Wednesday, February 27, 2008

This Just In: "Save The Messengers" Campaign Picks Up Steam

I'm pleased to announce there's already been a tremendous outpouring of support for the bike messengers. Oldtenspeedgallery proprietor, imaging enthusiast, and courier conservationist Cameron has created this consciousness-raising design:





Print it out and messenger it to a friend today! Help save those who cannot shave themselves.

But the campaign doesn't stop there. Cameron has also created a poster for classrooms to help educate our nation's children:





Somewhat more urban but equally inspirational is Erik K's patch design:




In fact, it has already garnered a celebrity following:





I can truly say, completely without irony, that I have never been prouder to be a cyclist.

--BSNYC

67 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tell me again what we're saving them from?

KP said...

completely without irony?

BikeSnobNYC said...

Quaffimodo,

PDFs.

--BSNYC

Anonymous said...

I think it may be more worth our while if we simply round up the few remaining messengers and ship them off to flourish in a nature preserve outside the US. Like Portland.

Anonymous said...

quaffi-

We're saving them from extinction. Read the post.

Anonymous said...

Snob,

Is your blog comment race sanctioned by UCI or the ASO? Since no one showed up today, I am guessing UCI.

Anonymous said...

My consciousness has been raised - just in the nick of time.

Cameron, beautiful graphics.

Cameron said...

I had no idea that Jessica Simpson read your blog, or even rode a bike!

Anonymous said...

I'm putting my 80's neon cycling trash on ebay for a save-a-messenger fundraiser. I wasn't sure why I at the time, but I am now glad I saved all that crap from the bike shop's dumpter last week

Anonymous said...

Jeremy 2:58 pm

This is the second post for today. BSNYC is on a roll!

Anonymous said...

i was so busy celebrating my podium appearance today that i completely blew it in the second race!
damn!

Anonymous said...

...yeah, and your points might not even count.

Joby said...

you can see her nipple through her jacket.

Anonymous said...

I'm farklempt.

Too farklempt to attempt a song.

But we need a "We are the World" to go with the cool graphics.

Cameron said...

It took me several views before I noticed Jessica's subtle show of support appropriately applied to her messenger bag!

Anonymous said...

Joby --

It's a fake nipple so she'll get better tips.

Unknown said...

I sincerely hope that none of the "Save the Bike Messengers" graphics were sent in pdf format. If so, you should realize that you are part of the problem, and not the solution. Shame. On. You. All.

Actually, I think that all those people with fixed gears, messenger bags, and u-locks that you see riding around are nothing but a perverted brand of insourcing! Trendy freelance artists trying to get "the true fixed gear experience," now deliver packages for free just to be more hardcore than their freelance writer friends.

Yesterday's post illustrates this perfectly. Some hobo offered to transport that plant on their fixed gear for free?? That plant should have been delivered by a paid bike messenger!

Obviously NY bike messengers need to take a lesson from the Disney classic "Newsies" and organize into a union, boycott pdfs, and shove frame pumps into the scabs' front wheels Italian style: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WCRk8bvNiE

Anonymous said...

quit ripping off me style!

M. Weed said...

Cameron, the addition of the Aerospokes to the messenger in the poster is a really nice touch.

Steve Hampsten said...

messengers are an endangered species?

dear, dear

can actors, english majors, and massage therapists be far behind?

dire times, indeed

Cameron said...

m. weed,

It's a scientific illustration - accuracy is everything.

Anonymous said...

Yummmmmmm...

save them for dinner...
bike messengers taste sorta halfway between spotted owl and bald eagle...

Not bad eatin if ya donlt mind the stew bein a little gamy.

broomie said...

That is actually a production photo from the screen adapatation of Virtual Light. I pictured more a Hillary Swank type, but whatever.

Anonymous said...

BikeSnobNYC said...

PDFs.


I didn't know that you could do that to a bag of weed.

Anonymous said...

I like think it's like really important to like, save the bike massagers?
They do soooo much for bikes everywhere, and my maid like rides a bike?, I think.

broomie said...

oh, and Dennis Quaid is hot in that movie.

