Slam of the Tongue: Racing and Portaging

Did you know there's a three-week bicycle cycling stage race taking place in France right now called the Tour of France? There sure is. And even though it's the very first one, the cycling media is all over it. For example, Bicycling magazine has put their very best writers on the race. They've also put their worst writer on it--me--and here's my most recent Tour of France-related post. Also, here's other stuff I have wroten for them over the years. And here's a pretty picture of an egret. And here's a kid wearing an ALF t-shirt.

I realize that's a lot of stuff, but I'm just doing my best to please everybody.

Still, as hard as I try, I always manage to forget something. For example, you'd think that between the Tour of France crap and the egret and the kid in the ALF t-shirt I'd have satisfied every demographic. However, someone's always left wanting more--like the commenter who wanted to see Cadel Evans throwing his backwash onto Mark Cavendish:

Anonymous said...

Where is Cadel 'accidentally' throwing water at Cav?!

July 12, 2011 12:38 AM

Well, here it is:



Note the surreptitious manner in which Evans throws the water at the Vittel guy:

And them immediately supplicates himself before an angry Mark Cavendish when he's caught in the act, like a submissive dog exposing his belly:

It's clear who's the alpha male in the peloton, and I think mischievous heel-nipper Cadel Evans might benefit from a week with Cesar Millan:

(The Cadel Whisperer)

Also, speaking of creatures who can't control their tongues, here's Thomas Voeckler's wild Stage 9 tongue action via Cycling Inquisition:



I think he may have taken that old Sam Kinison routine about "licking the alphabet" a bit too seriously. Actually, it looks like he's spelling out "maillot jaune" with his tongue.

Moving away from the glamorous world of professional bicycle racing and on to the sordid world of amateur unsanctioned bicycle racing meant to generate images and marketing copy for luxury cycling apparel brands, yesterday I complained that my team didn't make it into the 2011 Rapha Northeast Gentlemen's Race video. Well, the filmmaker was kind enough to visit the comments section and offer an explanation:

Stebs said...

Sorry I missed filming your team! We were all over the place and unfortunately missed a lot of racers...

July 11, 2011 1:32 PM

Right. WHAT-everrr. You can make it sound like a coincidence, but I know it's all about looks. I bet we would have been all over that video if we had sweet integrated aero-beard face fairings like this guy did:

I guess he couldn't afford the Rapha neck gaiter and so he just grew one instead.

Also, in other cycling apparel-related news, a reader tells me that Conan O'Brien and actor Mark-Paul Gosselaar recently had a chat about Lycra and leg-shaving:



By the way, if you look up Gosselaar's race results, he's got fairly impressive palmarès for a famous actor:

Certainly way better than that Andrew Tilin guy who doped yet never made it out of the 4s:

And then wrote a book about it:


I've actually been reading this book for weeks now but I'm still only on page 125. If I ever do manage to finish it I'll let you know what I think, but I may have to take some kind of literacy-enhancing drug to get there.

Anyway, as far as I know Conan O'Brien doesn't have any race results, but he does ride a Serotta and looks like an elongated Alexandre Vinokourov:

Meanwhile, in the world of non-competitive (except for Cat 6 racers of course) cycling, local site Gothamist recently reported on perhaps the most offensive bike lane television news story I've ever seen:


In it, the reporter says of a bike lane that would pass the Israeli Consulate:

"Imagine if the man on the bike was a terrorist!"

Right. Remember those bicycles that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993, and then destroyed it in 2001? Neither do I. That comment has to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard anyone say about cycling or terrorism--on TV or off--and I would have given anything to see her get hit by that cab when she stepped out into the middle of the street at 1:06:

Not enough to injure her seriously, mind you, but just enough to keep her off the air. Actually, maybe that already happened, because a severe head injury is the only thing that could possibly explain her idiotic reporting.

Idiot reporters aside, I'm very thankful for bike lanes, since they greatly facilitate child-portaging. I'm constantly refining my child-portaging technique, and I recently realized that I had installed my Xtracycle PeaPod LT a little too far back:

Now, though, I'm running it totally "slammed:"

I was proud of my aggressive new setup, and I even boasted about it by means of the Tweeter, though commenter "ce" totally humbled me yesterday:

ce said...

Snob, slam your kid seat properly by ditching the deck and the various bracket bits. Attach the seat directly to the V-Racks with SuperHooks. Then cut the LawyerLegs off the seat to clean up the lines of your cargo area.

