Fuck! I cracked another $800. Android".

Sad that nobody clicked on your feed this week?  You sensitive flower.

"But, um like... Everyone’s Posts seem so similar, so is it really plagiarism"?

Appalled with The inflated price of mainstream vape apparatuses?

And, "Shit man! they are out of White grape… Bro".

Pissed that you can’t grow an adequate ironic mustache?, or that your roommate’s boss said you can no longer ween at the teet of pilfered single origin cortados?

"Dude, I Absolutely cannot go to work without coffee, and who the fuck knew they were actually 5 bucks"?

Told your pal (while stoned) that you, "Make way better Ramen than that Uber Eats Shit"?

From a packet no less?, "...The secret is Mayo and Sriracha Bro".

You "Don’t vote, ever”, although your parents still pay your Car insurance?

You are so thoroughly “Gen - P”

Today you argued with your Sister and your Father, (who you also call 'Bro') because 
they um like called you a lazy fuck, and you think that's a "racist slur".

You sensitive twat!, You are not the "Woke Pronoun" you believe you are because you sleep until 2 pm, and, you believe, "Jay Z totally invented Hip Hop".

Well, at least you believe in something.

Sad day and sorry to hear that you, "Crashed your One-Wheel E-scooter-Handicapped-Mobility-device-thingy?

It was bound to happen in the bike lane, at rush-hour, in traffic, while posting rad vids of your dragon wing tattoo to your instagram.

"...Won’t get a free vaccine, because", "the Lines are hella  long"?

Yawn… Line? -- Wait... -- You actually wait in-line for brunch, bitch.

You didn’t know that cell phones "even had a Phone-Call App", until you started getting political spam. "They can, um like make it ring, and then you like listen and talk..."

Last Fall you blocked everyone, but the nine people in your contacts.

You're thinking that perhaps you identify as 'Bi', or 'Q', or "Whatever", because you can’t umm like talk to other notorious genders.

Maybe changing your name will help;  But (Um Like) today, you actually just identify as “P”

Let's make it easy,  we have a name for you.​
You are the future Bro..., And we shall call you 'Generation Pussy'.

What an irony that Two Bicycle Makers, (brothers actually), became America's first gasoline-powered car makers. Charles and Frank Duryea were keenly interested in the compelling new gasoline engines and in imported automobiles., and so they set about to build themselves some cars. It should be noted that these two were certainly curious tinkerers, and continued to pursue challenges of both engineering, and to score them some wins in their need for speed. Somewhat laughable today, These were not the speediest machines, in fact some contemporaries on bikes rode beside them in their inaugural road race. The Duryea Bros. participated in races, nearly as soon as they had a working prototype; Of course they did.
Frank & Charles Duryea became the first Americans to launch a successful commercial automobile company, and they were thrilled to participate in any challenge which would get them needed market exposure. The brothers Duryea were also the first to incorporate their American business to build automobiles for sale to the public. They studied the internal combustion engine at their public library, and after begging, everyone for start-up capital, they set about to make something so pedestrians and cyclists would forever live in fear of crazy drivers.

At 8:55 am on November 28, 1895, six motor cars set off from Chicago's Jackson Park for a 54-mile (slow car) race to Evanston, Illinois -- and back through the snow to the park. Incidentally this is a route that I do in my bicycle in about half the time, but one could argue the roads are a bit nicer today... I'm not so certain.
Car Number 5 driven by inventor Frank Duryea, won the race in just over 10 hours at an average speed between 5.4 & 7.3 mph. This "Thanksgiving day Race" pitted him against three imported Benzes and two electric cars. Charles helped, his brother Frank cracking a crop to speed his horse-drawn sleigh through a snow-storm supporting his brother with parts and repairs for the car. Bad weather forced these cars to slip & slide into each other and snowbanks. Frank Duryea was the only one to actually finish the race.

