When I was ten years old, Jason Rhoades gave me a pump-action air rifle–not strong enough to do any real damage, but summer-defining nonetheless. A few years later, he exhibited a sculpture titled PeaRoe Ramp (from Wastewedge, Part of Impetuous Process, 2002), with Embedded HiFi and Honda XR50 (2003). The ramp was precisely what the long title describes: a bike ramp made of a new material Jason had invented called "PeaRoeFoam" (bright green peas, red fish roe, and small white foam pellets mixed together with glue), with a stereo embedded in it (HiFi). It came with a 50cc miniature Honda dirt bike: a child-sized dirt bike, the kind Jason would have ridden growing up in Northern California.
After the show came down, Jason let me use the little bike all summer. I discovered a hidden path off Otis Lane near my family's house in Bellport, and I rallied around there for months, creating obstacle courses, crashing, and driving again. Then, one day in late August, while I was riding in circles on the lawn, a friend of mine aimed Jason's air rifle at me and fired. I swerved, fell down and became hysterical, screaming incoherently the way children often do when they aren't sure how much pain they're really in. I had a bruise the size of a cherry on my back for weeks.
Read more at The Miami Rail.