Frenchy's Rant

A few years ago, I coined the term ‘Dr. Peppered‘ for when something I fully anticipated to happen had an unexpected, almost random result. For example, if I order a chicken burrito and get a fish taco instead, I’ve been Dr. Peppered. The term came about when I tried to buy water from a vending machine, and out came… a Dr. Pepper. Inattentive waiters, airlines, and motorcycle shops have all taken their turn Dr. Peppering me.

Until yesterday, I had never been Dr. Peppered by an elevator.

I checked into the Cincinnati Hyatt as usual, received my key card entitling me to one night’s sleep in a heavenly bed on the nineteenth floor, pressed the ‘Up’ button and waited for a car to deliver me to my palatial suite. The elevator soon ‘Bonged‘, doors opened, and I got in.

I pressed the button labeled 19 and away we went. This Hyatt was super fancy, their elevators talked! For some reason, my elevator stopped on the fifth floor, the elevator seductively purring, “Fifth floor. Going… Uuuuup.” Nobody was on the fifth floor waiting to go Uuuup, so after a few seconds, the doors closed and we ascended some more, the red floor numbers ticking up, up, up, until we arrived at the nineteenth floor.

“Hey Frenchy, this is the nineteenth floor, and may I add you’re looking miiiiighty handsome today!” Though it probably should have, the elevator did not actually say this – but that’s not how I got Dr. Peppered. When I stepped out, I was on the twenty-first floor! The elevator had gotten lost!

I pressed the down button, and that same possessed elevator returned, as if waiting to torture me some more. I’m pretty sure I heard the sexy voiced elevator lady laughing as I got in. Unsure where we’d end up this time, I pressed nineteen again. “Nineteenth floor. Going… Down.” Well, I suppose seventeen is technically close to nineteen, but close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades, not elevatoring with a huge suitcase. I took a different elevator from seventeen, and amazingly enough, on the first try I arrived at the correct floor.

My friend Abi and I met later for dinner and drinks. After a meal and many, many frothy pints of Guinness, we called it a night. Waiting in the Hyatt lobby for the elevators, I explained to Abi how I’d been Dr. Peppered earlier by the mischievous elevator. While I was telling him the story, the very same Twilight Zone elevator door opened with a ‘Bong.’

The elevator cackled, “You again, Frenchy? Some people never learn. Ah ha ha ha!”

I hit 19 again, and Abi pressed 22.

“Nineteenth floor. Going… Uuuuup!” The door opened to reveal –surprise– the twentieth floor! I’d had enough Dr. Peppering for one day, and, defeated, I took the stairs.

I wrote this the day before the WWE tour bus accident, so this post wasn’t really inspired by that incident, it’s just an eerie coincidence. This story took place earlier this summer. I guess I didn’t write about it at the time because I wanted to forget about it, ignore the fact that it happened, the fact that it COULD happen to me, and the fact that it happened so quickly.

Thus far I haven’t been able to.

For the past twenty years or so I have been completely addicted to motorcycles. I got my first bike, a ten year old Kawasaki KZ400 as soon as I turned eighteen, much to my parent’s dismay. I also wrecked my first motorcycle when I was eighteen, thanks to a lovely old woman deciding to turn left in front of me. I was OK, though I took a break from riding for a few years. However, once bitten by the riding bug, it stays in your blood for life. Since that time, I’ve owned a Honda Shadow, two Suzukis, a Harley Davidson, a BMW and most recently a Yamaha FJR 1300.

I’ve logged well over 40,000 miles on these machines, mostly trouble free. The problem with trouble free riding is it tends to make riders complacent about the ever present dangers of motorcycle riding. Sometimes a little wake up call is necessary.

One fine summer weekend with nothing much to do, Fiona and I decided we’d take a little ride on the Yamaha up to Santa Barbara, about a hundred and twenty miles away. With the standard perfect California weather, the ride was exceptional. We stopped at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Headquarters for a National Passport Park Stamp.

Traffic, for a change was actually not that bad, even on the normally clogged 101. We made it to Santa Barbara in good time, had a nice meal, a few refreshing adult beverages, then called it a night, finding accommodations in one of the lower priced motels in the area.

The next morning we got up nice and late, and started heading for home. Once again, the traffic was miraculously light, flowing along at 75 MPH. I was in the left lane just enjoying the day when suddenly, brake lights exploded in front of me like an angry rash. I saw smoke from a pickup truck’s tires, then the truck slammed into the car in front of him.

It’s amazing how much time seems to slow down when something really bad is happening or about to happen. Here I am doing 70, going along with traffic, when 300 feet in front of me most of the traffic has suddenly just… stopped, and the rest are stopping when they lock their tires or crash into the car in front of them. For this very reason I always try to leave a gap between me and the vehicle in front of me, and now would be the time to find out if my ‘leave a gap’ theory worked.

Life proceeded in slow motion for what felt like the next ten minutes, when in reality it was probably closer to ten seconds.

