[The Artist's Ego]

[In Search of Diamonds] 

[Asleep at the Wheel] 

[1984] 

[Piss Artists] 

[Why Do I Write] 

[My Hero]

More material can be found on my Blog

Universal Intelligence

I believe there is a Universal Intelligence at work in the Universe. You only have to watch one of those nature documentaries on TV about the rain forest to see this Intelligence at work. A colony of soldier ants moves through the jungle and they come to an obstacle, some of the ants will link their legs together to form a living bridge for the rest of the ants to cross over.

How do they do it? The scientists ask. How do they communicate? To me the answer is simple they are guided by Intelligence in the same way the swallow and the salmon find their way back to the place of their birth. The same way every organ and cell in my body functions without any conscious thought from me. You may as well ask how my heart communicates with my kidney, or my stomach with my liver.

  I also believe that this same Intelligence is my intelligence. It is not in my brain, my brain is simply the receiver. This accounts for reason you can be thinking of someone and the phone rings and it is that person. Or you can be talking to a friend about a third person and that person will show up. This is such a common occurrence that we have a saying for it. We say, “Speak of the Devil.”

  The Universal Intelligence knows everything; the answer to any problem is out there. Whenever I misplace some thing, I quietly tell myself “The Universal Mind knows where this item is.” I go on quietly looking and always find the item. This will only work if I believe it will, which is where faith comes in. The slightest doubt and it will not work.

  I believe this Universal Intelligence is what some people refer to as God; only I don’t need to belong to some religion or other to connect with It. Human kind is the only species that requires that we belong to a religion. All other species seem to survive without it. Of course animals can’t go to Heaven, but to me Heaven and Hell are what we create for ourselves here on Earth. We all know people whose lives are filled with trouble and turmoil. A living Hell brought on by their negative thinking.

  Let me ask this; if human kind disappeared from the face of this planet, what would happen? Nothing really; the Earth would keep turning, the sun would still rise in the east and set in the west. Rain would still fall; water would run into rivers and flow back to the ocean; plants and animals would flourish. In time cities man had built would crumble and decay; forest would revert back to forest, and desert back to desert. The same Intelligence that runs the whole show now would continue to run things.

  This Intelligence is my God; the one within myself. I don’t need to go the Tibet or India to find Him, It is where ever I am. I don’t pray to Him; I just try to keep good positive thoughts, because after all what is a prayer but a positive thought? And as for praising God, what’s that all about? God has an ego that we need to praise Him? I find it doesn’t hurt to thank God once in a while. By doing so I acknowledge the existence of the Universal Intelligence and I am re-enforcing my own belief.

Added 3/31/06

The Artist's Ego.

Just about anything can be found on the Internet, even abuse. People not getting abuse at home or in their job can find it via Internet Forums. I found this out recently when I stumbled upon a bike forum. People were asking technical questions about bicycles and, as I had spent over thirty-five years in this field, I felt I had answers.

My reasons for participating were simple; I looked on the exercise as research to see if there was a need for a future book on bike tech, and if nothing else it would draw traffic to my website and make a few more people aware of my book. Most people posting on Internet Forums do so using a pseudonym; I joined this forum under my real name because people had to know who was posting this information in order for it to have credibility, and also a person cannot promote themselves or their Website anonymously.

My postings were well received for the most part; many people remembered my past work in the field and some paid me compliments. I did not ask for this but when it happened I responded with a thank you. There was, however, a minority who wanted to argue with me and did so in a rude and hostile manner, and when one of those responding was persistently obnoxious I went off on a tirade myself. This was a huge mistake.

My thinking was I would not allow someone to speak like this to my face; why should I tolerate it on an Internet Forum. The fact I was participating under my own name, even though it was my choice, made it personal; had I been anonymous it would have mattered less.

My response brought even more abuse and hostility I was told this was an Internet Forum and what did I expect? Phrases like “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen” were banded about. When someone suggested my posts were a thinly disguised attempt to get people to stroke my ego, I decided to quietly withdraw.

