I’ve tried my best to tolerate this new bike Kulture that has made camp in LA, attempted to see the positive aspects it can contribute to our city, but more and more I just can’t stand the way it manifests itself. And it saddens me to see how such a great idea can turn into shit so quickly: a practical and healthy option that challenges the car culture devolves into a sanctimonious act of liberal defiance, doused with a heavy dose of machismo. I’m pretty sure I’ll regret writing this but fuck it; the unnecessary baggage of an otherwise worthy goal needs to be called out.
Before you conclude I hate bike riders, let me just say that even though I’m mostly a pedestrian and car driver, I also ride a bike. Some of my friends are bike riders, so I can’t be a bikeist! And when I was around 12, I built my own chrome and red GT Pro Series BMX that I pieced together from parts I bought at the Rosemead Swap Meet. It was my pride and joy, up until the day it got stolen. I even contributed to an art installation that dealt with this very issue. So yeah, I understand the love one can have for a bike.
But this bike Kulture stuff and the attitudes they bring to the city is just beyond me: why is a form of transportation being elevated to an ideology? How did the simple pleasure of bike riding become an excuse for kids to get all moralistic against cars? Is the world so bereft of positive values that the notion of bike riding can take on such a significant role as an identity marker? It must be lean times in the marketplace of meaning when you so deeply identify with the way you get from point A to point B, even at the expense of the rest of the people around you.
Though there are a few reasons to critique this new bike Kulture in LA, the one thing that really puzzles me is the way the bike ideologues have taken on the worst traits of the rude FTW driver and the cocky yes-I-am-immortal Jr. High School pedestrian. If you’re trying to get people out of their cars, doesn’t it make sense to play nice and share the road with the rest of us?
This weekend I encountered one of the worst examples of the rude bike rider, a young and hip Latina seemingly buoyed on her sense of two wheel superiority. Even though Monte Vista in HLP is wide enough to fit both cars and bikes, she chose to stay in the traffic lane. Fair enough, “you are traffic”. But then she proceeded to reach into her backpack to look for something, slowing down to a crawl as she pretended to rummage through her stuff for that one thing she needed immediately . Even though she could have easily pulled over to the right (there weren’t even any cars parked on this stretch) she stayed in the middle of the traffic lane as if to prove some point, and never pulled anything out. Yeah, I get it, I’m the chump going 5 mph because you hate my transportation. This went on for a little bit, her fellow bike rider had already pulled over and I think was trying to get her to stop being a jerk, to no avail. At the 4 way stop sign ahead, she suddenly sped up -without stopping- to force a left-turning truck to hit the brakes so as to not hit her. While other drivers were taken aback by the potential disaster that had just been averted, she was laughing at how much power her bike riding body was wielding. She ran the next stop sign as well, this time holding her hand out to a braking car. It would be easy to say this was just a solitary example of a jerk but I think there’s something about the bike Kulture that encourages this sort of anti-everyone else behavior.
If this were the first time I’ve encountered this animosity towards car drivers, that would be one thing. But I’ve had my fair number of encounters with these young bike punks to know its not isolated. It’s odd mostly because there are some good and thoughtful projects within the biking scene, like the great resources of the Bike Kitchen and the Bike Oven that (at least to my knowledge) don’t encourage this sort of behavior. If you wanted to block my car in for some protest or action ala Critical Mass, I would understand. Why not prove your pro-bike point like that one rider I usually see passing up all the cars stuck in a traffic jam? But to deliberately increase the level of messed-uped-ness in the city, and become just like all the other thoughtless car driving fools that hate on bike riders, now that’s just wrong.
PS. For the record, I took a picture of this person when we finally managed to get by, and she responded by saying “Hey don’t do that.” I wanted to post the picture, but in the interest of not contributing to messed-up-ness and since my friend thought that would be pretty mean, I’m keeping it offline.
this one:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/04/dont-hate-me-be.html
Thanks for at least allowing us to dialogue with you all.
For urban bicycle intergration, predominantly of the pink skin, middle class head to the Netherlands but beware if you are a pedestrian.
Now that this thread has come to an end, I just wanna say f*ck cars and f*ck bikes. It’s all about the Walking Class!
http://www.thewalkingclass.org/
🙂
Walking: even John Zerzan can hate on it!
can’t*
My cycling friend said it best: bicycles are a rich man’s hobby.
