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7 Tips For New Motorcycle Riders

Part of my blogging here will be about motorcycles, because motorcycles are great, more on that in the future.

I ride a 1980 BMW R100T. It’s a classic bike, not as classic as I’d like, not as classic as my dad’s ’76 R90/6. It’s also a big bike – I can’t comfortably put both feet down. In hindsight it probably wasn’t the best bike to start on, and I’ll admit I brought it down more than a few times.

After a few years of riding, I consider myself a proficient rider, if we’re using Dreyfus Model. My girlfriend is a beginner, and I’ve been tasked with teaching her the art of motorcycling. She’s about to take her driving test, and will soon be unleashed upon the world. Here is some advice for her, as well as anyone who has just started riding.

7 Tips For New Motorcycle Riders

Pretend You’re Invisible

Because you are. Do what the safety manuals, driving instructors, and commen sense says and dress for visibility: light-colored helmet, reflective material on your jacket, holes drilled in your pipes etc. Once you’re on the road though, you’ve done what you can. The safest thing to do now is to pretend you’re invisible. You can’t control whether a car swerves in front of you, you can control how you react.

Ask yourself, “What would that car do if he didn’t know I was here?”. That way, when they do cut you off, you’re prepared, you can safely and calmly manouvre out of his way, with the added benefit of being able to safely honk and flip them the bird.

Dodge Invisible Obstacles

I ruined a very nice shirt while riding to my brother’s graduation ceremony. I was making a simple left turn onto a side street, but I didn’t see the loose gravel that would end up bringing my bike down.
Most of my dodging has been to avoid hitting things like sand and gravel. Occassionally branches and trash, and on trips to my parents house, a dog or two. You can do yourself a favor by familliarizing yourself with your bike ahead of time, so you know how to handle these hazards safely.

I’d reccommend doing this exercise when no one is around, lest they think you’ve been drinking. I often do this on longer, less interesting, rides. Go through Nebraska once, and you’ll be an expert. It’s a pretty simple exercise, just pick a spot down the road, drive towards it, and at the last second, avoid it. You can adjust this many ways. Try quickly changing your lane position, from left tire-track to right, or from one lane to another. If it helps, pretend a car has stopped quickly in front of you, or a meteor has smashed into the pavement. Doing this exercise keeps you alert and your muscle memory tuned.

Practice Accuracy

I spent some time riding trails in Wisconsin a few years ago. I was riding a Honda CT110 Trail Bike. We made up about 1% of the traffic on these trails as motorcyclists on this popular ATV path, but our bikes were great for following their tire tracks. The only problem was the occasional bridge. These bridges were old and rickety, and their driving surface was made up of 4×4 boards laid lengthwise across the bridge. About half of these boards were missing, leaving for us motorcyclists a sort of high-wire act. The holes weren’t wide enough for our tires to fall through, but they were big enough to get ‘stuck’ in, making maneuvering impossible and likely sending one head-over-heels.

This is why you should practice accuracy. An expert rider should be able to put both of her tires exactly where she wants them. You can practice this everyday by doing something as simple as confining yourself to stay within a tire-track, or on long lonely roads, try to ride the center line for as long as you can. This skill will blend with your dodging skill, and soon you’ll Ringling Bros. will be knocking on your door.

Turn Once

This is an easy skill to learn when driving in town, it’s a bit harder on long winding roads. Basically, you want to make sure you only turn once. Turning once means once you start leaning, your don’t exit the lean untill you’ve exited the turn. Inexperienced riders will often turn too sharply at the start of their turn, drive straight for a bit, then turn sharply again to contine in the new direction. If they were driving around the block, it would look something like an octagon. What you want is a rounded rectangle.

On those long winding roads, you want to practice adjusting your lean, rather than completely cancelling it. Try adjusting your turning radius with your throttle, rather than by leaning. If you go faster, you will turn wider, slower and you will turn sharper.

Park For Escaping

I learned this one the hard way. In my hometown there is angle parking around the town square. Like most roads, these too are rounded, being higher down the middle to allow water to run to the shoulder and into the gutter. This means that if you angle park properly, you will be pointing away from the road and downhill. Add to this picture a younger me and a 225kg motorcycle. With cars parked on both sides of me, my only escape was to walk my bike backwards, uphill. Not fun.

Why not make this easier on yourself? Park with your escape in mind. In the situation above, the best thing to do is to back into the parking spot. This not only allows for an easy escape, but also makes a more stable use of your kickstand. In general, it’s a good idea to park pointing out, but also pay attention to slope and surface type – Don’t put your kickstand down onto hot blacktop.

