the ALLDERBLOB

“What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?”

Walt Whitman, “Song of myself”

It’s coming up on my 47th birthday and in honour of the occasion I’ve been looking into the diaries I used to keep [“my” birthday? “I”‘ve been looking? Did someone eat a poisonous mushroom? Seriously, what is up? –ed.].

It’s me here, Jacob Allderdice. I write this stuff. I write the ALLDERBLOB. I’ve come to refer to myself in the first-person-plural, as “we.” I started doing it one day, and I liked it. I’ll probably go back to it [Whew. Ain’t that a relief! –ed.].

Walt Whitman once wrote: “(I am large, I contain multitudes),” (parentheses and all). In the same poem he wrote:

I do not say these things for a dollar or to fill up the time while
I wait for a boat,
(It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d.)

I’m with Whitman. We do not say these things for a dollar.

But mostly it’s to disguise myself, here behind my wall. I’m sitting here hurling the flaming lobs, but it’s not just me, right? It’s me and all the people in my boat: the people who can imagine a world without cars, and can see how a moratorium on automobile advertising could be a step in that direction. Anyway, that’s what I tell myself: I am large. I am Blobby.

But I accused Jacob Richler [that daddy’s coattail-riding hack, you mean? –ed.] of something in a recent post, and it rang hollow even as I said it. I wrote

I say it rang “hollow,” not that it rang untrue. Because how often is we hide our loathing of something behind an attack on its apparent opposite? It’s classic behaviour, from homophobes who fear the feminine in themselves, to zenophobes who despise their own mixed backgrounds, to zealots and bigots of all stripes who wish to god someone would just kill them and put them out of their own misery.

Maybe there’s a little of that in me, with my lashing out at automobile advertising. When I jeer at advertisers for being “artists who have nothing to say,” aren’t I secretly patting myself on the back for finally, finally, having something to say myself?

Well, I am.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer, see. And it’s a terrible cliche, but writers all live in mortal fear of the blank page. The cliche that comes back when we wail about having nothing to say is “Write what you know.” Then we all shit ourselves over the question of “what do I know that’s worth saying?”

“Know thyself,” Plato advised.

So writers keep diaries.

From the time I was 13 or so, from 1972 on, I used to write with some regularity in a diary–or “log,” as I called it (because “diaries are for girls”). I logged for about 20 years in a fairly consistent fashion. In 1992 I got married and it’s around then that I quit the habit. Not that I had no more secrets. Not that I had nothing more to complain about. Not that I didn’t still need the “help” keeping a log is said to provide. But writing a diary lost some of its zip, somehow, as I neared age 35.

There are lots of cliches about people who write diaries. One of them is from the Andy Capp comic strip: Mrs Capp remarks to a friend: “Anyone who has time to keep a diary can’t have time to do anything worth writing about.”

The fact is, the woman I was living with, who I subsequently married, had come across a diary I had been keeping, and read enough of it to develop serious doubts about my devotion to her.

Oh, I was devoted, I assured her. I said I’d prove it to her.

We got married. And some time later, after many many arguments, we got divorced.

It’s a bad move to read the diary of someone you think you know.

Take “Travels with Charley,” for example. In it John Steinbeck, the great American novelist, champion of the downtrodden, writes a first-person account of his friendship with a little poodle. Steinbeck reveals himself to be a mean-spirited, conceited, unpleasant little man. You come away wishing you could turn back the clock to your decision to pick up that book. Ugh.

My dad kept a diary in his youth, he told me. He grew up in Montana, on a homestead ranch. He worked as a cowboy on the giant McNamara ranch. He was in the U.S. army during the Korean war. He went to university on the G.I. bill, where he met my mother, who was from a Boston family of Unitarians, her dad a banker and investment counsellor.

It might have been interesting to read my dad’s diaries. Maybe embarrassing, but interesting.

But he threw them out.

Let’s say you’re getting married yourself. Would you throw out your diaries? Do they represent baggage from the past? Isn’t it smarter or safer to jettison them so your balloon will soar? If you believe the mantra of the de-clutterers, any book you haven’t read for two years is dreck. Get rid of it.

So you’re getting married. Your girlfriend is one of those de-clutterers. She’s kept a diary for years, and one day she looks at the stack of them and says, “I’m gonna throw these things out.”

But you’re the one who takes the recycling box to the curb. You see the diaries in the LCBO bag where she puts them. Jesus, you’re thinking, someone could find these. Someone could find them and read them, and someone’s secrets would be there for the world to know.

