Adaptive Curmudgeon

The mystery is solved… cocaine in the White House appeared through undetectable magic. It’s utterly beyond the ability of our law enforcement agencies to figure it out. It may have been aliens. It may have spontaneously generated. Bigfoot can’t be ruled out.

Here’s how I sum it up:

It’s a mystery that will be a mystery for as long as it needs to be a mystery.

One week ago I wrote this:

“Speaking of Hunter being a snake, cocaine turned up in the Whitehouse… because of course it did. As you’d expect, nobody has the slightest idea what it means and it’ll fade with time.”

This one faded FASTer than a gay mass shooter! Merely six days later I read the Epstein suicide announcement:

“The Secret Service has concluded its investigation into the small bag of cocaine found at the White House and has been unable to identify a suspect, two sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.”

It’s concluded. It’s over. Nothing to see here. Quit thinking about it because it’s forever unknowable. An illegal thing happened, it happened in the Whitehouse, there’s absolutely no way anyone anywhere can ever figure it out, so stop asking rude questions. The Secret Service has tried nothing and they’re all out of ideas.

Of course this is all very silly. I’m sure coke has been in the Whitehouse before (oddly Trump was drug free but most of the last 50 years there’s been the possibility of illegal drugs). If JFK didn’t leave a stash, Obama didn’t have a “choom room”, or Bush Jr. didn’t have “youthful indiscretions” I’d be shocked.

Perhaps the real miracle is that we even heard about the cocaine. What can we read into that tiny bit of truth?

Meanwhile, the press tells us that Joe Biden’s Whitehouse is as pure as the driven snow. Because of course it is.

While you’re at it you might as well repeat the undeniable, unquestionable, legally actionable, enforced at length, complete totality of truth that Joe Biden got more votes than any other candidate in history.

Say it! Say it out loud! Make your lefty friends say it. Make them turn off NPR, look you right in the eye, and say “Joe Biden got more votes than any other candidate in history.” Make them say it again next Tuesday. Make them say it when cluster bombs are shipped to Ukraine. Make them say it when groceries cost another $100 a month. Make sure to look the situation head on… especially amid those who are uncomfortable with it. Do this because to tell the truth is good and to unearth and expose a lie is also good. We are almost literally required by law to accept that statement. So make damn sure it’s front and center every day.

Don’t forget Biden has political poisoners to prove it his righteous claim!

Pay attention to political prisoners. The only difference between you and them is that you’re not yet in jail. You’d like to think you’re not in jail because you’re law abiding but what is this “law” are you talking about? Is it the same law that allows someone (?) to drop cocaine in the Whitehouse? Ask Trump about the protection we have under rule of law. You aren’t out of jail because you’re law abiding and on January 2020 avoided stupid people doing stupid things. You’re out of jail because you’re not yet in jail. Nothing written on paper will protect you if it doesn’t protect them.

Further, if the regime wants to investigate you it will… for as long as it takes. Again, Trump can tell you all about it. Or General Flynn. Or Rudy Giuliani. Even if they’re all flaming assholes, what matters is that we all need law not “law”; including Biden’s political prisoners. Unlike the mystery of spontaneously generating cocaine that lasted a couple of weeks, Biden’s been chasing Jan. 6 protesters for two years. “[T]wo years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, prosecutors have now charged more than 1,000 people in relation to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.”

Got that? Two years, 1,000 arrests, endless funding to lawfare anyone and anything for as long as it takes. Now that I think about it, they never found weapons or cocaine on January 6th. The DOJ went after every Bank of America record nationwide harder than the Secret Service checked a plastic baggie of physical proof.

This doesn’t mean I think all is lost. Far from it! I think we’re at a juncture a lot like when Churchill said:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

It’s not over, but you can sense the desperation. They will continue to try to make every American say “I have no doubt that Biden’s record breaking vote is unquestionably perfect” but their heart isn’t in it anymore. They have slowly given up on establishing either real legitimacy or the appearance of it. Now, all that matters is what they can do. Whatever they have done, is so far what they can do. This seems to be breaking up. The tide turns slowly.

Unlike the fairy tale, the spell isn’t broken as soon as everyone realizes the truth. When the king has no clothes and you know it’s true… then what? Sometimes the truth is irrelevant. Sometimes the king keeps marching around naked… even when everyone knows the king is a buck naked moron.

