Sleeping on the bus

Wednesday Katie brought over a bike she wanted ome help with and we started working on it when Thomas showed up. To welcome him back we went out and bought some beer and came back to work on stuff. I want to say we got a good hour of slow bike work done before it ended up laying neglected on my floor while we just hung out and talked instead. More people came over, I ended up in drag, some people left, others came over a little more nakedness. By midnight it was Katie, Anna, Thomas, Sam, Joel and I and the bike still laying neglected on the kitchen floor with arts and crafts supplies, cookies, and skittles strewn across the floor.

Overall it was a pretty sucessful build. I ended up crashing at 4 knowing that I had a paper due the next morning at 11 that I was yet to start. Thursday morning I went to class, and went home. Everyone was gone, so I gave them a call to find out where they went, and caught the bus to go meet them by the mall. The mall is a wretched place to be so we left and went to Jeff and Jims to get some smotherellas, god that sounds good right now. By 2 we were back at the joynt for a while. I went home cleaned house, and went to campus to do some more work. On my way home I ran into Chris heading out to the Thursday night ride, so I tagged along to Racys and got some coffee, hung out for a while and headed home. I still love seeing groups of bikers riding together around downtown, and even the ride 5 or so blocks home with a few more people just feels really good. But no amount of coffee could kep me awake and by 9pm I was asleep, now I am here.

I can't belive that it's Friday already, and as exciting as it is I can't help but be dissapointed that if the weekend goes as fast as the week, Im in for trouble come Monday. Tonight Rocky Horror is showing at midnight and Im pretty sure Im going to be there, and tomorrow morning I leave to see people in River Falls and Minneapolis. It should be a good time but right now all I want is sleep, and all the snow to melt. In other news Rat Patrol is in the media again and is briefly mentioned in a piece reviweing a book about the politics of bikes. The mention in the review is brief http://www.chicagojournal.com/main.asp?SectionID=5&SubSectionID=5&ArticleID=4006 But the whole piece in the book reads as below.

THE RAT PATROL

The Rat Patrol is simultaneously the most visible and the most esoteric of the biking groups in the Chicago area. Their visibility connects to the machines they ride, and to their appearance. Uniformly, their bikes are personal creations, imaginative amalgamations soldered together from discarded bikes. There is a preference for choppers, and for double-decker ‘tall bikes” whose frames are welded together vertically. But the overriding norm is for originality. Part of the fun, and the Rats have lots of fun, is creating the most improbable sort of pedal-powered machine that actually works. Adding to the visibility are the members themselves. Johnny Payphone, a key member of the group, was quick to point out that the age of members ranged into the sixties, but the group clearly skews young. And while this also varies, there is a marked preference for body piercing, tattoos, interesting hair, and sartorial distinctiveness. One can get a flavor of the Rat Patrol by going to their website at chicagofreakbikes.org.

These things combine to make a Rat Patrol ride hard to miss; inevitably, such rides are a form of street theater on wheels. When the Rats show up for a Critical Mass, as some occasionally do, they are the riders whom onlookers find most interesting and amusing. Their presence is a balm for irritated motorists, making the Mass more bearable. There is something quintessentially American about an odd assortment of self-conscious misfits gamboling down a street on unlikely machines. When they ride the Chicago streets by themselves, the level of hostility almost entirely dissipates. Something primordial in an American soul is stirred—perhaps a flickering recognition that we may be, after all, a nation of infinite possibility. Although there can be an immediate impulse toward panic when they first roll into view, this is quickly overcome by smiles as they roll by.

For all their visibility, there is something esoteric about the Rat Patrol as well. Their distinctiveness attracts, but it also establishes boundaries. The Rats are saying, after all, “We’re not like the rest of you.” Most of their rides take place at night, and much of the riding occurs in the alleys of the city. Dumpster Diving is integral to the Rats’ gestalt as they search for discarded items—clothes, food, household goods, books, bikes—that, in one way or another, they can use. Americans tend to find Dumpster Diving offensive, and it is associated with the most destitute members of society. Perhaps because it is uncomfortable to recognize that they exist, the poor are often shooed out of alleys by residents and police officers. The presence of the poor in such darkened places defines their wretchedness. The Rats dive by choice, and this decision reflects a conscious critique of the dominant culture. When a resident encounters twenty people who may look strange, but who are obviously not homeless, chattering away gleefully while systematically going through a large dumpster, it becomes a pretty explicit commentary on the consumer-driven, throw away culture in which we live. The term “Rat Patrol” is well chosen, as the group gains sustenance through our garbage.

On their rides and in internet communication, rats are mimicked and language morphed to evoke the patron rodent. Actually seeing a rat on a ride is always a high point.There is a strong anarchist tinge to the group, and most Rats are reluctant to discuss any binding ideas, which suggest to them elements of coercion. The irony is the Rats are a pretty tight group. They obviously enjoy each others’ company. Members of the Rat Patrol tend to have a much more significant commitment to it than is typical for biking clubs. It lists more than 200 members, forty or fifty of whom seem to be quite active. “Insider” names are often adopted, and special phrases and language idiosyncrasies adapted. Many discuss club membership in terms of a “way of life.” And it is a life at variance with the traditional paths of success in the dominant culture. Cultures confer identities, and it is not too much to suggest that the Rat Patrol functions as a counter or alternative cultural group. Rather than postulating some overarching philosophy, it is probably better, and closer to the spirit of the group, simply to indicate norms that are visible as they hang out. In the time I spent with them, two of these norms were apparent: anti-consumerism and personal autonomy. These norms are connected, as there is a fairly widespread conviction among Rats that the real cost of the consumer society is its requirement that autonomy be relinquished. In the minds of Rats, people make it in the larger society because they decide to play along. They believe people lose control of their lives because they are convinced that the baubles dangled before them are what they need. To get them, they follow prescribed paths.The Rats are stylish, but it is not the style that leaps off the pages of Cosmo; it is self-created style, one largely constructed out of their own inventiveness and of what others, in the ceaseless struggle to be “now,” have thrown away. I visited the apartment of one Rat to see the two bikes she had built and of which she was justly proud. While there, she pointed out the things she had gotten to supply her apartment while Dumpster Diving. It was an impressive array.

The Rats want to be open to outsiders, but they are also somewhat wary of them—especially if they seem to have an agenda. They worry about cooptation. They understand how agents of the consumer society are constantly trolling for some new “thing” to promote consumption and induce conformity. Think of the X games. Some Rats have experienced this first hand. The norm of personal autonomy leads to skills sharing. Anyone can suggest an event, and everyone is encouraged to do so. In a little over a week, various members proposed and staged rides, a brunch, a silkscreen printing, a camping trip to Michigan, a sewing session, a writers’ workshop, and a building day. Five different members proposed these seven events. One Rat organizes a sewing session at which others may learn how to create interesting things to wear. Another puts together a writing workshop where projects are shared and discussed by those in attendance. Music and musical ideas are developed and shared at a Rat party. At a silk screening session, whose purpose is to place various Rat designs and symbols on a variety of materials, members take turns working through the process, and thereby learn about it. The results are not perfect, but this is not a problem as the imperfections enhance the authenticity of the products. And of course all make their own bikes, which requires learning skills, including welding. One can be helped, even helped quite a bit, but it is very important to the Rats to put their personal imprints on their rides.

Television is seen by the Rats as something that is positively harmful. It recreates a corporate version of reality and promotes consumerism. And it wastes time, induces passivity and stifles creativity. Consequently, TV smashing has become an occasional ritual they enjoy. Sets found in alleys are carted to a factory used to build bikes. At this factory, there is a device that can crush TV sets. One member will plea on behalf of the machine. “Is there nothing redeeming about this set? What about Judge Judy?” When nothing is found, the TV is hurled to its doom.The group’s members come from different places. Some have enjoyed success in the business world, found that life unfulfilling, and opted out of it. Others have found niches in that world that provide sustenance but also enough latitude to be a Rat. Still others have never been in that world. A fair number are students. Many hold jobs that allow them to live without significant compromise to their values. Their lower sense of need allows them to accept jobs that others would find paid too little. Additionally, the Rats are very good at making their own entertainment. And so they can get along with such jobs as waiting tables, walking dogs, and delivering things on their bikes. The group has aspiring writers, musicians and artists.It is easy to see why the bike is such a central metaphor for the Rat Patrol.

The freakbikes, as they are called, serve to pique interest in the group. Whenever I discussed bikes with Rats, they invariably said that membership in the group caused them to think much more seriously about the machine and to integrate it more completely into their lives. In part, the bike is an explicit rejection of the dominant symbol of the consumer society—the automobile. It is a technology that is built to human scale, one that anyone can master. That mastery nurtures autonomy. But the Rats believe that this machine can also be co-opted by the consumer society, and they are disdainful of people who scurry to get the latest high-end models and the various accoutrements that are marketed as a necessary part of bike riding. This is why it is so important to the Rats that they make their own bikes, and it is why they love them so.Ratification, an annual “celebration of accomplishment,” takes place at the end of each summer. At the one I attended there were contests around various club themes, and awards for such things as the “rattiest rat bike,” the inner tube with the most patches (each patch representing $5 that was not spent on a new tube) and the best fashion statement. There were rat bike races and tall bike jousting. The celebration was held in a low income neighborhood, where a number of Rats occupy a good portion of an apartment building. There was no yard space, and so much of the party occurred in the street in front of the building. Consequently, this made it something of a public affair. This bothered neither the Rats nor their neighbors, who strolled through the party checking out the bikes and what was cooking on the grill. The grill itself is of interest. It is a converted oil drum that has been mounted on the front of a three wheeled (adult) tricycle, so as to be portable. People brought things to grill, including vegetables for the numerous vegetarians in the group. But the piece de resistance was a “varmit,” the grilling of which had been announced in emails leading up to Ratification. It was in fact a rabbit that had been gutted and skinned but was otherwise completely intact. Splayed on the grill, it looked remarkably like a skinned rat on steroids, which they winkingly told wide-eyed kids neighborhood it was. Of such things are urban legends made. Police kept eyeing the party, but no one was complaining, and so there were no hassles.One Rat called for a midsummer’s night ride to celebrate the completion of two new rat bikes.

It was a Dumpster Diving ride, and most of these begin at a service station parking lot on the north side of the city. No one was there at 8:30, the designated starting time for the ride, but folks began to arrive at around 8:45. As they gathered, there was a fair amount of banter and experimentation with the various bikes. When unaffiliated riders pedaled by, the Rats would beckon them to join the party. None did, but one or two stopped to check out the scene. At about 9:30 twenty riders began working their way mostly through alleys in search of booty. It was a playful ride, with lots of joking, mimicking, calling of rats, and self-effacement. “It is truly amazing to see what people throw away,” one of the riders assured me. One large dumpster was relieved of about half of its content, including a bottle of still-cold champagne that was opened and consumed on the spot. Some of the riders had trailers to carry the booty; others found inventive ways to affix it to their bikes.The Rats were never hostile, and they always picked up after themselves, never leaving a mess. Nevertheless residents who happened to encounter the group in an alley seemed a little nonplussed. This is understandable. It was dark. It was an urban area. It was an alley. And it was an assortment of odd-looking people interested in garbage. After a few minutes at one dumpster, a cop car pulled up, causing most of the Rats to scramble off on their bikes. Johnny Payphone lingered to chat with the police officer. “We’re the Rat Patrol, just looking for things to help us get by,” he said, in a calm voice that might have been describing a Rotary Club meeting. “You haven’t heard of us? We’ve been doing this for seven years.” When the officer said that someone had called in to complain about a disturbance, Johnny said, “Yeah. Sometimes we do get a little noisy. Sorry.” And with that, he rode off to join the others.When the Rat Patrol ventured onto the streets, the reception was quite different. The direction of any particular ride largely depends upon who happens to be at the front of the group at any given moment. As this ride developed, one Rat mentioned a rumor that there was live music at one of the north beaches, and eventually the group began to meander in that direction. This involved riding along a significant stretch of relatively busy streets. Motorists did not object, and seemed content to follow along, despite the slow pace. Pedestrians frequently cheered. When they arrived at the beach there was no music however, and the police were closing things down because of the 11:00PM curfew. The Rats slinked away into the night.

It's a pretty long article but it's pretty good. Im excited to look at the book it cam efrom now though. In other news Im going to be seeing about making the reservations for the film fest in the next week, and once that is done the next step is final film selection and promotion. I'm pretty excited to say the least.