The bit about the LawyerLegs really stung, and as a child-portaging "noob" I had no idea I was doing the smugness equivalent of "palping" a pie plate.

Slam That Stem was even tougher on me:

Eventually I'll get it together, though I'm not sure I'll ever attain this level of child-slammage:

Now that kid is slammed.

Agents of Change: Of Freds and Men

The empowering effect the Internet has had on humanity is so profound and far-reaching as to be immeasurable. It has fomented revolution in the Middle East. Videos of doggie "three-ways" are merely a mouse click away. And now, as Klaus from Cycling Inquisition tells me, you can decide who's going to be on Team RadioShack's (pronounced "LAY-oh-pard Trek") Tour de France team:

Yes, that's right: Johan Bruyneel, a director who once reigned over a Tour-winning machine like a potentate, is now allowing you to pick, say, Robbie McEwen in the same cavalier manner in which you might "like" a doggie three-way video. Then, once the lineup is set, I imagine RadioShack will "drop" their new "app:"

With the RadioShack "U-Direct It!" app, you're in the driver's seat of the team car, and you get to control all the action from your smartphone or tablet:

[Note: "Attack" button not compatible with Levi Leipheimer.]

By the way, RadioShack aren't the only ones taking social networking to a new level at this year's Tour, and for the first time TV network Versus is offering viewers the opportunity to choose the commentating team. This could spell trouble for the venerable duo of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen, for beating them in the polling at the moment is the unlikely pairing of actor Morgan Freeman and fictional 1980s newscasting puppet Gary Gnu:

This may seem a bit arbitrary, but word is they totally "killed it" last year when they co-hosted the Latin Grammys.

In other professional cycling news, controversial rider Riccardo "The Cobra" Riccò recently sneaked into a Fred ride to "help his friends achieve a better result:"

Apparently, he jumped out from behind a house like a silent movie villain, joined the ride, and then totally bogarted the showers at the finish:

Despite being told to leave the event by other participants, Riccò rode the whole course and then even had the nerve to use the shower facilities provided by the organisers at the finish in Voghera, near Milan.

By the way, Riccò is not the only controversial professional to "ride bandit" in this fashion. Back in 2008, the Rock Racing team actually jumped into a race in Brooklyn's Prospect Park when they were in town for the Harlem Skyscraper Classic. Of course, Rock Racing ultimately folded, but with the right look Riccò could have a long career ahead of him as an organized ride-crasher. I think he should get his hands on a fixie and dress like this, which would allow him to slither undetected into rides like the Five Boro Bike Tour:

The above image was forwarded to my by a reader, who cannily observed that the rider is clearly the time-traveling t-shirt-wearing retro-Fred from the planet Tridork's evil doppelgänger:

It's clear to me now that we stand on the cusp of an apocalyptic war between Good and Evil that could very well lay waste to the Universe, and that at this point there is only one man who can save us:

It is written in the Book of Fred that if the Lone Wolf should take the maillot jaune, mankind shall be saved. Of course, for that to happen, we need to get him a spot on the Team RadioShack Tour de France squad, but once he has his white-sneakered foot in the door winning the overall should be easy for him.

Speaking of empowerment and changing the future, from Athens, Greece I recently received a link to by far the most socially significant fixie "edit" ever "curated:"

The Prism: Riders on the Storm from localathensfilms on Vimeo.

If you're wondering what motivates these riders, according to the video their goal is two-fold:

1) "The creation of a community which will reflect the ideas of the group and will have a more solid political stance in relation to all that goes on around us;"

and

2) "The creation of conceptual actions that basically aim to reinforce collective imagination of the city's inhabitants towards a specific direction."

Wow. Meanwhile, this remains the state of affairs here in Canada's oversized bottom bracket:

I suppose you could also call that a conceptual action that reinforces collective imagination towards a specific direction. Granted, I'm not sure what that specific direction actually is, but I'm guessing it's somewhere towards the vicinity of the snack drawer.

And elsewhere in not-America, a reader informs me that some Stockholm politicians feel cyclists should be allowed to run red lights:

“As a cyclist you want to feel free and it is not as easy to go an extra two blocks as if you are in a car. There is a risk that people ignore the rules anyway, and then it is better to make it legal in an orderly fashion,” he said to daily Dagens Nyheter (DN).

Sounds perfectly sensible to me, but of course the big question is this: "So what about that teen boy who grabbed his principal's butt?"

Well, it's an unfortunate situation, and the principal reportedly feels "humiliated:"

She doesn't look all that humiliated to me, but then again Swedes can be difficult to read.

