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It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Mary Effing Sunshine Speaks!

Remember “Mary Fucking Sunshine” — the person who wrote the I LOVE TORONTO, DAMMIT! post in Craigslist, which got mentioned here, and then got blasted in Torontoist, mentioned in the National Post (Wednesday, September 27th issue, page A8) and counter-blasted here?

Anyhow, Mary left a comment on this blog last night. I think it’s worthy of promotion to the front page:

Hello Joey,

Thanks for your thoughtful comments about my post (which was indeed inspired by one of those cheery September mornings). I’ve written a rather long response over at the Torontoist, but wanted to mention that this rang very true for me:

“I think that there’s something wrong with equating enthusiasm and optimism with naivete and a jaded, apathetic and sarcastic approach with worldliness and knowledge.”

I know I am relatively naive, and terribly idealistic. I also know that naiveity does not necessarily exclude cynicism, sarcasm, and downright bitchiness. I’m certainly capable of all those things. Nor does the excessive use of exclaimation marks always equate to a lack of sophistication or worldly intelligence. The unbridled enthusiasmin my post was as much a reaction to all the negativity on CL as David’s post was a reaction to my gushiness.

I’m grateful that David at least made an attempt to dissect my “argument” intelligently. Those of you familiar with craigslist RnR will know what a rarity that is. (Incidentally, it was never meant as an air-tight dissertation, just as a little blurb to “get off my chest” as you say) We all see lifein different ways, I suppose. One view is as valid as the next; I just happen to find mine the most rewarding.

Anyway, I still love Toronto, hipster city bloggers and all. It’s all part of the texture.

Thanks again!

~Mary Fucking Sunshine

Keep on rockin’, Mary, and pay the cynics no mind. As Mr. Wilde once said, that sort knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing. I salute you with a filet mignon on a flaming sword!

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It Happened to Me

Five Thousand!

5000th post

In the control panel for Blogware, the application in which this blog “lives” (it’s produced by the company for whom I work, Tucows), there’s a little counter that displays how many articles I’ve posted. Today, I noticed that it had it displayed this number: 5001. Critical Massholes was the 5000th article, and I’m glad — it’s nice to hit that milestone with an article of which I’m proud.

To all of you out there, thanks for reading!

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It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Responses to "Critical Massholes"

Hamish Grant posted a link to my polemic about Critical Mass on the Tribe magazine message board, and five pages (thus far) of discussion has ensued, featuring a die-hard Critical Masser, a number of unbelievers and more than the recommended daily dosage of internet forum snarkiness. But as George C. Scott said when playing the title role in the movie Patton, “I love it. God help me, I do love it so. I love it more than my life!”

Jerrold from Accordion City-centric blog BlogTO sent this link to a video shot on Car-Free Day 2006, in which the bicycle advocacy message of the day gets flushed down the toilet by a cyclist who does just about every stupid thing you can do on a bike in traffic.

My advice to all cyclists in the city: the best way to advocate cycling as a valid form of transport in the city is to just cycle, obey traffic laws and don’t be a jackass. Contrary to the Critical Massholes, arrogantly taking over the street on a Friday at rush hour, when all people want to do is get home, will not help the cause of the bicycle. You won’t be welcomed as liberators, and you will not be showered with flowers and candy.

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It Happened to Me Toronto (a.k.a. Accordion City)

Critical Massholes (or: Why I No Longer Ride with Critical Mass)

Before I Begin…

…let me first show you the Scorpion King, my bike, which I bought immediately after getting hired by Tucows back in 2003. She’s still running well:

Joey deVilla's bike
My bike. Yup, that’s a keytar in the rear basket.

Now let me point you to a couple of articles by Accordion City’s favourite Crazy Biker Chick, Tanya:

…and now, the meat of the article.

Critical Mass

Today is the last Friday of the month, which means that in many cities all over the world, there will be a Critical Mass bike ride. I won’t take part in it — partly because I have a prior engagement, and partly because I refuse to take part in it anymore.

