Around 5:00 p.m. May 26, a service-entry camera captured a balding, middle-aged man dragging a green ladder out of the building and up to a roughly ten-foot pole with a bicycle locked to it. Balancing on the steps of the ladder, the man can be seen hauling the cycle up and over the top of the pole, then dropping it to the ground.
The man then calmly folds up the ladder, returns it to the building and walks off with the bike on his shoulder.
Actually, they don't say it's Larry David, but he certainly fits the description. (Then again, so do I, but I know I didn't steal the bike because at 5:00pm on May 26th I was at my lawyer's office discussing a lawsuit against the adult entertainment company that released my helper monkey Vito's sex tape.) Here's shocking video of the event:
I know what you're thinking: "How can a man climb a ladder and steal a bike in New York City in broad daylight without a single person stopping and offering to hold the ladder steady for him?" I couldn't agree more, and there was a time back in the rotary phone days when New Yorkers looked out for middle-aged balding men and offered to lend a hand so that they wouldn't fall down and break a hip. In any case, we're living in cruel times, and I'm sure Dutch city bike enthusiasts will step in and say this is yet another reason why we should all be riding around on bikes that weigh like 75lbs.
Meanwhile, speaking of local news and the olden days, they say that print is dead and that smartphones are responsible for an epidemic of distracted driving. Well, it turns out that the old-fashioned newspaper is still alive and well, and it can be just as engrossing as your smartphone or tablet--especially if you drive a train for the busiest commuter railway in the United States:
View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.
But don't worry, because the MTA is addressing the problem:
The MTA said in a statement that "reading anything, texting or using cell phones while operating a train is obviously not acceptable. Metro-North will take action to ensure this does not happen again."
They don't say what this "action" will entail, but I suspect it will involve immobilizing the driver's head with duct tape:
This photo is the amateur bike racing equivalent of a Faces of Meth "after" picture, and the CPSC really should mandate that it be placed as a warning sticker on all crabon fiber bicycles. It would certainly do a whole lot more good than those stupid "lawyer tabs."
So what's the opposite of a revolting photograph of a decrepit and duct-taped Fred in the advanced stages of cycling-induced delusion? A pretty picture of a rainbow! Here's one that I saw yesterday evening just after I finished duct-taping my head into place for the 30-minute ride home:
(If you squint you can kind of see it.)
Rainbows are a powerful symbol in our culture. For example, did you know that in hipster mythology the Supreme Being rides a fixiebike, and that's why they call rainbows "God's Skidmarks?" Well, it's true! Also, obviously the rainbow flag is a symbol of gay pride, and while some people are under the misapprehension that it's meant to convey the ideals of diversity and inclusiveness, it's actually supposed to represent the many hues of blood which will gush forth from the severed arteries of their enemies when they finally start the revolution.
Anyway, as I stared at the rainbow softly drooling to myself, I thought back to the last time I saw a rainbow, which was during my BRA in Vancouver, British Canadia. In fact, I actually stopped mid-BRA to photograph it:
Here's a closer look:
In every city, there's always one moment that gives you sudden insight into the character of it's people. In Vancouver, this moment occurred when I said, "Look, a rainbow!," and someone in the audience replied, "Is it a double rainbow?" That's when I realized that I was dealing with a populace so pampered and spoiled by natural beauty that they can't even be bothered to turn their heads for a single rainbow. "Pffff. Single rainbow. We don't even look at those," they might as well have said. I suppose if I had seen a killer whale they'd have said, "Well is it waterskiing while being fellated by a dolphin? 'Cause if it's not I don't care." It kind of makes you sick that people like this get free health care, while honest Americans who actually need it because we can't stop shooting each other and eating ourselves into diabetic comas get bubkes.
By the way, I did see a killer whale waterskiing while being fellated by a dolphin while I was in Vancouver, and there was also a double rainbow behind them, but I snapped the photo just a second too late:
Of course, when you think about Vancouver you think of stuff like mountain biking, and marijuana, and other kinds of outdoorsy stuff, and marijuana. You don't really think of culture. This is true of most cities that lie in regions of great natural beauty, because instead of actually creating stuff they can just smoke marijuana and look at stuff that's already there. This is what's going on here:
(Nature-jaded Vancouverites just all like "whatever.")
You couldn't even smell the sea for all the Wednesday Weed.
