(Nice job on the cut... [more]

(Nice job on the cut RichToTheIE. Nice job on the music FUNDERSTORM)
I think Larry is annoyed that this site has become a bounce site for CRIMANIMALZ, but whatever…he has better things to do (maybe graduating from CAL?) and has a wife that hates bikes, hates his bike hobby, and hates me. So I can understand if some of all that hate that he lives is permeating into his his non-existent soul—I say non-existent because I don’t believe in souls, but I use the soul image for those that do, to make it easier for them to understand the level to which hatred can penetrate.
Today is the 7th day since Crimanimalz weaved through frozen Friday freeway traffic on I-10 and the 405 FWY. A group of almost 30 Crimanimalz (including 3 rollerbladers and a triple decker tall bike) proved for the second time in two months that at certain times of the day, the fastest way to get from one part of town to the other is by human power.
Apart from the swelling numbers of this ride series is the amount of cameras riders are equipped with. Thanks to five or so bike camerapeeps, Richie was able to craft one of the best DIY ride stunt video that I have seen to date. The accompanying FUNDERSTORM track “Why Didja Duh Eeet” really captures the emotion felt by most riders both before, during and after the ride.
There is a snow ball rolling and I can’t tell if I am in its path, or inside the build up of snow.
Small local press, blogs big and little, radio and TV:
The Santa Monica Daily Press got the Scoop first. Congratulations to them. Here is the PDF linkage.
KFI News interviewed Alex Thompson and myself on Tuesday for small little news blunder that was sandwiched—most likely—between more sensational Dr. Phil type stories. Their questions were pretty mundane, which was unexpected from the local affiliate that syndicates Rush Limbaugh.
laist.com blogged an image post which has of right now received over 1500 DIGG points along with over 500 comments on DIGG. Here is where the internet community has stepped up to actually discuss the issue at hand: “What is wrong with car culture in the world, specifically in Los Angeles?” Sifting through the comments it is easy to get a sense of the binary rigidity of the discourse; the conversation continues to teeter back and forth between the naysayers and the yaysayers.
The naysayers continue to argue that this sort of direct action does little to change the transportation infrastructure of large cities, that it provokes law enforcement to tighten down on bicycle related citations and prevents city officials from listening to the community of bicycle riders in Los Angeles.
Hogwash.
What cannot be argued is that this event failed to fill the abyss, the void of conversation that existed only a month ago. This is not to say that the biking community was not discussing the issue, they’ve been at it since the car was invented. It is the public discourse, the one outside the small community of car-free citizens of the world, that has been illuminated from a fresh angle, an angle of merriment, electric Kool-Aid, Hog Farm tom foolery and culture jam and toast. If 500 comments can turn into 1000, and 1000 into 2000, a lot of cyclists that I know would be willing to sign the $250.00 traffic infraction and ride to the next on ramp.
Wired blogged about the event in their Autopia blog. Check it HEREZ. Wired loves us. They lovezies us.
NPR is still working on their story with which I will update this post when they send me the Link. Hopefully this will generate more of a discussion amongst the all the sayers out there.
Stepping away from all the naysaying and the yaysaing, here’s a little soothsaying. Crimanimalz will be feeding the homeless. Crimanimalz will be teaching your children to read. Crimanimalz will be hosting community breakfasts with pancakes covered in organic maple syrup for all. Crimanimalz will be building houses in cyclone ravaged regions around the world. Crimanimalz has big plans that transcend the seemingly prankster oriented spirit of the Friday freeway rides.
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crimanimalz.com and The Freeway Traffic Jam Ride on ibikeu Wiki
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music “Why Didja Duh Eeet”... [more]

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crimanimalz.com and The Freeway Traffic Jam Ride on ibikeu Wiki
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music “Why Didja Duh Eeet” by FUNDERSTORM
What more do you want? This is fucking art. Digg link diggs LAist article, yes!~! This is participation! Brrrat brrrat brrrat, boh boh boh, cough cough cough __ -> . . . Culture Ugh OH*Δ/
Covered by Boing [...] [less]

I’m standing on the outside edge of sweeping arc of pavement. An unintelligible whooping cyclist whizzs by. As the gust... [more]

I’m standing on the outside edge of sweeping arc of pavement. An unintelligible whooping cyclist whizzs by. As the gust of her passing hits my face, I discern a clamor of hoots and yells behind me. Swinging round I see a loose herd of cyclists and skaters bearing down. Lumbering forward they appear svelte in the presence of a bulky BMW. They are refugees fleeing normalcy, and they bear predatory smiles.
I survey the horizon. I recognize a cluster of office buildings in the distance and I learn something. I am standing on a freeway interchange. It is the swooping interchange from the I-10 East to the 405 North. A few slow Northbound cars in the left lane pass the animalz in the right lane, on their way to a lazy river of merging traffic. Below and above it’s a beautiful day for a freeway cowboy: slightly overcast and cool, blues and greys in the sky, greys and grays on the freeway plains below.
I note the firm press of Cherry Limeade against my hip, and the weight of a camera against my chest. I’m here, so I ought to snap a few photos. The already animalized bikers explode in celebration when I raise the camera. One rider of a triple tall bike is unable to put his fist down. His arm is locked in a gesture of triumph, and concern flits through my thoughts at the difficulty of his dismounting in that pose. I hope his celebration isn’t permanent. It is a tragedy that it can’t be. As the last of these Crimanimalz passes, I decide to follow their lead and ride.

I throw my leg over Cherry Limeade and, when I kick her pedals, she surges forward. She’s strong, a good horse, and what’s more, she tolerates my cowboy day dreams. Steel is real. We sense this is no longer the place to be, and she makes like a bandit’s getaway horse and gallops down the ramp. A fitting steed for a man with a bandana over his face and black cowboy hat.
We escape to the parking lot known as the 405 and trot across to the fast lane. There, cars and trucks amble at 8 mph through the waist high boredom, just like the cars and trucks in the slow lane. One man sending a text message, looks right into my eyes and then returns to texting without the slightest glint of recognition that something unusual was afoot. A woman didn’t notice us animalz at all as she put makeup on using her driver’s side vanity mirror. She held open a three ring binder in her lap, and a newspaper was draped across the steering wheel.
These zombie cattle infuriate me! I become totally animalized, screaming to my fellow cyclists “I do what I want!” The scream of the thrill possesses me and my nostrils flare with Cherry’s. Cherry springs forward, rocketing toward the edge of the now stampeding herd of Los Angelopes and Crimanimalz. Rushing in front is a cacophony of barely human noise that shatters the drone of idling engines. Berserk, the normally vegetarian Angelopes roar between lanes, urging this invasive species, TRAFFIC, forward toward the Sepulveda pass.

Hardly disturbed, traffic’s pathetic emulation of a stampede of American Bison trudges on toward the San Fernando Valley commuter dumping grounds. Hopefully, when they arrive, they will quietly board trains embarking to “I consider 3 hours stuck in traffic each day more tolerable than renting an apartment”-ville, never to return. These freeway plains have been cultivated to grow boredom, the local standardized test for why you hate your life. Even Cherry Limeade can’t help but be subdued by that unassailable monotony.
Suddenly, a hard gust drenches us in ozone and humidity, startling the Crimanimalz. FUNDERheads loom on the horizon. As one the herd breaks hard right, exiting the freeway grasses for the low built canyons of West LA. We’re gone, never to return. Like byke-ning, Crimanimalz never strike the same place thrice.
(Go watch the Crimanimalz ride the Freeway, do it right now!)

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