Defying Gravity

When I was younger I often wondered why the expression on the wrinkled faces of most old people seems to have settled into one of perpetual anger. They just look really pissed off all the time. I wonder if it’s just the natural effects of gravity pulling aging facial flesh downward or a true reflection of how it feels to be elderly – and by the way what exactly is the age when you can be called elderly? Is it the next step after becoming a senior? You know you’re a senior when you become eligible for all those senior discounts at movie theaters and museums. How do you know when you should count yourself one of the elderly? Perhaps it will be the day one of  those scruffy little twinks who work at Trader Joe's escorts you to the front of the line carrying your basket. I saw that happen twice this morning. Both of the them were women who I would definitely consider elderly. They even had canes. What if I took a cane when I went shopping? Would they let me skip the line? Would that be cheating? My knee did ache a little this morning. Am I ready to be considered elderly even though it’s just to cut the line? Probably not.

Of course now that I’m an old man myself now, I understand that getting old sucks and there’s a lot to be pissed off about. While it’s a wonderful thing to save a couple of bucks at the movies and gloat about it to my fifty-something companion, there ain’t a lot to be happy about getting old. Your body starts failing you in so many ways you hadn’t counted on. I’ve been really trying hard to keep calm and carry on and comfort myself with the fact that there are many my age in much worse shape. In the end though, gravity and nature will take their course and a face that reminds you of an old black and white photo of your great grandfather will stare back at you from the mirror. Plus other signs catch you a little off guard, like younger friends and siblings becoming grandparents. These are all things you knew were coming, but the reality of it actually happening kind of bursts the mortality denial bubble you’ve nurtured since you turned forty, – with a very loud wet popping sound. Wait. No. That was just the sound my knees make every time I stand up.  

Nothing makes you face the realities of aging like taking care of an aging parent for a while like I did last October. Mom’s 92 and she’s definitely elderly and definitely pissed off about it. All of her younger friends in their 70’s and 80’s go on and on about how incredibly fit my mom is, which she is, for someone her age, but I think she’s beginning to get tired of living up to their expectations. There are so many things she just can’t do anymore and while she seems to be accepting it gracefully most of the time, there were dark moments when I think she would have just liked to say goodbye and go on to the next thing, which of course for her is death. She’s a church-goer but more for the social aspects than the religion. She’s not really a believer in all the mystical afterlife crap. We had some nice chats about that and other things concerning her end-of-life wishes and plans. A lot of our conversations were death related. I think she was surprised that I could relate to her experience of having so many close friends die before her. Watching your friends die in your 80’s and 90's is just as unpleasant as seeing them waste away in your 30’s. We bonded over death stories. In a strange way I think it cheered her up a bit. 

Of course there are a few advantages to being old beyond the senior discounts. I can play the cranky old man card any time I don’t feel like doing something or make fun of stuff with a very special “don’t give shit” attitude that only old men can get away with. This is especially useful whenever I find myself interacting with the young folks. Sometimes when I find myself at some sort of function and have managed to engage some cute young thing who is polite enough to pretend to be interested in listening to me talk, I always enjoy going on about how much fun it was to be a twenty-something in the wild and crazy 1970’s New York and how sorry I feel for all you puppies who were born too late to have been there. I’m actually surprised by how easily some of the gen-X’s, Y’s and Millennials fall for this crap. In any case it gives me more close up ogling time. Of course the truth is that I would sell my soul to the devil to trade that ogling time for some hands on fondling time. The awful truth of Mr. Shaw’s axiom about youth being wasted on the young becomes all too real to us seniors – while I’m telling some puppy about the wild and crazy 70’s, I’d really rather be using my tongue to demonstrate exactly how we had fun back in the good old days. But I digress.

As Elaine Stritch said in her one woman show “Gettin’ old ain’t for sissies.” This old sissy, however has no choice. I’m old and I’m going to get older. If my Mom’s genes are any indication, I could stretch this out another 30 years or maybe check-out time is just around the corner. Who knows? All I can do is keep moving and try to make it the least not fun as possible, keep the grumpiness to a minimum and in defiance of gravity look for many things to smile about.

Carnage On the Streets: Reality Check

If I had an odometer on my 34 year old Motobécane touring bike I'm guessing it would register in the 6 figures in terms of mileage.  Plus I began biking in the city 6 years before that–40 years a survivor. That makes me a pretty avid and experienced cycling advocate. Our traffic commissioner Jenette Sadik-Kahn is my hero. I would vote for a fourth Bloomberg term if I knew he would keep her on. So  I freely admit when comes to the issues surrounding bicycle safety, the Citibike program and the hysteria it elicits from the 2-wheel challenged public, I am not objective.  I've spent a lot of time over the years patiently trying to educate friends and acquaintances when they make idiotic remarks about my fellow cyclists.

