Well, it's August 27th, and that means two things: it's the 50th anniversary of Bigfoot; and I'm back in town. And while I'm celebrating Bigfoot Day in the usual manner (writing a large check to the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, ME while dressed as Bigfoot), I'm somewhat less celebratory about my return to New York.
You may be wondering why this is. Isn't one of the best things about traveling the way it helps you cultivate an appreciation for your hometown? Don't you return with new eyes and see, as if for the first time, all that you've taken for granted? Well, not exactly. For me, it's more like riding a really nice bike for a few days and then having to get back on your crap-tastic bathysphere. That first day back on the streets of New York is like a twelve-tone symphony of stupidity and malice composed by a reanimated and insane Arnold Schoenberg. (When people get reanimated, they always come back insane. I learned that from movies.) It's a cacophony played by an orchestra of phlegm-hocking, jay-walking, coffee-slurping pedestrians, moronic bike salmon, malicious cellphone-cradling delivery truck drivers, deranged cab drivers in exotic religious headgear, doughy endomorphs in drifting SUVs, and riders for whom the highest expression of cycling is the crosswalk trackstand during which they stare deep into space in a desperate attempt to maintain their precarious balance like candy-colored pointers locking on to birds.
You may be wondering why this is. Isn't one of the best things about traveling the way it helps you cultivate an appreciation for your hometown? Don't you return with new eyes and see, as if for the first time, all that you've taken for granted? Well, not exactly. For me, it's more like riding a really nice bike for a few days and then having to get back on your crap-tastic bathysphere. That first day back on the streets of New York is like a twelve-tone symphony of stupidity and malice composed by a reanimated and insane Arnold Schoenberg. (When people get reanimated, they always come back insane. I learned that from movies.) It's a cacophony played by an orchestra of phlegm-hocking, jay-walking, coffee-slurping pedestrians, moronic bike salmon, malicious cellphone-cradling delivery truck drivers, deranged cab drivers in exotic religious headgear, doughy endomorphs in drifting SUVs, and riders for whom the highest expression of cycling is the crosswalk trackstand during which they stare deep into space in a desperate attempt to maintain their precarious balance like candy-colored pointers locking on to birds.
There are many reasons why New York is the way it is, and they are too numerous to list here. However, the main one is that New Yorkers have a sense of self-importance that is more bloated than a French duck's liver. Here's just one typical example I encountered this morning:
Note how the driver was considerate enough to perch one wheel on the curb in order to provide an ample five inches of bike lane for any cyclists requiring passage. And lest you think the driver was simply pulling over momentarily to pick up or disgorge a passenger, please note that I watched him pull over right in front of me, rode around him, continued on for a few blocks (including a lengthy wait at the light to cross Sixth Avenue, a major artery), decided as an afterthought to go back and take a picture, dismounted my bicycle, walked back to his car (I had to cross Sixth Avenue and wait for the light again), and found him still there, doing this:
I suppose I should be thankful he was heeding my PSA and not actually driving while using his cellphone, but strangely I was unconsoled. At this point, the driver had to have been on the phone for at least ten minutes, and he was so engrossed that he took absolutely no notice of me as I stood directly outside his passenger window and snapped away at him with my Instamatic. It was kind of like encountering Bigfoot in a forest, but instead of him running away he just sits there nibbling on berries while you film him. I could have twisted the ends of my handlebar moustache pensively, gotten underneath the black curtain of one of those old-timey cameras, and set off a blinding and explosive flash without his so much as peering at me through his tethered spectacles.
Since there didn't appear to be any urgency, I got in closer and tried to see if I could read the paper in his lap. I assumed it must be a very important phone call for him to have been sitting in the middle of a bike lane conversing for such a long time. Without actually sticking my head through the open window (I wasn't about to do that, and my handlebar moustache probably wouldn't have fit anyway) I was unable to make out his handwriting, but through the miracle of technology I was able to render it legible in my laboratory:
Indeed, he is taking down directions to the Hamptons. If you're unfamiliar with the Hamptons, it's almost exactly like the movie "Weekend at Bernie's," and in the summer months it has an irresistible allure for idiots like this. It appears his final destination is 803 Hill Street, which means he's probably headed to Southampton. Southampton happens to be the location of an excellent cyclocross race. However, the only barriers this fellow seems interested in hopping are the ones between decency and being an asshole. He's also preparing to exceed the speed limit--note the double underscore beneath "watch for cops."
