Mini Bike Winter 2012

I AM GOING.

And it will be good.

It has been too long since I’ve been a good, dirty, bike trip full of bikes, beers, and bruises.

…I sure wish mixtemotions was going too, though.

Twenty Minutes

I need to do this more often, to record who I really am.  I just read through some of my older blogs, and – gasp! – I’d TOTES hang out with that chick!  I wonder where she is, come out come out wherever you are…..

A Reverend I happen to know told me of a blogger/writer he respects, whose rule is to write 20 minutes a day, non-stop.  If said blogger/writer needs to research a point or wants to link to an article or a photo, he leaves himself a string of easily searchable letter combinations as a marker (e.g. kjha) and keeps typing.  No stopping to edit (how the FREAK does he do that, I’ve already done it twice [believe it or not]?), that comes later.  While I’m not sure I can manage 20 minutes a day, I suspect I can manage 20 minutes a week, so.

Here we go.

No idea what time I started, though.

It has been since 20-freaking-10 since I’ve written anything!  I keep lamenting to myself that I am no longer the writer I once was – thoughtful, with a fairly good if not a bit wordy turn of phrase, also maybe a bit sarcastic at times.  Well, it’s no wonder my vocabulary is shot, I can’t write a decent sentence to save my life, I feel like I have nothing to say.  I never fucking write!  

I have also allowed by job to usurp my existence once again, which is to say I never fucking do anything, either.  So, nothing to really write about.  Addressing this is not quite as easy as writing 20 minutes a week…is it?  My job only stopped usurping my existence (note the foregoing – I had no agency over it, it stopped due to outside forces) when the market crashed and I suddenly had fuck all to do at work, which freed up my time to (1) ride my bike late into the night and crawl into work late the next day, and (2) dream and scheme.  I once again have WAY TOO MUCH to do at work, constant, all the time, all of it “important” and all of it “now”.  Which, of course, is a bunch of crap.  But it has turned things that I love (riding my bike, for example) into things that I “should” do, but don’t.  Which is, of course, a bunch of crap also.

Okay, I think I’m coming up on 20 minutes.  This is some seriously self-indulgent crap that I will try not to inflict on the interwebs ever again…at least not to this extent.  BUT!  Check it out!  I wrote!  And I’m going to quickly go find something else to post immediately after this, to begin the process of burying it because it is SHITE!

But fuck it!  I wrote!  For twenty minutes.

Stylin’ and Profilin’

What’s your name?

Ms. Stephanie

How did you first hear about Midnight Ridazz and what was your first group bike ride?

I first heard about Midnight Ridazz from Little V, who owns Bar 107 and the Down and Out. My first Midnight Ridazz ride was Noche de los Biciclistas Muertos, Parte Dos. I was instantly addicted to the rush of being part of a ride that big. Also, it was a fan-fucking-tastic route: northeast-los to east-los through downtown and back. 6th Street bridge. Complete visceral love for the city. Pure joy.

BUT, my first group rides were all Tren Way rides – my sister’s best friend used to ride Tren Way and she invited me. On my very first Tren Way ride we rode 2 miles and then got drunk. So fucking rad.

Currently what rides do you attend regularly?

RIDAZZ TRIPS. If you really want to feel the camaraderie and energy of this community, scrape together every spare penny you can find and go on one of these trips. Bike Kill NYC [2, 3], New Orleans [2, 3, 4, 5], Austin [hey, where are the goddam Austin pics people?!] – Midnight Ridazz explosions, all up yo’ muthafuckin’ city.

As we all know, a bike rider communes with the city in a way no driver or pedestrian ever, ever can. And I fucking love the city! Cities are glorious, living, interactive monuments to human success, failure, love, hate, democracy, oligarchy, xenophobia, community, survival and everything in between. The city is the ultimate form of human expression. Exploring not just our city, but other cities like Brooklyn, Manhattan, New Orleans, Austin by bike with other ridazz forces interaction with other human expression, other cultures, other philosophies, and all with people who just want to fucking ride a bike. It’s brilliant.

Frankly, I’m disillusioned with group rides. After meeting up with the Angelopes this past weekend, I’m going to say that they are our last best hope. I’m tricking out my Stingray for short-term Angelopes action, and then I’m going to start building: first a chopper, then a tall bike.

