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Burns
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Around the Bend (again)
presents a wide-ranging collection of motorcycling
columns by Max Burns from the pages of Cycle
Canada magazine.
Max’s columns first appeared in 1985, drawing an immediate
following of devoted fans who continue to enjoy his writing today. This
collection of nearly 60 columns shows Max at his unpredictable best,
honing his obsessions with the open road, risk, politicians, and speed
limits, among other things, but always connected to motorcycles and the
people who ride them. Whether he’s extolling the virtues of a chip stand
hangout in northern Ontario or denouncing a Brazilian airline en route to
a sidecar tour arranged by the Amazonas factory, Max Burns is worth
joining for the ride—and the read.
What Others Are Saying.....
“Max is a consummate pro as a writer, with a sheaf of national magazine
awards to his credit, but he’s never lost the boyish impulse to write
something nasty on the wall. I’ve wondered, at times, if Max isn’t in some
sort of witness protection program— from some other solar system...”
--Bruce Reeve editor Cycle Canada Read
Intro
“Max is located on the place where fun riding intersects with everyday
living. Around the Bend is mostly like a good hour spent at a bar with an
old friend just after you’ve both come in from a long ride through some
interesting new place.” --Andy Goldfine Aerostich/RiderWarehouse
“Every month we eagerly wait to see
just what is going to come out of Max Burns' head. The intricate meanderings of his thought processes are
wondrous to behold. And
often surprising (as in one recent column in which the perverse bastard
describes how he uses our paean to pavement, DHBC, to satisfy his base
gravel urges...) Sharply observational, off the wall and just damn funny,
who can't love his prose --it's
lyrical, amusing and shit-disturbing all at the same time. Max is a
craftsman with words and Around The Bend shows him to be one of the
finest and most
entertaining motorcycle writers anywhere.”
--Brian Bosworth co-author of
DHBC & DHWA
“I always turn to Around the Bend in Cycle Canada because of Max’s ability
to take a personal event in his life and make a story that is thoughtful,
engaging and reflects his unique outlook on life.”
--Peter Hoogeveen
perennial Iron Butter
“Max Burns is pleasantly and entertainingly nuts.” --Larry Tate
motorcycle journalist and raconteur
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Max's Premise
Intro by Bruce
Reeve Sample Column
Max's
website
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For
those who'd like to receive a piece of Max's mind monthly, we recommend a
subscription to Cycle Canada magazine, a pretty fine piece of work in its
own right.
http://www.cyclecanadamagazine.net | |
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Max's Premise
(from the book) |
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 I am a privileged and spoiled
writer. For the most part, I write about what I want, when I want, a
philosophy that has endowed me with a reputation for turning down at least
as many assignments as I accept. True, this is not the best route to
riches, but hey, if wealth was a prime motivator I sure as heck wouldn’t
have chosen writing as a career. Come to think of it, I didn't really
choose it, I sort of eased into it. Ostensibly, I was looking for a way to
avoid a real job. Subconsciously, I was looking for a means of expression,
an avenue to get some ideas out for discussion, a public platform for a
few of my jokes. Although my words subsequently travelled down several
literary paths, such as off-the-grid water and sewage systems, the quest
for food nirvana, noise pollution, architecture, travel, docks, repairing
lawn mowers, fireplaces, and on and on, being a Canadian with an interest
in motorcycles counter-steered me to Cycle Canada magazine right
from the beginning. So the relationship began, one that would see me
operating in a variety of capacities for the magazine, most notably as
author of Around the Bend.
Writing a regular column is a neat gig, particularly when the mandate is
to be witty and controversial, with at least some tenuous link to a
passion such as motorcycling. Around the Bend became my personal
soapbox, a place to rant and rave about perceived injustices, to mock the
establishment, to poke fun at everything and everyone (especially me), to
explore life and its absurdities, and to offer my impressions on bikes (to
the chagrin of some manufacturers), people (to the chagrin of some
people), and places (to the chagrin of some residents), always with that
link to motorcycles.
Truth
is, linking a topic to motorcycles isn’t difficult because motorcyclists
are such a wonderfully diverse group of people, in philosophy,
disposition, and career choices. The challenge is to maintain the surprise
element in a column that appears in every issue of the magazine. The
reader shouldn’t know what to expect other than a good read. I don’t mind
irritating a reader --in fact I don’t even mind if a reader stops being a
reader out of anger over my words. What I don't want is to lose a reader
because of boredom. There are writers who do very well churning out the
same old crap, column after column, story after story, for undoubtedly
there is comfort in uniformity. But I don’t want my readers to be
comfortable. I want my readers to be entertained with serendipity, to have
emotions stirred, to think. Doesn’t work every time, or for everyone, but
that still remains the goal.
Which explains why I quit writing Around the Bend at the end of
1989. My head-space was in a bit of turmoil at the time and I feared this
distraction might put that goal at risk, that I might begin writing the
column out of obligation rather than pleasure. So I killed it.