This whole  episode did cause me to do some serious self searching and to ask myself, did I really have an ego, and did it need stroking? I gave the matter much thought and it has been three months between the Bike Forum incident and my writing this. My conclusion is, yes, I have an ego but then so do all artists; otherwise there would be no artists and there would be no art. On “Inside the Actors Studio” on “Bravo” the cable network channel, many famous actors have stated the reason they became actors was because they stood on a stage and said, “Look at me and look what I can do.” Why would any artist create anything if they did not have the ego to think that another person would be the least bit interested in what they had created?

Some “New Age” and self help books would have us believe that an ego is a bad thing. Part of the dictionary description of the word ego is: “Self-esteem and self-image.” Surely this is a good thing? An egoist on the other hand is: “A self-centered and selfish person.”  So as I see it a person can have an ego but not necessarily be an egoist. Most artists I know are caring people, and are definitely not egoists; what drives them is a desire to affect the lives of others in a positive way. Without this drive, there would be no entertainment, no movies, music, or books. Some artists become rich and famous, but this is not why they become an artist; I would go far as to say that those who become artists to make a lot of money, seldom make any.

When someone takes the time to contact me an tell me they still ride and enjoy a bike I built some twenty years ago, or they have read and enjoyed my book, you could say they are stroking my ego, but what it is telling me is that I have affected another life in a positive way.

In our everyday lives, when someone goes out of their way to do something for us we thank them; even for a simple act like holding a door open. Without it, the whole fabric of our society would disintegrate. When someone contacts or speaks to me and makes some positive comment about a bicycle, or my book or anything else I created, I do not see it as stroking my ego, but as a thank you for something I have done for that person. We do not go around thanking people who have done nothing for us, so really it is not possible to solicit people to stroke one’s ego.

The whole purpose of my Website and anything I do to draw attention to it is to promote a book I spent a year and a half of my life in creating, to make people aware of its existence. But no one is going to thank me unless reading the book was a positive experience for them. If no one thanked us for holding a door, pretty soon we would all quit holding doors, and if people did not make positive comments about my writing, trust me, I would quit writing. If I did not then I would be an egoist.

In Search of Diamonds.

It was 1970 in my native England. I had just moved from a large industrial city to the relative peace and tranquility of rural Worcestershire. The move was prompted by a desire to improve the quality of life for my family that included my wife and two small children. This unspoiled West Country area was mainly agricultural and there was very little industry, but I found work with a farmer maintaining and repairing his farm equipment.

Part of the farm included an old abandoned WWII Airfield. The runways were still in place although grass and weeds now grew in the cracks between the concrete. In place also were the many buildings used during the war; built with brick, a single story high with corrugated asbestos roofs, these buildings once served as workshops, offices, and living quarters. One of the buildings was now my repair shop, while others served as parking garages for the tractors and other farm equipment. Some were used for storage but many were empty and lay derelict.

When I first arrived I explored throughout a labyrinth of empty rooms and passageways. Wild blackberry bushes grew around the outside in some cases as high as the buildings. Shutting out light, branches reached in through broken windowpanes in rusting cast-iron frames giving this place an eerie atmosphere. I wandered into one room and a startled rat in turn startled me as it ran across the floor and leapt through an open window. It was hard to imagine this place as it once was, a hotbed of activity during the war some twenty-five or thirty years before.

One warm and sunny spring morning I was outside when something caught my eye. Sunlight reflected on something and it sparkled brightly in the brickwork that formed the corner of an empty building. The walls of the buildings were only a single brick wide and a thin layer of cement had been applied to the outside to keep out moisture, With the years of neglect and weathering most of this cement had fallen from the walls. The object reflecting light was lodged in a crack between a remaining piece of cement and the brickwork.

