Like Attracts Like: Don't Feed the Narratives

Recently, I received an email from a company, or concern, or enterprise, or organization, or entity, or whatever the proper term is, called "Dedicated Lane Productions, Inc." The purpose of this email was to alert me to a Kickstarter campaign for a Critical Mass documentary entitled "Last Friday of the Month."

Since I'm a blogger with a blog on the Internet, I assumed they sent me this email because they wanted me to mention it on my Internet blog that I have. So I mentioned it.

Subsequently, the director of the documentary left a lengthy comment on my Internet blog that I have (this one, not the other one about urban beekeeping), followed by a couple of lengthy emails. Now, I confess I had a bit of trouble following the comment and the emails. This is because: a) I have a poor attention span; and b) the prose was somewhat rambling, and at times flirted with the line between spontaneous bop prosody and incoherence.

However, I came away from it all with the impression that he was angry at me because I wasn't sufficiently effusive about his project, but he kind of maybe had a sense of humor about the whole thing, but really he was mostly angry. In any case, I sent him a friendly reply, and I might have forgotten about the whole thing, but then I noticed this was appended to one of the emails:


I could be mistaken, but that appears to be a disembodied arm clubbing a seal representing my blog, set alongside some kind of ripoff of the Public Enemy logo.

Or maybe it's a cricket bat, and the seal is drunk.

Either way, they say a picture is worth a thousand words. I suppose this is true, because the director had sent me something like three thousand words that I didn't understand, but here was a single picture that made it abundantly clear he wants to club me. And I certainly don't want to be clubbed--especially if it happens on the last Friday of the month, since the traffic will be all snarled up thanks to Critical Mass and the emergency services vehicles won't be able to get to me.

Anyway, I prefer to take the illustration in the spirit of humor and assume it's just the director's idea of parody. Plus, he's certainly more than entitled to make jokes at my expense. Still, I can't get over my irritation over the notion that we're all just supposed to like stuff nowadays. I'm not sure if it's the Internet or just the cyclical nature of popular attitudes, but frankly it seems the way things work lately is that people fabricate narratives about themselves and then our job as readers/viewers/consumers or whatever we are is to accept those narratives and congratulate them for their efforts. Here's the template:

--Guy in a hat decides he's a bike racer, we're supposed to celebrate his "passion" and "sportsmanship;"

--Filmmaker decides a massive inconvenience is actually a great political movement, we're supposed to celebrate Critical Massers as civil rights heroes and fund the film;

--Douchebag decides throwing out his books and buying an iPad makes him an aescetic, we're supposed to celebrate "minimalism" as a bold new lifestyle;

--Car company incorporates bikes into their advertising, we're supposed to celebrate them for embracing cycling;

--Hipsters import chocolate to Brooklyn on schooner and sell it for $9 a bar, we're supposed to celebrate it as "artisanal."

And so forth.

There's nothing wrong with any of this. We all write narratives for ourselves. The outline consists of our hopes, ambitions, pleasures, and desires, and we then set about fleshing it out as best we can. That's what life is. But that doesn't mean we all have to buy the chocolate. I mean, sure, if it's worth it to you go right ahead, but don't get upset when someone says, "Fuck that, I'm buying a Kit-Kat."

Also, clearly the Critical Mass documentary director isn't just blindly "liking" things. He's participating in Critical Mass because he doesn't like something, and in fact he doesn't like something so strongly that he's actually gone to jail for it. Still, that doesn't mean I can't not like the way he doesn't like something, since I also believe the way he goes about not liking stuff makes people not like me. Ultimately, I just can't help feeling like Critical Mass goes a bit too far, in that the participants write the rest of us into their self-serving narrative.

Incidentally, in browsing the Dedicated Lane, Inc. website, I also noticed a documentary about a "punk" sorry, "ska-core" band, entitled "Fuck Brakes:"

F*#K Brakes Trailer from Spike Project on Vimeo.

They're changing the world one formulaic song at a time.

In any case, while I tend to keep my distance from Critical Mass because I don't agree with it, I also don't follow RAAM--not because I don't agree with it, but because it just plain freaks me out. I think we all have a different notion of when a sport goes from "dramatic" to "stupid," and for me it's when the competitors have to put duct tape on their heads. Basically, it's the kinbaku of bicycle racing. Still, even though I don't follow RAAM, I did read this article about it in The New York Times:

Apparently, unlike more attractively gruelling races such as the Tour de France, RAAM is free from doping scandals:

While professional cycling has been rocked by numerous drug scandals, no RAAM rider has failed a drug test. Most say that there is no incentive to cheat in the race because it awards no prize money.