It’s true. The mainstream bike culture is about racing on expensive, lightweight bicycles. The “alternative” is a counterpoint to that.
The former is effete, European, high-tech, elitist. The latter attempts to be childish, old-tech, and populist. Yet, at some level, it’s one is simply the child of the other. One is “Prog Rock” and the other is “Punk”.
Maybe it’s time to get away from this dualistic, dialectical style of thought, debate, and verbal sparring. Bike culture is multitudinous, and bike discourse is discursive, weaving like a drunk cyclist down a bumpy French road, or something like that.
Keep it eastside. Check out these photos of Dennison Cyclery in East LA. The oldest bicycle shop in LA.
http://www.schwinndreams.com/schwinn/Dennison%20Schwinn/
I want to say I don’t shun anyone for speaking their mind. I do mock people who are hypocrites.
People who go on and on and on about cars and how cars are bad, but have one.
Hey you can ride a bike, that’s great, but don’t talk crap about cars if you have one, especially not in a self righteous “we’re the future, you’re the past” way.
I mean that is such unbelievable bullshit. Keep it real for christ sake if you’re going to spell riders with two z’s.
Unless you can get off of your own addiction to cars, how are you going to guide anyone?
Also I find it way interesting that people who talk about bike kulture refuse to engage in a conversation about anyone else’s culture.
Seriously what a bunch of selfish, self-absorbed, egomaniacs certain people are.
And I’m not going to let this go and tie this crap up all nicely with some Kumbaya comment. No way I’m going to let that happen.
I hate people who try to stop people from talking by being “polite.” Polite does nothing for me.
Arrogance sucks. Hypocrisy sucks.
And since I’m not here to make friends, I’m going to keep saying unpleasant things.
I’m pretty sure Borfo that I’m the person that gets shunned owing to my ideas.
I think alot of rich guys with power think exactly like you (and you too Ubray, while your ownership of your racism is pretty refreshing, I guess on Metrorider in your little bus story when you kept mentioning the race of the black people, but no one else, did mean exactly what other dude called you on, nice….but you gave a real nice polite response, that I tried to buy, because I like to give people the benefit of a doubt) of course they probably have tattoos.
Though I will say I do think the whole bike thing is cool. I have a bike, I don’t have a car, so bike, walking, and public transit are the three things I do to get around.
Bike culture can bring people together, if cyclist make an effort and you guys don’t.
You don’t make an effort to understand people who walk. You don’t make an effort to understand the people who advocate for public transit, you just go on public transit boards so you can push your bike riding thing, even though you all seem to have cars (and you guys have cars and seem to try to hide it, that to me is such poseur crap, when you put little ditties about how you hate cars that implied you don’t have one.) You don’t make an effort to understand the struggles of people of color. You don’t care about bringing anyone together.
In my opinion you seem to just care about having fun.
That’s not bad, but stop trying to make it seem like you guys are a groundbreaking force that gives a shit you don’t. No one who actually does give a shit is even buy that, not even a little.
Browne
browne,
About this “racist” accusation, there are plenty of lame, untrue, criticisms I can either make up or borrow from other people to throw at the group you self-identify with. You decided to impugn the group I identify with (which is something much less than an ethnic group) with lame, untrue criticisms – so I did the same to you with some phony Sambo-talk.
I’m glad neither of us is going to apologize for what we’ve said. This is the internet, so for all I know you could be a Vietnamese house wife in Gardena with too much time on her hands.
It will be just like that wonderful movie Crash. I think I’ll go write a paper about this whole dialogue now.
And you are wrong when you say: “stop trying to make it seem like you guys are a groundbreaking force that gives a shit you don’t. No one who actually does give a shit is even buy that, not even a little.”
You keep hurling insults instead of any kind of evidence based argument, and we’ll see how far that gets you.
Arrr, tis a pissin match ye be after, mate
Thank god. I brought the thread back. I would have died a little inside if this would have ended with a Brady Bunch shot.
To Ubray
Hey don’t get all sensitive and dramatic. You’re the one that did the, “Ise been oppressed!” or as you say the Sambo talk.
Oh man and with that post you just made what you did worse. Not to me, I love people that have to be right, when they are so wrong, because they keep talking and talking and talking and talking.
