Adaptive Curmudgeon

This fellow has a good point. It’s only a six minute video and it’s well worth your time.

[I’ve been limiting my consumption of politics. Too many lies will give you indigestion. Even so, corruption and manipulation is so damn prevalent that it’s hard to evade. Maybe they’ve slipped past your guard. If so, I hope today’s post will help.]

If you’ve ever paddled a canoe you know that wind or current, if they’re against you, can become a beastly challenge. This happened to me one blustery afternoon many years ago. I was padding a solo canoe when a nasty headwind came up. It dropped my progress to near zero. I’d entered the river from many miles ago. A car was positioned many miles ahead. There was nowhere in the vicinity from which I could “bail out”. I could exit the river but I’d have to hike miles cross country to the nearest road… while carrying a canoe on my head. And then what? Hitchhike? With a canoe on my head?

There was nothing I could do but keep paddling. So I did; with the best attitude I could manage.

Paddling against the wind I felt time slow down. At first I was moving solidly. I’d be eating a burger at a restaurant in a few hours! Then I was moving slowly but I’d get to the next bend in the river in just a few minutes. Then I hit bottom.

The horizon was too far away to consider. I found myself comparing my position to trees on shore. I marked progress in inches. Ever so slowly I’d pull up alongside a tree, paddling furiously I’d hold my own against the wind; inching forward. Then, after what felt like hours, the tree would be behind me and I’d be struggling to get to the next tree.

I was a young man; stubborn, tough, too determined to quit. Quitting would have been pointless anyway. If gave into despair then what? Stand on the shore of a remote river crying into the wind?

Of course I continued, what kind of man just plain quits… over wind?

It was a hard day. The struggle went on for hours. In the middle of it, there was a moment when I started to lose faith. I started grumbling my complaints at the trees. The jerks! Solidly rooted on shore not twenty feet from an overworked monkey in a borrowed canoe getting his ass kicked!

Then it dawned on me. I’d get to my staged car eventually. It wasn’t in question. The destination was assured. All that remained was the struggle of getting there.

I wasn’t strong enough to move quickly against the wind but I was tough enough to paddle all night if I had to. I’d get there! If it took an hour, a day, a week, all my life… I was going to get there. The only uncertainty was how epic the story would be when recalled in leisure.

It’s not much of a story to you. But to me, as I recall it in leisure, it’s a hell of a story! It’s a story with meaning only to me. Which is fine.

In case you’re wondering, I got to the car a little before sunset. Hours late but I hadn’t been forced to paddle by moonlight. I strapped the canoe on the roof, drove home basking in the dash heat, and slept like a log all night and most of the next day.

The outcome was as it should be. Life without struggle does not grow humans of character.

Why am I telling you this? Because the headwinds in modern life are similar. If you let them, they’ll sand you down to nothing. Yet it’s all smoke and mirrors. In the end all you have to do is keep paddling. I’ll get where I’m going. You will too. The only way to fail is to quit; when you quit, you join the losers. Then you have a new destination in life. You’ll lie on a couch watching CNN until you die.

You know people to whom it has happened. You know what I’m talking about. There’s a throng of losers standing on the shore crying into the wind. They’ll never get to the car. They’ve given up. Through their surrender they’ve become lesser beings.

Take heart! Shit’s not so bad. The power grid is still up. Inflation sucks but the stores are still open. It could get worse, and it may, but all we need to do is persevere.

The armor of oligarchy is fake and limited. They’re terrorized of normal people having a good solid laugh at their expense. Who hasn’t enjoyed mocking the establishment’s gay beer marketing. Woke systems intend to kick us in the balls but they can’t even make a decent movie. People who do fake things collapse in the light of reality. I’m legally nudged to call our current drooling moron the most popular candidate to ever exist. All the gestapo in the world can’t stop me from laughing when he’s planning trains across the pacific or telling obvious barstool stories about bravely being a teenage lifeguard in deadly dangerous Delaware. (I love the Corn Pop story!)

I’ve come to see that God gives us clues to bolster our spirit. He makes oppressors ridiculous as a wink to us normal folk. (If you’re of the other side of the political spectrum, have no fear. God threw you a bone too! Who is more ridiculous than bombastic Orange Man? Your arch nemesis is a dipshit from reality TV.)

Progress is slow but solid. We’re finding out that everything is just as we perceived through our lens of rationality. The green haired shrieking harpy on TicTok is just as mentally unbalanced as we’d deduced. Who cares what someone thinks when they can’t even manage themselves. We breathe a sign of relieve when we realize their bitching is beneath our consideration.

I’ll give just one example among many. Remember the middle of the Covid freak-out when things were at their lowest? Remember how everyone in every media outlet said you were an idiot? Surprise! It turns out you’re not!

All of your “conspiracy theories” have been proven true. Temporarily suppressed evidence emerges to support everything you suspected. Covid really did come from a laboratory and not the laughable coverstory of a bat sandwich. As you immediately surmised, the lab wasn’t doing benign things. As you guessed, that duplicitous elf Fauchi knew all about it. The death threat was just as minimal as you estimated from observing the Ruby Princess cruise ship in April 2020. The pointless freak-out was just as ineffective yet damaging as you thought. Closed schools, closed stores, closed minds… all cost dearly, just as you thought it would. Masks and tape marked lines on floors were just as dumb as you suspected. The vaccine was just as untested as you knew. They tried to shove a shot up your ass and you thought “since when do you need to beat people to death to get them to avoid a true plague”? Sure enough the shot increases your odds of getting sick. Because of course it does!

You suspected all this from day one and you were right from day one. You rode out a world class mind-fuck! All the bitches on F***book can’t change the fact that you’re perfectly happy. You never took the experimental shot, you don’t wear a mask while alone, and you didn’t become a cowering shut-in. As the event fades you’ve slowly verified that every damn thing you suspected was true. It only took a few years to know for sure! The truth percolated past their wall of bullshit.

