A new job and a new place is as much about staying afloat and finding your zone as it is about prospering. I've been busy and actually haven't been in bakersfield very much past work hours, using a ten ride ticket and escaping to northern California. I have been moving bikes up still, continuing the work of the great importers, moving bikes to where they are in vogue and safe to use. However, I've found a pathway to ride between work, and I feel the very weight of age coming for me. I had a long conversation with an old friend from Riverside, and we both mentioned how much younger we are then the people we work with. That will only last so long, soon we will become older and the feeling of discomfort over where we are in life will intensify.
I've had some other good feelings prop up, I've talked to some friends from Victorville, and I am glad to see people doing well, moved on to other places. I'm putting together my album, having finally been motivated to write music with the absence of a busy non-profit life running my schedule. I miss those meetings and I'm excited to see big things like Occupy Oakland take off from a distance.
What am I doing? Other then biking on sidewalks in gale force winds, and risking my life on dangerous biking trips to change out laundry, I'm sitting during my paperwork phase. Normally I would use this time to travel the country slash world, but I'm saving up time as I do quite have the leash I'd like. Next year I'm hoping to go to Uganda and possibly Denmark, I have to keep conferring with my friends in respective locales, but at the moment, travelling to Davis or LA on the weekend is enough to keep me afloat. I'm building another world above me at work, to keep me company.
I discovered an old tourist photo Vermicelli and I took at the top of the Willis tower, before they changed it's name of course, before the recession. We looked pretty as peaches, and it vividly takes me to a time, about one month before I was to meet Amy. In homage and pure nostalgia, I'll admit I'm thinking alot about the city, especially since I didn't appreciate visiting it at the time. The city is a pretty remarkable achievment, and when I view pictures of the chicago skyline, I shudder to think just how much math is going to go into building my replica. I am going to have trouble anchoring it upsidedown, but so far the hancock center and willis seem to holding directly above me as I type this. Between music and this feat and other things I feel like I'm using this time to reflect on the all the places and things that I have been. It makes me pretty somber, but hopefully it prepares me for what lies ahead.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Single Speed #13 - The Rhythm of a New Locale
The Rhythm of a New Locale.
Bakersfield is an endless marathon. You can complain about your overall lack of oxygen, or you can make your way to the sidelines where someone is waiting to give you a waterbottle. There have been few waterbottles, there's an occasional hippy hiding in the shadows, and there's actually a few I work with which I've been unable to talk to mainly because both our tasks put us out in the field. However, I've been making slow connections and I'm excited to think maybe I can play some music or get gardening.
For now, what keeps me going is the gasoline station interactions. I must admit, I would rarely visit a gas station when I lived in Davis, filling up every 2-3 months, but during my westside week in bakersfield, I'm required to fill up my gas murdering work truck every morning. I burn through roughly 16 gallons daily with my witnessing activities, which suggest to me that I could possibly be worse for the environment simply by verifying the contractor actions (or at least I thought so until I sighted my first undocumented oil spill on the 2nd day out there).
Anyways, here goes. Once on the 46 and 5 junction, I stop to get an energy drink. I tell him I've got alot of driving, and he says, "you indian?" as if it's a standard greeting like "hello" or "get out of my way is". I respond, yes, sort of, malaysian indian, and he goes crazy. We talk a bit about where I am from, and Punjab, which is where he is from, and it;s like I won the lottery. Which I actually did. He immediately offered me free coffee in the store, which I gladly took for my drive. I guess it can get lonely out there, just like I'm searching for other hippies, he's searching for anything that reminds him of home.
This is not always this pleasant of an interaction. Take another morning when I'm on stockdale and 5 junction, which everybody and their mom knows not to buy gas there, as it's like a dollar more on a good day. I don't care, my card is state money, so you'll be paying for my mistake, but today it's not like that, I'm stopping for red bull and some coffee - coffee that is cold, sugary, and condensed milky, tastes just like malaysian coffee. I bring it to register and the guy there, who's known for being friendly, especially with Nancy, asks me 20 questions. He's not indian, he's from Saudi Arabia, and I calmly think to myself this guy is ballsy for living in oil country. The hicks that live up the street must be plotting a tar and feather session as we speak... But not to be outdone, he's making it aware to me that his country is even more chauvantistic than oil america is. He starts describing the quality of malaysian women to me, and how their pretty faces and bodies will serve me well into my old age. Thank you sir! Good information to write down in my log book then burn.
Women here are treated pretty different. Immigrants as well. It's treated very much like "you are lucky to be out here in the field, where we have work". This couldn't be more obvious once when I went out to a station way out there on 46 and 33. The poor mexican girl that worked there look like she could live and/or die on the whims of her old white taskmaster of a boss, who guarded his station like a gargoyle, waiting for his maiden to mistakely coerce someone into leaving a penny in the jar. Part of my felt terrible, but a simple lesson out here is to save your sympathy, your own day is going to be killer and take your energy to the limit.
