30 Objects in 30 Essays
From the objects that I have made, objects other people have made, objects that I live with, and what they have to say. The products of hands and brains. The obvious differences between things and words. The tangible and intangible rewards of effort. Use and beauty as the two primary qualities of objects, words, hands and brains. For through objects we make the stories of our lives: a life made, a life bought, a life well-used, a life beautiful and useful.
This is a story about a 1991 Jawa 350, a bike that taught me much about workmanship.
Snake was the first motorcycle I ever both owned, and rode. Though we were a pair for just over 7 months, he taught me a certain kind of caution, respect for how machines think, and don't, and basic bush maintenance. I loved that bike, and dearly miss it.
It wasn't long after I started riding that it earned its name: Snake, after Tchitcherine's horse in Gravity's Rainbow. The original Snake was a horse that bucked at random to dislodge and murder its rider. Tchitcherine, a Colonel in the Soviet Army, learned to respect and fear his mount, as I did with mine.
Mere minutes had passed since his manufacturing when I met Snake. He literally rolled off the production floor to a spot next to the sales office in Bratislava, where I sat, signing paperwork and handing over a small wad of cash. A new bike, perfect, without a history, and no problems, I thought. As I admired his early 80's styling, another factory worker walked up and attached his side mirrors. They had apparently forgotten to add them in the factory. Then another worker walked up with a very grimy rag and wiped down (smeared?) random parts. I puzzled over this as the bike looked relatively clean. Then, another approached, holding a little jug. He took the gas tank cap off and poured out a dollop of gas, less than the gin I'd add to a G&T. Topping him up?
A bike with no history perhaps, but I with much personality, I hoped. The red tank and stripes looked snazzy, and mixed well with the black and chrome. I envisioned the joys of an open road before us both. I looked forward to a partnership of adventure and delight.
A moment's reflection reminded me that I was the one with a history, and not as much personality as I'd like. That history, with a bunch of other motorcycles, marked the way I rode and took care of things. And that history is important. So this story begins with the bikes I rode, and owned, and worked on, before Snake. Without this context, Snake's lessons would remain impenetrable.
--
The first bike I rode, but did not own, was my father's 1972 Yamaha LT100.
When I was 13 my father offered a ride around the yard. He held one handlebar and graciously stood back. I took the handlebars and threw my leg over, and began kicking the starter, over, and over, and over... The trouble was the bike rarely ran, because my father practiced what I later learned to call The Machine Maintenance of Will (MMW). Through it, the mechanic imposes his or her will, limited knowledge, and opinions on the machine. It is the machine's job to understand that will, limited knowledge, and opinion, and obey it. Failing obedience, the machine is damned, abused and eventually abandoned.
We all practice a little bit of MMW. It can be identified by how we respond to a problem with the machine: anger driven by blame. Simply put, the machine is a piece of shit for not running. A common script goes like this: After kicking the machine for not running, the MMW approach will take a relatively random opinion of the cause, perhaps that the plugs are bad. The mechanic makes a trip out of his or her way to buy new plugs, cursing the machine for making him or her go out of his or her way....and when the machine still does not run, the machine receives more verbal and physical abuse. WHAT IN JESUS F. CHRIST'S NAME IS YOUR PROBLEM. THOSE ARE NEW GODDAMN PLUGS YOU SHOULD FUCKING WORK..." possibly accompanied by the new plugs being thrown across the room for not making the machine work. If a clogged fuel filter is ever discovered, the failure to run remains the machine's fault: "OH NOW IT'S A CLOGGED FUEL FILTER, EH? CLEVER, YOU PIECE OF JUNK. WHY THE HELL DIDN'T... CRAPPY JAPANESE DESIGN... THAT FUEL FILTER SHOULD BE FINE I CHECKED IT JUST GODDAMN LAST MONTH..." This kind of maintenance can, eventually, lead to a working machine, depending on persistence, and at least trying different things. The approach's flaws are that it is usually slow, sometimes involves added damage to machine, and teaches that most machines are dumb, poorly built, and the cause of more pain and trouble than usefulness.
