If you happen to’re the type of one who attends neighborhood board conferences on weekday evenings so that you will be the 473rd individual to remark publicly on the town’s newest bike lane proposal, you’re little question acquainted with Streetsblog, the digital publication that till not too long ago lined all issues “livable streets” however is now targeted solely on why the congestion pricing pause means the tip of civilization as we all know it:
[Kathy Hochul gave them a real gift by pausing congestion pricing because now they can make up any numbers they want.]
Streetsblog’s editor-in-chief is Gersh Kuntzman, an area journalist who has lengthy courted fame by mounting numerous publicity stunts, with various levels of success. For instance, in 2016 he wrote a musical set within the Park Slope Meals Co-Op:
This mise en scène was extremely topical among the many Brooklyn elite because the Park Slope Meals Co-Op was typically within the information on the time as a result of its members have been coming to blows over whether or not or not they need to carry Israeli hummus or one thing, although I’m unsure that very same Brooklyn elite was receptive to Kuntzman’s broad humorousness and phallic references:
In one other stunt, he went and fired an AR-15 and wrote about the way it gave him PTSD:
Although this one arguably backfired on him when he turned a meme for 2nd Modification advocates, who mocked his structure and posted this picture alongside images of their younger kids having fun with the exact same weapon on the gun vary with no in poor health results:
Alas, for a few years Gersh Kuntzman was a person and not using a nation, spurned by liberals and conservatives alike. However then in 2022, after lawyer Adam White was arrested for un-obstructing a lined license plate on a parked automobile, Kuntzman hit paydirt together with his “Legal Mischief” schtick:
Usually clad in a home made Mets helmet and searching like one thing an AI would generate in case you instructed it to 3D-print you a Hillary Clinton supporter, he’d take away unlawful license plate covers, repair mutilated plates, and usually reveal the all of the sneaky crap drivers pull to evade tolls and purple gentle cameras, after which he’d put up the movies to social media. Often he’d focus his actions round police stations, courthouses, and municipal buildings, the place sarcastically (but unsurprisingly) the scofflawism was most rife.
To biking advocates, urbanists, and the kinds of people that discover Israeli hummus problematic and get offended by “Dick Johnson” jokes, Kuntzman was a hero. In the meantime, the varieties of people that obscure their license plates and who not solely like dick jokes however grasp testicles off the backs of their vans denounced him as a weasel and a software of the institution, they usually predicted he’d quickly get his when some driver caught him within the act. However what these individuals failed to know was that to ensure that this to occur a cop or an assistant DA or whoever else is parking in entrance of those buildings with illegally obstructed plates must beat the crap out of a middle-aged man in a Mets bicycle helmet on video, which they’d by no means do–and within the extraordinarily unlikely occasion that they did it anyway, Kuntzman would have the inside track of a lifetime and the assailant’s profession could be destroyed. For the scofflaw it was a Catch-22, however for Kuntzman it was a win-win.
Cannily, Kuntzman rode the wave, and in so doing he completed the 2 issues the kinds of people that store on the meals co-op and put on Mets bicycle helmets need greater than something on this planet. The primary was to change into the topic of a barely patronizing New Yorker profile:
And the second was to change into the topic of a barely patronizing “Each day Present” section:
For a sure kind of New Yorker that is the very pinnacle of accomplishment, and there’s actually nothing left after that apart from an obituary within the New York Instances.
I point out all this by means of background, as a result of this previous week a Kuntzman disciple in New York Metropolis was apprehended whereas tampering with the license plates of the automobiles of Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter’s Secret Service element (did you observe that?):
Apparently in case you’re gunning for a president the Secret Service gives you ample time to climb up onto a roof and get your self located, however in case you mess with their automobiles they’re on you want cream cheese on a bagel:
Right here’s video of the thrilling encounter:
I haven’t seen rigidity like that since “Guarding Tess:”
Really, I’ve by no means seen “Guarding Tess.”
As for Kuntzman, he sympathized with the vigilante, although he famous he’s “by no means messed with the Secret Service:”
However right here’s the factor that anybody who’s tempted to do that type of factor ought to bear in mind: How would you recognize? Do you suppose Harry Heymann knew he was messing with the Secret Service? Or did he simply determine the automobile belonged to some putz from Jersey? The reality is that in a metropolis like New York you by no means know who’s behind the tinted glass. It could possibly be an undercover cop, or a star, or a soccer mother, or a mobster, or the bodyguard of some visiting dictator who orders beheadings alongside together with his breakfast. Once you yell on the driver who virtually simply killed you, generally the one cause they don’t cease to complete the job is that they’re in a rush to go kill another person.
For Gersh Kuntzman, this can be a calculated danger and an occupational hazard; he’s cultivating a public persona, so it’s price it to him to do one thing silly in the identical approach it’s price it to Steve-O to snort wasabi or stick a Matchbox automobile up his ass. He additionally is aware of he’s most likely not going to get his ass kicked in entrance of a police station whereas somebody is filming it, in the identical approach Steve-O is aware of he’ll most likely survive when he throws himself off an overpass. They’re jackasses, however they’re additionally “professionals,” they usually’re changing their antics into cultural foreign money. I think Kuntzman additionally is aware of that fixing license plates is an effective approach to improve your Twitter follower rely, however that in relation to precise reform he may as nicely stick a Matchbox automobile up his ass for all the great it’s more likely to do. (To their credit score, Streetsblog has in actual fact gotten outcomes, however that was attributable to precise reporting, not content material creation.)
However what about all the opposite schmucks who go round confronting drivers in bike lanes and fixing license plates of their spare time? What have they got to realize? In a metropolis like New York, when you begin being attentive to how many individuals are driving with bullshit license plates, or parking within the bike lane, or hopping the turnstile, or littering, or participating in all the opposite types of delinquent habits and/or system-gaming you see right here each day, you’ll be able to’t unsee it, and in case you stay hyper-focused on it, it should finally drive you loopy. I do know this from private expertise, which is why lately I’ve suggested towards confronting motorists and warned cyclists in regards to the risks of Pathological Bike Lane Obstruction Fixation Dysfunction. Do you actually need a license plate cowl to protect Kamala Harris’s stepdaughter whereas she eats at Bubby’s? Is that this protocol, or are these individuals simply lazy authorities slobs? I don’t know. However I do suppose in case you’re 45 years outdated and also you’re so addled by license plates that you simply’re getting arrested BY THE FREAKING SECRET SERVICE and winding up on TMZ then you definitely may need to zoom out somewhat bit.
I’m not saying it’s a must to utterly resign your self to to the unlawful habits of others, however I’m saying that if you wish to make an actual distinction on this planet the perfect factor you are able to do is be the happiest and sanest and un-arrested individual you’ll be able to presumably be.
In the meantime, I not too long ago advised that gravel bikes are pretentious whereas street bikes are refreshingly lowbrow, but it surely seems I used to be fallacious:
I ought to most likely zoom out as a substitute of letting the world of bikes drive me loopy, however what can I say? It’s a calculated danger.