Speaking of energy, those energy drinks that you keep away from children and your fishtanks is pure currency out here. I found myself longing for one each day during my 12-18 hour shift. I heard contractors talk about it in hushed tones, trading "yellows" for "light blues" [referencing the color of the M on the monster cans], and "light blues" for "greens". Where do I live? I've never been so tired and unable to put up an emotional fight. Somehow I drove through this week and into the weekend with Anco and Carlos.
Bakersfield is an endless marathon. You can complain about your overall lack of oxygen, or you can make your way to the sidelines where someone is waiting to give you a waterbottle. There have been few waterbottles, there's an occasional hippy hiding in the shadows, and there's actually a few I work with which I've been unable to talk to mainly because both our tasks put us out in the field. However, I've been making slow connections and I'm excited to think maybe I can play some music or get gardening.
For now, what keeps me going is the gasoline station interactions. I must admit, I would rarely visit a gas station when I lived in Davis, filling up every 2-3 months, but during my westside week in bakersfield, I'm required to fill up my gas murdering work truck every morning. I burn through roughly 16 gallons daily with my witnessing activities, which suggest to me that I could possibly be worse for the environment simply by verifying the contractor actions (or at least I thought so until I sighted my first undocumented oil spill on the 2nd day out there).
Anyways, here goes. Once on the 46 and 5 junction, I stop to get an energy drink. I tell him I've got alot of driving, and he says, "you indian?" as if it's a standard greeting like "hello" or "get out of my way is". I respond, yes, sort of, malaysian indian, and he goes crazy. We talk a bit about where I am from, and Punjab, which is where he is from, and it;s like I won the lottery. Which I actually did. He immediately offered me free coffee in the store, which I gladly took for my drive. I guess it can get lonely out there, just like I'm searching for other hippies, he's searching for anything that reminds him of home.
This is not always this pleasant of an interaction. Take another morning when I'm on stockdale and 5 junction, which everybody and their mom knows not to buy gas there, as it's like a dollar more on a good day. I don't care, my card is state money, so you'll be paying for my mistake, but today it's not like that, I'm stopping for red bull and some coffee - coffee that is cold, sugary, and condensed milky, tastes just like malaysian coffee. I bring it to register and the guy there, who's known for being friendly, especially with Nancy, asks me 20 questions. He's not indian, he's from Saudi Arabia, and I calmly think to myself this guy is ballsy for living in oil country. The hicks that live up the street must be plotting a tar and feather session as we speak... But not to be outdone, he's making it aware to me that his country is even more chauvantistic than oil america is. He starts describing the quality of malaysian women to me, and how their pretty faces and bodies will serve me well into my old age. Thank you sir! Good information to write down in my log book then burn.
Women here are treated pretty different. Immigrants as well. It's treated very much like "you are lucky to be out here in the field, where we have work". This couldn't be more obvious once when I went out to a station way out there on 46 and 33. The poor mexican girl that worked there look like she could live and/or die on the whims of her old white taskmaster of a boss, who guarded his station like a gargoyle, waiting for his maiden to mistakely coerce someone into leaving a penny in the jar. Part of my felt terrible, but a simple lesson out here is to save your sympathy, your own day is going to be killer and take your energy to the limit.
Speaking of energy, those energy drinks that you keep away from children and your fishtanks is pure currency out here. I found myself longing for one each day during my 12-18 hour shift. I heard contractors talk about it in hushed tones, trading "yellows" for "light blues" [referencing the color of the M on the monster cans], and "light blues" for "greens". Where do I live? I've never been so tired and unable to put up an emotional fight. Somehow I drove through this week and into the weekend with Anco and Carlos.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Single Speed #12 - Ablaze
I looked ahead and all I could see was daybreak, blazing and mostly yellow but with reds and blues, hiding thousands of hammers and a highway, which I needed to ram myself between to get to the next moment. I could not turn away from the daybreak knowing that was where I was to belong, in the fields of labor, machines, and crude.
This morning I found myself on Stockdale Highway at 5:45 AM. It was time to go to work and Catherine (my stumpjumper) and I were half awake and plodding into the state Truck. I had left too late, not getting to take the customary shower and egg sandwich, not all ready for the toil ahead. Six AM to Six PM everyday was a far cry from my cush 30 hour work week in Sacramento, and the rigors of Sactown politics had nothing on the rigors of the west Kern heat.