The simplest way for me to describe Critical Mass is to borrow a line from this page: “a monthly bicycle ride to celebrate cycling and to assert cyclists’ right to the road”. The closest to organization that the event comes is that there is an agreement for interested cyclists to meet at some specified location and go for a bike ride en masse. No leadership or central body coordinates its activities and the route taken is determined as the ride takes place. It’s up to the participants in each of the cities to make it what it is, oftentimes as it happens. It’s rather like the BarCamp/DemoCamp “unconferences”, which shouldn’t be surprising: both arose from the culture of San Francisco.

While I wouldn’t call myself “hardcore” — I’m neither a mountain biker nor a bike courier — I could honestly self-identify as an avid urban cyclist. Ever since coming back home to Accordion City from my (unexpectedly long, but rewarding) stint at Crazy Go Nuts University, I’ve biked to work whenever possible. This city is a pretty decent one for cycling by North American standards, and there’s a certain way that travelling the roads by bike puts you in touch with the “feel” of a city that travelling by motor or even on foot can. The benefits of exercise as well as not being beholden to the Saudis and other equally unpleasant terrorist-funding oil states (as my pal Cory likes to say, “an oil state is just a failed state that happens to have oil”) are bonuses. It is my love of cycling that led me to participate in Critical Mass.

Why I No Longer Participate

It is also my love of cycling that led me to stop participating. I understand that the character of Critical Mass varies from city to city, and in this city, it seems to have degenerated. It’s turned from a celebration of cycling into a bike-driven way for hipsters and the angry underemployed to act out their unresolved rebellion issues against their parents. I think that Critical Mass Toronto does more harm to cycling than good. That’s why I no longer participate in it, and that’s why I’m speaking out.

The battle cry of Critical Mass is “We’re not blocking traffic, we are traffic!. I agree with that sentiment: bikes are vehicles with as much right to the road as cars. The problem is that Critical Mass participants here in Toronto seem to have forgotten that with rights comes responsibilities. The rally here tends to hold itself above the law, hogging as much of the road as possible, holding traffic by running red lights as a group and harassing drivers for committing the heinous crime of driving a car.

There’s a regular participant in Toronto’s Critical Mass, a bike courier type with curly brown hair and always in shades. He tends to bike ahead of the pack and seems to take great joy in either goading the police or threatening drivers. He often bikes up to cars to block their way and hurls verbal abuse at their drivers. At the last Critical Mass I attended, a guy in an SUV asked him how long they’d be blocking the intersection, to which he replied “Go fuck your mother.” In retrospect, I should’ve given in to my urge to clock him with my Kryptonite lock.

The problem is that in the sort of working anarchy that things like Critical Mass are, enthusiastic participants like him tend to define the spirit of the event, and the rest follow suit. The end result is that Critical Mass becomes less about celebrating bikes and more about acting out revenge fantasies against “The Man”.

In the meantime, the people in the cars who have been barricaded by the bike rally aren’t likely to be convinced that bikes have a ride to the road. What they see are ruffians who are flouting traffic laws and hurling abuse at them. For the most part, they’re people who are willing to share the road; they’re probably less willing to do so after encountering the two-wheeled barbarian horde.

In the last few Critical Mass rallies I attended, some bike cops escorted the ride with mixed results. Some of the crowd were a bit annoyed at the presence of the cops, and a couple of the cops shoved some of the cyclists about, follwoing it up with a “Go ahead. Hit back. I dare you.” It was two kinds of stupid coming together for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of ass-hattery.

Some People Share My Sentiment

I don’t think I’m alone in these sentiments; consider the comments by otherwise sympathetic people in this blog entry. I find myself in the weird position of agreeing with a writer from the “Moynihan Institute” web site, who wrote this about Critical Mass in a pretty good article about bike commuting:

I understand the statement they claim they are trying to make but the truth is that they come across as a bunch of douche bag hipsters living off trust funds. No one has ever taken up the cause of the cyclist as a result of these fart knockers grid locking traffic.

And Finally…

That’s the problem with Critical Mass Toronto: does it want to be about celebrating and promoting bikes as a better alternative, or about punishing people for using their cars? And really, when you boil it down, isn’t it about punishing people for not sharing your lifestyle, which is the sort of thing for which one typically blames “the conservatives”?