Fortunately, Chris Knowles filled the page in Cycle Canada with a
new column, Off Camber. Fortunately again (at least for me), seven years
later he too experienced a similar sense of approaching burn-out and
retired his column. When Cycle Canada asked if I would like to
resurrect Around the Bend, I quickly agreed. I was ready. My desire
to write the column had re-ignited. And it continues to burn as I tap
these words into my trusty, old 386 IBM-clone.
Another nifty aspect to writing a
regular column that I hadn’t anticipated way back in the 1980s is the
relationship that evolves between writer and reader. Some of you actually
believe what I say. I mean, I usually believe it too, but the degree to which my
words occasionally hit home with the readers can be very flattering and very
rewarding. Even humbling at times. So I never lose sight of my obligation to you
to provide honest journalism. And sometimes my words fall into a reader's life
just at the right time and in the right manner to sum up an important moment for
that person. When that happens, there is nothing more gratifying for me as a
writer.
And therein lies the premise for this book --a bit of self-indulgence for the
both of us. I wanted Around the Bend readers to tell me about their most
memorable columns, both favourites and the ones that pissed them off. To my
surprise, the most frequent response to this request was “I liked them all,”
which was nice, but not a big help, guys. Hell, I don't even like them all. So I
sifted through the many responses, tossed in a few of my own faves, and voilà, a
book is born. The columns appear as published in Cycle Canada, by date,
along with a few of the readers’ comments and/or author's excuses. Enjoy the
read (again).
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Forward Ho
by Bruce Reeve (editor of Cycle Canada magazine, 1989-) |
I used to think it strange that nobody asked me, “What is Max Burns really
like?” It wasn’t that nobody was interested; the opposite was true. What
struck me as odd was that readers of Cycle Canada magazine would try to tell
me what Max Burns was like, because so many of them felt they knew him from
his writing. Well, some of these readers may have been simply delusional,
but this powerful connection between Max and his readers is one of the
secrets of his success. I’ve talked to other magazine editors who have noted
the same reaction to Max's work. Readers respond to it. Frankly, we're
mystified. But as Max would tell you, ours is not to reason why. We should
just print his stuff and send him the cheques. Of course, being an editor, I
can’t simply leave it at that.
On one level, the reason Max’s writing appeals to so many people is that he
seems an open, genuine and unpretentious soul, a devoted father and husband,
sometimes even sweetly sentimental. Then there’s the other Max --deliberately
perverse, anarchistic, joyously rude and bitterly misanthropic. But then
don’t we all feel that way sometimes?
Although I’ve known Max for many years now, there remains an air of mystery
about him. He’s a consummate pro as a writer, with a sheaf of national
magazine awards to his credit, but he’s never lost the boyish impulse to
write something nasty on the wall. Although Max has evolved as a wordsmith
during the time I’ve known him, he seemed to spring out of nowhere with most
of his style and writing character fully formed. I've wondered, at times, if
Max isn't in some sort of witness protection program --from some other solar
system. His writing can flow with grace and power, yet on rare occasions
produce the strangest spelling and grammar mistakes I’ve ever seen, of the
sort you wouldn't expect from someone whose first language is English --or
from someone born in this galaxy.
Max would be the first to tell you he is not entirely comfortable on our
planet. He speaks with horror of a four-year period in his distant past when
he held a lucrative full-time job, something to do with bookkeeping
apparently, following a wanton education as an art student. There are a
number of unexplained gaps on Max’s resume, which will probably forever bar
him from a management-trainee position at Burger King (though few are so
adept at flipping whoppers...).
Fortunately for us, Max chose to invent a life for himself as a writer,
starting as a contributor to Cycle Canada. Within a few years he was
assigned his own column space, though he also continued to write feature
stories. For a brief period in the late ‘80s, Max worked next to me as an
editor in our office, but this seemed to revive memories of his previous
full-time job, and he soon fled Toronto back to northern Ontario and the
freedom of freelancing.
You’ll notice that Max's Around the Bend columns ceased for around seven
years before resuming in 1998. He continued to contribute feature stories to
Cycle Canada during some of this time, and on one occasion was assigned to
cover a lavish, if poorly organized, trip to Italy to survey the operations
of Ducati, sampling some production, prototype and race bikes in the
process. I later heard that the Ducati people didn’t quite know what to make
of Max. They found him a bit strange. Maybe so, but Max rode the wheels off
a fleet of Ducatis and brought back a story both hilarious and insightful;
nobody among the U.S. press on the same trip wrote anything half as good.
Around the same time Max's freelance career began to flourish as a writer
for Harrowsmith and particularly Cottage Life magazine, where he won
numerous awards. During this same period he went back to the land with his
patient and beautiful wife Jackie, first living in a shack on the edge of
wilderness while building an innovative, environmentally friendly home set
in a hillside.
Having chosen to earn a living as freelance writer, Max has turned to such
practical subjects as dock building, water systems and outhouses for
articles and books that help pay the bills. Apparently he’s even been
contracted by the Egyptian government to help draw up standards for dock
construction on the Red Sea coast. God help them. But that’s business.