I began Bakersfield without ceremony, casually discarding Davis for a lifestyle that would have mocked my former self. I know soon there will be weeks where I drive 200 miles a day, moving between oil fields all over the lower Central Valley. I will make jokes with contractors and I will watch them drill and fill the earth's crust. I will filter my ears to the cruel words I will hear. I will accept that the things I grew to love and find routine - compost, recyling, bicycling, making, and repairing would become very difficult. I will accept living alone. I will accept being afraid. I will accept locking, hiding, doubting, and driving.
So I ride my bike to work. It's almost a farce, biking four miles to work when I'm going to drive 200 miles today at work, in 100 degree weather. I drive and I drive to keep a system that destroys and pollutes from polluting more. It's hopeless and foolish. It's why I got involved with environmental work - I wanted to know failure. I wanted to take on a task that was impossible. I wanted to carry an atlas on my back and have it break me into pieces, so I would know that I was unable to do it alone. Bakersfield is the place for this.
I thought about the number of times I was lucky. The number of times I was greedy. The number of times I was where I shouldn't have been, the times I used the darkness of college towns to hide. There's no darkness in the Western Kern. There is just dirt, oil, orchard, and metal. Production. It's not hidden like it is in Long Beach. Apologized for like it is in Ventura. Glamourized like it is in Texas. Suffocating like it is in West Virgina. It is in Bakersfield, and you see everything that comes with it - Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose. It's alot of people draining all the black they can about of Bakersfield (75% of California's production) and not saying thank you.
I never wanted this life. I wanted to work with oilmen, to watch the company man suit his rig, to watch the toolpusher check his accumulators, to stand on top of a three story worldkiller. But you know what? Now I'm here, and you can criticize me while you drive, look at your iphone, watch TV, get something out of your refridgerator, and complain about you subsidized food, gas, houses, and health. Criticize me all you want, because like you, I've not found a way to live without Bakersfield's black gold.
Now I'm in Bakersfield. I've agonized over this like nothing in my life. College decisions were easy, Riverside was close to home and was free, Davis had the domes and a new life. I've always taken the path of least resistence. Bakersfield? Nothing is comfortable. The sunlight is blazing, complete blinding. And it's what I'm riding into now.
This morning I found myself on Stockdale Highway at 5:45 AM. It was time to go to work and Catherine (my stumpjumper) and I were half awake and plodding into the state Truck. I had left too late, not getting to take the customary shower and egg sandwich, not all ready for the toil ahead. Six AM to Six PM everyday was a far cry from my cush 30 hour work week in Sacramento, and the rigors of Sactown politics had nothing on the rigors of the west Kern heat.
I began Bakersfield without ceremony, casually discarding Davis for a lifestyle that would have mocked my former self. I know soon there will be weeks where I drive 200 miles a day, moving between oil fields all over the lower Central Valley. I will make jokes with contractors and I will watch them drill and fill the earth's crust. I will filter my ears to the cruel words I will hear. I will accept that the things I grew to love and find routine - compost, recyling, bicycling, making, and repairing would become very difficult. I will accept living alone. I will accept being afraid. I will accept locking, hiding, doubting, and driving.
So I ride my bike to work. It's almost a farce, biking four miles to work when I'm going to drive 200 miles today at work, in 100 degree weather. I drive and I drive to keep a system that destroys and pollutes from polluting more. It's hopeless and foolish. It's why I got involved with environmental work - I wanted to know failure. I wanted to take on a task that was impossible. I wanted to carry an atlas on my back and have it break me into pieces, so I would know that I was unable to do it alone. Bakersfield is the place for this.
I thought about the number of times I was lucky. The number of times I was greedy. The number of times I was where I shouldn't have been, the times I used the darkness of college towns to hide. There's no darkness in the Western Kern. There is just dirt, oil, orchard, and metal. Production. It's not hidden like it is in Long Beach. Apologized for like it is in Ventura. Glamourized like it is in Texas. Suffocating like it is in West Virgina. It is in Bakersfield, and you see everything that comes with it - Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose. It's alot of people draining all the black they can about of Bakersfield (75% of California's production) and not saying thank you.
I never wanted this life. I wanted to work with oilmen, to watch the company man suit his rig, to watch the toolpusher check his accumulators, to stand on top of a three story worldkiller. But you know what? Now I'm here, and you can criticize me while you drive, look at your iphone, watch TV, get something out of your refridgerator, and complain about you subsidized food, gas, houses, and health. Criticize me all you want, because like you, I've not found a way to live without Bakersfield's black gold.
Now I'm in Bakersfield. I've agonized over this like nothing in my life. College decisions were easy, Riverside was close to home and was free, Davis had the domes and a new life. I've always taken the path of least resistence. Bakersfield? Nothing is comfortable. The sunlight is blazing, complete blinding. And it's what I'm riding into now.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
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