Last week, Jason Crane over at rocbike.com interviewed me for his podcast, the RocBike Review. Because I'm afraid of the dark, toucans, and the sound of my own voice, I have not yet listened to it, but Jason assures me that he's edited out the following unfortunate moments:--The six times I hung up on him because I thought he was a telemarketer;
--My unfortunate Michael Richards-esque outburst about Nova Scotians;
--The 46 minutes we spent trying to diagnose a creak on Jason's bike over the phone;
--A cassette recording I made in the 80s in which I pretended to have a talk show and interviewed the cast of "Three's Company;"
--The point at which, emboldened by Recharge and vodka, I challenged the Fat Cyclist to a "blog-off."
So if you're interested in hearing what I sound like, please head over there, have a listen, and then feel free to come back and tell me. Thanks to Jason and Rocbike for the unique and enjoyable opportunity.
66 comments:
ok.
do your so-called great commenters have things to say like....podium?
3rd place! (at least while writing this...)
so close!
Re: podcast; BikesnobNYC, after listening, I envision you with glasses, maybe thin, wire frames?
Weird.
It's great to finally hear your voice! Thank you for doing the podcast!
Hey, nice interview. I've been pondering the reason your free-range critique has drawn a lot of attention. I think it's because there's an idealized form for the bicycle - the Platonic notion that life is like a cave, and most of us only see things darkly, but in our mind's eye we have a firm notion of ideals, what the ideal diamond, stopsign or bike looks like.
A part can work but be ugly. It can be pretty but not work. The idealized bike we picture in our mind looks good and works really well. A powder coated junk bike with a carbon 650 up front, a Deep Vee with painted brake surfaces in the back, no brakes, insecurely mounted cog - it's just wrong in a lot of ways. I think this blog works because you are able to articulate the ways the bike is wrong, in a manner the rest of us can't quite imitate.
Simply put, you're saying what the ad revenue funded bike critics should be saying, but can't. Which is ironic, when you consider you're an insurgent, but at the same time you are upholding a classical visual and functional aesthetic, while the supposed establishment doesn't do so unless it enhances the bottom line. The real revolutionaries are on Wall Street; you sir, are defending the Elgin Marbles of bicycling.
Good decision not to fake Tourette's Syndrome or coprolalia for the interview. No one could have sustained that.
Good interview!
@nesuto neko:
Could those glasses be black round specs instead?
BSnob, I have to ask again: Are you an architect? Considering the blacked out attire (Bicycling), the adherence to function over form, and the occasional flicker of Photoshop talent, I think it fits.
Prolly, is this a stretch?
I like that we get a bit more Bike Snob than the Bicycling interview. Very interesting.
the interviewer did a good job.
and the speculations on forums, you're on the fixed gear ny forums aren't you?
oh, and you sound like an old guy.
you did a good job too.
Allen,
Thanks. I am not on the fixed gear NY forum, no. And trust me, I feel even older than I sound.
--BSNYC
...jeez, talk about matching bike photos w/ people or objects...
...as i listened to the interview i was having visions of a man riding peacefully amongst us...sandals, flowing robes, beatific smile w/ a hand raised in benediction, blessing our rides (brake-less fixes not withstanding)as he passed...
...feeding the multitudes on the shore by turning water into accelorade (urp) & stanching the hunger of the peloton w/ only three powerbars & a cliffshot...
...did i mention great little interview ???...
Jason,
I in turn ask you: the second-floor lintels between the lally columns, should we rabbet them?
--BSNYC
you know some of us now have a better chance of id'ing you in a pp race at some point
BSNYC -- It was great to have you on the show. Come back anytime!
Jason (not the guy who asked the architecture question)
--
Jason Crane
RocBike.com | The RocBike Review
"Nothing To Lose But Our Chains!"
I'm an architect, and I recognize the sickness in myself, the hatred for all things superfluous and non-functional, tne intolerance of poor proportions...
Bike Snob sounds kinda like Jello Biafra (from the "No More Cocoons" era).
Jello, is that you? What made you move to NYC from the Bay area?
Enhancement Smoker,
Things were getting weird out there. Have you noticed the french fries at the A&W taste a little strange?
