Life - The Thought

As you might have guessed I've experienced, and am experiencing, among other things, a sort of young adult renaissance. Back in my late teens and early 20s, basically my high school and college years, I went through a period of musical exploration. Although I started listening to classic rock (the only station that our super primitive radio would pull in), I quickly turned to what because "alternative music" or "new wave".

I still enjoy that music.

Which I think is normal, I don't think we keep exploring music genres, do we? I can't stand certain music, never could, and other types of music I've always enjoyed.

When I was a kid we upgraded our house stereo to something with multiple speakers in each speaker box. Per my mom it lived in the kitchen so we could hear music all the time, for our own intonation/etc, because we all played musical instruments. I'd commandeer it when I could and listen to WXCI, the West CONN station. It was the only alternative rock station in a huge area. There was one on Long Island for a bit (at 92.7), but WXCI was it for a bit. I'm sure they played stuff other than alternative rock but I don't remember it.

Back then we couldn't just Google a song or listen to clips on YouTube or whatnot. You had to hear the song, ID the band and the song (hopefully the DJ would actually say the band and song after it played, instead of before), then get to a record store and search it for said band and song. David Bowie alluded to this in a 1999 interview I only saw after he died. This whole process was pretty involved and required a pretty good amount of commitment. As he says, rock and roll had a "call to arms kind of feeling to it".

For us "record store" meant Johnny's in Darien, CT, the only place that offered non-mainstream albums. They sold t-shirts, albums (and later CDs), pins, Vans sneakers, everything. You'd know you were there when you saw the checkered VW Bug parked across the street. Honestly, though, we rarely bought stuff, we mainly looked to see what we might be able to buy.

In the meantime the only way to collect music was to record songs off the radio.

In order to capture songs I'd set up something like a butterfly trap, or, if you will, a shotgun. I'd put in long tapes, 120 minute ones, and just record whatever played on the radio for the next two hours. Then I'd review it, see if there were any good songs, copy them off onto another tape, then record over the 120 minute tape with another 2 hours of whatever.

I also spent a lot of time hitting "Record" just as one song ended, hoping to catch all of the next song. If I didn't want the song (I had it already, I didn't like it, etc) then I'd stop and carefully rewind the tape with my finger to get it "just right".

A well done tape was a work of art.

If the 120 minute tapes were a shotgun approach, the "Sit and Record" method was more like a sniper. I'd sit by the radio and record targeted songs, whether they were songs already announced ("and after the break the new Adam Ant song!") or I was doing the "hit record as the last song ended" thing).

The "Sit and Record" method resulted in higher quality recordings. This was because I recorded over just a short portion of tape (the beginning of songs, if I didn't want to keep it I'd rewind and record over it) but otherwise the recordings were on virgin material. Therefore I used better tapes for my sniper sessions. Typically the best quality tapes were available only up to 90 minutes long instead of the 120 minute long junk tapes.

Gathering songs from the motley assortment of tapes, I'd create mix tapes.

As technology advanced I started taping off of albums, and, as CDs started making their appearance, off of CDs. Most of this was so I could play the music in the car because us poor bike racers generally had just cassette players for them. Although CD adapters were neat, portable CD players skipped regularly when you hit a bump and such. If you were lucky enough to carpool with someone you could assign that someone to hold the CD player up in the air, their arms acting as suspension. If they got tired and the CD player hit something and skipped you'd shoot them a dirty look. The arm would go back up and you'd keep going.

Or you could place the CD player on a folded up jacket or something. Problem was if you took an exit fast or did some other higher-G maneuver. The CD player would end up on the floor on the passenger side or, worse, between the passenger seat and the door. Then you'd have to go to radio or see if you really did get all the tapes out of the glovebox.

Jeepers. The things we used to do.

Through the last few weeks one thing popped up in my personal radar - this one song I had on tape. It was on one of my scrap tapes, a 15 minute long tape originally meant for saving computer files off of our TRS-80 Model III.

Our TRS-80.

Hard to take a picture of it in the basement so poor quality but it's there.

I should try and boot it up. I don't even know if I need a floppy disc to do that.