The lesson is that everything that sounded like a lie was a lie.

Well done! You paddled your ass through the windstorm. You got to your destination. It wasn’t easy. There were sacrifices. When the whole world goes to shit, the hope of an easy life is eroded. But you got to there. You did it on your own too. The world screamed at you to quit; join the vast herd of weak compliant doormats. You didn’t. You persevered and marched right past the stink of their failure.

Imagine the horror if you’d quit! There are lost souls standing on the shore where you’ve paddled past and are long gone. They’ll never leave. Imagine crying into the wind… forever. Imagine succumbing to their fear that they’d have to stand up and be a rational adult… possibly for the first time in their life. Others spent the time of storms in a frenzy of evil; throwing rocks at your impertinent canoe. They’d gladly ruin your life so it matches their own failure. They’re stuck in an infinite cycle of failure right now. The dumbest of them will continue wearing masks, alone in the car, for decades.

Summer is fleeting. Soon the bastards will attack again. The election will loom and people who hate you will scream at you to do their bidding. We’ll have a year and a half of lies.

After that long slog we’ll get a new chapter in the story. We’ll find out if we have an election or an “election”. After that, nobody knows… but you’d better be ready to keep paddling!

Campaign seasons suck because bullshit annoys the sane.

Now for a positive thought, we get to watch people who can only destroy lose their shit over the Energizer Bunny. Years ago we wondered how far they’d go to “get” Trump. Now we know they can’t stop. Two impeachments and an attempted third… didn’t help them at all. Years of “Russian Collusion” led to evidence that the only person not colluding with Russia turned out to be Trump. We’ve seen State funded and Police protected riots. That may have swayed the “election” but it didn’t take him out. Your money was used to tweak the counting of ballots. Your taxes fund armies of corrupt bastards. There are lawsuits in New York and legal entanglements in Florida. And yet His Orangeness just stands there with his dumb fucking smile and they’re tied in knots.

The one thing they can’t defeat is realty. If Orange Goofball shows up every day and keeps showing up, he keeps existing. If you show up, so do you. Every day you live a happy life is a day the shit flinging spastics haven’t won.

Maybe they will find some way to keep him off the ballot. Maybe they’ll win an “election”. Perhaps our incoherent dementia addled “leader” and his equally dim affirmative action bimbo will count more ballots than any other candidate in history even more. The future is unknown but none of us rule out 120% turnout in specially important locations at 3:00 am.

Will that prove they’re meritorious? Will that make them right? Nope! It’ll just mean a few more miles of me paddling past fuckwits standing on shore screaming hatred.

When the wind had me feeling most disheartened I made a realization… despair was pointless. I chucked the whole idea overboard and tightened my grip on the paddle. I was going to keep at it. I wasn’t going to stop. One way or another I was going to get where I was meant to be. God wanted me to know that.

Trump doesn’t give up either. He knew he’d be attacked. He knew he’d be sued. We all know prosecutors would concoct novel legal theories and implement them in corrupt locations. He could have sat on his ass in a gold plated mansion and what… faded out? He didn’t so they “had” to indict an Orange Ham Sandwich. So now what? Did they “win”? Nope. Their Orange Nemesis hasn’t given up so they’ve got to keep spending their lives inventing attack routines. Trump knew what was coming but he didn’t wimp out. I’m impressed!

Even if they burn the world in a frenzy (and they might succeed with that in Ukraine), it won’t eliminate people they can’t stand. He’s there. We are too. If they corrupt the process until Trump collapses… they still fail. If you “win” as a lying, cheating, shitweasel you didn’t win a damn thing. Even if Trump is Epsteined, another will take his place. The only way for reality based adults to fail is to give up.

He’s not giving up, we’re not giving up, reality isn’t giving up and the truth remains true no matter how hard you wish otherwise. They’re losing their damn minds over it.

Fools standing on the shore demonstrating their victimhood failed in their personal journey. Not my problem. I just plain don’t care about someone else’s politically expedient, fashionably current, flavor of loser.

It’s a good feeling to ignore them. I’d like an easier trip but don’t we all? A sane society was nice but I suppose it’s over and that’s ok.  I never needed much society anyway.

If the upcoming campaign gets too toxic, listen up Atlas, shrug it off. Take a step back. Recalibrate your sense of scale. Notice the love of your fellow man or the beauty of a sunset, go fishing or get a puppy; politics is a mere side show to a fully centered person.

Those who would oppose us have nothing but fake headlines and censored internet. Turn off the TV. Turn off your cell phone. Use caution regarding your engagement with the internet (including, if necessary, me). Ride a bike, take a hike, hug your wife, stop and smell the roses… don’t let people who can’t manage their own life screw up yours.

Live happily on earth. Evil losers stomping their soft little feet in a self inflicted cyberspace tantrum are beneath you!

I’m going camping soon; a nice break for a hard working fellow who’s earned it. I hope you can take a break too.

I’m going to be fine. You’ll be fine too.

The trunk of a Honda Pacific-Coast is the weirdest and most useful feature of the bike. (The other is chill… which I’ll discuss later.) For future adventures touring and (hopefully!) motocamping I need to know how much I can carry. (Image from a ten year old Rider article.)

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the luggage capacity of various motorcycles. I never got much of a straight answer. Maybe because camping ain’t a Goldwing thing? The data I have here came from some random internet location, I’ve verified nothing.

First of all, I’ve always thought the GL1500 went a too little far on the “excess boxyness” axis. I just thought it was my bias. Turns out the GL1500 is indeed the mac daddy, imperial star-cruiser, of hauling shit. It feels like the GL1200 was about right and then the GL1500 went for it big time and got almost silly. With the GL1800, Honda’s engineers dialed back the madness (which did piss off some GL1500 owners who refuse to “update”.)