Timothy J said...

We need a bracelet! Dammit people, you cannot have a cause without a bracelet anymore! Perhaps one that looks like a top tube pad? Or one that looks like a U-lock! Get with the times! We need a freaking bracelet!

erik k said...

Cameron, well done I cracked up when I saw that poster. Nothing like BSNYC inspired photoshop hack jobs

Peter said...

I thought you were kidding about the nipple, but upon review... that is SO F'in funny

Anonymous said...

I second the bracelet, there is no cause without a bracelet and a ribbon. In this case, both should be tie-dyed hemp, recycled from grow-op seizures.

Anonymous said...

Gttim 4:20 pm

Yes, bracelets, and t-shirts, mugs, buttons, bumper stickers, yard signs... and let's create a fund -- that's it -- an endowment fund. Hey, Upper Class, where are you when we need you?

Anonymous said...

You can be sure Paul Mc Cartney won't be getting involved. He followed that chick to a save the seals thing and look what that cost him.

-theothercanuck-

Anonymous said...

Greenpeace has been spotted on orange rubber dingys in Seattle rush hour traffic throwing themselves between messengers and SUVs.

Anonymous said...

What is PDFs ?

Cameron said...

I have a bunch of old butal tubes that I could melt down and make into bracelets.

any takers?

Anonymous said...

Nevermind. Sorry, I'm new to techie stuff. To whom do I messenger my donation ? Will I get an FUV sticker to show my support ?

Anonymous said...

pay attention to me i'm posting on a comment board!

Anonymous said...

PDF: personal device for flotation, located under your seat.

Now i feel smart.

Jim said...

We're supposed to save a "jobless bike messenger?"

Isn't that redundant?

Or are you referring to JOB Rolling Paper, an essential part of the messenger population's strategy to avoid glaucoma?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JOB_(rolling_papers)

erik k said...

gttim ... I think you are right here's a prototype braclet
order your own here

Anonymous said...

I completely support the Greater Portland Bike Messenger Reserve. Surely there will be some attempts at captive breeding in zoos, but I predict failure. Without their natural predators and range, they'll lose their competitive instinct, unique mating styles and colorful plumage. In vitro fertilization will produce some offspring of course, but, lacking anything other than a small cage to ride in, they'll be indistinguishable from the Common Crested Fixe Frestyler. Pending re-introduction into a post apocalyptic encryption-free society, we need to set up a reserve with large concrete boxes and female park rangers (or any park ranger simulating such with a puppet) to flirt with them once a day and hand them a tube of blueprints to ride around. feeding time will be in a dark den serving ramen and a huge tub of pbr and marlboros. hopefully philip morris and pabst/miller will step up with some donations.

Anonymous said...

this site just makes my days so much better.

Anonymous said...

speaking of bike messengers

two just rolled up to this coffee shop!!!!

what a rare sight indeed!

Love, Mae said...

If you haven't seen it already...
HEY! I'm vulnerable here!

broomie said...

Anon 4:44

PDF was created in 1822 through a collaboration between Charles Babbage and Mary Shelley. Unfortunatly they were so insidious and unstable they destroyed his difference engine and drove her to melancholia. After the initial outbreak they seemed to burnout, but they were actually dormant until 1926 where they caused the stock market crash in the United States. In the 30's it seemed that some of the new vaccinations being created were effective but unfortunatly a mutated form emerged slowing down everyone's computer since the expansion of the internet in the
90's until now. All efforts to eradicate PDF have merely slowed its spread, and are pallitive at best. Unfortunately it seems PDF is affecting the Messenger population via beer made with contaminated groundwater.

broomie said...

Ahh Kids in the Hall! I forgot I had even seen that skit.

Anonymous said...

On Denver's CL today...a $550 Schwinn Continental
http://denver.craigslist.org/bik/589258499.html

A boat anchor turned into....an UGLY boat anchor

Anonymous said...

