I owe you all an explanation.  Didn’t I quit drinking coffee?  Why am I now spotted every day with a mugful of the stuff in my vibrating hands, or a headful of it in my erratic behaviour?  (More than one person has busted me on this — which is funny, because I didn’t think anybody reads this blog.)

Yes, I’m back on the sludge.  All day, every day.  It’s been like this since I began work on my current novel in April.  I found I simply couldn’t get work done without it.  How sad is that?

During that period when I was drinking coffee every other day, I found I could never really get much done on the decaf days.  I was too relaxed, maybe.  But also unfocused, and honestly kind of depressed.  The coffee-withdrawal sadness never really went away in the whole two months I was “clean.”

That time away from coffee, though, was very good for me.  Unproductive, but healthful.  I seem to have more of a grip on my dosage now.  I’m more conscious of when coffee is messing with me physically and mentally.  I would like to believe that I’m not letting coffee drive me into grumpy rants or apoplectic fits.  Please come visit me and judge for yourself.

I’m almost done with that book.  When I finish I’ll be in a position, maybe, to take another break.  I am still angered and frustrated by my slavery to this drug!  I feel like the helpless puppet of Juan Valdez!  But I’ve definitely come to know and understand exactly what coffee does for me, good and bad.

My friend Andy in San Francisco had a simple take on it.  Coffee, he said, makes you smarter.  It is a performance-enhancing drug for knowledge workers.  Maybe that’s not the effect it has on everybody, but it’s frighteningly accurate to how I experience it.  Without the stuff, my mind doesn’t seem to work right; caffeine has become part of my identity, my sense of how I think.

I wonder what I’d be like today if I’d never had the stuff.  I am trying to keep my daughter away from it, but I feel like a hypocrite telling her it’s bad.  She likes it.  She’s ten years old and she craves caffeine — that can’t be good, can it?

… we made it!  Ten of the eleven members of Team Jetstream reached the beach, on nine of our ten tallbikes.  (Sadly, Doc was hobbled by knee issues and had to take the sag wagon.  Those issues didn’t stop him from throwing beer at me when I reached the finish line.)

We started together at 6:30 AM, but soon split into Team Fast and Team Slow, with myself in the latter pack.  I got to the finish around 6 PM, so that’s a good eleven and a half hours to travel 104 miles — slow but steady.  About 3000 bicyclists rode in this year’s Reach The Beach; 2900 of them rode past me at some point.  Nearly a thousand of them asked me how I get down from that thing.  But I finished in front of two other tallbikes on our team, including the behemoth tandem captained by Max Taint with no stoker.

It almost didn’t happen; my three-speed rear wheel began to self-destruct a week before the event!  Even worse, my replacement 7-speed internal SRAM hub arrived with pieces missing.  Kudos to Aaron’s Bicycle Repair in Seattle for stocking the obscure sub-parts my obscure part needed.  I got the wheel built on Thursday and spent Friday riding off every curb in my neighborhood, testing it for strength.  On Saturday I rode it 100 miles, and it’s still straight as an arrow.

My butt hurt like hell, but three days later I feel just fine.  It’s remarkable what you can learn about your body by torturing it.  The team training rides we did this month were very helpful.  Last night I spent about an hour stretching out my sore, stiff body, and I noticed my legs have gotten larger.  Weird.

I would like to publicly thank my sponsors: Skeeter, Fiona, Patty & Ralph, the Vosaclos and the mysterious “Oxygn luvr!”  Together we raised real money for a great cause.  I’d also like to thank all the members of Team Jetstream for rallying with great purpose and effort around one of my most far-fetched ideas.

I suppose I should mention at this point that I have an article about tallbikes in the latest issue of Momentum Magazine, and that I’m organizing a tallbike picnic on June 26th in Portland, as part of Pedalpalooza.  Can’t get enough of them tallbikes, I guess.  (Although I haven’t been up one it once since I crossed that finish line.  Walking … I love walking … )

Myself and the members of Team Jetstream are preparing for a one hundred mile tallbike ride on May 15th.  Several hundred road riders will join us for the 20th annual Reach The Beach fundraiser ride for the American Lung Association.  They will all ride normal bikes, because they are pussies.  But we will ride the tall, proud, heavy, awkward, janky love-machines that we built ourselves … because we’re stupid.