As for my PC-800, I was planning to bolt on a Givi trunk (assuming I can find the right bracket). A Givi case will add 30-50 liters and put the PC-800 in the 110 to 130 total liters carry capacity range. That puts me right in the sweet spot of non-1500 Goldwings.

However, I’ve started to rethink my plans. I’ve grown to like the PC-800’s simplicity. There’s hardly an ounce above belly button height on the bike and it just floats down the road so nicely. I’m having second thoughts about putting the weight and air resistance of a Givi trunk waaaaaay out back and high; it can’t possibly improve anything aerodynamics wise. Also, trunks and mounting hardware is expensive!

Since I ride solo, I’m thinking of a motorcycle drybag strapped across the pillion seat. I think a 30-40 liter drybag would ride nice and easy. I’m not sure about that. Cost would be anywhere from $120+/- to $250+/- which is well under half what a Givi costs. Also I could leave it off when I’m not motocamping.

There’s no rush. I’m sorting camping gear to see what I can use and what is optimized for Dodge and will never ride on a bike. I’ll let the camping gear make my decisions… all in due time.

Wouldn’t it be weird if I dropped $100 on a 30 liter drybag and my little PC-800 bounced into the modern GL1800 class? I’m thinking tent, sleeping bag, and pad… that can probably fit in 30 liters with room to spare?

Anyone know much about dry bags? They all look the same to me. I need something I can order on-line. I’ll probably strap it to the PC800’s pillion grab rails. (Everything else is covered with cladding.) If y’all know stuff about motocamping drybags, please shoot me a comment or private e-mail. I spent a lot of time thinking over bikes but I’d rather not reinvent the wheel over a drybag.

Anyway, I just love that bedonkadonk!

A.C.

*There was some variation in the GL1200 line).

** All volumes in liters.

Turn the Wayback machine to a long forgotten place… the past. The year is 1989.

In case you think modern times are uniquely shit, culture in 1989 was already starting to suck. For no good reason whatsoever, this was a top song for the year: (WTF is with the disembodied tambourine creature?)

As apology for the abomination above I also link to Danny Elfman’s kick ass soundtrack made the same year. It was a superhero movie without a number after it. Can you imagine that? A single movie about a superhero instead of a dozen interconnected CGI fests! We didn’t know future movies would become giant steaming piles of endless superhero sequels mixed with minority gender swapped third order Disney remakes of pre-existing animated remakes that exist to bitch at us. Even then some of us wanted to set the TV on fire. (Incidentally, cable TV back then was a dozen channels but they didn’t suck nearly as completely as the 50 you’ve got now.).

The internet was a gleam in Al Gore’s eye but the digital age was already emerging. We hoped computer communication would make things like factories and science more efficient. The dystopia where F***book censors someone’s grandma over a difference between her political view and the approved narrative their neighbor broadcast on Twitter would be incomprehensible.

Right now, everything everywhere is censored. Back then the media was somewhat less shady and free speech of individuals was reasonably solid. You could say just about anything that came to your fool head without HR firing you or Siri forwarding your name to a Federal list. You might get your ass kicked if you said stupid shit in a stupid location but you’d have it coming and it wouldn’t be people with badges doing it.

I believed at the time that the FBI solved slightly more crime than it caused. I don’t know if that was true or just me being naïve. By 2023 the FBI has pretty much mastered the art of crime and cover up and it’s branching out into domestic terrorism. In ’89, when the media lied (which they did from time to time) they at least tried to be subtle about it; there was a dignity in that that I miss.

We didn’t have cell phones. When you spoke on a landline you were reasonably sure the NSA wasn’t logging the call. Silicon Valley was viewed as a positive forward growing futuristic place. President George Bush was getting pummeled by the press, just as Reagan before him, as has every other Republican president before or since. You think press bias is new?

Books were in libraries. Magazines came by mail. Newspapers were on paper. People read.

Schools sucked then just as they suck now. But tests like the SAT honestly tried to evaluate just how fuckin’ dumb your kid was. If a kid sucked at school parents would bitch at them to do better. Aside from dissecting shit and chemistry lab, there were no group projects.

Our teetering economy has old roots: The Federal debt in 1989 was $2.8 trillion (by 2022 we’d increased it 15x to $30.8 trillion)*. The Savings and Loan Crisis lead to a bailout of nearly 1/4 of banks. Then again a stamp cost a quarter (and people still used mail). A cup of coffee was a quarter (it was shitty coffee), so was a candy bar, so was a newspaper, by ’89 a payphone cost a quarter too. I used to read dead tree news every day. It seemed almost (but not quite) like they were reporting true information.

Much that vexes and pleases us today was already in play. Among the bad: China went ape at Tiananmen Square and the Exxon Valdez went to the bottom of the ocean in Alaska’s Prince William Sound. To the good, USSR went AWOL causing the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Poland had free elections, and Nintendo released the Gameboy.

Nobody in 1989 waved a flag in America for any nation but America. If a President said he’d look after American interests first nobody had pear clutching fits. Why the hell would we have president who isn’t looking out for our best interests?

Cars were different in 1989. Gas cost a buck a gallon. You could buy a brand new Yugo for $4,349. If you wanted something better (anything with wheels) a Honda Civic would set you back $6,348. Back then “economy” cars really were economy cars. They got high MPG and otherwise sucked. Unlike now, cars came in a variety of shapes and sizes and colors. These were meant to appeal to consumers instead of meet government regulations. A good “real” car (not an economy shitbox) would hit you for $15k or so. Financing a new car took 4 years (I was too poor for that!). You had to swap cars fairly often; they went a lot fewer miles back then.

Drivers were different too. Many knew how to shift. All could brake without antilock. It was normal to drive in snow without all wheel drive. I carried tire chains in my station wagon. I used them unironically. We could get places reading paper maps.

That’s a peek 1989… the year my “new” motorcycle was made. I’ve been happily tooling around on a 34 year old bike. I can’t stop smiling. I’m a frugal guy so I don’t buy “vintage shit” lightly. I’m not a collector. I bought it to use and enjoy. If my “vintage” machine lives up to my expectations I’ll rack up many miles in the future.

