SeeTimBlog Explainer: Why People Hate Bikers in NYC [UPDATED]

Everyone hates everyone in New York at one time or another, often for good reason. Because in this sea of selfish humanity, let’s face it, there’s plenty to hate: hipsters with their idiotic carnie wardrobes and artisanal organic eyeglass frames; tourists with their snail’s pace and their girth; jerkwads who insist on pushing onto a subway train as soon as the doors open without first letting folks off; cabbies who don't want to go to Brooklyn; hosts/hostesses at nice restaurants who treat you like the trash you are; hot, well-dressed dynamos with their great clothes, luscious hair, chiseled features, smoldering sex appeal, fat wallets, and shiny shoes; rats; hipster rats with their fedoras and Animal Collective T-shirts. They are all the worst. But do you know who’s even worse than the worst? Bikers.

By day I'm an undercover photographer

Everyone hates bikers. HATES them. I know because I am one. I bike every day from Greenpoint, Brooklyn to my office a few blocks north of the Empire State Building. As a biker, you can feel the seething, sizzling hatred coming at you from all sides—from pedestrians, minivan drivers, school children, nannies, French bulldogs, pigeons, hipster pigeons, and, especially, cabbies. More than once I’ve seen a taxi intentionally swerve to scare a cyclist. Once I was honked at and loudly scolded by an old bat in an Escalade for not staying in the bike lane on Avenue A—even though the bike lane was currently blocked due to construction, so I had no choice in the matter. Another time I barely missed getting doored by a guy in a parked car—and I know he saw me because I made eye contact with him in his sideview mirror before he opened his door (and saw him laughing when I pulled off to the side and turned around). It’s not totally rational, this hatred of bikers. But it’s there and it’s kind of breathtaking.

But here’s the thing: this hatred of bikers isn't totally irrational, either. A lot of the time, I hate bicyclists, too. They are constantly and brazenly doing idiotic, life-threatening, and completely unnecessary things—like, say, going the wrong way when getting off the Manhattan side of the Williamsburg Bridge instead of just being reasonable and waiting for the light (see the photos). See, that part of the bridge was redesigned about a year ago to encourage bikes to slow down and wait for the signal before entering traffic or crossing over to the north side of Delancey Street—too many of us, including myself, were deciding they couldn’t wait and that they were just going to elegantly slip into traffic so they wouldn’t have to stop. Most of the time this was fine—you could judge that a gap between cars was emerging and go for it. But I’m sure sometimes it was gnarly, and people got hurt. Hence the redesign, with a much narrower point of entry onto the street and a steep decline to encourage slower speeds. The city also put up not just one but two “WRONG WAY” signs so that folks would know that, though there was another narrow passageway one could take to avoid having to wait for the light, one should not take that path because it is reserved for folks coming from the other direction and that if one did do that, one was being kind of an asshole. 

Yet bikers continually just ignore the signs and do whatever the fuck they want because fuck it. (Should the city have put up a third sign? One saying "STOP being an asshole"?) Now, I’m not typically a scold, and some rules for bikers are dumb—I don’t tend to come to a full stop at every stoplight on any old one-way street, for example. But some rules aren’t. And while, sure, we can all be dumb assholes at times--like when we get pissed on the bridge when we are overtaken on the uphill climb by an elementary schooler so we make it our one goal in life to overtake that little f*cker if it kills us--eat my dust, pipsqueak! Who among us hasn't done that? But still, on balance, one's behavior on a city bicycle must reflect one's sanity and good judgment if one is not to be wished dead by one's fellow cityzens.

Another dipshit who can't read

And it’s not just the constant breaking of clearly expressed—and, again, reasonable—rules that makes bikers so loathsome to their fellow New Yorkers. It’s also the plain-Jane, workaday reckless douchiness of the way folks ride. I take First Avenue up to Twenty-Ninth Street, and, sadly, the bike lane is on the left—this is the east side, which means that the vast majority of folks are turning left, making for a constant clusterfuck at every intersection. Yet so many of my fellow cyclists bike as if they’re in a race to the damn Apple Store. It’s not a fucking race, nerds. Bikers must constantly slow down, swerve out of the way to avoid parked cars in the bike lane or left-turners crowding it, and, yes, sometimes stop at lights so that they don’t go splat. You are not on the West Side bike path and you are not going to win a prize if you get to work five minutes earlier, probably. You are in freaking New York traffic. I’m all for going a decent speed, and there are definitely slowpokes who need to get the lead out sometimes (though I cut them some slack because sometimes they’re old and sometimes they’re probably just newbies at city bike commuting), but there’s absolutely no need for the kinds of speeds I see bikers going on this street every day—especially since I often end up reuniting with folks who whipped past me ten blocks ago at the light at Fourteenth or Twenty-Third, because that’s just how it goes. The hare and the tortoise, together again! (The hare and the tortoise will probably get to their jobs within minutes of each other.)

