Towards a Theory of Guys

Will it be a TWO newsletter week? I dream of it. Started a new gig so, you know, less time’s a wastin’, but I remain here whittling away at, well, something. ANYWAY Sunday was Movie Club: The Fast and the Curious: Bisexual Wheels With Human Engines, and I did a thing, and a lot of people did some GREAT fuckin’ things! We had songs from DJ Major Taylor (who brought in “RAD” and thank god left my movie alone), some amazing poems from Cean Gamalinda, a very good piece about failure from Mary Juras, and also a sure to be classic ska musical sequel to the Disney film BRINK, which, I almost fell over, while standing up, I laughed so much. Also I did something, and that was okay, and here it is. Note: I did a whole intro about the 1986 classic QUICKSILVER and it even had some back and forth audience participation but it was a “had to be there” sort of riff, so, just know I wrote this with the belief this film is A) the best bike movie and B) a case study of the theory of Bike Guys. I thought about recording this but Beehiiv is not great and also? You did have to be there. xoxo caiken

Towards a Theory of Guys

Guys are everywhere, no matter where you roam, all about you. They're in bike shops in Oakland and Austin and Stillwater, Oklahoma, Seattle, Duluth, Countryside, Topanga Canyon. Guys one after another called Ben and Mike and John and Steve and Dan, but there's also Dan the Man, Rocky, Willie Nelson, Red Sonja, Captain Ron, The Prince of Sales. There's Matty Ice the Devil Dodger, Fuckles (another John), Meow Meow Annie, Fucking Shayla, Nato, Papa Ben, Jorge El Maquina, Twin, Handsy Palmer, Jake the Snake, Trin. There’s me, a gal-adjacent Guy, called Old Style.

There are Guys in bike shops, and I am a wobbly 23 when I’m the girl working in the bike shop, receiving inventory from carbon copy invoices, exponential shop stain on stains on m yhands, and rolling my eyes when men ask, “Is there anyone else I could talk to?” Guys sit in the back when the shop closes and send me stomping on the too-big shop bike for 30 racks in the basket. The Empress of Guys is Sue, her terrifying cat smile and pretty green eyes, swanning into our back rooms and automatic doors murmuring I’m not here, her proclamations of, Yous Guys, and our fierce loyalty to her, with her many Guys, transcendent, catalyst.

Guys are messlife vets, asteroid belt of Guys, passing in orbit and spied downtown for years to come, who you do flat fixes for free when they kill time waiting for dispatch in the air conditioning. Guys are Jimmy Johns kids who should not be underestimated, kids who are constantly trying to buy or sell a cargo bike or a hand stitched messenger bag or weed. Guys are the dead kids you go on memorial rides for, or Swampy living kitty corner who looked pretty much exactly like what a dude named Swampy who has been couriering for twenty years looks like. Guys are the boyfriends and girlfriends and especially ex boyfriends and ex girlfriends managing to appear somehow overnight, like a cat you cannot quite remember letting in the back door with a tiny hat, spending too much on weed and not enough on groceries and one day if they have not recycled themselves into vanlife or tattooing or coding off they appear into a new beloved’s shower.

There is a transitive property to Guys, and some land where bikes come from, at least domestically, because bikes come from Taiwan. But bikes also come from warehouses and trucks and forklifts, full of Guys. Guys like La Maquina can empty a tractor trailer of bikes in less than an hour, porque es la Maquina, and his favorite song is La La La La Bamba, yowled deep in the pick. Guys play New Wave and trap and neo-emo and horror movie podcasts and corridos from speakers hung on order pickers 100 feet up in the air. Guys are storks carrying what makes everyone’s bike, tubes for commuter flats, 100 pound boxes of chain, helmets, u-locks, brake pads, wheels made by the sweetest Maribel, threading spokes to rims day in and out like Odysseus has still not come home.

Guys fuck up and Guys make mistakes, fumble around with each other after too many Hamms, show up en masse late to the shop because everyone’s passed out after locking up or kissing me in the doorway after their boyfriend has left for work. But Guys are full of offerings and trades, who moved, who died, who got out, who finally sobered up. They’ll send out APBs down I-5 and across I-40 to look for a welder or a tiny bike when someone rear ends mine. Guys know the men with too much money who would give anything for the Good Guy discount, which you cannot get if you are asking for a Good Guy discount, who want to learn over the shop counter and be loved.

And now I’m surprised at how many Guys appeared to me, the sweet from their specific generosity. Guys who came out to me or trusted me with their transition. Who gave me a camera from their collection or grapes out of a plastic bag silently, and my jaw dropped, because La Maquina maybe liked me and I took the grapes, said gracias. Or almost new tires stashed above their mechanic stand and sang my name in the morning, even after I yelled Darryl! You’re sixteen! Or stone skipping lessons on the Mississippi River even after I was afraid I fucked it up after too many rum and cokes. They gave me bolo ties and street cred, a pair of BMX Sambas and a crankset fallen off a truck, a very good story about Ozzie Guillen’s bike seat and his sore ass, told a thousand times, at least. Years gone by of mundane generosity, a Guy who shares the spoils, loans me the truck, the 29er, the cargo bike, calls it as he sees it, says you’re better off, always, no matter what, because Guys see it, see the shithead because you cannot admit it, the creeps they are really sorry about, the tourists and moochers and arrogant or selfish or just not any Guy we want to remember, and out there I hope my name might mean the same thing, that I am remembered somewhere to someone who laughs and says, That Guy! Oh, I know them, this generous wealth of pulling a name or a town or a timeline out of a messenger bag, and there, out of nowhere, just one of the Guys.

finally: i stand by my statement - if you insist on referring to yourself as a BIKE-SEXUAL, you certainly prove the adage true that just because we ride bikes, does not mean we are friends, truly the lesson i have learned hard over being a Guy.