More later…

A.C.

*In case you’re wondering our current debt is about $30,824,000,000,000.00. No endeavor in all of human history has ever amassed a debt as large as America. Pharos, Roman Emperors, Popes, Mongolian Hordes, Chinese Dynasties, and British Empires all failed to beat us at the game of going into debt!

In case you’re wondering what kind of abomination I’ve acquired, here are some videos to chew on.

The deed is done. I veered from the path of predictability which, Adaptive Curmudgeon that I am, is a common occurrence. I carefully considered all options. When you carefully think things over you are more likely to chose something ideal for your specific desires than a mainstream “middle of the bell curve” solution. Having informed myself I strode clear into the wilderness of “thinking outside the box”. (Dumb expression but I really do it.) Whether it was because of or despite all that careful consideration is a thing unknowable. All I can say is I’m pleased with my new toy!

I bought a 1989 Honda Pacific Coast. Yes, I bought a 34 year old bike that’s unlike nearly any other bike from that era (or any other era). It looks weird, runs like a top, and I can’t stop smiling.

Photo from Wikipedia. Yes, it does look weird.

I have intentions for this new motorcycle. It’s niche is “not stuff I’ve already got” and also “chill”. I was thinking hard about and highly motivated by chill. Chill was key.

As for not-a-duplication; I already have two great bikes. My first is a roaring testosterone soaked chrome cruiser. I love my well used and super reliable Honda Shadow ACE 1100. Wikipedia shot of an 1100 ACE below:

My other bike is Honey Badger, my slow, cheap, and crude but plucky and unkillable little forest mule. It’s a Yamaha TW200. Basic photo of a TW200 below (mine has mire dirt and a bunch of survival shit bolted to it):

<Warning: digression> The timing of my TW200 purchase is interesting. I faffed about looking at ATVs and Argos for months and months. Then I bought the TW200 fast fast fast once I’d made the decision. It was a hurried action. Whether by intent or chance I purchased it just days before society crawled up its own ass.

I didn’t know the name of the destroyer. It could have been Covid or it could have been the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. It doesn’t matter what caused the upheaval; only that it happened. I knew something was afoot and that really did play a part in the timing.

I did not expect the extreme level of collapse. I had no idea the degree to which everyone would lose their shit. I didn’t know it would be caused by a pathogen. I did expect riots but I didn’t expect them to be protected by the government itself. I couldn’t imagine that lockdowns and riots would lead to a president who (absolutely unquestionably) got more votes than any other candidate in history taking the oath of office behind concertina wire.

I just knew the toddler was about to go full tantrum. Three years of hyperventilating wasn’t fading into calm. People do stupid shit until they stop and nobody was stopping. Something had to give and it would be monumentally stupid. It was!

I got a good deal on the Yamaha. I bought it brand new cheaper than people are currently asking for 5 year old used ones on Craigslist. (I also bought a shitload of canned goods but we all do that don’t we?)

Is that it? Am I peering into another abyss? Is there something in society driving this year’s purchase of a PC-800? Maybe. It’s hard to articulate. I did pursue it diligently instead of lazily.

Ask yourself, do you see outbreaks of reason and intelligence? Do things seem more or less stable? We’ve been on an national tantrum for a long time and we appear to want, need, and desire to hit our balls with a sledgehammer until we all live in mud huts.

If you knew… absolutely knew… shit was going pear shaped (more than it already has) what would you do? Would you load up your garage with a “chill bike”? Would you make sure it’s already gassed and positioned before the zombies take out whatever next piece of society they’ll target? I did.

When the next mass hysteria hits maybe I’ll do a road trip. Maybe I’ll go camping. When the lights go out what else is there to do but evade or enjoy the show? When the next madness hits… and it will… will you be surprised. Why?</digression>

Back to the here and now. I didn’t need a cruiser or a dirt bike and sport bikes (which are are awesome) are not for me. Even if I got a sport bike for free I’d just wind up buying a new boat for my chiropractor. Also, I’m just too lazy to ride that hard. If I do something stupid on two wheels I’d rather do it at 20 MPH over a soft surface of pine needles. Likewise, sport tourers lack for chill. They’re just too tall and aggressively seated for chillin’ out.

Seeking a tourer, I found myself shoved hard toward the tried and true, widely known, manufactured by boatloads, Honda Goldwing. It’s more or less the creator of the purpose made touring bike. I test drove several and nearly bought one. But their excellence fell flat to my eyes. They’ve just got too much stuff. I’ll address that in detail later.

I went back to the drawing board and settled on the Honda Pacific Coast 800. Honda, so the story goes, doesn’t just compete for markets. They seek to make markets. The PC800 took a shot at a new market.

It didn’t work out but Honda was doing the right thing trying. Remember when companies won your dollar through competition?

Honda’s Cub (a moped sized thing that has been in constant manufacture from 1958) is the most popular motor vehicle on planet earth. Suck on that Ford’s Model T! By the 1980’s Honda (along with Suzuki and Yamaha) had mastered the mechanics of reliable motorcycles so much that word “UJM” (universal Japanese motorcycle) was not an insult (at least not to me). Triumphs and Nortons and so forth were run ragged trying to keep up. Honda turned their engineers loose on the cruiser market and Harley-Davidson ran to pappa Ronald Regan for a protective tax in 1983.

It wasn’t called the chicken tax for nothing. My cruiser is so similar in sound to a Harley’s “potato potato” rumble that HD went to court to stop it. It didn’t work. My Shadow may deliberately sound the same, but that Japanese engineered V-twin is a whole different machine where it matters; in my humble opinion shaft drive and liquid cooling will beat leather vests and brand loyalty every time.