Enjoy the ride! Breathe deep of what persists, even if it is of inertia. So far the grid is still up, inflation isn’t yet hyperinflation, and there aren’t tanks on the streets. Enjoy that!

Ours is an interesting time to be alive. One of your tasks is to remember the “before times”. Folks in the future may need to know what it was like before law became “law”. Be ready to tell them. And, maybe it won’t go that far. I saw the Berlin Wall fall without a shot fired. I watched crowds chant “let’s go Brandon”. Trump fills stadiums bigger than anything Elvis could do… and he does it while under indictment. Who expected that? It may be a time of chaos but not yet resignation.

Having no idea what’s next may be this era’s blessing. You’re free. You’re free of expectations. You don’t know what comes next. Nor do I. Savor it.

Until COVID, I thought county fairs were boring. Now, when I see one that’s “allowed” to happen I appreciate it. County fairs were not stopped for WW2 but they were stopped by panic just three years ago. How weird yet beautiful is it that they’ve returned? How much more do I appreciate the little things?

Nobody knows how much corruption can be stacked up in public before it matters. We know how much corruption has already been verified. We’ve got an idea what will be verified next. But we don’t know how deep the rabbit hole go before it matters. So enjoy your county fair.

The big one won’t even hit for a few years yet. We don’t know if the next election will be an election or an “election”. Lucky us; we will find out!

The best you can do is keep your soul clean and ride the wave. Keep your head on a swivel, avoid crowds, and trust nobody. If the world crawls up it’s own ass that’s the world’s problem. You don’t have to follow.

Make popcorn and laugh about mystery cocaine. The third act in the greatest of shows may be on stage soon.

This post was supposed to be typed into an Alphasmart Neo during a campout. It wasn’t. It was typed during a “campout absence picnic / dry run”. The campout idea isn’t dead; far from it! (Plans only truly fail when you quit trying and I haven’t quit.) In fact my progress is (given the circumstances) making me confident it’s all going to work out.

Over the last few years I’ve been “camping by Dodge”. A far cry from the rugged and awesome camping I once preferred but still a good thing. I toss a bunch of heavy but comfortable gear in my huge truck, drive somewhere pretty, and get my head back straight amid the trees.

Very quickly “Dodge camping” expanded. The truck was drafted to lug a battered utility trailer, first laden with a tiny homemade boat and later with Honey Badger (my Yamaha TW200 dirtbike). This isn’t the true wilderness experience I often crave but it’s pretty good. Look around at all the nutcases out there. How many are sitting on their ass bitching about Twitter when an evening by a campfire would soothe the soul?

“You can contemplate the universe from a glorious inaccessible mountain cliff. You can contemplate the universe while sitting on a tree stump overlooking a cow pasture. The “Universe” doesn’t care about the details and neither should you.”

Starting with “State and National Parks camping” gradually drifting into “dispersed National Forest camping”, I’ve been getting my groove on. Even so, I intended to expand my options. I wanted to camp from the motorcycle itself. From tiny Honey Badger this is no small feat. I’m no longer 19 and bulletproof. Had I become reliant on huge cots and large tents? Regardless, I’m no longer amenable to “sleep in your jeans on the dirt”. Peacefully and patiently, I pondered how to square that circle. More comfort means more gear which changes equations. Then again nothing is impossible. All is a matter of balancing opposing forces. This I’ve pondered to my own amusement.

Several times while I overthought things (but only in designated parks) I’d hear a rumbling Harley (or clone) come into the campsite. They’re always in groups or pairs. Like ATVs, kayaks, and horses, cruiser riders rarely ride solo. They’d camp from cruisers a few hundred yards away while I totally ignored them; so focused was I on my diminutive dirtbike.

Over the winter I took vast inspiration from C90 Adventures (who rides ridiculous things with a big smile on his face) and Some Guy Rides (who did the entire Trans America Trail on a CT125) and more recently ItchyBoots who’s wandering around Africa. (Last I knew she was in Liberia on a Honda CRF300Rally.)

One cold winter night I stumbled across HerTwoWheels. She’s a lot tamer than the globe trotting adventure beasts but also a gentle reminder that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. If a Harley bagger in Ohio can go camping what’s my problem? She finally got it through my thick head that any motorcycle can be used for camping (provided you have reasonable expectations). I was embarrassingly slow at that obvious thought.

