Motorcycles, anathema to the typical person, are a thing here in western SoDak. Like, a thing thing. Nine days after the end of the Sturgis rally, the streets are still ruled by a synergistic mix of oversized bikes and deer. Like a germophobe in a Kmart, one must be careful in these parts when stretching one’s opinion muscles vis-a-vis two-wheeled annoyance machines. While locked in a literal 10-minute elevator ride, Jeremy let slip his true feelings and managed to offend someone whose father is a motorcycle, I guess. I assume that individual wished he was on his bike right then, able to drown out the conversation in a deluge of noise and unburnt fuel-laden exhaust, a smile creasing his sandblasted sunglasses-tanned face, behind him a skinny toothless woman with a quarter pound of Mascara, her weighing down the back wheel for traction as they get all the way up to 10 mph under the speed limit.

By the way. Anathema? I am a complete asshole for using that word, and more deserving of a wedgie no one has ever been. I enjoy pretending that my delete key is broken, which pushes the writing process forward in new and spectacular ways. All progress is forward progress. My destiny is made manifest by filling this computer screen with the rawest of prose.

I’m told the rally went off well this year. I heard the death toll was in the single digits, though not by much, but that’s still an improvement. From what I saw, I believe the theme this year was “America.” Apparently, in the ~50s, the rally was a family-friendly event, oriented toward people who zen out on having to stand up at red lights and pretending that they aren’t constantly eating bugs. Today one cordons off a three-block stretch of Main Street, lines up the Sons of Silence on one side and Hell’s Angels on the other, and then lets them hit each other with bats. Details ensue, and out comes a motorcycle rally. Toward the end the bars actually run out of Bud Light. Yes, that is possible; even with the backs of everyone’s fridges inexplicably and perpetually generating five-year-old cans of it, supply still can’t keep up with demand.