Not knowing any better, I learned to apply MMW to the Yammer LT100 with no better results than my dad. I spent most of my time with it time kicking it over, cursing it and failing to understand what it needed to run, deflecting my father's suspicion that I had broken it, avoiding touching it to assuage that suspicion, and thereby failing to ride it. But, when I did get it running, or he did, and I did ride it, the Yammer was a low-speed, sputtering blast. It had no oil in the front forks, so it clacked and clanked over every bump, and the swingarm bearings were probably shot as it handled like middleschooler in a hoolahoop. I roared up and down the driveway. I put ruts in the lawn around the house. I learned to slide the rear wheel. I learned what a high side was.
The second motorcycle I owned, but never rode, was a 1968 Honda CB360, given to me by my cousin Jeff, when I was 16. The bike had sat outside for ten years and didn't run. My dad bought me a Clymer manual and let me use his tools. I took the Honda all apart, cleaned it, and put it all back together, as I had no idea what else to do.e While I still got angry at things that didn't work the way I thought they should, I did not apply any percussive maintenance. The limits of MMW were becoming evident. I began to see that, much to my surprise, machines had inviolable rules. For example, aluminum and steel have different properties. When I ignored those properties, I stripped threads. It began to dawn on me that it wasn't the aluminum's engine case's fault, but my fault for not using a torque wrench, or reading the correct torque specs in the manual. The simple wisdom that aluminum is gonna do what aluminum does began to tickle my brain.
My workmanship began to evolve into the Machine Maintenance of Empathy (MME). This can be summed up as the practice of listening to what the machine wants and needs. You want that screw tightened lightly so it doesn't strip? You're not a stupid screw hole, just an aluminum one. I promise to be gentle. This kind of maintenance has its limits as well, but it also can, eventually, lead to a working machine. It doesn't require an understanding of the machine, but relies on listening to the machine. MME work is generally performed only after the machine makes a new noise, acts bizarrely, or loses a part. The approach's flaws are that it is patchwork, and prevents no damage. But it teaches that machines faults' are not their fault: poor design and poor maintenance come from humans. Machines simply work within the limits of their design and maintenance.
After a summer of asking the Honda what it wanted, and giving it what I thought it needed out of my general ignorance, I eventually got one cylinder running maybe 80% of the time, and the other about 30% of the time. The sparks were dim, even though I had bought new plugs and gapped them according to Clymer. I figured the bike needed something else electrical, but I had no idea what it was. Maybe capacitors? Buying new parts was a sign of failure in my father's eyes. It proved that I couldn't fix something. And I didn't have much of a budget. So the bike sat, and I never got it down the road. She lived in the garage for a while, before ending on the side of the road with "Free" sign on her, as the garage was too full of my father's non-working machines.
--
Six long years later, at the age of 23, while living in Bratislava, Slovakia, with vague memories of the Yamaha and Honda, and fading capabilities in MMW and MME, a vague memory of riding experience, and no motorcycle license, I bought a 1991 Jawa 350.
...
Slovakia in 1990-91 is a topic for much discussion, but not here. Let's summarize that the Slovaks lived a key moment in world history, and those who escaped death were perhaps luckier than those who did not. For little me, as an English instructor visiting for a year at the end of the Soviet era, I learned much about human nature that I wish I had not.
In early 1991, during a drunken discussion (as all discussions occur through beer and/or Slivovica) I learned that the local motorcycle manufacturer Jawa had been allowed to sell its motorcycles to individual foreigners. I jumped at the chance. With the help of some Slovak friends, many discussions over kitchen tables (involving more beer and/or Slivovica), phone calls made on my behalf (my Slovak was rudimentary), I eventually ended up in the sales office of the factory, a wad of cash in my pocket, and a pile of paperwork to sign. That done, I was handed the keys and a license plate, and walked to the bike just outside the door.
