…in the Sunday Globe HERE.

Boylston Street has some of the most pathetic bicycle rackage in Boston. “Well, at least there are some bicycle racks,” doesn’t cut it. A surprising number of people share a pathetically small number of racks that were obviously put in more as a symbolic than a practical measure. But almost worse than the city’s half-assed gestures toward alternative modes of transportation in its core, are cyclists’ insensitivity to the needs of other cyclists. It’s sad, but not too surprising, truth told, that there’s really no solidarity among cyclists in the city. I mean, City of Brotherly Love Boston most assuredly is not.

At the risk of seeming like more of a prickly prick than I generally do, I would like to demonstrate two methods of racking your bike on the Boylston Street racks: the first would be the WRONG way, the selfish, inconsiderate way, since it allows for only two bikes to be racked at once. Whereas the second is the way that allows for four bikes. And, trust me, maximizing space is important during the work-week.

These are not ideal racks, as I’ve said, but you work with what you’re given. Really, the main point here is to think about others occasionally. You know, when you do, I swear to God things run much more smoothly for everyone. It’s not just being nice to no purpose. Being nice actually makes things work better. For real.

So peace out, and freakin rack your bikes up right, Boston!

An op-ed in today’s Boston Globe.

Last week there was a firestorm over cycling in the city on the pages of The Globe. It was ignited by a letter to the editor from a certain Marika Plater, which is worth quoting in its entirety:

THIS IS to the man in the blue Volkswagen who screamed at me, with an obscenity, to get on the sidewalk when I was riding my bicycle on Memorial Drive last week. Actually, this is to all of the Boston drivers who have honked at me while I’m biking and following the traffic laws; who have given me the finger, cut me off, splashed puddle water all over me, and squeezed me to the curb.

I want to tell Boston drivers that they do not own the road. Bicycles belong on Boston streets as much as cars do. Especially because the number of bikers will rise as skyrocketing gas prices and heightened environmental concern cause people to seek new forms of transportation, drivers need to learn how to be respectful of bicyclists and to share the road.

So here’s an abbreviated list of Massachusetts bicyclist rules of the road:

Bicycles are allowed on all roads, unless there’s a sign that says they are prohibited.

Riding bicycles on sidewalks is discouraged in general and is illegal in Somerville and parts of Cambridge.

Bicyclists must obey traffic laws.

Bicyclists should use hand signals when turning.

Bicyclists should stay at the edge of the right hand lane when there is not a bike lane, unless making a left turn, in which case they can use the left lane.

Boston drivers: Bicycles have the legal right to share the road with cars . Please watch out for bicyclists and remember that we are not protected by pounds of steel as you are . Please be considerate rather than cruel when you encounter us on the road, and please look out your window before opening your car door. Biking in Boston does not have to be as stressful as it is .

Her rant elicited the obligatory counter-rant from a certain David McCaffrey of Waltham:

MARIKA PLATER must have a death wish (”Bicyclists belong on the roads, too,” letter, Aug. 17). No one in their right mind would ride a bicycle on Memorial Drive. Hundreds of bicyclists use the sidewalk along the Charles River daily. Is Plater so obtuse that she would risk her life because there is no road sign prohibiting bicycles?

She gives a list of bicycle rules. It’s more of a wish list. Not only do bicyclists disobey the rules, their aggressive actions are a real threat to pedestrians. While driving on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge recently, I observed a bicyclist swerving in and out of traffic at high speed. When he came to the red light, he blew right through, narrowly missing an elderly woman. I observed four more bicyclists blow through the same red light.

Why do so many bicyclists disregard the rules of the road? Probably because they are unaccountable. They need no license plate, registration, inspection, or insurance. They don’t even pay an excise tax , which helps pay for the roads they use.

The next time Marika Plater wants to vent, she should look to her fellow bicyclists.

Ouch.

People. First of all, calm down. There are no innocents in the war of all against all going on on Boston’s mean streets, so let’s not pretend we’re not all at fault here.