Right, I'm sure nobody has ever cheated in RAAM. If people are doping to win amateur bike races--as duct tape guy did--then I'm sure someone at some point has cheated in RAAM. By the way, the condition that requires duct tape is apparently called "Shermer's Neck:"

Goldstein completed the race in just over 11 days despite dealing with Shermer’s Neck, a painful condition that afflicts many ultracyclists who spend upwards of 22 hours a day hunched over their bikes and makes it difficult to keep their head up. Eight days into the race, Goldstein’s team kept her on the road by braiding tape in her hair and tying it to her heart-rate monitor or bra to keep her head pulled back.

I thought Shermer's Neck was a fancy neighborhood on Long Island. That should show you what a RAAM "noob" I am.

But the real story at RAAM this year was that the winner is a bike messenger, though I'm sure his words will sting his fellow messengers like peeling off duct tape too fast:

“I don’t know if I’ll go back to being a bike messenger,” he said after his rest. “I like people who are successful but keep their ordinary jobs, but if you do something great, you should maybe make something out of it.”

So, like, what? Being a messenger isn't "something great?" I though bike messengers were urban heroes; fierce warriors; bold riders on the very labia of the Vagina of Chaos. At least that's what all those messenger videos seen to want me to believe. And speaking of messengers, even though "Triple Rush" has been cancelled, videos continue to appear like the tingling of a phantom limb. Here's one in which a messenger boots a tire:

Triple Rush - Tire Patch Trick from Triple Rush on Vimeo.

Sure, anyone who has ever flipped through a copy of "Bicycling" knows how to boot a tire, but I'm sure the producers thought it represented the very pinnacle of street-savvy ingenuity. Plus, as the messenger himself puts it:

"If you're riding hard and you're riding fast which we have to, you really have to try to make stuff last as long as possible."

Absolutely. To that end, here are a couple of helpful money-saving tire tips.

Money-Saving Tire Tip #1:

Use a Brake.

I couldn't help noticing that, in addition to being bamboo, the messenger's bike is also brakeless:

I know this is mind-blowing information, but when you stop by skidding your tire doesn't last as long.

Tire Money Saving Tip #2:

Don't use a $50 road racing tire.

If you insist on using your rear tire as your brake, don't spend "$45-$50" on narrow, lightweight road racing tires.

But I guess when you're a TV messenger, it goes without saying that saving money always comes second to remaining fashionable.

By the way, when it comes to the actual booting, if you're a cash-strapped messenger, use a $1 bill:

However, if you're a roadie and you like to spend extra money on stuff for no reason or discernible performance gain, use a $100 bill instead:

(The $100 bill, also known as the "Fred Boot.")

Just tell yourself bigger bills have a higher thread count and will give you a more supple ride.

I'm pretty sure I read that in "Bicycling."

Surly Cross-Check: Cranky Cop Coldcocks Critical Masser

By this point most people have seen the footage of critical mass cyclist Christopher Long getting tackled by NYPD officer Patrick Pogan. This is a classic example of the eternal conflict between the younger, more progressive generation and the older, more conservative one—except of course that the rider was 29 and the officer was 22. But as we all know, in the gentrified neighborhoods of our nation’s cities 30 is the new 20, and in 2008 calculating someone’s age is sort of like calculating “dog years,” except instead of multiplying by seven you subtract 10. So really, the rider was 19 in “hipster years,” and as such the officer was probably enraged by the sight of a teenager having a good time and flew into a jealous rage.

Similarly, the standard of what constitutes heroic behavior is also lower in 2008. The bike-tackler, Patrick Pogan, is a third-generation police officer. I wanted to know more about the Pogan family, so I strapped on my “investigative journalist” helmet and Googled vigorously for almost two full minutes. I finally uncovered this New York Times article from 1991, and since I’m not a real journalist nor am I bound by any real journalistic responsibilities, I will go ahead and assume that the Pogan mentioned herein is the bike-tackler’s father, as the bike-tackler himself would have been only 5 at the time (or negative 5 in “hipster years”):

So it would seem that tackling someone riding his bike is in 2008 what rescuing someone from a wrecked subway train with the jaws of life was in 1991, because Pogan Sr. not only stands by his son (as you’d expect him to) but is also proud of him for what he did:

"He's my son. I'm proud of him. He's third-generation that's been serving the city," said Pogan Sr., who was at home in Massapequa Park, LI, today and said he had not seen the video. "These people are taking over the streets and impeding the flow of traffic. Then you gotta do what you gotta do," said Pogan, 51.