This 'fakenger' thing is is the spam of the 'oughties'! My office is constantly besieged by guys in caps, toting overflowing bags, talking into their cellphones and handing me dockets to sign. But then the damn envelopes and boxes they hand me are empty?! WTF.... when will this stop!

Anonymous said...

I blame global warming...

Anonymous said...

Christ!

That black and red monstrosity in the Denver craigslist posting deserves a bikesnob entry of it's own.

And as further evidence of the impending fixed gear apocalypse, I saw a fixed gear chained up to the bike rack in front of one of the biggest frat houses in town (Tappa Tappa Keg?)

It's time to grow a beard, get a touring bike, and head for the hills.

Anonymous said...

Broomie:
I hate to quibble, but I believe it was the vapors, not melancholia.

Anonymous said...

reminds me of the old joke..
What do you call a bike messenger without a girlfriend?

Homeless.

Anonymous said...

And I... feel so...inadequate.
Sitting here in sunny FLA without a care in the world...I read today's post and scoffed...hah, I scoffed...let em rot...
And now...this outpouring of care.. I...I...
I see what others have done, what others are capable of...how others truly care....
I AM proud to be a cyclist, I AM a cyclist, and I CARE...I WANT TO HELP.
(More thorozine, nurse, yes now...ahh, thanks)
Where was I?
Are the Katz and jammer Kids over yet?...Ohh...

evox15 said...

It really is hard to understand the epidemic going on up north being another Floridian. I'll try to empathize as much as I can and lend as much support as humanly possible...for the sake of cycling, even if only the urban fixed gear type.

Anonymous said...

Ida be sending 20,000 lira donation, approx-i - mate $2.50. to da pour little fellas who have no a monies and foods. Next time Mario in da US of A with Mr Balls , I get him to ask Mr Balls for a big donutation. Perhaps even some of their pretty pretty clothes all green and black . Dat blend in with the habitat when da little tikes are hacked back into the natural environments. Perhaps I could adopt one as I need something to cuddle now dat Marios off being mucho famous.

Anonymous said...

and i'm still searching for a compelling reason to save these moth-eaten relics who in their best days were a sad but neccessary fact of life soon to be replaced by a $60 fax machine. hardly worth the stickers they're printed on. maybe we can have the messengers run the stickers around.

Anonymous said...

Damn, that girl sporting the patch is cute. Might have to put a message on craigslist.

Anonymous said...

Save the messengers from stereotypes, and be at one with your Zen-like spin. Paradox shall reign, as it always has.

Anonymous said...

Ah, messengers....the dodo bird of the cycling world. They did this to themselves. If they would of found a sucessful career from the start, they wouldn't of had the problem they have now of extinction looming.

Then again, when you come from a distinguished and priveledged background as I, you don't have to worry these things.

Almost hit a couple of them coming out of my auto club in tribeca. Poor souls, but they doomed themselves.

Anonymous said...

Wait, that really is Jessica Simpson...defiantly a sign of the impending apocalypse...and we want to save these people?

Anonymous said...

Pssst, Upperclass --

The let-'em-eat-cake persona is a nice conceit, but in order to pull it off, you have to work on your grammar and spelling.

No self-respecting lucre loving lackey of Mammon would ever misspell "successful" and "privileged."

Unless, of course, "you've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely, but you know you only used to get juiced in it."

Don't give up. You just have to refine your execution.

Maybe it would help if you wore a yachting cap while typing ....

Jim said...

Unless, of course, "you've gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely, but you know you only used to get juiced in it."

Hence the expression, "drunker than a Dartmouth frat boy."

Anonymous said...

Isn't PDF a data file? If you're talking flotation devices, it's a PFD.

Anonymous said...

Leroy, you would make an excellent secretary.

misssamala said...

reminds me of an old joke:

what do you call a messenger without a girlfriend?

homeless

Anonymous said...

Not bike related at all but... Jessica must have a great set if they can poke through her jacket like that... bet Nick's missing them.. hahaha.

Anonymous said...


............Nice..^_^v................