Should you’re the kind of one who attends group board conferences on weekday evenings so that you might be the 473rd particular person to remark publicly on the town’s newest bike lane proposal, you’re little question acquainted with Streetsblog, the digital publication that till just lately coated all issues “livable streets” however is now centered fully 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, a neighborhood 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 usually within the information on the time as a result of its members had been coming to blows over whether or not or not they need to carry Israeli hummus or one thing, although I’m undecided 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 grew to become a meme for 2nd Modification advocates, who mocked his structure and posted this picture alongside pictures of their younger youngsters having fun with the exact same weapon on the gun vary with no ailing 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 coated license plate on a parked automobile, Kuntzman hit paydirt together with his “Legal Mischief” schtick:
Typically clad in a home made Mets helmet and searching like one thing an AI would generate in case you advised it to 3D-print you a Hillary Clinton supporter, he’d take away unlawful license plate covers, repair mutilated plates, and customarily reveal the all of the sneaky crap drivers pull to evade tolls and pink gentle cameras, after which he’d publish 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 sorts of people that obscure their license plates and who not solely like dick jokes however hold testicles off the backs of their vans denounced him as a weasel and a instrument 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 can 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 achieved 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 turn out to be the topic of a barely patronizing New Yorker profile:
And the second was to turn out to be 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 moreover an obituary within the New York Occasions.
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 comply with 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 stress 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 kind of factor ought to bear in mind: How would you realize? Do you assume 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 may very well be an undercover cop, or a celeb, 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 nearly simply killed you, typically the one motive 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 forex. I believe Kuntzman additionally is aware of that fixing license plates is an effective approach to improve your Twitter follower depend, however that in relation to precise reform he would possibly as effectively stick a Matchbox automobile up his ass for all the nice it’s more likely to do. (To their credit score, Streetsblog has in reality gotten outcomes, however that was as a consequence of 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 achieve? In a metropolis like New York, when you begin taking note of how many individuals are driving with bullshit license plates, or parking within the bike lane, or hopping the turnstile, or littering, or partaking in all the opposite types of delinquent habits and/or system-gaming you see right here every day, you possibly can’t unsee it, and in case you stay hyper-focused on it, it’ll ultimately drive you loopy. I do know this from private expertise, which is why in recent times I’ve suggested towards confronting motorists and warned cyclists concerning 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 assume in case you’re 45 years previous and also you’re so addled by license plates that you just’re getting arrested BY THE FREAKING SECRET SERVICE and winding up on TMZ then you definately would possibly wish to zoom out a little bit bit.
I’m not saying it’s important to fully 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 particular person you possibly can probably be.
In the meantime, I just lately instructed that gravel bikes are pretentious whereas street bikes are refreshingly lowbrow, but it surely seems I used to be flawed:
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.