And stupidity wasn't just waiting for me on the streets. It was also lurking in my email inbox. Somebody forwarded me the following request from no less a publication than the New York Times:
Hello,
I'm working on a piece for the upcoming Thursday Styles section that will be a photo-driven article about who rides what in the city, and why. We basically want to identify the tribes: downtown design hipsters on vintage Scwhinns, Wall Street jocks (or whoever) on their hot, pricey road bikes, etc. The more specific detail the better.
I want first to hear from bike-riders with a keen eye for style about what "types" of riders out there they observe: what they wear, what they ride, what accessories are must-have. Obviously, we'll be generalizing, but the point is to be visual and light-hearted, not scientific in our categories. If you could contact as many riders as possible and ask that e-mail me with ideas of what types of people ride what bike, and why, that would be great. The more colorful the descriptions, the better.
Once we winnow down the list of types of riders to about five or six, then I'll want to contact people who fit the bill to get quotes. So I'd love to get contact info for anyone who seems like the epitome of any particular style.
I'd love to cast as wide a net as possible, so any help you can give me in getting the word out would be most appreciated. And I am under deadline.
Thanks so much.
[deleted]
Reporter
The New York Times
212 556 [deleted]
[deleted]@nytimes.com
Yes, that seems about right. I don't see why the notion of "journalistic standards" should preclude any reporter from putting together an article on something about which he's completely ignorant. I also don't see why he shouldn't then just email a bunch of people to do his job for him. Hopefully, this approach will spread to other professions too. I'd love to receive an email from a doctor which says, "I'm seeing a patient tomorrow and I'm looking for people with a keen eye for illness. If you could contact as many people as possible who know about coughing-type stuff, bleeding-type stuff, and oozing, crusty, scabby-type stuff, that would be great. The more disgusting the better. And hurry, because I'm on a deadline--the patient I'm seeing is dying."
Sure, I know, it's just the Style Section, and it's just something "visual and light-hearted." Why take it so seriously? Well, first of all, it's the New York Times! They've got the ultimate cycling authority on their very own staff, and his name is Robert Mackey. Why not ask him? I'm sure he can tell them all they need to know. Secondly, there's just something offensive about the "help us help you pigeonhole yourselves" approach. And lastly, there are enough people out there purchasing lifestyles already. In fact, it's right up there with bloated self-importance as a primary reason New York can be so irritating. It's easy to be a rock star--just buy the pants. It's easy to have a personality--just buy the drugs. It's easy to be a cyclist--just buy the bike. Similarly, it's easy to be a reporter--just send out a few emails and photograph a bunch of people who are eager to legitimize and validate themselves in print. Because, whether you're a cyclist or a reporter, why should you have to actually do anything to be something? Why should a writer have to go out there and find something himself? Why not just sit there, like the Hamptons-bound guy in the bike lane, and let the world come to you? That's much easier.
I look forward to seeing the article tomorrow.
113 comments:
Podium!!!
fucking second
i hate myself
i'm gay.
and severely stupid.
and so annoying.
and generally a waste of space.
please kill me.
bike snob...you're so much hotter when you're not so mean.
funny how someone who thinks i am so annoying would waste 5 comments as me. dumb fuck.
craaaaaaaaap
Snob,
I thinkyou're funnier when you're mean. If I wanted nice, I'd go to cute overload.
Welcome back.
"Secondly, there's just something offensive about the 'help us help you pigeonhole yourselves' approach."
Ha! Finally, some real irony.
hillary
Hey, I think I went to the same place you did! Only I wasn't on vacation, I was "working."
i'm such a stupid asshole. please kill me.
BS, did you get some rides in up in the Marin Headlands? That certainly appears to be the case judging from your first picture. Pray tell, how was it?
Hipsters on vintage Schwinns? Schwinns are crap 'cause they're not NJS. This guy's so, like, 5 YEARS ago.
