Living in a World of Fools: How Deep is your Ride

After my eventful leave of absence I have been working hard to catch up on the many items that are languishing and festering on my "To Do" list. For example, my refrigerator is long overdue for a cleaning, and it turns out that if you leave cheese alone for long enough it will actually reproduce via mitosis. (This is a rare case of extreme apathy yielding a groundbreaking scientific discovery.) Also, the cat has not eaten in fourteen months. Most distressingly, I apparently missed some sort of World Naked Bike Ride planning meeting, which took place last night:


Hello all you beautiful biking bodies, bursting brains and biosphere boosters!

Let me thank you for joining me in putting your self out there to help make this celebration of our future as great as it can be. It will be a testament to the power of community, and a strong protest against the environmental calamity that is occurring.

It is too nice a day (gotta go ride nearly nekkid) to waste composing a long e-mail, so I'll try to be brief.

WNBR NYC is going to need lots of folks to step up this final week, as we plan about how we will create this space and event together. We will need many people the day of the ride setting up, preparing, riding and breaking down.

At last, the structure we have all been waiting for will come into being in time for Monday evening's meeting at 7pm at ABC No Rio, 156 Rivington in LES. I'll have lists of jobs to be done and you can volunteer to do it! Teams to focus on specific issues will be formed.

RIGHT NOW, THIS WEEKEND we must maximize promotion. Talk it up at all the parties you hit. Come pick up fliers from me at Bkyln side of Williamsburg bridge at 7pm tonight for distribution!

Please stay tuned to the wiki page! Please e-mail me about ANYTHING!

Have a great weekend. See you Monday,

It's a good thing there are others who had the wherewithal to attend, for as millions and millions of barrels of oil pour into the Gulf of Mexico we need a united front of naked cyclists now more than ever. I commend this committee for taking such a bold stance by lodging a "strong protest against the environmental calamity that is occurring." Until now, nobody has spoken out and said that this whole oil spill is a bad thing, so these cycling nudists deserve a lot of credit for having the courage to go on record here. Moreover, I have absolutely no doubt that a bunch of naked people riding bicycles will be more than sufficient to stanch the flow of oil, de-grease the pelicans, and render the ocean blue again. Surely, when the executives at BP see a white, flabby, and pimply posterior draped over the saddle of an old crappy ten speed like a piece of melting mozzarella on a hunk of hero bread, they will repent, and the oil derricks of yesteryear will become the wind farms of tomorrow.

Still, I'd like very much to see the minutes from this meeting, because it's hard for me to imagine how much planning a naked bicycle ride requires. Did they spend two hours on "advanced disrobing technique?" Was there a seminar on how to paint your breasts to look like flowers? Did they need to train a bunch of volunteers in abscess pus drainage so that they can treat the participants who will inevitably be felled mid-ride by chafing-induced saddle sores? "Cut me, cut me!," I picture a sweaty, hirsute participant shouting like a prizefighter in between rounds as he writhes on the pavement in searing agony due to a sizable ass boil.

If only it were 1971, the World Naked Bike Riders would at least have had ready access to Pub, the "masculine hygiene deodorant," as advertised in that issue of Playboy I mentioned yesterday:

Back in the '70s, the liberal application of Aqua Net to the bush followed by a spritz of Pub was how you prepared for date night. (You just had to make sure your crotch didn't get too close to an open flame.)

Speaking of "riding deep," a reader in San Diego recently spotted this bicycle, which features a compelling Deep V admonition:

One day in the distant future, when mankind attempts to make sense of the fixed-gear craze, we will find that its history was written on a series of Deep V rims, and the Rosetta Stone of rims was of course the legendary "All You Haters Suck My Balls" wheel. However, even now, these rim messages can be inscrutable:

First of all, what does he mean by "Ride deep?" Does he mean ride deep-section rims? If so, his own rear wheel is at odds with his mission statement. Or, does he mean that you should only ride below sea level? This too seems unlikely, since it would limit him to the ocean floor, or at best to places like Death Valley, the Salton Sea, the Dead Sea, and parts of the Netherlands. Most likely though, what he means by "deep" is "with lots of other people"--in other words, never ride your bike alone, because that means you're a loser. This makes sense both in terms of mainstreamified urban vernacular and the typical fixed-gear rider's passionate obsession with conformity. As for "GTFO," that hardly warrants mentioning, since everyone knows it stands for "Got To Find Oreos."

