I don't really ride my motorcycle much anymore. Like I've stated probably way too many times, it seems like ever since the pandemic, the moment everybody started to get back on the road, the only person they could think about is themselves. Yep, they're the only one on the road. Everybody else be damned. So, and etcetera, it seems like it's gotten kind of crazy out there. I know, over the last few years, when I have been riding my motorcycle, it's not uncommon that I get run out of a lane, and stuff like that. Having had several motorcycle accidents, one of them life-changing and major, I don't know???  It just makes me question, the question.
 
Anyway, I hadn't been riding my bike too much lately. So, as it's a warm Winter Day. In fact, I'm told we are at the beginning of a long heat wave.  So, even though it's still winter, it is a warm March Day. Being said and such, I decided to go and see if I could start my bike up. Maybe take a ride.
 
I get over to it. I get it unbundled. Turned it on. No headlight. Not a good sign. I pull out the kick starter, try to kick it over, and nada; nothing. Guess I'm going to have to recharge my battery.
 
I don't know, maybe it's a good thing? You never know when you're being saved by the Great Beyond. And, that's kind of the thing about all that separate reality stuff. Life versus all that is unknown. Sometimes we're protected. Sometimes, we don't even know it. Thus, we can't really give thanks for it because we don’t know it’s happening. Nonetheless, sometimes, something is saving us from something. Sadly, I wish that had been the case throughout all of my life—through all of my motorcycle accidents and even beyond. Protected, but not knowing I was being protected.
 
I guess, for the record, let me detail the motorcycle accidents I've had. As I was sitting here, just a few moments ago, eating my lunch—a nice little bowl of soup. They, the accidents, kind of all flushed through my mind, as I was thinking about my motorcycle, it not starting, and me not riding it.
 
Anyway, I think my first actual motorcycle accident happened when I was driving on Fountain Avenue, over by LaConte Junior High School. My lady of the time was on the back of the bike, and we had pulled up to this intersection.  It was a dirty part of town. It was back then in the 70s, and it still is today. There was a liquor store on the corner. I always remember it. I don't know why? I don't really think I ever went into it. But, I certainly knew it was there.
 
Anyway, back to the point… I was pulling up to the stop sign and WHAP. The bike just slid right out from under me. My lady and I, BAM. We hit the pavement.
 
Apparently, what was going on was that somebody had spilled a bunch of oil all over the ground. Where that came from, I have no idea. But, it was slick as fuck. I didn't see it. Thus, I went right through it, and in putting on my brakes, it took the bike out from under me.
 
Luckily, neither one of us were too badly injured. Did anyone try to stop and help us up off the asphalt? Nope. Not a soul. No one even gave a shit enough to even come over and ask if we were okay. Welcome to Hollywood.
 
But overall, it was just one of those really annoying situations. And, it hurt! I'm saying we weren't massively injured, but we were both scraped up pretty good. She took it way harder than I.
 
I think the next time it happened was when I was leaving my martial arts studio. It was in the early afternoon, and I was driving down Reseda Blvd. I had to go and buy something. I forget exactly what it was. But, as I was driving down Reseda, this lady pulled right out in front of me from her parking spot, laying my bike down. Again, though I wasn't without scrapes, it wasn't too horrible of an injury situation.
 
I remember she was one of those very average middle-aged white women. She gets out of her car. I could tell she really didn't give two fucks about what she had done, or what condition my condition was in. But, nonetheless, she played the part, and we exchanged insurance information, and all of that kind of nonsense.
 
The next time I went down, I guess it was kind of amusing… At least if you want to see it that way. My friend and I were cruising the Sunset Strip one Saturday night. Back then, In the later 1970s, it was really the place to be. We were both on our bikes, and he saw some pretty young ladies driving in a car with their windows down, and decided to chat them up. He was all playing suave and debonair and all of that kind of stuff. What happened next, well, it wasn't all that much fun. As he was talking, I guess he didn't see where he was going, and he ran his bike straight into mine, sending me flying. And him, he laid his bike out on the street right in front of Gazzarri's. The girls he was trying to put his moves on, left laughing their asses off. They just kept on driving, as we had to pick ourselves and our bikes up off the street.
 
