In the middle of the journey of my life, I am--as always--a woman on a bike. Although I do not know where this road will lead, the way is not lost, for I have arrived here. And I am on my bicycle, again.
I'll never forget the guy who just couldn't wait to show me the "deal" he got--on Canal Street. For ten dollars, he got himself the watch he always wanted--in gold, no less. That timepiece of his dreams was a "Roxel". Was that name the fruit of a counterfeiter's creativity--or dyslexia? I asked myself the same question when I saw this:
"Shimona" bike parts have been showing up on bikes purchased online--mainly under the "Aspen" brand. The typeface on the disc in the photo is all but indistinguishable from that of Shimano. I wonder how many people didn't catch the "typo." Is the same person responsible for "Roxel" and "Shimona"? Or was the person who came up with the latter name listening to song from a late-70s one-hit wonder. I'm talking, of course, about "My Shimona":
Here is another reason to Beware the Ides of March. All right, so this happened yesterday. What am I talking about? More to the point, what was he talking about? Rush Limbaugh commemorated the death of Stephen Hawking as only he could have: by casting doubt on one of the great physicist's main contributions to science. To wit, the radio loudmouth asks whether we can really know that the Big Bang happened if nobody was there to see it: I'll admit I'm just a college dropout radio guy, okay? I'm not a professional physicist. I'm not a professional scientist. I do not own a lab coat, white or light blue. So they tell me that the Big Bang is where everything began. Hawking says it's the Big Bang and we're still expanding. Now, I won't make any snarky comments about Rush Limbaugh using the word "expand." But I will say that the man accomplished something few, if any, of us could have. For one thing, he made Ken Ham seem like a rigorous thinker, if not an out-and-out intellectual. And he managed to show us what it's like when The Smartest Person In The World has shade thrown on him by the Damndest Ass In America. Oh, dear Stephen Hawking, you deserve so much better. Rest In Peace.
Even though it's been the background commercial for countless car ads, I still love it. Even though I now consider myself a feminist I can forgive lyrics like these: I'm a friendly stranger in a black sedan Won't you hop inside my car I got pictures, got candy I'm a lovable man And I can take you to the nearest star even if I would tell my kids (if I'd had any) not to go near any man who said anything like that--if for no other reason than their sheer cheesiness. Then again, I never actually heard the lyrics until long after I first heard the song on the radio, when I was about 11 years old. I mean, why would I, when they're accompanied by some of the best horn riffs in a popular song on this side of "Hold On, I'm Coming." I'm talking about a song called "Vehicle", which made it all the way to #2 on the Billboard charts in May 1970. So why am I mentioning it today? Well, the group who recorded it was known as The Ides of March. One of its members, Jim Peterik, would later write "Eye of the Tiger" for the Rocky movies. And his songs are published by Bicycle Music. Pretty ironic, isn't it, for a song about a guy trying to use his car to pick up girls?
