The Steampunk World
They Can Have My Banana Seat When They Pry It From My Cold Dead Thighs
Whew! Every time I start to worry that I'm living in reality, I get a nice healthy dose of the bizarre to reassure me that everything's alright. Friday I arrived as usual in Da Mare Plaza for a Critical Mass ride, but this one was very special. It was the Polka Ride, a traditional trip to the Baby Doll Polka Club to see the Polkaholics. Last year, when I first started going to these rides, I had heard that Chopper Bob got his nickname by taking his chopper Hoser on this ride. Hoser's fork was held together with nothing but JB Weld and hose clamps. People spoke in hushed tones about how he had ridden it all the way to the other side of Midway airport. At the time, I had only Noam Chopsky and was inexperienced in the art of building a wacky bike that could actually be ridden long distances before the rider suffered from Critical Ass. I have been progressing, you see, from pure form in the highly decorative bikes I was building when I was 7 towards a harmony of function and form. I swore last year that when the next Polka Ride came around, I would have a chopper that could go the distance. Little did I know that by this time, 14 miles would seem like chump change, especially on a chopper that can fly and transform into mist when neccessary.
Now, back when I was in the early half of high school, I went through this huge polka phase. It was touched off by Weird Al and let me digging through the $2 tape bins for records that noone else but me and old immigrants wanted. I made up this fake polka band, The Mister Rogers Polka Band, and I would make album covers for the mix tapes that I distributed to less-than-enthusiastic friends. Sometime during this point I picked up a pair of lederhosen and an accordion, though my polka obsession soon forked into two post-polka phases- accordion-based rock (They Might Be Giants, Those Darn Accordions) and German/Austrian new wave (Nena, Falco, Trio). And to clarify what you're thinking right now, yes, I was a total dweeb, and no, I didn't realize it. Or at least I didn't celebrate it like I do now.
So I wore those lederhosen on the ride. I only get a few chances a year to pull them out. On Halloween they won me $25 for funniest costume at work, and pretty much my only other chance would have been Oktoberfest. But it's nice that I still fit into my old lederhosen from high school. Do you?
Bike people tend to get a little obsessive with the gear. Some of them even openly fetishize it. So it was hilarious to me to ride in a crowd of 100, each one of them decked out in bike shorts, a wicking layer, a cotton layer, a waterproof outer jacket and pants, a headband, balaclava, glove linings, outer gloves, knee-high spandex leggings, socks, leg strap, reflective vest, helmet, goggles, and hand- or spectacle-mounted wearable rear-view mirror. I was wearing a Navy-issue thermal top, a turtleneck, and a buttonup shirt, lederhosen, and knee socks. And I was perfectly comfortable. It was about 31 degrees, and only my kneecaps got cold, until someone actually loaned me some elbow grease to put on my knees. I'll bet I woulda been warm even without all the whiskey I was drinking.
Lil' Gordie was representin' in lederhosen as well. He was actually wearing his uncle's pair, and riding a tandem that used to belong to his grandma and grandpa! On the back was the VeloRat, plucking out some polkas on the banjo.
When we arrived at the club, it was packed and rockin. The Polkaholics play a sort of punk polka that's guitar-based. Everyone was singing along, drinking (a beer is usually required as a prop to sing along in a polka), and polka-ing. Some couple in their sixties or seventies were partying the heartiest, with the woman in a crop-top and lowrider jeans, wearing Polkaholics bumper stickers over her breasts and crotch. People (including the guys in the band) kept coming up to me and asking where in Chicago they could get a pair of lederhosen for less than $300. I even got the heavy mack from two people, a guy who liked lederhosen a little bit too much and a woman who was really turned on by waxed handlebar mustaches. I was in heaven- for one brief night, polka was cool, and all of my dorkiness was celebrated and accepted.
---
The next day, Singular and I went on a double date to the International Museum of Surgical Science. Nothing like looking at gross stuff when you're all squeamish from being hung over. This museum is sort of odd, sort of the combination of a scholarly tribute to the history of international surgery and a storage place for odd questionable medical devices, a la the museum in Minneapolis. So it was the type of place where it looked like your typical dry museum but if you looked closely you would find some really weird shit.
In the guestbook, some kid had written "REEEEEAAAALL NEEEEEATTTTT NOW I NEVER WANT TO BE A DOCTOR I'M HUNGRY CHEEEEEEZE", which pretty much summed up the experience. This place made me never want to be a doctor. The majority of the collection consisted of either artwork depicting notable surgeons or old surgical tools, the latter of which you can imagine had a high squick factor, especially in the areas of tools designed to work on sensitive areas. I was able to hold my own through the hemorrhoid removers, Roman-era specula, tools for leeching and cupping and cutting the eye, the gallstone collection, and I wasn't even squicked by the trepanning tools, har har... but the catheters got to me. Especially the ones that expand.
Another theme from the museum seemed to be how often religion has held back the progress of our ability to keep ourselves alive. This was not the message the museum wanted to convey- in fact one exhibit glorified Jesus as preaching the sanctity of life over "other religions" that don't consider life sacred- but time after time I'd read about some surgeon who'd written about what's really going on with the human body versus the popularly held supersitions of the era, and then been burned at the stake along with all his books. The museum spent plenty of time on surgery's own setbacks, as well- bleeding, phrenology, and all the damage that was done with X-rays before it was figured out the hard way that they could harm you. They had one of those X-ray shoe fitters, the kind that shoe stores used to have to let you take a look at your foot inside your shoe. And oh, the stuff in the apothecary shop! I loved reading about all those old diseases, melancholia and the vapors and "bowel complaint" and the miracle cures that treated them.