The winner of the annual Thanksgiving race scored $2,000. (more than $50,000. In today’s money).
An automobile enthusiast from the crowd notable for giving these new horseless vehicles the name "motorcycles" won $500. The race was sponsored by the Chicago Times-Herald Newspaper and after the thrilling race they published, "Persons who are inclined to decry the development of the horseless carriage will be forced to recognize it as an admitted mechanical achievement, highly adapted to some of the most urgent needs of our civilization." Wow!!
As far as staying power is concerned, most early inventions explode, deteriorate, completely flop before getting legs, or immediately become eclipsed by a new fashion, or a far better contraption. The namesake Duryea automobile, and later sold only 13 units, before the brothers arguments split them up. Frank continued to tinker and became quite successful with his new "Steven's Duryea" automobile which was sold in a more-or-less similar and expensive limousine version from 1896 into the 1920's. The initial hand-built buggy was little more than a carriage, tiller for steering and a motor., It was a handsome, and efficient machine for its time. Fully Formed in Springfield, Massachusetts -- within one year of their Chicago Publicity race, the Duryea Motor Wagon Company soon disbanded, with Charles pursuing different trades, and Frank following his dreams to build a better machine than Benz. Before the two split and Frank formed his second company, the two made many new ideas work — But Frank would later invest considerable time in a 6 cylinder engine. Frank Partnered with the Steven's Firearm Manufacturing Company to build his new engines and 3 models, and so Steven’s investment in both the company and manufacturing brought Stevens primary naming rights. The second phaeton was an expensive limousine, which remained in production in some form for 20 plus years, making Frank and Steven’s quite wealthy.

Chilled Beer, Cool Movies, even Cooled Seats... Go ahead and grab a cold one, but don't vilify those who brought it to you, because (perhaps) they brought more good than harm.

The term “air conditioning” actually originated with textile engineer Stuart H. Cramer. Cramer used the phrase “air conditioning” in a 1906 patent claim he filed for a device that added water vapor to the air in textile plants to condition the yarn. This invention became the Humidifier, which is essentially the opposite of what we now know as Air Conditioning.
In 1902 just one year after Willis Carrier graduated from Cornell University with a masters in Engineering He was making $10 a week at the Buffalo Forge Company, A year out of college, and Carrier’s “Apparatus for Treating Air” was already in operation for a Brooklyn printing company, Fluctuations in heat and humidity in his plant caused the dimensions of printing paper to alter and create misalignment of the colored inks. The new air conditioning machine created a stable cool dry environment and, as a result, aligned four-color printing became possible His first of several patents was awarded to Willis Carrier four years later. Carrier is recognized as the “father of air conditioning.”
In 1911 Carrier published his basic “Rational Psychrometric Formulae” to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. His formula remains today as the basis in all fundamental calculations for the air conditioning industry. Carrier said he received a “flash of genius” while awaiting a train on a foggy night. He was thinking about the problem of temperature and humidity control and by the time the train arrived, he said he understood the relationship between temperature, humidity and dew point.

Because of Carrier, temperature and humidity levels could now be controlled, and with impediments removed, Manufacturers could scale production regardless of the weather to improve productivity in Meat, Medicine, Textiles, Printing, Prayer, and even Office Work.

Charles Franklin Kettering invented many things, He invented an easy credit approval system, a precursor to today's credit cards, authorization system.  In fact you’d likely wait the same amount of time from swipe to signature today as his O.K. system in 1920.  Kettering also invented the electric cash register for NCR (National Cash Register), which remained in production for 40 years.  These allowed sales clerks around the globe to manage transactions, authorize credit cards, and conduct commerce at a new clip. Later his electronic cash register would evolve into Code-Breaking devices for wartime cyphers, Followed by the folkloric Enigma Machine, and later your Computer.  
Shortly after Joining NCR Kettering’s coworkers were encouraging him to improve the automobile, Charles Kettering modified an internal combustion engine to run on kerosene. However, kerosene-fueled engines knocked, as trapped kerosene droplets would crack the cylinder heads and pistons.
Thomas Midgley Jr. An associate of Kettering, discovered that the cause of the knocking was from the kerosene droplets vaporizing on combustion. Anti-knock agents were researched by Midgley, and subsequently tetraethyl lead was added to fuel. This led Thomas Midgley to invent leaded (ethyl) gasoline.