Secondly, one of the reasons cyclists behave the way they do is that as stressful as driving is in Boston, cycling is a hundred times more stressful. It takes a lot less to get yourself seriously injured or killed on a bike than it does in a car. because many Boston streets are not made with cyclists in mind, you have to develop some aggressive strategies to get from point A to point B. Until cycling is considered a serious transportation alternative, you will have guerrilla cyclists on the streets.

Which doesn’t entirely excuse bad behavior on the part of cyclists. And I have seen cyclists behaving very badly indeed–usually, but not always, those loathsome bike couriers, biking’s version of cabbies and truck drivers. They think because they do it for a living it gives them the right to dress and behave badly. It doesn’t.

I myself have rarely encountered any real trouble with motorists, to tell the truth. You do have to keep a look-out for motorists and pedestrians, but that’s just cycling in the city. I have not been honked at, given the finger, cut off, splashed or squeezed to the curb. Really. And I ride along Mass Ave for a good portion of my commute.

I do avoid traffic, and choose my routes carefully, though. I’m not biking to prove a point, I’m biking to get from point A to point B. And I give myself enough time to deal with unanticipated delays. So the main reason I have not encountered too much trouble on the road is that I anticipate it, and take measures to minimize the probability of it.

So it’s no tribute to Boston’s drivers, God knows. They have a real problem signaling turns. They routinely blow through red lights. And many have anger management issues. Instead of putting all the blame on cyclists, motorists like McCaffrey here should get out of their cars, hop on a bike, and ride through the streets every once in a while–not Memorial Drive, of course (he’s right that Plater’s a dork to do this).

What he would find is that all those things that annoy him about other drivers when he’s in a car, are multiplied and amplified to the nth degree on a bike. And they’re no longer merely annoyances that he can blare his horn at. They can be downright life-threatening when you’re riding a bike.

Not asking for sympathy, here, just telling it like it is.

And personally, I don’t object to a certification course for cyclists. In fact, there are courses on urban cycling offered by MassBike. The idea of an excise tax for cyclists, whose lightweight vehicles have hardly any impact on roads, and who in many parts of the city don’t have lanes of their own, is a little outlandish, however.

Cycling should be encouraged, and every measure taken to ensure it’s safe in the city. That means cyclists should learn the rules and the necessary skills, and that the city should work to build a cycling infrastructure that would minimize dangers of mixing with motor traffic. And motorists should get out of their cars on occasion and ride in the city, as well. They might learn a thing or two, and maybe, just maybe, they’d find a better way to get from point A to point B in the process.

I was riding my bike in Back Bay yesterday a little after noon. I was headed down Dartmouth, towards Copley Square when one of those Back Bay slacker-temp type jaywalking schlubs sucking on his jumbo iced coffee, plugged into his ‘Pod, stepped out in front of me without looking first. Boston needs a Rudy Giuliani. But more on that in a minute.

I swerved to avoid him, of course. Since he had not looked in the direction of traffic before crossing, and therefore was not aware I was already right on top of him, I swerved right, behind him. But at the last possible moment he saw me, and, startled, staggered backwards. I had to slam on the brakes, which sent my back wheel up, and me flying over the handlebars.

So there I am on my back in the middle of Dartmouth Street, arms and legs akimbo, my bicycle lying on top of me. I look up at this guy looking down at me. He’s like, “oops, my bad.”

I don’t know which was worse: his stepping cluelessly out in front of me, or his looking down at my mangled form after causing me to crash, and quoting “Clueless” to me.

So that set me off. First of all, people: “my bad” is not an apology. Unless you’re, like, three years old, and you’ve just pooped your pants. But not when you are a thirty-something office temp who has just nearly killed someone through your zombie jaywalking on your way back to your data entry job from Dunkin Donuts with your fifth coolata of the day. No.