Lastly, from our nation's capital, a reader has sent me this exquisite example of a disembodied arm:

I just wish I could figure out how he's making that bike stand up without a kickstand.

It must be Photoshopped.

Simply Complicated: Give Me Inconvenience or Give Me Death

Despite the many scientific discoveries humankind has made over the centuries, certain aspects of life remain enshrouded in mystery. What is human consciousness? What is the universe made of? Is there life on other planets, and if so why does it seem so determined to probe us? We may never know.

The world of cycling also has its share of unsolved mysteries, and if you're high-end cycling clothing manufacturer Assos one of the most vexing is apparently the workings of the clipless road pedal. Some time ago I posted this ad:

In which the model's foot dangles flaccidly next to his pedal:

It's tempting to dismiss this sort of thing as an oversight. However, a reader recently forwarded me another Assos "Sponsor Yourself" ad from VeloNews:

In which the model does manage to place his feet upon the pedals:

Though he's using an entirely incompatible pair of cleats:

At this rate it could be years before the people at Assos not only discover a pedal/cleat combination that actually works together, but also figure out how to make the cleat thingy go into the pedal thingy. I'd imagine primitive man went through much the same process before he figured out how to make fire, and he probably rubbed all sorts of things together--mud, fish, rabbits--before he figured out which combination actually caused combustion.

Still, going through this lengthy trial-and-error process in public is not good for their image (not to mention expensive), and they'd probably be better off going with something like this in the meantime:

Say what you will about the time-traveling retro-Fred, but at least he's got his lace-up shoes planted firmly on his flat pedals. Clipless pedals would only hold him back, and the only cleat he needs is that little SPD-looking tuft of hair beneath his lower lip.

By the way, in case anybody from Assos is reading, the cleat the second model should be using looks like this:

The "genius" of the Speedplay pedal, besides offering more float than the Dead Sea, is that it tricks roadies into thinking they are buying a minimalist pedal when in fact they are bolting a piece of hardware to their shoes that looks like it belongs on an office swivel chair. Roadies have an uncanny ability to rationalize any excess so long as it's not actually on the bicycle. This is because, just as dogs like to sniff each each other's rear ends, Freds like to lift each other's bikes at coffee shops, and it's important that the bike feel as light as possible. This is also why so many Freds will spend thousands of dollars on crabon wheels, yet are content to carry midriffs that make them appear to be great with child. If the "coffee shop lift" were done with stomachs instead of bicycles then the high end component market would simply vanish overnight.

Speaking of upgrades, Shimano's electric shifting is now "trickling down" to Ultegra:

I'm very excited about this for two reasons. Firstly, I want to "curate" an appropriately ironic singlespeed for the next SSCXWC, and few singlespeed setups would be more ironic than an electric drivetrain with no battery. Sure, at over $700 the Di2 rear derailleur had great potential to be the world's most expensive chain tensioner, but now that it's available in an Ultegra version my dream singlespeed is that much closer to affordability.

Secondly, if electric shifting keeps trickling down all the way to the lower end bikes then all those people who ride in Central Park on the weekends will finally be able to not know how to shift their bikes electronically instead of mechanically. When electric shifting finally reaches the masses, it will be like buying your grandmother a "smartphone" to replace the ordinary cellphone that already confuses and frightens her. Plus, when everybody in the New York area has to charge their empty drivetrains the night before the Five Boro Bike Tour the strain on the power grid should cause a repeat of the Blackout of 2003.

Of course, it's just these sorts consumer excesses that result in "movements" like singlespeeding, and fixed-gear cycling, and minimalism, and artisanal everything. Unfortunately, most of these movements eventually become excessive themselves, and in their pursuit of simplicity they become absurdly complicated. Consider the following article, which was forwarded to me by a reader:


Apparently, some hipsters decided that dessert these days simply isn't artisanal enough, so they imported a bunch of cocoa on an old-timey ship:

Two years ago a pair of bearded brothers decided to try importing cocoa for their Williamsburg chocolate factory—which focuses on simple, ecologically friendly sweets—by sail. They hoped it would save energy, help lure environmentally conscious buyers, and, maybe eventually, cost less. Their ship finally came in from the Dominican Republic on Monday night.

Naturally, this was needlessly expensive and wildly inconvenient:

Mast Brothers' will turn its cocoa beans into chocolate over the next year. They'll sell it to big-name chefs like Thomas Keller and Dan Barber and in grocery stores like Dean & DeLuca. Mr. Mast estimates that the Black Seal's shipment of cocoa will end up costing 25% to 30% more than usual. But he hopes to repeat the trip again and expects costs to decline as the company make its shipping operation more efficient.