I’m not sure what’s causing both maturity and heroism to recede so quickly. Maybe it has something to do with global warming. In any case, it would seem that Long and Pogan were two melting icebergs on a collision course—though in fairness to Long it would appear that he did try to avoid the other iceberg, which proceeded to topple him from his bicycle in a decidedly un-iceberg-like fashion.

Yet try as I might, it’s hard for me to feel outrage. The world can often seem vicious and arbitrary, and this video would seem to be a good example of that. However, while you can’t account for everything, there are some immutable truths in this world, and knowing them can give you a significant advantage. And one of the most important truths I’ve learned is that where there are crowds there is stupidity. When large numbers of people get together, stupid things happen, and you’re almost always better off simply getting as far away from the crowd as possible.

For example, I regularly pass an Apple store, and for the last few weeks there has been a line around the corner. As you probably know, this line consists of people who are waiting to purchase the new iPhone. Many of these people not only own iPhones already but actually use them while they’re waiting on the line, presumably to tell their employers that they will not be getting any work done today because they are waiting to purchase an item designed to help them be more efficient. Apparently, they’re not aware that Apple is creating these lines on purpose, and they’re unwitting participants in what is actually a giant Apple commercial. Instead, they think that despite the iPhone’s popularity Apple might suddenly decide to stop selling the phone forever, and that if they don’t wait on line today they’ll never, ever own one.

And that’s just one benign example. In that case all that happens when you get to the front of the line is someone gives you a phone in exchange for the full retail price, hours out of your life, and a sizeable chunk of your dignity. Stupid, sure, but better than a kick in the teeth. But most crowds are even worse. Beyond over-hyped products, other things that draw crowds are fires, mass suicides, genocides, riots, parades, and Bon Jovi concerts. All things you’re better off avoiding. In the best case scenario, you see or receive something awful. In the worst case scenario, you get hurt.

One of the things that make cycling so great is that it enables you to avoid crowds and pointless delays. Few things are more satisfying than effortlessly weaving your way through a traffic jam. So while I’ll begrudge nobody his or her Critical Mass, personally I don’t understand the appeal of forming a crowd and creating a pointless delay. And it is a delay, whether you’re in a car or on a bike. I once accidentally got caught in a Critical Mass ride while out riding. I felt like a dolphin ensnared in a tuna net. One second I was sailing along, and the next I was trapped among a bunch of people with rickety bikes rolling on wobbly, rusty brown steel rims on the verge of collapse. It was like watching a Beatles “Yellow Submarine”-esque cartoon LSD sequence where all the bicycles were rolling on pretzels. Sure, they had taken back the streets, but I wish that as a cyclist they might have saved a small sliver for me so I could get to where I was going.

People do need to see other people out there on bikes. They need to become accustomed to them so they learn to respect them, and they need to see how practical and effective they can be so they consider riding them themselves. Many cyclists illustrate this day after day, not only by riding their bikes to and from work during rush-hour but also by using them for recreation and even racing on them. A driver who sees you zip past as you ride your bike to work, and then sees you riding your bike to dinner later with a date, and then sees you going for a road ride that weekend doesn't realize he's seen only one rider—as far as he knows he's seen a bunch of riders, and he sees them using their bikes successfully. Effectively, you’re a Critical Mass of one. Meanwhile, a mob of people on crappy bikes blocking traffic one day a month isn’t a “mass” at all. At best it's a party. At worst it’s effectively just one big stupid person.

Stupidity breaks out in groups, and when people gather expect stupid things to happen. You may or may not encounter a stupid person or stupid thing individually as you go about your day, but you’ll definitely encounter one in a crowd, and Christopher Long encountered one in the form of Patrick Pogan. On the other hand, intelligence travels alone, but it travels swiftly, and consequently it's not only more effective, but it also generates much better word-of-mouth.