And you’re such a coward. Why did you just call me a nigger or something…it was so subtle and so chicken shit. I’m surprised you didn’t try to wiggle out of that and say it was a typo or something, isn’t that what you usually do?
I’m not offended by your comment. I’m offended at your lack of guts.
Now if you had just called me a nigger, I would have known you weren’t false or weak, which I think you are now.
I think you’re a false little weak man.
I have lots of conservative friends, but they are consistent.
If you don’t agree with me that’s fine, but once you went there, well may not be racist, but you are prejudice, in the bad way. The really bad way.
Browne
PS Crash is a stupid movie. Let me add a really.
Crash is a really stupid movie.
LOLz. Crash sucked.
I got some other news for ubrayj – if you don’t have a car in LA, and it’s not by choice, you’re probably oppressed. Or you’re on the way to oppression, because a lot of jobs are unavailable to you.
There are exceptions, of course. Maybe we can think of someone who’s a professor who cycles and lacks a car, or maybe an engineer who lives in a nice neighborhood. But, these people are already working at a pretty high strata of society.
It’s a different story if you are an aspirant low-level manager, or nurse, or mechanic, or any member of the laboring middle class. You need a car, especially if you have kids and need to get around. Without a car, you’re stuck. If you don’t own one, you need to rent one occasionally.
The car is the way people get decent jobs and a leg-up in LA.
Cyclists transportation-slumming isn’t the wave of the future.
Well, I’d love to talk, but I’ve got to spend some time down at the country club with all of my rich white friends. We all bicycled in from our yachts.
Some dark skinned person got in my way during rush hour while I was biking in from the harbor (probably working on a Saturday – hah!) so I made sure to let him know that he was polluting the planet and generally carrying on like a bad poor person.
Oh these damned darkies and their cars! If only I could get them out of my way, so I can be a lean, green, vegan machine.
I wonder what is on one of the many satellite television channels I have on my T.V. screen that cost more than my Honduran domestic servant? Oh yes – Crash! One of my favorites! It won an Oscar, you know.
All this freewheeling about town has me tired. The heat from global warming, and grimacing at working class people, has tired me out.
Anyway, I’ve got some organic green country clubbing to do with my developer friends.
Oh we cyclists are so oppressed! If only those “niggas” in the “hoods” would understand!
Bus riders are a bunch of idiots who think that just because they are poor, they deserve yet another handout from us real tax payers.
If I see another one of these mopes with their slack jaws hanging out at a bus stop, I will throw my water bottle at them.
Of all the selfish, lazy, arrogant things for a person to want – these dopes can’t even use what god gave them to get around. They want the rest of us to pay to cart their sorry asses around town!
This Buss Kulture is just too much: lazy, arrogant, selfish, and slow.
Can you see why I took offense at what y’all wrote?
You traded in bullshit stereotypes about a group of people that do not match those stereotypes – people that are likely more of an ally than an opponent in the things you likely believe in.
I’m sorry I got cheap – but this was a pretty low discussion to begin with.
Not funny at all. And your apology blows. I really hope you never break a leg.
Wow Urbray02 you own Bike Oven and you are part of neighborhood clubs and you say these things?
I’m going to give you advice on a personal level, because I don’t think you really understand the world. Mainstream people don’t take comments like the above well. If you were a random poster, but you are like a person that people know.
I think you’re unbelievably ignorant and I don’t think that you get that what you say on the internet lasts forever.
As a human being who has empathy for other people, even ignorant people, such as yourself you should stop talking.
The statements that you are making right now leads to the ending of formerly successful capitalist endeavors. It ends you being the go to guy in the LA Times.
You want grants from the city, want to be a community builder you need to end this line of speaking right now, because I would hate to see what you do go away. If that happens I’ll fight for you though, because I believe in free speech.
_________________________________________________________
On a more universal level and selfish level, because I love this crap. Please keep going this is going to be a great thread. Bus riders are slackjaws now. i hope you know lots of your clients probably take the bus.
You’re giving my argument very expensive running shoes, I don’t even have to talk anymore.
You are doing it all for me. Wow. Double wow.
How many more racially insensitive comments are in that brain of yours. Are you a member of the Aryan Nation?
Bike Kulture Urbray has taken it upon himself to represent you, do you agree with his statements, your silence would be an agreement.
