Harley Davidson Buys MV Agusta

My first motorcycle was an MV Agusta 350B, a fire engine red air cooled parallel twin that I bought used in 1974. "39 Times World Champion" said the sticker on the tank, proclaiming its pedigree racing heritage. I put saddle bags on it and rode it all over Europe, camping by the side of the road and riding all overAustria, France, Germany and England while clutching the tiny little clip on handlebars as I hunched over the long red fuel tank giving my young back a workout. I remember that bike so well I wanted a Thruxton with a similar youthful posture when I went out to buy my Triumph in 2007, but time has passed and i need to sit up straight these days if I want any chance at all in traffic situations that need an alert rider...

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Now I read on the Motociclismo website from Italy that Harley Davidson has spent 109 million dollars buying out the debt riddled MV Agusta, whose production lines had shut down in Vergara Italy (MV= Meccanica Vergara, Agusta, was the name of the Count Agusta who founded the helicopter and motorcycle company) and now HD is planning a new marketing strategy to get MV selling again in Europe and eventually the US.

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MV bought the Italian company Aermacchi (another aircraft/motorcycle company) in the 1970's and eventually gave it up and it became Cagiva. MV went bust and got recreated by a businessman with a passion and Cagiva got bought out a few years ago by...the new MV Agusta! I hate these corporate shenanigans- until the motorcycle company that was my first love gets a shot at a second resurrection.

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MV Agusta motorcycles are impractical fire engine red (still) road racing machines, uncomfortable, fast and horribly awkward to ride. They are lovely but not for me, I could never hang a pair of saddle bags off a Brutale, and yet I love to see them on the road or more likely in the dealers with a price tag that would allow me to buy two or three Bonnevilles. Peak Oil can wait, I have good news. MV- Campione del Mondo- lives again!

Ramblings Of A Worry Wart

I took a few random pictures of the sunset Thursday evening as my wife cooked dinner and I was out on the porch looking west and east and up at the half moon. It was a gorgeous evening, not too hot, not too humid and as my street has no lights I get a clear view of the night sky. I stood outside listening to the sounds of domestic science going on inside and as I did my mind wandered...far from Niles Channel Bridge.

It is shaping up to be a pleasant summer in the Keys, the weather is the usual sunny and warm and the rains are staying away, bad for the plants good for me and my Bonneville. Crowds were down for Fourth of July, according to people in charge of number counting, good for me at work, bad for the shopkeepers on the island. I wonder what the Keys will look like with fewer visitors over a long stretch of time, inevitably smaller incomes, restaurants closing, lighter traffic on the highway...? A lifestyle change for us all perhaps. I know my wife and I are cutting back our travel plans, one can hardly blame others for doing the same. I worry about the future.

I have been a wanderer all my life, with itchy feet, always anxious to get over the horizon. Now that has changed and I am happily settled in my work, my home and my marriage and I find that paradoxically instead of the world around me being stuck in its routine with me buzzing around like a restless bluebottle on a windowpane, I am now settled and the rest of the world seems off kilter and tilting a bit further every day. We live in interesting times, as the old Chinese curse has it, provoked most immediately by the cost of a gallon of gas, between $4.30 and $4.60 depending on the grade. Most people think its some sort of sleight of hand by unnamed speculators and Big Oil and ultimately things will level off. Global Warming doesn't even rate much of a mention anymore these days and Middle East wars past and future seem obscured by the big black blot of the oil slick.

I see a lot of hardship building in the Keys over the coming months. Home values among lower cost homes (especially "dry lots" ie: homes not on canals) have dropped and county and city incomes will thus drop too as Florida has no state income tax and relies on sales taxes and property taxes. Services will degrade. The City of Key West has cut 34 positions and has fired some two dozen people and won't fill the other open positions. Monroe County has laid off dozens of people. The city Police Department is going through a reorganization to get more officers on the road without having to reopen the hiring process. Efficiency is the watchword and that is all to the good. Unfortunately I see a future where efficiency won't be enough. If we lose tourism to the high cost of fuel we lose employment in the "hospitality industry," and we start to tear the fabric of our little community.

I feel like we live on a knife edge, there's a possibility of war with Iran, and the ethanol mandate has simply sent the price of food skyrocketing but our leaders are unable to rescind the mandate and release corn for food instead of fuel. Global Warming hasn't gone away with the recent report about the north polar ice cap probably melting entirely this summer. That and Peak Oil make me wonder what weird shit is coming our collective way in the next few years. I see no reason for oil to drop in price, because demand is increasing and neither wells nor refineries can keep up. Its not speculators, its supply and demand at work and there isn't enough cheap easily available oil to satisfy world demand. Therefore the price will continue to rise until we cut consumption enough to create what economists call "demand destruction" when the high price forces people to stop buying. A gruesome prospect. I always wondered if I would have seen the Great Depression coming, as my grandfather failed signally to do, but I never wondered if I would have known what to do had I did figured it out ahead of time. I've seen this economic downturn coming for several years, and I had no idea what to do. I still don't. So I just keep on keeping on. And I bought a house in 2005! Duh! But it gives me nice views of the night sky!