In conclusion, I’ll just say that one morning a few years ago I was stopping at a light that had just turned red at Houston Street and Avenue A, and a cyclist whipped past me on the right to speed across the (massive) intersection. He managed to clear it without dying and then, on the opposite side of the street, ran smack into the back of a delivery truck like a cartoon character. He fell off his bike and got the stink eye from the delivery guy as he was getting out of the vehicle. Once the biker got up and I saw that he was okay, I was able to admit to myself that that was the most satisfying thing I’d seen since Akasha got eliminated in the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. 

I’m not proud to say that. But it’s true.

Be nice out there. Practice your "not being an asshole" skills. And as RuPaul herself says, don't f*ck it up. Because guess what: bikeshare stations are imminent, so the number of idiots on bikes is only going to increase...

UPDATE
This little blog essay was apropos! Looks like the city is moving to crack down on bikers being assholes by stationing guards on high-traffic bridges and bike paths with signs saying "Just F**king Stop and Wait a Second, Would You?". Look here and here.

Oscar Mayer Will Kill Us All

Folks, we all know the horrible truth: the only thing keeping every one of us from sitting at our desks all day eating bacon and jerking off is that you have to cook bacon, which takes two hands. This is ultimately good for us, because bacon is terribly fattening and bad for your heart (though it is a GREAT lubricant). But now Oscar Mayer has gone and done the unthinkable: they've cooked the bacon for us! So now all we have to do is go pick it up at the shop, sit back down with a napkin stuffed in our shirt, and get down to business. This will ruin lives, lower productivity, and kill us all. (And how will Rush Limbaugh survive? The answer is: Obamacare.)

How long has this pre-cooked bacon been on the market? I never knew it existed. Sure, Jimmy does all the grocery shopping for us (he always wanted to be Barbara Billingsly when he grew up), but surely I would have seen commercials all over Fox News for this by now. (Fox News viewers never stop eating bacon.)

I'm hereby calling for a government takeover of all pre-cooked pork products. Come on, Barry/Reid/Pelosi, save us from ourselves.

The Dreaded 'F' Word

Has there ever been a word or phrase that, whenever it is uttered by some careless human somewhere (usually, but not always, by Sarah Palin), makes you want to vomit bloody rockets? Like, I don't know, "you betcha" or "nucular" or "supermajority"? Well, there are few words in the English language that set my teeth on edge more furiously than the word "fierce." This word is worse than cholera ever was. It's worse than dudes who put their hair up in a bun. And it's exponentially worse than the word "fabulous."

This word is beloved not by tedious posable Republican sex dolls, but rather by tedious posable gaywads across this great land of ours (and on the Bravo channel). And if there exists something more irritating than the use of this lisp-tastic verbiage (as Sarah Palin might call it) as a default way of describing something, it is the types of dreary items it is used to describe: a hairstyle; a shade of eye shadow; a belt buckle; a piece of fabric; a bracelet; a (usually stupid) song.

The only way I could hate this word more is if Sarah Palin used it at the teabagging orgy last weekend to describe Rush Limbaugh.

Anyway, I was hoping that this terrible word was gone from our lives, that it had played itself out in the arena of idiotic pop culture and had been mercifully laid to rest. Sure, after a few years maybe it would reemerge once again and be uttered drunkenly with wistful nostalgia at parties, like the lyrics to "I Will Survive" or "Oh Sherry." But I clung to the hope that it was gone from the here and now. Hell, even 30 Rock did a joke a few weeks ago about the word being well and truly 2006.

Alas, it was not to be. You see, I bought an awesome pair of shiny black gym shoes the other day at Shoe Mania in Union Square. (Bear with me.) They were sure sexy. And comfortable! It was an unusually successful purchase for me, and I wore them to the gym the next day well aware that the other boys would be absolutely sick with jealousy, this time not simply over my pecs and smooth, hairless legs, but over those things AND my shoes.

When I got home from shopping, I got out the box they came in to show Jimmy.

"So, you got some fierce shoes," he said, laughing at and judging me.

I promptly gave him the stink eye. (I may even have given him the stank eye.)

"It says right there on the box," he said, pointing to the shoe box I was cradling in my arms.

And that's when my world collapsed. Right there, on the box, printed clearly for all the world to see, was that f**king word.



So it's official. I'm gayer than I ever imagined was possible. I have [cringe, shudder] fierce [little vomit] gym shoes.

I prefer, though, to think of them as ferocious.

Editorial: All Bicyclists Are Not Crusty

Hoo, boy, this Williamsburg Hasidic Jew-Hipster Cyclist turf war is the culture clash of our time, and it has something for everyone (or at least two types of people). Do you hate hipsters who ride bikes? Also, do you kinda hate Hasidic Jews? Congratulations! You now have more reasons to do so.

