Death of a bicycle

It’s October and it’s beautiful in New England. I’m trying to avoid these dispatches becoming just a tour journal, but I do want to say that I’ve had the delight of seeing many friends and family members at our shows so far, and looking forward to that continuing across the country. We’ve hit Pittsburgh, Columbus, Schenectady, Syracuse, Buffalo, DC (x2), NYC (x2), Boston (x3), and Providence so far. The rest of this week holds Wallingford, CT; Portland, ME; and two more shows at Radio City Music Hall.

After less than a month in, tour life is really agreeing with me. I’m learning to sleep in my bus bunk, with the aid of music (I never use music to lull me to sleep!), a little THC sometimes, and conscious relaxation of my body. I’m generally terrible at sleeping on moving vehicles—maybe some kind of somatic response to being in an inordinate number of car accidents in my life(?) but the company on the bus is good, and it’s getting more comfortable the more I do it.

I’m also really enjoying the balance of work, solitude, and socialization in this environment. No one in the company seems evil, and I’ve even started to develop a few really promising friendships that I’m deeply enjoying so far.

I miss my family! I’ll get an extra couple days with them coming up this weekend and am looking forward to enjoying some slow time together, and also raging hard at some kids’ soccer games. We also have plans for them to come out and visit the tour a couple times and I can’t wait to show my kids around my backstage area and bring them into that world a little bit.

Death of a bicycle

I knew she was not much longer for this world and I’m grateful for the many miles she gave me around upstate New York and New England over the past month or so.

For some reason I get really attached to the aesthetics of things, and my 1970s Peugeot Nouveau folding bike has occupied a large, romantic portion of my heart since I paid $150 for it in a Pizza Hut parking lot in Concord, New Hampshire thirteen years ago. Here is a photo of it that I took on that day.

It was an old, rickety, fussy, adorable, needy machine from the day it came into my life, and it required as much attention as it gave joy and freedom. I was working in a tiny town in Vermont when I bought it, and it gave me freedom and the ability to explore further than I would have on foot. I rode it home from an opening night party that summer—on the highway with a friend on the back and no lights in the middle of the night. I rode it up a mountain to a private lake early in the morning, and then back down with freshly poached trout wrapped in ferns on the front tray (which I cleaned and cooked and shared with a friend (read crush) on the porch of company housing).

A couple summers later, I threw it in the back of a van on a two-week tour of New England and rode it wherever I could early in the mornings, climbing trees and taking loving pictures of it from the sturdy boughs above.

In New York, I strapped drums and hardware and suitcases to the trays and wobbled my way to many, many gigs, with the wind in my face and garnering not a few little yellow scars from the sides of taxicabs. I always felt free and loved and cared for and independent on this bike, and in return I searched hard for tubes and tires that fit her odd but perfectly-sized 22” wheels, faithfully kept oil on her chain, and kept a vigilant eye on her rust spots and gradually weakening joints and connections.

For a while I stopped riding as much—only venturing out once in a while in my neighborhood to treat myself to lunch or coffee at a bakery or halal spot I love. I even bought a “grown up” bike at a point (a cumbersome horse of a machine in comparison), and quickly re-sold it when it proved to stir nothing in me.

When I was asked to go out on tour this time, I knew that the culture of a David Byrne tour was big on bicycling—and even independent of that knowledge I was determined to rekindle my romance with my old and constant flame, envisioning myself pedaling through the streets of Berlin, laboring on the hills of San Francisco, cruising around a Great Lake or two.

And so we set off, me in my bunk, and she rattling gently below in the bus bay—thinking of each other and waiting with anticipation for arrival in each new city.

To adapt from and paraphrase my boss—”Can we love a bicycle?”

I was in heaven for many miles in several cities—making discoveries alone and with others, bouncing on cobblestones, making harrowing freeway dashes from bike trail end to green-painted city lanes, stopping to rest or read, leaning on a rock or a tree trunk together.

And then in Boston something snapped—a hidden, rusted connector between the handlebars and receiver tube—and I lost steering and gently collided with a bus stop shelter. My heart rose to my throat as I assessed and diagnosed and realized that the part in question was almost certainly irreplaceable, and even if I could find it, another would fail, and another, until the risks would outweigh my desire to continue to revive her.

And so, after harvesting a few bits to keep as remembrance, I leaned her gently against a chain link fence in Roxbury and walked away—with tears in my eyes and Lucinda Williams in my ears. I walked 3 miles back to my hotel, surging with grief and joy and memories of the love and adventures we shared for 13 beautiful years.

I already have a new bike—I couldn’t stomach the idea of reducing my radius of adventure for more than a few days. And I imagine we’ll eventually develop a bond. But for now I kind of miss the fut-fut-fut of a dented rear rim when I squeeze the brake lever, and the occasional toppling-over thanks to an un-dedicated kickstand, and the daily expectation of any number of rust-weakened levers snapping off, and the metric-sized everything. But all this meant that I needed to pay attention, and care for something with vigilance and scrutiny, to be of service with no guarantee of reciprocity or reward. And maybe this is love. And maybe we can love a bicycle.

That’s all for this go! I love you very much!

You can read previous episodes of this newsletter HERE.