What’s really fun for Max is writing about whatever he damn well pleases. In
the past this has even included science fiction and romance novels, which
remain stuffed in a drawer somewhere, but writing a column on motorcycling
for Cycle Canada has allowed him to run freely with his imagination while
still earning a few bucks in the process. It’s been a great process,
really --Max writes Around the Bend for his own amusement, and we read it for
ours.
Many of the columns collected here may be familiar to Max’s long-time
readers, but I found them fun to read again and expect you will too. For
those encountering Around the Bend for the first time, all I can say is
this: the road is twisted, and you¹re in for a treat.
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Avoid risk at your peril - by Max Burns
April 1998 |
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A warm, spring sun found pal Paul and I looking for a good excuse to take
the day off, which we figured most likely lay hidden down a nearby USE AT YOUR
OWN RISK forest-access road. We were out on our dirt bikes, aimlessly
dawdling along, the leaves barely in bud, the blackflies still grounded. The
road cut a long, gravel crescent through the bush from paved secondary
highway to paved township road, the northwest end being the fun section,
tossing and leaping about as if searching for a concealed emergency exit
when the theatre’s on fire.
To the wonder of no one present, what began as a relaxed outing soon
escalated into a full-tilt, take-no-prisoners battle for cosmic supremacy.
For miles, Paul and I charged through the corners, throttles pegged to the
stops, XL and XR just a breath apart, sometimes even touching. For miles,
handlebars thrashed back and forth as humanity and machines slid and bounced
a mere heartbeat from oblivion, none willing to give an inch. And for miles,
under the helmets, behind the goggles, Paul and I both grinned and giggled
as we flirted with death and dismemberment. This wasn't mere foolish
horseplay, mind you, it was important, a thing that mattered, a race of
honour to see who could get back to the trailer first.
Midway through a corner --I don't recall which-- during a sudden slither –‘scuse
me Paul-- a stray insight dusted its way into my helmet. That USE AT YOUR OWN
RISK sign is in the wrong place. Rather than at the entrance to the
forest-access road, it should be posted at the entrance to life, or at least
at the entrance to adolescence.
Sissy stuff
Exposure to risk is an inescapable part of life. More than that, it's a
primeval need that to date evolution hasn't managed to wean from our
systems. Yet where evolution has failed, humanity itself is close to
succeeding. Increasingly, we are becoming a society of sissies. Sure, we
still want to take risks --to go mountain climbing, deep-sea diving,
white-water rafting-- just as long as it doesn't involve any chance of injury
or loss. After all, jeopardy is just a game show on TV.
So a person takes a risk, an accident happens, a person gets hurt. Could
happen to anyone, right? Except the person who got hurt. Rare is it that the
aggrieved pause to consider whether the incident was a result of their own
desire, or even need, to push the limits. Somebody else must be found at
fault, and if somebody can’t be, then blame it on El Niño. Either way,
somebody else must pay.
Misplaced fault is particularly pitiful when the hurt or loss involves loved
ones. How do you tell grieving parents that the main reason their kid's now
impersonating a potted flower is because they failed to ensure the child had
proper instruction, had proper equipment, or was even made aware of any
risk? You don't. And overcome by disbelief, anger, and tears, they sue.
Anyone; everyone. Psychologists call this transference of guilt. Lawyers
call it a windfall. Insurance companies call it an excuse to increase
premiums. I call it bawling for dollars. Isn’t there any onus on humanity to
assume some responsibility for its own actions? Not even vegetables are
entitled to a risk-free existence.
Speaking of which, years ago a few conservative acquaintances (they seem to
have all forsaken me over time) claimed I was harbouring a secret death
wish. They would point to the speed, the fast cars, the motorcycles, and
anything else that set off their danger alarms, like old guitar strings that
could snap in the night. As usual, that clichéd death wish was being
confused with a life wish. If anything, life could use more USE AT YOUR OWN RISK
options.
Couch victims
Given the choice, is it not better to die living than to remain living dead?
The land of the living dead occupies the crypt in front of the TV, spits out
the end of a narcotic needle, pours out the neck of a booze bottle, hides in
the countless pages of over-regulation --basically lurks anywhere we subjugate
our freedom in exchange for a pre-programmed existence, preferably with
guaranteed minimal risk. Yet by seeking to eliminate risk, we unavoidably
eliminate much of what makes breathing such a worthwhile enterprise.
Obviously it’s safer to simply sit back and watch. But so what? Where's the
advantage of being the last one buried if your spirit died years before you?
When it comes to life, use at your own risk, and use often. Climb a
mountain, hang-glide, bungee-jump, go out on a date. Or, to quote the Parry
Sound Sportbike Rally’s perennial hard-luck winner Phil, “Ride fast and take
chances.” But whatever you decide to do, make it your own choice and accept
the consequences, be they success or failure. After all, you won’t have the
chance once you’re dead or, worse, self-assigned to the comatose couch of
the living dead.
As an aside, I won that race with Paul.
Max's
website
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192 pages Price: $24.95
(includes ground shipping) |
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