A lot of people who eagerly anticipate their annual trip to Key West may have to submit to petro-reality and not come on vacation, while people thinking about moving here may have to postpone or cancel. There was a lot of grumbling in Key West during the boom years, but I for one would like them back. Too much construction, too many cruise ships, it seems like a mirage now when we face shrinking funds everywhere in the public and private sectors. I've seen these islands cope with devastating hurricanes and we seem to be endowed with people who are for whatever reason more resilient in tough times, similar I'm sure to outlying communities all round this country. It's hard to ignore the need for self reliance when there is but one road and 42 bridges to the mainland. I think that if we had to go back to the Depression Era diet of "grunts and grits" collectively we would manage. Photographs of me cleaning small fish and frying them will make you, I'm sure, glad not to be sharing my hardship!Hurricane Bertha is wandering the Atlantic as I write, a Category One storm that previously got as high as Category Three, unlikely at the moment to hit land and ruin someones life. Yet this economic outlook is a bit like storm season in that hurricanes manage sometimes to bring out the not-so-great in us. It's unfortunate but when a storm threatens one's first instinct is to wish it would go somewhere else. It's an instinct that grows stronger the closer the hurricane gets. Yet by wishing for a change in direction one is wishing the storm misery on someone else. By the nature of our geography that means wishing storm force winds onto a community in say the Yucatan, Cuba, Jamaica or the Bahamas. All our neighbors are economically weaker than us, yet we essentially wish them harm when faced with catastrophe ourselves. So it is with Peak Oil. I'd rather see China run out of economic steam and their need for oil collapse, than give up riding my Bonneville. I know that the Third World is going to be wrung dry by the oil crisis but I worry about my mortgage! These are times that demand heroes and I don't feel so heroic. They also demand strong thoughtful leaders and I don't see too many of them at any level. We seem singularly ill equipped to face our difficulties.

I've traveled a great deal and I've seen true human misery. I was 12 when I watched medieval ox carts load up dead bodies each dawn, from the sidewalks of Calcutta, their feet stuck out like cords of wood. I have seen war and I've seen refugees and I didn't like any of it one bit. I don't like the prospects of seeing people in this country reduced to the black and white photographs of Frank Capra, Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke- White. The dust bowl is best kept in the history books as far as I am concerned. I hope that our resilience and ingenuity, the flexibility of our economy and our collective ability to take on extraordinary technological challenges (A compressed air car in every garage and a grunt on every grill!) will sort out the gremlins. I'd just like to see the odd ray of sunshine at the end of the tunnel. Is that too much to ask?

Meanwhile I plan to keep on taking pictures of these islands, and as I do, please don't think for one minute things are rosier than they are in your neighborhood. Its just easier to put a grin on your face when the sun is shining and the grunts are biting.

Taos Pueblo

The bell tower presiding over the cemetery at Taos Pueblo. Photographed more often than I've had hot fry bread. A lot more often.

Taos Pueblo is an evocative place and I surprise myself sometimes by realising its taken me fifty years of being alive to actually get there. And the road to this one thousand year old Indian town isn't at all prepossessing as you drive out of the modern town of Taos in your friend's car:

It was back in May when my wife and I were visiting Bruce and Celia in their mountain fastness of Santa Fe, a city located at 7500 feet and filled with cool air when they took us on a road trip to Taos . I rode through this are in 1992 on a trip from Florida to California (on a Yamaha Maxim 650 for those that care) but I got overwhelmed by the crowds and commerce and fled with my tail between my legs without visiting the Pueblo. This time we took in the O'Keeffe museum in Santa Fe and came out to the Indian settlement that she and the photographer Adams made famous. She painted this building over half a century ago and there it still is:

Ansel Adams shot this picture, more or less, of the back of the church of San Geronimo:

And he also took a gruesomely symmetrical picture of the front of the church which was the very devil for me to imitate as he didn't have all these gormless tourons standing around gawping and cluttering the view. Grr!