Seeing as irritation is your stock-in-trade, you should go away and come back more often! That was fierce!
Whoever is antagonizing the f-guy: you are just as annoying to the rest of us as he is. Just stop.
Trolls are worse than pie plates.
I missed you bike snob. Glad you're back. Only a cranky bastard like you would be so full of vitriol
Damn! Snobby returns with a vengeance. Impressive, although I'm curious -- if you'll post a picture of a random driver parked in a bike lane, along with what he wrote, why protect the Times reporter's identity?
i am spineless. forgive me.
What is that buzzing noise?
Nothing surprises me anymore, as far as bad/inconsiderate drivers go. I always blamed their aggressive behaviors and willing obliviousness on an inability to project their physical bodies into much larger and heavier mechanized prostheses (I keep thinking of cars as sort of like the "mega-suit" from one of the Alien movies.)
This book review / interview from Salon hit home today:
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2008/08/27/traffic/
I think it basically says that we're just dumb, slow beasts and we can't handle our toys.
I am glad you have validated that I can buy a lifestyle.
This bike says it will make me both hip and happy! Which is why I want a fixie!
http://cgi.ebay.com/
ws/eBayISAPI.dll?
ViewItem&item=120298214184
They can't lie about that, can they?
Great post...I feel for the guy in the SUV: he is old, bald, fat and stupid. And from a quick glance at google maps it looks like he is heading towards a parking lot so he can park his stupid SUV there. Confirmation of stupid.
This behavior seems to be par for the course for "journalist" today!
http://gawker.com/5042057/meet-americas-laziest-freelancer
Okay, I checked out the Mercain fixie on e-bay. Now, which one of you trolls posted the question to the seller asking who's Allan Ginsberg?
...i'm offended...
easy solution just carry a emergency hammer with you (http://www.lifehammer.com/) that should get some of these a-holes out of bike lanes
I find it frustrating when I'm in a bike lane or on the bridge and fellow riders ahead fail to clear the lane or make those infringing on our godgiven space acknowledge that cyclist are advancing poised and willing to crash into them.
I clear lanes not only for me but for soft spoken riders who fail to live up to their responsibilities, kind of like when you are riding in a group, you're ahead and reach an intersection and holla back "clear" or something.
Snobski if you had time to park lock take pictures you had enough time to think of other cyclist he would inconvenience and told his hairy hampton ass to get out of the bike lane- or at least you could have spat on his windshield and photographed that.
Glad you're back.
Snob,
Can you get a hold of Mr. Mackey and find out why he stopped updating "The Climb" after July 14? Was live blogging stage 10 of Le Tour too much did to handle or did he give up being a "cyclist" moved onto his next hobby?
Yaroslav,
I know you are Ukrainian, but soon Ukraine will be Mykraine (are you getting little joke, yes?) Conrolling Sevastopol is nice because of naval vessels and such, but we truly want Yalta, for the hot little chickens who get implanted large American breasts.
Magnificent return! I hope that driver somehow sees this post and repents his idiotic ways.
At first I was convinced you had made up that Times e-mail request. Then I realized that plagiarism is, like style appropriation, part of the zeitgeist.
There is a place for public shaming ahead of publication time.
I bet the Drudgereport news tips wouldn't mind getting that e-mail request.
"And I am on a deadline"? Jesus. Why didn't that "reporter" just say "hurry the hell up and get me what I need asap!!". The least he could've done was spell Schwinn correctly.
That eBay seller seems pretty modest. Since he rode to classes with Allen Ginsberg, there is an excellent probability that Ginsberg himself rode the bike at least once. I would think he would be curious about such a thoroughbred, and want to give it a spin. Most eBay sellers would make the most of that bit of history. At least put something about it in the subtitle.
Fuck eBay. Fuck to Ginsberg. Fuck the times. Fuck deadlines.
Hello, captain ignorant here!
Are NY motorists prohibited from parking in bike lane? In SoCal bike lanes are more of a lipservice than a right.
The funniest (or most infuriating) thing about that reporter's email, for me, is its uncanny resemblance to the way I was describing that very newspaper's approach to reporting on cycling and cyclists to a friend just this past weekend. Except that at the time, I'd been (I though) exaggerating for emphasis.