I was intrigued enough to investigate further but a blackberry bush prevented me from getting any closer than eight feet away. I found a heavy wooden plank and laid it across the brambles. Stepping carefully, bouncing on the plank to crush the thorny branches, I reached the corner and looked directly into the crack in the wall.

I could not believe my eyes. I closed my eyes tight then opened them wide again to make sure I was seeing clearly, I peered inside the crack with one eye, closing the other against the bright sunlight. My eye was only inches away and I could see the object was a diamond ring; gold with three large diamonds in a beautiful ornate setting. I reached to retrieve it but stopped immediately as I sized up the situation. At the slightest touch this heavy piece of cement would fall and the ring would be lost in the brambles.

I walked back along the wooden plank and removed it from the bush. I ran inside the building and hitched a tractor to a heavy-duty brush mower. This piece of equipment would cut through a two-inch sapling and would clear this blackberry bush in very short order. It was really a two-man job to attach this mower but my adrenaline pumping provided the strength needed.

As I struggled to attach first the drive shaft then the hydraulic lifting arms, I wondered how the ring had got there. Had it been there since the war? Maybe a thief hid it hoping to retrieve it later. Someone on a bombing mission, not sure if they would return would not want a stolen ring to be found in their personal effects later. Or maybe a woman whose fiancé had been killed came here after the war and left the ring there in some personal ritual of closure.

I suddenly realized the mower was attached and I was standing daydreaming. I leapt into the tractor seat, started the engine and roared out from the parking garage. I swung around the corner of the building and put the tractor in reverse. I engaged the mower drive and backed slowly to the wall.

The mower cut a swath through the bush about five feet wide at one pass. I was careful not to hit the wall for fear of dislodging the piece of cement. I lowered the mower to the ground and pulled forward; I had removed the blackberry bush down to the bare dirt. I drove the tractor back inside and ran to get hand tools to finish the job. I found a pair of pruning shears, some heavy leather gloves and a rake. I finished clearing the area around the corner of the building, removed the gloves and prepared to retrieve the ring.

My heart was pounding so fast I had to stop and take some deep breaths. Placing my left hand to catch the ring as it fell; I reached up with my right hand to remove the piece of cement. I barely touched it and the ring disappeared in a flash. It was nothing more than a drop of rainwater suspended between the brick and cement.

I stood there feeling very foolish, nature had played a trick on me and I had fallen for it. There was no mistaking; I did see a fine gold and diamond ring. I saw three large diamonds in a beautiful setting but it was nothing more than a trick of sunlight on a drop of water.

Over the years since this incident I have come to realize a valuable lesson here. So often in my life I pursued something I perceived to be of great value; some material thing, or maybe a career or relationship. After a great deal of effort on my part in pursuing these goals I found they too were illusions; like sunlight on a drop of rainwater.

Asleep at the wheel

Everyone knows how difficult it is to sleep in a room without air conditioning on a hot summer night; you can’t sleep because you’re hot and uncomfortable. How is it then, under the exact same circumstances, driving a car on the freeway you can’t stay awake? Aren’t you even more uncomfortable than you were in bed? And why does the discomfort not work for you when you most need it to stay awake?

Driving the Los Angeles area freeways in the 1980s, early 1990s I did my fair share of dozing at the wheel, luckily without real serious mishap. One time I did nod off and touch one of those concrete barriers at the side of the road, the ones that are wider at the base designed so the wheels touch before the side of the car does. I was doing about seventy miles per hour at the time and my car was lifted as if by Godzilla or something about two feet on the right side and then slammed back down on the pavement. I can tell you the adrenaline rush this gives you will wake you faster than any amount of caffeine. I used to wonder how those black, semicircular tire marks got on those concrete barriers; now I knew.