You see, back then, there were really no hard drives for computers, and the ultra slow/simple TRS-80 was a solid $2000-3000. There were reel to reel tapes for computers and, if you were super advanced, there were these things called "floppy discs". The cheap version of a reel to reel was the cassette tape, whether for music or for data, and therefore those ubiquitous cassette tapes got recruited for computer use.

Our TRS-80 Model III came with a cassette player "storage solution". We had two tapes for it, a 15 minute tape and an 8 minute tape.

When we upgraded to floppy drives it freed up the cassette player and two near-useless tapes. 15 minutes? It would barely hold a few songs. The 8 minute tape I think got tossed.

The 15 minute tape (it was green, the 8 minute was orange or something) became my scrap tape, where I'd hold songs temporarily to record onto another tape. The 120 minute tapes were also scrap tapes. Generally speaking the 120s were so thin and so long that they'd regularly jam in the tape deck. The idea was to use them to gather stuff then transfer the good songs to a more durable tape.

The good tapes were 90 minutes long, durable enough for car play, reliable, not prone to tangling up inside a tape player. Typically they had upgraded material, either High Bias tape or Metal Bias tape. They were the carbon and titanium of the tape world. High Bias was good but Metal was the schnizzle, one step below CDs.

Sort of.

I recorded the best stuff on Metal, and we had two tape decks that were Metal compatible (and had Dolby noise reduction, which is what Dolby did before whatever they do now, like doing the sound for the new Star Wars movie).

One song I had on my 15 minute scrap tape was one that had lyrics that included stuff like:

Shalala sing a simple song
But in my mind everything is wrong
I (wish?) the words just to feel at ease
But tension builds to be released... 

I'm looking in my mirror now
See the face I have to shave 

There was something super compelling about the song. Yeah, it had some of the normal elements of new wave music, with synth drum stuff, a Euro accent (but not English… the accent really drew me in), bass stuff…

The problem was I had no idea who performed the song or what it was called.

I first recorded the song about 30 years ago, maybe a year or two beyond that. I listened to that 15 minute tape regularly throughout college, and I transferred the song onto some of my mix tapes. The cheap, 15 minute, originally-meant-for-computer, not High Bias, not Metal Bias tape became my master tape for this song. Poor quality recording dubbed onto other tapes. It's like a copy of a fax of a copy of a fax, if you know what I mean.

Fast forward about 15-20 years.

Now there was something called the internet. MP3s. You can buy music online without buying anything physical. Yada yada yada.

Every now and then I'd Google some of the lyrics of the song. No success. When my SoCal host told me about Shazam (an app that identifies music - just hold your phone up to the music and let Shazam listen to it for a bit) I downloaded the app specifically to check this song.

To get the tape to play I had to have a tape player and something to push sound to speakers (amp or receiver which contains an amp). I had a tape deck but my stereo/amp was dead. I put a cable into the tape deck headset jack ("out") and the other end into a laptop mic jack ("in") and recorded onto the laptop.

Problem was I had no way of hearing what I was recording.

I was limited to 60 seconds because after that I had to pay for whatever application.

With no idea of output level, no idea of input level, the recording sounded horrible. When I played it for Shazam the app told me, predictably, that it couldn't identify the song. Of course not, it was a horrible recording.

I liked the song so much I'd regularly listen to those 60 distorted seconds while on the trainer.

Fast forward another few years.

With Facebook a FB friend that rides happens to have been a WXCI DJ back in the day, and a few times he offered to ID the song (anything from the 80s). I never got around to putting anything up, and, recently, sitting at my laptop, I just videotaped the keyboard while I played that 60 second recording of the song and posted it for him.

He ID'ed the song immediately.

The Thought. "Every Single Day".

He even linked to the YouTube clip below. I clicked, listened, and I was in shock. It was the song.

It took 30-odd years but I finally knew who did the "See the face I have to shave" song.

I realized why I like the accent - it's a Dutch band and I have some affinity to the Dutch accent after spending much of my childhood in Holland. I associate Dutch accents with women, not men, so that sort of put a twist on that, it's probably why I didn't recognize the accent.

