I had the song Five Days in May by Blue Rodeo in my head and had an epiphany that I could make new lyrics so it's about biking to work in Chicago and record it. Then I'd make some video because that's how things spread, and it would raise awareness and unite bikers and all that good stuff.
Once I had the idea, I thought it fit so perfectly that I couldn't not do it. This brought up a lot of issues -- Since when could I write lyrics? What would the video be? Maybe a bear suit should be involved? Should I get actors? Kevin Bacon? But it had to get done, and even it was the bare minimum, like strapping a camera to my bike and riding around not even at the locations mentioned in the song, then that would have to do.
I posted the video on Saturday and expected it to become a Chicago anthem. No, but I thought there would be some buzz in Chicago about the week and I was excited to be in the middle of it. I had TweetDeck up, had columns of searches, saw a lot about Bike to Work week, but none coming from Chicago. (This was fun to watch though; a lot of small towns published stories about it, a nice cross-section of the country).
Turns out there's another Bike to Work Week. This one's organized by the Active Transportation Alliance and is more Chicago-centric. It's June 12-18. So I guess this is the one that Chicago cares about. I don't know what separates this from the national one or if there's any bad blood between them, but the ATA site does look a whole lot nicer. (I actually knew about the ATA week beforehand, but became deluded about which week mattered, possibly by the allure of writing a parody song).
Ideally, my song could be carried over to be about the Chicago Bike to Work Week that matters, but it's all about being in the month of May! Anyways, it was still a lot of fun to do. I could still make a song about the upcoming Bike to Work Week -- like June is Busting Out All Over [on a bike].