As for tourers, Honda noticed people bolting Vetter fairings on their bikes. Soon the Goldwing was in it’s element as the “pre-built to tour” standard. It dominated the “dad bod” touring bike market then and it still does now.

So I can’t fault Honda for a market failure with the Pacific Coast. Honda thought it could sell motorcycles to tech nerd silicon valley dweebs who wanted nothing to do with a regular “chrome and wrenches” motorcycle. They built a bike which looked much like a scooter, something like a car, rode easy, and was nothing like motorcycles of the time. Good try. American yuppie dweebs just didn’t go for it.

Honda deliberately made it tame lest they scare off the nerds. Remember how I was seeking chill? Chill and tame are two sides of one coin.

Honda even named their unique, one of a kind, like nothing else, machine “Pacific Coast” after the pretty highway of the left coast. Compare that to names that are all testosterone and glory; “Intruder”, “Marauder”, “Ninja”, “Vulcan”, “Katana”. Honda always sounds a little tamer than the crowd; my cruiser is a “Shadow” instead of an “Assassin”. Here I shout out to HD with names that drip with style; “FatBoy”,”Shovelhead”, “Softtail”, “Road Glide”. HD names rock!

Honda’s unique creation confused everyone. Motorcycle people looked at the plastic clad thing and fled. They said “it looks gay” (which I suppose it does, compared to sport bikes and cruiser). They legitimately griped “how can I play with wrenches on a robot like that?” They avoided it like the plague. Car people looked at the two wheeled creation and said “disguising a motorcycle doesn’t make me fear it any less”.

Honda gave it a shot for 9 years (starting in 1989). They sold a meager 14,000 and threw in the towel. The idea returns from time to time. If the ill fated Honda PC800 is the bike that looks like a scooter, the Suzuki Burgman 650 is the scooter that plays with bikes. (Used Burgmans are going for sky high prices right now!) (I have a soft spot for things that reach further. Later on I’ll talk about trucks and the Subaru Brat.)

Honda’s troubles are not my problem; they’re my opportunity. I like things for what they are, not what they represent. I like scooterish bikes, bike-ish scooters, and anything else that’s well made. I might have bought a Honda PCX350 scooter if Honda had gotten off it’s ass and dropped one in my local market.

My attitude about motorcycles embraces actual diversity. All motorcycles are cool. Every damn motorcycle is cooler than the average car.

So now I’m happy with my dumpy little PC800. (Note: it looks little but it’s not.) I got nothing to prove to nobody and I don’t need a wheeled chrome codpiece. I wish there were more bikes with the huge unique trunk of the PC800. I love the badonkadonk on my new bike!

More details to follow…

Some random photos from the internet. #1 Check out that badonkadink! 80 liters of locked waterproof storage is solidly in the Goldwing’s “truck like luggage capacity” territory:

#2 This photo is of “Cack” A Honda PC-800 that has been ridden hard and abused to monumental levels. Its owner was a legend in PC-800 forums “back in the day”. I’m not sure if Cack or its owner is still around. I’m 34 years late to the PC-800 party.

I’d “leveled up three times” while shopping for a used motorcycle. I began looking for a gem amid cobwebby ’80s era GL1200s. I’d slowly trod a path of increasing complexity and superior machine. This meant increasing technology (which wasn’t the goal) and expense (to which I’m allergic).

I was on a test drive. I’d found an absolutely excellent 5th Generation Goldwing GL1800.

Everything went haywire!

This particular motorcycle was (in my humble opinion) the best example I’m likely to find in my budget. (Actually a little above my budget.) An optimal compromise between cheap and well maintained. I liked the color. It idled like a whisper. Power was like a nuclear reactor. It bristled with dials and knobs. It was (almost) flawless.

Goldwings are so heavy they have reverse gear and legitimately need it. Yet they’re well balanced. A beached whale when parked, they’re manageable in motion. All that mass and power meant it didn’t adapt to the environment so much as create a warp bubble around itself. It shrugged off wind like a brick wall.

There were no particular flaws on this bike. It had a few scratches. At 70,000 miles it had endless life left in it.

I rode the beast thinking hard about the purchase. Every bit of my research had been proven true. Every step of the path came about in logical and intelligent procession from the one before.

Something was wrong.

I was miserable!

The sea of buttons (mostly) functioned perfectly. Did I really want them?

The LCD screen did a “greeting display” on start up (and there’s a menu stetting to change it). What’s the point of that?

There was an LCD screen and the analog dash and a million digital things on the dash too. There was air suspension with two pre-sets, reverse, CB, AM, FM, cassette (or maybe it was a CD changer, I forget), cruise control, gear display, saddlebag open indicator, and more. Gadgetry spread out before me like a computer workstation.

I spent a few miles testing every damn switch (two had minor issues). I couldn’t figure out how to turn off the radio. I could mute it which is functionally the same. But it’s NOT! It pissed me off that the LCD displayed the FM channel I no longer heard.

So I clicked a few buttons and now I was looking at a display of the the ambient temperature; which seemed redundant. I know the ambient temperature… I’m in it! I still wonder if there was an “off” button I never found?

The cruise control on/off button stuck a bit. As with the radio I hit the cancel button to get functionally the same behavior from a different control.

After a while I had it on cruise and was surfing FM stations. The bike rolled on like a force of nature but something felt “off”. Nervous energy was getting to me. I was playing with the radio to distract myself.

My stomach was churning. I was increasingly frantic. I thought maybe it was the price. I have enough money to buy this bike but just barely. I don’t like spending money. “Wasting” money on frivolities is brutally against my nature. Nothing seems more frivolous than a bike with a “boot up” display!

The radio was blaring Tom Petty. I appreciate the miracle of clear audio at 75 MPH but it just made me madder. Petty sometimes weirds me out. I see him as the apex of a boomer half-artist. Petty is always a solid base hit but he never swings for the bleachers. He’s the 401(k) of rock stars that never tries a lyric or note that might scare the normies. I began to long for Jimi Hendrix or Tchaikovsky. Did I miss the roar of wind or the steady rumbling engine of my old cruiser?