"That was a horrific date," Singular said afterwards.
Whew! Every time I start to worry that I'm living in reality, I get a nice healthy dose of the bizarre to reassure me that everything's alright. Friday I arrived as usual in Da Mare Plaza for a Critical Mass ride, but this one was very special. It was the Polka Ride, a traditional trip to the Baby Doll Polka Club to see the Polkaholics. Last year, when I first started going to these rides, I had heard that Chopper Bob got his nickname by taking his chopper Hoser on this ride. Hoser's fork was held together with nothing but JB Weld and hose clamps. People spoke in hushed tones about how he had ridden it all the way to the other side of Midway airport. At the time, I had only Noam Chopsky and was inexperienced in the art of building a wacky bike that could actually be ridden long distances before the rider suffered from Critical Ass. I have been progressing, you see, from pure form in the highly decorative bikes I was building when I was 7 towards a harmony of function and form. I swore last year that when the next Polka Ride came around, I would have a chopper that could go the distance. Little did I know that by this time, 14 miles would seem like chump change, especially on a chopper that can fly and transform into mist when neccessary.
Now, back when I was in the early half of high school, I went through this huge polka phase. It was touched off by Weird Al and let me digging through the $2 tape bins for records that noone else but me and old immigrants wanted. I made up this fake polka band, The Mister Rogers Polka Band, and I would make album covers for the mix tapes that I distributed to less-than-enthusiastic friends. Sometime during this point I picked up a pair of lederhosen and an accordion, though my polka obsession soon forked into two post-polka phases- accordion-based rock (They Might Be Giants, Those Darn Accordions) and German/Austrian new wave (Nena, Falco, Trio). And to clarify what you're thinking right now, yes, I was a total dweeb, and no, I didn't realize it. Or at least I didn't celebrate it like I do now.
So I wore those lederhosen on the ride. I only get a few chances a year to pull them out. On Halloween they won me $25 for funniest costume at work, and pretty much my only other chance would have been Oktoberfest. But it's nice that I still fit into my old lederhosen from high school. Do you?
Bike people tend to get a little obsessive with the gear. Some of them even openly fetishize it. So it was hilarious to me to ride in a crowd of 100, each one of them decked out in bike shorts, a wicking layer, a cotton layer, a waterproof outer jacket and pants, a headband, balaclava, glove linings, outer gloves, knee-high spandex leggings, socks, leg strap, reflective vest, helmet, goggles, and hand- or spectacle-mounted wearable rear-view mirror. I was wearing a Navy-issue thermal top, a turtleneck, and a buttonup shirt, lederhosen, and knee socks. And I was perfectly comfortable. It was about 31 degrees, and only my kneecaps got cold, until someone actually loaned me some elbow grease to put on my knees. I'll bet I woulda been warm even without all the whiskey I was drinking.
Lil' Gordie was representin' in lederhosen as well. He was actually wearing his uncle's pair, and riding a tandem that used to belong to his grandma and grandpa! On the back was the VeloRat, plucking out some polkas on the banjo.
When we arrived at the club, it was packed and rockin. The Polkaholics play a sort of punk polka that's guitar-based. Everyone was singing along, drinking (a beer is usually required as a prop to sing along in a polka), and polka-ing. Some couple in their sixties or seventies were partying the heartiest, with the woman in a crop-top and lowrider jeans, wearing Polkaholics bumper stickers over her breasts and crotch. People (including the guys in the band) kept coming up to me and asking where in Chicago they could get a pair of lederhosen for less than $300. I even got the heavy mack from two people, a guy who liked lederhosen a little bit too much and a woman who was really turned on by waxed handlebar mustaches. I was in heaven- for one brief night, polka was cool, and all of my dorkiness was celebrated and accepted.
---
The next day, Singular and I went on a double date to the International Museum of Surgical Science. Nothing like looking at gross stuff when you're all squeamish from being hung over. This museum is sort of odd, sort of the combination of a scholarly tribute to the history of international surgery and a storage place for odd questionable medical devices, a la the museum in Minneapolis. So it was the type of place where it looked like your typical dry museum but if you looked closely you would find some really weird shit.
In the guestbook, some kid had written "REEEEEAAAALL NEEEEEATTTTT NOW I NEVER WANT TO BE A DOCTOR I'M HUNGRY CHEEEEEEZE", which pretty much summed up the experience. This place made me never want to be a doctor. The majority of the collection consisted of either artwork depicting notable surgeons or old surgical tools, the latter of which you can imagine had a high squick factor, especially in the areas of tools designed to work on sensitive areas. I was able to hold my own through the hemorrhoid removers, Roman-era specula, tools for leeching and cupping and cutting the eye, the gallstone collection, and I wasn't even squicked by the trepanning tools, har har... but the catheters got to me. Especially the ones that expand.
Another theme from the museum seemed to be how often religion has held back the progress of our ability to keep ourselves alive. This was not the message the museum wanted to convey- in fact one exhibit glorified Jesus as preaching the sanctity of life over "other religions" that don't consider life sacred- but time after time I'd read about some surgeon who'd written about what's really going on with the human body versus the popularly held supersitions of the era, and then been burned at the stake along with all his books. The museum spent plenty of time on surgery's own setbacks, as well- bleeding, phrenology, and all the damage that was done with X-rays before it was figured out the hard way that they could harm you. They had one of those X-ray shoe fitters, the kind that shoe stores used to have to let you take a look at your foot inside your shoe. And oh, the stuff in the apothecary shop! I loved reading about all those old diseases, melancholia and the vapors and "bowel complaint" and the miracle cures that treated them.
"That was a horrific date," Singular said afterwards.
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