I kicked it over and it wouldn't start. I kicked it again, and again. With MMW anger rising that this FUCKING piece of shit brand-new bike I just FUCKING bought wasn't FUCKING working... with memories of my father's Yamaha stirring at gut level... I stopped and channeled some MME. What do you need...? I looked her over carefully and figured it out. She needed the ignition switch turned on and choke pulled out. Completing those tasks, she started on the first kick.
Prrutta prutta prutta prutta prrrrruuuuuuuutttaa, a tinny two-stroke sound that when revved, got tinnier. It was the loveliest sound I had ever heard.
I was in love. A bike that I owned, and a bike that ran. Freedom. A first. A deep moment of having arrived.
I turned onto the street feeling like I'd escaped prison. 20 feet later,she sputtered and stopped. Ten minutes of wondering what the hell I had done (left the choke on too long? Fouled the plugs? Hit a hidden kill switch?), I ascertained that the bike was out of gas. I pushed it back to the factory, found someone, and begged for a little more gas. After a fair amount of grumbling and discussion among themselves, and pointing to a gas station down the road a ways, as if I should have known to push it there, an employee came back and splashed another shot glass full of mix in my tank. As an American, who had just bought a new bike, I felt entitled to a full tank, but all my poorly translated indignation was ineffective. (If I recall right, I paid about $500US for Snake). I rode up to the gas station without sputtering to a stop breaking down again.
That's when I discovered the bike's identity, and proper name. Pulling into the gas station, I turned hard to the right, the clutch engaged itself, the engine revved high, and the bike slowed. Straightening the bars was my second mistake, as the clutch reengaged, the bike lurched forward into a wheelie towards the pumps, hands slipping off the bars.
What goes through one's mind at such moments? -- It was a strange dream-like feeling, as if I had five steep steps on an attic staircase to climb before I could reach the clutch lever and save my life. Instructing my feet to climb them led to the realization that they were stuck in a vat of molasses. I also realized, and marveled that,Yes! Of course! The hand brake is useless in a wheelie! I squeezed it anyway. Go figure.
Miraculously, I managed to stay on, land it upright, clutch reengaged and throttle released. Heart pounding, adrenaline raging, I examined the bike thoroughly, and found the clutch cable entwined tight around the frame in a way that stretched it tight in right hand turns. I yanked some clips loose to fix the problem.
Homicidal Fucker of a bike, if there ever was one. You're a snake, I thought. Your name will be Snake.
Over the next six months, I rode Snake nearly every day, eventually 15,000km around Europe, on what I called my Pynchon Pilgrimage, visiting places mentioned in Gravity's Rainbow, and thinking through Slothrop's quest to save himself. There was no way to predict Snake's next attempt on my life, but a next attempt was assured.
Some of the ways Snake tried to kill me included: the disc brake on the front seized, twice; Snake's clutch cable snapped on the same mountain road, while descending; Attempting 70mph for the first time, Snake went into such a violent wobble that my feet came off the pegs; complete electrical failure at 60mph at night on a busy highway with no shoulder. Snake caught a peg on a mountain curve and lifted his rear wheel clear of the road causing us to slide sideways into a guardrail along the edge of a cliff (in fairness, this attempt was my fault). There must have been others, but I forget them.
The seized front brake episodes were the absolute scariest. On a stretch of highway at about 50mph, the front suddenly dove and I came up off my seat. I hung on for dear life by throwing my feet out either side, which seemed to make sense at the time. I recall wrestling with the handlebars and pulling in the clutch with all my might before sliding somewhat sideways to a stop, miraculously upright. Sitting by the side of the road, shaking in an adrenaline rush, I went through MMW (FUCK THIS BIKE) before practicing MME (WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM???) by taking the front brake caliper apart, noting it was dirty, cleaning everything with a rag, and reassembling it. The second seizure a few hundred miles later indicated that, perhaps, MME was as inadequate as MMW.
I needed a better approach, I realized, one that included actually knowing what the fuck I was doing, and what was causing the caliper(?) or pads? to cock sideways(?) at a certain speed(?). Maybe it was the hydraulics. I really didn't know. But I kept riding Snake.