I have no doubt that wealthy people in New York will gladly pay a 30% premium for anything made from these beans. As the saying goes, "You are what you eat," and since wealthy New Yorkers are pretentious pains in the ass it stands to reason that they'd want this reflected in the manner in which their dessert was imported.

Of course, if the bearded hipster brothers wanted to save energy they simply could have had it shipped in the regular way and then gone and picked it up by cargo bicycle, but then I suppose they wouldn't have gotten to hang around in Red Hook talking about their schooner and pretending to be pirates.

Speaking of cargo bikes, it would appear that the SmugnessDex in New York City is currently at $600:

Xtracycle! I don't believe it either! - $600 (Battery Park)
Date: 2011-06-20, 7:48AM EDT
Reply to: [deleted]

I hauled everything from two kids to $300.00 worth of groceries. I love this bike!! It's been my "truck" for 3 years. But alas, my kids now have their own bikes and we moved right next to a grocery store.
As much as I love this amazing bike it's time to share the joy with someone new.
Newly tuned up, 7 speeds, wheel and seat locking system (key included) front basket, water bottle holder.
Please see personal pix and gallery pix from the xtracycle website http://www.xtracyclegallery.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

As a proud smugness flotilla owner myself, needless to say I did the smug version of the "coffee shop lift" by checking out their hauling technique:


That is some "epic" paper towel portage.

Integrity vs. Adversity: Accentuating the Positive

This past weekend, my faith in cycling was shaken.

This didn't have anything to do with "60 Minutes," although that show did cause me to lose faith in the airline industry recently. (Like Andy Rooney, I too am "puzzled by airline fees," though as a contemporary of the Wright Brothers I suspect Rooney is also still somewhat puzzled by the miracle of flight.) It didn't have anything to do with the so-called "Rapture," either, and that it did not arrive to snatch the righteous Freds right out of their anti-impotence cutout saddles. No, it was because I partook in one of those Rapha "Gentlemen's Races," and it looked like this:

Rapha like to talk about "glory through suffering," but there's really nothing glorious about voluntary, self-imposed recreational suffering. Sure, it can be fun if you're into that sort of thing, but glory is something else altogether. Really, when it comes to these sorts of "epic" cycling undertakings I think the truth lies somewhere between "fun through extreme discomfort" and "nailing yourself to the cross of marketing." I figure I almost lost faith halfway up one of those pointy things in the course profile, but I couldn't tell you which one since they've all blended together in a gravelly dirt clump.

In any case, I may share further insights and judgment once Rapha have "curated" their Raphafication of the event in characteristically insouciant pictures and video, but in the meantime I will say two things:

1) I was extremely fortunate to have on my team five riders who were not only great company but also far better cyclists than me;

and

2) Doing a long, hard ride made me contemplate stuff, as long hard rides are wont to do.

One of the things I found myself contemplating was doping. Generally speaking I'm fairly apathetic on the subject, but this whole "60 Minutes" mishigas was all over the place over the weekend, and on top of that I was in the midst of "curating" a Giro d'Italia blog for Bicycling.com as well as riding a racing-style bicycle over a long distance in an informally competitive fashion. This made it sort of impossible to ignore, and as I ground my way up yet another in an incessant series of unpaved climbs, I asked myself the following question:

"If someone offered you an illicit substance that would make this more manageable, would you take it?"

The hard part wasn't deciding if my answer was "yes" or "no." Rather, it was deciding what form and means of ingestion could possibly prevent me from doing so. In other words, it was less a moral issue than it was the practical difference between taking, say, a tiny pill or a football-sized suppository.

Of course, with the ride now finished the concept of taking drugs to complete it seems beyond absurd, especially given that it was something I was ostensibly doing for fun. And of course when I ask myself the same question now the answer is an emphatic "No." Nevertheless, that doesn't mean the thoughts I had during the ride were any less real. And again, I was just doing this for fun. What if I was doing it because my livelihood depended on the results, and I had to do it all over again the next day (and the next, and the next, and so forth), and I had a demanding sponsor like InternationalToys.com?

