Saturday, November 03, 2007

Mash

Tonight, completely by accident, I bumped into the Tokyo premiere of the new Mash movie.
Mash is a group of cyclists from San Francisco who are notoriously, as the media probably calls them, "reckless".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTEWIiFPDN4

I have never really liked stuff like that, sure I ride a fixed gear and love it, but I started riding one because I actually raced on the track.

The movie wasn't great, but I stuck around for a little, because I wanted to ask some of the guys some questions. In only about a dozen clips in the entire movie does anyone wear a helmet. I thought that if these guys, who have a very large influence on new entrants into the bicycle community put a little more thought into it, they could really flip the image around, and show that they aren't so reckless, and that might get more people onto bikes.

At first, the manager or director or whatever was a jerk towards me, but after I helped them with some translating stuff, they all lighten up a little.

Here is the truth about me, put so very eloquently by this other foreigner, who I have disliked for a long time, but now that he lost his job at Nova, I at least feel a little sorry for:

"You piss people off. Nobody likes you." Or something like that. I think he used the word "shit" somewhere, but I can't remember where.

Yeah, I know. I'm glad that I am myself, because that way I won't ever have to meet me.

Not super proud of that.

1 Comments:

At 11:56 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

Peter, oh brilliant one. I LOVED the "freelance" thing. I relate in a big way. I'm a freelance, too. We could spend lots of time explaining ourselves to others, but why? Those who get it don't need explanations really, they just laugh and enjoy it with us. Those who need explanations just scowl anyway and look disapproving. I'm a lot older that you are, and I STILL am bummed when folks scowl. And I'm guessing I have banked a LOT more scowls my way than you have. I wish I had a tougher hide and didn't care what others thought. But then, like you, I wouldn't be me. Sheesh. Beats being an accountant.
Architectural thoughts: Your comment re: wishing architecture left you more time for people. Architecture is supposed to reflect us. Our current stuff does. It is the antithesis of people-friendly and useful/helpful/functional. Its very "functionality" like Le Corb's beat the actual function out of it. The ideas, like "the Green-ness" became more important as a concept, than the building, or its use. If you can aid the demise of post-modern crap "we're so cool we work so hard at looking bad", I'll throw you the Halloween party you missed. Embrace people. They are more important than stuff. Your folks have lived that very well. Bless you for following in the rebellious footsteps of Roger, David, Lyn.....Yay. It irritates co-workers, teachers...and all those who secretly wish they were brave like you're being, asking un-answerable questions. You're a philosopher in architect's clothing(or cyclist's spandex---pink of course).
Kisses,
nan

 

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