This Just In: Off To Cleveland Then I'm Just Off!

What's this?

It's a great big pile of Cleveland, that's what it is.

As I mentioned yesterday, that's where I'll be this coming Saturday, April 27th, in order to promote my new book, "The Bike Snob That Is A Broad."  Buy it.  Read it.  Shelve it.  Buy it again.  So what does this mean to you?  Well, if you're in Cleveland, it means come to Market Garden Brewery from 1:00-3:00pm to be on the receiving end of my relentlessly shameless self-promotion.  Also, whether you're in Cleveland or not, it means I won't be posting tomorrow.  Actually, I won't be posting again until Monday, May 6th, at which point I will resume regular updates.

So why the long break?  Well, I figure it will take at least that long to wash the Cleveland out of my clothes.

Speaking of Cleveland, I haven't even been there yet, but even so I'd much rather live there than in what Brooklyn has become:


Basically, these douchebags are taking a question absolutely nobody asks, namely:

You know what "Brooklyn" means?  It means exactly fucking Brooklyn.  It's the name of a place with clearly delineated boundaries.  As far as I know, there are no border skirmishes with Queens.  Nevertheless, these horrible, awful people want thirty thousand of our green American fun tickets to make "Brooklyn the first community in the United States with a shared graphic identity."

All right, I'll play along.  You want a "shared graphic identity" for the 'roided out version of Portland that Brooklyn has become?  How about a woman holding a shitting baby over a toilet in a $3 million brownstone?

Done, and done.

But yeah, no community in the United States has a shared graphic identity, least of all Brooklyn.  Because nobody knows what this is:

Actually, that's what these design douches are doing.  It's the Internet 2.0 equivalent of trying to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge.  I suppose in that sense it's subtly brilliant and authentically Brooklyn.  But that doesn't make the smug smile this guy flashes at the moment the narrator says "collaboration" any less sickening:

("Oh yeah, I've got such a raging collaboner right now.")

Someone needs to launch a Kickstarter to raise the funds necessary to throw a $20 cocktail in this guy's face and then kick him in the "pants yabbies."

And I shouldn't even have to mention that, among the quintessentially Brooklyn images they throw at you in the video, they include this piece of shit right after a shot of the Nathan's sign:

That's just depressing--as is this:


Why Brooklyn? Why Now? 

With its soaring popularity, it´s no secret that everyone wants a part of Brooklyn. We can contribute to this phenomenon by highlighting the icons that make up that coveted “Brooklynness” and by facilitating a global conversation about these symbols.


I can assure them that this isn't true.  In fact, nearly all the iconic Brooklynites they include in their video left a very long time ago.  As for the people converging on the place now, I'm extremely glad they are because it's keeping them away from the rest of the city.  Really, the only "global conversation" any of this warrants is a UN summit meeting in which we discuss the imminent collapse of civilization due to this epidemic of vapid, twee douchedom.

Please take the money you've made so far, design yourselves a dirigible, and float away forever.

While I'm on the subject of designing vehicles, people are apparently serious about this whole self-driving car thing, which is horrifying:

Google and other innovators are working on vehicles that someday might drive themselves with little or no attention from human passengers. 

"Little or no attention?"  How is this any different from the way people are driving now?  Well, the main difference seems to be that the few remaining segments of the population from whom we're still safe will finally get to operate motor vehicles too:

Driverless vehicles are expected to help children, the blind, the elderly and others who currently cannot safely drive themselves.

Wait, this is a problem holding us back as a society, that children can't drive?  Are you telling me that we're on the cusp of a future in which 5th graders get around in self-driving cars?  What's wrong with the fucking schoolbus?

Well, it's not just about children finally being able to abandon their bikes for Hyundais.  It's also about productivity:


A driverless car should also cause people to use their vehicles for more miles, because they could use their time in the car to sleep, work, watch television, read a book and do other things they might normally do at home.

Households and business may also begin to use vehicles with no human passengers or drivers in order to move goods from one place to another and, by economizing on the human driver costs, they may want to move more goods than they do today.

As people take on additional activities in their personal vehicles, they may also demand larger vehicles that necessarily require more fuel per mile.

Hmmm, this is intriguing.  Let's see, a car in which you can eat, sleep, work, or read. A car you don't have to drive yourself.  A big car, one that can also carry lots of stuff.  Well, here's an idea.  What if we built a dedicated series of interconnecting roadways on which these big, self-driving cars could travel?  They could connect cities to their suburbs.  They could also connect cities to other cities.  They'd even be efficient, because they could run on diesel fuel--or, if we electrified the roadways, they wouldn't have to use gasoline at all.  Some of them could even carry freight exclusively.  Now imagine dozens of these big, energy efficient cars running in tandem, their passengers happily working and eating and napping away.  We could call it...the fucking train!

(I mean we could call it "the train."  I included the "fucking" for emphasis.  Sure, there's no reason we couldn't also have a "fucking train," or at least a designated fucking car on the train, but that wasn't really my point.)

I guess the problem with the whole "train" thing is that nobody gets to feel like they're inventing something since we've only had them for like 200 years.  Maybe we need to get the Brooklyn Kickstarter douches to rebrand the train concept with a "shared graphic identity" that would make it seem new and exciting to people.  They seem pretty good at branding stuff that doesn't need to be branded because it's been around for centuries.  The train rebranding doesn't even have to be a word, it could just be a symbol.  Something with tracks and moustaches and glasses and shitting babies and fixies with crooked saddles.

Lastly, I'm pleased to announce that there's a new member of the Pantheon of Mayoral Idiots, as I've been informed by a reader.  He's the mayor of Bulverde, Texas, and his views on cycling are as vexing as his hair:

("I'm gonna clean up this town...with my hair!")

Traffic was quite heavy at the time. School had just let out, there was a scramble to get income tax checks mailed and the evening rush was beginning. My patience was already worn thin and being stuck behind a couple of slow-moving cyclists riding side-by-side did not help.

So I gave a brief tap on the horn. The cyclists changed formation to single file. Then a break in traffic gave me the opportunity to accelerate and pass on a stretch of road that has a double-yellow center stripe which you can't cross.

I had to pass them quickly, but nobody was hurt and there were no close calls.
When someone is dressed in their work clothing and using a bicycle to get to work, that's one thing.
However, it's another matter when someone is joyriding on an expensive bicycle all decked out in riding attire on probably the most dangerous roadway in the city.

Wait, what?  I'm sorry, I didn't hear any of that.  I was too busy looking at your astounding hair.

And now, I'm going to excuse myself until Monday, May 6th, at which point, as I said, I'll resume regular updates.

Until then, I remain, humbly, yours truley, etc. and so forth,


--Wildcat Rock Machine

PS: Come to the Cleveland thing.

PPS: Cleveland.