Ronnie and Neil

Neil Young 

Ronnie Van Zant

I've been in Seattle for the past five days spending time with friends from the South.  They're ex-pats of a sort, but even amidst the coniferous forest and white firs, these boys are southern.

Still, understanding what it means to be from the South is a tricky thing.

We have to contend with the ideas that people outside the South have about the South.  Then there are the experiences we as southerners have had with other southern people; and perhaps most paradoxically, there's us: race and rebellion and DIY culture all knotted up in our ontology, kindness and gentility flanked by a deep spirit of independence and self-determination that is tempered, seemingly, only by the grace of God.

Sasha has been spinning a lot of Neil Young and Skynrd this week.  We've also discussed endlessly the new Jason Isbell record, which is markedly more introverted than his previous releases.  And all these guys have some remarkable musical connections.  

Isbell has a knack for writing well about what it means to live in the South.  Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, Isbell's former bandmates in The Drive By Truckers, are also particularly poignant in their musical accounting of life in northern Alabama.

Just before Isbell joined the Truckers in late 2001, the band issued a landmark 20-song release: The Southern Rock Opera.  The album's lead track, Ronnie and Neil, instantly challenges the listener to understand the tension between the lived experience of the South and the perceptions of the South by those who don't live there.

In Ronnie and Neil, Patterson Hood used the public rift between Ronnie Van Zant and Canadian Singer-Songwriter Neil Young to illustrate the point.





"Church blew up in Birmingham

four little black girls killed

For no goddamn good reason

All this hate and violence can’t come to no good end

A stain on the good name 

A whole lot of good people dragged through the blood and glass
Blood stains on their good names and all of us take the blame...

And out in California, a rock star from Canada writes a couple of great songs about the Bad shit that went down...

...Meanwhile in North Alabama, Lynyrd Skynyrd came to town
To record with Jimmy Johnson at Muscle Shoals Sound
And they met some real good people, not racist pieces of shit
And they wrote a song about it and that song became a hit."

This musical sparring between Skynard and Neil Young began in 1970 when Young released Southern Man.  The song immediately struck resonant emotional chords - chords which both told a truth about life in the south and obscured much of what it meant to be southern. 

"I saw cotton

And I saw black

Tall white mansions

And little shacks.

Southern man

When will you Pay them back?

I heard screamin' And bullwhips cracking

How long? How long?"

Van Zant challenged Neil Young's didactic simplification of the South in Skynrd's 1974 top ten hit, Sweet Home Alabama:



"Well I heard mister Young sing about her (Alabama)
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down 
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember 
A Southern man don't need him around anyhow."

For Van Zant and Skynrd, the south was about family and music, natural beauty and kinship; but was it possible to love the south without subscribing its more sordid parts?  

The Truckers certainly think so.  In The Southern Thing," Patterson Hood proclaimed:  


"(The South) Ain't about no hatred - better raise a glass
It's a little about some rebels but it ain't about the past
Ain't about no foolish pride, Ain't about no flag
Hate's the only thing that my truck would want to drag

...Proud of the glory, stare down the shame
(The) Duality of the southern thing."

Perhaps, then, at the center of today's Southern Man and Woman there lives a paradox. A love of one's own culture and family mixed with an openness and welcome; a spirit of rebellion washed over with a sense of collective responsibility; In the South, a firm grasp on a difficult history helps us focus on the future.


In typical fashion, Isbell seemed to sum up well this tension in a recent Facebook post about Paula Deen.

Ronnie and Neil nurtured a positive relationship through to Ronnie's early death in October of 1977, although Thrasher's Wheat contends that Young didn't actually serve as a Pall Bearer in Young's funeral.  Still, Hood sang about the duality of Ronnie and Neil, an emblem of the duality of the South: 


"Now Ronnie and Neil became good friends their feud was just in song
Skynyrd was a bunch of Neil Young fans and Neil he loved that song
So he wrote ‘Powder Finger’ for Skynyrd to record
But Ronnie ended up singing “Sweet home Alabama” to the Lord

Neil helped carry Ronnie in his casket to the ground

And to my way of thinking, us southern men need both of them around."

