Bike Path Thugs

        There’s a new bike path in Falmouth. Actually, it’s an extension of the pre-existing bike path that runs from the middle of Falmouth to the edge of Woods Hole, thirteen miles away. The new part of the path extends it all the way from Falmouth to my town of North Falmouth. That means that I can bike from practically my own back yard all the way to Woods Hole, twenty-three mikes away, and only hit two miles of road (from my house to the path). The remaining twenty-three miles is all beautiful, pristine, smooth, relatively flat, scenic bike path, that travels through cranberry bogs, marshes, and forest, and by beaches and the ocean. It’s absolutely gorgeous.
        But there is a major problem that the bike path has created. A problem that could turn this spectacular new gem into nothing more than an oozing, puss infested shanker on the face of Cape Cod.
        I witnessed the origins of this festering pustule weeks ago when I first started biking on the path. I’m a very friendly dude when I’m out and about, and when I’m biking, I say hello or wave to everybody I come across. On the bike path, I noticed that about half of the people I said hello to said something back. The other half did not. This didn’t seem unusual to me, because as I’ve written before on this very blog, cyclists can be some of the most unfriendly exercisers on earth. It seems the more serious they dress, the more serious they are. I understand that exercise can be serious business, but let’s put this in perspective. You’re biking on a flat, straight, very public path, full of people, dogs, birds, and magnificent scenery. Is your game face really necessary?
        Anyway, as I said, getting the cold shoulder from over half the cyclist I encountered has always been de rigeur. But a few weeks ago, I noticed something else. Some of these cyclists were starting to stop and congregate in small groups at certain points along the new bike path. When I passed these groups of cycle enthusiasts, they not only didn’t say hello back to me, they stared at me. All of them. The first time it happened, I thought maybe I had a massive snot hanging from my nose, that, like a horrible car accident, they just couldn’t turn away from. But then it happened again, several times. A gaggle of neon-spandex clad, helmet-wearing, wrap-around-sunglass donning cyclists would literally stare me down as I rode past. They would all turn my way, and glare at me with hostile, sour puss expressions that I hadn’t seen since the eighth grade.
        Even for cyclists, this was unfriendly. Was it because I wasn’t wearing a helmet, therefore desecrating their ancient, sacred rules of safety? Was it because I wasn’t wearing a shirt, and they saw this primitive display of skin as a mocking of their strict dress code? These questions remained unanswered until the other morning, when one group actually waived me down and stopped me. Actually, they set up a wall of bikes across the path, so I had to stop or I’d run over one of them. I figured somebody was in trouble, or maybe there was imminent danger ahead and they were warning me. “Perhaps I misjudged these guys”, I thought. “Maybe they’re just looking out for me, or for one of their own, which I can certainly understand.”
        I stopped, got off my bike, and said, in a consciously friendly voice, “What’s up men?”. They didn’t respond. They just stood there and stared. Glared actually. After a few moments of awkward silence, one of them slowly approached me. He looked like the leader of the pack, a little taller than his compatriots, and dressed even more flamboyantly than the rest. More neon. More garishly graphic helmet. Tighter shorts.
        As he approached me, he started taking his helmet off. The others kept theirs on. His motions were slow and deliberate. Actually, too slow and deliberate, as though he was self-consciously trying hard to be...slow and deliberate. Like a guy who’s trying to look tough, but isn’t.
        And he was walking funny too, because he had on those cyclist shoes with the clips on them. The whole effect was comical, borderline absurd, and I had to choke back the chuckles. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but I didn’t want to laugh at the guy. Well I did, but I knew it would be in bad taste. And I like to show respect for my fellow living organisms. Until they give me a damn good reason not to.
