On motorcycles that also have names that begin with M (are you tired of this yet?)...

Well, in all this talk of music and mowers, MGBs and mayhem in the classroom, I have failed to mention one other thing that is of vast importance in my life. I have at the moment no significant other, and am at the moment in a state of almost constant brokeness (I do the little dealie where there’ll be a 50 in my wallet one day and the next, it’s gone), so I have to limit my free time and the ways in which I spend it to things that don’t regularly require a monster influx of cash. This rules out a) heavy drug use; b) a serious gambling disorder; c) eating binges; d) uncontrollable weekly shopping sprees; e) an inability to say no to telemarketers and door-to-door salesmen. Yes, they do still exist.

This leaves a guy like me, non-skilled in the ways of fashion or chasing down the opposite sex; without a suitable posh ride for sliding up to the Bamboo Room and palming the valet a fin as I swagger to the door in my reet pleats; without prepaid season tickets to the White Sox; with little to do at night (at least until another band gig comes along) or in the daytime on the rare day off. With the exception, of course, of the bike.

Yeah, I guess I may have failed to mention this thing. It ain’t nothin’ fancy, mind you—I’m not bragging about it; I don’t tout it as the fastest thing in three counties or the best looking. It isn’t any of these things, truly. And it isn’t even anything mega-sexual like a Harley or one of those oh-so-trendy Orange County Choppers or a ballet-dancing crotch-rocket that spends most of its time with one wheel in the air. But I’ll be happy to show you pictures, and if you steal a glance at my face while I’m showing you, I’m sure the look you see there will remind you of the look on new fathers’ faces as they show you pictures of their first-born. Yes, I am a sad, hopeless, twisted freak, but I knew this already.

It’s a 1983 Honda Magna v65. I’ve had the thing for 10 years now, and after those 10 years I can look over my shoulder at it while walking away and I still get the old thrill. My dad says that when this goes, it’s time to sell. I don’t ever foresee that happening.

Again, though, nothing fancy. Go into any bike shop and start talking bikes, and when they ask what you’re spreading your ass-cheeks on, tell ‘em you’re tank-slapping a Vincent Black Shadow and they’ll sit up and take notice. Norton 850 Commando? BSA 650 Lightning? Triumph Bonneville? Honda 305 Dream? 1948 Harley-Davidson Panhead? These will elicit nods of knowing approval. Even the new stuff, like a Triumph Rocket 2300 (I’ve ridden absolutely nothing even remotely as fast as that thing) or a new Goldwing will bring forth an "Ah," from the listener. A v65 Magna? Might as well tell them you’re riding a Schwinn. But there are a few of us out there who appreciate them, much as there are those who swear by their Magic: The Gathering ‘swamp-death’ deck or their train collection or their DeWalt 18V cordless jigsaw. It’s all relative.









Well, the Magna (see? Also begins with ‘M’, as do its other two appellations of affection, ‘Medusa’ and, more colloquially, ‘The Moose’) is nothing special, but I’ve been across the country on it, rebuilt it twice, dumped it at over 60 mph during the last hour of a 60-hour round trip, had it in my house, my parents’ house, my classroom, and had a piece of it in my pocket during every job interview I’ve had since I've owned it, and during my thesis defense. Again, I know I’m a sad piece of shit with no life, but all I can do is shake my head along with you. I dunno—it’s like the teddy bear or the blanky you had as a kid that you still to this day are loath to remove altogether from your life. I had a bear—his name was Brownie—and a blanky too, but they both got sold at garage sales before I was in high school. (Yeah, I cried. What are you lookin’ at?) So I have the Moose, and she is a part of me now. I don’t think I’ll ever sell it—I’ll just move it into my living room in place of the loveseat and kick back and watch movies on it when it finally decides to throw a rod through the block or something.

Well, anyway, this summer I have been extremely late in the instigation of my vernal ritual of digging the Moose out from the back of the garage and getting it ready for a summer of no-particular-place-to-go. I finally got it out last night. It’s old, I know (twenty-two friggin’ years), and it has a lot of miles on it, but there’s fight left in it yet. I changed all the fluids and charged the battery. It lit up on the seventeenth try, the old valvetrain clicking and rattling like a bag of nickels thrown into the dryer. Also, after five minutes, it overheated and puked antifreeze all over my shoe. Kinda like waking my grand-papa (I know you’re looking down on me, grandpa, and I’m only funnin’) up from his afternoon nappy-nap.

Tonight was better. Took the ol’ girl up to the Blockbuster to rent Shallow Hal, and all along the way I reveled in the raucous bark of the exhaust, so different, so naaaasty after I replaced the stock system with a MAC four-into-one. It’s still pretty fast; though it will no longer lift it in second with a little judicious clutch abuse, it’ll still stand up pretty easily in first. I enjoyed walking out to it from the Blockbuster and getting on just as a nice little family pulled into the space next to me in their Toyota Highlander. Two kids, about six and nine, in the back seat. Wait until they open the door and get out, then hit the starter and Ra-GAAA! Instantly they’re screaming their asses off and I’m scooting my bad self back to the hills. Oops! (Insert big innocent smile right about here.) I keep forgetting how loud it is! Silly me. Ah, summer nights.

Well, it’s missing a turn signal and still pukes about a quart of oil onto my left boot every two hours or so, but it’s good to have the ol’ piece o’ shit pounding the pavement one more year. Maybe next year I’ll finally have to move that loveseat out of the way, but we’ll just take it one day at a time.

P.S. I mentioned my old MGB a few blogs back, and I alluded to the electrical problems that plagued it as a result of its British heritage. Tonight, coming back from the video store, I got behind one coming up to the light. When he stepped on the brakes, the turn signals went on instead. I thought I was going to cry from the nostalgia.

I rolled up next to him. He was turning right (ah, but I didn’t know that yet, see, ‘cause the turn signals were otherwise occupied, dig it?) and I was going straight, but there’s room for a motorcycle and a dinky little shitbox in one lane.

"Nice car, man," I said, throwing the guy a shitty little salute.

"Hey, thanks," he replied. "Nice bike. Hey, is that a Magna v65?"

Sigh. It’s nice to meet someone who knows. "Yeah. She’s old, but she’s still pretty fast."

"Yeah, my cousin got killed on one," the guy said. "He was doing a hundred and thirty-five when he hit the tree, the cops said. Also, his BAC was over point two."

"Wow," I said, as the light turned green. "That sucks."

"Not really," said the guy. "He was an asshole. Had a nice bike, though." He stepped on the gas and took off in a cloud of blue oil smoke. I sat there breathing it in and experiencing almost total recall to age sixteen when someone behind me honked.

I snapped instantly back to 2005 and made my way slowly home, blipping the throttle at every opportunity and scaring as many small children as possible.