went for a ride yesterday, what i like to call the 3 boro-bike tour—'cause the Bronx ain't worth the trouble and who even believes Staten Island is actually a borough, i mean at this point we're just being nice...
the 3 boro tour consists of me strapping supplies on my back, revving the 'rebirth of the kool' to 10 and letting the rubber of the mutt hit the road. For reference: i took Metropolitan up to Grand and snuck in to Brooklyn that way, cut over onto Union Ave to Flushing and made the roundabout to the Brooklyn Bridge. Once in Manhattan I shot across Centre street and made my way through the madness to Delancy on the way over the Williamsburg. Kicked it over Roebling through McCarren to McGuinness and took the Pulaski into the old stomping grounds in LIC—its been 5 months off the hook now. i continued through the -sides (Sunny and Wood) and cut a swath through Flushing Meadow Park on the way into Bayside and then the Throgs Neck bridge. I finished up by riding to the boyhood home in Queens Village via the Cross Island Parkway Bike Trail, Cloverdale and Springfield Blvd. After a feeding on the folks' arm I made my way back to the Fhills via Union Tpke and an overblown guido at Austin and Ascan, who 'could have killed me'. Brother, i'm indestructible...
what the description of my route left out were the two deluges (+ one I was able to beat to my front door) that put an absolute and literal damper on my afternoon. Now there is nothing to worry about fair readers, i have come to the conclusion that water does not have the ability to melt my skin, and i was equipped with towels and i was even wearing a swimsuit under my shorts. What i wasn't prepared for was the bath my poor phone took. Since then use of the phone has been sketchy, i've been able to get it to come on long enough to listen to a few voice mails...
my original idea was to share a few pictures and talk about the weather in detail, sound off on how the park by Ft Totten is an abomination for the bike riders who once longed for it and about the dude in the Lincoln Navigator who went more dramatic then one of those fairies on Daisy in Love. Instead, you get a diatribe on my cell phone...
i first bought a cell phone for use on my way down to Florida for the first time through AT&T Wireless. i've been under their plan through 4 phones, the latest, the blackberry pearl i picked up about a year and half ago after my last contract re-up. It has served me well and for the most part so has AT&T Wireless, who i've stayed with through the change to Cingular and back to AT&T. i went there today, after not being able to revive the phone last night or this morning, hoping to get a cheap deal on a new pearl and hoping my SIM card was still hanging in. The gentleman who helped me turned the phone on and after a miraculous few seconds the phone was up and running. Great! Saved me some dough. He advised that if i still had problems that i should get another battery, a battery they didn't have. Later in the day, after giving it a charge, since it didn't have much left, it went dead again, so i rode to another AT&T store to try and find a battery, no dice and in the meantime i was met with another—wait for it—monsoon. On the way back down Metropolitan i stopped at a private cellular dealer, i figured maybe he stocked the battery—he did. i requested to try the battery out, it didn't work, after some discussion with owner on how i treated the phone after today's trip to the AT&T store and how i charged the phone. He told me that was bad for the phone because if the phone is still wet it could cause a surge which could scramble the whole operation. He continued by saying that you should take it apart and leave it to dry for two days...
shit...
question is, why didn't the dude at the AT&T store know this and shouldn't i be allowed to stick my foot in his ass?...
its a story we all know so why harp on the obvious but to say that corporations have been allowed to mistreat us for over '50 years and their financier partners-in-crime have kept the score. if i bought a phone from a store, and that store continues to sell that phone, shouldn't they have the accessories that go with that phone? And i'm not referring to the phone holders or ear pieces that make you look like a tool, and yes, you look like a tool, i'm referring that which the phone can do without—a battery. And why isn't the personnel working at such a store aware of the effects of liquids on a phone and how to facilitate the continued usage of the device...
i don't have the energy to wail about the horrors of the corporation. They are why we are at war, why we're unemployed, and why we are poor. They are why there is a pill to cure impotence but not cancer. They are we have co-pays and the dumbest children in the industrialized world. Any good that the corporation ever brought to society they washed away years ago with the blood, sweat and tears of the folks they fired and left for dead long ago, so fuck them...
i don't have a way of preventing the corporation from profiting and i don't have the power to stop them—its the most frustrating fact of life of them all. The corporation is in my phone, my sports, my doctor's office and at my union hall. Its everywhere, so i guess all you can do is draw your line in the sand where you can and hold it there for as long as you can...
my bike is a mutt 7700 from Bianchi, the oldest bicycle company still in existence. They run out of Italy. i used to ride mongoose, since i was fifteen, but then i found out they were bought out by a large American conglomerate who were just using the name for public relations and promotion and that the bikes were second rate, unlike the way they were years ago. People may get on me for not buying American, but fuck 'em, that's my line in the sand. Maybe we can't get rid of the corporations, but we have to make them accountable...
and to the dude and his trophy wife in the Lincoln, i'm just not that lucky. i'm not going to get hit by some well-fat-blowhard, i don't have that kind of juice. Best day i ever had is the day you hit me. i get hit by the poor Pakistani in the Volvo who doesn't have a penny to his name...
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