Make Yourself Bigger

Cats do this, so do puffer fish, you can too. I’m mostly talking about lane position. You’ve heard enough suggestions on lane position already, but there really are a multitude of situations out there in which all lane positions get their share of preference. My general rule is to make myself as big as possible. Imagine a bubble around you that most cars, regardless of how big of a douchebag the driver is, won’t drive inside. You want to both make yourself visible and make it less likely for people to cut you off. You do this by making your bubble bigger.

• Two Lane Undivided: Ride in the left tire track. Your biggest threats are oncoming cars and passers. Riding closer to the threat makes you bigger, your bubble extends from the centerline to the shoulder. If you ride in the right track, your don’t-drive-here bubble won’t reach the centerline, and people will cut you off when they pass you.
• Four Lane Divided – Left Lane: The right lane on something like a divided freeway can be treated like a two lane undivided. The left lane however, is a different scenario. Your most immediate threat is not oncoming traffic, you have a median to protect you. Instead you need to watch out for drivers to your right. This means you want to drive in the right tire track.

The point here is to force other drivers to treat you as they would any other car, not as they would treat a bicyclist or horse and buggy.*

Learn The Wave

This is perhaps one of the most important things you can do. By riding a motorcycle you’ve joined a special group of people. Our secret handshake is the wave: left arm outstretched, 45 degrees down. It’s a simple gesture that says “You and I know something that all these other drivers don’t. There’s something great about what we’re doing out here, don’t forget that. Keep the shiny side up.”

* For the record, bicyclists and the Amish should be given their fair share of space too.

It’s Tough

Graduating from Paperback Rhino ends the 7 year chapter of my improv career that I’m going to call the “Am I Doing This Right?” years. Still not sure what the next chapter is going to be. I’m faced with the decision of starting my own troupe, likely being the most experienced and de facto leader, or traveling two-plus hours round trip to take classes in Atlanta. It is my deepest desire to be surrounded by people who care about improv as much as me, and I worry starting my own troupe will leave me exhausted trying to inspire that passion in other people. I also can’t justify taking more of what little time in a day Amanda and I have together. It’s tough.

8 Improvisors Walk Into A Barprov…

The thing about bars, you see,
Is their damnéd propensity,
For causing for you and me,
A scenic catastrophe.

A solution for this may be,
one that allows you to see,
and hear without difficulty:
an eatre that starts with a T.

An Acceptable Practice

Last night Joe and I made the unofficial theme of practice “Acceptance”. It’s part of our scheme to develop a curriculum around Truth in Comedy. Acceptance isn’t the first chapter, but it’s the easiest one to jump into, and took the least planning on our part.

I think the biggest success of the practice was playing Conflict Scenes. While we might have strayed a bit from the rules of the game, I still saw a lot of amazing scenes. What happened in our scenes wasn’t what I was expecting, or thought was supposed to happen, but it was nonetheless impressive.

The way Conflict Scenes is supposed to work is, when given an argument inspiring suggestion, to deftly sidestep the obvious argument in favor of a more interesting scene. The intention is that because arguments stagnate a scene and are a breeding ground for denial, a superior improvisor would be able to see beyond the argument and create a scene where the actors work together for something greater.

What we did right: None of our scenes devolved into the pointless back and forth of an argument. Also, I never felt the need to end a scene because it sucked.

What we did wrong: We took the suggestion as a theme, rather than a starting point. All of our scenes still revolved around the initial conflict. This might have been an issue of not knowing if we were allowed to go outside the realm of our suggestion.

What rocked my socks off: We did not turn our scenes into arguments, we instead pushed our conflict into subtext, or made the conflict so large that it became a character relationship, rather than a moment.

Amanda and Ben did a scene with the suggestion “Last seat on the bus”. Ben played a young doctor, and Amanda played a sick pregnant woman. The scene began and Amanda immediately took the higher status, all but forcing Ben into the seat. The scene then became a game of making Ben feel as guilty as possible about taking the seat. Both actors played the game, and they avoided the obvious argument about the seat. Ben only offered the seat perhaps three times in the scene, and only as a sort of aside, a reminder to the audience that they were aware of the obvious argument, and were not, under any circumstances going to go there. Ben would say “Well, at the very least you should take my seat.” and Amanda would respond “No”. That’s not denial, Ben asked the question knowing that she would say no. I bet if she had said “Yes, thank you.” The scene would have been over.

After the break we (the newbies) learned QVC. I love this game for it’s physiological effect. It builds up so much tension in your body, and when it releases, you can’t help but lose some of the other tension you’ve build up throughout the day.

My Rules

Forget about those famous Rules of Improv. Every one of those rules has outstanding exceptions. I’m making a new list of rules. Why are my rules better? They’re not designed to make you a ‘better’ improvisor, they won’t make you funnier. What they will do is put you in a position where you can learn those things on your own. If you don’t follow these rules, you’re just handicapping yourself, and most likely your team as well.