(Tren Way por vida, of course.)

What advice would you pass on to new ridazz?

THIS IS A COMMUNITY. You know, with, like, other people ‘n stuff. DON’T BE A SELFISH DICK.

This is a community! I’m amazed at how people don’t view this as a community. Yeah, we come from different backgrounds and have different philosophies and perspectives, but that shouldn’t stop us from having each other’s best interests in mind. Why not look out for each other? Why not be considerate of how our individual actions affect the Midnight Ridazz community as a whole?

Selfish dick-i-tude blows my mind. And pisses me off.

If you were leading a group ride, what would you do differently?

I’ve only organized one 2nd Friday – Ladies’ Night [2, 3]. It. Was. Fucking. Fun. I would organize another one in a heart beat if I could come up with a worthy theme/ride. I’m thinking of reprising one of Widowmaker’s rides in Austin, because that girl and her rides rule the fucking school.

I didn’t really answer the question, I know, because I don’t like the question. Everyone do your own thing. Rides need to police themselves. Yes, there are ride organizers and there are brilliant hardworking folks whose ideas become the reality of the rides, but THIS IS ANARCHY in the most positive sense of the term. WE ARE ALL THE LEADERS OF THE RIDES AND OF THIS COMMUNITY, and we should all have the fucking wherewithal to act that way.

Do you prefer small rides (30 or less people) or larger rides and why?

Both are beautiful.

Tell us about the best and worst experience you’ve encountered on a group ride.

Best: Every time I see love for this community expressed, every time I see someone contributing to this community.

Worst: Every time I see someone express disregard for others. Which I see way too often. It feels like this community is becoming a community of disregard.

What did you do for fun before you started “riding”?

Dancing and drugs.

What’s the best and worst thing group bike rides have done for cycling as a whole in Los Angeles?

Best: We speak to the city streets. We make them ours. THEY ARE PUBLIC. WE ARE THE PUBLIC.

Worst: Frankly, I don’t give a fuck.

If you can name 1 person who embodies the spirit of “Midnight Ridazz”, Who would it be and Why?

One person? Hell no. There is no “Spirit of Midnight Ridazz”. We are an ever-changing community, and you can’t pin that down or force it into a box. We all make it what it is. I hope the community continues to be something I want to be a part of, but if it doesn’t, I’ll try to help build a new one elsewhere.

What do you think the public’s perception is of group bike rides?

Again, I don’t give a fuck. I know people think that it a counterproductive attitude, but I don’t give a fuck about that either. We’re fucking PIRATES. Fuck legislating us into acceptability. Fuck city hall, fuck the cops. Ride like the wind, that street is yours – JUST SHOW RESPECT.

Let me be completely clear, though – I will ALWAYS respect another person, whether they are on a bike, in a car, on foot, fucking flying through the air with the greatest of ease, or rocking a shopping cart down the middle of the street. That person is another human being, with a heart and bones and flesh and blood just like you, and don’t you ever forget that.

If that other person forgets that I’m another human being, well…..Then it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

Yes! I’m constantly quoting Marino’s profile page, and I’m going to do it again:

Fuck politics!
Fuck appeals to the authorities for more lenient terms of enslavement!
We are forging a new society, right now!
Every Midnight Ridazz ride, every Tren Way ride, every Sins and Sprockets ride, every C.R.A.N.K. MOB ride is a political ride.
Why? Because it’s a public demonstration of collective happiness without consumerism, without structure, without hierarchies. It’s a demonstration that anarchy is possible AND fun.

L.A. to LA – Midnight Ridazz in The Big Easy

BLACK LABEL BIKE CLUB NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY

IN NEW ORLEANS

HEY RIDAZZ, START SAVING YOUR SCRATCH BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS

- NEW YEAR’S EVE

- IN NEW ORLEANS

- WITH BLACK LABEL BIKE CLUB

Were you sad that there was no Bike Kill this year? Didn’t get your punk rock freak bike fix? Getting the shakes for mayhem on bikes in a different city? Hoping you would see more broken bones, like that totally tasty broken ankle at Bike Kill last year?