With a smooth running engine, Kettering (working now at General Motors), invented the first electric automobile ignition system.  The “self-starting” ignition was first installed in a Cadillac on February 17, 1911. The invention of the electric starter motor by Kettering eliminated the need for hand cranking, but equipped the automobile with a Lead Battery. Lazy Humans could now go forth by automobile, And do so with very little effort, and even bright lights.
Lead would become ubiquitous when the new self-starting automobiles began to run upon leaded gasoline, ignited by a leaded battery.

We were now set to scale up simple knock-free self-starting cars for everyone. Convenient Cars could belch lead and cast their leaded sheen over the coal dusted landscape. Midgley, now called the most destructive inventor of all time, kept secret the known hazard of Leaded Fuel until his death. In fairness Midgley and Kettering, moved the Fuel industry to efficiency, and thereby reduced emissions, and waste.  Kettering and Midgley experimented with a variety of fuels, and patented
many blends,  He also discovered that the most interesting high-percentage anti-knock additive was ethyl alcohol (ethanol); Which is blended in fuel today to maximize it's efficacy, and reduce knock.

With full credit to Carrier, it should come as no surprise that two of the most influential inventions, (perhaps ever); The Automobile, and the Air Conditioner, would become substantially improved by Kettering and Midgley, en-route to destroying the Ozone, and poisoning our landscape.
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But Air Conditioning and refrigeration, (arguably the coolest inventions of all time), were using ammonia, and other caustic, toxic, and flammable refrigerants, to cool and dry the air. In fact many arched top refrigerators stood in yards because of their propensity to catch fire, or sicken a household. These dangers became the devil you’d know.
Comfort cooling evolved along side industrial utilization, and in 1924 three Carrier centrifugal chillers were installed for the J.L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit, Michigan. Shoppers flocked to enjoy an “air conditioned” store. The revolution of human cooling flowed from department stores to movie theaters, Matinee tickets were cheaper in the hot seats, Before the  Rivoli Theater in New York installed their Carrier Chillers. “Cool Comfort” signs soared sales for the Summer film business, and as demand increased for safer  refrigerators and cooler spaces, demand outpaced ingenuity. 
Refrigerators from the late 1800s until 1929 used the toxic gases, ammonia (NH3), methyl chloride (CH3Cl), and sulfur dioxide (SO2), as refrigerants. Several fatal accidents occurred in the 1920s because refrigerators leaked methyl chloride.

Charles Kettering was the vice-president of the General Motors Research Corporation from 1920 to 1948, when Thomas Midgley was chosen by Kettering to head research into new refrigerants. An auspicious collaboration with Dupont, General Motors, and Frigidaire, lead to the development of a safer, and more effective refrigerant.  In 1928, Midgley and Kettering invented a "miracle compound" called Freon. Frigidaire received the first patent, US#1,886,339, for the formula for CFCs on December 31, 1928.