You might not have been aware of this: “my bad” actually reached a critical mass yesterday afternoon, but this noxious example of rampant anthimeria has been gaining speed for years. Although there’s some confusion about its origin and etymology, the likeliest culprit is, unlikely as it seems, Manute Bol, the impossibly tall Sudanese NBA player whose native tongue is Dinka. He reportedly used to say it whenever he flubbed a pass. It apparently spread through the college basketball subculture (such as it is), emerging in the print press in ‘89 (first in the St. Louis Dispatch, and then, days later, in USA Today). From there, in the mid-nineties, it made its way into TV (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and movies (Clueless, where it is, coincidentally, used by a character who has just caused a cyclist to crash). By the noughties, it had become the punchline in late night comedians’ monologues, which is where most of corporate America gets what pseudo-original thoughts it has. I’m quite sure that when Mr. Bush is finally indicted for war crimes his mea culpa will come in the form of “my bad, hehehe.”

The expression has layers of nuance, of course. The wiki-site, urbandictionary.com, which lets visitors identify, define, and vote on the most accurate definition of slang terms, offers this consensus definition of “my bad”:

A way of admitting a mistake, and apologizing for that mistake, without actually apologizing:

“I did something bad, and I recognize that I did something bad, but there is nothing that can be done for it now, and there is technically no reason to apologize for that error, so let’s just assume that I won’t do it again, get over it, and move on with our lives.”

Ruder than apologizing, but with the same meaning: a flippant apology.

The number two definition, which also garnered several “amens!”:

(n.) A combination of an apology and a dismissal. Basically, saying “oh yeah, I did that, but I don’t care”.

Persons of an older generation can find this quite annoying to hear when expecting an actual apology.

That definitely sums up how I felt about it, although I do not consider myself a “person of an older generation.” And the pathetic thing is that the schlub who said it was probably my age, too.

So there I am on my back in the middle of Dartmouth Street with this pudding standing there sucking on his iced coffee staring down at me. “Dude, my bad.” I just tore into him. I told him in the future he might want to look the other way–the way traffic is coming–before crossing the street. I mean, I don’t get it. Somebody could’ve been seriously injured here.

He sneers at me, mumbles, “dick,” and schlubs off across the street, leaving me battered, bruised, broken, and in disbelief.

Not really. I was lucky there’s a little hill there, and I was going uphill at the time. If I’d been on the other side, heading downhill, I probably would’ve broken my neck. So I was bruised all up and down my left side, and a little sore afterwards, but not too much worse for wear. And I wasn’t really in disbelief, either, I just like alliteration. The whole thing was all too believable, unfortunately. You’d actually expect it in Boston.

Which is why we need Rudy Giuliani. And not just for the jaywalking, either. Drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians all need to seriously shape up. Streets should be color-coded. Cyclists should have dedicated lanes, as should buses and cars. Traffic signals in areas with heavy pedestrian traffic should be modified, with shorter waits for pedestrians, who should be allowed to cross intersections diagonally (which means red lights in all directions for auto and bike traffic when pedestrians have the “go”). Cars, bikes and pedestrians who violate traffic rules should be aggressively pursued, and excessively fined. This will wound Bostonians’ rampant sense of individual exceptionalism and entitlement, but in the end it will make our streets much more livable.

(Speaking of livable streets, there’s a Street Social this afternoon in Cambridge starting at 5:30 sponsored by Livable Streets–click HERE for details.)

There’s room for debate, but I think part of the problem is the suburbanization of the city. And I mean attitudewise. Because a city is not just a place, it’s a distinct state of mind. A set of attitudes and values often at odds with those of the suburbs.

One thing every city has is a double-life. You either get that–and celebrate it in your own life in the city–or you should really just move out to the ‘burbs where you don’t need manners or social skills to get around, just an SUV and a credit card.

For those who would like to set up shop in the city, you should understand the unique spirit of cities. The secret life of cities, if you will. We all know that cities are inconvenient to get around, that they’re full of menacing crowds, multiple barriers on our way from point A to point B. But to those with eyes to see it, these barriers are passages to the secret city.