Pure classic-ness, love it today. Keep up the cynicizsmm..uh.. sarcazscm..uh.. bitterness.
Should have pushed it until he finally realized you were taking pics, and gotten one of his maaad face. HAha...douche.
I set this up but realized it was just too big for me. My loss is your gain.
Are these eBay purchases? I don't understand why people even bother setting up bikes that don't fit them to begin with.
Kevin ft. Myers
New York Times Style Section=oxymoron
I saw the best urban fixie hipsters of my generation destroyed by
mercians, starving hysterical naked, urban hipster fixies
salmoning through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry urban fixie hipster fix, angelheaded urban fixie hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly fixie connection to the starry dynamo in the single speed of night
Nice license plate too..
Welcome back, Snob. Thanks for the posts.
Snob, while your initial reaction to the Times inquiry was spot-on, as usual, upon further contemplation, you should have forwarded to the reporter contact info for Kevin from Ft. Meyer, Anon 2:11, OC, and a few other of the comment whores who occasionally raise our collective ire. By the time the reporter figured out they had been led to the loony bin, deadline surely would have come and gone.
Tex,
Forget the bike, I'd bet Ginsberg rode him at least once.
And by "Italian-style" brake mounting is he referring to the gross excess of cable that goes all the way over the handlebars?
The Snob complaining about a NYT writer wanting to pigeonhole cyclists...that is some brilliant irony.
he's referring to ginsbergs hot Italian sausage smothered in underwear
love you. love me. love bikes. love Ginsberg. love computers. love D. Boone. love Mike Watt. love George Hurley. love city. love country. love fish. love 32:20ratios. love cheap guitars. love skidding. love traffic. love it all.
A SAAB SUV... Sixteen Swedish aircraft engineers are rolling in their graves right now.
Anon 1:54,
Ha! Awesome.
-Anon 1:49
It's a cacophony played by an orchestra of phlegm-hocking, jay-walking, coffee-slurping pedestrians, moronic bike salmon, malicious cellphone-cradling delivery truck drivers, deranged cab drivers in exotic religious headgear, doughy endomorphs in drifting SUVs, and riders for whom the highest expression of cycling is the crosswalk trackstand during which they stare deep into space in a desperate attempt to maintain their precarious balance like candy-colored pointers locking on to birds.
This is just such pure poetry and it is so beautifully executed with that fantastic air of effortlessness that only a really funny writer can create.
I mean really, contrast that with this (Woody Allen’s sad un-funny faux blog about Vicky Christina Barcelona):
http://tinyurl.com/Woody-Unfunny
I mean really, pass the crown
If you could contact as many riders as possible and ask that (what goes here? “they” maybe?) e-mail me with ideas of what types of people ride what bike, and why, that would be great.
Gotta’ love the high level of stringent self copy-editing that those liberal arts graduates now New York Times writers apply to both work and life!
That is obviously Guy Trebay, no one else that I have noticed on the Times staff is so blithely and carelessly yet wildly enthusiastically clueless
I have a name for that sort of car - FUV
Careful when using big words NY Times guy...A list cannot be "winnowed down". You can winnow out something, or be good at winnowing, or even have your list winnowed...but the english language has never "winnowed down" anything.
annazed,
that Woody Allen thing was pretty funny. thanks!
nice tribute to snobbie, too.
snobby, another good one. I just wanted to say thanks for having Eric k sub for you. Always a good time.
Funny, I always pictured Allen Ginsberg as more of a Rivendell man.
"busted in their pubic beards," indeed.
Ginsberg... all he ever wrote about was cocks.
Anonymous 1:42, thanks for that.
Posting is good, but responding with some swingin'-on-the-flippity-flop caliber misinformation would have been amazing...maybe something along the lines of how hipsters are mounting their fixies' cranks kangaroo style for that extra Zen feeling.
W.M.Deez Nuts,
An excellent point, though I do think snarky bike bloggers pigeonholing cyclists for the purposes of comedy and for a readership in the know is one thing; the New York Times doing it is something else. Maybe next they can try ethnic humor.
