‘nother Alley Cat

Recently I’ve been pining for the vintage vehicle of my college youth…a 3-speed bike. I see no need for 24 speeds, and every bike I ever bought my kids constantly had problems with the derailleur. So I’ve been browsing online to check out 3-speed commuter bikes (not easy to find!). My search took me to the site of the Oak Cliff Bicycle Company where I was horrified to find the following flyer for a local bicycle race next weekend.

This flyer is so repulsive to me on so many levels, I don’t know where to start. First, I left a comment on the bike shop’s site, telling them how offensive I found the poster…and the very concept of the race. I added that I assume that the folks behind the race and poster did not live through that terrible time. The site owner responded: “No they did not. We’re sorry, we honestly do not want to offend anyone but I’m also not going to censor their Flyer.”

In my mind, this poster is a symbol of so much that is wrong with our society. It is a reflection of how so many people, especially those of Gens X and Y, have become numb to images of graphic violence. From video games to movies, these young people have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of scenes of exploding brains, steaming entrails, and other gratuitous gore. It also expresses that desire to shock people’s sensibilities, just for the sake of being shocking.

In this age of the 24 hour news cycle, when cable news devotes a whole afternoon to live coverage of the Balloon Boy hoax, these folks can’t imagine the depth of a nation’s despair during the week of November 22, 1963. I remember that, after the assassination and into my high school years, when that ominous voice broke into a TV program and intoned, “We interrupt this program to bring you a special announcement,” my heart leapt into my throat, and I braced myself for some bit of devastating news. I was in sixth grade in 1963, and to me the assassination marked the end of innocence, the end of childhood as I knew it. I watched as the caisson moved down Pennsylvania Avenue, and the drumbeat and the clopping of the horses’ hooves was the soundtrack of grief. After seeing the widow in the blood-stained pink dress, or watching a little boy on his third birthday saluting his father’s coffin, it is impossible to understand how anyone could make that poster for the JFK Assassination Bike Race.

Maybe I should give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the people behind this race and poster aren’t cruel or sadistic. Maybe they are just ignorant. Maybe all they know about the JFK assassination is what they learned in high school history class, which probably amounted to answering a couple of multiple choice questions about the presidency of Pres. Kennedy. Perhaps this video will give them an inkling, just an inkling, of the scope of the nation’s grief.

Galen,
All I can start off by saying is wow . Your attack on a bicycle shop for putting up a flyer is amazing . Let me start by saying that this is not the ocbc’s race it is a race that I have thrown for the past few years. It is as a favor to me that they are displaying the flyer as friends and fellow cyclists. I think it is impressive that they have not buckled to pressure from people like you and are still displaying it for me .So to clarify this has nothing to do with them.
You have stated how there is much wrong with genx/y but let me start this off with this quote
“I shouted out
“Who killed the Kennedys?”
When after all
It was you and me”
Not my generation yours !As for numbness to gore and violence on tv I think most of that started with your televising of Ruby shooting Oswald. In fact I bet that most tv networks and movie studios are not quite run by gen x or y and would still be controlled by “boomers” in seats of power , so I suppose once again it’s your generation spoon feeding us what we see .As for being shocking eliciting a response why not ,are we not supposed to feel emotions that might actually cause us to scratch our heads and think (like it or not this is now an intelligent conversation)?I have never said that the assassinating of anyone is good , I am not pro murder I am not numb to violence I am throwing a themed race.
In 1963 I was not alive but my mother was ,in fat it was her birthday In all honesty she is a large reason I throw this race (it is also one of my best friends birthdays as well)so maybe I did not have the opportunity to witness it first hand but I have heard told from my mothers mouth just like your story of being in school how it affected her life. Maybe this is where I mention another tragedy , a tragedy that you have already used as an analogy for your defense , but yes seeing two building crumble on the eleventh of september live on tv had to be pretty close to your loss of innocence pretty close to an inkling of country felt grief, that is just an inkling!
Now to call me ignorant because I am throwing a themed race about something you find offensive is offensive! I have put so much research into the events of that day that go well beyond filling in a circle on a scantron..I have had talks with city archivists , done research ,interviewed people. I can tell you where the carousel room used to be downtown ,what type of rifle Oswald supposedly used ,what the record stores name was that Tippet was shot at,So please you can call me a monster or sadist or whatever you like that is your opinion. And as a liberal democrat that you state you are you can choose not for censorship but avoidance. If you do not like something do not participate in it.
I also feel that you seem to have missed a very large part of subculture I grew up with, from listening to the stones and throughout music the assassination is a constant theme maybe its to keep people remembering during the days of a Reagan economy or through two Bush Presidents , hell I would hate to see the letter you are going to write after I clue you in on the fact that one of our local roller derby leagues is called “assassination City” and all kennedy themed. Maybe you have not been on the streets of downtown five days a week for the last seven years seeing people hustle tourists with assassination propaganda,have not enjoyed smores and cheap beer at Lee Harvey’s in south Dallas,you probably didn’t go dancing at the Ruby Room either. Your self righteous attack on me and my friends seems to be a day late and a buck short . Dallas has embraced its Kennedy couture,its good and its bad. I am just one person in a long list.
Alain
P.S. keep a lookout in may for my Bonnie and Clyde race it’s a killer !

bla bla bla

One of my good friends had a saying for all you bitter people.

“Fuck-em if they can take a joke”

Momgag, you were not the target audience, nor can you even ride a bike if what you say on your blog is true; and you are not just milking workerscomp, insurance or some such thing.

Trying to get the bikeshop to pull the poster – Failed Attempt (props to OCBC for not pulling the poster),

Contacting the news channels to try to get their intervention – Failed attempt

Then on top of it all calling the parks and rec’s and lying to them about the size of the event – or even the correct type of event. I’ll quote the person from Parks… “We were called and told that there was a race with 250 or more people here with out a permit.” At this point we laughed and explained – Failed btw no intervention.

This event went off with out a hitch, sure 3 news channels showed up with Parks and Rec’s, they stood to the side and wondered why they were even called out for this event.

They laughed and joked with the riders, talked to the event organizer, basically had a good time in the park. You see.. it’s not their job to stop events due to you being offended.

So for all your attempts to ruin someone elses fun.. you failed. I’ve heard this story before.. “The Grinch who stole Christmas”