Not a hidden city, mind you. This second life of the city is an open-secret. And it opens up when you do. And when you grasp that everything and everyone is significant. And that you must strive always to be where you are. Be here, now.

When I enter a subway car I always think, “what if something happens here? What if my last moment on earth is here, in this subway car, with these people?” Because the last moment is The Moment. When the present is finally undeniably present and accounted for. When I walk onto a subway car, it’s like: I am here, now. Funky as it is. Everything that happens her and now is significant. There is no throw-away moment, no throw-away encounter with a fellow traveler, even that one there, groping his way along in the dark from one coolata to the next. My encounter with one of them yesterday could have been the death of me, after all. Careless, disconnected, coolata-fueled. It’s a deadly combination.

This secret life is made up of all the little interactions we have with one another, however careless and seemingly casual. They all play a role in our fate. They’re all significant, without exception. That sounds ominous and scary, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s about connectivity, after all. We are a part of each other’s stories. At the time of their telling. It’s a conversation to which we have to bring a respect of the other, and a genuine curiosity about the nature of this extraordinary organism of which, however different we may be from one another, we are each a vital part.

Not to sound too evolved, but I rarely see hints of awareness of this whole here, though I’m always on the look-out. Seems today we Bostonians are more likely to think of ourselves as impermeable, autonomous units, never mingling our auras gracefully, generously, like fellow travelers, but banging and bashing into each other like bumper cars, on our way to nowhere. We’re “in” our ‘Pods, with our urban armor to protect us. This may be a function of fear: the fear of potential violence so often associated with race, or the fear of affrontery so often seen in highly class-conscious cultures.

When your city is little more than a glorified bumper car course, you’re going to get banged up occasionally. I understand that. If that’s how it is, that’s how it is. But when you bash into me, please, please, whatever you do, just don’t say “oops, my bad,” or I will be forced to bash back.

There was recently a story in the New York Times about problems along the Hudson River bike path. Letters to the editor illustrate what I was saying the other day about the three-way war amongst motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists (whew, Boston, you are not alone):

To the Editor:

Re “When the Bike Path Crosses the Drivers’ Path” (news article, June 28):

I commute to work using the Hudson River Park bicycle path. I am well acquainted with the dangers posed by vehicles crossing the path, and although I obey all traffic signals, I have had several close calls myself.

In designing the path, officials apparently tried to have it both ways: to accommodate bicyclists while not inconveniencing drivers.

There are a number of ways that the path could be made far safer for cyclists, but each solution requires a fundamental reordering of priorities.

The safety of cyclists — who, after all, are using the cleanest and most sustainable form of transportation available — would have to come first, while the “needs” of motorists to get where they are going as fast as possible would no longer be pre-eminent.

Elizabeth Oram
New York, June 28, 2006

•

To the Editor:

Bicyclists make their own major contribution to the perils of New York City.

As a dedicated walker in Central Park, I can assure you that it is rare for a cyclist to stop at a crosswalk when the light is red against him. Many whiz through, as if they were competing in the Tour de France, and pedestrians cross at their peril, even people pushing baby strollers.

In contrast, cars in Central Park almost always obey the rules of the road.

Until bicyclists follow the law and decent behavior, they are in a poor position to complain.

Richard H. Levenson
New York, June 28, 2006

•

To the Editor:

The joggers and pedestrians who clog the Hudson River Park bike path, despite their own, much wider designated path just feet away, are arguably more dangerous than the relatively few car crossings.

It is confounding why, despite all the signs saying the bike path is for cyclists and skaters only, strollers and joggers choose to risk life and limb in the bike path.

Parents pushing strollers risk cyclists crashing into their babies. Dogwalkers with 10-foot leashes blithely block both lanes.

Pedestrians in the bike lane are more dangerous to both themselves and cyclists than the relatively few car crossings are to anyone.

How about some enforcement of the existing regulations, Parks Department?