I’ve already talked about Rule #1, DB². Here’s Rule #2:

No Sitting
We’re not performing for each other. We’re not proving ourselves to each other. We train ourselves not to laugh at our own jokes, so why do we make ourselves an audience? Sitting is bad for you because it kills your energy, and it’s bad for the group because it divisive. Does that professional wrestler in the big tag match sit in a chair away from the ring, or is he on his toes, hanging onto the ropes, ready at a moment’s notice to help out his partner? Also, get your hands out of your pockets. You’re not patiently awaiting your turn, you’re anxiously listening for your cue.

Deux Tortues

Two turtles went to the store.
It was nice out.
They put on costumes, masks, and all.
The told the cashier to give them the money or they’d shoot.
Once in the street, one of the turtles gave a whistle.
Down from the clouds came an hot air balloon.
“Hip-ho!” yelled Sir Francis Bacon, “have you the loot, my turts in cahoot?”
With a glorious puff, and a cloud of smoke, the balloon ascended skyward.

A change

If you haven’t noticed, this blog isn’t updated very often, and that sucks. So, in an effort to make this blog a bit more interesing, I’m going to be making shorter, more frequent posts. Maybe I’ll do a longer post when I get the urge, but from now on, posts are going to be a lot more frequent, and a lot more brief. They will be…

about…

this…

long.

About The Man

Comics scripter, comedy legend Del Close dies at 64

by Kim “Howard” Johnson

Comedy icon–and comic book creator–Del Close died March 4, 1999 at Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago.  He was 64.

Along with co-scripter John Ostrander, Close created Munden’s Bar for First Comics, and co-created and co-wrote (also with Ostrander) the 12-issue maxi-series Wasteland for DC Comics.  It was the comic book medium that Close chose for his autobiography:  nearly every issue of Wasteland contained one or two true stories from his life, illustrated by Don Simpson, William Messner-Loebs, David Lloyd, George Freeman and Tim Truman.  Although he co-authored Truth in Comedy (with Charna Halpern and Kim “Howard” Johnson), he considered the Wasteland stories to be his only true autobiography.   He also made an appearance in the second issue of Marvels as Phil Sheldon’s publisher.

Close’s real life was indeed the stuff of comic books, a real-life Forest Gump adventure.  He was born in Kansas, where his cousin’s  cousin–General Dwight Eisenhower–came over for Thanksgiving dinner.

He was always a fan of science fiction and horror, devoted to the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, lark Ashton Smith and many others.  When he was 14, he co-created the world’s first science fiction poetry fan magazine.

He knew L. Ron Hubbard when he ran the Dianetics Institute in Wichita, Kansas (he told Del that because of taxes “I’m thinking of turning this into a religion” (a tale told in part in Wasteland #9). 

He ran away from home at 17 to join a traveling show called “Dr. Dracula’s Magic Horror Show,” in which he served as a fire-eater, and later, when the lights were turned off, would call out “A plague of worms shall descend upon you!” as he ran through the audience tossing handfuls of cooked spaghetti. 

Eventually, he wound up in New York, where he resumed his bass drum studies in a class with fellow student James Dean. He resumed an earlier career as a human torch/fire-eater, calling himself Azrad the Incombustible, but bigger things were ahead.

Del joined the Compass Players–the precursors to Second City–when he was 22 years old, largely because he was a friend of Severn Darden.

Between leaving the Compass and joining Second City, he began doing stand-up comedy, playing clubs and opening for acts like the Kingston Trio.   During one memorable stint, Del, Bob Newhart and Lenny Bruce were all performing around Chicago at the same time, and this unlikely trio spent their off-stage time going to each others’ shows.

He used to dream for the U.S. government in the late ’50s (and when he left it abruptly, got a letter from the government saying “You owe us two more dreams.”).  

Del was one of the founders of Second City, performing with folks like Mike Nichols,  Elaine May, Barbara Harris and Joan Rivers in the early ’60s, eventually leaving Chicago to do a stint with the Committee (and folks like Howard Hesseman) in San Francisco in the ’60s.  While on the West Coast, Del was a regular on My Mother the Car and had a recurring role on Get Smart.  And in his spare time, he used to do light shows for the Grateful Dead.

Del was an important figure in the ’60s counterculture around Chicago and San Francisco (the bizarre but true story about the time he went roller-skating through the sewers of Chicago with a flashlight strapped to his head, shooting rats, is related in the first issue of Wasteland).

Eventually, he came back to Chicago in the early ’70s to direct Second City, and discovered John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Harold Ramis, Betty Thomas, George Wendt, Tim Kazurinsky and John Candy;  most of them still consider Del their most important teacher.