My cruiser’s luggage rack had literally collapsed from heavy use a few years back. So it wasn’t easily pushed back into service as a camping rig. In fact, I did the opposite. I stripped off the pillion seat, the luggage rack, the sissy bar, and the auxiliary fuel tank (which were all shot). This turned it back into a more basic bagger. (No worries, my cruiser has earned its chops. A long time ago I camped from the cruiser at Sturgis with mixed results but I’ve also ridden it coast to coast with full luggage more times than I can count.)

This spring I shook things up. I decided to get a “before the collapse bike”. Not the Mad Max equipment you’re thinking. It was more about getting a used “basic” machine before every motorcycle out there is a wheeled laptop with payments.

After a few test rides (and a near mental collapse brought about by a Honda Goldwing GL1800), I picked up a 1989 Honda Pacific Coast 800. It’s a cheap serviceable oddball and I love it! (Act within the next few years if you want motorcycle bargains. I got a whole motorcycle for the cost of a few payments on a new tourer. This won’t last forever. The “cash for clunkers” mayhem that gutted the used car market didn’t affect motorcycles but “electronic mission creep” will!)

My “new” (34 year old) Pacific-Coast 800 was slated for its inaugural test campout in June. Choosing to allocate time elsewhere, I ran off for a few weeks. This delayed the campout but was a great vacation. (At Mrs. Curmudgeon’s wise insistence we “camped” in a rented cabin. Even so, I spent plenty of time outdoors. I actually trailered Honey Badger to the cabin for a few pleasant day trips.)

The next campout plan was Independence Day. Unfortunately, I was knocked flat in a NyQuil haze. These things happen. The next plan was this weekend. Alas, I’d “let slide” several weeks worth of homestead chores. Also, I was still on the mend from a cold.

So I did the next best thing. I did a “test run” picnic. This soothed the soul nearly as well as a real campout but got my still sniffling body back home by nightfall. Also it was a good dry run of some gear.

Just look at that silly bike! It’s absolutely ridiculous looking if you expect “standard design”. Yet there I was having a picnic without the slightest hassle. If the silly bike did all I needed completely flawlessly then it’s not silly.

Having experimented a bit, how do I think an “antique” PC-800 work for a basic campout?

Superbly!

The cargo area is a “bedonkadonk”. I filled one half just to see what fit. Here’s the empty “half bedonkadonk” for scale. (The grain bag is some sort of anti-mouse stuff that was in it when I bought it. I’ve no idea if it works but my homestead does have a mouse problem so I left the stuff in there.)

A camp chair, a camp table, and a small cooler with a few cold sodas (too sick for beer!) all fit in HALF of the bedonkadonk.

It was easy! I could have packed plenty more if I put effort into it. (The tool set and bike manual ride on that side too.) To put a “half bedonkadonk” worth of junk on Honey Badger would  basically use up most of Honey Badger’s capacity. While I was noodling around I found a “dome light”. Those geniuses at Honda thoughtfully installed a “dome light” in the “bedonkadonk” and I didn’t even know!

Here’s the stuff I was “testing out”:

I still had the whole other half of the bedonkadonk. Plenty of space for food and camping stuff (and a Neo). Incidentally, the chair (of the single “backpacking chair” I’ve physically found for sale I bought it) is pretty comfortable.

Here’s the chair:

The table (a gift from Mrs. Curmudgeon) works well too, though I think I assembled it a tad “wrong”. I’ll have to revisit that again in the future.

What’s the next piece of gear I need to get ready? “The miracle”! The miracle is a set of two free drybags sent to me by a reader of this blog. Thank you so much!

The drybags didn’t go with me on the picnic but they’re primed for use!

I posted a while back asking for advice about dry bags. An awesome reader sent me two dry bags that he no longer uses. What a nice thing to do! Goodwill like that that gives me hope in humanity.

During my vacation I was near “civilization” so I picked up some RokStraps to go with my “new” dry bags. I couldn’t find RokStraps in physical presence within 100 miles of my house! I literally carried empty dry bags into a bike shop a zillion miles from my house to check what size RokStraps I’d need. (I’d read about them but never seen them personally.)

I even tested the dry bags to see what they’ll carry. The smallest drybag is absolutely perfectly shaped to hold my smallest tent (with a little room to spare). My smallest tent isn’t ideal for motorcycles but it has a very useful feature; I own it. (It’s a Teton Sports Vista 1. I’ve had it a few years. Link goes to Amazon.)