You’d pick them up, right? You’d be protecting yourself as much as your girlfriend. You’ve got a stake in those books–assuming she’s written about you occasionally during the past five or so years. I mean, you’ve been together all that time. She would have written about your first date, and how she knew from the minute she laid eyes on you, and all that. She’d have written about your fights, and your struggles, and your high points together… Right?

Better fish those books out of the trash.

But take my advice: don’t ever look at them. Never, never.

Today everyone and their cousin keeps a diary, or rather a “log.” It’s no secret that web-logs, or “blogs” as the cool kids call them, are hot. According to Technorati, a new blog is started every second these days. No one calls them “bdiaries,” but not, I don’t think, out of fear that someone will question their masculinity. Hardly anyone calls them a “blob.”

Okay. Okay. Okay.

BIG sigh.

“What’s eating you,” your editor asks [Oh, sorry, was that my cue? Actually, I was napping –ed.].

Like I said, it’s coming up on my birthday, and I’ve been delving into those diaries I used to keep. It’s a big stack. A book a year, at least. There’s what, 25 of them?

You think it’s bad reading someone else’s diaries? Read someone else’s diaries and you’re sure to say, “Ew, gross. Is that really who you are? And I thought I knew you.”

It’s worse when you read your own diaries.

With your own diaries, you have two storylines to follow. You read the junk you wrote about your life, and sometimes it’s interesting, or sad, or funny, or dull. But you have this other line that’s in your head, like an editor tapping his fingers and saying “What a bunch of crap” […um… –ed.]. This other line is the story that you didn’t write. It’s what really happened, that you ignored, or denied, or didn’t notice.

You read your own diaries and what stands out are the half-truths, the self-agrandizing statements, the lies you told yourself in order to get by back then.

And it leads you to wonder: what are the lies you’re telling yourself now? Because you know one thing to be true:

All life long, the same questions, the same answers.

Samuel Beckett

What is it about March 17, you ask?

Also known as St Patrick’s Day, a celebration of the 4th century Christian saint who is said to be responsible for the fact there are no snakes in Ireland, March 17 is henceforth to be christened [ahem–ed.] “ALLDERBLOB day.”

After all, while March 17 is the day St Patrick, the patron saint of engineers and of Nigeria, died, it is also the day the ALLDERBLOB launched its first volley against the parade of car salesmen, whether used or new: and with them the purveyors of car-porn in the international media.

These are today’s snakes. It is they who must be driven from the land (or at least the newspaper).

A Parade Also Known as St Patrick’s takes place in many cities in North America on March 17. In it, people in fancy dress march along the major avenues (Fifth in New York, Michigan in Chicago, etc.). That they march on foot hardly needs stressing [but luckily we have an italic font anyway –ed.].

The ALLDERBLOB parade has yet to be invented, but everybody loves a parade and we must have one. Maybe once the paint dries on the Bloor/Danforth Tooker Gomberg Memorial Bikelane we can hold it there. We will welcome gays and lesbians in ours, of course, unlike the New York St. Patrick’s day parade (odd, isn’t it, that a man dressed in robes, driving snakes before his feet, is acceptable to those homophobes?). Keep in mind that St Patrick is known as “the first to speak out against slavery and in defense of women.” We respect him. We know if he were alive today he would speak out, like the most pious Gov Rounds of S. Dakota, in favour of “the most vulnerable of road users.”

We feel confident St Patrick would willingly share his special day with the ALLDERBLOB.

Now St. Patrick’s day is a national holiday in some parts of the world, notably the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It has certain practices associated with it, such as the wearing of green vestments, the dying green of various watercourses (notable among these the Chicago ship and sanitary canal, and the city fountains in Savanah Georgia). Should we mention that people drink to excess on St Patrick’s day? Green beer anyone? We prefer not to think about the “Irish Car Bomb” (a shot of Baileys and Jameson dropped into a pint of Guinness).

Surely the ALLDERBLOB after a full year of fulmination deserves a holiday too. And could not our most creative minds be put to work devising similar product associations for the new “ALLDERBLOB day”? We imagine a glorious annual bonfire of car porn from the centrefolds of the daily papers, held at the plaza beneath 1 Yonge St. (in Toronto–note that the wind-swept plazas of other newspaper office buildings, in other cities, would eventually deserve their own bonfires as the holiday catches on). Localized bonfires could be held in the parking lots of 7-11s and 9-11s in suburban areas, as the movement grows. A wearing of pants’-clips, in a variety of reflective colours, would signify membership in our rank. A drink, surely to god a drink could be quaffed: We nominate “the Alldergrog:” an appetizing mixture of carrot juice and congealed lamb’s blood, suitably sweetened with honey and topped with grated celeriac, served warm [surely to god not –ed.].