My eye twitched. I began to sweat. This was not right!

I’m trapped in an elevator; listening to an OK song while an OK life played out an OK day.

WTF made me think that!?!

The bike was effortlessly swishing down a two lane blacktop through proverbial amber waves of grain. Why wasn’t I laughing in the sunshine?

A meadowlark flapped away from my wake unnoticed.

This was the correct choice! I’d driven hours to this rendezvous. I had money in hand. The bike was perfect. I’ll never get a better deal on a better example of a better machine. Nothing weird to be discovered. No mystery engine gremlins. It was flat out mainstream engineering perfection. What kind of idiot rides perfection and bitches about it?

I felt like hurling.

I rode back to the seller, who was chatting happily with Mrs. Curmudgeon. She expected me to start cutting a check. The seller did too. He’d represented the bike honestly and the price was fair. Every statistic, number, data point, budget, and observation had all worked out.

My stomach was roiling. My head was pounding. I felt faint.

Grim determination seized me. “Just get this done and ride the fucking thing home. Don’t go on some weird vision quest. You can afford the obvious mainstream solution. You’ve earned something nice.”

A different determination fought back. “I’m nobody’s bitch. I hate how I feel. I won’t be backed into a corner on ANY deal.”

I stepped off the bike and handed the seller the keys. He was beaming and so was Mrs. Curmudgeon.

My mind was whirring. I haven’t felt so miserable in a very long time. OK bigshot, what’s it going to be?

“Your bike is perfect. Sadly, I’ve decided not to buy it.”

Everyone froze, even our dog felt a disturbance in the force. Everyone (including the dog) looked at me like I was a space alien. “Honey, you always freak out with big purchases, we can afford it.” Mrs. Curmudgeon has seen me get cold feet about financial decisions before.

Maybe that was it? I grew up mildly poor. I’ve had moments of absolute destitution. There’s a special dread only a person who’s been broke can harbor. If you’ve been there you know. If you don’t you don’t. Was that it? Probably. It made sense. Just the generic gut churning feeling I get whenever I cut a big check. Shake it off big fella’!

I wasn’t so sure of that. Maybe it was something else. Was it a superstitious foreboding? Was this the bike that would kill me? (The feeling was that strong!)

All I knew is that something was very wrong. Boring Tom Petty songs and careful studies of torque curves had put me in a place that wasn’t right. I’d built a path and then a track then rails and finally sideboards and now a cage. Cutting that check would lock it in for good!

I’d been on a bike where I didn’t see the meadowlark.

I felt like I’d briefly died and then coughed back to life at the juncture where I was supposed to cut a check. Everyone waited indulgently. I’m deeply appreciative of their indulgence. They were patient and kind while I had a war in my head.

Mrs. Curmudgeon was convinced I’d snap out of it. The seller was politely bemused. No need to push the sale on the weirdo losing his shit in the driveway. He’d sell the bike one way or the other.

Why do people do stupid things? Because they don’t stop doing stupid things. They get locked into a path; take each new step based on the last one. They lose the ability to change direction.

Fuck this! I shook the seller’s hand, apologized profusely, and retreated, sweaty and shaken, to our car. Mrs. Curmudgeon drove away slowly. She was giving me time to come to my senses and buy the bike. I was uncertain what the hell had stirred my pot. I was exhausted. I watched the bike recede in the distance. I was embarrassed by my crazy behavior.

Inside I seethed. Tom Fucking Petty? Not yet! I’m still me! I’m beholden to nobody.

After a few miles I calmed. Buying the bike would have been an irreversible choice (I’d have used up my budget). Walking away was just temporary. Things weren’t that bad.

Worst case scenario, I keep all my money and still have two awesome motorcycles.

Well played; I give a thankful nod to the half of my brain that won the war. I lost nothing but dignity. Some other Goldwing might cost a little more and that’s it. There’s always another Goldwing. Honda made 640,000 Goldwings. New ones are made daily. They’re not cheap but they’re hardly rare.

I was certain a Goldwing is the best choice but maybe not now. One’s life doesn’t happen all at once. I don’t have to lock one in immediately. If I buy something technically inferior in the meantime that’s OK. If I get a fucking Ducati it’s nobody’s business but mine and the chiropractor that’ll benefit from it. If I buy something unreliable then I’ll deal with mechanical issues… my Dodge got death wobble and I lived through that.

I’d begun to dislike the path I was on but I’d locked down my own thinking to just that path. The person most likely to screw you over… is you. I’m glad I walked.

Was my action logical? Nope? Intelligent? Maybe not. Do I regret it? Not a damn bit!

The hunt continues. (Actually it’s done now but I haven’t written the rest.)

More later..

P.S. An hour later the seller texted that the bike had been sold. Whomever bought it will surely be delighted. It was a good bike.

I’ve been on the prowl for a new (used) motorcycle. I mentioned this in Memento Mori and Motorcycle Hunt: Close Call With Greatness. You’re only getting the high points (like all good hunts, it’s an individual journey). I’ve been sniffing the breeze and watching the horizon, confident something will happen.

Something did indeed happen. I either narrowly avoided a mistake or inexplicably flaked on a great deal!

Curmudgeon’s Navel Gazing:

Did I make the correct choice? Let’s back away from the trees of motorcycles and discuss the forest of life: Why do people do stupid shit? Some stupid shit is gloriously innocent: “Hold my beer and watch this…” Nothing wrong with that. Other stupid shit is so predictably doomed to fail it hurts to watch. That’s the shit to avoid!

Ever see people do stuff so absolutely mind bogglingly moronic you wonder how they derived the slightest hope it would succeed? Think of paths were people march into bad results that are more or less a certainty. The fool that smokes 3 packs a day while bitching about their health. The moron that’s always broke who just took on more payments. The dude who eats shit from his harpy wife until she takes half his money and runs off with the UPS guy.