The larger drybag should hold plenty of clothes and a sleeping bag and so forth. (A note about sleeping bags; I had a really cool Big Agnes sleeping bag with integrated pad but time snatched it away. It was properly stored but the pad deteriorated and has a zillion leaks. I think it’s toast. The sleeping bag and air mattress are both out of production so a replacement pad isn’t possible. Being prepared “now” doesn’t mean your ass is covered for the entire “future”. I think I bought the bag in 2009 so I got my use out of it.)

I’m sure the two drybags that should hold all the gear I’ll need and I’ve tested them too. Oddly, I’ve tested them not on a bike but on a trailer. Returning from my vacation, I strapped them to my motorcycle hauling trailer as I hauled Honey Badger back from a rented cabin.

Did I mention I’ve replaced my nearly collapsed utility trailer with a purpose built motorcycle hauling trailer? Well I have! It’s slick. I’m not sure I blogged about it before but I’ll post more in due time.

The trailer was expensive but I expect it to last many years. It sure tows well. Unlike my long suffering utility trailer this time I deliberately got a small trailer. It’s tiny behind my huge Dodge but that means I can tow it with my wife’s diminutive hatchback or my other 4×4 which is slowly inching toward road worthy.

I may need that “small trailer” ability sometime; “Please bring the trailer, a first aid kit, and a bottle of Ibuprofen to the location marked by my SpotX. Shit happened and I’m not self extracting from here.” (Plan for disaster and be happy when it doesn’t happen!)

During my vacation I also picked up a small air mattress. (no photos of that yet.) Hopefully I found the right compromise between “old guy’s sore back” and “pack small”. The air mattress has an inflation bag (something that wasn’t invented when I had my Big Agnes sleeping system) but Mrs. Curmudgeon got me a sweet little inflator that’s practically a magic wand. The air pad won’t be as nice as my trusty and huge Teton XXL Cot (the best damn cot I’ve ever owned!) but it should be “good enough”.

I took a few photos of my “test run”. I typed this very post on the Neo (which was also carried on the bike). Then, because a true campout will have to wait, I came home.

Get out there and enjoy nature y’all!

A.C.

Didja’ notice? I’ll bet you didn’t! All hell broke loose and none of it mattered. How awesome is that?!?

OK, it’s a trick question. I went off line two weeks ago and so my sense of timing is different than yours. I noticed the ephemeral nature of concerns because I had distance to look. I needed a vacation so I took one… completely. This was followed by an illness… which apparently fate decided I needed… and so I did that… completely. The thing I got from all this ignoring of modern bullshit was a delightful sense of peace. Everything that happened in my absence was both comical and predictable. I consider it an experiment with solid empirical results.

So back to the noticing. Over two weeks all sorts of shit has happened. Most people lived every moment. I’m sure it seemed rather significant. Yet, all of it… every last bit… followed a basic script that wasn’t particularly realistic. I could have typed it all out before I wandered off to play in the woods. I wouldn’t have been perfectly accurate but I could have covered the general situation.

The big event that my hypothetical script (probably with talking squirrels) would have addressed is the ongoing (since 2014 and especially since we bugged out of Afghanistan so haphazardly) Ukrainian situation. The timing was right for something weird to happen… thus it must.

Whatever weird thing I might have imagined is just a McGuffin in the a story. Predictably both sides would use the “weird thing” to proselytize, but in the end nothing would have happened. After the “weird thing” the fog of propaganda would be so thick that nobody really knows what actually happened. The only constant being politicians on both sides will not experience the horror of war actually inflicted on soldiers in what should be boring wheat fields.

So what happened in the real world? Piecing together as best I can brings up these facts in roughly this order. First, somehow – and I’m not clear on how – a little over $6 billion (with a “B”) appeared on the Pentagon’s books. Second, the long awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive continued performing exactly like a nothingburger. You don’t have to be a genius to predict that. But I also predicted a third part. Something weird must happen.

Like clockwork weirdness happened! The Wagner group flaked out and started marching toward Moscow; only to change their mind almost immediately. As far as I can tell, the whole thing lasted less than one day. Start moving at dawn, capitulate by sunset. Is that a real thing? I’ve no idea. It seems less like a real revolt than a colorful flourish. Regardless, it was weird.

Not only is it weird but our impression is probably fake. Sifting through week old news tells me it evaporated fast. It took about eleven minutes for one side to cite it as proof that Putin is Hitler in drag and doomed to failure any millisecond. The other side had kicked the whole thing in the balls by sunset; so chalk it up to a 12 hour delay? Suppose I wrote the story with talking squirrels and extreme greeters? Would it have been any less realistic?