I don’t speak for people of color but apparently Urbray speaks for all of Bike Kulture. He’s designated himself as the leader.
Browne
PS people who ride the bus don’t think it’s a culture, that’s fucking stupid.
PPS no man i can’t understand why you made derogatory statements about my race because i don’t agree with the idea of bike kulture. i was debating an idea, not you, totally different and if you don’t get that…well keep commenting this is entertaining for me.
“people that are likely more of an ally than an opponent in the things you likely believe in.” Ubray
I am not aligned with any group. You will never, ever see me on a committee, in a club, I’m not even aligned with a political party.
I am aligned with ideas.
I’ve pissed off women groups, black groups, latino groups, progressive groups, i told people off at kpfk, i’ve had a gun pulled on me by nation of islam members, i got in a fist fight with a republican freak…so i’m not sure who you think i am. I can debate points for days, hours, years…I debated with a smarty pants at a coffee shop in hollywood for eight hours.
That’s how I stay consistent and not a pr piece for pseudo progressive organizations or a tool for oppression.
I refuse to be part of any group. That leads to groupthink, which leads to truth not being presented, which leads to oppression.
I would never be aligned with anyone who was a shameless hypocrite who defends it with bullshit.
So no, I’m pretty sure I’m not missing on anything by not riding my bike to a bar with you guys and posting pictures of my tattoos.
Browne
Holy jesus, I was writing those things to show what a terrible style of argument you employ!
Did I need to write “BEGIN SARCASM” and “END SARCASM” for you to get that?
Bravo – you are dumb. Neener neener.
Besides, I don’t even carry a water bottle in my water bottle cage. I carry Evian.
No one is buying your sarcasm thing. Sarcasm is when you don’t actually believe what you’re saying and you do.
I think you really do think black people suck, that’s ok, I don’t care, but I mean be honest. Everyone can read exactly how you think.
You think calling me a nigger in a chicken shit way is funny? That’s an ok way to make a point?
I think you do think bus riders are trash. It’s so obvious.
Be a man dude.
I’m done with conversing with you on this issue.
I’m not going to have a fake conversation with a fake person who when you call him on his bs, says things like, “I was joking” or “I was being sarcastic.”
Believe in something and say it with feeling, we’re not in high school anymore that sarcasm save is just out of date and played. This isn’t the 90s.
Browne
Unicyclists are out of control. Unicyclists are a menace to our safety. The other day I was riding my Segway on the sidewalk and a unicyclist slowed down in front of me to reach for his cell phone.
This greedy ideologue showed his disrespect for civil society by going slower than I wanted to. This is evidence that unicyclists are immoral people.
Unicyclists who lobby for pro-unicycling changes need to check themselves. An ethnic group in America has been oppressed – and these white boys think that unicycles are important?
Anyway, they are all homophobic, arrogant, cowardly people. Unicyclists have got to go.
Ubraj02:
‘“Bike Kulture”?! What the fuck are you talking about dude?
Do I understand correctly you own Bike Oven? If so, why the blatant ignorance? Or is being an unmitigated arsehole a borne part of you? If there is no such culture, how do you earn a living? This is your first comment on this thread, yet you seem to have quickly forgotten it as you lash out like an unreasonable idiot to insult folk for no other reason than your vested interest appears to have compelled you to forgo logic, reason and even a penumbra of civility. I cannot help but observe the first two as I eschew the latter on my way to tell you to fuck yourself.
‘I guess I better leave it to you bicycle purists in your cars being frustrated by having to tap the brake with your poor, tired, little toe for less than a second when you drive behind me while I reach for my cell phone in my huge hipster purse.’
Do you not own a car? If so, shut the fuck up, boy. If not, feel free to tell me likewise.
‘Critiques are not going to help anyone in this case.’ What kind of moron are you to posit such an outrageously insipid statement?
‘As an example of what bicycles can do for people, here is a quote from the gold standard of all information, Wikipedia:’
You are truly incorrigible in your idiocy. Boy, the OED is the gold standard, one appended by the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Any idiot can post misinformation to Wikipedia, even you.
‘There are a few “holier than thou” bike riders out there, but don’t let their self-righteousness get in the way of the truth about cycling.’
