Working on Our Night Moves: I Don't Need Society

Every so often, an artist comes along who changes his or her respective medium forever. In painting, Pablo Picasso showed the world that you could charge millions of dollars for pictures of colorful cubes that sort of look like stuff. In music, Charlie Parker invented "bebop," thereby creating the "Hipster 1.0." And in modern dance, Pee-Wee Herman's "Tequila" had a greater transformative impact on the artform than the work of Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshinkov, Bill T. Jones, and Alvin Ailey combined.

Now, the relatively new artform of the fixed-gear video has had its own cubism/bebop/"Tequila" moment, for a reader recently alerted me to "The Masked Night Rider" and it's abundantly clear to me that the world of not coasting in tight pants will never be the same again:



The phrase "game changer" gets bandied about a bit too cavalierly these days, but if any film ever warranted its use this is it. In fact, "game changer" is an understatement, as this takes a quiet game of golf and changes it into some sort of intergalactic LSD space hockey, only the players are society and the puck is your mind. Like most truly great art, it will probably be years before the masses are "hip" to its greatness, and in the meantime it will only be appreciated by a discerning few. Also, like all great cinema, "The Masked Night Rider" is rife with symbolism. Indeed, to address this film's significance within the confines of a single blog post is to do the artist a grave disservice, but pending completion of my dissertation on this magnum faux-pus it will have to suffice.

"The Masked Night Rider" opens with a close-up shot of the protagonist:

You don't have to have gone to a top-notch liberal arts school [read: young adult sleep-away camp] like Bard College to know that any time you see a skinny white person with long hair and a beard, he's supposed to be Jesus. Here, our Jesus is sobbing, most likely because he bears the suffering of all humankind, or possibly because he is afflicted with a severe case of beard lice.

In order to alleviate this suffering (or painful beard lice-induced itching), Jesus turns to the pipe:

The filmmakers are deliberately ambiguous about what Jesus is smoking here. Is it marijuana? PCP? Crack? Some sort of homeopathic beard lice remedy that involves smoking dead beard lice? In any case, we don't know, and we don't need to know, for the pipe represents the moment of doubt on the cross when Jesus cried, "My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?"

It is at this moment that the film turns the Judeo-Christian ethos on its ear, for instead of embracing his fate our Jesus rejects it. Instead, he dons a mask, thereby paradoxically revealing himself to be the Anti-Christ:

The Anti-Christ then whips out his iPod and cues up some shitty music:

He is all Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse astride a "fixie" steed, and he engages in a pretend gunfight with a hypocritical "society," embodied by the twinkly lights of a distant city:

Immediately afterwards, he masturbates on a tree, which is a commentary on the cultural stereotype of the tree-hugging (or in this case tree-copulating) cyclist:

Then he has a "hipster" slapfight with a bunch of other hipsters, including Jack White from the White Stripes:

These "hipsters" also represent society, against which he rebels relentlessly but from which he is ultimately and tragically unable to totally disengage. This final message may be the key to the film's greatness--unwilling to pander to its audience, it is unafraid to confront the crushing power of conformity and a society so tenacious that even our "fixies" cannot free us from it.

Or, if you prefer, the guy in the mask is "tripping balls" at this point, and he's hallucinating having a fight with his beard lice.

Meanwhile, speaking of scathing commentary, a commenter on yesterday's post did not appreciate my treatment of Australia:

Samuel said...

bit too rough on australia for my liking. at least they have genuine political choice including at least one socially progressive party, unlike two-party state USA

October 19, 2010 4:46 AM

I thought it was clear that I wasn't making fun of Australia's government so much as I was making fun of my own ignorance concerning Australia's government--of which, not having gone to a fine institution of higher education such as Bard College, I am totally ignorant. In any case, I apologize to Samuel as well as to the good people of Australia, and in particular to their prime minister, Mick Dundee:

As well as his lovely First Lady, Yahoo Serious:

I understand that when those naked hot-tubbing shots of Ms. Serious surfaced it was the biggest political scandal to hit Australia since Peter Garrett finally admitted that whole rash of bed burnings was actually a hoax.

Also, in that very same post I suggested that an artfully-"curated" Australian cockpit may have been a kangaroo-shooer, and an Australian confirms that this is entirely possible, since the cockpit in question looks not unlike an acutal product called the "ShuRoo:"

Apparently, if you're Australian and you don't have a ShuRoo, you hate your family:

Would you do anything to protect your family?

Why take the chance of potential injury to your family or being stranded with a damaged vehicle? ShuRoo has been helping protect motorists from wildlife hits since 1986. The unique signal emitted by ShuRoo cannot be heard by humans, but to wildlife it’s as loud as a police siren. By taking advantage of their high frequency danger alert system in this way, ShuRoo warns animals of your approach and helps prevent a collision that could potentially harm you, your passengers and your vehicle. Not only does ShuRoo protect you and your family, it also protects our wildlife.

As for those ultra-high frequency siren-like sounds emitted by the ShuRoo, you can sample them here.

If you heard any of that, you may be a kangaroo, and if you actually liked it you're probably smoking the psychedelic beard lice.

But kangaroos aren't the only danger Australians must confront on a regular basis. They must also contend with entire schools of "bike salmon," as shown in this "alleycat" video which was forwarded to me by another reader:



It's remarkable how charmingly archaic this video looks after the avant garde brilliance that is "The Masked Night Rider." Just some of its quainter elements include the ultra-narrow bars despite the wide streets and apparent lack of traffic:

The checkpoint attendant with the popped collar;

Gratuitous and pointless "salmoning:"

And, of course, showing off your skidding technique the moment a camera is pointed at you:

(Triple "douche-clamation" point.)

All of this is flimsily tied together by the score, which consists of the dated, prefab major label rebellion of Rage Against The Machine. Clearly, a truly "vintage" soundtrack like this would have been far more appropriate.

Indeed, so far-reaching is the "shock of the new" caused by "The Masked Night Rider" that other member of the "fixerati" clearly feel threatened. For example, Stelvio/SUV motorpace guy has, in a clear act of desperation, released "behind the scenes" photos to make his own production seem more impressive:

Apparently you need a wardrobe department and access to a motor pool in order to use a fixed-gear bicycle, and among the "fixerati" taking simple ride is now more logistically difficult than helping somebody move. It's sort of hard to blame them, though, since people seem increasingly compelled to complicate even the simplest ride. Consider quarterback Tom Brady, who another reader informs me has been taken to task for not wearing a helmet while taking a leisurely bike ride with his wife and son:

Sure, wearing a helmet is a good idea, but something tells me that with little Jack on the scooter dictating the pace at the front of the peloton and a supermodel bringing up the rear that things aren't all that likely to get out of hand. Unless Jack's been watching too many Australian alleycat videos, I think his father's knit hat should offer more than enough protection for this ride, and it's sort of sad that Brady is getting a hard time for riding a bike with his son while his fellow football players are getting pulled over drunk in their Land Rovers. Thanks to society, we now live in a country in which it's considered crazy to get anywhere near a bicycle without donning body armor. I'm surprised he's not getting crap for riding without a ShuRoo as well.

No wonder "The Masked Night Rider" is so upset.

Posted in: bicycles in popular culture,fixed gear