His bike wasn't too badly damaged. Mine, however, had its gas tank completely smashed in. And though it initially started, that was the end of that. It wouldn't really drive any farther. So, I had to coast it down off of the Sunset Strip, onto one of the side streets, and park it until I could go and get my van and pick it up and take it to the shop. Fixing it wasn’t cheap.
 
All in all, those were all pretty minor situations. But, I guess I should have taken note and read the writing on the wall. Next, the motorcycle accident that changed my life forever occurred, a few months later. I was twenty-one years old.
 
At that point, I was running a martial arts studio, I was attending the university, and as it was a Sunday afternoon, I was going to head over to my mother's to have Sunday night dinner with her. I hopped on my bike, drove maybe a half a mile away, and this young girl of eighteen, driving her parent’s Mercedes, didn't see me, and turns left right into me. This sent me flying. Of course, destroyed my bike beyond belief. I still have some photographs of that somewhere in some place. But, more than the bike being destroyed, my skull got fractured in numerous places, and my body basically got fucked hard. And, not in a good way.
 
I almost died. In fact, they thought I was going to die for the first few days. But then, thanks to the only neurologist in town, as this was a holiday weekend, he lifted the broken skull off of my brain, turned off the bleeding brain, and more or less put me back together. Though obviously, I was never the same.
 
That was a bad one.
 
I didn't ride a bike for quite a while after that. But, come the 1980s, and the whole Harley craze, and having spent my entire childhood growing up around Harley Davidsons, it seemed like it was my time to ride again. I bought, and as we all did back then, fully customized a Harley. Spending way too much money!
 
We had just finished up with The Roller Blade Seven and I had just gone up on Samurai Vampire Bikers from Hell. I was on my way over to pick up this sweet young lady from her job at a Hollywood camera shop to go and see Soundgarden. Never made it. I was driving down La Brea, and a guy didn't see that the light had turned red and he hit me from behind. I went flying onto the payment. The helmet law had gone into effect by that point here in Cali, so at least my head was more or less protected. I doubt it could take another impact.
 
The ambulance comes. Off to the emergency room I go. All of which I've discussed in other places and at other times, so I won't really go too much into that right now.
 
I lived. My Harley was destroyed. The guy had no Insurance. His sister was a lawyer. So, once again, I got fucked.
 
So, off the top of my head, that's the all and the everything of the Scott Shaw motorcycle accidents, at least the big ones.
 
I don't know… Have you ever been in a serious accident? If you have, maybe you understand. Unfortunately, I've been in a few; both on my motorcycles and in a few cars. None of it is fun. It's always the other guy's fault. And, of course, they don't give a fuck. All they care about is themselves. Yet, if you know the feeling, you understand that you are the one left trying to pick up the pieces of all that is broken.
 
I guess that's one of the saddest things in life. How so few people actually care about anyone else, and what they're doing to anybody else, once it's been done. All they try to do is to protect their own ass and move as far away as they possibly can away from taking any responsibility for the damage they have created.
 
How about you? Ever been in a serious motorcycle or auto accident?
 
How about you? Has something like that ever been your fault? And, if it was, what did you do to fix all that may have been broken?
 
Life is crazy. We just do what we do. In some cases, what we enjoy doing may very well kill us. All this being said, it doesn't make any of the pain any easier.
 
Think about it. Think about what you're doing. Think about how you're doing it. Think about what you’ve done. Think about what you're doing to others. Think about that before you ever think about yourself. Think, are you one of those people that make things better or are you one of those people who hurts and then runs from your responsibility in the situation?
 
Like I always, all life begins with you. What will you do next?

I don't know if any of this is all that philosophical and/or I doubt that you can grab any deep meaning from it. But, all of this tells us is that we are the sourcepoint for all that we live. We do what we're guided to do and what we desire to do. Sometimes in the all and the everything of that, we may be protected. Protected, when we do not even know we are being protected. But, then there are the other times. The, Then What times? When all we are left with is to pick up the pieces ourselves—pieces broken by someone else.