This I follow, despite you being a self-righteous schmuck; I will not let jerks on two wheels ruin my day no matter how much shit they spew from a bike collective. I still love riding my bike over the Brooklyn Bridge (when I can), in the South (such as Montgomery, AL, Atlanta, GA and Chattanooga, TN) as well as look forward to doing so along the L.A. River. Hell, I would even get hired on as a pedicab driver if the job were available, as I usta do that in the Village. (Ask me about the differential, folks, and I will bend yer ear on how ya should not lean lest you find the pavement coming up to kiss ya!)
But enough about how you negate your own “argument” in admitting that it is a personal attack (“Sambo-talk”? Are you fucking serious?! You merely lend weight to Browne and Chimatli’s collective argument) rather than something about the bike asses out there. I am white, I am ex-military, ex-cop and a former publisher of some 20 years, but only a jerk to the blinkered and insistently ignorant. So don’t think I don’t know how fulla shit you are; I doubt you have ever been in the midst of a firefight with a local KKK chapterhouse. (I imagine that I have only got half as far off-topic as you, and would not have done so were it not for all your bloviating.) Why the fuck anyone listens to your dumb arse is beyond me, but after having read your amazingly idiotic outbursts, I just had to comment, since I am well qualified to put your dirt in the dirt.
I imagine you are quite comfortable in the Rose Bowl group whose middle class crap is as bad as Critical Mass but for 60 years have ridden unchallenged in their self-righteous lawlessness. Whereas I identify with Critical Mass (having been familiar with that lot when they started in the early 1990s and I usta trade for Crash!) albeit the one in Alphabet City (now LES), I nevertheless feel that bikes should trump cars but not be used to exhibit equally bad behaviour or self-righteous antics, ESPECIALLY by folk who also own motor vehicles. So stuff yer comment son how I do not know what I am talking about, sonny. And can the crap too; I have dealt with thousands of schmoes not unlike you who piss me off to no end employing bullshit excuses about sarcasm (stuff yer belated responce about unicyclists; not even a semi-decent primary school boy would have let that crap miss the trash bin before the ink dried) when what they are, is at best nothing less than stupid. Perhaps your next endeavour should be Crayon Kitchen, as that is where your sensibility lies. A pen is far too much for you to handle, pal.
Actual conversation with moderate-liberal slightly mixed-race person friend who doesn’t mince words, and doesn’t ride the bus.
Me: So why won’t white people ride the bus?
He: Because people who ride the bus are scum.
(microscopic moment of silence due to classism; realization he’s being sarcastic.)
Me: Hey, I ride the bus.
He: See.
(Political discussion ensues.)
———————————————
Now, he’d never say that to someone who has to ride the bus. I have a car, and use it plenty. So, I’m an auto-ally.
It felt nothing so much like the few times I’ve conversed with racists, who tried to bond with me by sharing, with me, their hatred of black people. (Ironically enough, one of these racist bonding incidents was on the bus.)
———————————————-
Buses are the welfare system of the automotive society. They allow the economy to spread out horizontally, and still have people get to work.
Bikes won’t fit into this day-to-day, until there are some changes to how the economy is structured.
The bottom line is that it seems that most of you have got a lot of HATE going on.
Haters will hate, Riders will ride.
That’s right Browne.. Kumbaya, baby… Kum ba freekin’ ya!
Here is a song to play while you read this:
I think, and so it is only what I think, that if you get offended by something, it is because you might feel some truth in it in yourself.
When people say bad thinigs about Chicanos I don’t get upset because I know Chicanos have a lot of great stuff that many don’t know, so any bad comments most likely come from a place of naivete on Chicanos, so I must accept and forgive it.
To get upset over a generalization is not worth anyone’s time. Unfortunately in cyberlandia peeps many times get feelings over an oversimplification or generalization.
In other words get over it.
ooops I guess my song didn’t stick here is it again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1erX_b9WUOg
Browne
I have to wonder if you even know what the word “nigger” means. Yes it was used as a disparaging remark about blacks, and still is. But that is not what the word originally meant. Do you care? probably not. Because anything that will further the “Ise been oppressed” ideaology that everyone needs to feel sorry for “people of color” and give them a handout.
Nigger: “a victim of prejudice; a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised.”
