Commandments of bike messenger-ism.

Here's some knowledge that was dropped on me during my years of messengering thru Chicago's Winters and equally blistering summer days. Following my list will be words of wisdom passed on from others via the interwebs.

Wintertime:
1) Stay Hydrated.
2) Layer clothes properly. I like the ski-balaclava thing that covers yer head but it's thin enough to still be able to sport a helmet.
3) Don't be afriad to wear ski goggles.
4) Realze you will be wet. Find your standby sanctuarys and always know where one is relative to your position. You never know when you'll be near another.
5) When riding over the cheese-grater bridges in Chicago in wet weather, don't tense up or look down thru to the river. Your rear wheel likely will fishtail - just maintain forward momentum and don't struggle. relaxxxxxxxx
6) Enjoy your bicycle and take care of it. If that means throwing it in the shower with you after work because you've ridden through thousands of gallons of salt, then do it.
7) Keep plenty of plastic bags with you, of different sizes. For your radio(s), your oversize packages, for your ipod, for your sanity.
8) next to my door I kept a checklist of things that i would be miserable without - gloves, etc. Stuff your typically wouldn't forget, but once you're at work and without, you suddenly miss.
9) If you're standing-by, don't just sit around smoking spliffs. really. Ride your bike in circles, or keep moving or something, because once that work finally comes to you, and you've been sitting on your ass. it makes getting back into the flow sooooo much easier.
10) Cal's for the mid-day warmup
11) Lower wacker driver makes things soooo much easier, plus you can escape the elements.


Summertime:
1) Stay Hydrated
2) properly layer
3) stay hydrated
4) In chicago, Lake Michigan was a welcome respite fro the 100 degree days. Since it's so close to downtown, i'd just go to the Beach off of LSD @ Michigan ave and strip to the bae minimum and jump in for a quick bit then get back on the bike. You're cooled off and dry within minutes.
5) Gina the Pizza lady!
6) Cal's for the midday cool-off


Anytime:

• Respect your fellow meessengers.
  
• Don't DIS the dispatcher. It will NEVER EVER EVER work in your favor.
  
• Respect. period. Hot heads can tend to wreck a lot, IMO. Everyone gets mad, but it's what you do with it - do you want to carry it around all day or forget about it and move on? I don't need anything else to add to the list of things that pisses me off, so i try not to let idiots get to me.
• There will be a time and place whee you feel the need to exact U-Lock Justice to a vehicle or other inanimate object (never a person). Just make sure you can get away. Ducking into Parking Garages has proved effective in the evasion of those you have dispensed Justice to.
  
• Don't be afraid to scream if you need to break thru the ped crowd. The one that seems to work for me is: "I'VE GOT NO BRAKES!!"
• $0.99 Pringles @ walgreens = a good day.
• Find the spot where they don't mind you using their microwave once in a while.
• Get a good cross-street guide.
• Clever moustaches are not necessary for employment as a messenger.
• Don't kick the bums. SUre luch at the woman who is peeing into the curb while standing up, but you don't have to berate the poor crazy dude who's trolling for cigarette butts. Really, you don't have to berate anyone.
  
• Appreciate and embrace lively arguments and constructive criticisms, but don't carry grudges or hold beef. That's a lot of weight to bear.
  
• Have a list of accessible water-closets.
  
• Be one with jah. There's little subsects of mess'ers that seem to hate each other, and it's a really interesting social construct to witness. Cliques are cliques, and it all boils down to high-school buffoonery. If you're a kid that's fine. If you're 30 and still passing on your standbytime with copious amounts of Spliffs and Sparks, maybe it's time to grow up, maybe not. Who DOESN'T love the burnt out old-time messenger?

have a safe and happy 2009, the three of you that read this. ;)


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I found these words of advice and knowledge on some facebook group page.
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I never could identify with the linear thinking of the Commandments. I offer this circuitous way of operating as a messenger to everybody as I've found
it over 18 years on the road...

Four Noble Truths of Bike Messengering:

1. There is conflict in and out of traffic as events constantly shift.
2. Conflict in and out of traffic becomes a problem when one takes it personally.
3. The conflict in and out of traffic can be averted.
4. Ride the eightfold path.