Now, InternationalToys.com is not a pro cycling sponsor (as far as I know), nor am I implying they would ever do anything untoward. I'm just picking them at random because I see their commercial (in English) regularly on my local cable channel, and because I have a juvenile sense of humor I always think these toys look like certain lady parts with legs:

In any case, when careers are on the line the whole thing gets a bit more ambiguous. It's easy to say no when nothing's at stake, but when you're being paid by a sponsor who depends on you to help them sell their Mexican walking vaginae, and you yourself need to get paid so you can buy your own children Mexican walking vaginae, and you're competing against a bunch of other people racing for other sponsors who sell other genetalia-based children's toys and who aren't as troubled by moral issues as you are, then you've got a big decision to make

So, maybe you sit on the football-sized suppository, and things go pretty well for awhile, but then people start asking questions, and before you know it you're on "60 Minutes," and everybody's passing judgment on you, and Andy Rooney's talking about how he's totally "puzzled" by this whole Mexican walking vaginae fad and how when he was a kid in the 1890s they just used to play with crudely-hewn toys made out of splintery wood and that was good enough for them.

It's a sordid business, and while it's tempting to think the gap between integrity and ignominy is wide enough to punt a football-sized suppository though, sometimes it's barely the width of a single Mexican walking vagina hair.

None of this should be surprising though, for as a culture we tend to turn to drugs for everything, when in fact the very impulse to turn to drugs is usually a sign that you should just stop what you're doing instead. Even the most benign drug use bears this out. For example, instead of smoking a bunch of costly "Wednesday Weed" in order to make the Grateful Dead sound good, you can simply save yourself the trouble and stop listening to the Grateful Dead. And if a climb is too hard, instead of cheating your way up it you should probably just stop riding and break out your ukulele, as forwarded to me by a reader:

If I had had any sense this past weekend I would have stopped pedaling at around mile 20, broken out the uke, and launched into a spirited rendition of "Accentuate the Positive."

Speaking of accentuating the positive, I recently received notification all the way from Brazil of something called "The Difference Campaign:"

As the website explains:

These advertisements were created and produced by Mikael Correa, a Brazilian adman.

He is also an urban bicyclist and designed the campaign with the purpose of making a comparison, through images, between motorized and human transportation, and the consequences of our choices not only for the environment but for our own life.

In other words, "Cars bad, bikes good." Continuing along that theme, I've produced my own series of smug juxtapositions that send the same message:

Cars bad, bikes good;


Cars bad, bikes good;


Actually, in this particular case, cars and bikes are equally stupid.

Sometimes it's not the vehicle so much as how you use it that counts.

It's a Gift: Your Mudflaps, Your Message

Generally speaking, I'm not what you'd call a "goal-oriented" person, but that doesn't mean I don't have dreams. Like any human I have my aspirations that serve as beacons and influence my life decisions. Sure, I don't aspire to much, and while some might call that lazy I prefer to think of myself as an "ambition minimalist." Here are my primary dreams:

1) To one day own a Scattante;

2) To never, ever participate in a triathlon for as long as I live;

3) To one day visit a city with umlauts in the name.

I'm proud to report that I accomplished Dream #1 quite some time ago, and as far as #2 goes hopefully it will be many more years before I can declare overall victory, but at least I've been successful to date. #3, however, has eluded me--until now, for I am pleased to report I'll be visiting (and speaking at) the Göteborg Cycel Festival in Göteborg, Sweden on June 11th:

Not only am I tremendously excited about this opportunity, but I'm also relieved, for the organizers are allowing me to speak in American which means I won't have to fudge my way through the presentation by reading off Ikea furniture names in an authoritative manner. If you're in or around Göteborg on or around that date I sincerely hope you'll attend, and if you can show me where Göteborg is that's even better, since like most Americans I can't even find my own country on a map, much less somebody else's.

And don't tell me to just use the Internet, either. Like most Americans, the only thing I can find with that is dirty videos.

Speaking of goings-on overseas, in the country shaped like a boot that's always hanging in pizza places, there's a big bicycle race happening. The current leader of that race is Alberto Contador, and in the Bicycling.com blog I am "curating" I described a painting I would have liked to have made of yesterday's stage, if only I were able. Well, obviously I'm not able, but a certain Erik K is, and I very nearly "snarfed" in my Froot Loops when I checked my emailings this morning and saw this:

I don't think it's a stretch to call this both transcendent and achingly beautiful, and in terms of immortalizing triumph it makes Washington Crossing the Delaware look like a bunch of yutzes piddling away in a paddle boat.