Now, I’m just as sick of being asked for donations as anybody.  So just let me say this: the ALA is a great organization. In their advocacy for clean air, their work in smoking cessation, and their contributions to asthma research they have acheived much with little.  If you have lungs — and I know you do — then you really ought to take a moment to learn about what the ALA has been doing on your lungs’ behalf.  Here’s their website.

If that’s too boring and wonky for you, then just take my word for it and visit my fundraising page.  I’m sorry it’s so spectacularly ugly, but that’s a great example of the ALA’s frugality: they could have spend donor’s dollars on a fancier website, but they said “no, we’ve got to spend that money on lungs.”  Lungs like yours and mine.  Delicious, pink, juicy lungs.  Mmmm.

In all seriousness: my mother suffers from smoking-related emphysema, as did her father before her. It’s no fun — it’s a slow, irreversible slide.  In her golden years, she has to lug an oxygen bottle around whenever she leaves the house.  Mom and Grandpa came from an era in which tobacco company claims of the healthfulness of smoking went largely unchallenged.  They used to give away away free cigarettes at colleges during finals week — that’s how they hooked Mom.

Today we’ve come to a broad societal consensus of the tremendous dangers of smoking.  People still smoke, but they certainly can’t claim it’s for their health.  Thanks to the ALA, nicotine is finally regulated as a dangerous, addictive drug.  The ALA is doing everything they can to prevent smoking, to help smokers quit, and to protect non-smokers from smokers’ smoke.  That’s what they spend your donations on.

That’s my pitch.  Here’s my fundraising page again.  Take a deep breath and click.

Wherever I’ve traveled lately, I’ve found it terribly frustrating to not have a bike.  I am becoming like a mongol with his horse — I need it for any trip of 100 feet or greater.But this time, I’m ready!  This mini-velo frame was built by one of Portland’s leading bicycle mad scientists, a man known only as “Doc”.  Over the last month I’ve been upgrading it with used parts, dialing in the ride.  Now it’s ready.  It steers like a roller skate, but it’s fast like a luge.  I can break it down and fit it in a suitcase in just under 10 minutes.

One thing I’ll be doing in NYC is SIGNING BOOKS.  This is not an official event; I’m just going into bookstores that carry my books, and signing them with a pen.  I assume they won’t mind.  After all, autographs make books more valuable.  Perhaps I should sign all the books?

Another New York project is VISITING FRIENDS.  If you are a friend, and would like to receive a free consultation, please get in touch!  I am particularly interested in attending your parties.

Furthermore, I’ll be assisting notorious Portland smut-teur Reverend Phil Sano at the Brooklyn screening of BIKE PORN 3: CYCLE BOUND.  If you’ve seen the other two Bike Porn tours, I can honestly confirm that this one is the best yet.  If you like sex and you like bicycles, you really ought to see this when it comes through your town.

What else is there to do in New York?  What isn’t there?   I’m only worried that I’ll be paralyzed by a surfeit of choices. But at any rate, I won’t be taking the laptop with me.  So Internet, if you have anything important to tell me, tell me today.

Come visit our living room for a relaxed evening of stories and songs from writers who musician, hosted by Mike Daily, Portland’s maddest word-scientist.

“Itinerant accordionist Franz Nicolay (of The Hold Steady, Guignol, World/Inferno Friendship Society, and others) will read selections from his upcoming story collection COMPLICATED GARDENING TECHNIQUES. Ivories may also be tinkled.  (Excepted on his website — scroll down for it.)

In support of Franz, trashcan-drummer Mykle Hansen (of such bands as The Golden Greats and The Bad Mintons) will read selections from his in-process story collection HOORAY FOR DEATH. Strings may also be strummed.

We will also feed you hors d’ovres, beverages, and whatever else you bring to share. And we’ll get you home before bedtime.”

I am personally tickled to be asked, since I know Franz to be a powerhouse of performance.  You already know way too much about me, so here’s more about Franz.

Mr. Nicolay is the mustachioed champion known for his work in acts such as The Hold Steady, World/Inferno Friendship Society, and Guignol.  In the winter of 2010, he will share his first work of short stories and various observations.  With its old-world outlook, Complicated Gardening Techniques is a work of Twainsian vision.  3 zines will be released over 2010, leading up to a full novel of Mr. Nicolay’s work.

Note that JSP is sold out of the first ‘zine in the series, so this will be your VERY ONLY CHANCE EVER to get a copy.

