To preface, I took a bus to Houston because I was unable to clear two days to make the trip by bike. I had too much work to do to get the Dudley Docker II ready.
I just got on the bus to Houston. For a minute, the whole of civilation almost fell apart when the bus--my bus--arrived with a full load of passengers. Waiting travelers responded in uproar--"Where's my bus?", "Why is it full?", "But I'm a paaaaying customer...", "Does the other bus go straight to Houston?", "Where does it stop?"
Damnit, people, relax. Five minute of standing in line later, we're on another bus that will actually arrive in Houston sooner than the first. People, it's cool.
'Minds me of the hostel in Austin. The other day the shit really hit the fan when Melodrama Man confronted Cowboy Hat in what will forever live on as "The Leaf Burning Incident". In order to earn a free room for the night, Cowboy Hat raked up some leaves around the complex. Seeing that the leaves were abundant and the trash bins few, he started to burn the leaves in their respective piles. Melodrama Man, apparently stunned by the audacity of such an action, ran out of the hostel and scolded Cowboy Hat for his poor judgement. Cowboy Hat responded with a "fuck you", Melodrama Man returned the volley, and the latter got his feelings hurt while the former continued raking.
Shit. The bus isn't leaving until three--an hour away. Here we go again. The Western World crumbles at the feet of the almighty Greyhound. No, ma'am, you cannot get on another bus. There is no other bus. No, ma'am, you cannot yell at the driver. There's a manager readily available for just that purpose.
Lady, it's cool.
I guess I've been overly receptive of people's bad vibes lately. After a week of pacing around, watching, waiting, pushing, watching, waiting, pushing, I've become especially susceptible to the coughs and sneezes of other people's ills.
Enough of that, though. I just got myself a candy bar. I had a hunger inside me.
I put together a new bike--an old Diamondback Outlook, actually, with freshly-mounted clipless pedals, new brakes, handlebar extenders, rims and tires. At a hunkering thirty-eight and a half pounds, the Dudley Docker II is sea-worthy too, although not the speedy schooner of its prior incarnation. With thirty-five pounds of gear on a handlebar bag strapped on with an inner tube (as the attachment remains stolen) and a rack cannibalized from another bike, the DDII is a floating tank. It's cool.
Believe it or not, I'm actually about to roll out right now. This bus is on the move. Next stop: Houston, site of the Chicano-Latino Leadership and Unity Conference. I'll be there for a couple of days, and if everything works out I'll most likely be heading down to Brownsville once again. I imagine that this conference will be the kick in the tail to make it happen.
A couple of things before I leave you: the first is an out-and-out thanks to the people at the Yellow Bike Project. They are really amazing individuals. The whole premise behind the Project is that volunteers get together a few nights a week to restore and make usable bikes that have been donated. In the last few weeks, most of those bikes have gone to Katrina evacuees--I myself saw a freshly-transplanted family with five young children ride around with loud, uncontainable excitement on their new bicycles. Other bikes are sold to folks like me, and hundreds have been given to the Austin community. Yellow Bike volunteers give their time, share their knowledge freely and do a lot of good for a lot of people. For that, they have my thanks.
By the way, city of Austin, the Yellow Bike Project would benefit greatly from the continued use of public space for their efforts. Please help make this happen.
The second pause for consideration concerns recent news and events. In El Paso, the Texas Minutemen are busy on their watches for undocumented immigrants, while the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) are also busy with their own--of the Minutmen. In Tucson, the border nonprofit No More Deaths (Ni Una Mas) is working on creating greater awareness of the trials of two volunteers, Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss, who were arrested for taking three severely-dehydrated crossers to a hospital for medical attention. No More Deaths' positon is that it shouldn't be illegal to provide humanitarian aid, regardless of the recipient's nationality.
This last bit of news might be the most important: Jennifer Lopez (yes, the J-Lo) is filming a move in Nogales, Sonora. Hundreds have flocked to the set hoping catch a glimpse of their idol or, perhaps, her pop-rock hubby, Marc Anthony. The movie, "Bordertown" (and this really is important), is about the hundreds of women who have been raped, mutilated and murdered in the real-life border city of Ciudad Juarez.
That's about it for me. You can read up on the above by clicking on the links provided below.
Peace,
The Bike Guy
From moderate to left:
Sellz and Strauss trial 1: moderate
Sellz and Strauss trial 2 (two-thirds down the page): moderate-left
Sellz and Strauss trial 3: left
El Paso Minutemen: moderate-right
El Paso Minutemen: moderate-left
J-Lo
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