I've mentioned before how music really tugs at me. What I didn't realize was that even music I didn't know I was missing would tug at me.

I listened to a slew of The Thought songs in one sitting and I had this weird feeling that many of them sounded familiar. Slowly I realized that I'd heard and liked many of these songs but never captured them on my 120 minute shotgun tapes or my sniper "sit by the stereo and hit record+play when the song ends" sessions.

The Thought, "Rise and Fall", has a drum intro that reminded me of Powell and Perralta's Bones Brigades 2 "Future Primitive" bridge song as I thought of it (go to 34:45 of the video). I remember thinking the two were similar, but I didn't know the "other" song. It was The Thought.

"Secrets of the Heart". I had no idea they did this song, and, honestly, I forgot about this song until I heard it.

"Eight Miles High". Did I hear their version or some other cover? I don't know.

"Out of Oblivion". I don't know what to call them, the harmonics? Another one that resonated with me, and it still does.

The songs remind me of XTC, which is maybe why I liked XTC.

Finally, the tie in to cycling.

"Tension builds to be released."

Sounds like one thing, of course, but for me it perfectly describes a sprinter's race. The tension builds until it's just unbearable in the bell lap, then, finally, the sprinter launches his sprint.

Glorious.

Anyway, if you're in the area and you drop by, chances are that you'll hear The Thought playing.

Epilogue

I had lunch with an old friend recently. A familiar song came on, something I hadn't heard for years and years. I couldn't place it, neither could she. So she pulled out her phone and said, "Let me Shazam it."

I immediately thought of the only song I'd Shazam'ed. I wondered how this would go.

It came back with XTC. "Mayor of Simplteton".

And so it was.

Life - Life's Rich Pageant

So I'm getting old.

Seriously.

I never thought of myself as someone getting old. I talked with someone about this a while back. I don't remember who because, you know, I'm getting old. Anyway...

 In the old days, like 50 years ago, people went to high school, maybe they went to college, then they got married, had kids, worked for 30 or whatever years, and retired.

When you put ages to those steps, you basically got married well before you were 30, and by 30 you'd defined your life path. At 40 you had kids in middle or high school, if not already out of the house. If you started in certain professions, like being a firefighter or a law enforcement officer, you might be retired and starting a second career.

You were "middle aged".

At 50 you could look back at your "defined at 30" path and see how you did. If you worked for an older kind of company you might retire early.

When you were 60, if you were a firefighter or something, you could very well be twice retired. Not just once, twice. Two pensions, because that's how they did things back then. And really, at that point, no cares in the world.

Now it's a bit different.

Let's take 40.

I wasn't even married at 40. Kids? That started about half a decade later.

I was in a relationship (with the future Missus, so it wasn't like it was just any relationship) but I spent my summers focused on racing bikes, the springs on promoting races, and my routine, for the prior 25 years, was to start doing longer rides in the fall, "for next year", train in the winter, the spring series in the spring, then race the summer and fall. I'd work on my cars or do yard or housework in there somewhere.

At 40 years old I was living, in my dad's days, a 20 year old's life. Or maybe a 17 year old's life.

Heck, I was blogging. That says a lot right there.

Okay, fine, I'd owned my own house, and I'd learned about grown-up home stuff slowly, agonizingly. I didn't realize that thermostats didn't go below 55 degrees because no sane person would lower their heat below that. I was trying to save money and I got upset when I realized that the coldest I could set the temperature to was 54 degrees. One of my roommates, someone I'd known since 8th grade, with incredible optimism and support, told me that it was nice to wear sweaters inside the house.

A short time later she bought an electric blanket.

I'd owned my own business. It didn't make it, and, based on stuff I've since learned about business and myself, that's not super surprising to me. I tried hard but my efforts were probably a bit misdirected. Ultimately I started to crumble under the stress and my productivity dropped dramatically as I relied more and more on my friends/coworkers - my coworkers were my friends. I know now a bit more and I shake my head when I think of some of the things I did, or the things I spent my time on.

During that time I struggled through a succession of not-ideal cars, a couple handed down from my parents, others bought unwisely.

