End of an Error: Sweet Impeachment

In the last twenty-four hours I have received numerous emails, Tweets, phone calls, telegrams, ravens, and telepathic messages informing me that charismatic (that's French Canadian for "obese") Toronto mayors Robs Fords have all been de-mayored:

Fords have vowed to fight the defrocking "tooth and nail," which just happens to be the same way they attack and devour a gigantic sandwich:

(Fords used taxpayer funds to employ a hundred-person sandwich-making staff.)

In any case, the Fords first came to my attention when they said some incredibly dumb shit about cyclists, and since then I've taken perverse delight in watching their buffoonish reign of terror.  Therefore, while I am of course pleased on behalf of my overly polite neighbors to the north, I must confess I'll also be kind of sad to see them go:



As for what the Fords should do next, I'd suggest that they make a bid for the US presidency.  Sure, technically you're supposed to be born here, but nobody really goes by that, since everybody knows our current president was born in a terrorist training compound in a remote part of Pakistan.  (I saw all about it on the Fox news.)  Also, the United States prides itself on being the land of the free and the home of the obese, and once you hit 300lbs you're automatically granted citizenship.

Speaking of asses who hate cyclists, a reader tells me that a Swedish woman was recently hit by one:

Here's what happened:

"I was cycling down a bicycle path near the street when I saw the car coming toward me," she told the local norren.se news website.

At first Nordqvist thought the car would turn to avoid hitting her, but the next thing she knew, the passenger's protruding posterior sent her hurdling to the ground.

Ass-themed alliteration aside, the police are baffled:

"I'm not sure how I should put this since I've never seen anything like it," Joakim Oja of the Skellefteå police told the paper.

But that's only because they live in civilized society, whereas here in Canada's menstrual cup even the "greenest" police officer would immediately recognize this as a typical drive-by mooning gone awry.  Anyway, it's a good thing she was wearing a helment:

(Ass.  Hat.  Now that's good spondee.)

Or at least she was wearing one after the incident.

Of course, in a world where we're all just a single wayward ass away from disaster, it's important that we learn to empower ourselves.  And according to one Kickstarter, there's nothing more empowering than making your own bread--except for making your own bread with stuff you portaged with your custom-fabricated carb-mobile:



Yes, nothing says lovin' like some fresh-baked smugness from the oven:

I am a bread baker with a utopian agenda. To most, the end product of a freshly baked loaf is most tangible and delicious, but more important to me is getting people excited about the act of baking one's own daily bread, and the challenge that presents to the ready made culture that is our "stuffed and starved" American lifestyle. Baking bread is a skill that has been lost in the prepackaged, preserved food environment where we are stuck in the cycle of market-based mass food consumption. Lisaruth's Lovin' from the Oven bread making demos help connect people to a primordial skill that I believe to be the gateway to other means of self-empowerment and the participation in creating one's own reality. One gains ownership over one's food sources, and the possibility for human connection arises. One slows down.

I'm not so sure I'd call buying a pre-baked loaf of bread an act of gross consumerism, though I do have respect for Lisaruth, for I too bake my own bread.  Indeed, when I made my exodus from Brooklyn, the forces of gentrification were bearing down upon us with their Best Made axes, and I did not have time to let my bread rise.  Lo, the result was a brittle and flavorless cracker-like slab I call "matzoh," and if you too would like to partake in it just give generously to my Kickstarter campaign and I'd be happy to teach you how.

Alas, I don't know what I miss more about Brooklyn--the throngs of people clamoring for entry into overpriced dining establishments , or the gigantic curbside containers full of cabbie pee:

Actually, while I'm assuming it's cabbie pee, I guess it could also have been left there by someone who was waiting on one of those 12-hour gas lines right after the hurricane.  Either way, it's only a matter of time before Brooklyn "mixologists" start collecting these things and using them to "curate" exotic cocktails:

("Barkeep!  Make me a Number One!")

One of these $17 drinks contains locally-produced urine that was sustainably harvested by bicycle.  Can you guess which?  (Hint: it smells faintly of asparagus.)

Maybe they can serve Number Ones in the bar at that new Brooklyn velodrome that nobody wants:

“It’s just so self-evident that this is his personal passion,” said Peter Flemming, co-chairman of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Community Council and one of the most outspoken critics of the plan. “The track-cycling community is devout, I’m sure. The snowboard community is devout, too. There’s no sport that doesn’t have its devotees.”

Mr. Flemming added, “He’s paying for his building, and then the city gets stuck with it.”


Fr. Flemming might have added golf to that list of sports, but then he'd have to acknowledge how much public space the city already devotes to people hitting balls with sticks and then walking after them.

Then again, I do acknowledge that there are more valuable gifts than velodromes.  For example, if I had billions of dollars instead of just the hundreds of millions I currently do and wanted to give the city a bike-themed gift then I'd start a bike share system.  Sure, we're supposed to be getting one anyway, but who knows when that will actually happen at this point.  Plus, mine would be a lot better, and instead of unsightly docking stations I'd just have indentured Portland framebuilders in cages who would build each customer a bespoke bicycle out of bamboo.  Then, when you're done you just dump it in the East River--or maybe feed it to the thousands of wild pandas I will unleash upon the city.

Now that's philanthropy.