Alex Medick

I’d be remiss not to say something. This week, we lost a legend. Robert Redford.

An icon who gave us decades of unforgettable film and helped champion the next generation of storytellers. Actor, director, founder of Sundance – he shaped indie cinema as much as Hollywood itself.

Thanks for the art, the stories, and the inspiration.

Rest easy, Robert Redford.

People ask me all the time if I worry about my health when I’m on the bike. Of course I do. But the pros outweigh the cons by a mile.

Most folks dismiss motorcycling as reckless or indulgent. Truth is, the things that pull us in, strip away the noise, and push us to focus. That’s the stuff that keeps us sane.

Science even backs it up: riding can drop cortisol by nearly 30%, sharpen the brain for quicker hazard detection, and spike adrenaline like a solid workout. Tohoku University found middle-aged “returning riders” boosted memory and cognitive function after just two months back in the saddle. And U.S. vets call it “wind therapy,” a way to fight PTSD, loneliness, and chaos.

But forget the labs and stats for a second. Riding builds community. It gives you a natural tribe, a rhythm, and a reminder you’re still alive in a world trying to numb you out.

Motorcycling isn’t just thrill. It’s therapy. It’s survival. It’s renewal.

I came across an article about the so-called Great Lock In of 2025. The rules go like this:

• Wake up at 5:30
• Bed by 9
• No alcohol
• Read 10 pages
• 10k steps
• Workout daily
• Cut out toxic friends
• No distractions
• No fast food

On the surface, it sounds incredible. Who doesn’t want to be their best self? But here’s the flaw: what the fuck is the point of living if all you do is optimize?

Sure, chase the best version of yourself, but don’t forget to be human. Don’t forget to love, fight, fuck, cry. To care too much, or not enough. To be reckless, aloof, messy. To try something new. To take the path no one else dares.

The Great Lock In sells discipline, but it steals your humanity. And if you’re not here to live, to stumble, to feel, to taste the chaos…Then what’s the point of waking up at all?

Today I watched a bullet tear through the neck of a thirty-one-year-old man. Thirty-one. Technically a man, more like a kid. At that age you’re still half-formed, still figuring out what the hell life even means.

That single shot turned a wife into a widow. That single shot left two kids without a father. That single shot sent a ripple across America. It’s like we all just crossed a line we didn’t know was there, and now the air feels heavier. Civil war or peace, two roads laid bare.

And knowing us humans, peace has never been our strong suit. Not since the dawn of time.

The pot has been boiling for years. Now it’s spilling over, and the times, well they really are a-changin’.

All one can do is pray. Pray to whatever God you believe in that love, peace, and understanding take the reins.

Dark days in America. Dark days for Americans.

Rise of the Soft Boy?

I read an article this week that declared the alpha male dead. Buried. Six feet under. His replacement? The soft boy.

What’s a soft boy, you ask? Don’t worry, I had the same question. According to Pop My Bub, a soft boy is:

“A man who embraces sensitivity, emotional openness, and gentle behavior, often presenting a style and attitude that contrasts with traditional masculine norms.”

Translation: pastel sweaters, vulnerable Instagram captions, maybe a beanie collection. Timothée Chalamet, Harry Styles are the poster children of gentler masculinity. Sensitive. Artistic. Introspective. Charming. Sometimes authentic, sometimes manipulative. You know, like a f*ckboy with a guitar and a loving relationship with their therapist.

Now, I’m all for art, music, literature, and men being open with their emotions. But here’s the thing: there’s got to be a line. Men need to be men.

What happened to James Dean? McQueen. Paul Newman. Brando. Pitt. Clooney. These guys oozed masculinity without being cavemen. They had edge and grit, but also depth. They were artists wrapped in leather jackets and cigarette smoke. They could brood and paint a picture. They could love, but they could also fight.

For thousands of years, the male blueprint has been the same: hunt, kill, provide, protect. It’s literally in our DNA. Now, we’re being told to sand off the edges, to fight against the nature that built us. To swap war paint for watercolor palettes.

As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in Fight Club:

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.”

Maybe the truth is somewhere in between. Maybe we don’t need alphas pounding their chests, or soft boys writing sad-boy poetry in coffee shops. Maybe we need balance – men who can protect their families and also read a book of poems to their daughter at night. Men who can stand up straight but also open up when it matters.

Because the future doesn’t need soft boys or alpha caricatures. It needs real men, rough edges and all.

I love the biker community. The other day, I set out on a solo ride through the desert. Two and a half hours in, I pulled into a lookout for a smoke and to take in the view. High 90s, sun beating down, and damn what a ride it had been.