The only problem Vancouverites ever seem to face is when their oddly socialist-looking architecture blocks their view of all the pretty stuff, which is why they ride around on tall bikes. Unfortunately, they're all so high on the pot that they don't plan ahead for red lights:
Yes, when you're riding in Vancouver always lend a hand to tall bikers lacking in long-term planning skills. Also, watch out for the dog taxis:
More to the point, watch out for the dogs themselves, because they're always running out into the streets to hail the taxis. It's also not uncommon for two dogs to fight over one taxi, and here's an example of that I managed to catch on video:
Since they were both headed to the airport I suggested that they just split the fare, but they wouldn't listen to me.
Another thing about Vancouver is that evidently not much happens there, because they put me on the local news. Here's what it looked like where I was standing:
See, when you write about cycling, local news producers think it's a good idea to make you stand around in a parking lot with your bike instead of inviting you to sit down in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee like they do with normal people. I'm not sure why I had to be interviewed next to my bike. Dr. Ruth writes about sex, but I've never seen her being interviewed while receiving cunnilingus. Also, there was a big hockey game that day, so pretty much everyone in Vancouver was wearing one of these:
(By "one of these" I mean a hockey jersey, not a pair of headphones.)
Yes, in Vancouver they love hockey--or, if you prefer, "bikeless ice polo." As for me, I'm not even remotely a sports fan, which is why I'm immediately suspicious of non-athletes in sports jerseys. I kept having visions of suddenly coming down with appendicitis and being rushed to the hospital, where the last thing I'd see before going under was some scalpel-wielding surgeon in a Canucks jersey with Molson on his breath and one eye on the operating room television. Fortunately, that didn't happen, but I wasn't comforted by the fact that everyone responsible for my flight was wearing one as well:
But while the TV news made me conduct an interview on my bike, the Independent Smugness Media was even worse and made me do an interview while actually riding my bike:
By the way, in the link above you may have noticed the interviewer wrote this:
I discovered that The Bike Snob isn’t nearly as frighteningly acerbic in person as he seems on his blog, though he’s still very funny, and it was a thrill to have a rare sunny day (we prayed heavily) to show him around on his first trip to Vancouver.
What? Not frighteningly acerbic in person?!? Well screw you, goddamn it!!!*
*(I must really not be acerbic, because if a Canadian doesn't find you acerbic, you are not acerbic. To Canadians, "Sesame Street" is acerbic.)
Also, here's what a cameraman looks like when he's forced to work on the back of a cargo bike:
He seemed a bit nonplussed, but not remotely as nonplussed as this person who watched me go pee-pee in the restroom a Vancouver "epic burrito" spot:
It was highly disconcerting, and I had to run the tap for like 14 minutes until I was relaxed enough to go.
Less frightening was the Musette Caffe:
Sure, the socialist architecture that looms over it was kind of scary, but I found the decor entirely soothing:
So soothing in fact that I went pee-pee right where I was standing.
Then we all went for a ride:
Every one of their expressions says, "More killer whales being fellated by dolphins while waterskiing, or Ima fucking kill you."
Finally, lastly, and in closing, I'd just like to let all the shiksehs know that "Hasidic Dude" is still looking, for he has reposted his plea:
Hasidic Dude For Shikseh Bike Riding Partner - m4w - 28 (North Brooklyn)
Date: 2012-06-06, 11:22PM EDT
Reply to: [deleted]
Ok, this is not exactly a missed connection to a particular person, but I am a real hasidic dude who is looking for a multi cultural bike riding partner/expiriance. I do like to ride down to Coney Island and fort Tilden and Im sure there's a non religious girl who is wants to have a conversation wih someone totally different and learn a thing or two about he culture. I am down for drinks too, but really the weather is so beautiful and this is te time of year.
It should be obvious to him by now that his ad isn't working, and you'd think that he'd at least clean up his spelling errors, or maybe even add some seductive lines like "I wanna roll you in the sands of Rockaway like a schnitzel on a bed of Kosher sea salt." Anyway, if this is indicative of how the Hasidim are using the Internet, maybe all those rabbis the other day were right:
In an extraordinary gathering of nearly 60,000 ultra-Orthodox Jews, leading rabbis of the yeshiva and Hassidic world all but banned the Internet.
A halachic decision rendered by Rabbi Shmuel Halevi Wosner, one of the senior rabbis in the Orthodox world, said the Internet could be used for work purposes in an office — but only if absolutely necessary, and with the use of a filter. There was no justification for Internet use at home under any circumstances.
"Yes, but what about using it to find non-Jewish sex partners?," I'm sure Hasidic Dude failed to add. By the way, as anyone who rides a bike in Brooklyn knows, "work purposes in an office" does implicitly allow for operating a smartphone while driving a minivan. Also, ironically, at least one attendee at the gathering used the Internet to upload a sick "edit" to YouTube:
He was almost certainly driving at the time.