--BSNYC
Some of my best friends are Nova Scotians. Actually, that's not true, but I'm sure if I met a Nova Scotian, I could be tolerant. Not that there's anything wrong with being Nova Scotian. Nova Scotia's in Canada, right?
...a little 'pedro's' in the deep fry oil ?...
Hmmm. I don't think he sounds like Jello Biafra at all. Then again, my hearing's pretty much shot from years of listening to DK.
Today's unrequested free advice: exposure = further decline in hipster god/icon status. Hipster mystique can be regained by denying the interview subject was the real BSNYC.
Snob,
ABA or NBL when you raced BMX? What bike were you sporting back then?
BSNYC -
An architect that wears glasses . . . Do you have a French uncle that used to race bikes whose name is Fignon?
good interview.. honest and fair
BSnob,
God is in those details. Cut a cross section and we'll see how the sun hits it on the solstice.
In the meantime, I'm trying to find chain ring bolts anodized to match the mullions on my ribbon windows. Color: Hartford Mist. My bike hangs on the adjacent wall, and they don't quite complement each other the way I'd like. Can you help me?
I'd just like to give a shout-out to my St. Louis brethren for claiming spots 1 and 3 on the podium this morning - Portland, eat your heart out.
I apologize and retract my previous comment. I did not realized that Spokane also has a Fucking Bike Club, and so I tip my hat to that fair star of the West.
Jason,
"Now, this is the paper we're going to use in the hall. It's flowered, but I don't want the ceiling to match any of the colors of the flowers...there's some little dots in the background, and it's these dots I want you to match. Not the little greenish dot near the hollyhockle...but the little blueish dot between the rosebud and the delphinium blossom. Is that clear?"
--BSNYC
seattlem&m:
I know you're being facetious, but I just had a thought about this whole "icon status" thing: the Snob can do anything he wants, and of course doesn't need to "regain" anything --- because he never purported to be anything in particular except a dude who rides bikes. How magical: actual content devoid of a posturing-as-packaging. And it's hilarious to boot. I read this blog every day for that reason.
Further... Snob, I suppose you're flirting with these more "mainstream" outlets to demonstrate just how far you are above all the ladder-climbing and posturing that your objects of ridicule engage in. I mean this as an observation, not a judgment or criticism.
An editor's description of Vice Magazine's Dos and Don'ts section sums up this ethos nicely: "Do's is all about not caring."
:)
I liked the podcast a lot.
I think I have a crush. Eep.
cross...
hmmm
that left me wondering how far into New Belgium BSNYC ventures...
does he have big enough balls to venture into 'our' scene?
or is he already here?
Hmmmm
Snob - AIA or ASID?
one discussion point i liked was about how to respond politely to people who write scathing responses to your scathing reviews.
i think another thing going on is NYC culture - one of the things i like most about how NYC usually works - everyone's allowed to make a big statement (one on each side) and then people start to de-escalate and keep it workable.
BSnob,
Paper? Call me (new) old fashioned, but it's not for me.
"UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN! Strong strokes! Paint! Don't tickle."
That last comment was definitely ASID.
BSNYC --
Did you just quote Myrna Loy from "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" or was that from one of the remakes?
Leroy,
You got it.
--BSNYC
“We ride bikes for fun and we read about bikes for fun.”
— Best quote from yer podcast... Loved it. Way to keep it positive.
: )
...jeez, you guys are esoterically obscure...
what kind of sissified NY dream land are you imagining, Juggleandhope?
go outside lamerz i am
BSNYC --
Now I feel old even though that came out before even I was born.
Leroy,
I really only thought of it because Jason has apparently decided I'm an architect.
"Actually, maybe I could set my sights a little bit higher...I think I'd really like to be a city planner...Why limit myself to just one building, when I can design a whole city...isn't an architect just an art school drop-out with a tilty desk, and a big ruler?"
"It's called a T-square."
--BSNYC
Sorry BSNYC, that job has already been taken.
jason,
I'm not an architect or a designer but you may find some inspiration in wallpaper. You can just swipe the color pallets and color match paint.
You could even take for bicycle to the paint store and have them match it with a nice eggshell finish.