        And he was about to give me one. Actually, he was about to give about twenty.
        He turned and threw his helmet to one of his underlings, who proceeded to drop it. None of them smiled. I did. From ear to ear. They didn’t like that. After leader guy turned back around towards me, he spoke. “What are you doin’, boy?”, he said in a slow, measured cadence with just a hint of redneck drawl. Before I answered him, I thought to myself, “Boy”? I haven’t been called that in a while.” Before I could answer, he said “Ya know, we don’t like your kind on this here bike path.” Well that did it. A wire tripped in me, and I instinctively went into Wise Ass Mode. “My kind?”, I asked. “What kind would that be, Mr. Armstrong?” One of the guys in the back snickered ever so faintly, but it didn’t go unnoticed by me. Or by Lance, who turned around, pointed at him, and said “Give me twenty!”, upon which Mr. Snicker hung his head, dropped, and gave him...eight. That’s all he could muster, as he looked somewhat malnutritioned. So I did the right thing and offered him a Power Bar. More glares form Lance and the peanut gallery.
        Resuming his focus on me, Lance stepped a little closer and said “Looks like we’ve got a wise guy here, don’t we? Well listen up, Mr. Wise Guy. If you’re gonna bike on this path, you’re gonna have to abide by some rules. Now these rules aren’t written anywhere, but that don’t mean they aint gonna be enforced. See, we’re the unofficial Falmouth-Bike-Path-Proper-Bike-Etiquette-Poe-Leece. We’re a cross between a corrupt police department, a vigilante group, and a street gang. And you do not want us as your enemy if you intend on using this bike path. Once you step foot on this path, your civil liberties take a back seat to the preservation of established American values like religion, proper clothing, more religion, conformity, yet more religion - this time crammed down your throat, and the acceptance that, because we say so, we know better than you.” Suddenly, he didn’t sound much like Lance Armstrong. He sounded like George W. Bush.
        Then I realized what this was. This was a Cycle Gang. A self-appointed group of holier than thou, self-righteous, control freak bike addicts that look upon the casual cyclist like myself who doesn’t wear a helmet or a shirt as a bane to their sport. I’m everything they don’t like. I smile when I ride. I dress like I’m at the beach. I never wear a helmet. My bike is less than state of the art. I’m not carrying a water bottle. I have an enormous back pack on, which means I’m biking in part at least as a form of transportation to do something else and not exclusively as a form of no-holds-barred-balls-to-the-wall exercise. Which makes me a heathen. I’ve got on earrings, which increase my drag, so I’m not in the least concerned about my time. I’m doing this because it’s fun, I like it, it’s beautiful out, it’s great cardio, and I can get a tan and show off my bod. In other words, I am the the Obsessed Cyclist’s Anti-Christ.
        As soon as I understood what this was about, something overtook me. I shifted past Wise Ass Mode and into Complete Dickhead Hyperdrive. I walked up to Lance W. Bush, got right into his face and said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am Shiva, the God Of Death. I am going to bike right past you lame fucks. And so is anybody and everybody else on this path. Every minute of every day of every year, as long as I’m alive. And I intend to live forever.”
        Seconds after that, the group behind him started to disband, grumbling as they broke rank. They knew their days of terror were over, over before they actually began. And word of this would spread quickly, so effectively, every other Cycle Gang was doomed as well. It was only going to take one act of aggressive, potentially violent act of cycle defiance to thwart their ill conceived plan of bike path domination, and I was lucky enough to have been the right guy for the job, in the right place, at the right time.
        The bike path was now perpetually safe form the likes of unfriendly, control freak, elitist, obsessed cycle addicts. So come down and enjoy this new addition to the landscape of cape cod, knowing that you and your kin can safely enjoy the benefits of this path. Even if you don’t wear a helmet. Or a shirt. Or a stitch of neon.