Alan McCutchan
New York, June 29, 2006

I’m turning into one of those snooty cyclists. It doesn’t take long. The thing about cycling is it gives you a sort of bird’s-eye view. I might even call it “the cosmic view.” Your field of vision is longer, I guess you’d say, because you’re traveling faster than if you were walking. the pedestrian’s field of vision is reduced to next to nothing–they’re mostly shuffling along, oblivious, looking at their feet. Drivers have the opposite problem–they’re looking so far ahead that they don’t see their immediate surroundings, either.

If you cycle in the city day after day, you notice some things–I mean, you see them time and again. The first thing that blows me away on a daily basis–about motorist and pedestrians (and cyclists, too, I’m sure, although I don’t encounter as many of them)–is that they either don’t look at all when crossing the street, or they first look the wrong way, and then, once they are out in the middle of the street they glance, sort of casual-like, over their shoulder in the direction of traffic. And the fact that jaywalking is endemic to Boston doesn’t help matters.

I’m not sure what, if anything, you can learn about a region, or a city, or neighborhood, from the way people cross the street. In Italian cities, where sidewalks are narrow, but woman are not, there is no question who makes way for whom. When I lived in Budapest I noticed that folks would seek out eye contact when crossing from opposite sides of the street (always using the crosswalks, mind you, and usually waiting for the light). If you made eye contact with them they would come directly at you, in a game of crosswalk chicken. It took me probably two years to learn to cross the street without incident in Budapest. The secret was to NOT make eye contact–even passively–but to barrel across the street head-first in a bee line without regard to any obstacles that might be in your way. And you would not encounter any.

It’s a little different in Boston. People aren’t really spoiling for a fight, like in Budapest. But there’s definitely a “make way for ducklings” mentality here. But it’s motivated by what seems to be an earnest belief held by all in their own unique and special superiority over everyone else. It’s no secret the entitlement thing is off the hook in our beloved city. And it has the effect of always forcing others to accommodate you. Everybody does it to everybody else, so it would seem to cancel out–I mean, every unique and special person is equally inconvenienced by every other unique and special person, so this “make way for me!” mentality doesn’t seem to make a real difference, except in accumulated frustrations. And Bostonians are legendary for their tantrums, too. But then that’s part and parcel of acting like four year olds, I guess.

And I must say I’m really always impressed by the blind faith pedestrians have that motorists will actually see them before they see the motorists. It doesn’t seem like jaywalking in this town is a calculated risk–it really does seem like a pure act of faith.

Of course, cyclists get no respect whatsoever from either side, which is why they so often turn into monsters–and badly-dressed monsters to boot. I’m not gonna get into the whole bike messenger meme–there’s some kind of goth connection, with the dyed hair and piercings, that I don’t understand, and don’t know if I care to. There was a piece about bike messengers in the Glob a couple of weeks ago–there always is in the Spring. It’s an old stand-by. Like there will be a feature about homeless people in the dead of winter. Local color.

I think pedestrians see a cyclist and think, “well, if he hits me it’ll be at least as bad for him as it is for me.” So they give you this kind of ho-hum look, when they do look, like, “yeah? And?”

Motorists in this town are among the worst in the nation, as for both skill and temperament. Driving is such a passive activity–it really is two steps back, evolutionarily speaking–that you find basically the same behavior amongst certain drivers that you’ll find in your typical armchair quarterback. They howl and scream and grumble just like when they’re watching a game on TV. And just like when they’re watching a game on TV they always know better than everyone else–they could always have done better than anyone else. This is the kind of personality the overwhelming passivity of modern life has produced. People who essentially do nothing all day and feel they are absolutely omnipotent. But whatever.

This is another reason cyclists get this sort of holier-than-thou martyr complex thing going. Because they are actually actively doing something–sounds totally anachronistic, doesn’t it? So they’re actually doing something, and yet they’re totally at the mercy of the vehicular zombies they’re forced to share the road with, who hardly have to move a muscle in order to mow them down. Just doesn’t seem right. Doesn’t seem fair.

