Jared Bloch
2000 US Tour
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – When was the last time someone said you were too old to dream?
For me, motorcycles and dreams, dreaming, have always been intertwined and I was unexpectedly cut low recently when a colleague told me there are few spots he would venture to on a motorcycle in Africa today.
We were drinking beer, celebrating a successful meeting and waxing poetic about bike adventures and the beauty of being at the same time more vulnerable, and more open to transformative experiences on a bike.
I was thinking of my lifelong dream to take a bike from Nuevo Laredo, Texas (nostalgic point of departure South) to Tierra del Fuego, loaded with a tent, some food and a camera.
I asked aloud if he thought it was statistically more dangerous to adventure-travel in the world of today than it was, say, 23 years ago when I was crisscrossing Central America.
Jared Bloch
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Is it just me or have the weather gods smiled on Geneva this Fall?
All the better to get back in the saddle after what seems like an extended hiatus limited to commuting on two-wheels.
Window to another world near Satigny, canton Geneva
Sharing the road with a group on horseback makes me forget momentarily about gas stations, traffic lights and vehicle inspections.
And something about the empty vineyards early morning and late afternoon is calming to a mind overrun with extraneous garbage.
Like a dream more vivid than my waking moments.
End of the road - Chouilly-Thoiry border
Sunday afternoon "ballade "in the vineyards
Jared Bloch
For me, and millions of other Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band fans, a chapter of rock n’ roll history closed June 18, with the death of Clarence Clemons, the band’s iconic saxophone player, following a stroke suffered earlier this month.
The first album I learned the songs to from A to Z was Bruce Springsteen’s debut “Live from Asbury Park.” The garage band sound mixed with Springsteen’s junkyard poetry and anchored by Clarence Clemons sax solos formed my idea of what music was meant to be for years. Though Clemons had a full solo career in his own right, he will always be in my mind the earthy foil to Springsteen’s atonal crooning.
In my mind, Clarence Clemons was the embodiment of soul in an otherwise soul-filled lineup (this role is sometimes attributed to Steven Van Zandt, but to me he is the “cool”). His playing featured prominently on every E Street album into the oughts when Springsteen returned to his acoustic folk work.
Ironically, in this 1979 clip from Springsteen’s performance at the “No Nukes” concert in Madison Square Garden in 1979, it is Clemons who revives a malingering Springsteen who fires up the audience saying “I’m 30 years old, my heart’s startin to go on me.”
Clarence Clemons bringing soul to Passaic New Jersey, 1978
“…with Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music,” Springsteen said on the passing of friend and band member Clarence Clemons.
Jared Bloch
Bertha - a fine piece of Swedish motor engineering on the Greek coast preparing to embark for Italy
Geneva – Ever wonder what happens to solid running cars that fail the feared controle technique, or inspection in Switzerland?
According to one mechanic I talked to, Volvos in particular often get a second life in places like Iran and Afghanistan.
While an automotive afterlife sounds quaint, I was less than happy when stringent Swiss inspection laws recently forced an early retirement for “Bertha,” our much loved 1990 Volvo 740 Turbo wagon.
Finding them a second life makes sense actually, as many cars deemed either not up to Swiss safety or ecological standards are still in strong running condition, and a workhorse like ours, with only 285,000 km, can be expected to give many more years of life.
Never the less, it hurt, driving Bertha for the last time, to hand her over to a car transporter, who would shortly load her onto a trailer to be trucked out of the country.
Jared Bloch
I caught this one myself
Geneva, Switzerland – After having been tailgated, high-beamed and passed in a no pass zone by an overzealous school marm in…yes, a Honda civic, this evening on my motorcycle, I am thinking “Turkeys on Four Wheels,” would be a better title for this blog.
But the fact is, we are celebrating Turkey Day here in Geneva tomorrow, and it’s all about the love… So, what do turkeys and two wheels have in common you say? How about 24 pounds of France’s finest bird making its way across town on the back of my motorcycle.
Yep, after picking the beast up at Aligro, I stuffed it in my backpack and headed home on my bike.
On the way imagining, oh this could be a really messy exchange if some driver takes me out, there will be, a large bird flying through the air and various poultry parts strewn all over the road.