The Capri in Salt Lake City, UT.

Note the distinctive orange rims (ASC McLaren stuff), with matching body accents.

I read now that the Capri RS was a desirable car back in the day.

I'm pretty sure my car got shredded into scrap metal.

My brother and I were talking very recently about stuff and somehow we ended up talking about my Capri. On paper it rocked. 17.5 psi boost (about 10 psi over stock), SVO block with low compression pistons for big boost, big exhaust, McLaren 15" rims (not the metric TRX things fitted to other Capris from that era), SVO 5 speed transmission, subframe braces, flared fenders, factory McLaren "kit", (non-functional) hood scoop, yada yada yada. I bought it and drove it around the country, about 10,000 miles of driving in a month.

The sad reality was that the car was barely able to move under its own power. It had a pull-through turbo, so the turbo pulled directly through the carburetor. How that didn't blow up I have no idea, but it was impossible to start when if you stopped for a few minutes and then tried to start it again. Then, on top of that, I was on almost bald tires in snow (Winter Park CO at one point), the thing got 10 mpg under boost (boost required to go over 55-60 mph), and it had a tiny 11 gallon tank. Also during the trip I had to replace the clutch slave cylinder (San Luis Obispo to Santa Monica without a clutch), get the carb rebuilt (turbo heat - it glowed a dark orange after a hot run and you could see it if it was dark out and you popped the hood - and the carb probably wasn't great for rubber gaskets and such), and put about 20 things of "aluminum dust that keeps your cooling system from leaking" to get home. Plus I had an engine compartment fire the first day of the trip, which was my fault so I'll leave it at that. It wasn't that bad since I had three fire extinguishers in the car and didn't even use up one entire can.

I got home, the poor thing struggling like mad, and I managed to drive it another 100 or 200 miles before the engine finally gave up. Probably due to the aluminum dust stuff in the cooling system, no doubt aided by the time the radiator fell backward into the front of the engine shortly after getting home.

Yeah. The radiator fell back into the engine, while I was going 35 or 40 mph.

So we start talking about the car and my brother's face just lit up.

"The Capri? That's a Mercury, right? Yeah, that was a perfect 20 year old's car!"

There wasn't a really different way to put it, except at the time I was 25.

I was already falling behind the curve.

Anyway, during that trip I had a pretty big (for me) sound system in the car that I'd installed myself. I had some stupid amp, 300w or something, a big equalizer (12 band?), and I'd made a "custom" subwoofer box for the back of the Capri. It housed two 15" woofers as well as some midrange speakers and a pair of tweeters.

Because, you know, on a cross country trip, it's important to have tunes even if, say, the engine wasn't running well, or the tires were about as slick as a race car's, or... well you get the idea.

I had a tape deck in the car that overheated or something after a while so I could play tapes for an hour or two then I'd have to listen to the radio while whatever tape thing cooled off. Then I could play tapes again. In areas where my weak antenna didn't pick up stations, or I didn't feel like listening to the traffic report. To wit: "A pickup truck went off the road at such and such place. There were no serious injuries. A pickup truck went off the road at a different such and such place. There were no serious injuries." Seriously, that was the traffic report. The business news was hog and grain prices.

I had a hacked CB radio that a coworker modded for me so I'd have a bit more broadcast power. I didn't use it but it was handy for getting a feel for the area. When a weigh station opened it was a big, big deal, the airwaves went crazy for a bit. Otherwise I used that and a radar detector to keep myself sane. Or not, because driving across Kansas at night with nothing but some fuzzy CB radio and a very quiet radar detector was probably like, oh, I don't know, flying a ground attack plane for 4 or 5 hours before even getting to enemy territory (I'm thinking the F-111s that flew around Europe from the UK to attack Libya, for example). Things were supposed to be calm but all hell could break loose any second also.

Of course I brought along my suitcase of tapes. It's a little briefcase of tapes. Come to think of it, I still have it, and it's still full of tapes.

My tape box. I even labeled it with my name.

And a bike sticker.

Tapes still inside. Stickers are like the ones on my bike.