Hmm. Perhaps we shall accept suggestions for some other suitable beverage mixture.

Thank you. The happiest of ALLDERBLOB days to you. It has been an… interesting twelvemonth.

[For Blobby: PRIVATE.

Nobody’s fooled, man. They’re onto you. The whole “we” thing. The trip to Vegas, the papier-mache bike helmet, the canoe paddle you fixed with duct tape. No one actually thinks the Star editorialized in favour of banning car adverts; no one buys it that Governor Rounds of S. Dakota ever spoke up in defence of the most vulnerable road users. Most of us doubt that Guy Giorno ever complained about your version of Royal York Road; most of us quit reading your fancy HTML tips. Give it up, I tells ya! Stick to what you do best: naming the car porn that pays the wages of typists and hacks, removing the mist of uncertainty that clouds the yellowed fringe of the fifth column. The car ad will fall. It has to! It will go the way of the cigarette ad, the gun ad, the booze ad.

Now back at it! And no hard feelings. You can count on me –ed.]

First we had Toronto banning all car advertising placed where children can see it in convenience stores and the like. The Toronto Star wrote a lengthy editorial about it yesterday, and it was reprinted in its entirety on these pages. Not to be outdone, South Dakota Governor Michael Rounds, speaking up on behalf of “the most vulnerable in society” has passed a law banning all private motor vehicles in his state, save where the life of a woman is threatened.

For more, you must read the full article in the New York Times, but here is a snippet:

“In the history of the world, the true test of a civilization is how well people treat the most vulnerable and most helpless in their society,” the governor said. “The sponsors and supporters of this bill believe that abortion is cars are wrong because unborn pedestrians, cyclists and children are the most vulnerable and most helpless persons in our society. I agree with them.”

The ALLDERBLOB applauds this far-thinking and righteous man. Who would have thought the American far right would come out smelling a little less stinky in 2006? What will Rounds do for his next trick? Will he call for a complete and impartial review of the actual events of 9/11?

On the pages of the Toronto Star today were two remarkable editorials, reprinted below in their entirety, without change, amendation or editorial comment on the part of the ALLDERBLOB.

But first, and speaking of editorial comment, some of you may have noted that since our lob to Leah McLaren, we have not had the usual comments from “–ed.” muddying our discourse. We miss “–ed.” but he had to go when he censored–yes, censored and eliminated–our perfectly apt link to a site called the “Poop Report.” For “–ed.,” apparently, it was not enough that the link provided an accurate definition of the word “dingleberry,” which we suggested, if said item could be found on the person of Leah McLaren, one of which would have more zest to it than the writing of said Globe and Mail typist. Humourous, yes, but for “–ed.” the issue was sexism and racism implicit in some of the comments at the linked site. He got rid of the link.

So we got rid of “–ed.” –at least for now. We shall see if he ever comes back.

And now, back to the Star editorials, presented to you unchanged from how they appeared on the page of the Toronto Star today. Remarkable pieces of work what? To think they set them one above the other right on the same page, the same day. To think we ever doubted the Star or accused them of being hypocrites. Star, we apologize.

Read on…

Editorial #1:

Welcome limits on tobacco automobile ads
Mar. 6, 2006.

Children in Ontario will no longer be lured by cigarette car displays when they line up for candy at neighbourhood corner stores starting May 31. That is the day the Smoke Car-Free Ontario Act kicks in, effectively ending tobacco car advertising in all retail stores frequented by children.

Regulations for the new legislation will prohibit tobacco automobile companies from using decorative panels, countertops and behind-the-counter displays car porn magazines, muscle car magazines, or popular car mechanics magazines— a staple in convenience stores — to promote their products. They also limit displays outdoor parking to individual packages of cigarettes hidden and off-site locations and require retailers to ask for identification from anyone trying to buy tobacco products carrying automobile advertising who appears to be less than 25 years old.

These welcome restrictions, made public last Thursday, are just the beginning of the Ontario government’s latest crackdown targeting smoking driving and youth. On May 31, 2008, a total ban on displays of tobacco products automobile advertising will come into effect and retailers will have to hide cigarettes most magazines and newspapers from view.

Getting tobacco automobile products advertising under the counter and out of sight is a bold and necessary move that will go a long way toward preventing children from being sucked into an unhealthy habit and possible addiction.