As long as it’s about the latter, then they’re Critical Massholes. I’ll still bike, but not with them.

Related Reading

Back in 2002, I wrote about a similar event, “Reclaim the Streets”, in an entry titled Not-So-Smart Mobs, which got a link from BoingBoing.

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It Happened to Me

Have a Good Rosh Hashanah / Ramadan!

(By the way, this entry will be number 4983 for this blog. Another 17 and I’ll have posted an even five thousand since starting this thing back in November 2001.)

One more entry before I call it a day: today is both the start of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year (it’s 5767 in the Jewish calendar), and Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting. Everyone, and I mean everyone seems to be wishing the world a simultaneous happy Rosh Hashanah and Ramadan, and so do I. Have a good one!

My wife Wendy, the Ginger Ninja, is Jewish, so I made sure to bring home some apples, and I fixed her a New Year’s dinner with an appetizer of stuffed hot peppers and a main course of seared salmon in seafood spices and a couscous salad. I also brought home a movie she’s being dying to watch — Stick It — and the American Idol game for the PlayStation 2.

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Accordion, Instrument of the Gods It Happened to Me

A View of the World from Japan

Here’s yet another entry about my 1998 trip to Japan, inspired by Sarah “The Hollywood North Report” Marchildon’s blog entries about her moving there to teach English for a year.

Depending on how old you are — or what magazines you read — you may or may not be familiar with Saul Steinberg’s cover for the New Yorker titled A View of the World from 9th Avenue, which depicts how a Manhattanite supposedly sees the world:

Saul Steinberg's 'New Yorker' cover: 'A View of the World from 9th Avenue

This cover has inspired a number of parodies. Here’s one: it’s Ted Rall’s A View of the World from Pennsylvania Avenue:

Ted Rall's Parody of Saul Steinberg's 'New Yorker' cover: 'A View of the World from Pennsylvania Avenue

(For those of you outside North America, Pennsylvania Avenue is the street on which the White House is located.)


When I was in Japan, I visited the school at which my friend Anne taught English. I was there as her assistant for the day; my job was to talk to the students, give them English practice and an opportunity to meet a real live foreigner.

The strangest thing about the experience was the sense of deja vu that I got during the exercise: every Japanese person at the school remarked at how good my English was. Until that time, I’d only gotten that reaction from white people — it happened a lot in the 1970s — but these days, it’s incredibly rare that someone says this to me.

They thought I was Japanese and were surprised to discover that I was Filipino. “You don’t look it,” they said.

“Give me a pole to dance around and look again,” I replied.

They didn’t get the joke.


In one of the school hallways, I saw these large sheets on which the younger students had done an English exercise. I got a laugh out of them and had to take these pictures.

The first one was a list of things they associated with America:

List of things that Japanese students associate with America.

Remember, this was October 1998, so Clinton was president, and this only a few months after Clinton’s admission that he’d had an “inappropriate” relationship with Monica Lewinsky. As for “Mr. Big”, I have no idea what they’re referring to.


Here’s the next poster: a list of things they associated with Britain:

List of things that Japanese students associate with Britain.

Once again, this was October 1998, just over a year after Lady Diana’s death. It’s interesting that the students would associate gardening with Britain; although it’s a fair association, I doubt you’d get that answer from a North American student. I like the “Pank music” item too.


And finally, Canada. How do they see us?

List of things that Japanese students associate with Canada.

Categories
It Happened to Me

Japan’s Worst-Named Non-Dairy Creamer

Another moment from my 1998 trip to Japan:

Joey posing with a jar of 'Creap'.

One of the first things I did upon arriving in Japan was to pose for a photo with the worst-named non-dairy coffee creamer anywhere: Creap. As the label implies, it’s meant to be an amalgam of “creamy” and “powder”.

Still from a 'Creap' TV ad.

Still from a 'Creap' TV ad.

Still, it’s not as bad a name choice as Darkie toothpaste:

Box and tube of 'Darkie' toothpaste.