Or maybe I’m being too harsh on motorists. They’re actually pretty skilled at multitasking. People who are so relentlessly passive get bored easily. So when they’re watching the boob tube or driving around in their big-ass SUVs they’re also stuffing their faces nonstop full of crap or yakking mindlessly into their cell phones. People who do nothing but eat, drive around, and watch TV all day keeping their loved ones abreast of the very latest eating-, driving-around-, and TV-watching-action via satellite.

So cyclists think to themselves, “here I am, actually doing something, and burning calories, not petrol, and I get no respect!” Understandably they start acting out, swerving artfully through traffic, running lights, scaring pedestrians. But they’ll never be a match for a soccer mom in a monster Escalade.

Sad.

Speaking of sad. I rode my awful little loaner bike to the South Bay Shopping Center yesterday morning. There’s a sort of back entrance to the shopping center, and as I rounded the bend, I saw that this huge party had a permanent encampment in these big bushes there. One was standing out in the middle of the street with a railroad tie he’d managed to rustle up. They were building some sort of shanty in the bushes. Later, on my way back, I saw smoke issuing from the interior.

There is such a huge disconnect between what we see in the media, and reality. The news is a highly stylized exercise, an utterly idealized daily recitation of an increasingly narrow set of norms that increasingly have no relation to actual norms, nor does the news report actual happenings so much as expectations. Look at these freaks on TV who read the news. Look at these pod people who appear on their shows. Is this who we are, or what we want to be?

They’re talking about “Nature Deficit Disorder” on The Today Show right now. Something people just used to do–catching fire-flies in a jar–you need a life coach to instruct you in now. That’s one side of the coin. The other is a dozen grown men, immigrants from God knows where, living in the bushes down the street. I mean, talk about disconnect. We’ve got Reality Deficit Disorder.

It’s a scorcher out there.

I got out to the garden early today, before the temperature began to climb, to water a newly seeded section of what will become a little lawn in a couple weeks’ time. Very excited about that lawn–it must be what’s left of the squishy suburbanite in me. Is this a chink in the urban warrior’s armor? I have instructed my neighbors in the Fens to clip me if I start to go all-out suburban on ‘em, and they have promised me they will.

But, honestly, once you become what you despise (and we all do to some degree or another), you often despise what you were before you did. It is the logic of metamorphosis that once we have transformed we no longer understand or sympathize with what we once were. We may, in fact, look on our former selves as our own worst enemies. Do you think the butterfly looks back wistfully on her caterpillar days?

If my lawn-pride warps me sufficiently, I may metamorphose into something I don’t yet understand. Like my new neighbor across the path, who is methodically removing all traces of the previous tenant, an old woman who had the plot for several years and was fond of roses, and replacing her sweetly and long-nurtured beds with…lawn. Her garden was idiosyncratic, with small paths only she walked on. Now it’s full of cement bricks and dyed nuclear-red mulch. It appears hideous to me now, but there is a kernel of fear in me that someday I may understand it all too well.

I have just a little lawn, a spot of grass among the flower beds, and I am proud of it, and it’s enough for me. For now.

So I’m riding home, and the left pedal on my loaner bike flies off. How do you like that? I’ll have to stop into the bikesmith’s tomorrow and have it mended.

I got home in time to nap. This is true siesta weather. And I do love my siesta. I love my twilight, too. Last night was cool and overcast, and there was a breeze blowing. And I lay down and listened to the sounds of the neighborhood, the gunshots in the distance, the little girl screaming bloody murder (we have a couple of little screamers in the ‘hood), laughter and tears, revving motors and screeching tires. And all the while the light fading, fading, quietly but insistently. That lovely subtle, inexorable movement from daylight to darkness. That extraordinary twilight time.