Eightfold Path of Messengering:

1. Keep in mind that things constantly shift in and out of traffic and try not to take anything anyone does personally.
2. Stay in the moment you're in, on and off the bike. Don't hold grudges or plan arguments. Just ride the bike, pay attention and enjoy yourself!
3. Refrain from cursing out or judging anyone in or out of traffic. The sensation of superiority is false, fleeting and less enjoyable than just moving on. Greet all who champion or challenge you with a laugh - after all: you're free.
4. Ride away from things, not at them...even errant pedestrians and side view mirrors. Tolerate security procedures, impatient people, waiting time, and awkward packages with the knowledge that none of it will last forever, and any conflict that arises is a result of your choice. (admittedly some of these circumstances are insanely hard).
5. Do not knowingly transport items that are injurious to others and expect to to be free of any conflict in or out traffic and feel good about yourself. Also, try to do things that benefit messengers, cyclists, people around you on the whole.
6. Get up and at 'em - no matter what the weather is like, or else you're headed for conflict in or out of traffic (and in fact, you're a wannabe).
7. When off the bike keep as free an attitude about anything with anyone as you can. This kind of mindfulness can benefit your experience on the bike, free of conflict when in of traffic.
8. When on the bike be as focused on space, speed and objects as you can, with little or no thought towards anything else. This kind of concentration can carry over into your experience off the bike, and free you from conflict outside of traffic.

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1. have Due respect for other couriers and messengers
2. Thank clients for their business each pickup and also receiver on delivery
3. Observe the rules of the road as much as you can
4. Treat each tag with equal importance
5. Answer tourism / bicycle questions with accuracy and be friendly
6. Support local business first when you eat, shop etc.
7. Be an advocate for cycling in general and volunteer in the community
8. Treat your bike well
9. Treat your body even better
10. Look for and implement innovative ways to make our occupation forever sustainable keeping employed and earning a decent wage for a hard days work.

*****************************************************

Post #9 Pat Angel (Australia) wrote on December 31, 2007 at 8:13pm

Number One: EVERY car driver is an arsehole who is TRYING to kill you. Think of everyone like that. I know its not true, but wasting time trying to work who is and isn't an arsehole is a waste of time... and the arsehole might run you down whilst you are contemplating if another driver is cool.

Number two: Stop for cars, not lights... Applicable only if you wanna be fast!

Number three: Don't just respect your operator, be mates with 'em. Respect stops them sending you crap work, be mates and they send you the cream!

Number four: Always smile and be friendly with the clients - There are other courier companies out there, piss off the client and they can take their work elsewhere. They are the ones who pay you, not your boss. The boss is just the middle man in the money chain.

Number five: As well as your toolkit, puncture repair kit and pump, carry a spare tube. Too many times I have blown out the rear tube irrepairably. A patch won't fix an inch long split.

Number six: What goes around comes around... You're just cruising and you meet a mate at a lift, they are really, really busy and are doing a drop. Take their package and do the drop for them. The time will come where the tables are turned and they'll do it for you.

Number seven: Keep your water bottle on your bag, not on your bike. Drink between your bike and the pick up/drop, do nothing but ride on your bike (yeah, and acknowledge new jobs etc). Refill your bottle every chance you get, even if it is still 7/8's full.

Number eight: Keep your lock key hanging from a bracelet, just the right length to fall into your fingers ready for unlocking, and it makes a great stylus for your touch screen PDA. Fishing through your pockets for the key dozens and dozens of times a day sux. Make the bracelet from an old chain. It never breaks, its in keeping with the life and it looks cool!

Number nine: Remember its a lifestyle, not a job. You have to LOVE riding; you won't makeif it's just a job. You'll be cold and wet or hot and sweaty for most of your life and the pay is not gonna make you rich... But you'll be part of one of the coolest sub cultures ever whilst being paid to have heaps of fun. Bloody hard work, but heaps of fun. Always someone to have a beer with after work too, and don't those beers go down well! And the parties, the alleycats, the laughs...etc

Number ten: Do it properly - RIDE A BMX! (lol)

Live to Ride
Ride to Work
Work to Eat
Eat to Live
Live to Ride

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d'oh

So last week i'm working, and rushing around downtown, being the human pinball that i tend to be. As i'm northbound on Kearny street, I get the word that our client at 603 Commercial is spitting out some work. Having just picked up the 663 Clay -> Grant daily job, i was right there to get the commercial. (Oh - and i'm also holding one for Oyster Point Blvd, south of Candlestick. We had 6 bikes n the board, so we were ready to go as far as Brisbane/So. SF, and Sausalito too.)

So, i'm turning right onto commercial, and this guy is pulling something out of the back of his pick-up. What ever it was it was long and cylindrical and was in the right place at the wrong time to snag my helmet as i'm banking 'round the corner. It glanced enough off my brain bucket to knock me down and leave a little mark on my helmet. Thankfully, no damage to rider, but i was foggy and at the time we were really starting to get busy. So for the next few stops i'm being almost tentative, and somehow let it out that i fell and was foggy, and i'm going to pop into walgreens for some ibuprofin. It was one those those "if i'm not thinking properly now, here's why:" moments.

