Once upon a time, I was a wannabe, unsuccessful, and then a manqué, racer. I wore jerseys—and sometimes shorts and helmets—that were veritable riots of color.
These days, most of the Lycra bike outfits I see are in carbon-bike hues: stealth black, carbon-neutral gray and the like.
Oh, I miss the good ol’ days!
(Spoiler alert: This is not a bicycling-related post.)
By now, you’ve heard that Tina Turner passed away on Wednesday.
For me and, I imagine, for others, her death is not merely the loss of another famous musical performer. Rather, we feel that we have lost an inspiration and role model, even if our loves and work, and our very identities, are very different from hers.
She is that (and “all of that”) for the same reason she is, for me, part of a pantheon of musical performers that includes Aretha Franklin (whose passing I noted on this blog), Nina Simone and Billie Holiday.
What did they have in common? They sang as if their lives depended on it. I am not talking only about a paycheck, though there is that. Rather, their singing, and their stage presence, were all that stood between them and being subsumed by the circumstances of their lives and what is commonly called “inner turmoil” but, like language that doesn’t fit the prevailing aesthetic, has its own logic and grammar that are necessary to turn the ore of experience (which may be labeled “unusual” by those who don’t understand) to the most hard-won of truths.
What I described in that previous (and, admittedly lengthy) sentence also explains, at least in part, the “sexuality” that was attributed to her performances and her very self. It wasn’t a “come hither” gesture. Instead, it was an assertion: She would not be destroyed by Ike’s abuse, parental abandonment, her sister’s teenage death or anything else.
That is why her answer to Mike Wallace’s presumptuous question does not seem arrogant or conceited.
"I deserve more": In a decades-old "60 Minutes" interview, Tina Turner shows Mike Wallace around her estate in the south of France. She had lived in Europe for over a decade at that point.
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) May 25, 2023
Now, an exchange from the interview is going viral. https://t.co/vKBiJliqrx
Even if I hadn’t known about her backstory—or heard anything besides “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” (which itself made her a compelling performer)—she deserved every damned thing she had at the end. And more.
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| Leonardo di Caprio with Polish model Ela Kawalec |
When it started, journalists, policy-makers and casual observers predicted its rapid demise. They cited problems, including vandalism, theft, software glitches, in other cities’ bike share programs. Some complained about docking stations taking up “their” parking spots or detracting from the aesthetics of their buildings and blocks. Oh, and some drivers were simply hostile to the idea of more bikes and cyclists on the streets.
But, as the saying goes, rumors of the program’s death were wildly exaggerated. Moreover, the blue bikes gained unexpected popularity among people and communities—like the Hasidim—not known for cycling. (An explanation why so many ultra-Orthodox Jews took to them is that many could not keep bikes in their apartments or houses because their large families gave them little space.) And the actual and perceived problems with mass transit—some of which preceded the pandemic—made the bikes and, as they were added to the program, eBikes, real alternatives for commuters.
But now there is a new threat: finances.
Five years ago, Lyft—the ride-share company—bought Citibike operator Motivate. Like other tech companies, Lyft is experiencing changes in its leadership and has laid off a significant portion of its workforce. Nobody knows what the company’s new direction might be.
Even though Citibike is the largest share program, by ridership and revenue, in North America, it’s actually a small part of Lyft’s operations. So it might be one of the first things to go when shareholders demand that the company become “meaner and leaner.”
One way Citibike differs from other share programs (except for those in China) is that it operates with almost no public funding. Therefore, some—including Streetsblog contributor David Meyer—have proposed the city or state allocating money or, possibly, making Citibike part of the MTA, DOT or some other city or state agency. In other words they’re saying Citibike should be a city or state service.
