Critical Mass 2. Electric Boogaloo
Xris
FRIDAY - September 24th 2004
After unsuccessfully laying down for a nap. I drag myself up and take one final
stab at medicating my stabbing headache. Dave comes home, he is worried about
getting arrested, but nevertheless asks to use my extra bike for the Critical
Mass anyway. I give ‘em my little red girl’s bike and we head out.
Outside the house we run into our neighbor Josh and his 7 year old daughter
Jenna. They are mounting up on a tandem bike, complete with stuffed animal passengers.
I am happy to see this and roll some video of such a clear example of critical
mass not being about storefront smashing anarchists. Dave has endless trouble
with the $20 bike, which I just bought from the 11th street parking garage,
<the garage that is usually best recognized by the hundreds of discarded
shoes hanging from the pole on its front wall>, unfortunately this beautiful
sneaker art was recently removed to add new floors for luxury condo’s.
They are selling off abandoned bikes from the garage. Dave can’t raise
the seat, or stop it from rocking so he tells us to go ahead while he fixes
it.
At Union Square we find ourselves surrounded by cops and news vans. Little Jenna
gets interviewed by the Daily News ( which I am finding to be the only ‘everyman’
paper that seems interested in unbiased truth ). Jenna is hilarious with her
cute statements of “I don’t know why the police steal people’s
bikes” At one point her dad looks at me to see if I can answer and I just
say “sometimes power corrupts,” Her dad seemed pleased with the
answer. Jenna still looked suspicious.
Somehow Jenna, Josh, the stuffed animals, and myself end up in the Pole Position,
and someone from Time’s Up asks us to start the race off when the next
light changes. Great. The front line, first offense crew. We could be riding
right into the NYPD’s orange nets like last month. There is an eerie feeling
all around. Tons of cops, 3 helicopters, no one knows what they have planned.
The New York Post reported yesterday that the police will arrest anyone making
a traffic violation, (although the same Post article also states the on last
month’s ride, “149 riders were arrested”. Try 264 people,
who deserve a proper count. Does the POST have any interest in facts whatsoever???.
They contradict every known report, including their own. And where does Post
come up with the number 149? Because it sounds like less than 150? Like when
you advertise, this car is $9,999 dollars. “Whew, that’s good, cause
I can’t afford 10 grand”.
Anyhow… Word amongst the starting line is, the Police are letting us have
Park Avenue. …The traffic light changes…
…And we’re off. Lots of screaming, hooting, hollering. Jenna and
Josh lead the way on their bicycle built for two with 800 riders behind them.
We keep making green lights. First red light appears. What are we going to do?
Jenna and Josh still lead, they approach, they are traveling fast, they appear
to have no intention to stop for no stinkin’ traffic light, police on
scooters zip ahead. Everyone else slows down, no one runs the red light except
this crazy dad and his authority questioning daughter. The cute as buttons scooter
cops speed ahead, and the POLICE STOP THE TRAFFIC FOR THE RIDERS. All 800 riders
cruise through the red light, trying to catch up to the crazy tandem family.
Soon police are stopping traffic at every light, escorting riders through the
city.
I get a rare warm fuzzy feeling for the police. This is great. They are doing
the job for the brave people who normally ride up ahead stopping traffic with
the measly track bikes. This is great. Critical Mass lives. It’s a beautiful
ride on a beautiful night.
All continues to go well, I run into the drummer from the SPUNK LADS and DRiVING
WHILE DRUNK (?), (I can never remember his other bands name), but we had Spunk
Lads on TEAM SPIDER TELEVISION plenty, and they played our record release party.
Tomorrow the Lads are playing a concert at Knitting Factory, put together by
the other Accurate NY news rag: THE ONION. We ride together up Park Ave, around
Grand Central, through Time’s Square, down Seventh ave. Eventually some
people turn down 36th street. Of course we all turn… and follow the ride
on 36th street, only to come to a screeching halt. Everyone is turning around
Yelling “GO back, Go BACK!” You don’t have to tell me twice.