Anyway that's the famous stuff that made this place...well known! Pueblo in Spanish means town or people. In New Mexico (which some Americans fail to recognise is actually a US State!) the term Pueblo means Indian settlement or reservation. Some Pueblos don't have any actual towns any more but they are still considered Indian reservations. The Taos Pueblo doesn't suffer from the problem, this is a tribal unit that has the town and a whole bunch of impressive looking mountains on the horizon within it's boundaries- land that is off limits to non tribal members. the Blue Water Lake and mountains were returned to the tribe in 1970, giving the Pueblo an extension of almost 100,000 acres.

Visitors park in a tribal parking lot and line up for tickets to visit the town, at a charge of $10 a piece with a curious $5 surcharge for each camera, and a white ticket has to be attached to the apparatus to verify payment. Paying for the camera allows one to take pictures in the settlement but not of people unless the give their express permission, which is why my pictures have a curious dearth of people in them. Taos Pueblo isn't a ghost town.

While the rule book says nothing about photographing dogs, feeding them is strictly forbidden. This dog, pictured under a drying rack, the same rack ( for meat not clothes) painted by the late great O'Keeffe herself, later came by to beg some fry bread from us.

There was a delightful little old lady, a stereotype almost, chirping happily in her shop and selling knick knacks and the classic fry bread, in this case sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar, which seemed rather decadent:

The important food photographed with the main plaza and the church in the far background.

Taos Pueblo is lived in year round by about 150 people which makes it in effect an Indian summer snow bird type of place, with most people retreating to lower elevations in Winter, the urban delights of Albuquerque. Living in Taos Pueblo in the summer is what you might call an occupational requirement for Indians who trade their arts and crafts, pottery. We bought a quail from Tseme who happily agreed to be photographed:And we got a teapot drum, modestly sized for our modest little home. Here too Phillip Martinez was happy to be photographed:And with our purchases they took time in this tourist low season to talk a little about their lives, which was fascinating to a degree I had not imagined. These are people who have traveled, studied, got degrees and have known the world outside the Pueblo and New Mexico itself. The worst of it was hearing how hard it was years ago for an Indian to make a living in the world outside. Not so long ago to be a Native American was to not be accepted in America. And so they do their crafts and hope to do better than subsist. Some do it with humor:But it was difficult to admire these award winning artists and realise they were here because their hopes of professional careers in the outside world were dashed because they were Indians. Had I been denied in the same way I might have been a tad more testy about the whole thing. Naturally we wandered like tourist stereotypes ourselves, our wives shopping and browsing......while Bruce and I sat on a bench in the main square in companionable manly silence, possibly exhaustion, and watched the comings and goings of the Pueblo:Another of the rules about the Pueblo includes not to piss or throw trash in the river that runs through the middle of the community, which seems reasonable enough on the face of it, and sparkling it was too in the high altitude (7200 feet) sunshine. They say they get their water from this open stream which seems a little surprising in this day and age. When I was a kid down on the farm I happily drank stream water but it always gurgled up from some dark safe place underground and came out of a familiar pipe. It was not open to God and everybody like this, but lacking plumbing this is what they have to use:The Indians of Taos Pueblo make a lot of rules about religious ceremonies and secret rituals that an unbeliever and sceptic like me would mess up entirely were I to witness them. The residents themselves seem pretty easy going about these strictures which luckily don't happen to interfere with commerce at all. taos Pueblo is full of people and activity and cars and in no way resenbles a cloister. I suppose there is a compensation factor at work, after centuries of interference you've got to have a secret club with initiations and passwords to make it worth while to be a member. Nevertheless St Jerome's Catholic Church (San Geronimo in Espanol) is the prominent structure in the Pueblo and does not conflict, they say with the ancient and complex Indian rituals. Which include bans on running water and electricity apparently. I find these limitations bizarre but like the photography rules I see no reason to violate them. Personally I love flush toilets and electrical outlets and value them everyday as tools for a more civilized life. I can't believe there is a God that frowns on their use, but what do I know.

Adobe is the material used for construction and Bruce explained something about it to me. it is naturally insulating but it is rather weak in compression so adobe homes are frequently dark for want of windows. Adobe melts in the rain if not treated so its important the buildings get some sort of plaster outer layer. Where the outer parts have broken down the walls simply melt back into the earth which seems appropriate and self sustaining in a manner of speaking:

The round dome is a traditional oven or Horno in Spanish:Eventually the shopping came to an end and we found our way back to the car and the open road beckoned:Needless to say my mind was on the Bonneville as we drove the winding mountain roads. Bruce has bought a BMW 650 since i was there so at least someone I know is enjoying these roads on two wheels, as they were meant to be ridden. Outside the Pueblo it's okay for people to live with electricity and plumbing and they take advantage of the slackness of modern living in their modest farm houses:

As opposed to the old fashioned style of independent living just outside the Pueblo:Luckily for us we were in time for a late lunch at the local eatery a couple of miles outside the Pueblo:the food was okay, American staples offered on fry bread instead of hamburger buns, but I did step outside the collective comfort zone as i always do when presented with something weird on the menu, and I ordered a cup of atole, which the shy young waitress endeavored to describe. Words failed her rather as they do me. Here's a picture:It's some sort of mild blue corn concoction which needs a fair bit of sugar to give it flavor. Its sort of gritty like a very thin gruel but not in the least offensive. Atole and a kruller- breakfast of champions. While we were lunching a young couple came in and propped their offspring on the counter and started a conversation with the waitress and her mother, the cook. I thought they were family members but by dint of listening they were apparently complete strangers, just curious about Indian cooking.It's at times like these you learn how really shy you are compared to some brazen people! Oh well.

And now we are long since home and still reminded of Taos Pueblo by the pottery quail on the office windowsill:

And the drum in the form of a teapot on the kitchen counter.Rather inadequate souvenirs of the oldest continuously occupied structure in the US. And they won't even notice if the lights go out, for the rest of us.

Love Lane

There were two reasons my wife and I decided in 2003, not to go ahead and get off the boat and buy an apartment on Love Lane. One was that it was tiny and in terrible shape. The other was that I don't think I could ever bring myself to announce to the world at large that I lived on "Lurve Lane." Yes that's right, I live in a two hundred thousand dollar rabbit hutch, all 300 square feet of it with warped floors, peeling paint, window air conditioning and a curtained nook for a bedroom. Oh and by the way it's on Love Lane. Nudge nudge, wink wink, say no more. Which is to say I have no clue why this charming little alley has such a provocative name. Were we in France L'Allee de l'Amour would ring charmante, mais we are in Puritan America and love equals sex in some unfortunate circles. The alley itself is entirely charming, short and sweet and has absolutely nothing improper about it:As is the way in Key West the abundant growth of all sorts of wickedly romantic palm fronds gives the most mundane home on the dreariest street a special flavor. However Love Lane is fortunate enough to have abundant greenery and charming Conch cottages:

The Lane lies across the block between Fleming Street and Southard Street, however the two ends don't exactly join in the middle. When responding to calls for service here, we dispatchers have to make sure we know which end it is that needs the help. Of course this being Key West some bright spark has stolen the street sign on the Fleming Street side:

But the lane is easily located as it is next to the little park which itself is part of the library at 700 Fleming. This is a view looking out at Fleming Street with the library and its little park to the left:The Fleming half of the lane dead ends into someones picket fence and the ubiquitous bougainvillea, of course, which I am slowly learning to despise:But one can still spot some blue sky between all the flora:Then there is Love lane from the Southard Street side which has a proper sign and everything, photographed at the top of this essay, next to my wife's 150cc Vespa which I'm borrowing while the Trumpet gets a new front tire. As I fumbled around here a man peered over his balcony at me and stared a moment. "You're that guy," he said slowly but with certainty. "You're the scooter guy." He looked puzzled so I explained the absence of the green Triumph Bonneville. He was very nice about the blog and gave me the (complicated) name of his, which I was unable to recover, so he needs to drop me a comment with it spelled out if he reads this.

Love Lane embodies I think many of the ideals of Conch visitors; those people who think living in Key West cheek by jowl with their neighbors would be fun. This serene backwater is just two blocks from Fast Buck Freddie's on Duval:

Imagine actually living here, with your scooter parked under a bush right outside your door, or a car if you absolutely need one to get away from time to time ( I love getting away!), and always assuming you have a stronger backbone than I do when it comes to that love thing, this is all that Key West promotes itself as: a tropical paradise...

Charming isn't it? Though how they get that modest sized car in and out of it's off street parking (OSP in Realtor talk) space I don't know. With a shoe horn perhaps.

So, because I'm not a realtor there are a few reality checks to bear in mind. This place is in the middle of Old Town so it will be noisy. Tourists love chickens, sleepless residents less so:

Aircraft land almost overhead as they aim for the runway, and because everything is close on a small island the runway is not far and the planes are low and loud:And window air conditioning is still around bless its uncomplicated, noisy, rattling, inefficient heart:It may seem perverse but I like living out of town, and at a time when cheap oil is a mirage I should be thinking about how to reduce my commute, but the cheek by jowl thing just isn't me. And then do you suppose all neighbors are as conscientious as this plastic bagged walker across the street:

She seemed happy enough, but of course her address is on Fleming, not Love Lane.