Black Label Bike Club New Orleans is having a New Year’s Eve party in – you guessed it, motherfuckers – New Orleans!

TRAVEL DETAILS

Midnight Trainazz  Schedule-

Amtrack Sunset Limited

Depart Los Angeles Union Station:
2:30 pm, Sunday, December 27, 2009

Arrive New Orleans:
2:55 pm, Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Depart New Orleans:
11:55 am, Monday, January 4, 2010

Arrive Los Angeles Union Station:
8:40 am, Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Vangoy Schedule-

Put your name on the vangoy list in the MR thread (link below)!

Leave Los Angeles : Dec. 28TH (TIME TBA)

Leave Nawlinz: Jan 4th (8AM-ISH)

DISCUSS THE MIND EXPLODING EYEBALL MELTING EAR FUCKING TONGUE LASHING HEART STOPPING KNEE POPPING BELLY FLOPPING TO THE 12TH DEGREE INSANE-ECSTATIC-CRAP-YOUR-PANTS-HAPPY-FUN-TIMES HERE.

The Sprockettes in So Cal

COME SEE THE SPROCKETTES IN SAN DIEGO ON SATURDAY OCT. 3!!

You have two opportunities, and I am helping organize the second:

1. Tour de Fat – I haven’t been, but Borfo went to one in Portland and had a blast. A bunch of us are heading down Friday night / Saturday morning to hit up the festival.

2. GUERRILLA SPROCKETTES SHOW: We don’t have all of the details worked out, but it will be a guerrilla performance somewhere in SD (Balboa Park or dodgeball park), probably after a short ride.

C’MON LA, GET DOWN TO SD. Here is what one of The Sprockettes said:

“We’ve heard so much talk about the LA bike gang that we wanted to do something for them all and had the opportunity to go. If LA is in SD then let’s do it! More the merrier.”

Midnight Ridazz Camp, Burning Man 2009

Midnight Ridazz Camp will have a bar this year, grills and boils, with a big party worthy of Ridazz:

THURSDAY, 5 – 8

The LADIES OF MIDNIGHT RIDAZZ CAMP want you to DRINK THEIR JUICES and PARTY IN THEIR PANTS!

Ms. Stephanie will pour out her Blood, Sweat, and Tears for you to a “this-ain’t-no-rave-bar-bitchezz” soundtrack of her choice, and The Raquel will open her pants up WIDE to all comers! Come have fun with the Midnight Ridazz. We ride bikezz. We’re evolved muthafuckazz.

(Author’s note: The reference to being evolved is because the theme of Burning Man this year is evolution.)

Bar description (goddammit, I’m proud of myself):

I have constructed a bar for the camp – 72″ x 31″ bar top that we covered in black formica laminate, I painted the front and sides of the bar base a glossy red with the Midnight Ridazz logo in black on the front (the same logo we used to cut the burn barrels).

A 20′x10′ carport carport shade structure will act as the roof and the walls of the bar. 4 old rims will be fashioned into chandeliers (with real candles, of course – SAFETY THIRD), spoke cards and pictures of Ridazz Camp ridazz and their close ridazz friends will adorn the walls, and christmas lights and one funky old-ass lamp will provide the ambient night lighting.

Top all of that off with tables made from wooden spools scattered around and seating galore, and a sound system to scream out our NOT-YOUR-RAVER’S-BAR soundtrack, and we are going to have one fucking rad camp bar – one that Midnight Ridazz can be seriously proud of.

ON TOP OF THAT, the bar will be open to the entirety of Black Rock City at least one night (perhaps more, depending on the mountain of booze I amass) during which everyone will be invited to stop by the bar and drink the Midnight Ridazz juices: Blood (vodka + cran), Sweat (Whiskey + lemonade), or Tears (rum + grapefruit), OR Vomit (a mix of all three).

Burning Man. IF YOU HAVEN’T BEEN, YOU DON’T KNOW.

Hey, Ladies (and Gentlemen and Everyone Else)

I had one bitch of a weekend; one in which bike riding brought both danger and some serious oh-yeah-I’m-a-chick-and-I-have-think-differently-about-safety-than-a-guy introspection. It was not sex crime danger, it was pure physically brutal danger. I have bruises all over my right leg (which is weird, because I could swear I fell to my left), including one impressively blue-y green-y purple-y thing below my right hip…where I was kicked? Frankly, I’m not even sure because everything was so hectic and out of control.