Further, do you really hate hipsters who ride bikes? Do you like to conjure false and hackneyed equivalencies between the two "religions" represented by this epic struggle? And is your name Tunku Varadarajan? Well, then, you should certainly type up a column and upload it to Tina Brown's online kitchen-sink clearinghouse of cloying claptrap The Daily Beast, because you are obviously a deeply thinking human.

Here's a condensed version of the hot war currently being waged: Williamsburg Hasids recently prevailed on the city of New York to remove the bike lane on Bedford Avenue for safety and religious reasons: not only did the lanes make a narrow street even narrower for cars, but the presence of young ladies on bicycles in various states of undress was rendering some Hasids unable to read their holy book while also driving a minivan because of boobs and such. Then a few Williamsburg bike riders cheekily repainted the lane one night and then got arrested.

Here's how Master Sensei Tunku lays out the case against bikers:

Cyclists . . . pursue a form of zealotry of their own. They have quasi-religious garments (Day-Glo jackets), they follow austere codes of discipline (exercise and low fat), they think they know the one and true way (cycling), and they demand special treatment for the Church of Lycra (bike lanes). Also, they trail a frightful whiff of sweat in their wake. (But the same can be observed, sometimes, on a sweltering summer’s day, of those who dress as if for a winter in Vilna.) More broadly, is it entirely surprising that respect for a religious community is often a challenge to hipsters who have been raised outside any religious tradition?

Ugh, has there ever been a more tortured effort at equating two sides in a debate? Yeah, and he also says that many cyclists "are eco-bombastic crusaders with an ungovernable contempt for non-cycling scum." (Mr. Varadarajan, I do indeed have contempt for you, but not because you don't ride a bicycle.)

As airtight as Tunku's logic is, I must point out the tiniest of gaping holes in it: some people who ride bikes actually aren't hipsters—even in crusty, crunchy, skinny-jeaned Williamsburg and its best gay friend Greenpoint (where I live)! I know this goes against Tunku's science, but it's true. And many people ride bikes simply because they prefer to commute that way, not because they are smug, dirty hippies who calculate their carbon footprint every evening before alphabetizing their Kashi cereal boxes.

Let's get something straight: bicyclists are often assholes. I say this as a bicyclist. At least once a day I see a fellow cyclist do something really irritating and dangerous. I myself have no doubt done things that are irritating and dangerous. One reason bicyclists are assholes is because people are constantly trying to kill them, even when they aren't doing things that are irritating and dangerous. If you've ever biked in this city you are familiar with the intense and naked hatred many drivers around you feel toward you. But whatever, I'm perfectly fine being called an asshole. But don't you dare call me a hippy.

I don't bike to save the Earth. I don't bike to feel superior to others. I sure as hell don't bike to show off my body's way with lycra or day-glo jackets, neither of which I've ever worn.

Here's why I bike: so I don't have to pay for a monthly MTA card, so I don't have to ride the terrible L train, and so I can start my day by having a good 45-minute workout before sitting down at a computer for 8-9 goddamn hours.

I don't give a crap if you drive a Prius, a BMW, or a freaking Hummer. As long as you don't hit me with it.

Editorial: Speedos and Our Precious Freedoms

People, the killjoy lefty media is at it again, attacking our freedoms for their own ideological satisfaction. The Daily Beast's Sean Macaulay has written the most ridiculous opinion piece in the history of Internet jernalizm and it must be called out for its lies, damn lies, distortions, falsities, misrepresentations, deceit, untruths, and fabrications.

In his hit piece on the world's greatest ever invention, the Speedo, Macauley argues that the time has come for a ban on "offensively small bathing suits". I....I can't even relate to that statement. Is this Macauley character even human? What language is he typing? Where is his birth certificate?

Certainly Macauley has a point about the frightening and dangerous possibilities inherent in allowing someone like Rod Stewart or Carson Kressley access to the mighty weanie-bender, beloved by everyone with a pulse. That is because Speedos are not made for men such as Rod and Carson. They are made for men such as David Beckam, Ricky Martin, and some guy named Justin Gaston that I just found out about by reading this awful article.

If you just ban the Speedo outright, you may be saving yourself from having your eyeballs melt to your face at the sight of Arnold Schwarzenegger or Giorgio Armani or George Hamilton or Jack Nicholson in a sagging pair of colored underwear; but you also face the real, and much more chilling, possibility of never being able to witness this guy, this guy, or these guys in the blissful state of undress God intended them to maintain all day, every day, for eternity. This is not only a loss for us as individuals. It is a loss for us as Americans. A tragic compromising of our very humanity that I, for one, cannot countenance.




If we have to live in a world without the Speedo, the terrorists have already won.

