Jacquie Phelan's Weblog

A letter to the creators of a four minute film, “Girl Meets Bike” (possibly re-titled The Grandiose Frivolity of Minor Celebrity. Or :The Irritating Grains of Wisdom of Alice B. Toeclips.

Dear John, Laura, Brian, Matt and Ben,

Thank you for entering my story in the Fairfax Documentary Film Challenge.

I am a two wheel worrier in a four wheel world.

I don’t believe in cars. I know they’re everywhere, but so is God and I don’t believe in him, either.

Born great, making history from the minute I pedaled “out of the hole” ( as Robert Millar would have put it).
I readied the tools. Drawing, painting, collage-assembly, bad sewing. Writing. Networking. Singing!

Strong encouragement from teachers (but not at home) kept me on track.

Racing was an artistic, not a agonistic expression of my wacky inimitable self.

Wombats was an amazing creative act of social engineering that could only have sprung from the mind of a mudwoman.

The “market” supported my  fourteen years of racing — women were  hungry to learn. How lucky I was,  never aligning myself with a corporation (and sully my simple message that bicycling offroad is easy, safe and fun especially for women).   Oh, I did try to “align” myself, especially when the mission was congruent with mine, but from Clif Bar to Special Eyes to Drek, I didn’t ‘fit in’.

“Fat Tire Finishing School™”

Instant Finesse clinics (“just add beer”), etc.

“Who Says Pink Clashes With Mud?”
How could anyone NOT want to check out WOMBATS!?

This meant the more creative I was,  the more of my ‘message’ I could gt out. As you know, the industry made good use of my visual campaigns without bothering to ask or compensate, but that only makes the story more American Business As Usual.

I’m anti-capitalist. Have been since that teacher showed us the diagram.
I was dreadful in my twenties:shoplifted most of my food (whatever foodstamps wouldn’t cover). I didn’t care.

Ask a writer about my writing (and my unbuttoned wordplay which I believe enhances the writing)they’ll agree that I’m a ‘real writer’.  This for me is huge, since I have lost that support from the ‘industry’ (bike). Far more women influence  the ‘book industry’ (or maybe the movie industry but that’s really a pie in the sky.

Maybe not for this pullet-surprise winning supper hero).

Query Bob Cooper— a great writer AND an editor. Like Kay Ryan, (and you I’m sure, and so many others who enjoy a good read) he and I share this deep feel for written language.

And he knows that I was consciously shaping my women’s lib message to appeal both to men and women (after all, the more women who cycle the more life-partners that SHARE this incredible activity-whch- I –hate- thinking- of -solely -as -a -sport).

In a way I am proud to have been able to dodge the typical pro athlete’s lot: to represent some ‘brand’ until you’re not useful.

Nowadays, even on the Drake mtb team who pay a LOT of lip service to ‘thou shalt have fun’ is trending toward the ‘this is a job’ mentality.
The kids are going balls-to-the-wall (the ones that stay in the program) in order to uh…save mom & dad a few hundred thou’ in the college fees. It’s professionalizing a frolicsome activity, destroying an essential element of it.

Athletes these days, from a young age are groomed to be little marketing units promoting a succession of products!
Which is why I think that there should be some serious htought to the idea of having some kind of oversight, and maybe abolishing the Olympics since it subsumes children, parents, entire families into this sportsmarketing/entertainment assembly line.

I wanted SO bad to be in the Olympics as a forty year old top rider, and perhaps might have done it if I could have had some help from a strange uncle who wouldn’t share info about my grandparents that would let me be ‘Irish passport holder’.
But I wanted to be in the Olympics as a ‘common tater’ and report on what I saw. And eat all that great food. And gawk at the heavenly bodies, cuz man, they are pretty damn heavenly.

I would be VERY surprised if the swimmer kid took some of his millions and did a true ‘give back’ gesture’ like endow a kids afterschool swim program in a pool that he built.

Any footballers ever do that?
They all seem to just want to be pretend Trumps! Bigger cars, more bling. Ugh.

Well, easy to say from my aerie here in Fairfax, where so many people are taking their NON millions and ‘giving back’.

Well, I wantd to jot some of this down because  I want this ‘close up w/mr. DeMille’ to be the opposite of Ms. Swanson’s sorry delusion.
I believe in this simple message: by tiny mutually synergistic (GOD a CLICHÉ DAMN IT!) acts in policy, personal agency and collective awareness we can actually have fun ‘making the world a better place’ FOR REAL.

Without trying to grab all the money, which you can’t eat.
I have a funny newyorker cartoon that shows a guy at some kind of shareholders meeting saying:”While  the end-of-world scenario may be rife with unspeakable horror, we believe there are significant  opportunities for profit”.

I am nuts enough to take my role  ( Her Royal Mudjesty) seriously (and rejoice in the fact that there are lots who see my sincerity, and support it). But it doesn’t get in the way of a good laugh.

John Hopkins

~ by jacquiephelan on March 30, 2009.

Posted in "Mental health", Alice B. Toeclips, Calendar, cars, Charlie Cunningham, cycle racing, Film, Jacquie Phelan, movies, MTB racing, otto