Several studies, including a 1999 report prepared for former Conservative health minister Elizabeth Witmer by an expert panel on the government’s tobacco car dependency strategy and a survey of primary school students in California in 2001, indicated that display advertising is effective in influencing children, who make up one of the largest groups of consumers of convenience store products and are highly susceptible to impulse buying.

Removing this temptation is an excellent way to prevent young people from even considering picking up a cigarette becoming drivers.

Convenience store owners are obviously concerned about a drop in business once cigarettes car ads, which make up occur in 40 to 60 per cent of their sales, are hidden from view. But they have to realize that adult smokers drivers will not forget where to go to fuel their addiction.

Marketing cigarettes cars alongside candy, gum and chocolate bars sends the message that smoking driving is a good treat, too.

New regulations were also set in place to protect workers from second-hand smoke idling cars. The law includes a ban on smoking idling in enclosed public places and workplaces, prohibits separately ventilated smoking rooms parking lots, but permits lighting up engine idling on roofless patios at bars and restaurants extremely cold and/or hot days.

The Liberal government hopes to see a 20 per cent reduction in tobacco car use by the end of 2007. Smoking Driving is the Number 1 cause of preventable disease and death in this province. It kills 16,000 many thousands of Ontarians a year through cancer, heart disease, emphysema and other illnesses. It kills ’em in crashes, it kills them in batches, it kills ’em in rashes and hatchbacks and ditches. Cars kill people.

Besides being a health hazard, smoking driving makes physical activity difficult and is expensive. Getting rid of advertising that promotes an unhealthy lifestyle and provides no benefits can only be good for our children.

Editorial #2:

Save the gun motor vehicle registry
Mar. 6, 2006.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made no secret of his dislike for the federal gun motor vehicle registry. If it were in his power to dismantle it outright, Harper would surely do so.

But because Harper and the Conservative party lack the parliamentary majority to change the legislation that created the registry, he is seeking a more circuitous path to undermine it and ultimately to render it useless.

In recent days, the Prime Minister has talked of reviewing options, including exempting rifle and shotgun car and SUV owners from having to register their weapons, waiving the $60 fee paid every five years to re-register guns motor vehicles and granting an amnesty for those who have yet to register.

Any or all of the above would ensure the gun motor vehicle registry quickly becomes a toothless tiger.

Such an outcome would be a national tragedy because the registry is at last working as it was originally intended.

True, costs of setting up the controversial program grew at outlandish rates, finally hitting $1 billion.

But now that it is in operation, the registry has become an important crime-fighting tool for police services across the country — and it is more than paying for itself through the fees charged to gun motor vehicle owners.

Among the program’s biggest backers are the Canadian Professional Police Association and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

Since 1998, the registry has assisted police in revoking or turning down requests for 16,000 licences. More than 7 million weapons have been registered and compliance among gun motor vehicle owners is about 90 per cent.

It also reminds gun motor vehicle owners of the requirement to store weapons safely or risk penalties in the event of inspections by law enforcement.

However, if the $60 fee paid by the 1.5 million Canadians who own for each of the 18,878,732 motor vehicles owned in canada guns is waived, the registry would lose $90 million 1,132,723,920 in much-needed revenue to keep it properly funded. And an amnesty program would reward scofflaws and would inevitably lead to a reduction in compliance.

At the same time, it makes no sense to exempt owners of rifles pick-up trucks and other long guns vehicles from registering, while requiring owners of handguns smart cars and automatic weapons transmission cars to do so. All are potentially lethal weapons.

Rather than gut the gun motor vehicle registry, Harper should look past the dogma of Conservative party policy and see the bigger picture of public safety.

Clearly, the gun motor vehicle registry is working. Harper should let it do its job.

Breaking News Dept: Last October, the “Big Three” automakers sold fewer than 50 percent of all cars sold in Canada that month, down from a high of 75% just 10 years ago. The Toronto Globe and Mail business pages trumpeted the news with a headline reading “End of an Era: Big Three are no more.” The Star, which draws more heavily on said auto-makers’ ad budgets for their salaries, toned it down a bit: “Big Three sales dip below 50%–Foreign-based firms win more than half of deals in October–`That has never happened before,’ industry expert says”

That we at the Allderblob wet ourselves with delight goes without saying [okay, then shut up about it. –ed.], but still we held off comment: on the one hand, cars are boring and we grow weary always thinking about them (that we are always thinking about them is an unfortunate fact. As human beings living in North America we are inevitable subjects of automobile hegemony. You can’t walk down the street without thinking about cars. Try it. Just don’t send us your funeral bill).