He became the “House Metaphysician” at Saturday Night Live for two years (during “the Eddie Murphy era”), then came back to Chicago again in the early ’80s and co-founded the Improv Olympic, where he taught folks like Mike Myers, Tim Meadows and Chris Farley.  

He continued appearing in stage and in films throughout the ’80s and ’90s, most notably the 1980s remake of The Blob, The Light of Day,  and The Untouchables, where he played a corrupt alderman who tries to bribe Kevin Costner.  Most recently, four of his students created The Upright Citizens’ Brigade for  Comedy Central;  Del provided voice-overs for the series, and cut a final voice clip for them by telephone the nigh before he died.

He was an alcoholic who managed to stop drinking in 1978, and a former heroin addict who gave up drugs after the death of his good friend John Belushi.  But, the most difficult habit to kick would be cigarettes, and they ultimately proved his undoing.  He began to suffer from emphysema, and finally wound up in the hospital February 26th.  The end was near, and he knew it. 

But his death was as non-traditional as his life.  He spent his final days saying good-bye to a steady stream of friends in person and by telephone.  He received e-mail, faxes and tributes literally from around the world, from old friends and longtime admirers like Robin Williams, Howard Hesseman, Peter Boyle and Wavy Gravy, to recent acquaintances like Monty Python’s Terry Jones. 

On Wednesday, March 3rd and at his request, a going away party/wake/memorial service was held in his honor at the hospital. Nearly a hundred friends, students and former students crowded in to pay their last respects, listening as Del flung his oxygen mask aside to tell stories and share his final thoughts. Guests flew in from across the country, several with only a few hours’ notice, and Harold Ramis canceled part of the publicity tour for his new film to be there. A Comedy Central camera crew filmed the party, which included a pagan ceremony, a lavish buffet and jazz saxophone players, and master of ceremonies Bill Murray served Del a final martini. 

After more than two hours of partying that would tax anyone, he retired to his room, and a handful of his closest friends said goodnight to him for one last time.  And he died the following day, right on cue.

The words creative genius may be bandied about far too frequently, but in Del’s case, they truly apply.  Del remains an incredibly important figure in American comedy/improv, and his influence will long live on.  He was undoubtedly the best (and most influential) improv teacher in the U.S., and traveled all over giving his workshops.  He didn’t invent improv, but he is probably most responsible for making it into its own art form, particularly with the work he’s done in long-form improv in the past 20 years.

Del is survived by his partner Charna, his cat, his hundreds of students, and an American comedy landscape that he forever changed. 

Del’s Last Words

The day after his “Going Away Party/Wake/Memorial Service,” Del spent most of the day trying to die.  His doctor gave him two morphine injections, but Del was too strong (and of course several people have since suggested that he had built up a tolerance…).

Finally, Del and Charna browbeat his doctor into hooking him up to a morphine drip.  Just before he did so, he asked Del if this was what he really wanted, and Del nodded yes.  He told him “I’m tired of being the funniest one in the room.”

And that was it.  The doctor turned up the machine to give him enough morphine to drop a bull elephant, and fifteen minutes later, he was gone.

Del’s Last Joke

Del’s Will was fairly straightforward, but there was one odd provision. 

He bequeathed his own skull to the Goodman Theatre, to be used in their productions of Hamlet, with him getting a credit in the program.

He asked the Goodman in advance, and they said sure–never, ever dreaming he would do it.  But the day after he died, Charna was on the phone making arrangements with a local medical school to remove the skull before he was cremated.

DB-Squared

What are the ‘rules’ of improv?

When I did IHSSA Group Improvisation, we began the year by going around in a circle, saying what rules of Improv we knew. The basic stuff was brought up, don’t say no, don’t ask questions, etc. Read my post The Buzzer to see how I feel about rules.

Paperback Rhino has only one rule.

DB-Squared

It’s pretty simple, Don’t Be a Douche-Bag. Typically, people don’t want to be douche-bags, so for the most part it is self-enforcing. Sometimes, however, you might be kind-of a douche-bag, or drifting toward douche-baggery. When this happens, hopefully someone will have noticed, and politely remind you of the rule.

“DB-Squared, Darin”

When someone says that, you stop what your doing. Even if you don’t think you were actually being a douche-bag, because one of the best, sure-fire, ways of being a douche-bag, is to start an argument about whether or not you’re being a douche-bag.

So, how does one avoid being a douche-bag? Go find yourself a douche-bag and start doing the opposite. Mostly it’s about respect, and trust. Respect people’s opinions, respect people’s talents, trust people and respect their trust in you.

Good improv requires trust and respect. In order to trust someone on stage, you have to be able to trust them off stage. This is PbR’s greatest asset. We are 13 different people, from 13 different backgrounds with 13 different personalities, but we’ve become a tight family, and I know I can trust any of them to help me out both onstage and off.