As an unnoticed minority I've always had a special pride in being one the few and the brave who used a bicycle for basic transportation long before there was any attempt by anyone in city government to promote or accommodate bicycles in any way. As a minority, you tend to be a little patient with the indifference and intolerance of people who only notice the worst element of your kind–sort of like if one based their perception of all gay men on the public behavior of Andrew Cunanan and Richard Simmons. The asshole that almost ran you down as you crossed the street is going to be the one you remember. However, now I have run out of patience. Assholes are assholes whether on two wheels,  four wheels or walking on two feet with their noses pointed down at their smart phones.

The success of Ms. Sadik-Kahn's efforts to get more people on bicycles combined with the rollout of the Citibikes has caused a disproportionate number of biped assholes to awaken from their touch-screen induced stupors. The foolishness began 3 years ago with the introduction of protected bike lanes. This year with the rollout of Citibikes the level of shrill and righteous indignation has been raised to new heights – the prime example being WSJ editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz who's over-the-top video where she looks and sounds like an SNL caricature of upper east side privilege as she bemoans our neighborhoods being "begrimed" by this horrible thing and how helpless she feels in the face of our "autocratic mayor" being lead by our "ideology blinded traffic commissioner who is ruled by the all powerful bicycle lobby." It got huge laughs when it was shown on The Daily Show. While Ms. Rabinowitz's presentation was laughable she was joined by more reasonable but equally misinformed pundits, bloggers and columnists who predicted widespread carnage and lawsuits galore. I have a four word response for all of them. Kiss my ass suckers!

While the final Carnage Score for the year, which by law NYCDOT is required to publish won't be in until early next year, there are no indications that the four-wheeled variety of transportation will loose the King of Carnage title for 2013. In the first five months of the Citi Bike program no one has been killed on one and there were mostly minor injuries with the 24 reported accidents involving Citi Bikes. I got this number from a NY Times article by Matt Fleginheimer. Also when I tried to find information about lawsuits involving Citi bikes, I could only find references to three and two of those were cases of people suing because they tripped on a docking station (one of the tripping suers was a blind man). It was interesting how many lawyer websites pop up when you do a search for Citi Bike lawsuits. To bad all the SEO work didn't seem to be producing much business for them.

As Mr. Fleginheimer said in his Times piece, officials are a little skittish about releasing too many solid statistics until the end of the year. There's two months left in the year. The first snowstorm could precipitate an unforeseen Citi bike disaster. Blood in the snow covered icy streets! In any case I will be revisiting this when the final numbers come out next year and I'm pretty confidant that there will more snarky gloating on my part. My own non-objective observation is that the common but counterintuitive theory that as bicycle ridership increases, the per capita rate of accidents goes down. The the bike lanes and traffic flow changes that my beloved Jenette has put in place have contributed the beginnings of real cultural change on NYC streets, but Citi Bikes has really made a big difference. There is generally more all around awareness between pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.

There are still plenty of assholes out there both on foot and on wheels, but we have a long way to go before we become Amsterdam or Copenhagen. I'm not sure I would want New York to become Copenhagen, which I found a bit eery because of the lack of car horns blowing there. New York wouldn't seem quite right without all the assholes in cars who think that blowing their horns has some magical power to make everything in front of them move. They always make me smile.

So fair warning to all the 2-wheel challenged who know me (you know who you are) and all those who cross my path. I am armed with facts and stats to back them up. No foolishness about me and my kind will go unchallenged.

Why Blog?

Today I got sucked into a rather pointless conversation with friend through about a comment he made on another friend's post. I felt my friend's comment was a bit misplaced in the context of the post he was commenting on. The experience was very unsatisfying for me as exchanges of opinion usually are on Facebook. However the topic we discussed was one that I am very passionate about and sent me into an internet session gathering material to back up my arguments. I soon lost interest in the Facebook exchange completely and started reading various blogs and opinion pieces related to the topic I was researching. One blogger's statement about how he didn't comment on a NY Times article because he could just types his opinion into his blog with as much obscenities as he wanted and it would go onto the same internet as the NY Times and he didn't really care how many people read it. "It's sort of like pissing in the shower instead of the toilet: 'It's all pipes!,' as George Costanza once pointed out.  So really, why bother getting out of the shower in order to submit something to the Times when it all ends up contaminating the same water table?"
I kind of like that philosophy and so I'm going try it. I've been accused by many of my friends of being very opinionated, and I have to agree. Why not just put it out there. It will be fun to see if I can stir up some shit and get noticed. At the very least I can just vent and not have to respond politely to everyone who has an opinion unless I feel like it.