Your in Nation

Lotsa water. Long bus ride. dark street. no lights. my neighborhood. i need to pee. .. .. but i don't have the guts to pee on the side of someones house in the lightless night. can you imagine if someone saw me. something so natural, yet so looked down upon in public. cats do it. dogs do it. dang conscience. i waited til i got to the side of my house after much holding and despair. I didn't even go in my house. i had the urge to relieve myself in the shadows of neighborhood darkness. open air. freedom.

The bus rides.

The other day after my evening class i walked to the bus stop. It's a dark bus stop, about 4/13ths of a mile from my class where San Pedro meets Ashby. There was a man there. I stopped a bit away from the bench where he was to sit under a tree in even darker, shady night light. It's about 8:20pm. The man starts talking to me. Obviously drunk. Obviously sad and regretful about his life. His name was Mike. I don't know if he was sincere or not. It seemed he was when he said he received his BA from Palo Alto college. It's a two year college. He had a wife. Now he just drinks and has a job picking up trash. He wants to be a tattoo artist. He was covered with random markings on his body.  none looked like anything to brag about. He said he was a scratch paper for others to draw on when he was younger. We got on the bus.

mike

Yesterday after class, about 9pm at the bus stop, a 37 yr old man was at my first transfer at Broadway and Jospehine, down the sidewalk from Sams burger joint. he was talking to another gentleman. a few minutes later he declared.."ya'll wouldn't mind if i smoked a joint would you?" I didn't mind. no one else seemed to care. There were about 5 others. so he started smoking. a bus stopped in front of us for about 10 min. for the drivers to change. .. All the while the man smoked his cannabis cigarette. When the next driver showed up in his bus, all his people transferred on to this bus in front of us. As they were passing by, there was a young black male passing by, and as he passed, the white man smoking the joint tapped him on the shoulder. The man turned around and looked to a see a white man appearing to raise a joint to him. .. it looked to me like a "wanna smoke?' gesture. i couldn't tell. i thought it was strange. the black man kept walking but then turned and asked, "hey,...what chu want?" He proceeded onto the bus. A few seconds later he reappeared outside the bus with 3 others with him that had gotten on the bus just prior. It was another guy and some young females. They came out wearing pomp and attitude, ready to put fear in a white man. They walked up to the white man and started asking questions in an accusatory way. this is like right next to me. They were threatening and walking around with their chins up ready to throw down. kinda strange, but amounted to nothing. The man with the joint handled it well. I got on the bus. The black young men and women got on the bus right behind me being really loud talking a bunch of shit like they were all tough for their display of random machoness. Then to my surprise, the white man got on the bus, and came all the way to the back where we all were. he sat right next to the black gentlemen and started talking to them. He had no intentions of being a jerk at all. He was being real nice to the guys saying "i thought it was a nice gesture." The young men continued to be assholes. The man who smoked the joints' name was Allen. He just lost his kids. He's from Louisiana. He's a manager at Sonic, but loves to paint houses and do stain.  As the younger kids got off of the bus, Allen decided to throw gang symbols and start talking childish to the young men after they were off the bus. They were looking at him like, "'we'll remember you." it was an odd scenerio.

I see lots of interesting things on the bus. Lot's of different people. Lot's of things going on. Lot's of bible readers. Lot's of students. Dirty workers. Loud mouths. Hispanics. Blacks. Whites. Chinese. Restaurant workers. Lawyers. Single mothers. Smokers. Drinkers. Texters. A lot of people.

Anyway. I enjoy taking pics on the buses. I feel kinda awkward doing it cuz i don't want people to see me. but heck. i do it anyway.

Adamo

a small note about my bike... err... to my bike.

chapa, rochester NY

woodlands, TX

Dear bike, you did me well. You rode me thru places i've only seen on the television or read about in the books. you brought me close to death riding thru trails several times.... i speak as though it's your fault, ..there actually is no fault, we worked so well together that no major accidents ever happened. You've carried me up horse trails in Minnesota, windy cliffs in Tennessee, freezing temps in Boston, snowy paths in South Dakota...even to work. Sometimes you rode through dog shit. Miles and miles and miles. You were dear to me. you took hits for me. several times i almost whapped my foot on posts, and tree stumps but moved my foot and you took the hit. your pedals were soo jacked up. for this i am sorry. You were there with some good times riding with my other human friends. I recall Derek B, Big D, Yvette, Walt, Kat, Urbano, the boys, chapa, Deja,

Duluth, MN

Abe, and a few others who will forgive me for not remembering. Interesting times. Photographic times. I thought I almost lost you in New York, remember that one?  i was looking for you for like over an hour walking up and down the confusing streets of Greenwich Village. geez. You sure were a blast. I'm sorry i didn't have a stronger chain on you. You were worth it fo sho. This I regret. No one jacked with you in all these other crazy cities, for some reason i thought you were safe here in your home, San Antonio. I was overconfident in my past experiences. Again. I regret this move the most.

NY,NY

you will be missed. you will be thought about. every time I ride my friend walts bike (which he is loaning me, and for which I am thankful) with the seat that feels like it's going up my butt in a gross way, i'll think of you. You were comfy on the tush. MMMmmmm. Grand ole memories mister bike. Thanks for the good times and the fast speeds, up the hills, down the roads and through the towns. If you find a way to make yourself to some major streets that I ride down on the bus, I will see you. I will call out to you. We will be together again. I will never stop glancing at other bikes that go by me.. NEEVVVERRR!!!! =) Yes, we will be together again.
Godspeed,
the adamus.

Niagra Falls

Camera Exchange, San Pedro Dr. SA, TX, just hours before your bikenapping