Freons, (unlike leaded fuel) are colorless, odorless, nonflammable, noncorrosive gases or liquids.
They contain several different chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, a group of aliphatic organic compounds containing the elements carbon, fluorine, as well as halogens (especially chlorine) and hydrogen. These have been deployed in commerce and industry at incredible scale for a hundred years to improve production of nearly every industry from filmmaking, to food-processing. They are invisible and odorless, and so it’s no surprise that nobody saw them destroying our planet, in tandem with Leaded Fuel. These Hazards became the Invisible Devil.
Willis Carrier developed the first residential “Weathermaker” air conditioner in 1928, for private home use. The Great Depression and World War II slowed the non-industrial implementation of air conditioning, which is just as well, because the new refrigerants would improve a rebound after the war. 
Packard would become the first automobile manufacturer to offer an air conditioned vehicle in 1929. Massive units about the size of a window AC unit today bolted in the trunk, consuming more than half of the boot, while pipes were run the length of the car to deliver the chill via vents.  This “option” was installed by Bishop and Babcock (B&B), of Cleveland, Ohio.  The B&B AC upgrade were ordered on approximately 2,000 cars. The "Bishop and Babcock Weather Conditioner" also incorporated a heater. Cars ordered with this option were shipped from Packard's East Grand Boulevard factory to the B&B factory where the conversion was performed. When finished, the car was shipped to your local dealer for pick-up by it’s wealthy clients.
Packard warranted and supported their conversion. However, it wasn’t commercially successful  in depression era America because of it’s price of $274. ($7500 in 2020 US dollars)

CFCs, or Freon, are now infamous for greatly adding to the depletion of the earth's ozone shield. High up in the stratosphere is a 3mm thin veil of O3, which blocks (filters) UV wavelengths. This blanket guards against Ultra Violet bombardment from our sun.  Leaded gasoline is also a major pollutant, A double duty damager producing burnt carbon, and toxic lead in spades, and dumping the heavy stuff in our drinking water, while floating the lighter stuff upward. Thomas Midgley secretly suffered from lead poisoning because of his inventions, and tunnel vision, a fact he kept hidden from the public, until his death.
Before everything went to shit with The War, America enjoyed cool Theaters, Cool Cars, and Cold Beer.
Because of ozone depletion, Most uses of CFCs are now banned or severely restricted by the Montreal Protocol. Today, no suitable (general use non-flammable / non-toxic) alternatives to halocarbon refrigerants have been found to resolve problems innate to the original Freon 
Brands of Freon containing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have replaced CFC’s for the same purposes, but they too, are under strict control under the Kyoto protocol. CFC’s & HFC’s  are deemed "super-greenhouse effect" gasses.  If you believe in that junk.Kettering holds over 186 patents from the Neonatal incubator, to Guided Missiles, and from Diesel Engines, to Automotive Paint.
Of course every new feature comes with some bugs, and at a cost, -- So in consideration of a myriad improvement to human comfort afforded by your lovely Fridge,  One’s car, or the humanity restored by your first 'Window Unit” — We have a few formerly unknown fellas to toast as the thermometer goes straight up.
As you pull a frozen Hot Pocket from your ice-box, reflecting that you were lucky enough to be vaccinated, then you can thank Carrier, Kettering, Midgley, and (of course) our frenemy Freon.

What do you get when you cross a McLaren with a Stuffed Toy?  What happens when you shod your Ducati with doughnuts? How can I possibly make fast more comfortable?  Can I have my couch mounted to my bike's seat-post?  None of that is possible, as the dynamics of comfort are antithetical to the physics of going fast.  To be efficient, is to shed every possible exceptional gram, and gadget, and perhaps slip the wind.  Going Faster seems a direct proportion of effort, exertion, and efficiency. Is a Front shock the answer? Full suspension road bike, in your future?  Maybe a "Road Bike" is not the "right bike" for you?