  

      

Marshall Taylor: The Black Cyclone and the Color Line

Marshall Taylor was the fastest man in the world in 1900.  

Taylor broke dozens of world records before he was 30, and competed regularly - also winning regularly - across the United States and Europe.  As a black man in America in the early 20th century, Taylor's accomplishments were especially remarkable.  Taylor won a world cycling championship more than a decade before before the legendary Jack Johnson, "The Black Bomber," won his world boxing title.  

Taylor dominated the track, whether in short races or in the infamous "six-day races"  popular in the early 20th century.   The Smithsonian reported:

"...in 1896, he finished eighth in his first six-day race at New York’s Madison Square Garden, even though the hallucinations got to him; at one point he said, 'I cannot go on with safety, for there is a man chasing me around the ring with a knife in his hand.'”

Despite Taylor's success - he had seven world records to his name before he was 20, winning 29 or the 49 races he entered - he was banned from riding in the American South.   In 1902, Taylor traveled to Europe where he would continue to dominate the track.

Taylor would retire at 32 in Chicago, IL, where he would write and publish his autobiography, The Fastest Bicycle Rider in the World.   “I felt I had my day,” he wrote, “and a wonderful day it was too.” 

The financial collapse of 1929 and bad investments would leave Taylor penniless by the time of his death at 53 in 1932. His body would lay unclaimed in a morgue, and he was buried in a modest grave at Mount Glenwood Cemetery in Chicago.

Frank Schwinn, head of the Schwinn Bicycle Company, would later pay to have Taylor's body exhumed and relocated to Mount Glenwood's  Memorial Garden of the Good Shepard.  Schwinn also commissioned a plaque for Taylor's grave, which despite it's pejorative commentary on "his race," is touching nonetheless:

"Worlds champion bicycle racer who came up the hard way—Without hatred in his heart—An honest, courageous and God-fearing, clean-living gentlemanly athlete.  A credit to his race who always gave out his best—Gone but not forgotten.”

"Value DNA"

Recently, this blogger made comments with regards to the state of bicycle advocacy in the U.S.  In the post, I created the following heading:

"America Lacks not for Best Practices (in bicycle planning); We Lack Political Will" 

Among the most important tasks before American bicycle advocates today, in my estimation, is the need to develop a strong base of political support amongst policy makers and money appropriators for increased bicycle infrastructure.  Even a cursory look at the cities where one-third or one-half of the people go by bicycle each day reveals a sophisticated network of protected bicycle infrastructure that was funded by the national government and/or the local municipality.  And conversely, a glance at cities where there are few bicycles in the street and almost no infrastructure reveals a lack of municipal leadership for creating a bike friendly city.  


This is why the bicycle advocacy community will need political will if we intend to increase the number of bicycles in America's roadways. 



I don't think I'm underestimating the challenge when I describe the work ahead of us in this way.  We're talking about some serious social change here, and social change is tricky business.  


So perhaps I should be clear: I'm not saying there is one method or strategy that will lead to the cultivation of a strong bike culture in the U.S.  We'll need infrastructure alongside education, bike lanes and educated cyclists and drivers.  Such educated people are in fact the very folks that can help to develop political will. 



Yet at the end of the day, catalyzing political will is in my opinion the critical component required to make bicycling into a common activity in America.  In response to this claim, and in response to my recent travels, a reader sent me the following comments.     

I just returned from cycle touring in France (Normandy, Seine River Valley, Paris) and England (London and countryside near Manchester).  My observation is that the culture of Denmark, northern Germany and the Netherlands related to transportation, social good, an individual's place in the society, life balance and material goods is considerably different than that of the Anglo-Saxon culture.