BSNYC --
Thanks for the more recent quote. Now I don't feel quite as old.
Now off to Brooklyn. Weather.com says there's a head wind with gusts to 22 mph. Think I'll take the streets as opposed to one of the river paths. Who knows, Second Avenue below 14th may even have lanes again.
"You know, the stupidest guy in my fraternity became an architect - after he flunked out of dental school!"
Okay, you have used a couple Yiddish words on the blog and now that I've heard your voice I feel confident in guessing that you are a Jew. A blessing on your head, mazel tov!
BSNYC, do you have a Zuz-Zuz water softener? Nice interview, concise with just the right amount of snobbery.
...lest you think it be swept aside unnoticed, bsnyc, not one nova scotian called for your ouster, whined to religious officials or castigated you publicly...
...a proud and tolerant peoples, the nova scotians, eh ?....
The D - First, is that pronounced "thead"? Second, do you think aesthetics has a place in the grammar of function? I do. I think pure function is the first thing, but that the aesthetics, making a thing as close as possible to an ideal that all, or most, would recognize as beautiful, is also important. The function of aesthetics is necessarily secondary, but it seems to me that it also an important function of an object. Who wants to live in an ugly house, work in an ugly office, date ugly people (my wife did, thank God, but that's another story) or ride a ugly bike? If you make it attractive, the utility of a highly functional object increases because more people will want to use it. Hipster culture, with an insistence on second rate design and third rate aesthetics seems to insult both ideas of function. Of course when the aesthetic changes a little and the object of hipster desire becomes more popular, the hipster moves on to something new, insisting that he rode fixies and tight jeans when they were cool, but now that Giant has mass marketed a fixie and Dickies makes tight jeans, it's time to move on, 'cuz fixies and tight jeans sucked anyhow. Maybe that's the bottom line insult to cyclists - the object we order our cult around is being used as a throwaway fetish, a stupid fad like pet rocks, and we don't much like it, and feel sort of dis'ed by it.
Anonymous 11/05 9:16pm,
If it makes you happy I certainly won't contradict you. But remember, this is New York--we all talk like that.
--BSNYC
How the hell of all the people in the world did we Nova Scotians enter into this? I suppose we are a bit related to the fine folks in NYC seeing that when you had your big revolution, you always seem to be having some kind of revolution down there, most of you that didn't want to stick around and live under a long line of Presidents ending with the guy you call "W" , well you ended up here in Nova Scotia.
It's funny that no one whined? Usually folks like to whine here...
Anyway Snob keep up the good work because we Bluenosers sure like things tongue in cheek.
Jim:
If aesthetics weren't of importance to me, I would've become an engineer. :P
But I'm a modernist, and I don't like decoration - like top tube pads.
BSNYC-
You ARE an architect. And what's more? You used to write for The Gutter. I'd recognize that sarcasm anywhere.
It's you right? You're the guttersniper reincarnated? I should have known!
Bluenoser --
Someone seriously malign the noble folk of Nova Scotia?
Never!
You've given us smoked salmon and Anne of Green Gables.
But don't get me started on those Prince Edward Islanders.
(Actually, the folks I've met up there couldn't be nicer.)
danny:
The guttersniper was never this good.
When I heard Snob's voice, I immediately thought of a scene from the movie Airplane. It goes something like this:
Passenger: "Stewardess? Do you have anything light to read?"
Stewardess: "Try this pamphlet; 'Great Jewish Sports Legends'"
...bluenoser, you hoser...i'm an old TO boy, who went west n' turned left & ended up down here in the redwoods...
...the only thing thats ever made me think a' going home is "W' & the reign of ignorance...
...part a' my heart will always be proud of originally being a canuck, eh...
for some reason, thats not what i expected your voice to sound like.
BSNYC is a chick, this "guy" was a front. he was totally unfunny, unwitty and boring in the interview. did that escape you people? geeze i cant believe im the only one who thinks this.
ps the loyal commenters are becoming a bunch of annoying twittering old ladies.
PPS the imposter may be WOODY ALLEN
Well, that's the last time I hire a stand-in on Craigslist.
--BSNYC
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