I have no working tape decks so that's sort of a pity.

It'd be nice to listen to them while on the trainer.

I had a few mixes of songs, but I had a number of straight up albums.

Most of them were REM.

One of them was Life's Rich Pageant.

It was absolutely the album that defined my life for a couple of years.

Once I'd gotten the inspiration to put "Actual Size" on my bike, through a Laurie Anderson flick I'd seen on campus, I realized that a huge part of my life was listening to music. It pulled me through abject uncertainty, intense crushes, exploring life, and, of course, listening to music on the way to races. After that Actual Size on the downtube I started adding more decals, spelling out stuff significant to me.

"Begin the Begin", from Life's Rich Pageant.
This was, intentionally, one of the first phrases I put on the bike.
Note the similar types of letter stickers as the ones on the tapes.

When I hear some of these songs it brings back memories of emotions. It's not memories per se, because I don't think of, say, a particular incident or moment. Instead it's more of a feeling, an emotional state. It's remembering how I felt in the spring when I was going to one of the early season races, or how I felt when I was driving in unbearably hot weather through some painfully monotonous highway on the way back from the crits in NJ in May.

Or humming the song to myself, somewhat desperately, as I tried to pour my soul into the pedals on some training ride.

In the end I traded the not-really-running Capri for some subwoofers, and, honestly, at that point in my life, I came out on the better side of the deal. The recipient? One of my coworker/friends from the shop, one of my groomsmen when I got married. I sort of wish I could have put all the good stuff from that car into another (Fox-model) body, like my old Fairmont, but the reality is that for me it would never happen.

The Fairmont and the Capri shared the same "Fox body" chassis.

My dream was to put the Capri stuff into the Fairmont.

Because combining two decrepit cars would make one good one, right?

And, after helping yet another engine meet an early demise (I managed to turn a VR6 into a VR2), I finally had the money to buy a new car, one with a warranty. My mom told me I needed to get a car that I could rely on, one that started when I turned the key, stopped when I pushed the brake pedal, and turned when I turned the steering wheel, and if that stuff didn't happen someone would work on it "under warranty".

I bought my first new car with that advice in mind.

With that, here's Life's Rich Pageant, "Begin The Begin", which I desperately hummed while trying not to falter on my training rides at the time, and an album that I basically burnt out on during my 10,000 mile drive around the country. I had a hard time listening to most of the music for about 10 years but now I'm starting to revisit it.

The rest of the album follows "Begin the Begin".

Life's Rich Pageant, by REM

Life - Music, emotion, and, well, "life"

A while ago my brother pointed out that music can get "worn out". A song's searing emotional effect can fade if you listen to the same song too often. In fact there is one of his songs that I've never used in a cycling clip because it's just too much for me. I want to keep that song precious for me and I actually rarely listen to it at all because its powerful effect on me.

The clip below is a song that I'm trying to save a bit for later (meaning for myself, not for a cycling clip), if that makes sense. Still fresh for me right now, even though it's a commercial top hit. Although I haven't made any clips using commercial music, I have thought of particular projects using particular songs. I was into one moderately commercial song in 2006 when I read and heard about a special pro race in Europe (so it ended noon or so our time, while I was at work). I was so pumped after the race ended, and it tied in so well with the music, that I could see the whole clip in my head before I drove home. Unfortunately I never finished the clip and it's not timely at all so it'll linger for a long time.

Having said that now I have another inspiration - I'd love to make a cycling clip using this music, inspired by the lyric video linked below.

For me music has a lot of power. It tugs at my emotion strings, as much as a hint of a scent, a sample of someone's voice, all those human emotion things. Music evokes in me what I'm sure is a measurable physiological response.

Back in the day, on emotionally charged rides, I found myself feeling unstoppable. In the times before heart rate monitors and power meters I didn't have an objective metric, but the climbs I did in the big ring all over the place, trembling with adrenaline, all while humming particular songs… there had to be something there.

Based on those kinds of rides I tried to conditionally train myself to have adrenaline rushes. I would grip my bars a certain way before doing any major effort, trying to get the adrenaline flowing just by returning to that "sprint only" grip.

