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This ad has been popping up on various websites I visit. If you’re not familiar with “Rich Dad” Robert Kiyosaki he’s a rags-to-riches self-empowerment guru who’s built an empire through books, seminars and such, preaching about how knowledge is the key to success — and there’s nothing wrong with that truth.

Trouble is I wish whoever was in charge of this particular ad had the knowledge to recognize that the unsuccessful juxtaposition of a blithely smiling Kiyosaki sitting next to his proud doomsaying boasts about devastating economic events past and to come (pitched, of course, to draw people to his “free”workshops, so he can profit off them as they learn his “secrets” for how to “profit” off such tragedies) conjures up a vision of him not as someone inspiring trust, but rather as something of shill grinning his way through the gates of hell who can see suckers much more clearly than he can see the future.

My good man Jason DeFillippo, Metblogs cofounder and most decidedly one who does not mince words harshly took me to task after I tweeted who won “Survivor” following the finale’s conclusion a couple Sundays ago:

“Posting spoilers is like fucking someone’s kitten. You just don’t do it.”

And he was right to do so.

In my defense, I did the deed after the result was aired on the west coast, but still. It was an important reminder that beyond timezone differences we’re in an age of DVRs and delayed viewing. And it’s simply good and considerate practice to keep the beans unspilled. For how long? I don’t know that answer. I don’t care about that answer.

Fast forward to last night and I’m watching “American Idol.” Early on in the typically interminable finale, shortly after the Bee Gees sang “How Deep Is Your Love” with a couple of this season’s Top-10 finishers, I tweeted how seeing the surviving Brothers Gibb perform, made me smile. Sincerely so.

Not long thereafter came a response from a bike-minded enthusiast I follow whose Twitter name is cyclingnirvana:

“Yes, me too! But the power grab from Janet Jackson made me sick.”

Wondering what he was talking about, I tweeted back:

“Hmmmmm, I think I missed that… Or it hasn’t happened yet?”

And he came back with:

Sorry, it happens late in the show.

Ah, so now the two of us realize two things. I know he’s in a timezone east of me (turns out  way ahead of me in Florida), and he knows I’m in one behind him somewhere. I fleetingly toy with the idea of requesting that he keep any news of the winner to himself but give him the benefit of the doubt that he wouldn’t do such a silly thing.

Not more than a few minutes later while I’m transfixed by Christina Aguilera’s performance, he does:

“Really would have liked to see Crystal Bowersox win. She has an awesome voice and style. But I’m sure she’ll do well.”

I toyed with several harsh replies, such as a replay of Jason’s aforementioned reality check and  “Really would have liked to see you STFU,” but instead because I’m sure he’s a decent fellow who was just tweeting what happening around him I just admonished him with an entirely expletive- and animalporn-free:

“Dood. Way to spoil it for those of us who aren’t in your timezone.”

Which the guy completely ignored. Nirvana? More like some nerve.

UPDATE (11:52 a.m.): Strike that part about him ignoring me. I got a direct message from him this morning apologizing.

And by “funny” I mean not at all. Unless contriving a conflict is funny.

As teflon-coated as I like to pretend I am, I do get and remain peeved by trivial affrontations for far longer than necessary or required, and my rule of thumb is if I’m still stewing more than a day later, then it’s time to vent. Well, here it is a day and a half later and in my head I’m still telling the jackasses to fuck off, so of course it’s time to loosen up the pressure valve.

I had just started my pre-ride spiel to the awesome group of cyclists who had gathered in the parking lot of SilverSun Plaza for the Watts Happening ride when this semi-haggard, possibly hungover guy who looked foul-mooded enough to have been able to find easy fault in butterflies or a beautiful day, interrupted me with a demand for my attention as he passed by.

