It's the Art of Being Noble. Riding a bike is so quick.  A train is so slow. Riding a bike is so cool.  A train is dying in heat. Riding a bike is what a Teacher will do.  Riding a train is being a Student of Hard Tracks and Heavy Ties. We saunter backwards to the Summer of 2004. What were YOU doing then? Sharing a milkshake with your sweetie down at the Boardwalk?  Listening to Surfer Joe in the rumpus room? We were all there, stark naked, under all our costumes and subterfuges.  Now, my dear Pussy-Monster: we are ready to Carry On.

The Canadian Pacific Railway was originally built between eastern Canada and British Columbia between 1881 and 1885, fulfilling a promise extended to British Columbia when it entered Confederation in 1871. It was Canada's first transcontinental railway. 

More than 15,000 workers from Asia were brought to Canada aboard cargo ships. They would live under the hatches of the cargo holds. Because of these harsh conditions, many of the workers died on the voyage. If they did not die on the ships, many would die from accidents while working. They may have also died from eating a poor diet since they usually ate rice and salmon.

The Chinese were frequently assigned the most dangerous jobs in demanding and hazardous conditions. As the line was hastily pushed through canyons and over rocky precipices, men were crushed in rock slides and collapsing tunnels, they fell off bridges under construction, they died from disease and they suffered racially-motivated attacks.

Two men died for every mile of track that was laid.

Construction of the main line took half the time allotted, and so on November 7, 1885, the last spike was driven home at Eagle Pass permitting the first locomotive to advance full steam ahead to Port Moody on the Pacific coast.

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The Bad Boy's Rag and Leather Shop. Okay, enough of sentimental whining and listening to Neil Sedaka.  Onward to the real work at hand: Taggin for Jesus.  Here's our Little Bowl of Goat Chowder on the right, a nimble little fish painted by a Delinquent in Sault Ste Marie.  That's just to whet our palette.  Next, the ABSTRAKT CRIMINALS.  This is almost a case of BAD GRAFFITI, but we'll humor them, just now, just because it's Sunday and I'm eating my Bhuddist Fish Sticks for Breaky.

Now the "Abstrakt [sic] Kriminals [sick]" are a group of fine young blonde Aryan army-recruit-type boys from a small town just north of Calgary where they're learning first-hand about civil disobedience as part of their paramilitary training funded by local Biblical and Christian concerns for the upcoming Armageddon and fun stuff like that. 

Damn, that's insane!

These next dudes know a good design or two.  Nice style, simple & clean; kid of the red, white and blue in us all.  The fonts are big enough to expode our head, but it's all in the name of "Literacy 101" as taught by Laurie the Leper.  Remember that Grade 3 teacher that just gave you the jitters because you had to pronounce things JUST RIGHT?

On we go to the more subtle, existential points of living in the "here and now" as Baba Ram Dass once said.  Were you listening or were you stoned on drugs?  Anyway, we see two little birds on our right.  Don't we?

Two clam shells perhaps.  Two donuts?  Two Policemen with Badges?  Two is a lonely number.  They're little God Liver Oil Tablets for the Morally Corrupt.  They're playmates, they're Penguins, they're visitors from the Next Realm.

It's a long night with no sugar.

Sparse wisdom for the Marginally Challenged. A lineman for the County cut his time with Indelible Chalk. The X's & O's that never quite win and never quite lose.  It's a long day on the tracks and a long life when you play to win.  No one else will play, you've corned the market.

Moving right on to OTHER THINGS:

STENCILS!

This crafty little linotype was drawn as a cutaway for a car engine, circa 1963.  That was the year Kennedy was shot.  Perhaps a generation or 2 before you were conceived of, but let's say it left ripples in a few more Potato Chips than you've ever eaten.

This Chevy or Ford is anatomically exposed, revealing a surgeon's delicate map of the frontal lobe of an old slant 6 or similar under the bonnet of one of Detroit's Righteous Gas Guzzlers of the last century.

We've been around, we've been around.

Stencils are not often seen, esp on trains, but this is a novel experiment.  One that the tagger repeated 17 times on this particular boxcar, just to make his repeated point.

Thanks again for rhyme and reason.

We end with Canada and the Globe.  A crafty ad for Just Another Canadian Boring Daily Newspaper.  The "Globe & Mail" is one.  The "National Post" is two.  Both are boring to the teeth.

You know, funny thing about Canada.  Here we live in a splendid World.  A lot of stuff going on.  Not all nice, but some very interesting stuff.  And what do Canadian Newspapers print?  10 pages of Boring Canadian politics.  Boring to the NTH DEGREE.  Paul Martin said this.  Stephen Harper squints with his baby blue eyes.  Gilles Duceppe lights a cigarette and forgets his French Deoderant.  And WHO GIVES A FLYING FUCK ANYWAY?

Like, let's GET ON WITH LIFE, CANADA.  There is no nutrition in boring Canadian politics.  And NO, martha, we're NOT READING it.  We're skipping to Anne Landers. We're skipping to Dan Savage. We're skipping all the Boring Canada Laundry and going to "Classified", "Musical Instruments"; is there a Harmonica Big Enough to Sing the Canada Lost Sheep Blues?

NO MA'AM.  But we'll all bleet sheepingly because we're too damn polite to complain.
Makes you wanna grow long toe-nails and run to Cuba.