While I stood there, a pack of French motorcyclists rolled up. My French is shaky at best, but I knew enough to catch when one of them asked for a cigarette. I obliged, of course.

When it was time to head out, I swung a leg over the bike, hit the starter. Nothing. Tried again. Still nothing. I checked my phone. No service. Fuck.

One of the French riders walked up and simply asked, “Fix?”

“Oui, je ne français pas,” I stammered. That was all it took. One guy grabbed a tool kit, another a flashlight, and they immediately got to work. We all knew it was the battery. The solution? A push start.

Don’t ask me how the hand signals made sense, but somehow they did.

So there I was, in the middle of the desert, three Frenchmen pushing me down the road while I tried to kick the engine to life. And then, off to the races The bike came alive.

“Si bon,” I yelled back. “Merci beaucoup.”

“Au revoir, mon ami,” one of them called, as I watched their hands wave in my rearview mirror.

Bikers helping bikers. That’s the community. That’s the love.
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​Note – if you’re one of the french bikers on the harley cruisers that I met deep in red rock, I owe you a drink. hit me up.

Why are we so bound to technology? Why do we feel the need to monitor every action through a wearable strapped to our wrist?

“It’s for fitness,” you say. But weren’t people fit before the smart watch?

“It’s for sleep tracking.” Sure, but are you really adjusting your life to optimize your snooze score? If you said yes, we both know you’re lying.

What happened to watches? Real watches? When did checking the time turn into an excuse to measure ourselves like lab rats?

Long live the analog watch. A timepiece. A classic. Something timeless enough that anywhere, anytime, someone will notice and say: “Nice watch.”

Do yourself a favor and throw that smart watch in the trash. Be timeless. Stand out. Be rebellious.

This week I stumbled into a low-budget gem on Netflix: Titans: The Rise of Hollywood. A few of the sets look like they were built in someone’s garage and the reenactment quality varies based on how many drinks deep you’re in, but the story? Pure gold.

I’ve always been hooked on Hollywood… the movies, the machine, the madness of it all. So when you hand me a four-part series on the Golden Age, I’m in, no questions asked.

This documentary series dives into the birth of Paramount, Fox, Warner Bros, United Artists, and MGM. The moguls, the power plays, the myths that built the dream factory. The history of Hollywood is magic.

If you love movies, you owe yourself this watch.

My addiction to motorcycles didn’t come overnight. It started the day my old man died and left me his bike. I knew how to ride, sure, but it wasn’t until I got his bike that I really started to ride.

It needed some TLC after being neglected in the old man’s garage for a little, but nothing major. Got her fixed up and began to ride. I started small. A lap around the neighborhood. Then a mile down the road. Testing my limits like a kid sneaking his first cigarette.

And then… the desert.

Red Rock Canyon was the path to travel. Ripping through the desert. The sun burning my arms. Grit flying in my face. The engine growling, almost as if it was saying, “feed the beast and don’t fuck up, or there’ll be hell to pay”
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Horse ranches on the side, hikers lost in their own quiet worlds, the occasional rider throwing me a lowered left hand with two fingers (if you know, you know).

But mostly it was nothing. No one. Not a soul. Just me, the asphalt, and the mountains.

That first ride cracked something open. Pandora’s box. Once you taste that kind of freedom, you can’t put it back. The itch sets in. At first, she was a casual mistress – a quick need here and there when the craving hits. But soon, it’s all you think about. No ride today? Withdraws. Call the the ward manager. The shakes, the restlessness, the dull.

My daily ride is more than just me having fun. It’s a daily gratitude ritual – a beautiful nod to freedom and being alive.

Somewhere between a wildly long delay at Midway and my third overpriced coffee, I started noticing the people around me. Pajamas. Sweat. Unkempt hair. Bodies slouched in defeat. The once-great “airport fit” had been reduced to something between laundry day and a hangover.

What happened? In the ’90s, people dressed to fly. Cool, sophisticated, maybe even a little aspirational. Now it feels like we’ve traded that for comfort at all costs… along with a slow erosion of self-respect, or at least respect for the people forced to share recycled cabin air with us.

This week I pointed myself toward Chicago. Seventy-nine degrees in Illinois sounds pleasant on paper. In reality, it’s a slow-cook sauna wrapped in humidity, the kind that makes you question your deodorant’s life choices.

I drifted into the suburban Midwest – a land where Trump, God, and golf make up the holy trinity. I came for family, but was quickly pulled into a three-day bender of golfing, backyard parties, and tequila sunrises that bled into tequila midnights.

Somewhere in the chaos, a children’s birthday party and a baptism got wedged into the itinerary. By the end, my liver had filed for early retirement and my soul was wandering the parking lot looking for Jesus.