I obliged Sir Surly who then wasted little time in condescendingly chiding me for what he perceived as my obvious lack of consideration in allowing my fellow cyclists to loiter directly in front of SilverSun Liquor the overpriced booze farm that anchors the east end of the garish stripmall. He instructed me that our presence there in the lot along the front of the repository of drowned sorrows  at such an apparently high alcohol-demand hour of 10 a.m. was bullshit because it was preventing patrons from accessing the store’s two nearest parking places and thus in the span of the 30 or so minutes spent gathering there we had dramatically impeded its sales and thus were in the midst of inflicting great negative impact both upon the proprietor’s livelihood and the phantom patrons’ convenience.

His advice, in so many words, was for us silly cycling second-class ingrate lot hogs to stop being dicks and understand that the world doesn’t revolve around us, because it more appropriately revolves around his and the booze dealer’s sour grapes.

Let’s go to the neverminds, shall we?

Nevermind:

1. That there were plenty of empty parking spaces in the lot.
2. That we obviously would have moved had a driver chosen to park in one of the two in front of the store where we were — but none did.
3. That several of the assembled cyclists had actually patronized the liquor store.
4. That by delaying my opening remarks the idiot was actually keeping us there longer.
5. That the grumblebum made an argument that didn’t at all pertain to him when he showed himself to be a  pedestrian when he walked from me to the corner in order to cross Sunset Boulevard — perhaps to see if there might be an impromptu Alcoholics Anonymous session taking place on the other side of the street at Cafe Tropical.

I wasn’t sure what this jerk’s vested interest was or what motivated the blindside, but  in the interest of not really caring and also not wanting to provoke the assbag into provoking me into getting all foul-mouthed and demonstrative, I basically shooed him on his way with “You are absolutely right, sir. Cars rool. Cyclists drool. Have a great day!”

Then I turned back to my riders, trying to remember what I’d been saying before being so rudely interrupted, and dang if the liquor store’s Sikh proprietor in all his mustachioed, bearded and turbaned glory was standing in the doorway skewering me with a glowering glare as if I had insulted something dear to him.

I tried to ignore the burn of his stare while getting back on track, but I could only withstanding the searing heat for a few moments until I diplomatically offered to the elder not to get his headwrap all in a bunch because we would be on our way in a matter of minutes. The contemptuous codger kept his laser gaze leveled at me for several deathless and silent seconds before finally nodding almost imperceptibly, as if it took every fiber of his arrogant being.

True to my word, I finished up my speechifying shortly thereafter and we were soon on the road away from the assholes of the morning and on to what turned out to be a most awesome 32-mile excursion to South Los Angeles and back. In leaving I did none of the below, but had toyed with letting the owner know that:

1. As an area resident and past patron he’d never have to worry about me buying anything from his store again ever.
2. That I’d be back next Saturday morning to gather riders together in exactly the same place for the Frank Lloyd Wride. And the Saturday after that for the Two Rivers Ride. And the Saturday after that for the Black Dahlia/West Adams Ride. So get the hell used to it.
3. I’d be strongly encouraging that all of my fellow riders set neither a foot or spend nary a nickel there.

Coming home last night from work in the still-light late afternoon I opted to go the “long way” east across Jefferson to pay my annual spring visit to the Exposition Park Rose Garden, then up Figueroa to 2nd to Glendale around Echo Park Lake and home via Sunset.

Everything was awesome, up until I was northbound on Fig approaching 4th and the latest in the endless stream of inbred motorists dickwads — this one in a full-sized silver pick-up — passes less than two feet from me and lays on his horn despite having room to pass me without the honk and also to move to the left.

Here he is in mid-pass from my sunglasses cam, close enough not only to scare the crap out of me with or without the horn, but also close enough for me in the truck’s wake to get a solid whiff of the skunkweed emanating from the closed cab.

In the next frame, you’ll see he’s further up the block, prepping to make a right turn on 4th and either oblivious to or not interested in  my loud and heated invitation for him to stop and let me physically demonstrate my disdain upon his head and ass until he apologized for being a self-entititle cromag with no respect for anyone but his drug dealer.