My car was a piece of junk, 1975 Mercury Station Wagon. It did come with certain advantages; it gave me right of way for one.  When an eighteen wheeler cuts in front of you, you don’t argue, you back off. It’s the same with a 1975 Mercury Station Wagon; he who has the least to loose, has right of way, it’s an unwritten law. My disadvantage was the air conditioning didn’t work. but in Southern California you can manage without air conditioning in your car. Although the climate is hot the air is dry and driving with all the windows down is actually quite pleasant. Your arm resting on the top edge of the door, your hand on the rear view mirror; the breeze blows up your shirt sleeve keeping your body’s natural cooling system, namely your armpit working efficiently. The only problem with this form of nature’s air conditioning is that it breaks down at any time you go below speeds of forty miles per hour, which on LA’s freeways is most of the time.

When the traffic stopped on the freeway I would often get off and drive on city streets. Over the years I got to know my way around and could usually find an alternative route that might not get me home any quicker but would at least allow me to keep moving and the air flowing. However this one time the freeway took a path through a steep canyon and there were no alternative city streets to take without going some sixty miles out of my way. Traffic came to a stop and I could see it was at a standstill two or three miles ahead up a long gradient; it could be a while before we moved again. It was late afternoon and I started to doze. I decided not to fight the urge to sleep; I turned the engine off and lay down on the front bench seat. The person behind me would be sure to lay on the horn when we started moving again.

I have no idea how long I slept but I awoke to find traffic was moving by me on either side at about twenty-five or thirty miles per hour. The person behind me instead of alerting me when traffic started moving must have decided to go around me. People following seeing no one in the driver’s seat assumed it was an abandoned vehicle and continued going around me. I had just discovered another advantage to my chosen mode of transport; you can lie down, take forty winks in the middle of a six lane freeway and people will let you rest and simply go around you. My unusual afternoon nap had refreshed me enough that I was now fully alert as I completed the final leg of my journey. Had I brought ‘Sleeping at the Wheel’ to a whole new level?   

1984

1984 was an interesting year; it was the title of the book written by George Orwell in 1949. Big Brother was not watching us, at least not in the Free World; maybe in Russia and other Communist Block countries.

August 1984; the Olympics were being held in Los Angeles, and Russia was boycotting the games. That same month a little south of LA I was working in my bicycle business building a 52 centimeter bike frame. The frame went to California Bicycle, a bike store in La Jolla and was built into a bike for a lady living in San Diego.

August 2004; exactly twenty years later the person who now owns this very same bike  posts a picture of it on an Internet Bike Forum under the name of ‘Vintage Steve.’ Steve is well known to me, he first contacted me a year ago and told me of this bike; the serial number stamped on it told me the exact date it was built. In 1984 most of us could not even perceive the concept of the Internet any more than George Orwell perceived 1984 accurately when he wrote his book thirty-five years earlier.

The title of this thread on Bike Forums is “What road bike do you have?” Most of the pictures of bikes posted are the latest technological break-troughs built in carbon fiber. I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the new bikes posted on this website will be around twenty years from now in 2024? And will any one person be able to step forward and say, “I built that carbon fiber frame.” There is a very good possibility this same 52cm. bike I built will still be around; Vintage Steve will be a little more vintage; but I’m sure he will still be riding it.

As for me; well I’m planning on still being around. Maybe I will have written my masterpiece by then and moved onto something else. Who knew twenty years ago I would be doing what I’m doing now. Posting my thoughts for the whole world to read on the Internet; a medium we couldn’t even grasp at that time, but now take for granted.

Piss Artists.

I remember reading an ad in the employment section of a newspaper back in my native England sometime in the 1970s before I came to The United States. At the end of the ad it said “No Cowboys or Piss Artists.”

A Cowboy in the construction business or “The building trade” as it is referred to in the UK is a person with very little skill and a reputation for shoddy workmanship. A Piss Artist on the other hand is a little harder to define. I would know a Piss Artist if I met one, in fact I have met many in my lifetime. The Piss Artists are responsible for mediocrity in art but I think what defines them is: They don’t know it.