That kerfuffle, which lasted a day but gave talking heads a week’s worth of pontification, blocked out other kerfuffles. In a sane world, we’d have a month of Hunter Biden jokes based on the last few weeks. He got his child support reduced. He got a slap on the wrist for having a pistol and a coke habit simultaneously. Not to mention tax evasion that would land us in Federal pound me in the ass prison. The president’s grandkid won’t get to use the last name “Biden”. A bunch of verified information (including text messages) emerged that both implicate then vice president Biden but look like flat out extortion. Apparently there’s a video of hunter driving very fast… possibly while high. All the things I said actually happened. I didn’t make any of that up.

It was memory holed fast. Actual information was subsumed into the stream of propaganda so quickly you could barely sniff the stench. I don’t know if a Wagner Group flakeout and a Biden covering action were timed that carefully or it was just luck. I guess it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t know Hunter was a snake by now you’re working hard to not know. Also President Biden got more votes than any other candidate in history and he’s got the political prisoners to prove it.

Speaking of Hunter being a snake, cocaine turned up in the Whitehouse… because of course it did. As you’d expect nobody has the slightest idea what it means and it’ll fade with time. Rational people like me assume Hunter is desperate for help. You can’t fuck up that bad without trying. Even JFK had the perception to avoid leaving random bags of drugs lying around. The guy is desperately hoping for a correction that will never come. He’s filmed and documented himself doing every dumb thing possible in a forlorn hope that someone will stop his mess… alas more stupid shit is always allowed to happen. Law enforcement is mystified by this bag of coke because they’re officially ordered to be mystified. They’d be mystified if Hunter showed up naked and high, raped a wombat on live TV, and tattooed a list of Epstein’s underaged victims on Nancy Pelosi’s forehead at gunpoint. At some point there are no more levels of obvious.

In the last few weeks courts said obvious things too. The President doesn’t have a magic wand to “fix” student loans. Rules about “ghost guns” can’t appear out of thin air because a bureaucrat so wishes. Choosing a college applicant solely based on their skin color is just as gross if the racist is Al Sharpton or Archie Bunker. Collusion with social media to do censorship is censorship. All this came down in the last few weeks… some in the last few days. None of it is particularly shocking.

My point is, propaganda can have you sitting on the edge of your seat like it’s life or death but you already know where things are going; at least in the broad strokes. Hunter has been a lawbreaking shithead forever. We saw solid evidence in 2020. Do we really need to freak out if the DOJ covers his ass three years after it’s a known thing? Did we need the distraction of the Wagner group scampering about in Eastern Europe to know picking fights with the Russian Federation is a sketchy plan?

I try to think of something that surprised me in the last two weeks but it’s all knowable in advance. Disney’s latest movie sucks. Inflation persists. Lawfare is waged on Trump. France is on fire. Meh…

On this very site I’ve posted The Gods of the Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling. Anytime you want to know what the next few weeks of news will be, read that instead.

Oh, one thing did surprise me. I stayed in a hotel and watched cable. Holy Fuck! I had no idea how many drug ads people are exposed to! I had no idea AIDS has become a revenue stream. So that’s the thing I was surprised by. Let it never be said I can’t learn new things.

That was a great segue into the second half of my absence. I woke up one day with a scratchy throat. Since I’m not the kind of tool that’s been brainwashed by cable TV ads, I didn’t freak out.

“Ask your doctor if Glaprodorf is right for you. Side effects are severe loss of money and cranial-rectal inversion.”

I assessed a cold as a cold, took some NyQuill, and slept for several days. Did it suck? Yes, being sick sucks.

Did I lose my shit, invert society, crash longstanding institutions, nuke the economy, and threaten to imprison anyone else who didn’t take my illness seriously? No, because I’m not fucking insane. I rode out an unpleasant cold like a normal adult would do in the before times. In a couple more days I’ll be right as rain. Can you imagine how different 2023 would have been if more people had done the same in 2020?

Well that’s enough for now. I did have happy fun times on vacation and as always “pics or it didn’t happen”. I’ll post sometime next week with a happy stories about Honey Badger and yours truly.

Have a good summer.

A.C.

P.S. And for God’s sake if you’re watching cable stop it right now! Set that infernal thing on fire before they’ve got you hooked on shit that even Hunter Biden wouldn’t take!

I can add nothing to the world’s most perfect video.

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.