On the other hand, the “Shrivelled Three,” as they have come to be known, the “Big 2.5,” were sure to react to the shrinkage. They were sure to reach for the steroids and bulk up.

We anticipated a renewed shockwave of advertising, and figured that’s what we’d write about, when it came.

What we didn’t anticipate was such a literal reaction to October’s emaciation proclamation.

This just in: Dateline, Detroit auto show. Chrysler, Ford and GM are back. With “muscles.”

Muscle cars, that is.

It is to laugh.

At a time when mass media are finally granting exposure to the “Toronto Coroner’s Rule,” which says, in effect, “Motor must give way to Muscle” the way on open water “Steam gives way to Sail,” can it be coincidence that the devious car companies are attempting an end run around this rule by bulking up on “muscle cars?”

How did they put it in the Toronto Star the other day?

In fact, a single change to the Highway Traffic Act, as recommended in the Toronto Regional Coroner’s report of 1998 into 11 years of cyclist crashes and fatalities, might have prevented most of the pedestrian and cyclist deaths of the past six years.

This recommendation (number 12 in a list of 19) would have a “law of the sea” imposed on road users, as opposed to the “law of the jungle” that applies today. The law of the sea simply states that in a question of right-of-way on open water, “steam gives way to sail.” This reflects the reality that a motorized vessel has more power and more control, under most circumstances, than a non-motorized one. On land, an analogous law would have motor give way to muscle in any question of right-of-way. Thus, cars would give way to bicycles, while bicycles would give way to pedestrians.

Advertisers take note: a muscle car by any other name is still a car. It is not a pedestrian, and it is not a bicycle. And remember: in Canada, steroids are still frowned upon.

We at the Allderblob follow the advertising “news” with some interest. After all, since our conception in March of this year, it has been our contention that the advertisement of automobiles should be prohibited. We are not holding our breath for this to happen however.

Ban Car Advertising! We make this call on the grounds that while the job of all advertising is to lie, to create a perception of necessity in the would-be consumer, the lie of the automobile advertisement is never justifiable. The automobile is simply too destructive, too evil, too negative a force to be promoted. Advertisements for alcohol, for tobacco, and for firearms, are strictly regulated. Yet compared to the automobile, these products do little harm. Automobile advertising should be banned outright.

While we never anticipated immediate victory in our quest, and while in fact we have little to crow about, as the year draws to a close we feel it is worth describe the world that is unfolding, and to make resolutions for the year to come.

First, a refresher on our methods:

1. The “Lob:” The basic unit of the blob, or weblob. The lob is a challenge issued in the form of a high-flung attack from unexpected quarters. It stands in contrast to the “log,” or weblog, which merely records events. While it is true that the Allderblob can always be expected to attack car advertising in all its forms, what is hoped is that the lob is on target. We dare our targets to take a swing. So far, they have always declined. Pity.

2. The “Gospel of the Car Ad:” this category of lob examines the many claims of the automobile advertisement. You know them: “Cars help you score;” “You need a car if you have children;” “Cars give you freedom;” “Everyone loves cars” etcetera. Every point of the “Gospel of the Car Ad” can be answered with a simple negation: No, Wrong, Not true, Sorry, wrong again. Surprised? Let us explain.

3. “A Question of Urban Design:” in this category we draw upon our expert: a graduate of the Master of Urban Design program at the University of Toronto. The car, of course, has been the driver of all urban design questions from at least the turn of the last century to the present. Every terrible decision made in the public realm, Hannah Arendt and Jane Jacobs notwithstanding, has been made to propitiate the automobile industry. Every victory for good sense and beauty has been won by its opponents. The struggle at every turn is to fight against the tendency of the automobile and its facilitation to infiltrate and take over every point of space and time the world over. With this simple, not to say simplistic filter, we examine trends and movements wherever we see them, especially as they are reflected in the form of automobile advertising.

4. “Unlikely Versions of Reality:” Like the snake says, “Don’t tread on me.” Fact is, the ALLDERBLOB offers no more or less than its own version, whatever the “category” in which it writes. Which bites.

5. “What a Pong!” (exclamation point optional): Here we take inspiration from Shakespeare, who placed the minstrel in opposition to the “reality” of the drama (as the drama lies in opposition to the “real” reality), to offer a parody. Parody, from the Greek, paro-, “outside,” and deos, “to sing:” to sing from outside. And Pong, from the English, pong, or “stink” and poem/song: Thus we stand outside and sing, recite, and to be precise, stink. The pong of the ALLDERBLOB is the stink of the automobile advertisement. And no, we don’t really want to come inside.