Also, this may be the only time in 2010 that you’ll spot me behind a guitar.

OFFICIAL DEETS:

Date: Thursday April 8th

Location:  5536 NE 27th Ave

Time: 6-9pm

To bring: Your Own Beverage, and something to share.

My ten-year-old daughter disbelieves in Santa, the Easter Bunny and God. But every year, on the evening before St. Patrick’s Day, she sets a trap for leprechauns.

Here we have one bottle of Maker’s Mark (the only whiskey in the house), surrounded by bills, coins and four-leaf clovers that she’s collected over the year. That’s the bait.

Surrounding that, barely-visible, is a border of double-stick adhesive tape laid out on white paper, and a second ring of double-stick tape around the neck of the bottle. That’s the snare.

Unfortunately, this morning we found the empty bottle tipped over on the table, and all the remaining bait stuck to the tape! Fucking leprechauns!

But Happy St. Patrick’s Day anyway …

But it’s springtime, and opportunities abound!  We will do this, and soon.  Watch this space!

-mykle-

P.S.  Mrs. Palin asks that if you have a red power suit to lend, or a straight-haired red wig, or a large gage shotgun or a stars-and-stripes two piece bikini, please get in touch.

Attention volunteers, weirdos and northern soaks!

Believe it or not, folks, but Snazzy Portland is still in production.  Like a grizzly bear, it takes long naps and wakes up HUNGRY!

We are now planning our third group-shot for the video, set in scenic ALASKA!  We’re very tentatively planning this shoot for SUNDAY MARCH 7.  (At this juncture it’s hard to be sure about the weather, so we will re-confirm or reschedule later this week.)

For this shot, we need extras who resemble typical inhabitants of Alaska, such as:

LUMBERJACKS! (flannel, suspenders, boots, cap, axe, etc.)
FISHERMEN! (rubber rain gear, beards, pipes, fish, etc.)
BEARS! (believe it or not, i already have a bear costume.  want to wear it?)
other WOODLAND CREATURES (moose, crab, hockey player, etc.)
SARAH PALIN!  (stars-n-stripes bikini, shotgun, square framed glasses, etc.)

.. or any other ALASKAN you can think of.  What do Alaskans look like, anyway?  Your guess is as good as mine.  (If you’ve been there, your guess is better!)

As before, I humbly ask that if you are able to show up dressed like this, or if you own any of these prop/costume items and would lend them for the shoot, please get in touch with me so I can coordinate the madness!

Thanks for all you do!
-mykle-

Same time, same place, different day.  Sorry to jerk you around, but it’s literally a life or death matter.  (I hope if you couldn’t make it before, you can now.)

So: WEDNESDAY, Feb 10, 2010, 10:00am is the shoot, and the location will be:

VOODOO TOO, the east-side sattelite of Voodoo Donuts!  At 1501 NE Davis St.  (NOT the one downtown!)

-mykle-

UPDATE: Rescheduled to WEDNESDAY.  http://mykle.com/msl/?p=71 .  Sorry.

(original post follows:)

Attention citizens of Portland! Again I beg your assistance.

The second group shoot for Snazzy Portland is scheduled for TOMORROW, Tuesday February 8 2010, at 10am in the morning.The location: 1501 NE Davis Street, none other than the eastside location of Voodoo Donuts – Voodoo Too!  If you haven’t been there yet, you’re missing out.

(Here’s a map link: http://bit.ly/voodootoo)

The theme of this shot is STONERS!  Please come suitably attired in such stony c0ostumes as:

• Marijuana-print clothes
• Jamaican national colors
• Dreadlocks
• Tie-dye everything
• Grateful dead paraphernalia
• Halie Selassie
• Or, if you’re already a stoner, come as yourself.

Furthermore, we are very much in need of the following sorts of props:

• Bongo drums
• Huge headphones
• An enormous joint
• A vast hookah
• A hacky-sack of immense girth
  
• Any smoking paraphernalia that you’re not afraid to be seen with in public & on film.
• Bob Marley
• Anything and everything stony, especially if it’s large.

If you can’t bring those props or costumes, please let me know if I can come borrow them this evening for tomorrow‘s shoot.

Also, be sure to dress appropriately for the utterly unpredictable Portland weather.  Donuts, fruit and coffee will be provided.  Please help us make our stony dreams come true.

Thanks all over again!

-mykle-