If I ride a bicycle wearing a baggy wind-breaker and a back-pack, I should expect these to luff in the breezes catching wind and dragging me slower. If I ride my 1956 Schwinn 3-Speed, I should expect to work a bit to push against formidable rotating weight, and heft. If I ride the lightest bike on the block, and wear my birthday suit, I should expect to slip the wind, powering forward without impediment, as I double or treble my Schwinn's-speediness, but be arrested, just the same.  So with a sense of danger,  ideal gear (a proper lycra kit on a fast bike) & perfect elements (lovely weather & conditions), the only thing slowing one down is ability, and (of course) the rank surface upon which you roll. For the city rider with perfect kit, speed may defy gravity, but one cannot become fast at all if the terrain plots to swallow you whole. It's best to levitate.
I recall fondly the first day I borrowed my friend's Peugeot Mountain Bike, and the deliberate reckless abandon with which I bashed into every conceivable bump, patch, and pot-hole.  I felt empowered to do evil to the cushy tires, and sturdy steel frame.  I cut across every lawn, and landscape, river-beds, and pathways, until I returned to put that mare away wet.  I feel certain that this release of testosterone, and adrenaline, as counterpoint to my Custom Paramount with 20c SUP's, was cause for my friend never lending me her bike again.  She was polite to not berate me for banging up her bike.  But This set a fire beneath me to one day own my own fat-tire rig.  I relived this very moment again when I picked up my new Cannondale MT2000 from Lay-away, and put it through  it's paces.  This was the same moment that I swore to learn to build wheels, swap rims, and hence I became a better mechanic.  It is not lost on me that everyone has this primal YOLO experience, when given a deadly toy. Most "normal" people slip a bit when handed the danger keys.  It is poignant that  I can tap this very nostalgic empathy each time I help some sap fix something bad they did quite deliberately to their beloved bike. It is with this same Evil Urge to bomber into shit, that I clicked my heels upon my new set of wheels, and became belligerent with my bike but again.  Ohh the sweet release of being negligent!!  Like a rental when you have "Full Coverage"...

So today, quite deliberately I poked new valves into a brand-spankin' new set of custom wheels, and belted them with some Schwalbe's I'd had sitting about the house.  I poured a few ounces of latex into these, and snapped them onto the rim.  With my handy-dandy Silca Pista, I pressed the plunger down and the whole dream clicked together.  My new custom wheel-set is at this very moment regretting ever having met me, and we are pressing forward with an undiscussed agenda, whereby I do the deed over some of the rougher roads my fair city has to offer.  (We have the shittiest roads North of Nicaragua).
I spun the discs off my Roval's and checked the indexing, before setting out on a deliberate tear down by the abandon foundry.  My new wheels are built from DT180's, 32 Berd UHMW String Spokes, and 32c Atomic Carbon Road Hoops.  They are both bizarrely competent looking, (if a bit inelegant), and brilliantly lightweight.  All tolled, as compared to my Roval CLX's, These Custom Berd wheels are a flat 1200 grams, and appear to be up to the task.  My Current Roval wheels are a bit of a Magic Carpet Ride, because they are flat out the fastest wheel I've ever strode upon.  They are wicked light, punchy, bomber strong, and wind-up like a fighter jet. Incidentally the Roval Alpinist CLX weigh about 1255g. So... It is my opinion that I can only be disappointed with my first test-ride, Right? Should the folkloric claim to comfort by Berd owners, prove false, I will be the first to say.  As Prophesy goes, those who believe, shall be saved. So today as traffic subsided I set about to beat these wheels about the worst roads my fair city has to offer, and to see how they Koncede the Kush.  It is fair to clarify two points... One, is that I'm a lightweight, so the punishment is not coming from Clubber Lang the Clydesdale.  Two, is that I am just like the rest of you indelicate fuckers, who have tried to punish someone-else's gear, without regard for life or liberty.  These are my wheels and I promised them I'd do my best to gauge their singular advantage as compared to my benchmark wheelset; The Roval Alpinist CLX.  Are they Lighter? --  Not Much.  Are they More Aero? -- Not at all. Are they cheaper? A bit. Are they faster...?  Well -- We will find that out.