6. “Ads of Desperation” (as if there could be any other kind): The motive behind advertising is to sell crap that no one needs. The advertiser merely fills that need. Car ads in particular are always desperate, because not only does no one need a car (a fact that goes mostly unreported), the car is actually destroying the planet. This fact, everyone knows. Thus the car advertisement is always treading a fine line: its very existence is a miracle of the muddle-headed political system: a system that pays lipservice to the evils of “automobile dependency” but fails to connect the dots between that dependency and the advertising industry that promotes it.

Second, a look at our dubious claims for 2005:

1) Against EYE magazine (formerly eye), the Toronto free weekly entertainment guide, we claim victory: not that they quit advertising cars, but at least they stopped putting the vicious things on the opposite page from their two-fisted “environment” writer, Gord Perks. And they finally enabled the use of capital letters in their name.

2) Against General Motors and the other members of the “Big 2.5:” The slide into bankruptcy has begun. Their “red flag” events of the summer of 2005 will soon be followed by the “white flag” events of 2006 (see “Predictions,” below). For the hundreds of thousands of workers who have prostituted themselves to work for these monster corporations, we feel for your loss. Now get a job that doesn’t destroy the environment. And no, we don’t mean “work for Toyota.” They’re going down next (ditto).

3) Against big oil, we claim victory: events in the Gulf of Mexico, while not directly a result of Allderblobbery, can nonetheless be linked to observations made in these pages.

4) Against good taste and decency: we offer the pong, that poem/song that “really stinks.” We feel we have a hit on our hands every time we hold one. Or something that rhymes with “hit,” anyway.

In 2006, we promise to persevere in our striking out against the forces of evil (in the form of the automobile advertisement). We will not stop until we bring the billboards down (literally, if need be). Like our hero, Don Quixote, we hope and believe the winds are changing. With our hero Ignatius J. Reilly, we hope at any rate that the wind will pass.

1) Goodbye GM. What as-yet unseen monster will arise in your stead, we can only imagine: Toyota, for example. We suspect they too will fall in the wake of the Allderblob (and/or peak oil). Will this happen in 2006? That may depend on things out of our control, but we will fight the good fight.

2) More and better Pongs for everyone, and for every purpose. We are taking guitar lessons on a weekly basis. Most likely, you will smell our wrath even before you hear it. Partridge Family, sit down.

3) No more cyclist deaths. Here, we are not joking around. The Allderblob is committed to a world where cyclists are valued as demigods of sustainable transportaition, their way paved with bikelanes, their every move watched with trepidation and caution from the the driver’s seats of the world. We are sick unto aching for the loss of four cyclists in our fair city so far this year (with five days to go we touch wood as we say this), and the many others who were killed or injured by motor traffic the world over. We will fight at every turn for respect for cyclists, for pedestrians, for lovers, and for every other kind of human-powered activity. We are saddened by the latest death of a Toronto cyclist on December 20 2005, as reported here: “Advocacy for Respect for Cyclists” and here: “Crazy biker chick.”

Happy goddamned 2006, everyone.

In Paris as we write, the youth of the suburbs are setting cars on fire and running. They have been doing this for a week. Every night, congregating in the ghettoized banlieus of the city and spreading out to torch some more cars. Why?

In an absurd world, only the absurd makes sense.

Guy Debord, at another conflation of space and time that saw “violence” spreading from the ghettos an ocean away, once wrote:

AUGUST 13 – 16, 1965, the blacks of Los Angeles revolted. An incident between traffic police and pedestrians developed into two days of spontaneous riots. Despite increasing reinforcements, the forces of order were unable to regain control of the streets. By the third day the blacks had armed themselves by looting accessible gun stores, enabling them to fire even on police helicopters. It took thousands of police and soldiers, including an entire infantry division supported by tanks, to confine the riot to the Watts area, and several more days of street fighting to finally bring it under control. Stores were massively plundered and many were burned. Official sources listed 32 dead (including 27 blacks), more than 800 wounded and 3000 arrests.