The following comments are especially significant, I think: 

 Realistically we in America are not going to experience a culture shift that moves us more than infinitesimally closer to Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany.  It's not about political will, it is about who we are and who we are not. Sorry, but we just don't have the same value dna.

As the reader above states, the individual's place in society, the transportation options available to the individual, and the idea of "social good" are all ways by which to measure a society's values.  

But the *literal value* a society places on each of these things can be measured by municipal investment.  In the case of bike infrastructure in Denmark and the Netherlands, it was the municipality--bolstered by the social movements for increased bike infrastructure organized in the wake of the 1970's oil crisis--that began to put a dollar value on their town's ability to be bike friendly. 

Put simply, while you cannot change your DNA, you can change a society.  

When the municipalities of Copenhagen and Amsterdam began to invest too heavily in car infrastructure in the 1960s, advocacy groups organized demonstrations and mobilized thousands in these medieval city squares.  This is not because the Danes and the Dutch have different value DNA; it's because commuting by bike is more practical than going by a car.  

They organized because they didn't want to see their cities consumed by motor vehicles, pushing the people farther and farther away from their Gothic spires. 

They mobilized because they believed the oil crisis was a warning that an over-reliance on fossil fuels could be politically problematic.  

They did not gather in the thousands in their public squares because they had certain ideas about the individual's place in society; they organized because they wanted bike paths that took them to work more quickly.  

My reader goes on:      

...I think I see in England a changing model that is more akin to what we face in America.  The English (can't speak for the Scots, Irish or Welsh) have a love affair with individual motorized vehicles for personal transport.  As compared to Europe, their cars are bigger, more powerful, more in use and more per capita (with the exception of maybe Germany, Swiss) and their roads are more narrow, winding, and less direct.  There are virtually no separate and safe hard paved cycle paths (although there is a growing route system).  I see the cyclists and motorists in England at a pressure point today.  The cycling community voices the same statements and beliefs of the right to the road, the benefits to individuals and society and the need for action as we do in the US.  The motorists voice the same statements and beliefs of right to the road, safety, taxes paid, and cyclist's behavior that we do in the US.  And although there are more bicyclists using roads in England than in the US, they are moving the culture needle very much.  In London there are a lot of cyclists (certainly not like northern Europe) but they are brave, brave souls in commuting spandex (fenderless road bikes or fold up Bromptons where the rider commutes in bike jersey and riding pants then changes at the place of work rather than commuting in work clothes) who mix with the car, London taxi, bus with trepidation.  There are some bike lanes but mostly it's pedaling between the curb and the vehicle.  And the folks are not just the hardcore bikers, but nurses, administrators, etc.  They are just much more brave than I would be.

In so many ways, I think here we can see the symptoms of a strategy that has not and will not work in America.  

I agree that a "transitioning" bicycle culture might provide a helpful model for the United States (see Australia), but the idea that one needs to be brave to ride a bicycle in a U.S. city--or any city--is a problem.  

Bicyclists are not crazy, and they are not super heroes (complete with their own skin-tight suits!).  They are simply bicyclists.  And it doesn't do anyone any good to remain obsessed with fear. 

I can say this from having ridden both in medieval cities--where buses, motor scooters, taxis, pedestrians and bicycles are competing for very limited space--and in the big American cities, where space is abundant though bicycles are not.  

I didn't necessarily feel "safer" riding in one or the other.  In fact, I was hit by a car for the first time in Amsterdam two weeks ago! (It was a minor crash and it certainly wasn't my fault--but thanks for your concern.)  

In sum, neither bravery nor social values will make America into a strong bicycle culture.  It will instead be advocates who make the good arguments and make better connections.  It will be communities organized around a message of how cycling can bring our communities closer together, people who articulate to political leaders how cycling is good for both the individual and the society.  

Developing political will is hard work, much harder I think than settling with the idea that Western Europeans have different "value DNA" than Americans; but it's good work.  

Perhaps most importantly, I believe this is the work before us in America.    