Oddly enough, I am Irish by descent. Did you know that the Irish were enslaved for over 600 years? Do you hear the Irish people talking about how they want reparations and want to be heard? Did you know that in the early years of this country following the Civil War it was more difficult for Irish people to get a job than ANY other minority? No, of course not. Because once again this doesn’t help push your “poor pitty me” arguements.
I could care less what color you are, your social background, or if you drive a car, ride a bike, or take the bus. What I care about is if you are contributing to society as a whole. Maybe the “persons of color” should stop worrying about what happened to their ancestors and start worrying about what is happening to them.
I didn’t grow up in a particularly nice part of town. Was it a slum? No not when I was growing up. That area has become one as more hispanics, latinos, or w/e they want to classify themselves as, move in. Which I can’t understand. It’s not that the people are dirty or messy. In fact I often see the wives stay at home and clean constantly, making for an immaculately CLEAN house. Unfortunately, along with the good come the riff-raff. The ones that feel the need to spray their names all over the walls, piss in public parks, and generally make for a ramshackle looking area.
You will find this in ANY culture made up of ANY color. I lived in Ohio for a time, in a town that was actually 99.5% white. And that area had nice parts of town, and bad parts of town. And some good people lived in the bad parts, and some bad people lived in the good parts. What it comes down to is a person’s view of self worth and their ability to make themselves rise above the culture they grew up in. If that means poor kids making an effort to get to school and get that diploma and go on to college, or some rich white kid that needs to learn that life will not be handed to them on a platter just because of who mommy and daddy are.
You will find oppression in this country and in the world as long as you continue to look and promote the idea is out there. Maybe think outside the box and say that you will not allow yourself to be trampled. There are alot of very very successful “persons of color” out there and they got their by their own volition.
P.S. For whoever said you can’t get a good job without a car, you just have to look harder. I used to work at a successful dining place as a manager making close to 55k a year, which was more than enough for me at the time. And I rode my bike everyday. 25 miles one way.
Psyclo,
So are you saying that oppression only exists because people have a negative outlook?
So what you’re saying is that we have to turn our frowns, upside down.
The Iraq War isn’t a war, but a really cool party with guns.
Also I think you guys really need to stop trying to paint me into a corner. There are oppressed white people too, but currently I’m just talking about oppressed people of color, I am allowed to do that right?
I think you must a denizen of Imagination Land….
http://www.southparkstudios.com/
See episode 11
I’m not doing this “it’s only about class” thing, because it makes people uncomfortable. I don’t care about people’s comfort levels. The left needs to get over it’s fear of race, because it’s obvious an issue that’s not going away. People bring up what I am everyday, who am I to deny them a show if they are going to stereotype me.
If people never brought up my race again, then I probably wouldn’t bring it up either, but people find it fascinating. I wish I were an actress I would get lots of call backs.
But yeah I totally get that white people are oppressed too AND I get that oppression has nothing to do with being white or having a penis, but having lots of money. The thing is people with lots of money understand that the people fighting for crumbs are pretty easily swayed by things like race, gender, sexual orientation…see how much people bring it up.
Yeah I’m black, but you know that’s a political statement, I’m not going to bring up a laundry list or even detail what makes me black. I hate labels, but I will use them to make a point.
Politically I’m black, culturally doesn’t matter and I know I don’t care. Not saying people who do care are dumb, I’m just sort of beyond that.
Anyways this is all besides the point.
I’m debating a point and other people are fighting, because they feel I personally offended them, which is seriously not my problem, I just like discourse.
I’m not five. If an opinion other than yours hurts your feelings there are things for that: porn, pop music, and bad movies.
I’ll tell you about oppressed white people in America, they live in rural sections in the middle of the country, they live in the inland empire, they live all over the place trying to find jobs, trying to eek out a living in a world that is quickly changing. They don’t live in Silver Lake in really cool houses with bikes and studio jobs…the fact that bike people are trying to compare themselves to oppressed anybodies, white, black, latino, asian…it’s just insulting.
There are other threads here bike kulture people, why don’t you prove me wrong, by commenting on them.
Browne
PS are you also trying to state when people use the n-word they are usually not referring to black people…what are you friends with Patti Smith, I have an awesome picture of me and Patti Smith from New Years day 2008 when I was in NY at St Mark’s Church.