[Also, I'm going to ask now that if anyone comments on this blog, please don't discuss any details of that madness on here. Thanks.]

After I found myself on the ground, the first thing I heard from one of the guy riders there with me was, Hey man that’s fucked up, that’s a FEMALE!

…

I know that person meant well, but it made me feel ten times more helpless than I already did. Even writing that gives me knots in my stomach and makes me want to cry out of pure frustration. Was it because I’m a girl that when danger put its face right in mine, I paused instead of bashed? And why do I feel like my reaction was the wrong reaction? Also, is it really less okay to hit a girl (read: weak) than a guy (read: strong)?

These are all such tangled, loaded questions, aren’t they?

I don’t know what to tell you ladies, and I don’t know what to tell you gents, either. It can be a confusing thing, being a chick. I want to be strong, but I hate violence. I want people to think I’m attractive, but I hate the bullshit media-driven images of what is sexy and occassionally feel like I need to emulate it. I don’t want to bash on other chicks because we should all stick together, but goddammit there are some dumb fucking chicks out there that do NOT help matters any. Aargh.

I’m going to leave all of the open questions and confusion alone, and get back to bikes. I’ve had this on the calendar for a while now, but it feels really especially special to me right now: LADIES’ NIGHT. I’m putting together a fantastic playlist (according to me, of course) full of chick voices, and it’s going to be one big celebration of the wacky wildness that is being a chick on a bike. Come on along, won’t you?

Apology

I apologize to myself for not writing recently. And as a motivator to myself, I give me William Carlos Williams, one of my favorite poets:

Apology

Why do I write today?

The beauty of
the terrible faces
of our nonentities
stirs me to it:

colored women
day workers—
old and experienced—
returning home at dusk
in cast off clothing
faces like
old Florentine oak.

Also

the set pieces
of your faces stir me—
leading citizens—
but not in the same way.

It’s Off to Shop We Go, Redux: Or, Why I Hate L.A. Live

[Stick with me folks...at the end of this blog I will provide you with a POSITIVE review of something! Yes! Something I read that I LOVE! I promise there's more to me than a bundle of negative energy...]

I have recently signed a lease with the boyfriend for a space in Glassell Park.  I am leaving downtown to its yuppie gentrification.  Goodbye, empty “loft” units.  Goodbye South Park.

And most importantly, goodbye L.A. Live.  You can go fuck yourself.

And in the spirit of luvving L.A. Live, I come to you today to build upon something I said about L.A. Live in a previous blog (rant):

LA Live, too, functions similarly to [Rick Caruso's and other similar] lifestyle centers – its buildings face inward upon each other around false public spaces, so the crowds moving within the giant entertainment developments rarely crowd the truly accessible streets of downtown L.A.

When I wrote the above, my L.A. Live experience consisted of riding my bike past / around it, marveling at the rapidity with which the hulking monstrosity was being constructed.

Now, however, I have been to L.A. Live as a consumer of its wares and its space. I have suffered through a meal at ESPN Zone (which my parents loved), cowered in front of a live feed of Fall Out Boy on the giant 42 FOOT WIDE screen in the L.A. Live courtyard (which didn’t bother my mom that much, as she is going deaf), and twitched amidst its twinkling flashing dripping blinking strobing lights (which my parents found exciting).* And as my sister’s death grip on my arm grew tighter and tighter, as her frightened desperate need to run screaming from L.A. Live as fast as she possibly could grew more and more palpable (as did mine), and as Fall Out Boy taunted from the giant screen giant speakers “I Don’t Care,” all I could think was:

I HATE L.A. LIVE.

As my parents soaked in the ESPN Zone cultural experience, my sister and I whispered possible L.A. Live culture jams. “Banner drop?” I suggested. “Zombie invasion?” she added. And as if on cue, my mother (who had not been listening to me and my sister), watching a table of law students do Irish car bombs, said “I read in the LA Times that there is an LAPD substation here because the police are concerned about drunkenness and other vices associated with the types of businesses at L.A. Live.” My sister and I deflated. And all I could think was:

I REALLY FUCKING HATE L.A. LIVE.