It’s a little like the term “Weirdo” we are never a Weirdo in our own eyes, but anyone can be someone else’s Weirdo. Most people with only a modicum of creative talent do not call themselves artists. Those who do risk falling in the category of Piss Artist.

Piss Artist is a Briticism; I have not found a equivalent term in America although trust me, Piss Artists abound here as I’m sure they do all over the world. I often wonder where the term came from; does the Piss Artist create his best work by urinating in the snow? Maybe metaphorically speaking his art has the value and longevity of yellow snow. You will notice I use “his,” and I make no apologies for being sexist, but I have met very few female Piss Artists. Of the two genders females are more likely to lean towards modesty. They tend to wait until their art has at least some kind of recognition before declaring themselves artists.

When I arrived in The United States in 1979 Piss Artists were rampant in the bicycle frame building business. Any propeller head engineer who ever welded one piece of metal to another considered himself a frame builder and each had a different opinion on frame design and method of construction. Tried and true techniques that had been standard practice in Europe for almost a century were pushed aside and new theories were put forward. Most of these theories were talked about more than they were actually put into practice because this is what the Piss Artist does; they talk about what they can do rather than actually doing it.

My first job in America was in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey not far from New York City. The frame shop I worked in was behind a bike store, and there was a constant flow of people who drifted from the retail store back to the frame shop. Most were people who were genuinely interested in what I was doing, but many were these Piss Artist frame builders who just wanted to argue with me. I didn’t want to argue, I just wanted to build frames and there was so much distraction often I couldn’t work.

After a while I wanted to distance myself from the other “Frame builders.” When people started referring to my work as art and me as an artist, I resented it. I felt this put me on the same level as these other self proclaimed artists. When I opened my own frame shop in San Marcos, California in 1983 I decided to operate a strict “No Visitors” policy. I sold my frames through bicycle dealers only. I look back and wonder I did not drive all business away; There was a kind of love/hate relationship with my customers and I even had an unlisted business phone number. In the end I think it was my work and the ability to deliver on time kept me in business. The fact that no one could reach me created a mystique. I always joked, “If I let people come and see me they will find there is no mystique, just some old fart building bicycle frames.”  

Since leaving the bicycle business I have changed, and my opinions have changed. What is art and what is not? Art can be anything worthwhile but it has to be accepted as such by a body of people. How many people? No specific number, but generally people not known to the artist; not  friends, mother or aunts or uncles. Not necessarily experts because some are Piss Artists who became "Art Experts." Art like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but if it is in the eye of the creator and no one else, he might just be a Piss Artist. (With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy and his famous redneck jokes.)

Footnote: Not all the American frame builders I met back in 1979 were Piss Artists; the ones who were not are still around today.

Why do I write?

I have been an artist most of my life; I have painted pictures and created functional art in the form of racing bicycle frames. I get high on creativity, high on the feeling of euphoria when I step back and look at what I have created. And like a junkie there came a time when the art I created no longer gave me that high. I needed a better fix, so I turned to writing and songwriting.

It is one thing to apply paint to canvas and create a picture, or to assemble pieces of metal together and make a solid object. But to assemble words on paper or even in your head, to me is the ultimate form of creativity. It is truly creating something out of nothing, pulling something out of the air, so to speak.

Songwriting takes this a step further because you are pulling musical notes out of the air and adding to the words. Paul McCartney was once asked if he got a thrill from hearing his music performed by other artists. He replied that the biggest thrill he got was from walking down the street and hearing someone singing or whistling one of his songs.

Most of us will never see the work of Michael Angelo or an original Picasso if we do it will only be for a moment. But the written word or recorded music can be shared by anyone, even for free. No one will charge you a fee to sing a Beatles song in your shower.

Language is the greatest gift given to human kind; it is what sets us apart from the animals. Animals have feelings; they feel happiness, grief, and anger but cannot express those feelings to others. I can assemble words, and if I do it right, can make others laugh or cry, or bring out other emotions, just by hearing or reading those words.

