The Pink Bicycle Has No Seat

No Seat Here

When the other dope boy and I were in high school, we did not like poseUrs (besides the intelligensia — anyone know you spell poser like that?).  We didn’t have any more sense of ourselves than anyone else, but we didn’t pretend to.  It sure seemed like everyone else was pretending, and still does.  To reinforce our distaste for the frauds, we made up a joke to separate the poseUrs from the reals.  It went something like this, “A guy needs to go the pharmacy, but can only find a pink bicycle with no seat.  He rides the pink bicycle with no seat to the pharmacy, and the pharmacist says, ‘Sir, may I help you?’  and the guys says, ‘no thanks, I’ve already been helped.'”  Then we would laugh hysterically, and the poseUrs would laugh with us.  The reals would say, “I have no idea what that joke means, and I don’t get it.”  We would push the reals even further by mocking them, accusing them of not “getting it.”  Eventually, they’d be brought in on the truth.  So, in honor of the pink bicycle joke, below is a list of things that don’t make sense to me, but others pretend to like.

Hipsters:  I learned from reading other journalists that the first lesson in journalism school is never look up a definition as part of a column.  That’s good because I don’t like looking things up, rather, I like to make them up (see poseUr in first graph).  So what is a hipster?  Hipsters listen to bands I’ve never heard of, wear skinny jeans, gas station t-shirts, scarves and winter hats during the summer, and sneaks.  They might wear colored, rimmed glasses, and mismatch their clothes on purpose.  Question:  if you purposefully mismatch your clothes, doesn’t that defeat the purpose of mismatching them in the first place?  I hypothesize that the original hipsters wore mismatching everything because they were spending their time playing music, reading obscure authors that probably had something to say, living the modern version of the beatnik life, and just didn’t pay attention to what they were wearing.  Now the posers just look ridiculous.  Where are your sneaks?  That’s your only contribution!

Public Bathrooms:  I don’t think our current public bathroom system works.  Here’s why.  We spend a lot of time acting sophisticated, especially in the workplace.  Men and women dress to impress, and for the most part, dress appropriately.  Colleagues discuss serious issues.  But what happens when you have to pee?  You walk as few as ten steps away, unzip (or drop) your pants, and piss into a bowl of water.  You finish, hopefully wash your hands, walk ten steps back, and start talking about the important stuff again.  Why is it ok to drop your pants 10 steps from a colleague?  I thought we had to keep things professional in the workplace.  What about when you are sitting on the toilet with your pants around your ankles, separated only by two inches of metal?  You could be in a conference room two minutes later discussing whether to start a war.  It’s just too weird that you were sitting right next to that same person shitting out of your ass 120 seconds ago.  I see only one alternative:  we go back to outhouses.  The resurrection of the outhouse industry could produce tens of thousands of jobs immediately, and it would make for a more appropriate work environment.  Waste excretion really should be taken care of separately.  And all the old bathrooms should be converted into cafeterias.  What, is that gross?

Watch the Throne:  There are two decent songs on this album, and that is it.  Watch the Throne is nominated for multiple Grammies.  People say they love it.  Why?  It’s awful.  It’s appropriately titled because I would rather “watch” the cover of this album than listen to its music.  I’ve contemplated whether Jay Z and Kanye tried to find the worst beats possible, on purpose, to see if people would buy it.  Kind of like Nirvana’s In Utero album.  Another theory is that Kanye is just crazy (explains a lot).  The best hip hop album I heard last year was Lupe Fiasco (Lasers), and the best hip hop album I’ve heard this year is Drake (Take Care).  On Watch the Throne, the only song I actually like (Nig&$s in Paris) mocks “the people” about two-thirds of the way through.  And Kanye rhymes zone with zone over and over again.  And this is the best song on the album!  If you like Watch the Throne, you’re one of “the people” that laughed at the Pink Bicycle joke.  Trust me, you did.