You know I used to live about a block away from where Hoagie Carmichael, who wrote “Stardust”–an American creation at least as great as the martini–is buried. He’s in Rose Hill Cemetery in Bloomington, Indiana, where I went to school. I used to walk through that graveyard on my way home every night, that perfect, mysterious song in my head…

Sometimes I wonder why I spend
The lonely nights
Dreaming of a song
That melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
Ah, but that was long ago
Now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song…

After my nap, I switched on the TV. There was something called “White Shark Red Triangle” on GBH. I caught the end of it. It was about various disagreeable sea creatures feeding on one another. You expect bad behavior from killer whales. And sharks are naughty by nature. But even the cute ones, like seals, behave atrociously. You know that when seals are done birthing, after a brief period of nursing, the adults just up and abandon the young. How’s that for family values? The young are about fifty percent blubber, so they can survive for a few weeks while they learn (or not) how to fend for themselves. In fact, only about fifty percent make it to a year old. It’s no wonder adult seals are so cranky up close and personal.

They aren’t as bad as octopuses, though. I think octopuses are possibly the most unsympathetic creatures in the whole ocean. A while back I watched a documentary on octopuses, called, aptly enough, I guess “The Octopus’s Garden”.

What odious creatures.

Maybe I was a cod in my past life, because I could find nothing particularly redeeming in the octopus. When a shark came along and the octopus was lying very still to avoid being detected, I was rooting for the shark 100%. Same for when, after the starring octopus had hatched her millions of little eggs and was crawling out from under her rock in search of food, on her last leg, so to speak, and a couple of belligerent codfish came up to her and started nibbling on her (actually they grabbed hold of a leg, and did a sort of speedy corkscrew move, since their teeth are only good for grasping but not for pulling)—yes, I was rooting for the codfish, even though, technically speaking, the octopus was the underdog.

I found the starring octopus utterly unsympathetic, and I felt nothing when I saw her corpse wash up on a beach in the end, or even when the seagulls were pecking at her flabby carcass. They kept calling it a she. Are there males and females?

At one point in some underwater garden she’s seized by a bigger, uglier octopus. He grabs her up in his arms—meanwhile she has gone stark white with fear—and spirits her away into his lair. A moment later she is released, rather pink than white now, and torpedoes off into the sea as far from her assailant as she can get, no doubt. Talk about wham, bam, thank you, ma’am. Where’s the romance? This is the Stanley Kowalski school of breeding.

That’s probably why the octopus is so unsympathetic. Not just two arms with which to hold a lover tight, but eight! Not one, not two, but three hearts (!) with which to love, and yet it has never occurred to the octopus to love. They’re too busy sneaking up on crabs, and gorging themselves on unsuspecting lobsters, and even eating their own kind! They retain a mind-boggling eighty percent of the weight they consume, growing bigger with each and every meal! I mean, enough!

The filmmakers tried to drum up a little sympathy for our heroine in the end by saying, well, look at what an inglorious end she came to after three billion glorious years of evolution. But tell me, what has she got to show for those three billion years? An insatiable hunger for shellfish!

Never once did she stop and think of using all her faculties—and she is so extremely well-endowed—for loving. And don’t tell me she can love her young. There are about two-hundred million of them, and they all fly the coop before they measure two centimeters in length. Most of them to get snapped up by the marauding cod.

And thank sweet Neptune for that!

But enough frivolous, idle chatter! Back to the pressing issue at hand!

I have been corresponding lately with a gentleman by the name of John who has some interesting ideas about the fare hikes that I would like to put out there, for your consideration, too. One caveat on this. While I think this sort of deep thinking is valuable, it may be a flawed assumption that there has been any real momentum on the fare issue among riders and their various self-styled representatives. I love the suggestions, particularly in the penultimate (love that word) paragraph, but I am not a nonprofit organization, or any kind of organization, actually, and these suggestions would require investment, staff, and organization. That’s the biggest problem right there.

Here’s what John has to say:

I know this is a frustrating issue, I am sensitive to it because I recently moved from Texas–yes the Traffic State–and am enamored of the concept of public transportation.

I did sign the petition, and have some positive thoughts. I think the rate hike may be a useful thing, hear me out:

- Public transportation is about to show its worth with rising gas prices. Cheap oil has made the economy-factor of the subways less important in recent decades, and subway systems have languished because of this. But Peak Oil is coming and the T may well become a real jewel for Massachusetts.