So 54 proposes that he take the Oyster Point blvd and i keep bouncing around the Loop (dwntwn in Chicago-speak). I"m cool with that - as much as i would have loved to stretch my legs out, at that point i was in a zone downtown.

Long story short - the fall that i had (which got resolved quickly enough; i wasn't hurt, my bike was in relatively fine shape, and the guy felt horrible and threw me $20) led to me handing off the Oyster Point. If i hadn't handed off the Oyster Point, i wouldn't have been the guy to finish out the Clay -> Grant daily i had onboard. This is significant because:

As i'm breaking out on north bound Grant street, i'm riding by 101 Music (1414 Grant St., in North Beach). This guy is walking out of 101 Music, and has a male companion with him. in the few seconds it takes to ride past, something strikes me: That guy, from behind, looks like Carlos Santana. The hair, the hat, the shades. Then as i get past, i double-take and sure enough, it is Carlos.



I'm no fanboy - i don't seek autographs and would feel very awkward asking for one. But this guy is practically my guitar hero - i grew up with the tones of Santana, and i'm not talking about the Matchbox 30 collaborations. So i ride up, say "Mr. Santana i've been a huge fan and appreciating your music since i was a little kid - can i bother you for a quick picture?" And with that he was ultra-gracious, noticed i'm a messenger and told me to be careful out there. As quickly as i spotted him, i approached him and was gone just as quickly. He had no entourage, no limo waiting, just some dude who was nice enough to snap the pic.

So - if i didn't get hit and fall on my bike, i wouldn't have handed off the long board work i had, and i wouldn't have met my guitar hero.

Ah. more random bike messenger pix.

I rode with this on my back from the Icehouse (151 Union) to 444 Valley Drive in Brisbane. Fun!



The Gangway on Larkin north of Turk street




Laguna Honda Hospital, the 5th floor. this guy was just hanging out, couldn't decide on a book to drool on.



Stretching and waiting on Market Street.



Gay Marriage day has arrived in SF. So have the angry muslims.



The Statue.





My man Scotty Brah, and his bud Glenn. We were @ the Outside Lands festival, checking out radiohead. Scotty was one of the first cats i met when i moved here, he wasn't a messenger then, but joined up after we met. Great guy.




This guy was basking in the glory of being the only guy in a Kiss Costume at the Red Bull Soapbox Derby.






This is the What Cheer? Brigade. I got off BART and this gang was just setting up and taking off, marching thru the dankiest grungiest streets of west oakland. Notable because they played Deltron 3030's Memory Loss and i totally called it. Amazing.




Shit, we have work and i have to go get it. 3250 to 1010 on a one hour.

So how about i share with YOU.

I'm just going to post some random pics form various days of messengering. I'm that bored at the office. Beer can only help so much.

This is Fox at the Godspeed office a few weeks ago. I should run a caption contest to see who can come up with the funnest one-liner.

oh glorious work day

Ah, thank you Black Friday, for allowing me to sit unfettered, at the office, waiting for work with a frosty beverage in my hand at 11am.

Waiting. Wishing. Hoping. Cursing. Bleeding. Pooping. Eating. Waiting. Wishing. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

Quotables

I like poignant quotes. Here are some of them:

Ain't no shame in holding onto grief...as long as you make room for other things too. - Bubbles, on The Wire

but that doesn't mean that I want to get to know them or hang out with them - random joe

"It's hard to be humble when you're as great as I am." ~Muhammad Ali

If I don't see you no more in this world, I'll meet you on the next one, so don't be late. - Jimi Hendrix

"fuck it dude... let's go bowling" - Walter in Big Lebowski.

"Garth Brooks has done to country music what panty hose have done to finger fucking"- Waylon Jennings

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president. - Kurt Vonnegut

I'm rocking and doing it well in the science of light, but really I'm doing it well in the science of life. -Wesley Willis

I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal labotomy - Tom Waits

a true friend stabs you in the front - wilde

The fool thinks himself to be wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool" - William Shakespeare

"It's good to know who hates you; and it's good to be hated by the right people." - Johnny Cash

PJ O'Rourke-isms:

• A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.

• A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too.

• After all, what is your host's purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi.

• Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

• America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.

• Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

• Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. They are, literally, selfless. A world designed for automobiles instead of people would have wider streets, larger dining rooms, fewer stairs to climb and no smelly, dangerous subway stations.

• Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.

• Children from the age of five to ten should watch more television. Television depicts adults as rotten SOB's, given to fistfights, gunplay, and other mayhem. Kids who believe this about grownups aren't likely to argue about bedtime.

• Children must be considered in a divorce considered valuable pawns in the nasty legal and financial contest that is about to ensue.

