Bikes, Breezes & Freedom

Some days there is an energy in the air, a restlessness that permeates every fiber whispering subconsciously that escape is necessary if not mandatory. Yearning to leave the humdrum, everyday routine treadmill behind  tearing the fabric of the universe open  to make entry into an alternate reality not only feasible but immediately attainable. Freedom grasped in daydreams, esthetics required for healing.

Like modern Don Quixote’s riding Harleys into the sunset in their gold plated armor, tilting at the windmills of corporate reality, educational entropy and political expedience hoping to elude the sausage creature and defeat, against all odds. Pasion and style breaking free from the norm, tossing aside suits and ties like creatures shedding skin, butterfly or reptile unknown, unknowable, growing, evolving into something more, bigger, better, inhibitions lost along with respect for taught norms. Fighting to keep your soul intact in a soulless world. Ranting against gleeful authority figures flexing their muscles at the drop of a hat when child like missteps fail to anticipate consequences.

When life is tearing in so many opposing directions that fleeing anywhere seems preferable to standing still. When the nights seem endless and dark. When nothing seems easy.  When wildness takes hold,  flying down the open road takes the edge off. Is it real or a dream?  Turning the page is just not that easy. There are sudden stops and set backs, false trails forward and retraced steps back. Exsistental rambling searching for something more, not knowing exactly what, but knowing it’s out there, somewhere…

A Hole in the Wall

Just off Santa Monica Blvd., on a little side street is a Hole in the Wall where the patio tables are sheltered by a triangular mainsail and jib from a sailboat and the burgers are the best I’ve ever tasted. Now these are not your typical bionic burgers from a fast food joint, no these are real honest to goodness burgers made from fresh Angus beef (which, by the way, does not describe a cut of beef but rather a breed of cattle whose origins lie in Scotland). It even tops Roni’s Pastrami Bacon Burger and Barney’s Ultimate Kobe Burger.

Now Genghis Khan’s crowd might not recognize burgers made today as theirs were flattened by saddles and flavored by horse sweet, however the history of the burger can possibly be traced back to his hoards. His grandson Khubilai Khan introduced them to the Russians who created steak tartare, Europeans made ground meat into sausages and German sailors brought Hamburg steak to NY where fresh ground meat was substituted for salted, dried beef and served between two pieces of bread. Whether the modern hamburger originates from Wisconsin or Ohio is up for debate but the fact remains that it is an all American staple here to stay.

Most people aren’t as desperate for burgers as Wimpy or as romantic about them as some vegetables but the majority of Americans have fond memories of summer barbeques eating burgers and hotdogs, toasting marshmallows and chasing fireflies after the sun goes down. Drive-in burger joints with roller skating waitresses may have gone the way of the Fonze but the all American hamburger lives on.

However much people may object to the greasy frozen burgers served at most fast food  drive throughs places can still be found that know how to make a burger worth sinking your teeth into. While it’s not a Primanti Brothers Burger with fries, fat slices of Italian bread and coleslaw stacked directly on the sandwich a Hole in the Wall is the closest to being the best burger found in Los Angeles so far.

Silver Trails Down Panes of Glass

It was a dark and stormy night, no make that afternoon, no make it morning. Lately it’s been raining all day so why just concentrate on the night? When it pours in Southern California there are school closings due to flooded canyons, fear of mud slides after fierce wild fires that burned out of control and Snake Plisskin surfs down Wilshire. Raindrops keep falling on my head for what seems weeks now, when will it end?

Lifting your face up to the cleansing rain, feeling the raindrops roll down your face after a long period of drought or an extended heat wave in the city refreshes the spirit but when the rain goes on and on and on for days without end it can be demoralizing. Mood reflecting sodden skies or perhaps the opposite. Restless spirit style cramped by limitations and confinement. Atmosphere for funerals and remembrances of those long gone. A lonesome little raindrop circles the drain saving melancholy moods for another rainy day reborn.

We could try running away from our troubles but acid rain is killing all the songbirds. A hard rain is falling in the Amazon rainforests and it is diffacult to find anywhere in the world these days where we can find shelter from the storm. If we chase the clouds away will our children have their seasons in the sun? or will they be doing rain dances on Astroturf lawns surrounding crystal fountains frozen in time? If we don’t cherish the trees where will they run to shelter from the purple rain or to escape the glare of the burning red sun? The Lorax knew what would happen but like Pandora no one would listen to him.

If a yellow submarine can float across a psychedelic landscape why can’t drops of sunshine fall like rain through the sea? Instead the rain turns ocean and sky into shades of gray, with frothy waves breaking on empty beaches. Bracing stance facing into the wind channels power generated by resistance imagination flying with the storm but exhilerating as it can be, one still wants it to end.

Watercolor pictures on the sidewalk wash away in a swirl of color like dreams fading into abstractions of rainbow movement. Longing for sunsets and blue skies, a chance to find the pot of gold doesn’t happen until the rain is over and the firmament is clear. Green growth springs through cracks in the sidewalk while sunshine splashes down from heavens cooled by gentle breezes blowing the last fluffy wisps of white over the horizon.