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On commuting
We are the sons of the lane-splitting motorcyclists you couldn’t nail with your side mirror. HOV, FastTrak, barreling caravans of suits and ties, and unborn coffee stains. I am a commuter, I am consistently surprised by the size of my city and the poor quality of my suburban streets. Hours in the fast lane, hours in the slow lane, I’ve crunched the numbers and crunched the time: here’s the outcome. It’s fucked. I have 4 more cupholders than I have mouths to feed, I am a slouching-white-collar strapped inside a high octane metaphor for the City of Detroit. Grit, pride, getting your hands dirty, up to the elbows in grease, just slipping around in my down-to-earthiness. Midwesterners want to be trees, really fuckin bad. Rooted. And who could be Paul Bunyan? Monoliths. The Hollywood sign. Wall Street. Miami. Two-wheel-drive in the wintertime. A plow getting stuck is not unlike the fall of Icarus, a creation that has failed its maker. Too much snow, too much sun, a death you could watch for hours. Wheels turning, wings unfurling, an unbecoming is reality television: I am guilty and I cannot stop. The mythology of the MidWest is strong across the states: humble, a slow pace of speech, a simple wardrobe, genealogies of beer. The nasal accent, a product of healthier breathing via the nose. At-large, it feels healthy to be from the MidWest or to live there. In a faraway land, such as Los Angeles, quality compliments are always dancing around a…