Now here’s where it gets interesting. In the next frame I’ve arrived at 4th and I’ve wisely decided that the dipshit isn’t worth chasing down, much less the prison time I’d incur from stomping a hole through his stomach. So I stay on Fig and give the truck a dismissive wave and shake of the head as I pass. Trouble is those two fixie riders on the sidewalk you see there? They see me wave and for some stoopid reason they think I’m dissing them.

Of course I don’t know this until I get up between 3rd and 2nd streets and pull off to the side of the road, seething and half-hoping the truck might be coming back onto Figueroa from 3rd. This doesn’t happen, but in short order the two fixies pass me and the second guy makes a deliberate effort to dismissively wave at me and shake his head as he goes by, like so.

At first I’m all WTF, but since I’m not the dimmest bulb on the chandlier I figure they must’ve thought I was insulting them as I passed them at 4th and they were returning the favor. So, when traffic cleared I get in the left lane for my turn on to 2nd and catch up with them at the intersection, where I seek confirmation of my theory. The guy smiles and shrugs when I ask him if they thought I’d been dissing them and so I tell him he’s got it all wrong, that  I had been waving at a truck on 4th that had almost hit me, not them.

Dude didn’t look too convinced and was all “Whatever you say, man.”

I started to launch into a defensive sermon about my love for bikes and how I’d be the last sumbitch on the streetz to behave so ignorantly toward another cyclist, but I could tell it was lost on him so I just went on my way home chuckling at how only in my world can a motorist harass and disrespect me with absolutely no consequences — and in the end I’m left having to placate to some sensitive misinterpreting cyclists all because I elected to do the right thing and avoid confronting the bastard.

Sigh.

From an otherwise awesome 20-mile early Saturday morning bike ride while in San Diego last week, I was reminded for the 26,235th time that there are right and wrong ways to pass a bicyclist.

In this case, both of the following examples of good and evil occured near the end of my ride on 6th Avenue heading up from downtown to Balboa Park for my first look-see at that amazing place.

The white truck in the following photo — bless its driver’s considerate heart — does things the right way in moving by me on my bike.

You can tell the vehicle has moved left enough to semi-straddle the broken white line of the lane divider in order to increase the space between us and thus pass me more safely.

But then there’s the driver of the blue SUV in the following quick video clip, who blasts past me with at most two feet between us and none of the spatial awareness or consideration demonstrated by the driver of the white pick-up:

It is infuriating — moreso because that driver is not the only passtard, I am too. Conditioned from all my years of urban cycling I unconsciously slot myself firmly in the door zone in an effort to minimize any inconvenience I might be to the vehicles coming up behind me. Try as I might to change that ingrained behavior by taking more of the lane, I inevitably end up pulled almost gravitationally back along the doors in the lane, which basically allows such clueless drivers to go by me so dangerously rather than go around me.

Now here’s the thing about my predilection for riding in the door zone — for which I’ve taken some criticism in the past: First and foremost, I don’t do it lazily. Instead, I always aim to substantially minimize the risk of getting doored by being hyper-aware of the parked vehicles ahead of me. Sure it’s a risky place because of those motorists that pass me so poorly on my left and the doors that might get flung open into my path from the right, but I literally clear parked cars that I’m approaching of any driver’s side occupants. If I see anything resembling a person’s silhouette, I move to the left, sound my bell, or both.

Whether motorists pass me this way on purpose or accidentally I’ve gotten better at remembering my contribution to the encounter and excusing those who buzz by me. When this blue SUV did it, sure… I entertained visions of catching up with the vehicle at the next red light and putting my fist against one of its windows, but then I realized we’re both to blame.

Here’s the deal. This morning I’m stopped at Jefferson Boulevard, just west of the 405, kinda at the gateway to Playa Vista, which is Westide Spanish for Why Have The Ballona Wetlands When You Can Build All Sorts Of Shit All Over Them.

Anyway, the light on Jefferson turns red, the light for me turns green, but a westbound MTA bus, still not even in the intersection barrels through after tooting its horn, which from repeated personal experience is becoming pretty much an acceptable way of breaking that law.