Normally I would be continuing into the thick of things. Finding out what’s
going on, documenting any injustice. But I’ve used up my personal limit
of jail time this month, so I am outta there. Team Spider Style. I am slipping
through alleys, pedestrians, posing as a pedestrian, and soon far from any dirty
criminal massers. I later read in the paper that 9 riders were arrested on 36th
and 5th. And, that there was some pre-arranged route approved by police that
included going down 7th ave. Who did they approve it with? There are no official
organizers. The 9 arrests may have been the first riders to deviate from a prearranged
route they weren’t ever made aware of.
I also hear later that police were cutting locks and grabbing all bikes on the
street. In case people were locking their bikes and walking away. This can sound
like exaggerated lefty fiction, until you read they confiscated 33 bikes, yet
only arrested 9 people (Daily News), Evidently they grabbed a lot of bikes that
we just locked there already. I am sure the owners who just happened to be locked
there will never assume the police cut their locks. They will assume they were
stolen by thieves (true?), and count ‘em as a loss. But I am sure the
police would NEVER grab a person, or bike, unless they clearly saw them involved
in a crime. ---o ( that’s my new ‘emiticon’ for sarcasm, it’s
a plunger stained with fecal matter. )
The police now have a new tactic, arrest everyone, grab everything, sort it
out later. Didn’t do anything?, oh sorry, continue to not do anything
for the next 6 months and we’ll drop the charges. Guilty till admitting
guilt.
And the other unfortunate by-product, is that people are now so afraid of being
arrested, whether they are doing anything or not, they don’t do anything.
Like me, not taping arrests. Why? Because I will be arrested. Sad thing is I
probably deserve it more than the initial people getting arrested in the first
place. It seems to be the only crimes I get arrested for are the ones I didn’t
commit. And that’s annoying.So, I am flying solo, till I see some of the
LONG BEACH TALL BIKE POSSE hiding around a corner. Laying as “low”
as one can when you have seven foot high bikes. They recognize me from Team
Spider concerts and show their love. We head out together and soon meet up with
ADAM from SIX GUN RADIO, a cool band that we’ve had on the tv show and
played gigs with.
Soon we meet up with MIKE GREEN from Ohms Media and DUMMER.org , ( it’s
so funny how interconnected the bike community, music community, surfer community,
art world and media community are, especially in such a huge city). It often
feels more like a small town than the small town I grew up in.
Our little splinter cell heads out, half in search of others, half in avoidance
of anything critical mass-like. We see a helicopter with search-lights dive
bombing the west side. Mike gets a call on his walkie-talkie that people are
at the West Side Highway. A mass of hundreds of riders passes a few blocks south
of us in the West Village. It soon becomes apparent that there are huge groups
of riders everywhere!
All that the NYPD managed to do with their little raid, was reduce one nice and tidy 800 person ride, into eight 100 person rides. We see other groups pass opposite directions followed by their requisite (and insufficient) 10-12 scooter cops. We see one group uptown from us heading east. A group downtown from us heading west. The police look like PAC MAN when you are trying to chase all four blue ghosts at once. Every once in a while, two bike groups see each other, merge like Voltron, and continue together. Mike Green and I merge around Christopher Street with two large groups in the West Village. We all continue east together, taking over Saint Marks Place, all the way to Tompkins Square. At Tompkins Square it looks like arrests are happening. I ditch my bike, even though I don’t have a lock, due to the cops throwing away my keys at my last arrest. Turns out to be a false alarm, no arrests. People go into Tompkins Square to retire for the night. There are a couple dozen people chilling in the open area of Tompkins, including Team Spider Drummer CHAD. We decide to call it a night. Dave, who never got his bike rolling meets us there, and we head out to eat. We end up getting lured into Radio Perfecto on Ave. B by a cute and friendly bartender woman / critical mass fan who was taking a smoke break. A great night indeed.
Epilogue:
Next day, neighbor Josh and Jenna come over to check that I am not in jail.
They were almost busted but Jenna threw a stuffed Tigger the Tiger in the face
of a scooter cop, who crashed, causing a fire ball on Lafayette street killing
4. None of the press covered the story, except, I believe, the New York Post.
---o
Xris