--RTMS
jeez everybody grow up! I mean just because Alan Ginsberg wrote poetry doesn't mean he's a gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Besides, I'm sure being an American poet he rode a classic American bike like a 'Scwhinn' or a Rivendell. that he bought with his good looks! I am pretty sure there's a Style Section article in there somewheres.
Oh, man, that SUV bozo is going to turn up here any minute, parroting some bilge he heard on talk radio, and we haven't gotten rid of our current parasite yet. Need more antibiotics.
Good to see ya back with a full load of vitriol, Snob! We missed ya.
TPS - are you talking about that grunge article from about 1992 where they published all those made up words as the grunge scene lexicon?
check this piece of self important track bikes out:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Eddy-Merckx-Complete-Pista-Track-Bike_W0QQitemZ290255010574QQihZ019QQcategoryZ159089QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
A steal at $3k bid now..
-Pathleet
It's easy to have a personality--just buy the drugs.
sweedish fish - right across the room!
A couple of weeks ago a guy cut me off to park in the bike lane (in MA, law is no cars in bike lanes). I'm not a big bike lane fan for allthe obvious reasons, but a) he cut me off and b)he was basically craping on me and my fellow cyclists. So ride up to him as he gets out of his car:
me: sir, thats a bike lane, you can't park there
him: so call a cop
he walks off down the street. as i'm about to hop back on the Raleigh, a cop coem around the corner! I wave him over.
me: officer, could write a citaion for this car in the bike lane
officer: yep!, I'd be glad to!
done and done
Crap forgot to tinyUrl it: here it is in all bloated & self important:
http://tiny.cc/Qha03
-Pathleet
I hope you didn't give that "journalist" what they wanted. "I'm on a deadline" well tough titty for you! Unbelievable. That person should be unemployed.
Why just the other day I heard on talk radio that I had the right to park my SUV whip anywhere I felt like parking. You little friggin punks on your sisy cycles talking about golbal warming. Why just today on Rush I heard that global warming was a bunch of crap and was only a ploy to get into my pockets. Speaking of getting into my pockets...
anona 2:42,
You're kidding, right?
Because Ginsberg was the outest, gayest, out, gay, beatnik poet ever.
An incredible return, Snob. Welcome back.
Maybe next they can try ethnic humor.
Even better.
...andrew...all's well, that end's well...
...especially when it's invited...
by the pants, I guess you meant buy the pants, nay?
Woah, time warp with the correction!
Check the farmer on the SUV driver. Might be one of the bikes-as-the-new-golf set who thinks getting the Serotta out on the weekend entitles him to park in the bike line.
Is it just me, or do like 27% of images on this blog never show up?
why rag on the reporter? at least he was trying to get contact with the outside world. i really miss jason blair. he wouldnt fuck with no email hed just make up all that crazy shit himself. even get the pictures off google because the stupid fucking yankees believe anything that the new york times writes.
do the jitterbug with the sepia girl; you won't regret it.
particularly acerbic today. love it.
Sadly, I think today's journalists think they ARE doing their job by sending out e-mail requests such as the one you received. It's using the Internet to do your research, doncha know?
It is so much easier to start with a story and then seek out ppl to support it with choice quotes. A few years ago, NYT did an article about cycling in Silicon Valley. All my Seven-riding VC buddies and I got a good laugh out of it. Gotta run- con call coming up...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/fashion/sundaystyles/04SILICON.html
Is that the Miwok Trail in the first pic?
swingin on the flippity flop, lamestain.
I'm out of NYC this week. Whenever I'm out of NY, I wonder why I live there. Life is so much easier elsewhere.
I'm way too cheap to spring for a Carmichael hill climbing camp, so I found some hills in a small New England state. It was easy. Apparently there are lots of hills and small New England states.
No cabs. No Access-A-Rides, no Esclades and Navigators steered via a GPS link through a cellphone.
That might could be cause cellphone service is spotty, but I think it's something else.
When folks aren't packed on top of each other like tinned herrings (in density, oiliness and smell), they don't have to work so hard to pretend there's no one else around.