Indeed, in the fixed-gear culture it is de rigeur to "ride deep," and to constantly be in the company of one's "peeps" or "bros." This allows one to coordinate outfits, as well as to make sure there's someone else to verify one's exploits in the event of video camera malfunction. The obsession with "riding deep" is also neatly illustrated in a new film which I saw recently on fixed-gear freestyle impresario and streetwear enthusiast (and now adult collector of children's toys) Prolly's blog, and which was also forwarded to me by a number of readers. Called "Fixed," it is a promotional video for some sort of fashion accessory company probably patronized by the modern-day equivalent of the sorts of people who used Pub deodorant in 1971, and it is nothing less than a window in the subconscious of the typical fixed-gear rider:



Creative title, by the way:


As the film opens over a vast cityscape, a lone man raises a bugle to his lips:

If you're unfamiliar with the bugle, it's basically a fixed-gear trumpet since it has no valves.

Next, we see a group of anemic-looking fixed-gear riders whose insouciance is rivaled only by their pallor:

Apparently, the bugle call is some sort of "bat signal" for "hipsters," (and I'm guessing it sounded something like this):

("Hark! Did somebody sound the Fixie Bugle?")

Next, the action (and by "action" I mean "pretense") shifts to a parking garage, and another wan hipster glances over his shoulder disconcertingly:

This, evidently, is intended to showcase the idiotic quilted backpack he's wearing, since this is the sort of thing the accessory company sells. Amazingly, somebody probably wants that now.

Here come the rest of the "hipsters," still all jumpy from the bugle:

Notice how the guy in the blazer keeps doing those irritating little tailwhip skids, which is the fixed-gear cycling equivalent of a "doucheclamation point," or of saying the word "fuckin'" too much when you're telling a story:


Here's a gratuitous haggard man of indeterminate age, ravaged by hipness (or GHMOIARBH):

GHMOIARBHs are frequently spotted in Brooklyn neighborhoods such as Red Hook, which is where aging "hipsters" tend to move when they can no longer handle the "grind" of Williamburg. (In the days of pubic deodorant, they were simply called "burnouts.") My guess is that the director intends to "parlay" this film into a feature, which will probably be sort of a "hipster" version of "Castaway." In it, the GHMOIARBH will find himself stranded in an uncool town when his vintage Peugeot breaks down. He will be forced to come to terms with his existence (and to perform his own dentistry, like Tom Hanks did with the ice skate), and his only companion will be a broken squash racket he purchased at a yard sale and to which he will sing LCD Soundsystem songs. (James Murphy is the patron saint of GHMOIARBHes.)

Next, the wan shoulder-glancer returns with a whistle:

By blowing the whistle, he turns them all into bike polo players:

The director clearly lifted this directly from "Strange Brew," in which organ music makes a bunch of crazy people play hockey:



While purloined, though, it is rather fitting. Like the crazy people in "Strange Brew," hipsters are easily controlled, and both have been effectively brainwashed with cheap beer.

Soon, night falls, and the bugler dons his sunglasses in a gratuitious display of counter-intuition:

Meanwhile, the skidder starts lighting his own farts, or else has an accident with his flammable crotchal deodorant and pubic styling products:

He also nails his own genitals to his stem like some sort of misguided Hipster Jesus:

All hail the Messiah of Pointlessness.

The GHMOIARBH, meanwhile, remains eternally unperturbed.

This is nothing less than a remarkable piece of cinematography--though not quite as remarkable as a Rock Racing-themed "backpiece," which was spotted by a reader on Roadbikereview.com:


Watch as it takes shape, despite the wearer presumably having had plenty of time to change his mind during the process:

Only the most ravaged soul could be unmoved by this permanent tribute to smarm.