Easy Rider
One of the earliest memories I have of my father is a bedside chat at about the age of 8.
In it he outlined the paths that one’s life can take and how they are often vast and varied. That over the course of a man’s life he may try his hand at many things, some successful, others not. This wasn’t the standard ‘you can do anything if you apply yourself’, although there was a touch of that. No, this was more of a primer. The things that could be done. But what stuck with me more were the things that could not be done.
It was not an extensive list, and only two stayed with me to today.
1. I was not to be a jailer. For to keep people in a cage like animals was in his mind a lowly profession.
2. I was, under no circumstances, ever, to own a motorcycle.
Now my father is a smart man in a lot of ways, but versed in the child-parent dynamic he is not. What he should have said was ‘Motorcycles are so cool! I love them and when you get your first one we’ll go riding with matching jackets!’
I’d have avoided them like the plague.
Not to say I fetishized them like a lot of young men my age.
A close high school friend was tragically paralyzed simply riding his bike across the Tampa Bay bridge. While that tempered things harshly, I still maintained the image of the freedom and escape that riding two wheels can bring.
A mishmash of Easy Rider and Lawrence of Arabia gave me the thought to what it would take to ride a bike across the Sahara. (I’ve always thought the attack on Aqaba would have been a lot easier if TE Lawrence would have just passed out a few of his Norton 500’s, but then again he died in a motorcycle wreck so…).
I even went so far as to have a map for it tacked to the wall, a town to town itinerary across the desert, but the gas/water/food required would be more than one could carry. No, the motorcycle plan was shelved along with a dozen other half baked travel schemes. That is until I visited Thailand in March of 2010.
The area was ripe for a freewheeling tear through the subcontinent. Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Vietnam, all distinct areas with their own history, food, and sights in a region no bigger than the southern U.S. It was perfect.
An idea is like a virus. Once it’s attached, the only thing you can do is let it run it’s course.
The first trip to Thailand taught me a few things. Arriving in the midst of bombings and mass protests taught me to pull my head out of my maps (ass?) a few weeks ahead of time and read the damned local news.
It was an embarrassing mistake that threatened to derail the entire trip, but actually made it far more fascinating. Bangkok this go around seems downright boring without millions of red-shirted protesters jamming the streets and hurling Molotov cocktails. Then again, we got out before the police started machine-gunning people indiscriminately in the streets so maybe I have a rosier outlook on it than most.
However, the most alarming and sobering realization to come from that trip was that I was woefully out of shape, and in fact I had been for some time.
Is your cat constantly stomping around, driving you crazy? Kitten Mittens!
The sedentary life afforded most office dwelling Americans meant that aside from the occasional half hearted scolding from the Doc I was free to sit on my ass and consume more calories daily than entire Cambodian villages.
I carried my college lifestyle over into adulthood (if that’s what you want to call 5hrs of Call of Duty nightly) and was quickly tipping 330lbs. I had always been heavy, but never to the point where I felt it precluded me from doing the things I wanted to do. Women were just as easily wooed by charm and wit as they were six pack abs (the women I found attractive usually more so). Traveling was the first time I felt truly hampered by my substantial girth. A trip to a packed Tokyo sex shop where my American gut laid Godzilla-like waste to meticulously arranged shelves of sex toys was not the wake up call it should have been (I was too busy laughing).
I recall a particularly biting post on a FAQ page for travelers to SE Asia.
Q: What should we do if a traveler in our party is differently-abled?
A: Don’t come to Southeast Asia
This is not a region for those requiring elevators, escalators, or ramps for mobility. For the most part they simply don’t exist. So obviously fitness was key. No alternative was available. If you couldn’t hack the constant walking and stairs then go the fuck home to Wisconsin.
The choice was clear. Continue as I had been and secure an early departure from this mortal coil (the embarrassing kind where they have to knock out a wall of your house and bury you in a piano-box) or shape up and ship out abroad. I endeavored to the latter.
January 1st 2012 I made a private agreement with myself. Lose the weight, save the money, and get the fuck out of dodge. Both had to happen concurrently for this to work. But with a solid goal in mind for the first time in quite a few years I was optimistic.
I went to it with monk-like obedience. I did my Leon:The Professional sit-ups, my Prefontaine-runs, and my Rocky ‘carry awkward, heavy shit, up mountains’. Yeah, I watch movies for my workout advice, so what? One of the things this taught me was that what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. Every gym-rat loves to talk shop and 90% are full of shit. In the end you have to draw a little from everywhere and create a system that works for you.
Within 3 months I had lost 40lbs. By years end I would have dropped 133. I was stunned. I had made attempts at getting in shape before, but none as all encompassing as what I had embarked on now. I was throwing everything I had at this. It was total war. I doubled my efforts.
It was here I figured I needed to enlist a partner in crime. Someone to revel in the seediness with. Someone I could trust. Someone with which to drink from the cup of victory should this come off in the high-style I hoped. Needless to say it was a short list.
To be continued…”The Short List’