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a bike path of Wrongs) Reserved.

Update on Wednesday, May 13, 2009 at 8:44PM by Clint Piatelli

Egads! A thousand pardons! My creation of, and subsequent run in with, the "Cycle Gang" was, in fact, completely fabricated. I wrongfully assumed that to be clear, so absurd was the encounter. But I realize now that I should have somehow predicated that in the post. After all, I've made this blog about being open, honest, telling my truth, and exposing myself as deeply as I can stand. It was wrong for me to shift gears into absurd satire without forewarning my readership. My apologies.

The new bike path is indeed beautiful. And I still see more than my fair share of seemingly unhappy, unfriendly cyclists. But the existance and encounter with a gang of them is pure fiction; an observation taken to it's illogical extreme. But thanx for follwing me, all the way to the absurd, bitter end. I didn't mean to dupe you. I'm learning...

Driving Holly & Mickey

        Today’s post centers around a partial transcription of one of the funniest scenes in film history. It makes me laugh every time I read it. No matter what, I can always use a good laugh. Dare I say that usually, we all could.
        During the movie Hannah And Her Sisters, Woody Allen’s character, a television producer called Mickey, takes out Diane Wiest’s character, Holly. Holly takes Mickey to a rock club to hear a punk band, during which time she openly snorts coke at the table while she bounces to the music. Mickey, on the other hand, sits there holding his ears, completely mortified.
        Then Mickey takes Holly to a piano bar with a jazz trio to hear some “real music”. Mickey enjoys himself immensely, quietly basking in the culture and refinement. Holly fidgets obsessively, unimpressed, a nervous fish out of water, occasionally using a coke spoon to amp herself up.
        The following dialogue is from the scene outside the jazz club, just before they part ways on what was by all accounts a disastrous date.

Holly: I was so bored.

Mickey: Yeah, that’s tough. You don’t deserve Cole Porter. You should stay with those groups that look like they’re gonna stab their mother!

Holly: At least I’m open to new concepts.

Mickey: And you don’t have to snort cocaine at the table all the time. What do you do, carry a kilo around in your purse?

Holly: That crowd wouldn’t know the difference. They were embalmed.

Mickey: I had a great time tonight. It was like the Nuremberg trials.


        Later on in the movie, they end up bumping into each other in a record store, start dating again, fall in love, and get married. It’s only a movie, but it illustrates the sometimes strange dynamics of relationships and the mysterious nature of love. The message for me is to stay open and receptive, because we never know what the universe will throw at us. I quote the song Drive by Incubus, noting that I hardly always follow these words of wisdom, but I do aspire to them:

Whatever tomorrow brings I’ll be there
With open arms and open eyes

Peace,
Clint

Heartless Spew: An Indictment of Pre-Fabricated Love Letters

        Months ago, I came across this website where you can buy a book of pre-written love letters. Thats right. Pre-written love letters penned by somebody else. So you don’t have to write a single word. It even comes with a money back guarantee. The book is even featured in Cosmopolitan and on A&E too, which apparently gives it some form of legitimacy.
        When you enter the site, there’s a video starring the purveyor of this mind numbing concept. She touts the effectiveness and ease of sending a pre-written love letter. The website also offers books on regurgitated love emails and love poems too. The claim is that women have used these books to send the perfect love letter to their man, without the guy ever knowing it. But the products are marketed primarily to men.
        Are you fucking kidding me? I laughed so hard when I saw the website and watched the video that I had to change my shorts before heading to the gym. Have we simultaneously become completely out of touch with how we feel and a nation of liars? Tell me that we haven’t become the collective emotional manifestation of the Bush Administration.
        Are we so numb that we can’t muster the passion or desire to write any original words to the person we love? Are things so bad in relationship-land that we really have to pay someone else to write a love letter? I can’t think of anything more ridiculous. This is the adult emotional equivalent of paying somebody in high school to write your term paper. At least that can be laughed off as young and foolish. This can’t. Help me with this. How could anybody buy this pre-fabricated, un-original spew?
        On the website, they quote Dr. John Grey, who wrote Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. He says “When you want to feel good, write a love letter.” They actually use that quote. Am I missing something? Doesn’t the quote says “write a love letter”? That, I assume, implies that you.... “write a love letter”. It doesn’t say “When you want to feel good, pay for somebody else’s love letter, because you can’t come up with an original creative thought on your own, then pass the letter off as yours, bask in the glory of the ploy, and hope she doesn’t find out about it”.
        Maybe I just wasn’t reading between the lines. But us guys aren’t too good at that either, as advocates of this website surely know. Not only are we incapable of writing anything original about how we feel, but we can’t even read about it properly either. Boy are we dumb.
        Along this line of thinking, we should be able to buy pre-fabricated breakup letters too. Everything from forty-two page dissertations on why the relationship doesn’t work, to the simple one liner, “Fuck Off.”
        Anything, repeat, ANYTHING is better than sending this drivel to somebody you care about. If you’re not a great writer, or have trouble expressing yourself with words, get together with a friend who’s better at it and spend a few hours creating something together. If you don’t know any friends better than you at this stuff, call your cousin. Hell, call your mother before you fall for this crap.
        The whole point of a love letter is that it comes from your heart. Not some pimply college journalism major who’s getting paid minimum wage to come up with pages of sentimental word drool that will be edited by the genius behind all this.
        This genius, by the way, is a self proclaimed “love coach”. That’s right. The woman who wants you to pay her to write a love letter for you calls herself a “love coach”. This is a mad case of severe linguistic distortion, even for advertising. She has absolutely no idea what the word “coach” means. A coach does not encourage her clients to pay somebody else to get the job done. That’s more akin to a john hiring a prostitute. A coach “coaches”. A coach teaches and motivates people to reach a higher level of performance. All this woman is doing is providing an easy way out for guys who have trouble feeling. Which is a lot of men, granted. I used to be shut down, so I have empathy for the plight of those who can’t get to how they feel.
        But take it from one who has been there. If you're one who struggles with your feelings, the worst thing you could do is buy this book and fall for this shit. This woman is not a coach. She’s a pusher. And the people who buy this stuff are addicts. Both should get themselves into a twelve step program. Now. They’ll thank me for it later.
        The process of writing your own love letter is the whole point. Paying someone else to do it is like buying an Olympic medal. It feels good at first because you’ve got this shiny new medal that says “You’re Great”. But pretty soon, the buzz wears off. You’re still the same person who can’t produce an original thought about love, and you’ve duped your lover into thinking you can. Full steam ahead in that relationship.
        Even if whatever you write is the most incoherent, misspelled, grammatically ghastly pile of over-sentimental tripe ever written, it’s yours. And you’ll do better next time. And the time after that. If the person you’re with can’t love you for the effort of trying to write a love letter, then maybe you’re with the wrong person.
        How about a love letter that says “I can’t write you a love letter because I’m no good at it. But I just wanted to say that I love you”. Anybody who can spell “cat” could get that one off. If the person you’re with loves you for who you are, he or she will be thrilled that you took the time to do something that’s hard for you in an effort to show them how much you care. What says love more than that? And if it’s the truth, it’s infinitely better than anything anybody else could write.
        Now there’s a novel concept. Truth. Truth that could lead to some truthful discussion. Maybe some truthful feelings. Maybe, god forbid, some truthful intimacy. Isn’t that the point of the love letter in the first place? No wait, I’m sorry. According to this “love coach”, the whole point is the appearance of intimacy. The appearance of truth. The appearance of something genuine from the heart. That’s much better than the real thing. Like “Love...Now Fat Free!”. And just like the shit they sell at the supermarket that’s had the fat taken out, this amalgamation of vomit doesn’t taste very good. And it’s actually much worse for you than the original, fat laden stuff. It kills you. Slowly. Sign me up.
        Lovers everywhere, this book is the problem, not the solution. It’s encouraging us to not do the work; the work we need to do to get in touch with how we feel. It’s encouraging us to love by not digging deep into ourselves for our true expression. I’ve been that route. It’s not possible. It’s against the laws of emotional physics. This whole concept is the antithesis of love, not an expression of it. It’s not just a quick fix, it’s a lousy quick fix at that. Like a dose of bunk heroin from a dirty needle. This book is a bad drug that doesn’t even address the symptom, never mind the cause.
        If anybody out there needs help writing a love letter, please don’t fall for this. In fact, get a hold of me. I’m not going to write it for you, but I’d be glad to help.

©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a love letter of Wrongs) Reserved.