I can paint pictures with words. Pictures more vivid and real than I could ever paint on canvas. And the picture I paint will be different for each individual. I remember as a child listening to plays on the radio. The scenes I saw in my mind were real because they took place in my house and my neighborhood. I was in the scene, not on the outside looking in as I would be viewing film or television.

Through my writing I can re-live my life; I can do the things I wish I’d done and say the things I wish I’d said. Writing is wonderful therapy and the question I always ask myself as I finish something, is "Am I a better person for having written this?" If the answer is "yes" then this is reward in itself; but if someone else could become a better person for having read my work, then this would be the ultimate reason I write.

My Hero

 Every time I see images on the news of our soldiers in Iraq I think about a faded photograph I have of my father somewhere in the Sahara Desert during World War II.

My father was called into service in September 1939 the month the war started. He was part of the North Africa Campaign and fought Rommel’s German Army for almost five years. He came home briefly in 1944 and then went over to France in the Normandy Invasion of that same year. He went through the whole war without injury of any kind. I often wonder, ‘What if he had died?’ I would have the faded snapshot you see below, my mother would have told me wonderful stories about him and he would have been my hero from that time on. Instead he turned out to be a cruel and abusive man. It has taken me many years to understand and to finally come to terms with that.

My father somewhere in the Sahara Desert, North Africa 1941, the early days of WWII

Each time I look at this photo I think about the other men pictured here. Most of them smiling; the one in the center playfully pulls the ear of the one next to him. The war would go on four more years after this picture was taken; how many of the others in this small group survived the war? Half of them, less than half?

 I wonder about those who died and the families and children they left behind. I also think of those like my father who survived the war. What kind of fathers did they turn out to be? Maybe not all as abusive as my ol’ man but I’m sure some were less than perfect and had less than ideal relationships with their children.

 We none of us get to choose our parents and unlike a marriage a relationship with a parent never ends, it is only varying degrees of good or bad. As children we look on our parents as these all-powerful God like beings, only to find as we grow they are human with all the human flaws and weaknesses.

I can forgive my father. Why? Because he didn’t know any better. If that sounds like a cop out and I am making excuses for him, what’s the alternative? That I remain bitter and angry and go on blaming him. My childhood has long gone and the past is never going to get any better no matter how hard I try.

 The truth is he didn’t know any better. Before the early 1950s our society made it acceptable for a man to beat his wife and kids. Even the education system did it, they called it corporal punishment but it was abuse legal or not. There was a theory that if a child had some developing character flaw, it had to be beaten out of them. The problem was when the child became an adult they still had the character flaw plus they were bitter and angry because of all the beatings they had taken. Left alone character flaws become their own punishment and most intelligent persons will correct them on their own.

 My father never talked about his childhood but I know he was a rebellious kid. His parents made him join the British Army at the age of nineteen because they could do nothing with him. I sure he took some terrible beatings as a child and he later continued the cycle of violence. I was able to break this cycle partly because my mother always told me what a cowardly act it was for a man to hit a woman. Also effecting my own behavior the changing social awareness and the fact that I had two daughters. I feel I may have been less tolerant had I had a son.

I tried to make peace with my father while he was alive but he would not even admit he was wrong, much less ask forgiveness from me. It was only after his death in 1996 I could finally accept the way he was and offer forgiveness for my sake so I can move on.

What if he had died in WWII would my life have turned out different or would I still be mourning the loss of my hero? A man far greater than he could have ever been in real life. I have seen the sons of highly successful fathers struggle to live up to an image they can never achieve. My ol’ man made it easy for me to be better than he was. His heavy drinking turned me off drinking to excess so I’ve never had a problem with alcohol. And I do recognize his contribution during WWII. He had no choice; he was drafted. But because he did what he did, I would never have to. So for that much he is my hero.

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