Truth is, the dinosaur lives. Yes the Japanese build the sweetest bike
engines in the world, and they are astonishingly perfect--but they don't
need anyone, and the japanese are starting to understand why that's
important.
We love our goofy british cars for just that reason--and that's why they
are preserved and raced with remarkable pleasure. I raced Peyote today,
and the all the pixie dust is back in the car. It slides and slithers
through the turns just like it always did. This afternoon I lost it--knew
it was gone too far to gather it back up, so it just did it for me. Anyone
who has had a car do that for them knows how special that is. I take care
of it, and it takes care of me. The best is yet to come.
-----Original Message-----
From: Mark J Bradakis [mailto:mjb@autox.team.net]
Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 11:01 PM
To: fot@autox.team.net
Subject: Finding what you aren't looking for
Labor Day weekend here in the states, marking the end of the summer
season, the advent of fall and the coming winter. The last couple of
nights have had that hint of crispness to them, we won't be seeing many
more days of 100 degree temps here in Salt Lake. And sad to say, I won't
be seeing many more little treasures come out of that box of, uh, yeast
samples that Sean Green sent to me, but this porter is pretty tasty.
Thanks!
Okay, before I start rambling too far afield, I was digging through some
of my older files looking for one thing, and found something else. I had
been feeling a bit depressed at another summer come and gone, projects
piling up faster than I complete them, too much computer work and not
enough top down driving. I know not who wrote this, where it came from,
what year it was or anything. All I have is this collection of words.
I've never owned a motorcycle, maybe I never will. But I know what he's
saying. I'd say you do, too.
mjb.
----
As I watch the Japanese crotch-rockets blasting the circuits,
I am suffused with a distilled sense of wonder, and I marvel; these men
and women are so skilled, perfect machines riding on perfect machines.
Their bikes are precision instruments built by precision instruments, sold
in their multitude to the techno-dazed.
About ten years ago, I was out earholing on a norton-racer-road in coastal
Marin county (north of San Francisco) on my '75 Commando. Rolled up to a
stop sign. A guy on an old 500cc BSA thumper came around the corner
facing me, leaned through the corner, dialed up the wick, and thumped on
up the hill. I shut nort down to listen to the sound of that long-stroke
single haul that hill. I was thrilled; I could feel the sound through the
soles of my boots. All these years later, when I remember that sound, that
fine sound, I choke, and tears fill my eyes. As that quiet thump, thump,
thump, faded up the hill, me and nort sat and thought of dinosaurs. It was
a good day to think about dinosaurs, one of those crisp, perfect Marin
autumn days. Back then, me and my dinosaur could still swat the Japanese
flies buzzing around the hills, those primordial crotch-rockets, awesome
machines that have come to be so strong, strong enough to eat me and nort
for breakfast.
These ten years gone, I'm now flogging that British oil-bath around the
Rockies. But the king is dead (long live the king!), and I'm the dinosaur
now, breathing the last breath of extinction; fading quietly, thump,
thump, thump up that hill. But I wonder, where went the soul, where went
the art, where went the heart?
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