Out the door I felt the gears, and brakes, and ran through them to be sure no harm may come.  Pursuing a course through a few washboard areas, where crucible train tracks crossed the road over and again to carry hot steel from foundry to prep areas in a space which was once a Stainless Foundry, This crumbling causeway allowed me to cruise through a quick patch of obstacles.  After a few bunny hops, and perhaps not paying close enough attention, I can say that my headwind was strong, and yet at about 18 mph, most of what I noticed was not memorable at all.  In essence, my ride through what is generally quite taxing on my hands, forearms, and ass, were not much to mention.  This conspicuous missing data, where I really didn't feel beat up, was perhaps the special sauce I was looking to confirm.  I checked myself, and thought as I hit a straight-away, "Was I just not paying attention?, or" was that not a big deal?"  Maybe I should have paid more attention to the washboard, and the tracks, as well as those cracks and potholes, and so I vowed to focus when I hit the park. As the perfect sunny day released many varied people from their habitats..., Their strolling-about forced me to go off-road.  through the park by Grass and Gravel.  I hit some roots, ruts, and branches, as well as a few ledges.  What again happened was this strange sensation that something was missing.  I calculated that I should very well have perceived more shake, more shimmy, and more fatigue, but it just wasn't coming.  Was this confirmation bias?  Am I fooling myself?  What the hell is happening here? There is a claim from some wheel builders who lace with these $8. string spokes that their wheels impart 20% more comfort.  This of course is nearly impossible to quantify, unless by creating a custom dynamic testing rig in a laboratory, or by placing one's frail ass upon a road bike with a hard carbon seat. Problem: Rough Ride - Solution: Levitate.
I continued with a paved route, using the occasional dodging to grass and gravel maneuver off tarmac, and onto the shoulder.  I rode like this for about 6 miles and then hit some parkland.  Again offroad I was missing the general gentle jarring of a rigid wheel.  Wait! what's my tire pressure?  Is it leaking?  Are they getting splashy? No. They were still at 80 psi, about 16-18 lbs. harder than my Roval reference. So now I soldiered onward, then turned around to hit the same terrain on the way back to make more notes. It's not unusual for me to not be passed at this time of day, as I swam amongst the minnows, but I was going quite fast both directions and felt none of it.  
On the technical side the Berd Spokes are basically a high molecular weight Polyethylene rope.  They have a threaded tip held on like a Chinese Finger trap, and a knot that stops them at the hub.  They wind-up like a typical spoke, but require a few tensioning phases to ensure they are devoid of slack,  They play a bit like a ukulele, and they are reparable the same as any spoke, albeit easier to pack.  The spokes float on water, but won't allow you to ride upon it.  Berd spokes are protected by US Patents 10,150,332 B2, 10,661,598 B2, and patents pending.

When returning i had a tail wind and so I hit the same terrain at about double the speed.  Through each distinct obstacle, I rode with what appeared to be less impact to my otherwise pansy-assed constitution.  I'm not getting any younger, but this new recipe of a bike lover's bike with a wheel lover's wheel seemed to be doing what's advertised.  I cannot quantify with a percent sign what modicum of squish factor is being applied through this initial test-drive, but we will certainly revisit, the present fantasy, that my new Berd Wheels were legitimate contenders for my Sofa Seat fantasy.  What will become of me with a wheel-set that allows me the freedom to ride it like I stole it?  I trust that having faith in one's deity, whether a gadget,  totem, or plain fantasy may very well be enough magic to sustain the faithful.  I have ridden upon what appears at first blush to be a marvelous set of wheels, and hope to live to tell about it.  

We will revisit this string-wheel review after a few hundred miles, and then again after a few thousand, and I hope the news is as good.  Today, my new custom Berd wheels are magnificent.  I was not initially mesmerized by the retro aesthetic as I changed from 24 spokes back to 32, but once I get over fat shaming my spokes, I will settle on these as my preferred go-to all-rounder.  
Let's see how they climb next.

Peace.

My wheels and all reviewed gear is paid for in full and all reviews here are without influence of $chwag.

​Phone: (612) 308-8740
Email: sales@berdspokes.com
Address: 401 11th Ave S Ste 300, Hopkins, MN 55343
Hours: Monday - Friday, 8:30 am - 4:30 pm Central US Time