- A price increase will make the T create more revenue, which will increase its value to the city and state. So though this may be a cynical move to further burden a public asset, the ultimate result is that they are giving it even greater value. Unintended consequences, you know.

- Riders will become more motivated to pay attention as the T takes more of a bite out of their budgets. And also, more upset with delays and more receptive to calls for transparent governance. A group representing T riders will be set to gain from this increasing concern, since by raising prices the T is actually motivating people to pay attention. (Thank you MBTA!)

SO my optimistic conclusion is that now would be the time to kick into gear and prepare for the future. I would say let the rate hike take effect (it will do a lot for your organizing efforts) and turn attention toward solidifying the organization, with the expectation that events are converging to make the T more valuable to lawmakers, and make riders more apt to support a public advocacy organization.

As far as suggestions, I would like to help work to raise the profile of T-Justice in various non-threatening, non-confrontational, creative ways. Possibly one would be a “Subway Survey” of riders to ask what their concerns truly are, along with a petition. Sign/fill out and get a T-Justice button. A T-Shirt fundraiser (”T” Shirt!). More stuff on the website (I can help there) including a blog or chat for discussion/complaints (I can help there too). Setting up “T-Justice” recycle bins, for high visibility while doing a public service. Posters. Ongoing communication with the public, maybe even in the form of direct flyers handed to patrons, that shows T-travelers that there is a group honestly representing the public ridership.

Like everyone I don’t have a lot of time, but I am looking for a Cause or two, (Southerner’s love our Causes, especially if they are more or less lost) and this interests me a great deal.

I’ll say. So, any thoughts on this from the rest of you?

Things have been pretty low-key this week. The weather’s stopped freaking the fuck out on us momentarily and it actually feels like June, a little. I don’t even mind a little thunderstorm or two–that’s normal enough–but, please, no more ten-day monsoons.

I was riding my bike down Boylston yesterday on my way to the gym, and a couple of school buses were idling at Berkeley Street. As I passed, some smart ass kid inside shouts out the window, “nice bike, HAR HAR HAR!” And lest any of you think it was meant as anything other than a taunt, just consider that (a) it was a thirteen year old, and (b) he was on a school bus. I shouted back: “Nice bus, HAR HAR HAR!”

I mean, first of all. YOU’RE ON A SCHOOL BUS. How COOL is that? Making fun of the guy on a bike from a SCHOOL BUS. Think about it.

I went to Wendy’s for one of those 99 cent chicken bombs sometime after that, and while I was waiting I noticed this guy I’ve seen a couple of times before in the Back Bay. I always notice him because he’s this tall, good-looking, clean-cut twenty-something in a suit WHO HAS HAD HIS EYEBROWS WAXED ALL THE WAY TO HELL AND BACK.

I can’t help but stare at this YUPPIE SIDESHOW FREAK with a sense of creeping horror, because while he looks like Bruce Willis from the nose down, he totally looks like Joan Crawford from, like, the middle of his face up. And I’m sure he has absolutely no idea. I’m sure that was not his intention. And I’m sure he thinks people are staring at him for some other reason.

What’s so dreadful about it is that his boss has obviuously not called him in to his office and said, “look, Walker, what’s with the Joan Crawford look? We’re not that kind of firm.” If his coworkers cared for him at all they would find a way to tell him.

It’s like that Snicker’s Commercial where the bald guy is wearing a Snickers toupee, and a big group of his coworkers come up to him, and one of them’s like, “Um, Steve, we just wanna let you know we know you’re bald. We think you should stop wearing the Snickers.” And Steve’s like, “Wha–whaddya mean?” And she’s like, “It’s not fooling anyone!”

If anyone at all cared about that guy they would be like, “Um, Steve, we know you think you’re Cleopatra, but enough with the sculpted eyebrows, dig?” Name and shame, people. It works. Trust me.