An Addendum

Directions on the ticket say that to plead “not guilty” you need to mail the ticket and your plea within 48 hours. But there’s no mailing address on the ticket. There is no phone number on the ticket to ask about a mailing address. The other way to plead not guilty (or guilty for that matter) is to “appear in person or by counsel on the date and time set for appearance at the Court and location specified on the face of this Summons.” The “court location” space on the face of the summons is blank; there is NO court location on the ticket. In sum: the ticket tells you what to do but NOT how to do it. It doesn’t even tell you where to find that information.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon digging around the NYPD and Brooklyn court websites.

Good. Lord.

I haven’t been to such a poorly maintained and designed website since, like, 1998. The phone numbers listed were either unanswered (by human or machine) or straight-up disconnected. The links that supposedly lead to the info I needed were all broken. But damned if they don’t have their own podcast.

Now, I didn’t go to no durn Ivy league school or nothin’, but I think I’m a reasonably intelligent guy. If I can’t figure this out, I don’t see how your average thug or petty criminal could…I mean, if they were so inclined.

And of course, if you fail to answer the summons, you get a warrant. One gets the impression they WANT people to screw up.

Lastly, I present to you, Dear Reader, more evidence that the NYPD apparently has it in for bikes and bikers…
…and a nice little film of the incident to boot.

bunk (bŭngk)
adj. –
1. Redonkulous nonsense; utter rubbish
2. something totally stupid, not cool, or “retarded”

The NYPD writing tickets to polite, conscientious bikers is bunk.

[Origin: 1895–1900, Americanism; short for bunkum]
SEE ALSO: whack, complete bullshit

Last Friday I moved to my new apartment in Prospect Heights. After spending the whole day loading and unloading, I had to return the u-haul back to the rental place out in Bushwick. I took my bike with me (my old one from back home that I just shipped up here—my previous one on extended loan from a friend was recently stolen); there isn’t a good subway route between my old and new neighborhoods.

I had just left the rental station and was cruising down Bushwick Ave when an ambulance came up the street. Cars nudged toward the curb to let it through, effectively pinning me between the moving traffic and parked cars. I managed to hop the curb onto the sidewalk for 20 feet or so until the end of the block, at which point the ambulance passed and I popped back into the street.

A moment later I heard a new siren coming from behind me. Cop cars are squawking all the time in Brooklyn–especially in my old neighborhood–so I didn’t think anything of it until the car pulled next to me and an angry female cop rolled down her window, glaring at me and slowly panning her head from side to side. I pulled over, or whatever the bike equivalent of that is–stopping I suppose.

“Can I see your ID?”

Not wanting to be evasive I replied, “Yes, of course, but is anything wrong?”

“You know why I’m stopping you, don’t you?” She stepped out of the car followed by two younger guy cops. One of them started, “You from around here?”

They explained that biking on the sidewalk (not something I typically do) is illegal in New York. I asked if they had seen the ambulance that just passed and explained my reason for curb-hopping. The cops looked at each other for a moment.

“I’ll need to see some ID.”

While the head cop ran my ID, the two others stood awkwardly with me in silence, until one of them offered out of the blue:

“I can tell you’re a good guy. So if I can offer some advice: just take care of this in the next couple weeks and tell the judge what you told us. Don’t forget to take care of it or it turns into a warrant.”

“Wait… So you ARE giving me a ticket then? Can I ask why? What about the ambulance?”

“Yeah, y’know this isn’t like the biggest crime going on here. They’ve got us out here doing this…”

“With all respect, sir, can I ask what else I should have done instead? An ambulance was coming and I was pinned in traffic.”

Before he could answer me, the female cop came back with my ID and a pink slip of paper.

“Just tell the judge we didn’t see you until after the ambulance passed and he’ll probably dismiss it.”

SO WHY GIVE ME THE TICKET?!

They got back the car and pulled away.

Okay, so getting any ticket sucks. Even if I can have it dismissed, it’s a pain in the ass and dealing with it is going to eat up my time. And it would be one thing if they were stubborn and stuck to their guns (so to speak) about “rules being rules,” but for them to also openly admit what they were doing really wasn’t fair and didn’t make much sense…that’s just bunk.

Eureka!

I’m in the process of packing up my room to move next Friday. All the dust from cleaning was making me miserable, until I discovered a surefire cure for my allergies: ice cream and cheap beer.