Opposite Frog Marriage Under Attack?: Gay Frog Marriage Now Legal in India

This is a great day for gay amphibians everywhere. But whither the so-called "opposite" marriages of straight caeciliae, newts, and chameleons South African ghost frogs across the world? Aren't they now completely undermined?

The answer is no. Just because a homosexual tree frog, toad, or salamander is genetically predisposed to falling in love with another tree frog, toad, or salamander of the same gender doesn't mean that the ultimate expression of that love--marriage (and hot tree frog, toad, or salamander sex)-- should have any impact whatsoever on his straight brethren. Sometimes, you know, a butterfly flaps its wings in India and nothing else happens as a result in another part of the world! (Interesting aside: gay butterfly marriage has always been legal, everywhere, because there actually are no straight butterflies.) So in this case, two gay frogs in West Bengal get married. And somehow--somehow--the marriages of all the Appalachian trail's straight newts are still as strong as ever (unless, you know, one of them ends up in Argentina).

This would also be true of gay human marriage if it weren't for Leviticus.

Triplet Jaguar Cubs So Depressed by the Torture Debate

Is there a more depressing conversation happening in the country than the one about whether or not torture works? These three cubs don't think so, and I'm inclined to agree with them.

So, the Republican position these days is: torture works, so we should do it. To which any thinking person might reply, "rape probably works, shall we do that too?" Or "please define works, if you would." To back up their argument, they always turn to the "ticking time bomb" scenario, which happens every week on 24, one of those Hollywood teevee productions that Republicans usually love to dismiss, but in this case they use to bolster their argument. Never mind that we took these torture tactics from the Chinese and the Soviets, which they used to elicit false confessions for political purposes. If there is a ticking time bomb, what is a false confession going to do for us, hmmm? Oh, I know: it will provide that smoking gun of a tie between Iraq and al Qaeda. More stress positions and nude pyramids, please! Ticking time what?

So the Republicans are now happily embracing the acts of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, yay! In the name of freedom. And liberty. And Nobama. And Jesus! Tea bags!

And now we get the entire Cheney family on every talk show on every station in every time zone, forever, saying "torture works" and "we are safer" and Obama is "siding with the terrorists." I think it's time for a Liz Cheney/Jesse Ventura cage match.

In Liz Cheney's defense, she was waterboarded every Christmas morning growing up, so she probably just can't understand what the big deal is and is wondering why everyone hates Christmas so much.

Editorial: When A**holes Collide

This whole Miss California/Perez Hilton kerfuffle is just another piece of positive proof that, just like with the celebrated death matches of, say, Rosie O’Donnell vs. Barbara Walters, or Glenn Close vs. Michael Douglas, or Rush Limbaugh vs. Megalon, sometimes both sides of a spat are being total a**holes.

As you all know, Miss California, Carrie Prejean, recently lost the Miss USA pageant for being an awful Christian bigot. Here’s what happened: during the question-and-answer segment of the competition, during which all finalists must prove that they can offer meaningless platitudes in reasonably clear English-type language, Miss California was asked by one of the judges—in this case, the sometimes-not-odious Perez Hilton, Professional Gay—whether she would support gay marriage. Prejean responded that she thinks its great that we live in a country where people can choose same-sex marriage or “opposite marriage” but that “I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. . . That’s how I was raised.” At which point she surrendered all hope of winning the contest, duh. (Because who wants a beauty queen who doesn’t like the gays? I mean, really, who does she think did her makeup?)

Since this brouhaha, Prejean has appeared in a promotional video for the National Organization for Marriage to promote “opposite marriage” and has basically become the new spokes-Barbie for the traditional marriage movement. Which means it’s about time for some racy photos of her to surface, which did a few days ago. Now she’s crying foul, saying she’s being targeted by the gay mafia for her religious beliefs. Which, um, yes, and yes.

Here’s the thing: Perez Hilton was being a dumb a**hole when he posed the question at the pageant. Why? Because she’s not running for office, she will wield no power if she wins, and IT’S THE MISS USA F**KING PAGEANT. That’s why. Ask her about world peace. Or melting pots. Or famine. Or literacy. Or maps. But don’t ask her about gay marriage. That brings politics into a place where no one wants it; they just want to look at pretty girls and their boobs.

Here’s the other thing: Prejean is also an a**hole, obviously, because she’s a brainless hypocrite. She believes in traditional marriage, but her brand of moralistic Christianity also obviously allows her to sex it up in photo shoots, just like in traditional marriage. (Is that how she was raised?) Also: why didn’t she just answer the question as if she wanted to win the contest? Did she come this far to stand (in heels) on principle? Again, it’s Miss USA, not Miss UN. It’s a souped-up hooker competition. Why didn't she just say "I believe in love" or something like that? You want to stand on principle and be taken seriously, princess, why don’t you put some clothes on and learn some debating skills?

In conclusion, Vanessa Williams was the best Miss America ever.

Tuesday Editorial

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