Notes on Bicycle Advocacy

For some weeks now, I've wanted to make a post with some general observations about the differences between bicycle advocacy where I come from and the the places that I'm traveling through.

Be warned, though: this is not a thoroughly researched, well documented article about the history of bicycle advocacy in America or Europe. Rather, these are a few limited observations made during more than two months spent studying bicycle cultures in Europe.

1. Staying Positive:

Most of the advocacy I have seen in Denmark and the Netherlands has been oriented at *increasing* the positive benefits across the social spectrum which are accrued from more bicycling. One simple example is a statistic from Denmark which the Danish Cycling Federation put together: for every kilometer bicycled in Denmark, the government actually earns one Danish Crown. This is a particularly poignant political argument for fiscal conservatives as it demonstrates the returns on bicycle investment. Sure it costs money to create bicycle infrastructure; in today's world, it costs money to do almost anything! But the returns on bicycle investments are quite good.

2. Name the Goal, not the Step.

I actually read this in a zine I picked up while haunting a local squat here in Amsterdam. It was a zine about computer technology, of all things, but I think it is a good way of positing a solution to a common problem with bicycle advocates. Installing new bike parking is not the goal, it is the step. An increase in bicycle lanes is not the goal, it is the step. A healthier society is the goal. A city that can move its people with increased efficiency and care, that is the goal. The goal, I think, can compel and inspire people to get out on a bike, which is more powerful than arguments for increased spending on blue stripes in the roadway. For effective advocates, the work before us goes beyond the bicycle, and it should be clearly stated that bike advocates are about more than increasing the number of people on bicycles.

I think this point chafes the sensibilities of bicycle enthusiasts because for so many of us, the bicycle in itself is a powerful tool for social and personal liberation. But the time for preaching to the choir has come and gone. Reaching more people requires broadening the message.

3. Eco-guilt and Slim Bodies Won't Cut it

What is the number one reason people bicycle in Denmark? Ease and convenience. In the Netherlands? 7.2 of 10 people say they are satisfied with the network of bicycle tracks throughout the city. This is a pretty good satisfaction rate for bicycle infrastructure.

A well developed, easy to use system of designated paths is critical to making cycling attractive. Public health, eco friendliness and sustainability, I would argue, are the by-products of bicycle cultures built around convenience. This is a point that should not be lost, because providing convenient and efficient transportation to a municipality's citizenry is in many ways as important as providing fire and ambulance services. Vehicular mobility often determines social mobility, and cities with limited vehicular mobility are often cities with limited social mobility as well. Bicycle paths, then, can be seen as a noble service provided to citizens.

4. America Lacks not for Best Practices; We Lack Political Will

The culture wars, I would argue, are one of the reasons bicycling has enjoyed little progress in America. I think advocates and cyclists alike often fail to use the bicycle as a political tool to bridge the divide between social conservatism and social liberalism. I've observed many of the most passionate bicycle lovers are bent on destroying the car culture in the U.S.; or bent on shoveling out the old guard of traffic engineers in favor of newer, hipper, more enlightened engineers.

Let's get real. The car culture will change in coming years, for sure, but the goal of bicycle advocates should not be to promote its demise. The same is true with the field of traffic engineering.

To focus on the ways in which the bicycle is a unifying force, the ways in which it acts as an egalitarian tool to increase the opportunity for all peoples is, to me, a much more politically sensible approach to effective advocacy. As long as an "us (bikes) vs. them (cars and the engineers/politicians/companies that promote them!)" mentality pervades bicycle advocacy, our single speed wheels will continue to spin and want for political traction.

Me? I'm hoping to encourage the car companies--perhaps in an effort to win some nice publicity for a change--to start a small grants program aimed at increasing effective bicycle advocacy. Refreshing but impossible, you say? Keep an open mind. You'd be amazed at what is possible.

So let's discuss. What, in your estimation, has led to the bicycle's trivial role in American society. This list is not exhaustive, and it certainly needs some improvement.

Weigh in!