Many of us sleepwalk into the woodchipper… repeatedly. We’ve all seen it. It’s a human thing. We need self-control to avoid predictable failures.

It’s hard to plumb an individual man’s mind. It’s easier to observe big groups as they take obviously unwise paths. This is best examined for a time and place far removed from your current situation; thus to avoid your own biases. War is often (usually!) avoidable and it’s always horrible. With 20/20 hindsight the precursors that created most wars seem unthinkably obvious.

I suspect the American Civil War was like that. Pressure built for whole human lifetimes. Nobody diffused it in advance. Few people correctly predicted the hell that ensued. Everyone thought it would be a spat… a faffing about… a skirmish. It was nothing like that. Americans were incredibly effective at killing Americans. Things happened in a way that didn’t happen in Britain or Brazil.

What’s weird is that it wasn’t sudden. The ethical division in the populace had been there literally since the founding. As Lincoln so eloquently put, we had four score and seven (87) years to sort our shit out. We didn’t. Many nations had to thread the same needle. Many did so without bloodshed. Why not us?

I think we deliberately chose to avoid resolving things and instead used it as a political hot potato; a loser’s game in the long run. We let a real problem become merely one-upmanship. Each new State became a brand new battle. “Will the new State side with Team A or Team B? How does the addition of that new State change the balance of power? Who gains? Who loses?” Two points of view never finding or seeking compromise. Keeping the kettle on boil instead of inching toward resolution. America played politics until things had already gone to shit and by then neither side could find a way out.

A forever game of political one-upmanship instead of resolving legitimate issues. Sound familiar?

The “States as pieces on a gameboard” thing still happens right now… or rather it’s frozen in a stalemate. Puerto Rico isn’t a State. It’s bigger than some States. It could be a State. Yet, if we add it, some would benefit and some would lose… so it stays balanced on the knife edge of a nation that has razor sharp political edges. Maybe that’s for the best, I’m not in Puerto Rico so I don’t know. But it’s odd that we went from 13 colonies to 50 states and then lost the use of the tool. (We last added states in 1959; Hawaii and Alaska.)

Existing States can be split as needed. It has happened before. West Virginia split from Virginia in 1863. Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820. Now that’s considered “unthinkable”. If we split a State someone would benefit and someone would lose. Notice that release of pressure or responsive governance is irrelevant? It’s not even considered. It’s all about short term wins and losses in the forever game.

A rancher in East Rattlesnake, Oregon; where it barely rains, the neighbor is six miles away, and coyotes outnumber people has to live under rules made by a foreign power. His State is run from Hippietopia where it never stops raining, there are more lesbian drug dispensaries than tractor supply stores, and people consider skate boards a legitimate form of transportation. Chaining those two disparate worlds together is exclusively for the benefit of people who care for the game. The welfare of ranchers or skateboarders isn’t relevant.

The dude trying to run fence isn’t selfish. He legitimately chafes under regulations made by people who are unlike him and possibly hate him. His part of the State can’t split off because endless friction is not just tolerated but embraced.

How long has it been this way? Has the rancher eaten shit for his full 87 years yet?

Back to my original example, after decades of building pressure, Republicans elected their first president. The Republican party specifically supported abolition. It was a hotly contested election. As soon as the guy was sworn in, everyone freaked out. Sound familiar?

(I pause here to help uninformed victims of America’s dumbed down public schools. Many if not all societies had slavery at one time; from Aztecs to Egyptians, from Vikings to Venice, from Congo to Constantinople, Byzantium to Brazil. Slavery faded out in fits and starts (with many caveats); often due to boring economic factors or occasionally because of soaring enlightenment ideals. America’s transition involved the first Republican President; Lincoln. Even now people debate the way the mess happened. Ironically, most folks who riot in our urban areas on sunny summer weekends; gathering to piss and moan and stamp their feet at the base of a George Floyd statue erected on Martin Luther King Jr. boulevard have no idea of this. They howl against the party that took up arms to end slavery. Before you set out to change the world, read a book!)

To me, war seems the least wise way to resolve the situation. Why wasn’t 87 years enough to figure it out? Careers were made on the endless struggle. Lives were lived in support or opposition. Earnest, dedicated, citizens on both sides bled out together in Gettysburg. It could have been an eight decade series of committee meetings.

Here’s the lesson I take from it: Humans are herd animals. Once they settle on a path, change is beyond the mind of most humans. A self-actuated human can break free but the rest will plod, stupid and complacent, like robots. Each step is another step on a path that was laid out long ago. There will be times when someone says “this is stupid, lets see if we find a new way”… but it won’t resonate. Humans unthinkingly continue doing stupid shit until you bury them in box lots.

We all carry this weakness. Only the use of our barely understood monkey derived mind gives us a small chance to escape. When shit seems sketchy, a humble man will ask himself “am I the cause”. Maybe, if I’m on a track that’s “wrong” or “stupid”, I can figure it out in time. “Oh no! I’m being an idiot! I’ll stop following this path right now!”

When’s the last time you adjusted your sails to the changing wind? If you don’t occasionally change settings you’re not steering the ship. Fools take the next step because they already took the last one. Don’t be a fool.

Now back to the story.

Less Heady Thoughts About Motorcycles:

I researched the living shit out of old motorcycles. I considered my expectations of the new acquisition, what old machines could do, how reliable they were, how much they cost, etc…

Initially I was thinking of an old Honda Goldwing GL1200. There’s a lot going for the opposed 4 cylinder engine and Goldwings basically created the tourer motorcycle market. They’re common, popular, cheap, often well cared for, and the average age of the original purchasers is geriatric. I would re-home some geezer’s GL1200 and give it a second life. (GL1200 photo from Wikipedia.)

Unfortunately, I live in Bumfuck Egypt. Used vehicles here are a mixed bag. Many GL1200s were worn and mistreated. Cheap, but shot. I’d have to drive a million miles to find a good one or move up the food chain.

