It’s hard being a smart biker. I’m not saying I’m the Stephen Hawkings of the motorcycle world, but I do think I’m one of the sharper knives in the drawer. Especially the biker drawer. It’s almost physically painful to me how dumb some of my fellow bikers are.

There’s a message board I frequent where motorcycling issues are discussed, and it’s there that I suffer the most. I can look past the knee-jerk conservative reactionary bullshit most of the time, but it pains me to have to decipher their text. These are some guys who simply should not be allowed near a keyboard. The written word is not their friend. The following is a recent post from this message board:

Catherine Zeda Jones Comercial roadi

I saw my bike on this commercial. It is for BT cellular phones. My bike is the one in the living room behind the couch with the huge looking biker on it. also in the last shot when the guy is riding the bike threw the house, mine is the one in front of the row of the bikes in the background pretty cool. I know have pictures of my bike in the film industry they paid me 500.00 doll, maybe�I can recoup some of the cost of the endless mods, Has anyone seen it? we don’t have many US stations

I swear, it hurts me to read this garbled mess, and this was one of the more literate posts. Et almos maks me knot wanto rode ennymoore.

At the tender age of 40 I finally made my first political contribution, to Howard Dean’s campaign. Following is the “thank you” email I got today. I know it’s a mass-mailing that went out to thousands of other people too, but I still got a warm fuzzy from it. I stepped up and am helping to make a difference, no matter how small. I want my country back, and I’m doing more than just talking about it.

Dear Chuck,

Yours sincerely,
Howard Dean

I was meeting with the Sales Manager today when the receptionist rang through to announce that a job applicant was waiting to see him in the lobby. His first question: “Is she wearing shoes?”

He later showed me an “application” he once received that he keeps pinned to his corkboard. It came in an envelope addressed in pen to “Reseum” as the recipient at the station’s address. The “reseum” consisted of a single page torn from a 3×5 wire-bound memo pad with the applicant’s neatly handwritten name, address, telephone number, and the Sales Promotion position she was interested in.

She didn’t get the job.