Just tap your horn and come on through because that honk or beep is more than just an announcement of your awareness that you’re premeditatedly running the red, it’s a veritable shout-out that you care about those of us in the cross traffic. Seriously, it’s almost as conscientious as you can get, short of — call me crazy: STOPPING.

But nevermind the bus! Because after that monster had long fully cleared the intersection here comes today’s King Of Distracted Drivers — cellphone firmly plastered to right ear just moseying on through like red means go in his world while at the same time of course he’s on the phone, probably an important call like with the AARP trying to explain how he lost his membership card — again!

But enough of me narrating, let’s go to the half-speed no-sound clip taken from my sunglasses cam, beginning from the moment after the bus honks its horn and gets my attention. When the King promenades on by afterward you won’t be able to see his phone, but trust me it’s there. His cell number probably spells out BAS-TARD.

I have this little weekly ritual wherein on my way to work Friday morning’s, I stop at the supermarket nearest my office building, lock my bike up to the rim-wrecker bike rack by its front door, go inside, and purchase a bag of cookies that I then take with me to the office and put in the breakroom for my coworkers to enjoy.

Just something I like doing.

The transaction takes all of three/four minutes from the point of locking the bike to unlocking it and getting on my way, and in the couple months I’ve been doing this 8Ball has never been bothered, in part because most people are decent folk and also because the rack’s in a pretty quiet area of the parking lot/shopping center that doesn’t get a lot of foot traffic.

But then there’s this morning’s three- to four-minute cookie run — proof no good deeds go unpunished — because that interval was apparently plenty of time for some two-bit jerkbag to decide my bike needed fucking with physically and me mentally and did both by unclasping my two handlebar mounted headlights and repositioning them, one pointing backwards and the other at a downward angle… like so:

I noticed this immediately as I exited the store and approached my bike. Knowing that the headlights were in proper position when I left the bike (proof via the following thumbnail still from my sunglasses cam video when I happened to look downward at the properly positioned headlights not a block away from the store), and also knowing there was no way I could have inadvertently done this myself while dismounting, I looked around for any potential culprits, but of course found none because the coward had long scurried away probably to watch me from some shadow giggling like a little bitch. So I checked the rest of the bike to find nothing else amiss while eliminating the possible motives:

1. Did some thief knock the headlights lose while trying to yank the bike out by its stem, only to split when discovering it locked? No. The clasp’s don’t easily come apart, And the position of the bike was unaltered with its rear wheel still seated in the rack. Most thwarted thieves aren’t kind enough to put back what they fail to steal.
2. Were the objects of the thief’s affections the headlights themselves and someone/thing spooked him into aborting the crime mid-heist? Doubt it. If the pustule had managed to unclasp them both, that person certainly could have made off with them, or at least one.

Absent a good burglary scenario, I can only conclude that some phantom menace skewed the headlights intentionally just to screw with me. Whether the intent was to proactively educate me to the vulnerability of my bike’s accessories, or to just be a raging douchemaggot… I’m leaning toward the latter. And hoping — despite the slim chance of it repeating — for the opportunity to catch the perp in or near the act during my next cookie run and thus proactively educate him to the vulnerability of people who fuck with me and my bike.

Couple weeks ago I posted on LA Metblogs about the irony of that “Need Repairs?” sign pictured at right (that I saw on my way to work), screwed there by some brainiac handyman so damagingly — not to mention unlawfully — high up the trunk of a palm tree in Hancock Park. But this wasn’t just any palm tree. It was one of all of those trees on the median of Highland Avenue between Wilshire and Melrose, which collectively make up Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmark No. 94.

I wrote about calling the phone number on the sign, getting the person’s (his name is Jake) voicemail and leaving a message suggesting Mr. Fixit get back over from the 818 at his earliest opportunity and repair what he hath wrought.

He ignored me, as I figured he would. So at the same time I contacted him I also filed a request with the Bureau of Street Services that the sign be removed. They fulfilled my request about a week later.