I had no mechanical approach adequate to maintaining Snake in a non-homicidal (or suicidal) mode. When I tried to change his oil in the parking lot of a supermarket, and his drain plug came out with all its threads, MMW and MME had nothing to offer. My improvised bush maintenance was elaborate, incompetent, but it worked. I walked to a hardware store and bought a five minute epoxy. I drained Snake's gas and flipped him upside down. I wiped all the oil from the drain plug and hole and bits of thread around the hole with the cleanest shirt corner I had, slathered epoxy on all of it and jammed the plug back in the hole. I let the epoxy cure overnight before returning Snake to his upright position and filling him up with oil and gas mix again. It worked. I rode another 5,000km without thinking about the drain plug, thereby initiating an unwitting mutual destruction pact. An engine seizure on the highway would have been...interesting.
--
Snake was equally suicidal. He didn't want to throw me off a cliff so much as take us both off. His oil plug threads had been cast across a seam in the case, likely why they came out in my hands when I unscrewed the plug. I figure he was fixing to spit his oil out on the road. He also fouled plugs on the regular, usually as far from a parts store as was geographically possible, and when I had no tools to clean or regap them. His headlight would blink off, then on, at night. Whether a fragile filament, a loose wire, or bad connector, I never discovered. This was in addition to the many nuts and bolts that hadn't been tightened, couldn't be tightened, had been over tightened at the factory, and led to a consistent rain of parts off of him at speed. The headlight faring, the crash bar, the battery platform: all ended up held on by anywhere from 75% to 50% of their original nuts and bolts. The right hand mirror threads eventually stripped so it spun freely until I wrapped the base with tape.
Snake held a certain mechanical despair. Snake was engineered, and built, to fail. I felt for Snake, even as he kept trying to throw me off at high speed. Who would design a motorcycle with cast threads across a seam? Who would assemble Snake by overtightening or undertightening every nut and bolt? Who would give a new customer only enough gas to get halfway to the nearest gas station?
Ford Motor Company earned the joke that its name was an acronym for "Fix Or Repair Daily." Fiat earned "Fix It Again, Tony." Workers who don't give a damn about the build quality The Jawas of the time, however, took bad build quality to a new level. This gets a fellow thinking. Who builds to fail?
When I rode Snake, I had not yet read Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I remain glad that I hadn't. I read it years later, found it to be nothing like what I had imagined. Who rides a motorcycle and has discussions, that he calls chautauquas, with his former self? Of my many friends who ride, I don't know any who have chautauquas with themselves. Riding a motorcycle gets me out of my head, not into it. And being out of one's thinky head is one of the great blessings of long motorcycle rides.
Snake forced me out of my head, and into his. How the fuck are you going to try to kill us next, Snake? was the only question I had riding him. My mental eye roved over him for dangling bits. My ear listened for the tiniest change in motor or bearing noise. My hands, feet and butt tuned into his vibrations, feeling for the slightest shift or change. I had to experience the road through Snake to avoid death.
It is a mode of thinking, frankly, that we should apply to all of our technology. How can I use this and avoid death? We can't impose our will on machines and expect predictable outcomes. We can't impose our feelings on them either. We have to gain knowledge of them, respect that knowledge by acting on it, and use the technology within its limits, and only in ways that benefit us. When we let it dictate how we use it, nobody wins.
A certain whirring sound is not worth ignoring, because the day is nice and it's a pain to pull over and assess the problem. It is, annoyingly, always worth it to pull over and troubleshoot. Then, when through hard-earned knowledge and experience, we figure out what the problem is-- a bearing seal failure that needs to be fixed before the hub heats up and causes worse damage, requiring mental calculations to answer when and where to stop, and how best to fix it--we get what we can out of the machine, without dying. This latter process, of acquiring knowledge and respect for machines, is frankly delightful. It's the Machine Maintenance of Knowledge (MMK), and it develops through a curious mind open to learning from good sources. That summer, I got an inkling of MMK, but certainly didn't develop it. I would have needed Snake's shop manual to learn proper torque values. I would have needed a community of Jawa riders who were willing to share their collected experience and wisdom. I would have needed to be a whole lot more mature than I was. But I did realize that -- wow, there was much I did not know about Snake, that if I did know, I'd be a whole lot safer on him.
