I've Got a Bike

I've got a bike.

For Burning Man.

Typing the words I've got a bike, remind me of the Pink Floyd song Bike. I recently spoke with someone close to me about the musicianship of Pink Floyd, and how regretful it is that I don't listen to them anymore. I have old and underage memories of the gang of us listening to One of These Days in the dark of my friend RJ's attic while we drank St. Ides Special Brew in secret. Yuck. We knew it was a horrid drink even then; we drank it anyway. Once I chugged an entire 32 ounce bottle, precipitating an immediate discharge of thick foam from my throat, frothing from my mouth like a slurpee machine in a 7-Eleven. Good times. Anyway, I would turn off all the lights and man the switches, creating a poor-boy's light-show that required more imagination than skill. The lights were the dimming kind and I would use them to dazzle my drunken and stoned comrades, hurling photons at their retinas, causing their pupils to relax and contract with the music. Inducing a seizure would've been the ultimate compliment. Sadly, it never happened.

As I got older, the lyrics became more meaningful to me. We would drink, by that time having graduated to Budweiser, and armed with a 40 and an acoustic guitar, I'd whip everyone up into a drunken dirge of a sing-along to Wish You Were Here. I remember the day I got my license, after passing my road-test and returning home, excited by the new freedom this little piece of paper afforded me, my dad handed me the car keys - granting me permission, without saying a word, to go wherever I wanted. I raced down the stairs to the white Chevy Malibu that awaited me, flung open the door and hopped inside. The key slid into the ignition and the car began to hum. Cooly, I adjusted my seat and the mirrors, pulled the seat-belt across my chest and heard that satisfying click when it locked into place. With a thunk, I pushed in the button to turn on the radio, and I heard the sound of a cash-register opening, paper tearing, change falling; that familiar bass-line; Money. A slow smile spread across my face like butter. I turned the volume up as loud as it would go, and drove off toward whatever was ahead.

I remember really enjoying Shine on You Crazy Diamond, and Echoes. Songs you could get lost in. Sometimes, songs you could get found in. Music is a wondrous thing. Powerful in its ability to affect. The crashing sounds like waves wrap themselves around you, soaking you in sentiment, trying to pull you out to sea. Come to think of it, music isn't that much different than the sea. Both are vast, can be sailed on or drowned in, can be serene or tumultuous, dark and bottomless, beautiful. When we listen, we're all like versions of Ulysses. Wow, I can't even believe the shit that I'm spewing right now. Did I chug another Special Brew? It's deplorable. Let me fix this:

"Overhead the albatross 
Hangs motionless upon the air 
And deep beneath the rolling waves 
In labyrinths of coral caves 
An echo of a distant time 
Comes willowing across the sand 
And everything is green and submarine. 

And no one called us to the land 
And no one knows the where's or why's. 
Something stirs and something tries 
Starts to climb toward the light. 

Strangers passing in the street 
By chance two separate glances meet 
And I am you and what I see is me. 
And do I take you by the hand 
And lead you through the land 
And help me understand 
The best I can. 

And no one called us to the land 
And no one crosses there alive. 
No one speaks and no one tries 
No one flies around the sun

Almost everyday you fall 
Upon my waking eyes, 
Inviting and inciting me 
To rise. 
And through the window in the wall 
Come streaming in on sunlight wings 
A million bright ambassadors of morning. 

And no one sings me lullabys 
And no one makes me close my eyes 
So I throw the windows wide 
And call to you across the sky"