Moving up the food chain, I pondered the advantages of the next generation Goldwing; the GL1500. It’s a huge step up. The GL1500 gained 2 cylinders and 300 cc displacement. They are newer in vintage and everything mechanical was significantly improved. Plus, I was getting antsy about the single and scary flaw in the GL1200, the stator.

So yours truly anteed up his mental budget and started looking for a GL1500. (Photo from Wikipedia.)

I don’t much like the GL1500. I think it’s too boxy. I’m not overly concerned about aesthetics but the GL1500 is my least favorite Goldwing. Still, there’s no doubt it was a better value. The specifications and reviews were clear. There is no real flaw to the GL1500. Even people who hate them admit they’re awesome.

But if new is better what about the GL1800? (Photo from Wikipedia.)

Comparing a GL1800 (hit the market in 2001) to a GL1200 (hit the market in 1983) is to compare a donkey to a spaceship. The Goldwing GL1800 is a fuckin’ BEAST! They’re simply awesome. I’d be gaining components that increase reliability, fuel injection, LCD screens that aren’t so old, radios that are more modern, etc…

Thus it passed that I’d “leveled up three times”. Soon I was test driving an absolutely excellent specimen of the 5th Generation Goldwing, the GL1800.

Stay tuned.

Via the comments:

Come on man, you tell us you took photos, but then you don’t show them. Where’s the photos?

Photo 1: That ain’t sunset… it was mid afternoon on a sunny day just minutes before. It’s blurry because I didn’t have long to fiddle with camera settings. It was rolling up on me like a freight train.

Photo 2: This is the clear “inviting sky” to which I fled. It was only “tame” in comparison. I’m rusty with my weather knowledge but I’d guess a “cumulus” that wants to be a thunderhead got enough energy at the base until it just plain busted through a layer of air that was minding its own business above it. There were several of these and once they penetrated the flat layer they started getting tall fast. Lotta’ energy in the sky that afternoon.

It’s random story time here at Curmudgeon Compound…

I stepped out of the Dr. Office feeling like I’d met an angel. The first doctor in years that has been smart, aware of medical pros and cons, and seemed to care if I live or die. A miracle!

I bump into him in the hallway. Someone is handing him his keys.

“Looks like it’ll rain.” He says.

“If it rains, I’ll get wet.” I shrug.

He smiles as if I’ve said the deepest thing ever. With most doctors I’d assume he’s mentally chiding me for owning a bike; assuming I’ll pancake into a Kenworth within a fortnight. With this cat it’s hard to say. Dummies and NPCs are an open book. It’s hard to judge smart people.

I head out to the lobby and all hell is breaking loose. “SEVERE STORM WATCH” is being announced on a PA. Everyone looks at me, the dumbass with a motorcycle.

They’re lowering the shades on the windows.

“Afraid of blowing debris?” I ask.

“It’s policy.”

“You have a policy to lower the shades during storms?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

The lady messing with the shades vapor locks. She has no idea.

Well, that’s that. The blissful moments after meeting a good mind are gone. I’m back with the toads who’re drawing shades because someone wrote that on a piece of paper. Might even be a good idea. What do I know?

At a desk I ask a woman for details about the storm watch. When did it start? How long? What area?

She has no idea but hands over her cell phone. She’d been watching a radar animation. A wicked looking streak of red and orange is headed our way.

“Looks like I’ll go half a mile and hole up at the burger joint.” I say.

“Be careful.” Her eyes are wide. Like I’m going to fight a dragon.

I thank her and head to the foyer. That’s weird, not a drop of rain is falling. I hastily zip up my jacket and don my helmet. I step out into the air. Now I can see the situation more clearly.

To the north, it looks like hell itself is on its way to flatten the county. To the east. The sky is clear. We’re under a broad, well defined, black edge… the edge of a system that’s not messing around. The air feels tense. Clearly all hell is going to break loose and very soon.

My plan was to ride to the burger joint. I’m starving anyway. But I want to go east. The sky is clear to the east. I judge that black edge, moving with the resolution of a bulldozer… it’s in motion. Flowing fast.

How fast? Motorcycle fast?

Decision time.

My tires are good, the pavement is still dry, the bike is in proper repair, I’m a pretty good rider, and I spent a fortune on this jacket (which is supposedly rainproof). I fire up the bike. Left toward the receding clear sky, or right to a burger joint half a mile away in the gloom. In that direction a streetlight is clicking on; it’s that dark and it’s the middle of the afternoon.

This is what we train for.

I’m going for it!

Within 10 seconds of stepping to where I could get a good view, my plan of “hunker down” has become “bug out”. 30 seconds later I’m in the saddle and rolling onto the main road.

I see lightning in the mirror. I see the edge of that black cloud right overhead. The tempting clear sky in front of me is a couple miles out; toward the east. Throttle up!

Turns out I made the right call. Ten minutes later I get out from under the gloom. The storm was moving fast but not motorcycle fast. Not a single raindrop fell on me.

Once I was in the clear I stopped to take a few photos. The grandeur of nature is amazing. Lets all pause and acknowledge that when nature tries to kill you, she does so beautifully.

I watch a bit for funnel clouds. I’m not seeing any. The storm begins to catch up. It’s not headed my way but it’s so huge that it’s growing toward the east as most of it’s massive size flows to the south.

Cheeky of me to have stopped!

I hop back on and ride the rest of the way home. The storm nips on my heels but never catches me. I park in the garage nice and dry.

“I made a very good decision.” I repeat to myself, thinking of nature’s deadly storms and society’s madness at the same time.

I hang up my jacket, pet the dog, and take off my riding boots.

BOOM… the wall of weather hits the house. The dog whines. The temperature drops twenty degrees in five minutes. Sure would suck to be out in that!

I spent the rest of the evening reading a good book and calming the dog. It had been a good day.