Guide to Bullshit Theories About How To Do Things That Can Get You Killed (pt. 1).

Part 1: Guide to Riding a Bike in The City.

Anybody with a passing familiarity with me and my life knows I’m a huge proponent of being stubborn, pigheaded, and wrong as often as possible. I love it. It makes my life so easy.

Do you want your life to be easy? All you have to do is constantly interrupt everybody who speaks to you and relate either a boring irrelevant anecdote that takes too long or a totally uninformed half-cocked opinion about something. Keep this up for long enough and eventually people will leave you alone. Easy.

I was reading about Ronald Reagan today, and that’s pretty much what he did, and now everybody’s in agreement that he was some kind of genius. I don’t know a bunch about the guy, but based on my aforementioned proclivity for ignorant defiance of good sense, I will tell you all about my opinions of him anyway. I think he was not a genius. But I do think he was America’s greatest Presidential douchebag. He really did very little that he didn’t feel like doing. That whole grandfatherly “I can’t hear your probative questions about urban decay and the widening class gap because I’m an old man and I’m standing near a helicopter” act he ran with the press? That was great douchebag stuff. That’s as great of a trick as pretending you left your wallet in the car to either A. ensure that you’ll get a couple of free drinks out of your boss, or B. escape from having a few drinks with your boss, depending on what you’d prefer. It’s the same scam, but when you’re President you get to use a real helicopter instead of a pretend wallet.

This is not, coming from me, damning praise. It’s just regular praise. He gets credit both for doing the things he did (great warrior who put America’s defense first, assuring that the American economy is based on the principles of free market) AND doing the opposite of the things he did (reducing the size of government--even though he increased defense spending a bajillion times, created a huge budget deficit, bailed out Chrysler, was forced to spend billions to correct the problems spurred on by the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry that he deregulated). What a fantastic douchebag. That dude was Teflon.

You see?

I just told you about Ronald Reagan for two whole paragraphs, and really the only basis I had for my opinions were a couple of articles in Slate.com and Vanity Fair that I read today, plus a few other pieces of flotsam I have floating around in my brain, probably from my childhood, which heavily involved my mother screaming about Republicans.

You’re probably not even reading anymore, which is great for me because I need internet computer friends even less than I need regular friends (which is to say some, sometimes). You see how easy my life is? People tend to leave me alone because I am annoying and I say things about Reagan that are probably wrong. And what’s worse, I don’t even care that I’m wrong. I even kind of like it. How do you deal with a person like that?

And my opinions about Reagan are almost totally off the cuff. Imagine how idiotic I could sound if I really thought about what I was saying. I could invent crackpot theories about a couple of specific real-life situations that sound convincing while being totally wrong and even dangerous. In fact, I already have. I bet you can’t wait to hear about them, either. I’ll buy you a drink. Nevermind your wallet. Your wallet can wait.

Guide to Riding a Bike in The City.

If, like me, you live in a city and are a broke loser who insists on keeping his options for future failure open by never fully committing to anything, jobwise or anythingelsewise, you’ve probably realized by now that a bicycle is the best way to get around. It’s pretty much free except for occasional incredibly inconvenient but cheap maintenance, you never have to look for parking, and you don’t have to waste extra money on a gym membership if it’s your only means of conveyance. Often it’s the fastest way to get somewhere, too, depending on how good you are at planning your day and/or how sweaty you’d prefer to be when you arrive.

Oh, I should mention that this Guide does not apply to Los Angeles. But if you live in Los Angeles, you’re probably not reading this because you can’t read.

(Don’t tell anybody in Los Angeles I that I said they can’t read. On the off chance they ask about it, just tell them I’m still talking about Ronald Reagan and that my ideas so far are not “pitchable” or “zazzy” enough. This will work because everybody in Los Angeles is involved in the entertainment industry. Close one, everybody.)

((I’m kidding. Of course Los Angeles residents can read. That was just another of my wrongheaded theories come to life. Another quick one: Leprosy is no big deal.))

Back to bike riding:

People worry about how safe it is to ride your bike around in a city. They’re right to. It is unsafe. No amount of safety gear or precautionary maneuvering can possibly save you from meeting your imminent demise. If you ride a bike in the city, you will be crushed by a bread truck. Immediately. Within minutes. I recommend not doing it ever.

This is not true, but being a city bike rider I prefer to weed out any potential weenies out there who don’t do anything but get in my way. As far as riding your bike goes, how safe you are is in direct proportion to how much you’re probably in my way. Evidence of such safety-seeking and hence inconvenient behavior include: excessive reflective tape, visible coloring on clothing and accessories, sufficient lighting, upright bicycles that allow for correct posture, rearview mirrors on handlebars or helmets, helmets, stopping for any reason (even a good one), slowing down while negotiating hairpin turns, and not charging blindly at full speed into vanishing narrow spaces between merging dump trucks. These are all a huge pain in my ass.

Of course I have a theory to justify the monumental amount of disappointment I feel whenever these safe behaviors are observed. It is a stupid theory and it could very well get me killed one day. I suggest you follow it.

Here goes:

1. Your number one bike-riding-in-the-city danger is invisibility. You can correct this by wearing a gigantic fluorescent green parka and stopping at every stop sign and jingling a little bike bell like some jolly sidekick from a creepy 70’s children’s show, which is dangerous because it will make motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians want to hit you. Or you can embrace your invisibility and just behave accordingly.