Speaking of both dreams and being immortalized, bicycle cycling advocate and giant suit enthusiast David Byrne undoubtedly realized one of his own dreams when he was recently immortalized on the cover of Momentum Magazine:

Not only that, but it was also recently his birthday, and here are just a few gifts he did not receive:

A New Car

A Used Car

A Futuristic Space Car

A Novelty Car Air Freshener To Hang from the Rear-View Mirror He Does Not Have

A Set of Custom Mudflaps That Say, "I Don't Have A Car:"

Actually, I suppose that last one could have been an ironic gift from Brian Eno.

Anyway, I wanted to show David Byrne my appreciation for all he's done for the "bike culture." However, I couldn't just send him a $40 gift certificate to AutoZone, so instead I decided to honor him by using his birthday as a Day of Reflection. And what did I reflect on? Well, David Byrne, naturally. I started by asking myself the following question:

"What do I know about David Byrne?" Without resorting to the Internet (where I'd only be able to find dirty videos anyway) I realized I knew three things:

1) David Byrne likes to ride his bike;

2) David Byrne does not have a car;

3) David Byrne was in the Talking Heads, who got their start in storied New York City rocking and rolling club CBGB--which, in a neat bit of irony, is now a John Varvatos clothing boutique:

It is a rule of physics that all things tend towards douchery, and CBGB is a good example of this. Simply put, things no not stay cheap and interesting forever. You can call it selling out, or gentrification, or Disneyfication, but if enough people like something eventually someone's going to be willing to pay a premium for it, and it will finally reach a point at which the people who made it interesting in the first place will no longer be able to afford it and only the shell will remain. It's not right or wrong, it's just the Physics of Douchery. Hence CBGB being unable to afford its rent, and instead of playing host to a bunch of actual dirtbags paying small amounts of money to be entertained, its shell is now home to douchebags paying large amounts of money to look like dirtbags. Consider that John Varvatos's chief contribution to the popular culture is the overpriced grungily-bedazzled Chuck Taylor:

Though you can also buy a $645 "Bowery Boot" that looks the way a cheap pair of boots used to after its owner shuffled in and out of CBGB for a couple years:

Continuing along this line of thought on my Day of Reflection, I stumbled upon another neatly ironic little tidbit. While David Byrne makes music and in his spare time talks about how he likes to ride bikes, John Varvatos makes clothes for douchebags who want to look like they play music, and in his spare time does Chrysler ads:



Generally speaking, I have absolutely nothing against cars, or commercials, or even car commercials. However, in terms of sheer douchiness I found this particular car commercial tremendously offensive. Basically, here's what it's saying:

1) John Varvatos is from Detroit and designs overpriced, douchey clothes while listening to the Stooges;

2) Chrysler is a Detroit company (though from what I can tell the particular model in the ad is made in Canada);

3) Somehow, this Canadian-built car that John Varvatos had absolutely nothing to do with is cool like the Stooges.

Sure, I suppose the ad is honest in that it's saying if you're the kind of idiot who would pay $675 for a pair of "Bowery Boots" you'd also feel at home in a 300, but it's still pretty depressing. I suppose whether it's putting studs on Converse or making a commercial that's essentially just a half-assed game of "Six Degrees of Iggy Pop," the goal is just to reduce everything to easy references and render them compatible with our modularly idiotic plug-and-play bullshit culture.

I guess what I mean with all of this is that I'll take David Byrne bragging about not having a car over a bunch of douchebags trying to convince me to buy one.

Given the current state of douchefication, it's no surprise that some stoner who's drawing a map with a Sharpie is considered a creative genius:

The Mission Map Project from Agency Charlie on Vimeo.

"You'll really get to know us by going to the places we go to... It can become a glimpse of our lifestyle," says Mike Giant, and I'm glad finally someone has taken it upon himself to create the definitive Aging Hipster's Guide to San Francisco's Mission District. Sure, you can turn off your phone and wander with a paper map--just as long as you've watched an Internet documentary about the map and have a full understanding of its compelling backstory first.

Speaking of art, as I mentioned on my Emergency Blog, I had extended the deadline for the "There Will Be Action Wipes" contest, but this extension officially ends NOW. In the coming days I will share some more entries and eventually choose a winner, but given the sheer volume of greatness this is going to be a formidable task. For example, I've received not one but two Warholian submissions. There's this one:

And this one:



There was also this entry, which the submitter appropriately titled "Masterpiece:"



More in keeping with the "international symbol" theme was this submission, entitled "All You Haters Action Wipe My Elephant Trunk:"

While it's easy to imagine this sign gracing the side of a desert highway:



Hopefully John Varvatos takes note when he blasts by in his Chrysler 300 while blasting the Stooges.