Jared Bloch
Steve Lee's memorial service - Photo ©Gotthard
Geneva, Switzerland – It was with great sadness that I read about Swiss rocker and motorcycle enthusiast Steve Lee’s death two weeks ago, and his memorial service this past Sunday in Switzerland.
While I had never heard his band Gotthard, my wife and daughter immediately remembered him as the “guy who woke up the otherwise moribund Miss Swiss contest with a great performance.”
His untimely death on a Nevada highway at the beginning of what was supposed to be a cross-country motorcycle adventure rattled me as a fellow biker.
Even more though, I felt a deep sadness remembering the boyish anticipation I experience each time I embark on a motorcycle trek, and how Lee’s moment of bliss would have been interrupted mid-thought by a fatal blow, ironically from a parked motorcycle plowed into him by a semi truck.
Bike adventures are always pregnant with a certain sense of danger and this no doubt is part of the enchantment.
Jared Bloch
I’ve gone to the park to unwind and sniff some trees, see ya in a bit
Rocky the escape artist, looking remorseful a day after the fact
Geneva, Switzerland – My dog, a German Shepherd mix going on 14 years-old, slightly batty, going deaf and increasingly losing her famous sixth sense and uncanny ability to navigate the human world. Or so we thought until this past weekend.
My family and I returned to our apartment after a friend’s wedding, to find the front door wide open, lights on and dog nowhere to be found.
My daughter was the first up the stairs and the first to react – when we got to the door she was crying terribly “Rocky’s gone, she’s gone!”
My daughter was raised by our dog, which she remembers in moments of crisis, in spite of her bellyaching about having to take her out for daily walks.
I felt my insides evaporate and my brain waves go flat – my reaction to loss – and contemplated not coming home to a family member I have known longer than my wife.
With our neighbor’s help (Thanks to Alain and Justine!) we hit the pavement in our wedding outfits whistling and calling out “Rocky, Rocky;” a nice scene at midnight on a late Saturday evening in Geneva.
The crowd at the corner bar was helpful too, if a bit unsure of how long it had been since our dog had wandered over to their sidewalk tables in search of company, and a beer?
Jared Bloch
J. Devaney NJ Transit ambassador
New Jersey, USA - Shock is what I felt my first morning back in the US after a 2-year hiatus. I woke up early to beat the steamy heat radiating off of the slab that is Manhattan across the river, stepped outside to jump on the public transport, and suddenly realized I was in the United States.
As I walked the 15 minutes down a state highway, it occurred to me that I might be waiting a while for a bus to my favorite breakfast haunt on Bergenline Ave.
Suddenly, I was missing the ease of public transport in Geneva.
Waiting for the 165 from New Milford to Guttenberg I worked myself into an obsession, cussing the deserted road and the car culture that left me stranded 5 or 6 short miles from downtown Manhattan.
I was just about ready to call it quits and start walking, when the nearly empty 165 rolled to a stop, and the doors popped open.
“How close to Guttenberg will this thing get me,” I snarled. And was totally unprepared for the solicitous response; “How about Guttenberg?” the driver offered in a sweet, sleepy Saturday morning invitation.
I climbed in and took my seat with a good deal of skepticism smeared all over my face.
Jared Bloch
Speaker at the 14th International Humanitarian Conference
Bellevue, Switzerland - Sitting in on the 14th International Humanitarian Conference, entitled Facing the Psychological Impact, I was struck once again by the wealth of human resource at our fingertips here in Geneva.
The conference, which began yesterday, February 26, and runs through today, is co-organized by Webster University Geneva, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other Geneva-based institutions.
Jared Bloch
Living mummy in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland – What is it that Americans love about Halloween beyond the childish thrill of having license to consume endless plastic pumpkin containers of sweets?
In fact, as a child growing up in rural Vermont, the best treats were always the homemade caramel apples and candied popcorn our neighbors 4 miles down the road made every year for the handful of kids who would appear in their yard.
Beyond the sweets, it was a social occassion, a chance for parents to show up unannounced, at friends houses for a bit of local gossip and maybe a sip of hard cider from the recent apple harvest.