And because solitude ain't hard work, folks don't begrudge an interruption. In short, it doesn't take much psychic energy to put one's ego on slim fast and consider that even though one is really important and really needs to park in the exact same space occupied by a cyclist, maybe the cyclist doesn't have time to be parked upon just at that moment.
Of course, when I'm back in Brooklyn, I can't imagine living somewhere else.
My only regret is that we missed an opportunity to convince. The Times that there is a tribe of bikers plying Prospect Park in chicken suits.
don't forget the tribe of bottle recyclers towing shopping carts ...
or is that the same as stock brokers now ?
TouristSnob
Musta been a good break. Be grateful.
Personally, I like this pigeonhole. It's very pretty and I have my bicycle. Getting out of this pigeonhole would be like riding an endless smooth rail-to-trail. I would make mr. complaint a very boring person. Maybe I could take up botany as a hobby.
Let's disable comments!!
I'm burning for a white hot flaming cock.
RTMS-
Being a resident of one of the most cosmopolitan cities on the planet, that is the downfall of being on the cutting edge of a double-edged sword.
Reading this blog makes my day. =) You rock, BSNYC.
glad you're back, and no more of those hack-photoshop jobs.
Great writing. One for the BSNYC book.
NY Times Thursday style section. Sponsored by Rapha.
Dude you have to come to NW Montana, no red lights, chip and seal for miles...just the odd logging truck goof to deal with. No Rapha here!
well said, brother.
1. Anon. 2:42... nice one. I was like "whaaat?" until I reread "bought with his good looks."
2. I guess "Rodeo Trail."
Dang it.
3. Critical ass... Portland is awash in vintage Schwinns. NJS is so 2007 .
Mackey hasn't had a blog entry since July 14th, so the reporter didn't ask him because he is "so" out of touch with the bicycling tribes, it'd be like asking the residents of 803 Hill St. to comment how a single mother of four on WIC and unemployment makes end meet.
Gerchof, Will do you a deal. You import silcon implants and get them to throw in a couple of boxes of industrial strength ear plugs and I am yours. Perhaps we could get a tandem paddle boat and row up and down the Black Sea trolling for sprats for dinner, especially as there will be no spanish "holiday" for me this year
Haha! Great post snobby. I encounter lazy 'journalists' like that every day (well, I am a press officer) and that is a great example of how a lot of journo interns approach their work now. Honestly, you could tell these guys anything and they'd pitch it to their editor (although hopefully the editor would have a decent bullshit detector). Hopefully this guy reads your post and gets the message that there is no substitute for getting out of your chair and researching and writing the thing yourself. 'I am on a deadline', we're all on a f***ing deadline you idiot!!!
fuck the times.
I was just getting good at track standing in crosswalks. Now I will have to stop, because snobby doesnt likey. I will unclip and put my foot down so the ever increasingly prone to violence bike snob wont go postal on me.
Welcome back. Erik K spent far too much time Fofanov, but (at least) the art was better than nothing.
Snobby,
Its time to move, Pal. NYC sucks. In fact the whole NE Corridor sucks. If you think sitting in dead stopped traffic on a freeway everyday is acceptable behavior, then you are fucked in the brain.
Move. Get the hell out. Go out west. Breath some clean air. Ride around in a town where people say, "Howdy" to you in the morning.
Go now before it is too late!
To think I defended Robert Mackey lo these months ago and he has not done a blog entry since July 14. July 14! His blog is called "the Climb" and I guess he is quitting with just one. My faith in humanity is shattered, O My Brothers, but luckily Mr. BikeSnobNYC, whose artful prose edifies and amuses, suggests I was wrong to have had it in the first place. Bad New York Times! Bad!
On a happier note, I think drivers of SAAB SUVs, unlike Mini owners, would prefer to keep things to themselves.
That guy kind of looks like Billy Joel. Watch for cops in the Hamptons Billy!
That sense of self-importance is not just limited to New Yorkers:
Hummer in Europe
That looks eerily like Billy Joel and you've caught a preview of the lyrics to the upcoming release 'New York State of Mind II'
Where are the bike racks near the NY Times Building (the new one on 8Th Ave between 40 and 41 street?
isn't that Walt Mossberg?
Post a Comment