Yes!

Fruit

Every now and then while grocery shopping, I’ll develop a sudden lust for fruit. Last week it was pineapple (which is technically NOT a fruit). This week it’s mangoes. But when I get home, mouth watering for its sweet mangoey flesh, I forget how to properly cut one. And I get impatient. I give it a go as a hand-fruit, but it doesn’t really work that well. So I rip off the skin and tear into it in a way that might be described as carnal. I scrape the pit with my teeth, my face is covered with juice. But after tidying up, my teeth are clogged with the stringy fibres that a friend of mine called “mango pubes.”

A quick Google search for “mango pubes” reveals this image, which pretty much nails it.

Except for maybe the cancerous part. Eh.

From Wikipedia: “fruit is the ripened ovary…of a flowering plant.”

Mmmhmm.

Enrolling the Best and the Brightest

I’ve been meaning to post this story for a few days now:

I was browsing the New York Craigslist job listings when my phone vibrated. UNKNOWN CALL flashed in backlit LCD. Those of you who know me know that I’ve gotten into the regrettable habit of screening my phone calls. For the past few days the UNKNOWN CALLer had been calling me at 9:12, 9:15, and now at 9:17 pm. Fuck it, I thought and flipped open the phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh. Ah. Hello!,” Unknown Caller hesitated. “Is this… {pause} Brendan Baker?”

“Yup. And who’s this?” I think I’ve become less patient since moving to New York.

“I’m calling for the Grinnell Phone-a-thon,” he said (I probably groaned out loud). “Do you know what that is?” the voice asked with renewed confidence.

Oh, yes, I knew. The question was almost patronizing, really, like The Mob “asking” for a “favor.” Of course I knew. This was about to become a kabuki dance.

“Yes,” I assured him, “Unfortunately I’m not really in a position to donate anything right now, sorry. But good lu–”

“Well, there’s another reason I’m calling. I’d like to just verify some information.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We currently don’t have any information about your place of employment. The form on your file is blank…”

“Ah. Well, you see that’s precisely why I’m not in a position to give anything at the moment, if you catch my drift.”

“Oh, I understand.” There was another pause. “So if you could just tell me your place of employment: where you work.”

“Um. Well…I don’t have a place of employment. In fact, you might say I am un-employed.” Thanks for rubbing it in, kid.

“Oh. Okay. But if you just tell me what do you do?”

“Well, I’m looking for… Just say I’m a ‘freelance public radio producer.’ That’s basically the same thing.”

“Oh, really?” he prodded enthusiastically. “That’s so cool! That’s what I want to do some day!”

“You don’t say?” I was skeptic: this was a tactic to butter me up to give money I don’t have. I asked if he had a show on “K-dick”, the colloquial term for Grinnell College’s station, KDIC 88.5 FM.

“Kay what? I mean, I just want to be freelance.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“Oh. You know. Just not, like, in an office. Just—you know, freelance.”

“But doing what? What is it that you want to do?”

“I dunno. Banking. So, I can put you down as ‘Radio Freelancer’ then?”

“Public radio. Yeah, sure. Go for it,” I responded sarcastically.

Then I started to feel bad. The kid on the other end was probably a Grinnell freshman, and he was just doing the job he had been assigned as part of his work-study package. Just like I worked in the dining hall washing students’ uneaten food down a garbage disposal my first year at Grinnell. I knew he was calling–along with a row of other students on phones–from a windowless basement in the bowels between Main Hall and Mears Cottage, right next to the dingy equipment closet where we stored all the concert PA equipment. After work, he probably had a couple hours of reading and an 8:00 am tutorial the next morning.

“I just finished an internship at WNYC, New York public radio,” I explained. “I’m freelancing A story for the show I used to work on, but that’s it. By which I mean, I am not employed at present; I’m trying to figure out what’s next.”

“Oh, really? That’s so cool! ” This guy was resilient. “I have just a couple more questions. Is this the phone number we can reach you at?”

I don’t really give out my cell number, and don’t know how Grinnell’s Phone-a-thon ever got it. (Unless they took it off of grinnellplans.com, in which case that just royally sucks.)

“Great! And your same address too?”

I was done this call. “Yup.”

“Oh. Minneapolis is really cool! Okay, thanks. Have a good night.”

“Will do!”