Reactions from all sides were most revealing: a revolutionary event, by bringing existing problems into the open, provokes its opponents into an unhabitual lucidity. Police Chief William Parker, for example, rejected all the major black organizations’ offers of mediation, correctly asserting: “These rioters don’t have any leaders.” Since the blacks no longer had any leaders, it was the moment of truth for both sides. What did one of those unemployed leaders, NAACP general secretary Roy Wilkins, have to say? He declared that the riot “should be put down with all necessary force.” And Los Angeles Cardinal McIntyre, who protested loudly, did not protest against the violence of the repression, which one might have supposed the most tactful policy at a time when the Roman Church is modernizing its image; he denounced “this premeditated revolt against the rights of one’s neighbor and against respect for law and order,” calling on Catholics to oppose the looting and “this violence without any apparent justification.” And all those who went so far as to recognize the “apparent justifications” of the rage of the Los Angeles blacks (but never their real ones), all the ideologists and “spokesmen” of the vacuous international Left, deplored the irresponsibility, the disorder, the looting (especially the fact that arms and alcohol were the first targets) and the 2000 fires with which the blacks lit up their battle and their ball. But who has defended the Los Angeles rioters in the terms they deserve? We will. Let the economists fret over the $27 million lost, and the city planners sigh over one of their most beautiful supermarkets gone up in smoke, and McIntyre blubber over his slain deputy sheriff. Let the sociologists bemoan the absurdity and intoxication of this rebellion. The role of a revolutionary publication is not only to justify the Los Angeles insurgents, but to help elucidate their perspectives, to explain theoretically the truth for which such practical action expresses the search.

Hack journalists such as those found here (Time Magazine) or here (New York Post) (free registration required) will tell you “Paris is Burning” as a reflection of the alienation and discrimination, the joblessness and hopelessness these second- and third-generation French Muslims face.

We at the ALLDERBLOB see it differently. And with M. Debord, we hold: “The role of a velorutionary [sorry–could you check that? –ed.] publication is not only to justify the … insurgents, but to help elucidate their perspectives, to explain theoretically the truth for which such practical action expresses the search.”

Without further ado then, let us assay to explain theoretically the truth:

The truth is, everybody hates cars. The mistake of France’s angry youth is in thinking that by torching cars they will receive notice for their grievances. Instead, people all across the civilized world are cheering them on. They are wishing the hoodlums will inspire a little local mayhem, heralding a fiery end to the neighbour’s “portable furnace” in the driveway or against the curb next door.

People all across the civilized world are checking their insurance policies for coverage in case of acts of violence, and crossing their fingers that their car will be next: who wouldn’t want an inflated sum of cash in place of the stinking rattletrap heap that seems to cost more to run every day?

They’ve done the math. They know it’s cheaper to take transit, walk, or ride a bike. They need exercise, and would love to “ride a bike to the restaurant instead of drive a car to the gym” (as the well-known fortune cookie fortune has it).

Only trouble is, the alienated youth of Paris aren’t trying to do anyone any favours, and it will slowly dawn on them that nobody cares if they torch cars, for god’s sake. Unfortunately, this will mean an escalation to objects folks actually give a damn about: we’ve already seen this with schools and a garment factory being targetted.

So Folks, it’s up to you: if you want your own car torched, you’re going to have to do it yourself.

An ever-watchful member of the International Bicycle Conspiracy apprised us of the following exchange (found here):

Seems an advertising company in the UK thought they could hire the folks at CIRCA (the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army) to film a TV commercial where the clowns, dressed as chauffer and car owner, fight for the driver’s seat of a new Citroen [rhymes with “pitted groin,” from the PONG of the same name–ed.].

Standard stuff of clowns, would be very funny, etc. Can you see it?

But wait a minute. Who or what is CIRCA? What is the “Clown Army”?

We saw them on the front page of the newspaper not long ago battling for attention at the G-8 summit in Edinburgh. They’re not the hired clowns you’re looking for, Lucy. In fact, we rather think you’ve missed the point.

The Clown Army response (from one “Kolonel Klepto” [shurely not the Klepto of Suharto regime fame–no, that’s Colonel with a “C”–ed.]) to the ad agency’s request is so stunningly beautiful we reproduce it below in full.

dear lucy

thank you for your wonderful offer to get us to help promote the motor car —

we at circa are so excited–you see clowns love cars–especially little ones which we can all squeeze into and then fall out of–again and again–normally our cars are made of badly painted cardboard that falls apart in the rain…..

But you seem to be wanting us to help sell beautiful shiny metal cars ooohhh ahhhhh —big hard ones that drive very fast and need special tarmac roads ( rather than circus rings).

So exciting–so glamorous these beautiful stylish cars that run children over splitting their skulls, or breaking their spines in two!

Are we really going to help sell Big BIG important sexy cars that hit other cars and bicycles and cause huge bloody accidents with guts and brains splattered in very un-clownlike ways across the tarmac?

We are always surprised at CIRCA that despite the fact that cars kill over a million people every year, they are not seen as terrorising our communities like those horrible people that you see on the TV all the time with planes and rucksacks as weapons!

We are also always perturbed at the fact that cars are still promoted by lovely “arty” advertisers as desirable and fashionable objects –despite the fact that they are major contributors to global warming which (as we are seeing with the hurricanes, heat waves and floods) is going to kill and destroy more and more things every year–even our lovely government has claimed (and never acted on) that global warming is “a greater global threat than terrorism.”

But maybe you like droughts and deserts and watching the flood waters rise and maybe you think these are beautiful things, dramatic and powerful images of modernity— just like the cars you work so so so hard to sell to people who are mostly in debt and can’t even afford them.

Maybe it’s the fact that cars need so much oil that you like–that glistening shiny black stuff, all slippery and sexy and sensual, that gushes out of the ground like a huge explosive orgasmic torrent… to us clowns it reminds us of those wonderful cream pie fights all dripping and gooieeeee — it’s just such a shame that with oil comes more pollution, indigenous people getting cancer, jungles turned to toxic waste, lots of lakes dying and river and sea life disappearing and of course oil’s favourite partner in crime WAR !!

It’s such a shame that those lovely American soldiers killed 140,000 people in Iraq and still can’t get the oil (they went for in the first place) flowing faster than the blood.

OH dear what are we going to put in our nice shiny cars with less and less oil around….

Maybe its just that you hate local shops and want more and more malls and out of town supermarkets to ravage our countryside all especially designed for the great car economy (we clowns despite our big shoes spend most of our time walking and on bicycles, which are so energy efficient and a lot more sexy than those silly death machines that will one day be laughed at by history for being the most ridiculous way to go from a to b and the most destructive bits of metal every invented ( apart from missiles and bullets of course which do tend to be friendly with cars as they more often than not are involved in oil wars !) ).

Maybe, lucy, this is all a joke and you really do care about the future of the planet and our (or maybe even your) children ( I hope they don’t have asthma–another lovely gift that cars bring them).

Once upon a time there was the slave trade; many people refused to work for companies that supported it. They believed that human rights were more important than profit and they realised that to work for what is wrong is wrong and to support violence is not a nice thing at all..

Please think about all this. Please go home tonight and do some research into the effect of cars and oil on our lives and please look in the mirror in the morning–look deep into your eyes (eye contact is key for clowning) and try to say to yourself: “I’m doing the right thing…”

Dear lucy–thanks for the offer but we would never help promote such a stupid thing–we love to be stupid but our stupidity is based on dignity and love and a deep respect for human beings and the planet; unfortunately being part of the advertising industry does not seem to match up to our desires.

yours, kolonel Klepto

Anyone heard of Ayn Rand?

She’s the author of a few books out there, notable among them one called The Fountainhead, which suggests that architecture is the last noble profession, the sole remaining testament (emphasis on testament) to man’s claim to godliness. She was a lover of Frank Wright [er, shouldn’t that be Frank Lloyd Wright? –ed.] She also purportedly wrote a collection of essays called The Virtue of Selfishness which states, according to my sources [wake up, people, he’s trusting Google again! –ed.] “self-interest, properly understood, is the standard of morality and selflessness is the deepest immorality. ”

Thing is, what is it to be selfish?

Is it selfish to ride a bike everywhere, taking advantage of one’s freedom to roll to cruise through green lights and places where you have the right-of-way as carefully as you do through red lights and stopsigns?

Guilty!

Is it selfish to use public transit when you feel like it, when the weather’s bad or when you need to travel with friends who don’t have a bike?

Guilty!

Is it selfish to rent a car when you want one, taking advantage of the proximity of rental agencies and the ridiculous subsidies given to car infrastructure in North America?

Guilty!

It’s getting to us, this “guilty” feeling, even knowing Ayn (may we call you Aynie?) backs us up with her formidable charms [you mean intellect, right? –ed.]

Shouldn’t we do our part and buy a car? After all, the major automobile industries are taking such a hit. Word is Wagoner of GM (that genetically modified car company) may not get as big a bonus this year as he’s used to, thanks in part to the chronic “junk bond” status of the company he runs. Shouldn’t we who have the means all run out and “buy” a car? Of course by “buy” we mean a no-money-down four-year loan from the finance company run by the automobile manufacturer (the only part of many of them actually to operate in the black). By conservative standards, we who don’t own a car save $8,000 to 12,000 per year by our act of parsimony. Isn’t it pretty selfish of us to keep our money in our pocket?

Luckily, like that second-greatest American architect Frank Wright, we have Aynie on side.