This worked for many years. I'd intentionally stay away from the "sprint grip" (basically on the drops but just a touch higher than normal so my forearms were a bit flatter) during races so that at 1 or 2 to go, when I finally went to it, I was well into the adrenaline boost mode.

In my younger racing years I had plenty of opportunities for spiky emotions, like any young person experiences. As I got older I realized that the spikes were flatter but more robust. As a teen, or in my early twenties, I'd be super high and super low within the space of a day or two (usually related to stuff like girls and such). As I got older the spikes seemed a bit blunted but the breadth of the emotion felt more expansive. Instead of feeling a week or three of intense "crush" emotions, they went on for months, even years.

The emotions could be triggered by anything. When I was racing the track in 2009 I'd drive up feeling the normal pre-race excitement.

But on the way back?

I felt like a kid again.

I had no idea why. I felt totally inspired, I felt that crazy rush for whatever reason, it was all I could do not to drive like a nut. I'd crank the music (which only increased the adrenaline thing), drive in the summer heat with the AC on (chilled air seems to amplify said adrenaline thing), and, well, just revel in the rush I felt.

It wasn't even like I was racing well at the track. It was something else, I don't know what it was.

Back in 2000-2003 my mom was battling cancer. It was a super emotional time for me, and I think I emotionally "used up" much of the music I listened to then. I spent a lot of time driving with the music cranked loudly, burning through the music's power over me. I'm just now starting to listen to that music now, and it's still a bit burnt emotionally. Most of those songs I listen for 10 or 20 seconds and I click to skip it; a few I listen for a minute or two, but there are none that I listen and listen and suddenly it's the end of the song.

Now it seems it's my dad's turn. He's physically healthy but other than that… He stopped recognizing me early this year, maybe around the Spring Series time. He has difficulty getting up. He hasn't spoken a word in years because he hasn't been able to say anything.

My SPS ("significant personal stuff"), a term I mentioned before, is to take care of my dad.

The plan is to move him into our house, for me to look after him. It'll be hard, for sure, but I feel compelled to do this.

My Pops, me, and Junior, when Junior was a day old.

I had just returned from the second 2012 Bethel Spring Series race.

I remember his vibrancy when I was a kid. We'd rake leaves, shovel the driveway, cut wood for the fireplace. When I was a little kid he couldn't afford gravel for the driveway so he'd break rocks with a hammer. There's a picture of me sitting in my diaper on our driveway, hammer in hand, rocks in front of me.

He drove carefully. I could tell when he was serious because all of his shifts were so methodical, his motions to use the turn signal perfect, no wasted energy, everything "just so". When he was distracted he'd let things slip a bit but then he'd catch himself and become more deliberate again.

He was always methodical about what he did. He tried to have back ups, when he understood what he needed to have a back up. As a chemical engineer he was appalled by one manager's response to a non-functioning eye wash station in a huge plant. The fix? They hung a sign that said, "Out of order".

He'd rake or chop wood or whatever like a machine. Even as recently as 10 or so years ago the tree guys would joke that my dad would put them out of business, he was clearing so much stuff (the tree guys would get the high stuff; he got the low stuff).

He worked really hard for the kids, and, really, for the grand kids. He felt a duty to provide for them, and I never understood even a little bit of it until now, and I honestly am still coming to terms with just how powerful this urge is for me. At times it was tough, but I think that's the case with anyone. He went from growing up in war torn Japan to being able to provide for his family in the US. After traveling all over the world, living on three continents, in the end he adopted the US as his home, choosing to live here instead of anywhere else in the world.

My dad can't care for himself any longer. My brother has been caring for my dad for many years but is reaching the end of his tether. My other brother and I both volunteered to take over, and, for mainly logistical reasons, my dad will be moving in with the Missus, Junior, and myself, toward the end of the year.

This means I'll be his 24/7 caretaker for the foreseeable future.

My brother told me that it's hard to explain just what it'll be like. It's like having a kid - you can explain and demonstrate and all that but until you experience it you just don't know. Likewise, this will be an unfathomable thing until I do it. I just hope to be up for it.