‘Oddly enough, I am Irish by descent. Did you know that the Irish were enslaved for over 600 years? Do you hear the Irish people talking about how they want reparations and want to be heard? Did you know that in the early years of this country following the Civil War it was more difficult for Irish people to get a job than ANY other minority? No, of course not. Because once again this doesn’t help push your “poor pitty me” arguements.’
Psychlo, you are dead damn wrong not to mention in dire need of some rudimentary spelling lessons. (Perhaps the irish are as thick as planks?) While I have spent a few years in Ohio (last time was in Toledo right after the race riots in 2005; surely you heard of those?) and know it relatively well from having also been there for a while in the 1970s and again in the 1980s, I suggest you head down to Battery Park City the next time you are in NYC. There is a large monument there overlooking the Hudson (behind the hotel on the Westside Highway, adjacent to the Winter Garden) that tells quite a bit about the irish dilemma. Moreover, I have quite a bit of scotsman and irish in me, and lemme tell you that you must live in a bubble if you think the irish do not bleat incessantly about things; I imagine that they did no less whinging whilst building railroads across the western deserts alongside blacks and chinese in the 19th Century. Well, at least they do in Brooklyn, where they and the italians are like the english and the french: a healthy animosity toward each other. The collective irish resentment is what fuels the Brooklyn Democratic Machine. Don’t know it? I suggest you stop kvetching and look into it.
I like to hear that you chose the bike way rather than motoring to work even though it appears you could afford the motor vehicle. However, your advice that imagining away the oppression is ludicrous. Whether lynching blacks in America for imaginary crimes or macheting off the arms of whites in Zimbabwe while stealing their land (if you do not regularly read The Economist, The Sunday Times, Washington Post, Financial Times or New York Times, I am sure you can find ample evidence of all this within you on-line bubble), oppression exists despite some folk choosing to stick their fat fucking heads in the figurative sand. Those who opt for sand are free to “look” the other way when some drunken scotsman elects to oppress them with size 15 motorcycle boots.
Bustard,
I’m still laughing at the imagining away oppression line…lol…that is funny. That deserves a U-Tube parody. We need to make a video of you beating me and we could turn it into some odd kind of porn thing.
You can be Thomas Jefferson, I’ll be Sally Hemmings.
This thread is amusing as fuck.
And while we are on this light note lets give Alienation a hand, I like the little skit post you did.
I’m going to poor my very wealthy ass a gin and tonic, I’m wealthy now I’m taking up the positive thinking mantra of psyclo. I’m going to start a nonprofit called, “you’re not hungry, you’re just anorexic” the poor man’s guide to success on skidrow.
Browne
A word of advice for Ubraj and Psychlo: Will Campbell is passionate about his conveyance yet he is deft in his argument as well as the fashion he argues it. Perhaps you should do like what you tell Browne and other blacks: calm down and understand that your lot in life ain’t so bad. After all, we who walk and take public transit are tired of hearing about your problems.
A 50-mile bicycle commute may be heroic, but it’s not normal. Your experience is an exception that proves my assertion.
The vast majority people would consider a job 25-miles away as too far for a bicycle, and many would say it’s too far for a bus commute (without an express bus or train).
I live in near downtown (Los Angeles) and I just came upon this hipster duo. The guy wearing hipster clothes with a messenger bag, the girl wearing short 80’s shorts and an ironic t-shirt. Neither of them wearing helmets. They were in the right hand lane on Sunset totally blocking the right hand traffic lane because they were not going with the traffic. They did not move over to the right side of the road as to let the long line of cars behind them pass. They were riding in between cars and around the cars at the stop lights. WTF? I honked at them to let them know they should get over to the right. Of course, they flipped me off and laughed at me as most hipsters do not know how to act in public. Here’s the bottom line…many of these Hipster Bike Kulture kids ride arrogantly on the road. It’s one thing to be confident when on your bike (one should be) but another to be sanctimonious about your right ‘be’ traffic. When they’re not wearing helmets and riding as they do it tells me they don’t care about theirs or anyone’s welfare on the road. I’m telling you, many of them are begging to get hit by a car and many of them do.
I’ve done those Bike Kulture rides. It’s a bunch of kids who are drunk, stoned or both getting on their bikes with their hip bike bags full of beer and halting traffic because they can. Hypocrites. I’ve been to the Bike Kitchen several times have and always felt it kind of elitist and just not very friendly. So I’ve tried to let the Bike Kulture into my consciousness, but it wasn’t a good fit. Thank God.