That’s not totally true – it wasn’t the only thing I could think.  Also flashing through my brain was something about how the LAPD substation was another perfect example of state (The State) resources protecting and fostering capitalism (by ejecting arresting criminalizing anything that might disturb or discourage consumer’s happy-go-lucky money-spending experiences at L.A. Live).  But mostly it was:

GODDAMMIT L.A. LIVE SUCKS ASS.

So I twittered:

L.A. Live has its own LAPD substaion. How to fuck LAPD + L.A. Live at same time? I wonder if my tweet is being monitored as TERRORISM? 7:26 PM Dec 16th from TwitterBerry

And for good measure, just to see if I was being monitored, I twittered:

Terrorism at L.A. Live. 7:40 PM Dec 16th from TwitterBerry

Anyways, regaling you with the above tale was mainly just to illustrate the point that I got the chance to take a good long look at the L.A. Live quote-unquote public space that night.**  And truly, it looks just like the fucking website (and the picture above): a giant insanity-filled courtyard. I didn’t venture anywhere other than the giant courtyard, although there must be more to it. The courtyard was enough, thank you very much.

And, after that night, my analysis remains the same: although there are no barriers as such – theoretically, anyone wandering around the streets of South Park could wander down 11th into said courtyard – the design of L.A. Live itself provides a barrier, an obvious delineation between the public streets and this policed consumer space.  The false shiny hard spendy surfaces, the drinking eating shopping hordes staring into onto upon around the courtyard through the panopticon windows, even the type of material used as sidewalk surface differentiates the space from the streets and sidewalks of the city.  You remember what a city is right?  Where people are supposed encounter one another, where one can experience people that are the same that are different that are suspiciously similar that are nothing like each other?

Christopher Hawthorne wrote a pretty darn good review of L.A. Live, from an architectural critic’s perspective.  Although my quote with which I opened this blog comes from a slightly different perspective (architecture and planning as fostering socio-economic xenophobia) than Hawthorne’s (we need public space for all the nice yuppies in the nice lofts to foster nice gentrification of no man’s land), I leave you with the following quotes from his review (and a recommendation that you read his review, despite its orientation):

-  Los Angeles, city of enclaves, is methodically, unapologetically building itself one more.

-  When we trap the energy of an urban crowd inside this sort of self-contained world, and when we allow developers and their architects to heighten the differences between that world and the streets around it so dramatically, we help keep the rest of our blocks underused and, as pieces of the city, undernourished.

-  I have written before about how the plaza, which sits entirely on property owned by the developer, creates an impressive stage-set version of a public square….[The problem is] that it actively discourages any of the activities we traditionally associate with the use of collective space in a city: talking, reading, sitting under a tree, even pausing with a friend for a cup of coffee.

I also leave you with a request:  In light of the LAPD presence, what can I (WE) do?  I have ideas – a bloc banner drop action, perhaps (clown bloc, zombie bloc, pillow fight bloc, dance party bloc, zoo animal bloc, etc., with the bloc distracting people from the banner drop and scattering as soon as the banner is dropped) – but more suggestions are always welcome.

So that, dear readers, is why I hate L.A. Live.  And this, dear readers is something that I love!  I happened upon a blog on the Just Seeds website about a photography book – Big Box Reuse – focusing what communities do with big box retail spaces after the retailer has closed up shop and left the giant eyesores behind:  Hooray for creative adaptive reuse of shitty architecture and the people who appreciate it!

*I love you, mom.

**…and to garner sympathy for my horrifying experience…

Hey – Thanks

There are things to be grateful for, among them organizations and individuals who work to make our silly world a better place. Prime examples of this are the people behind these three events that I highly recommend for this Thanksgiving weekend:

(1) WEDNESDAY – CRANKSGIVING

(2) FRIDAY – THE REALLY, REALLY FREE MARKET

(3) SATURDAY – NORTH EAST LOS ANGELES FOOD NOT BOMBS BENEFIT (WITH FUNDERSTORM!!)

And don’t forget, (Black) Friday is Buy Nothing Day!