Now I look back to see that Snake was no more homicidal or suicidal than any other machine. I brought that to my misuse of him.
--
During off-bike hours I would return to the question Who builds to fail? My thoughts led to utter disgust with a dehumanizing Socialist system that produced engineers who didn't give a damn, factory workers who didn't give a damn, and citizens who were afraid to give a damn. I despaired at their despair. However, capitalist companies created a similar problem: people producing objects that were much worse than they could be. I blamed the pursuit of profit for the malady of Ford's "Fix Or Repair Daily." Planned obsolescence; revenge against asshole management, megaprofits, etc.
Why don't we build and make the best we can? Why do we make so much crap?
The core answer seems so obvious: we build to fail when we can't take full ownership of what we do. Each of the thousands of people involved in designing and building a modern motorcycle has just a tiny bit of skin in the game, but no complete ownership. The act of making becomes a social, even personal exercise towards some goal or satisfaction other than building well. Revenge against, or the pleasing of a manager; the making of money; social status, etc. The object itself gets lost in this fragmented, diffuse way of making. The angry floor worker, whose only job is to insert and tighten an oil plug, hundreds of times a day, who has just been denied vacation time by a manager who doesn't give a shit about his family life, is going to overtighten that bolt consistently--not to the specs given to him that he doesn't understand--to appease his anger. "Fuck them all" is all he has in his head. He has no clue who will ride the bike, will never meet him, and doesn't care one way or the other. As soon as the next bike comes along the assembly line, his work on the previous is all but forgotten except in a stingy paycheck at the end of the week. Modern manufacturing itself is a bad recipe for making anything well, while utterly fantastic at making more. Conjuring pride of workmanship in a diffuse manufacturing job is a rhetorical exercise with nothing inherent to the specifics of the job.
To this day, Snake's homicidal/suicidal streak reminds me of our win-lose relationship with technology. What we win is More of Everything, and complex objects that could never be made by a single person from raw materials (think millions of iPhones). What we lose is the singularly beautiful and useful object made by a masterful, individual artist-craftsman with intimate and complete knowledge--maker's ownership--of the object. As we can't make a motorcycle all by ourselves, we will never know what a truly hand-made one would be like. And we can't manufacture handmade objects, by definition.
We have made much of a middle ground, with hand makers using the semi-raw materials of the industrial supply chain, even some components. From custom knife-makers, to studio furniture makers, all rely on the products of manufacturing, if not for their materials, then certainly for their tooling. Along these lines, I've wondered what it would have been like to completely disassemble Snake and rebuild him, by hand, from the ground up. It would explore the concept of making a silk purse from a sow's ear. To make Snake functional is one thing. To make him beautiful, however, would require a number of near-fundamental changes. To start, that bold 80's styling...
Such a process would require a complete interrogation of the object, to really know it. What alloy of aluminum was the crank case made of? What properties does it have and under what conditions? What possible solutions to stripped threads are there? How clean must a bolt and threads be to get an accurate torque value when tightening? There are answers to all of this. This is all knowledge, facts, testable, repeatable truths. There is nothing I can think or feel that will change the properties of that crankcase. I have to be humble before it, and respect its strengths and limits. When I strip the threads out, it's 100% my fault for not knowing that particular crankcase better, even if the reason is a design that makes stripping probable. It was that I lacked that knowledge that made me less than careful when I loosened the plug. I have subsequently owned and ridden a 1997 Honda VFR750F, and thereby learned how well a manufactured motorcycle can be made. She was exceptional in every regard. But is she the best humanity can make?
Before returning to the US, I sold Snake. Snake promptly tried to kill the new owner, giving him a high side as he tried to go up a hill laterally. It was likely due to his novice riding skills, but just possibly, Snake bound up his clutch cable....
Good job, Snake, starting the education of a new rider towards the benefits of MMK. We have much to know, and respect, in our mechanical and made world, to get along with it as well as we can.
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