Oh and I almost forgot! I also googled the gentleman’s phone number and wouldn’t ya know it matched up with a Hollywood-based construction outfit’s website, which in the wake of his noted unwillingness to rectify, made it all the easier to post up a review of his company’s negligent promotional strategy on Yelp:

The proprietor at Hopwood Construction may very well be one of the finest craftsmen around. But unfortunately all that’s known is that he saw fit to promote his business by screwing a sign advertising his services into a Hancock Park palm tree, which is not only unlawful but also damaging to public property.

In addition, he ignored a request to remove the sign, leaving it instead to our taxpayer dollars via the city’s Bureau of Street Services to do so more than a week later.

As said, the level of quality of this person’s work is not something that can be spoken of here, but this sign and his unwillingness to remove it, is something that speaks volumes and such willful negligence should be taken into account if hiring this person becomes a consideration.

Lastly while the sign was removed successfully by Bureau of Street Services personnel, they neglected to extract the seven ( seriously, seven!?) screws that held the sign to the tree, as you can see in the picture at left (click to enlargify). Though I pointed this out in the follow-up call I received advising the sign had been removed, I wasn’t given much hope that personnel would be in a rush to return any time soon and finish the job.

Nothing against the worker who got rid of the sign, but it was enough to bring to mind one of my favorite lines from  the movie Poltergeist: “You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn’t you? You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the head stones. You only moved the head stones!”

So I expect that, while it might take a couple weeks, I’ll load my truck up with a ladder one of these Saturday or Sunday mornings and extract those bodies myself.

Unless of course, Jake beats me to it.

UPDATE (03.25): It crossed my mind that removing those and any other older screws embedded in the trunk might be detrimental to the tree’s health, leaving wounds that could potentially make it susceptible to infestation and disease. So I called the city’s Urban Forestry Division and spoke with a supervisor who advised that the only removals that could pose a threat would be those older foreign objects that the palm’s trunk has actually grown over. He said to leave those alone and just go after the screws and nails that are easily pried or screwed out without doing further damage to the trunk.

You know what the problem is? The problem is that “It Is The Wiser and Better Motorist Who Realizes That Fucking With Me In Any Way Shape Or Form Will Have Its Consequences” is really too big to put on the back of a tee-shirt. And even if it wasn’t, it would get covered up by my backpack.

So instead some people have to learn the hard way, which brings us to today’s incident with the idiot in the white SUV on La Brea.

I start the following clip back aways to show you that the soon-to-be-offending motorist coming past me was obviously lacking basic awareness while we were both southbound on La Brea. Had the driver been even slightly less attention-challenged going by me then something along the lines of “bicyclist!” might have registered and been retained in better preventing the blind and entitled veering into me in an unsafe attempt to change lanes. But of course with a pea brain like the driver’s it didn’t.

As a back-up plan to such a lack of awareness had the driver simply turned and looked first to the right before changing lanes into me chances are good none of what follows would have transpired. But it did.

And then, to leave no shadow of a doubt as to the quality of assbag involved, the driver had to go and honk at me for interfering with the vehicle’s righteousness and forcing an application of the brakes. Now, I can put up with half-asleep lane poachers, but when you sound the horn at me like your fail is my fault? Ah, well… the rest as they say is MeNotPuttingUpWithThatBullShit:

In case the comment from the person I passed at the bus stop got lost in all the street noise, she said “A lotta nerve, huh?” Indeed. Me and the jerk in the Explorer.

And speaking of nerve, if there are any folks with enough of the stuff to think what a big man I am for yelling at a woman, please understand two things: 1) I’m an equal opportunity confronteducationalist and I stopped and turned not knowing or caring if the jackass behind the wheel of the vehicle was male or female.

While the entirely unhurried pedestrian making her way so casually across 4th Street could be accused of acting like she was queen of the road, the ever-entitled motorist who — gasp! — lost a few precious seconds because of her pace proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he is king of the losers by finding it so ridiculously  necessary to sound his horn at her — and after she’s out of his way. Subsequently I saluted His Disgrace, per custom and protocol.