I grab a handful of the front brake, and squeeze harder than ever. I feel the ABS brake system pumping and rocking and doing it’s job, keeping the front tire from locking up. Thankfully I’d tested the ABS in a parking lot when I first got the bike, to know what it would feel like – it would have been pretty scary otherwise. Not that it wasn’t scary enough as it was. Fiona managed to brace herself on the tank, which kept a lot of her weight from sliding forward into me, making it easier for me to control the bike.

While all this was happening, I remember thinking at first, “Oh fuck! Here comes my wreck!” then “This is gonna hurt. I hope we live through it.” That was about all I had time to think about, the rest of my time was spent trying to avoid crashing.

The car directly in front of me came to a dead stop, it’s evil brake lights glowing right in my face, and I was still doing about thirty miles an hour. The gap was rapidly closing. Quickly checking my mirror, I saw a little room between cars in the next lane, and squirted into it. As I passed the stopped lane of traffic on my left, I saw the pickup truck had rear ended an Audi pretty hard; steam and liquid was pouring out from under his crumpled hood. Cars were stopped in front of the wreck as well, so this accident wasn’t the reason for the abrupt deceleration.

I giddily pumped my fist in the air, elated that we’d missed becoming part of the chain reaction. Then the realization of exactly how lucky we’d just been and the jolt of adrenaline hit me full force at the same time, and I shook uncontrollably for about ten minutes. It was only much later that the true acceptance of how seriously bad things could have turned out hit me. And that hit hard.

As is so often the case in California traffic, the reason for the stop was never discovered.

Though that little incident was a good wake up call about the dangers of my chosen method of transportation, it wasn’t enough to make me want to hang up my riding gear and call it a day. I still think about it quite a lot though, and it did change the way I ride and will ride from now on.

In what is seeming to become an annual tradition, another cross country ride is in the works for early October.

Some addictions just aren’t worth curing.

Yesterday started out normally, like any other Pay Per View day on the WWE tour, but ended as far from normal as it could have.

The Pay Per View, Summerslam – live from The Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey – was completely sold out for months in advance, and was by any standard a good and entertaining show. I think we may have even finished a bit early, and had everything packed up by about midnight. Monday night’s show was in Boston, probably the most hated city and venue among bus drivers, because of the narrow streets, never-ending construction and constant road closures. With all these obstacles ahead, we figured we’d make it to the Boston Hyatt around 4 AM. The tour bus carrying the camera guys left first (as it always does.)

My bus left about a half hour later. Dwane, the camera bus driver called back to inform us that the George Washington Bridge had a four mile backup, and to take a different route. Our driver Herschel figured out a better way to go and we were on our way.

I had my usual post-show adult beverage, then made my way back to my bunk for some shut-eye. A while later, I felt the bus stop, which usually means it’s time to wake up, trudge into a hotel and then go back to sleep for a few more hours. Oh the glamor!

But we weren’t at the hotel, we were on the side of a highway. And there were flashing lights all around. It looked like at least two firetrucks, an ambulance and several police cars too. What the hell was going on?

“The camera bus crashed, and ended up in the woods, right over there.”

Up ahead from where we parked, illuminated by the flashing rescue vehicle lights, I could see the purple bus buried deep in the trees near the side of the road.

The word was the right front tire had blown out, and Dwane fought it until he lost control, went off the road and skidded into the trees where the bus finally stopped. As it ground to a stop, the bus completely sheared through a fourteen inch thick pine tree, as well as another tree nine inches around.

That sickening feeling hit me immediately.

“Is everyone OK?”

“We’re not sure. One ambulance just left.”

A pit developed in my stomach as we sat there, helpless. Firemen and paramedics were doing their job, and it seemed best to just stay out of their way. A few anxious minutes later Sid, our video engineer who rides that camera bus, came on our bus to tell us what happened.

“It basically felt like an amusement park ride. The whole bus was shaking and bouncing up and down. The only person that was seriously hurt was Luis, who was sleeping in the front seat (next to the driver) They found him unconscious under the steering wheel, and he was cut up and bleeding a bit. We’re all really lucky to still be here.”

Bubba Dean, another camera guy who was sitting on the couch behind the driver when it happened added, “It felt like I was a ping-pong ball. Up, down, over here, over there. It felt like ten minutes, thought it was probably about eight seconds. Then we were climbing through the front windshield and down a tree to get out, because the side door was blocked by trees. Surreal. A nightmare. There was definitely an angel with us.”

Luis went to the hospital, and thankfully seems to only be scraped up a bit. The guys that ride the camera bus will probably be a little sore for a few days, but considering other possible outcomes, I think being a little sore is perfectly fine.

The present thinking is that Dwane’s tire most likely picked up some debris from a car-truck accident that had happened about eight miles before his blowout. He did a fine job of keeping that bus upright. Other bus drivers were surprised the bus didn’t roll, as they often do when a front tire explodes.

And the show in Boston will go on – as will the tour – because all shows and all tours must. Fortunately for all of us the tour will still include Doug, Marty, Billy, the Randys, Luis, Rico, Paul, Denny, Stew, Sid, Bubba Dean and of course Dwane. It could have been MUCH worse.

Photos courtesy Randy Flick, who is just nuts enough to take out his camera and snap away right after his bus crashed. Bravo!