Alley Cat!

Last Saturday, on Valentine's Day Eve, Karl and I, along with our friend Rob Evans, went over to Birmingham Alabama for BiciCoop's Annual Heartbreaks Alley Cat and Prom. We took our Schwinn De Luxe Twinn tandem. Getting it there was a harrowing experience. The thing is huge and I kept thinking it would go flying off the back.

We got to the race about an hour before it started. We got settled in, I introduced Karl to the Birmingham friends and paid the entry fee. Karl and I then went on a short ride to work out any kinks we had with the bike and to give Karl and me a chance to learn how to ride the bike together. When we got back for our warm up ride, we had about 5 minutes before the race started. Karl had time to eat a Honey Bun and drink some Gatorade. I asked some of the locals how to get to the first stop. We got ready. We were stoked. We were going to win this thing!

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Alan from Bici gave the call for the racers to line up and then he gave some final instructions on the race. It was a two manifest race. You completed all the checkpoints on the first manifest in a specified order, came back, and picked up the second manifest. Each manifest had the same check points, but you had to do them in a different order. With that, Alan said "Go!" and we were off!!

Photo: {t}photograpic

We rode with a small crowd to the first stop. We did the jumping jacks and push ups demanded from the managers of the stop, but when we left, things went wrong when our chain came off the derailleur. Not only that, the chain was caught between the gears and a nut that held the rear fender to the frame. It took us about five minutes to get the chain back on. When we got the chain back on, we let out a cheer. Before we got rolling, I asked Karl if he wanted to take a picture. He said, "We can't do that! We are in a race!" This kid was serious!

We turned a corner and could see blinking lights ahead. Bikes! The competition! We hoofed it for the second stop and Rebecca, the checkpoint manager, asked Karl to tell a joke. He told the timeless classic about the chicken crossing the road. It gets you everytime. While there, some of the other racers pulled up. Were they the ones that were just six blocks ahead of us? They must have gotten lost.

As we pulled away, Karl said that the other racers said, "Crap" when they saw us. If you have ever raced an alley cat, you know exactly how they were feeling.

The next stop was BiciCoop. Oh, and we threw down! They had Karl and I have a dance off. Karl creamed me. He is a much better dancer. Watch the video for proof.

Karl and me dancing at Bici on 12seconds.tv (Sam A Porter)

After Bici, it was off to Parkside Cafe where a table full of beautiful women tempted us with booze. Karl said, "I am a kid" and I told them I had no money. If you had no money, you could not partake in booze and if you did not drink the booze, you did not get the four minute time bonus. Rats!

Then it was back to the start/finish for our second manifest. When we got there everyone cheered for Karl and generally went crazy. They told us we were third! Oh! Third! It was on!! Karl got the eye of the tiger! We grabbed our second manifest!!

Photo: Elisa Munoz

I looked at the manifest. Bici Coop was the first stop. There was a huge hill to climb to get there. Alan looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's a huge hill." I was not stoked. We ended up walking part of the way. Then, after we got back on the bike, Karl and I got in a fight because Karl needed to coast, but we were going up hill and we could not coast. We both chilled out and started working together again.

When we got to the top of the hill, I got disoriented, but Karl had us. He told me how to get to Bici and we were rolling.

We were hanging tough in third, with about four miles to go. Karl was telling me that his legs never hurt so bad in his life but he could keep going if he could coast every once in a while. Suddenly, another team caught us and passed us! We just slipped to fourth! We could keep their pace when we were pedaling, but when we took a coasting break, we would lose ground. Slowly, they were pulling away from us! Then, our chain came off again. This was the fourth time during the race. Karl said it was okay and told me not to cuss, but now there was no way to catch the third place team unless they had a mechanical or a flat.

However!! We did not give up! We left our last stop and headed home. We laughed at a car that we kept catching up to, wondering what they were thinking. We pulled into the finish to cheers and people telling us that we got fourth place. Everyone wanted to talk to Karl. Someone asked if he was tired and he could only reply with a "yes".

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We went upstairs and got our picture taken. I grabbed a beer and Karl got some snacks and chilled out listening to an audio book.

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The award ceremony came and Karl got the prize for First Junior Racer and we shared the prize for Best Dancers. We will be back next year, oh yes! Ready to climb that podium!

Photo: {t}photograpic

First Concert!

Friday night Karl went to his first concert: The Residents!

For Christmas, Karl bought me a ticket and tonight I went with him and his mom to the show. We got there around 8:20. Before long Karl got bored waiting so we had him hold water in his mouth without swallowing for two minutes. Repeat! That kept him busy! The Residents came on around 8:45, only 15 minutes late.

A friend's mother once described The Residents as "nightmare music" and, with this show, they seem to have taken that description to heart. With just a keyboard, guitar and a singer, they have distilled their music down to a discordant ghee. The singer would start off tempo, then go off key, then the guitarist would do the same, playing nonsense and noise, and then the keyboard would end up playing one low nausea inducing note. Then, the song would snap together, throbbing, and right when you were understanding what was going on, the singer would play the worst harmonica solo you have ever heard. I have heard terrible harmonica solos, but seriously... gah!!

You know, now that I think about it, Willie Nelson does the same thing. Well, maybe just the off tempo stuff.

If you somehow found the music toe tapping and easy to listen to, the topics of the songs ensured nightmares would be had by all. Nearly every song was about murder and death. They started off with a song about a teenager who killed an infant. Another was about a woman's memories of how she caused her mother's death, how her father lied about it, and that she had gold fish that died once too. With one song, a white powdered faced man with red gashes came up on the screen and talked about how he was a sleep walker and how he killed his wife in his sleep. Then, the ghost of his wife came back from the dead and taught his daughter how to hold a knife, stab him in the face and kill him. I seriously thought Karl was going to lose interest.

The first song I knew was "Six More Miles to the Graveyard" followed a few songs later by "Semolina". If you are not familiar with The Residents, "Semolina" is a pretty decent introduction, although the version they played at the show was very different than the original released in 1978.

They did two songs for an encore. "Die, Stay, Go" was upbeat and had bright lights. Karl approved!

As we walked out, I asked if Karl liked the show and he said, "Yes." I asked Karl if he danced and he said, "No." I asked him what he thought of the show and he said, "Gruesome."

I think... yeah... gruesome... I think that covers it.