It’s a shame that most people tend to judge their opinions of a community upon the actions of a few.
Love it or leave it.
That’s because there are a lot of arrogant self righteous jerkoff hipsters riding their bikes as if they are mother teresa for being “one less car”. Hey bike riders, do us the favor and buck the hipster asshat trend, be a nice guy on and off the road and tone down the self promotion and folks will stop getting annoyed by you. When you buck the negative trend of those associated with you, it liberates you in an unexplainable way, trust my words as a choloish looking chicano man who smiles at people and says thank you every day.
And Im sorry but that kum-ba-freekin-ya crap is the most jerkoff annoying whiteboy thing you can say. did you have your hand in that devil worship/ ozzy/punk rock brah! signal while you typed it?
BTW, I know several REALLY cool bike people who inspire the shit out of me.
Whatever, racist.
I’m not “White”. I’m a mutt.
Kumbaya.
I have riden with the Midnight Ridazz about once a month, for about 1.5 years now. I have seen it change in that short time. I have seen their veteranos and the new hipster types that give the veteranos and other regular riders / bike commuters a bad rep.
The hipsters will fall off. They are trendy and for now biking is trendy and fashionable.
The regular riders / commuters share the road and are the good riders that do care about the environment but aren’t shoving it down your throat nor are they holding up traffic as they cruise their fixed gear, brake-less latest fashion accessory.
I hope we recognize there is a distinction between the real riders who ride nice and those who are just being jerks because they think it cool or ‘ironic.’
As for biking being a culture? Well seeing how this has generated such heated responses, it just might be and thus like all cultures in this society you will have to deal with negative stereotypes based on small truths of minorities within your culture.
I appreciate your thoughts Pachuco 3000.
And sorry for my negative outbursts. I just reacted to other’s alienating comments. I wish we all could see how we all have so much in common. Eastside!
Get a life Joe. I never called you white, i said that was an annoying whiteboy thing to do.
Youre a fucken leva whtever your skin tone is brah
ok
Well, despite the insistence that there “is no bike culture,” Bike Oven is having an exhibit called “Photographing L.A. Bike Culture.” Hmmm…
Here’s an example of cyclic douchebaggery:
http://tinyurl.com/3g56qg
Wanna know something else? I have been beaten by Monterey Park police while handcuffed and quiet (I hate those over aggressive racist pieces of shit) and I still think that douchebag got what he deserved (not the actual ramming, but the arrest yes) from the ridazz. This “we cant do no wrong because we are saving the world by riding a bike” overcompensatory victimized bullshit combined with the self righteous judgemental assholery is what people get sick of.
And I’m all for bicycle and humble bike culture promotion, hell, I’m event facilitating a bike ride myself and appreciate “one less car”. Which is why people like me who genuinely support bike proliferation and facilitation get so frustrated with this bad representation of an otherwise great thing to do. But honestly, this has a lot more to do with emotionally warped people than bikes or bike culture.
LOL. You people are hilarious.
Yah, I said “you people”.
NEWAYZ. One of the coolest things I’ve noticed in “bike kulture” lately is hipster girls smoking cigarettes WHILE RIDING. Oh man that just blows my bone.
Honestly, I have no big beef with smoking cigs, or skinny hipster girls (though I prefer a big ass on a bike seat ala Fellini’s Amarcord), or fixed gear bicycles (I wouldn’t want one, but I admit they look kinda cool in their minimalism), but seriously, how do you smoke a cigarette while doing aerobic activity? Bone = Blown.
i brought it back to life…
dr frankenstein
“i brought it back to life…”
Yeah, watch where you link! I didn’t notice this thread had been dead for a while until AFTER I posted. 🙂
c’mon let’s go for a hundred!
almost…
Please, let’s not reopen this hornet’s nest.
WOW….lol
soledadenmasa,
you’re not a masochist (or sadist depending on which side you were on). this thread doesn’t make you a little happy inside. i think this was one of the best threads EVER!!! people got all base and personal, it was like jr high without the braces or homework.
browne
99
Browne,
I see your point. I just couldn’t stand how childish some posts were and stopped reading the comments at around the twentieth. I can’t stand how some people act online.
100!