MOTORCYCLES II(MESHUGGAH, THE LOOP) Bob Dylan’s on the sound system: “Brownsville Girl.” You can listen to Dylan sideways, upside down, backward, invisibly -- every song is like something funky making its way through a house of mirrors, distorting and contracting as it moves along. In this manner it composes a perfect reflection of the absurdity we call “life.” That’s one man’s opinion anyway, and still it only tips the iceberg. The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter. Why does that lyric say so much about more than Henry Porter? The Motorcycle Girl says she doesn’t know, doesn’t like Bob Dylan, thinks he’s funny looking. She had a boyfriend she left in Columbia last week. It was a road trip gone wrong, and when they got into an argument over “some little bullshit thing,” he demanded she stop the car. He got out and she hasn’t seen him since. He didn’t like riding on the back of her motorcycle, as it were. Back to motorcycles. What are they, she asks, if not a last-ditch effort to escape? But escape from what? To arrive somewhere else, start all over again? “This time I haven’t the heart for it the way I’ve had it in the past,” she concludes.

She said, “Welcome to the land of the living dead.”/You could tell she was so broken-hearted.

But she’s talking to herself now; I’ve exited the dialogue unknowingly. If there’s an original idea out there, I could sure use it right now.