In preparation for this I've mentally written off 2016. I really can't leave the house much so no racing, no training outdoors. No real dinners out, no trips, etc. I'm trying to figure out a way to make the Aetna Spring Series a reality - it's still in the forefront of my mind, definitely more important than my own riding. I have strong hopes of pulling it off, although I'll be physically absent from the actual races.

The Missus, also, has accepted this, supporting my urge to care for my dad. It'll really disrupt her life but she's behind this 100%. She's always supported what I've done - the racing, the promoting, job stuff - and she's once again throwing herself into the effort. So to her, a thank you in advance, and many more to come I'm sure.

My last day working at the car place is next Wednesday - I have three work days left. After that it'll be a frantic two weeks to get the house ready, and then we'll bring my dad here for what we think will be the rest of his life.

I have no idea what that means, to tell the truth. I've written off a year already. A second year seems distant but possible, in terms of both caring for him as well as him continuing on. After that I may need help, and it may be that my dad will need more than I can provide. Whatever happens, we'll see when we get there. For now it'll be me taking care of him.

In the meantime?

I'll listen to music and I'll revel in this special thing called life.

Life - URT "Green Wine" show clip

So...

One of the common themes in the SDC helmet cam clips is the music. In case anyone missed the memo, the music has one thing in common (save a few samples from early on in my clip-editing life): they're performed by bands associated with one of my two brothers. Between the two of them they could be a band - they compose, sing, and play guitar, bass, and the drums.

Inevitably riders will ask one another what kind of music each listens to when pedaling on the trainer. I can honestly answer that my brothers' music has been motivating me for years and years and years - I listen to them in the car, on the trainer, and when I watch, well, the helmet cam clips.

Ultimately I made them using my brothers' music because that's what I find inspires and motivates me.

Unfortunately I only ever managed to video one brother at one of his band's last gig in Chicago, IL. Because of a mistaken assumption, I thought I'd have a clean recording of the sound (via a third party). However this wasn't the case, and since I didn't worry about sound quality in my own recording, I never took into account sound quality when videotaping the show. For example, for parts of one song i put the camcorder on top of the amps lining the stage.

Obviously that didn't do well for the sound.

It was worse when I reviewed the clips - the muddy sound was terrible, the volume just overwhelming the tiny built-in mic.

Coulda, shoulda, woulda. But there's only one take in life, and in this case the show sound was pretty bad.

Frustrated, I gave up trying to make a clip out of the very long, very awesome, very emotional show. I had no way of fitting the two together, not well anyway, not with the applications I had at hand.

Then along came iMovie on the Mac, with all sorts of high end editing capabilities. Suddenly the sub-second synchronization required of a music video came within reach. I found I could synchronize the live footage with a studio recording of the same song.

Although I find that there's some lag in playback (compared to the "master" in iMovie), it's still a lot better than I could ever have dreamed.

The show video has a limited harvest capacity. After I did "Deepest Knife" I went to do another and found, to my dismay, that somehow things just didn't work out. I seemed to have forgotten all that I learned while doing Deepest Knife. I also happened to pick a song that closely matched the studio recording, making compiling the video much easier.

Disappointed I set the whole URT thing aside. I still had the imported clip in iMovie but thought it hopeless to create another clip.

When I had the issues with iMovie I moved back to the old machine. My old projects were there including a few optimistically created and named URT clips, projects that existed in title only.

I picked up Green Wine because I really like the song and because someone in the audience was yelling "Green Wine!" until they played the song. I started editing it and things started flowing. It took a number of edits but it's about where it'll get. To make it more... complete, for lack of a better term, would mean sacrificing other "harvests", borrowing significant footage from songs I hold hope of completing one day.

I hope you enjoy this clip. It's a fun song, yes, but it also represents a significant amount of work on my part. Sub-second synchronization doesn't matter in bike race clips but when dealing with a live concert it matters a lot.

My apologies in advance for any synchronization errors, weirdness with guitar or bass playing stuff, etc. That's all me, in my editing.

With that caveat please enjoy: