stuff

So I decided to go on this crazy year long bicycle journey to Brazil with Mestre Acordeon 2 weeks before the thing started. Yes, I know it may have been better to plan this a little longer. Or not. If you are new to this blog you can check the ridicolous chain of events here and here. The first inkling of what I was getting myself into was an excel sheet that I received from Bebum - "why do today if you can do it tomorrow". It was a monster of an equipment list that the B2B crew had put together to ride to Brazil. I also needed to get a bike.

Clearly a bike that only a guy standing on his head would think is fit to ride to Brasil.

It was, in one word, intimidating. I stopped counting at 200, and started thinking of what I could do tomorrow. But it had to be done so I'd go to four different shops and buy… exactly none of the items. Insect repellent, biodegradable soap, water purification methods. Stove, pot, which fuel to use? 500 and one things for a medical emergency (!) kit, clothes, sleeping bag, tools, patch kit, replacement parts. Bear spray, dog whistles, bike bell, reflectors, pepto bismol. It had no end. Though at least it did not recommend diapers for Montezuma's revenge.

I don’t know how (thank you, helpful friends), but two weeks later as I lined up on the first day of my new lives with all the other crazy riders I managed to have everything packed in my panniers and strapped to my ridicolous Recumbent Bike. I was prepared! Nothing could harm me or my trusted steelhorse from here on out.

Sorry, not authorized to go to Brasil!

Of course on that same first day Bebum and I camp out on the beach in San Francisco and the rest, especially Bebum’s bike, and gear and half of my stuff were, as they say, history. I still wonder what the bum did with my greencard. I mean, if he is one thing, he is legal to be a bum in the USA.

So after being robbed of all our stuff Bebum had nothing but his tent, sleeping bag, Chapul's Cricket Bars and some cash left while I had been liberated of my wallet including some cash and all my cards, my clothes, sleeping bag and bike stuff. Fate is an ironic bitch. On the day we left Bebum probably had as much stuff as fellow B2B rider Tora. A day later, not so much. You can read how we stayed positive throughout that crazy second day here. We did not have access to any real resources until my replacement cards came, which was four weeks later in Los Angeles. We could not buy clothes, gear, or tons of food. The little money that Bebum had was spent on a bike for him and fixing it. So we made do. And making do we learned that we didn’t need most of the stuff that was on that monster list. For a month a used Trader Joe's re-usable plastic shopping bag was my second panier. It was a pain in the ass. It worked. I also went shopping with my big ol' five Dollars at Goodwill.

Didn't buy this ridicolous hat.

This one seemed much more stylish at the time.

M. Mago clearly approves.

Before I left my swankily located yet sparsely inventoried apartment to sit my butt on a bike for a year I did not own a lot of stuff either. I had been moving around the world since high school, twenty years by now. Naturally, if you are moving from Austria to Australia as I did, you don’t bring more than what Quantas allows. When I moved to LA a six years later I had two medium sized bags to my name. Another twelve years, five cities, endless road and world trips later I packed up all the belongings that I wanted to keep after the year I was planning to be riding bike. Everything else I gave away.

I remained with two bags of clothes, a bunch of books and a blender. I seem to have an essentially functional relationship with stuff. I need to wear stuff, I like to read stuff and I blend stuff since I recently found out that I can’t eat most things normal in a western diet.

How much stuff someone needs to be happy varies widely from person to person. Some of us need more stuff to be comfortable, some of us need less stuff. Since it was me, not a horse, not a dog, not a woman or a slave carrying my stuff, I was rather sensitive about how much stuff I had. And yet, over the course of a year of riding bike stuff accumulated, again. It's as if stuff, like mana, magically appeares out of thin air. Periodically, I would have to go through my stuff and, you guess right, give stuff away. If you are tired of reading the word "stuff" a lot, you can stuff it.

That fourth t-shirt that a really nice capoeirista gave you in San Salvador? Sorry, donate it, you only end up wearing one to three shirts. Remember him in your heart instead. The biodegradable soap? Donate it, its lighter to use normal soap. Stop washing your hair. The third pair of sports undies? Donate them to Sondermüll. The headlamp? Donate it, you have a bike lamp that miraculously gives light too. Toss the cutting board, are you kidding me? Toss the tent, get a hammock. Keep the knife, stove, pot and your girlfriend’s spices. Keep the sleeping bag. Keep two of every clothing item. Keep your bike tools, a sowing kit and electric device chargers/adapters. Go ride. Still getting to many flats because your bike is too heavy? Throw some stuff out.

The lighter I got the easier I felt.  Bike riding is not only a gloriously meditative and healthy see and smell the world activity. It’s also a direct feedback loop on why possessions are bullshit. Because, like you, I ask myself: Other than clothes, food and a place to sleep what do I really need on a bike? And to take this to a logical conclusion, is my normal life any different?

So, get rid of stuff. Move into a smaller house. Be Dutch. Channel your inner Japanese. Live small. Do what you love, instead of wasting time on work so that you can buy stuff you think will make you happy but that you never use because you have to work so much to pay for it. Work 30 hours instead of 50 and hang out with your kids more.

For those of you who already do this >> great stuff. For those of you, who want to tell me fuck it, I like stuff, that's cool too. Everyone is different. Tora had every item under they sun, just in case. He spent two hours every day organizing his stuff - and it made him happy. I on the other hand did not have so much, went for many swims, did unnecessary bouldering, played flute, wrote some crap that nobody wants to read and watched that grass grow or that small mexican city plaza flow - and it made me happy. Bebum had a didge. And two bikes more than all of us.

I am not the keeper of your spare time and Tora is not the judge of your effectiveness. I can not tell if that 20th pair of jeans really made you happy and Tora doesn't know if that snake venom remover kit should have been in my bags after all. We all are the makers of our own happiness.

That being said. Get rid of some stuff. One day you might have to carry it.

one year later

In one week it will be one year since Mestre Acordeon, Mestra Suelly and the B2B crew left Berkeley, California for Salvador, Bahia. Clean chains reflected the California sun. Way too much gear made their bikes heavy. Muscles screamed, not accustomed to the daily strain. They thought it would be a long journey but they did not know what it meant to be on the road for over a year. Wet behind the ears, yet eyes brimming with hopes and dreams.

Today, 120 km from Recife and 1000 km from Salvador anyone who takes a minute to look – and many can’t help but do - knows the B2B crew carries with them the hardships of a road less traveled. Long distance riders in the Americas stick to the coasts, avoiding the mountains in the center, but B2B had to cross the central mountain ranges of Mexico, Central and South America several times. Try riding up and down two to six thousand meters of steep, badly maintained mountain roads six times in five months and you will know what these road warriors went through. But up there on those high plateaus is where the cities are, where the capoeira is. And this is a capoeira journey.

They slept in strange places - fields, gas stations, ice cream parlors, on roofs, in really cramped quarters and restaurants or fire stations. They rode in any condition that this good green earth can possible throw at them. Their bikes are dirty, handlebar tape thread-bare, gears creak along and replacement tires are worn out. Their bodies are in no better shape than their bikes and any of them can name you at least three areas that are in need of immediate care or at least very long rest.

Yet that light in their eyes shines on. And as they come closer and closer to their goal it is brighter every day. Salvador is not only their Mestre’s and Capoeira’s home land, it is their promised land. It is what they have been striving for, the final and ultimate reason for why they rode 14.000 km and shot terabytes of film. They work long hours, select and edit material, write story lines and perfect sound conditions. They try not to fall asleep after a long day of riding while their Mestre gives untold numbers of workshops to hungry Capoeiristas. And every day they force their weary bones up from hard floors at 5 am to follow him down the road.

The ever present road, shimmering in the heat, carrying pain and gain in equal measure. Out here, their shadows remain their only constant companion. And as they ride further away from the equator those shadows grow longer and longer, and they suddenly realize that the final moments of this journey of a life time are upon them. Mixed emotions of elation, a sense of accomplishment, gratefulness and gladness for the light at the end of a long tunnel compete for limited space in their toughened hearts. After a year together most everything is limited for them. Emotional capacity, physical endurance and the desire to move forward are all hanging by a bare thread. 

Now their Mestre’s will power keeps them going, helps them reach their goal and finish what they started. A man, only a few days from his 71^st birthday, himself suffering from nightly leg cramps and constant back pain, braving various other physical, emotional and spiritual hardships, carries this ragtag group of capoeira cyclists on his tough shoulders through the final month of an epic journey. It could only end this way.

Axé Capoeira

u-turn

His glasses are like the bottoms of coke bottles. The old kind. The ones you can only get outside of USA. The ones with real sugar. None-regulated and highly caffeinated.

"Que hace este pendejo en bicicleta en medio de la pinche calle en la noche?" He thinks as he yells at the Gringo to get into his pickup and toss his bike into the back.
Gringo from the central cold steppes of the Ukrainian planes does as told.
"Quieres una cerveza?" the weirdly physically oxymoronic 50something yells.
"Si Compadre, Si" says Cantador, polite international traveler that he is, and grabs the two beers offered.
"Quieres fumar mota?" and offers the joint he just dragged on. Cantador wonders if the dark pinche calle might not be the safer place to be right now. But then again, this is his only way to reach our campsite, another incredible natural wonder along the Bahia de Conception on the Sea of Cortez.

We all start checking the broken down Pickup truck as it approaches. Then Cantador, two beers, one case of beers, a reefer and four delicious fish that Cantador organized for all the B2B Riders emerge. He must have forgotten his wife Diana somewhere along the way. Before we start grilling we need firewood. U-Turn offers his, way too many (all) of us jump into the back of his tailgate-less truck. Maybe looking for U-turn making adventures. Would you rather be Sean Penn or Jennifer Lopez? Billy-Bob Thornton is taken.

U-Turn jabbers a million miles an hour as we rock past the beach and the gringo trailers at the end of it. I know that kind of jibber-jabber. The Shabu does the talking. Embracing the world and everyone in it, for days on end. The paranoia comes later.

perfect pix thx Balao

Stops at a gate to open it, drives on his on personal beach to his trailer. The stars stream their light in perfect silence. Geese and Chicken chill on the beach. Unbeknownst to us hordes of bloodsucker lick their chops at the fresh white meat. We help him unload his truck after he turns on his generator and Christmas lights, offers two joints, drives us to his firewood, yells at us about the pinche corrupt Mexican government, drops us off to our campsite and disappears into the night after he invites us out to his place for whenever.

We need to be friends with U-Turn.

B2B grills with the help of Diana and Cantador. Little do we know how good they are at Seafood. He trains with Mestre Mariano in Santa Barbara and moonlights as Evolutionary Biology and spear fisher. Yes, Cantador is a badass. We all pass out with food coma. Arroz con Leche over Campfire with Cinnamon lastet shorter than U-Turn's supply to build a Palapa.

The next day most of the crew rolls to catch up with Mestra and Mestre after a good Capoeira session on the beach. Mariano, Bebum, Cantador, Diana, Pirata as well as Yola ride out to U-Turn' s beach.

We ride to his RV. Shockingly his coke bottle bottom glasses are gone. What? He doesn't look like he will shoot and feed us to his pigs anymore (not out of malice, but pure sense of economy, you understand).

We want U-turn back.

He lets us have one of the Palapas and goes back to leveling half his ground BY HAND! En el medio pinche dias caloroso. Which he was also doing last night after he dropped us back. Soon he will have the flattest flat on the block.

We set up and Mariano and Cantador head over to pay him a visit and invite him to lunch. They return with a full set of spear fishing gear.

And "Man, his name is Marco  He used to be the Chief of Staff for the President. For 17 years. Then they framed him for murder, threw him in jail and the key away. He just got out last year after 10 years. And bought this place to get away."

The level of crazy in this desert is quite outstanding, even by desert standards.

U-Turn!

"And, he said all of that after he invites me into his funky Tarantino like trailer - light streaming through fucked up blinds 'n shit - then tells me to find his spear fishing gear somewhere in one of the closets and proceeds to smoke crack out of a light bulb right in front of me and Cantador while we go through all his shit."

Two hours later

Exhibit 1 for Badass (Cantador)

Life is like Capoeira.

We go back to borrow a grill for the two Halibut etc that Herr Badass acquired in the bay, and come back with a grill and lemons. U-Turn is still leveling. And he won't be eating any time soon. We settle in to sleep after a righteous meal and our host swings by to drop of some mosquito coils. He was taking a break from leveling. But not for long. Two of his friends show up and they go to twork until sunup. At which point the spread is flat. And so is U-Turn's earth. Or so we think.

Despite his tweaking days and yelling ways, he is another example in a long list of voluntary local Mexican hospitality that we are forced to compare with the local gringo kind, which usually goes down like this:

"Hey, that's great you guys. What a journey, to Brazil, huh? Is there anything you all need? Can I help with anything?"
"Hmmm, no we are fine... Well, maybe some eggs?"
"Oh... how many are you thinking?"
"Up to you."
"We juuust came back from the store, well, we have some, but..."
-
"You guys look like survivors, you'll get on. Yeah, sorry, no can do."

No matter how poor, no matter how deported, no matter the motives of the locals for helping us consistently it seems that Mexican hospitality is rather outstandingly great. The B2B crew has an ongoing discussion about this, trying to figure out if its us, our story, the locals, the gringos or any combination thereof. What do you think?

Finally, U-Turn is apparently not another crazy Mexican dude mad at the govern'mint. We googled him - and the interwebs never lie. His name is Marco Antonio Daccarett Habib. He did get thrown into jail for murder and seems to have been involved in a murky real estate transaction back in the day with government officials. Far be it from us to know who is guilty of what, but in prison everyone is innocent. You would be too.

Should we be glad we had the spear in our campsite over night? Hindsight is like wearing glasses the size of coke bottle bottoms. The old kind.

i saw a Mestre cry today

I saw a Mestre cry today. A man who has taken life’s full measure and came away humbled yet spirited. Mestre Acorden, more symbol than man, who tries desperately to remove himself from people’s greedy eyes and the emotions they attach to their idea of him. So desperate that he will sit his weary ass on a bike for one year. To get away. To find himself once more. And to connect to a past he may have lost long ago.

Mestre Acordeon shed tears of regret and missed opportunities, reading "The Making of a Mestre" to a bunch of kids. We can not adequately describe what it feels like to witness this openness of spirit, this living with your arms stretched to the horizons. Sucking the marrow out of each moment given. Each moment of truth, of sadness and happiness, of failure and accomplishment.

What was this story? This power? This allegory and evaluation of one person’s life? What moved Mestre so much that he spent an evening exercising his human right and duty to simply feel? No matter what the circumstance. No matter who the audience. No matter how much water had flown under the bridge of Mestre Bimba’s life and death.

Do we attach undue greatness to a moment of public introspection because to us Capoeiristas it is as if the President spoke of meeting the Pope - and regretted not having washed his feet towards the end? Maybe the greatness of the moment is a natural result of the greatness of the man living that moment? Or is there really nothing special about this at all - just an old man considering the pages of his book?

For us B2B Riders many questions remain in our overcycled and dehydrated minds about this moment. Questions that Capoeiristas and others may be able to answer one day in a far away and hopefully wiser future. For our pasts recede from all of us.

The Making of a Mestre” pg. 131 in Mestre Acordeon’s book “Capoeira, a Brazilian Art Form”.

one year before B2B

One year ago I barely grasped that Capoeira might not be just another martial art. Mestres keep talking about how Capoeira is like life, life is like Capoeira. But when I tried to esquiva (a dodging maneuver in Capoeira) my next deliverable at work my boss just laughed at me. Right now I try to remember every day that I know nothing. Which is probably a good starting point for any human endeavor. 

Saying that Capoeira is like life and that life is like Capoeira draws two kinds of responses from an audience. Head-nodding agreement and blank stares of incomprehension. Now I know that this will happen most times when Capoeiristas and none-Capoeiristas discuss Capoeira. But The Now is not the topic of this topic Herr Tolle. Instead you should know that back then I did not think that I could just join a journey such as Mestre Acordeon's. You would be justified to expect Mestres, Contra Mestres and players with their books written full of stories about life and Capoeira to be polishing their bikes, packing their survival gear and reading up on how exactly Montezuma's revenge affects the digestive tract of white people.

So I looked on in envy how Mestre and his group started to prepare. I even knew one Capoeirista out of Salt Lake City who was going to try go on the trip. Bebum, who trains with Mestre Jamaika at Volta Miuda. Every day I trained my butt off with Professor Fenix's Grupo Candeias in Seattle's International district to become better in all aspects of this complex art form. Every day I went to a job that had become stale, not because the work or the group I was in was bad, but rather because I seem to require constant fresh and interesting input. Most jobs don't provide that. Once you figure them out, you go on auto pilot.

I had moved to Seattle on another Software Localization Contract, my 5th,  in 2009 right after a six month trip around the world. I was hoping to go to Marocco for at least as long afterwards. I thought I was going stay 8-12 month before going to Africa but then the pesky world economic crises made me face reality for once and I decided to take the full time job that Microsoft generously offered while Paulson called the Hammer down on 99% of us. You want to know about the fulltime job? Mom was happy. I was feeling old. I did love the challenges of working in that Type A personality zoo called Microsoft. And settling into Seattle was like traveling to a new country for me because growing roots was definitely a new experience.

Seattle grew on me like moss on a rock. Tim Robbins, a native, provides ecclectic if slightly whack imagery if you'd like some nice descriptions of that rather moist part of the world. I liked it. It seemed, for a short while at least, that it could break a certain rythm that constant moving had established. After I went to Australia from my homeland Austria in 1995 to attend University for three years I flew to Tokyo on a one-way ticket with 50 bucks in my pocket and ended up staying for two years. Met a girl there and moved to Hawaii in 2000 before finally arriving on the West Coast and living all up and down that amazing part of the world. I had been a waiter, a barrista, a night club party organizer, a bar tender, a florist, an event planner, a stage builder, an orchid small business owner, a translator, a computer localization tester, engineer, project manager and finally in my last job a Release Manager on the Windows Phone Team. Only in America is it possible to move from working a 4AM to noon minimum wage job in the Downtown Los Angeles wholesale flower market to working a badass job in one of the most successful companies in the world. The USA, like most countries, has many good and bad sides. But it is uniquely great in that sense. 

Yet still, it is not enough. I really wanted to go ride bike.