Archive for the ‘culture notes’ Category

Box Dog Bikes

Thursday, August 18th, 2005

My almost-daughter Cara started working this past school year at the Oberlin College Bicycle Co-op, and has discovered she loves getting greasy & fixing bikes. This summer, she was talking to her friend Gabe, who recently started a bike co-op in San Francisco called Box Dog Bikes. As Gabe was telling of some frustrations of being 5 recent college grads opening a business, Cara mentioned that my work is in helping teams & organizations collaborate better. Gabe was interested. So I visited the shop, we talked, and agreed that I’d join their board as their first outside director.

Earlier the next day, before my first Box Dog board meeting, I was teaching a Brands & Branding class at the Miami Ad School (SF campus) and my class needed a new client for the last 4 weeks’ assignment. So I gave them the co-op. The brief? Box Dog Bikes believes cycling can change the world.

The co-operative entrepreneurs at BDB combine bikes & sustainable business practices "to have a net-positive impact on the world" They promote cycling because bikes are better than cars for the air, for traffic congestion, for building local community, because oil = war. BDB’s radical political agenda is to convince students & office folk to commute by cycle. They are happy to be experimenting with an alternative to capitalism.

Its exciting that my class had a real client to present to, and great for BDB to have 6 creative teams working for them. We’re all kind of blown away by how its come together.

Personally, I share BDB’s politics, and I love bikes more than any other way my body can be in motion. So we made a deal about compensation…

IMG_2672.JPGThey’ve made me a double high bike — yes, two bike frames, one welded on top of the other, so that the seat is almost 5′ off the ground. You have to get it rolling, then climb up like its a ladder, then start  pedalling. We agreed my new bike should be ready today, so I can take it to the week-long desert art event-cum-experiment in temporary community called Burning Man.

 
I love tall bikes, and have been coveting one for years. I picked mine up just now. I can’t wait to attach mylar streamers to the back & ride it hands free into the sunset… 

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When In Doubt, Accelerate

Wednesday, August 17th, 2005

There’s a great book called "Twist of the Wrist 2: The Basics of High-Performance Motorcycle Racing", in which racer Keith Code very simply explains the physics of a gyro in motion combined with braking forces and traction dynamics, and suggests that all our gut reactions are wrong — fear based — when we think we’re going to die in a firery speeding crash. Keith says doing the opposite of the fear reaction is the best policy, all physics concerned. His suggestions? See if they seem useful improvisational tools for life..

1. When in doubt, accelerate. The bike is most stable when the throttle is cracked open a bit, accelerating, especially useful in scary turns and unstable conditions. Bike is least stable while braking.Brake + turn = disaster.

2. When the road gets rough, let go. Bumpy road means bumpy bike means use your body as a shock absorber – squat rather than sit, and loosen on the bars. Relax your hands arms and shoulders.

3. Pick a line in a turn and hold it. Correcting course mid-intitaitive curve creates a moment of extreme instability in a gyro. Momentum is lost as accelaration drops.

4. Look where you want the bike to go. If there’s a haybale or truck in the way suddenly, look at the space between obstacles while hurtling forwards, not at the truck. The bike will follow your balance & focus.

5. Counter-steering: push where you want to go, don’t pull. To turn a bicycle or motorcycle to the right at speed, you push right and pull left. Its just true. The gyro again, somehow. But push seems building, while pull to get what you want feels limiting.

Doing this stuff makes it possible to go really fast on a motorcycle, and to find the edge where your speed exceeds your skills. Keith suggests racing at 85% to your edge. Try applying his skills to your life & decision-making. Experiment, and send me post cards….

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The Vegetable is Political

Sunday, May 15th, 2005

Last weekend, we started a new season of subscribing to fresh produce from the Live Power Farm. Farmers Steve and Gloria Decater came down from Mendicino County to kickoff their 18th year growing for what is now a community of 37 families. Each week, we get a basket from the farm – this week was chard, lettuces, carrots, scallions, and the best strawberries I’ve tasted in a long time. In the 1980’s I stopped eating fresh strawberries (and tomatoes) because they were usually tasteless and mealy. Many apples too. But the produce Steve and Gloria grow is fantastic – the lettuces, carrots, beets, even the potatoes have a quality that I haven’t tasted anywhere else. Yes, even better than organic, they’re biodynamic.

Biodynamics is a non-chemical method of farming, based on a series of lectures in 1924 by Rudolph Steiner, the Austrian philosopher, educator, theologian, dramatist, and architect. Steve and Gloria talked to us about how they farm — completely by hand, and without chemicals. Its amazing that in 2005, they’ve made a decision — for the land, for the quality of produce, and for the community — to farm using horses rather than tractors. They’re not luddites though; they’ve invested in 22 solar panels for their barn roof so they can use as little fossil fuels as possible.

Steve and Gloria also talked about the benefits of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). We subscribe to the farm, which means we give them all the money upfront, so they know how many people they’ll be feeding for the season. This lets them plant a dozen different types of vegetables, rather than just one, which benefits the land, yields higher quality produce, and helps create a sustainable ecosystem. Since Live Power doesn’t just plant one veg, it isn’t victim to market fluctuations or weather or diseases which can ruin a single crop. They look at our way of dealing as a relationship — they know us, and we know them. We know where our produce is coming from and how its grown, and they appreciate being out of the market system, knowing who is eating the literal fruits of their labors, and having our kids play together in the yard while the meeting is happening.

Steve and Gloria are special folks. Their committment to the philosophy and process of biodynamic farming is impressive, and their farmer discomfort with public speaking just adds to their charm. I look at their wild hair and scruffy boots and wish I had the guts to live the way they do. As they talk, they show us slides from the many elementary school groups who visit the farm to learn about biodynamic methods, and re-connect modern kids to the land and its plants and animals. Its a part of their mission they especially enjoy, and it connects us together even more tightly as a community since most of us in the room have kids who’ve visited the Live Power at least a couple of times.

The vegetable is political? Absolutely. Non-corporate, non-chemical, reduced fossil fuel usage, de-commoditized, incredibly delicious, and bursting with food value. Eating food from Live Power Farm is probably the best thing I do to support a strong and sustainable America. We need more heroes like Steve and Gloria.

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Gang Of Four: The Musical

Wednesday, May 4th, 2005

This will show my age, but I have to admit – last night I went to see the early ’80’s funk/punk band Gang Of Four at the historic Filmore in San Francisco. The show last night was enjoyable, but lacked the thrashing violence of the night I last saw them – in a ill-fitting suburban hotel meeting room outside Wilmington Delaware in 1982. If you happend to be there, it was a brilliant moment – raw, ripping guitar from Andy Gill, set against a thumping rythym and dismal & bitter Leeds-soaked lyrics. I tried pogo-ing last night, but just couldn’t get the crowd into bashing around like the old days. And jumping wildly for a single song about did my 42 year old knees in for the evening. Any other Gang of Four fans out there, perhaps 40-something Brit planners? One thing I noticed at the show – back in the ’80s we had all shaved our heads, or had buzz cuts – partly for fashion, partly to prevent stupid punks from grabbing one’s hair in the mele. Last night though, most of the audience had the same kind of hair style – but now balding, not bald. We tried to ignore the difference…

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