Just ride like nobody can see you. When you roll through a stop sign, swerve behind the car to your right that has the right of way. And if you're in a position where you need somebody to see you, do something highly visible and aggressive, like swerve in front of them in an obvious way that makes them freak out a little bit. It’s actually more safe than cautiously puttering your way down the bike lane in a hazmat suit, because people will be more likely to get into accidents while they’re distantly distracted by something imperceptibly annoying in their peripheral vision (such as you in a hazmat suit) than they will be when they’re stopping short and yelling, “WHOA DUDE LOOK AT THIS FAST-RIDING BADASS WHO CAME FROM SEEMINGLY OUT OF NOWHERE AND CUT ME OFF SO HE COULD SWERVE AROUND THIS CONSTRUCTION CREW AND TURN RIGHT WHILE DIPPING UNDER THE BACKHOE AT 30 MPH!”

The second option seems more dangerous, but at least it involves a motorist who's hitting the brakes. I guess the point here is: it's better to deal with a guy who sees you than a guy who doesn’t, regardless of where they’re coming from or where they’re going. That means don’t worry about swerving into oncoming traffic if that oncoming traffic sees you and is worried about the possibility of you swerving into it. When in doubt, make them see you.

2. Lodged in the subtext here is a secret to bike riding invisibility: the faster you’re going, the less visible you’ll be until you're right in front of somebody's face. This is fine, since you're assuming that nobody can see you anyway. So if you want to get where you’re going in a timely manner, you might as well go fast and deal with being be a little more invisible. You can only go the supersafe route if you’re planning on riding like a la-di-dah millionaire with nowhere pressing to be or a weekend bikeriding tourist who just thinks it’s nice outside. And that’s not going to work if you’re supposed to be at dude’s house in like ten minutes or else you won’t get that free weed he promised, and then after that you’ve got to go pick up a teapot for your girlfriends’ parents, and you don’t want to be late or else you’ll have to lie to your girlfriend about the teapot being on backorder (she will see through this obvious lie) instead of just having the free weed and the teapot being on time.

3. Pretend everybody is a jerk that wants to do the wrong thing all the time. It’s a little bit tricky to picture, but when you’re out riding, pretend that every car on the road can’t wait to come senselessly careening towards you to end your life like there’s a billion dollar prize on your head. If this situation sounds daunting to you rather than a fun hypothetical that you’d enjoy pretending that you’re escaping from every time you go to the grocery store, then maybe city bike riding isn’t for you.

You should be as aware as humanly possible of what could happen. After a while you’ll start to trust things a little more, because cars have a kind of hidden body language where you know they’re going to turn even if there’s no turn signal or brake lights, and you’ll be like, “That dude wants to spill my face skin all over his hood in about two seconds,” and you’ll avoid that. For a while you’re going to be wrong a lot about whether or not a dude wants to spill your face skin, but it’s a good way to think.

4. There are two kinds of rules: the fake ones from the book about “No Turn On Red” and “don’t cut through that gas station” and “yield to pedestrians in crosswalk,” and there’s the real ones from “the street” and from common sense inside of yourself, like “Always Turn On Red, Right Or Left Or Even Straight If Nobody’s Coming,” and “cut through that gas station, onto the sidewalk for ten feet, and around the back of the Meineke into the alley if it gets you there faster, who gives a fuck?” and “you can slap a pedestrian in the face as you ride by if he’s being a drunk idiot.”

People who complain about how nobody pays attention to the book rules are pansies who don’t know how to have fun. And ten bucks says they’re driving over the speed limit, so they’re also hypocrites. You’re on a bike. It’s your job to look out for yourself. The cops aren’t out there protecting you, and if you’re the one out of line, they probably aren’t even going to pull you over. If they do it’s fine because you can still ride a bike even without a license. Don’t tell them that, though. Be respectful. Also don’t mention how drunk you are.

5. It’s ok to be a little drunk and/or high and/or listen to your iPod. Not when you’re downtown in the middle of rush hour, but in general, it’s ok because you’re not going to kill anybody but yourself. Stick to side streets. And go for a train or bus/bike combo or couch crash scenario if you’re too far gone. For me, too far gone means either “already puked” or “it’s too far and I just don’t feel like it.” I’m getting less heroic as I get older, and it’s not a bad thing. The more you ride your bike, the more you can save up for emergency cab rides.

Could following these rules end your life? Yes. Yes it could. But: so could crossing the street. You never know. And alsobut: these are just theories and guidelines I’ve come up with for myself. They are probably dangerous and they are probably wrong, and I'm fine with that, and I’m just getting warmed up. "Sometimes it's a good idea to pedal really fast into oncoming traffic" is not even the most dangerous general-life theory I have. I’ll go over that one in Part 2, but for now let’s get some more quick idiot theories out of the way:

- It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a travel-sized tube of toothpaste, just put your regular sized toothpaste in your pocket and walk through airport security anyway. Even if they stop you for it, they probably won’t strip search you, and once they check it to see that it’s toothpaste, you’ll probably get to keep it. That “3.2oz or less” rule is to keep them from “having to check each individual substance.” Really it’s a conspiracy by the toiletries industry. Gillette is in bed with the TSA, and they bought that provision into the Patriot Act to force everybody to buy tiny cans of shaving cream. It’s not a security risk. Nobody’s going to make a shaving cream bomb in the bathroom during a flight, and if they do, it’s going to be another “Let’s Roll” situation (except without the secret F-14s gunning you down) before they even make it to the cockpit. Don’t fall for it. Put the toothpaste in your pocket. You won’t get caught. And if you do, who cares if you’re holding up the line? You don’t. You’re at the front of it already.

- If you don’t have much money for food and you’re in a hurry, go to Subway and get a sandwich with as many condiments on it as possible. It’s like extra nutrients for free.

- Do not worry about that parking ticket you got on an out-of-state rental car two weeks before leaving the country for a six month span. It will not bite you in the ass.

…Part 2 soon.