I've Decided To Go To Prison

        I’ve decided to go to prison. Call it a career move.
        I don’t know how I’ll get there. It can’t be for a violent crime. As much fun as armed robbery might be to commit, I couldn’t live with the consequences. Plus, I’d probably end up at some hell-hole maximum security state penitentiary, like Folsom, instead of a Club Fed, which is infinitely more pleasant. I may be out of my fuckin’ mind, but I’m not stupid.
        Getting into prison may be harder than I think. I’ve got no priors, and I can afford a great lawyer. And I would use a great lawyer, because he or she would be my best chance at cutting a deal to get me into my prison of choice. Knowing which prison I’d want to go to is something I haven’t done any research on, either. One more thing to add to my to-do List.
        I’ve always thought “fraud” had a nice ring to it. And I love the word “embezzlement”. Okay. Now it’s starting to come together.
        How much fun would it be to create a fictitious person from scratch? Then become that person? I’ve done a little acting. Let me tell you. It would be a blast. Think “Tootsie” on a massive dose of steroids, without the gender bending.
        I could just pretend it was Halloween. For a year. I’d come up with a name, and fabricate an entire past. Where was this guy from, and what was his childhood like? What schools did he go to? Would he be the shy type, who, incredibly, has never been laid? Or would he go the other way, and say that he’s slept with everything that had a pulse? So may choices.
        The fraud part would lead to the embezzlement. After I falsified records, forged documents, and manufactured bogus....everything, I could get credit cards under my new alias, then run up exorbitant bills, with no intention of paying. But I’d have to take it a step further. I’d have to steal lots of money from the company I work for. Well I’m creative, and I’ve got an M.B.A. and a finance degree. I’m sure I could figure something out.
        The more I think of it, the more fun this sounds. And really, it’s as victimless a crime as there can be. I’d return all of the money I embezzled. I’d give back everything I bought. Well, almost everything. It would be pretty hard to give back a first class trip to Australia. And the Ferrari F430 Spider would be worthless after I totaled it from driving too fast while under the influence.
        Hey. I’m going to prison. Let me live it up a little.
        When I got out, I could write about how I pulled this caper off, and what it was like to be in prison. I’d go on talk shows, and do interviews on Today and Good Morning America. I’d get psychoanalyzed by Dr. Phil and Oprah. I’ll bet The View would positively love me. And I’d definitely get to cop a cheap feel off of Kelly Ripa. That wouldn’t suck.
        This prison talk reminds me of one of my favorite principessa stories. The first time she drove to my new apartment for the weekend, I was showing her around. She saw a notebook lying on a counter. The notebook’s cover had a picture of me, dressed up on Halloween as a rock star. I had on a wig, make-up, spandex pants, chains, and no shirt. Actually, maybe it wasn’t Halloween. Maybe it was just a typical Tuesday in June. Anyway, the picture got her pretty head spinning.
        We were sitting around and got into a conversation about what I was really like. That somehow lead to a discussion about deviant behavior. That lead her to pop the question.
        “Have you ever been in prison?”, she asked. When she said it, she smiled and raised her eyebrows, as if a response from me in the affirmative would be a bonus point. I laughed, and replied incredulously “No!”. She tried to back pedal, and said “I meant jail, not prison, like, overnight in the drunk tank or something!”. I saw right through that and replied “No you didn’t, doll. You said ‘prison’ and you meant prison. It’s okay. I’m laughing aren’t I?” She quickly copped to it. But I digress.
        My plan to enter prison is similar to the plight of Rubert Pupkin in The King Of Comedy. I'll do something so ridiculous that I'll either become famous or get committed for it. Probably both. So I’m off to the big house. I’m not sure when, but I’ll let you know how it’s going from my cell. And I don’t mean as in “phone”.
        They do let you have internet access from prison, don’t they?


©2009 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a prison full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Half & Half

        In response to the comments made on my post dated December 17, I will paraphrase David Lee Roth, who paraphrased somebody else:

You know you’re really onto something when half of the people really love what you’re doing....And the other half think you’re a complete jackass.

        I’m just getting warmed up.

        Happy Holidays.....

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and the jackass half of wrongs) Reserved.