• Cleanliness becomes more important when godliness is unlikely.

• Even a band of angels can turn ugly and start looting if enough angels are unemployed and hanging around the Pearly Gates convinced that all the succubi own all the liquor stores in Heaven.

• Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.

• Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us.

• Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.

• Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.

• Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

• Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

• Gossip is what you say about the objects of flattery when they aren't present.

• Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.

• Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.

• I am a journalist and, under the modern journalist's code of Olympian objectivity (and total purity of motive), I am absolved of responsibility. We journalists don't have to step on roaches. All we have to do is turn on the kitchen light and watch the critters scurry.

• I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a "learning experience." Then again, I like to think of anything stupid I've done as a "learning experience." It makes me feel less stupid.

• I suppose I should get a VCR, but the only thing I like about television is its ephemerality.

• If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

• If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat - in other words, turn you into an adult.

• If you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you've read his autobiography.

• In our brief national history we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their character.

• Let's reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools - and use it on the teachers.

• Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope.

• Marijuana is self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive, and in this world, what worse punishment could there be?

• Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.

• Never fight an inanimate object.

• Never wear anything that panics the cat.

• Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.

• Seriousness is stupidity sent to college.

• Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and those who hope or fear to grow old. After 215 years of trying, we have finally discovered a special interest that includes 100 percent of the population. Now we can vote ourselves rich.

• Staying married may have long-term benefits. You can elicit much more sympathy from friends over a bad marriage than you ever can from a good divorce.

• The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?

• The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.

• The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

• The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to.

• The weirder you're going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.

• There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.

• There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.

• There's one more terrifying fact about old people: I'm going to be one soon.

• What use is it to endure the Dutch Rubs and Indian Rope Burns that are politics if you can't obtain mastery over people and give them noogies back?

• Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.

• When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.

• With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn't think possible in today's world. They have created a land of make-believe that's worse than regular life.

• You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money.

• 
  

the first city, first job

I started this career as a Professional Urban Cyclist in beautiful Chicago, Illinois, wayyyy back in the first portion of 2005, either February or March. (My PBR-addled brain has a tough time with dates sometimes. ) My reasoning for wanting to work on my bike was easy - i could be my own "boss". Theoretically, the harder i work, the more $ that means, and usually that is the case. I figured i was beating the curve by starting before all the fair-weather students out for summer break. Every April (or so), in EVERY city with a messenger industry, there is an influx of fresh-outta-school, got-a-new brakeless fixie kids. I also beat the winter that year...i got in while it was getting out.

Anyway, rookies on the job tend to learn the hard way.

My first gig was with Standard Courier. They are one of the more monolithic companies to work for, caring less about the employees and more about the bottom line. I was naive. I didn't understand what it meant to be an Independant Contractor (gross). I didn't realize that it wasn't the norm to "rent"your two-way radio from the company you work for, often paying way too much $ weekly for only having two-way capability an NO dial-out landline service. I didn't realize the evil extolls of NICA "insurance" at the time, of which i paid $100/month for...which in many cases (not mine, thankfully) turned out to be useless.

(Check out this link to a letter from a bike messenger to the NICA powers-that-be. )

Standard was fine, a good way to learn the ropes of the job, didn't make much $ , but who REALLY does this job to be in it for the money, anyways? I started riding some janky HYbrid bike. I looked really goofy on it, but it got me to wher i needed to be. Then i went to Burning Man and was gifted a day-glo green spray-painted Peugeot roadie...woo, i got fast. I worked at Standard for roughly one year, before moving on to....

Why, indeed....an introduction

I'm a messenger, a bike messenger. I'm not a car messenger, or a horse messenger, or a jet-ski messenger. Bike messenger. I like to play in traffic. So, before i get all codgery and forget about the many wondrous occurrences i see with some regularity, i figure i ought to recount these tales from the front.

I'm a messenger in a City. An evolving City. A City where wonder and amazement are just around the corner from wherever you may be, at any time. Transplanted from yet another big City...a different species of City, buy equally fantastic and suspenseful. Being a courier works for me simply because i work for it. In my past life i was a cubicle-convict....i did that for the first half of my 20's. I then "killed" my self, but not before burning out in a spectacular flame on the job. twice. working on my bike for 2 years in one city gave me the faith and belief that i could do it in any city. And what better reason, than to chase a girl to the other City from the first City.

I'm not a"writer" by any journalistic means - if anyone tunes in to this blog, a) I'll be surprised, and B).....i'll be surprised. But i think, what i hope to gain, is some insight into my own life...and a reference point for when i'm and old(er) codger who needs some help remembering.

and maybe we can all learn a thing or two. Because knowing is half the battle.


























yo Joe!