While it ended very badly indeed, 2024 did have its pleasurable, or at least, memorable, moments. Photos, fuckery and more – this was my best of 2024.
Photos
Early in the year, we had one of those blink and you’ll miss it DC snowstorms, little more than a dusting that rapidly melted but not before I got the dramatic photo of the sunset above. It was one of those lovely off-season moments, too cold for tourists, when it feels like you have the city to yourself. Like most of my photos, it was shot with an iPhone.
I was brought back to reality by January 6th. A dozen insurrectionist supporters from the J6 vigil outside the DC Jail (the Chuds of Freedom Corner) marched in the freezing rain, shouting their demands for freedom for the men who attacked the Capitol.
With my Canon Rebel SL2 (an ancient by digital standards camera), I captured Patricia Eguino aka “The Commish” in full death metal rage. “Traitors!” she yelled as the J6 supporters rallied on Pennsylvania Avenue. Eguino followed the insurrectionist losers as they trudged around the Capitol, heckling them all the way.
Later in the year, I got a photo of another powerful woman who has been a scourge of the right: Anarchy Princess.
After becoming famous for trolling Trump advisor Peter Navarro, she combined activism and reporting as she covered the J6 trials, the Presidential campaign and other events in DC and elsewhere.
I like this portrait of her because she’s set up to livestream and is sitting next to a really interesting work of public art: the Golden Spike by HYBYCOZO in Dupont Circle.
Bad weather makes dramatic photos. After a thunderstorm in July, I rushed down to catch the surreal golden light at the Washington Monument. This was taken with a Canon EOS RP, a mirrorless camera.
There were lots of student-led protests against the war on Gaza this year, including the occupation of the University Yard at George Washington University. One of the most dramatic moments I witnessed was outside the White House Correspondents Dinner, where people protesting genocide confronted members of the media.
DC isn’t all politics. One of the most interesting things I saw all year was Dvorak Dreams at the Kennedy Center, an outdoor video display on massive screens that paired music and flowing imagery,
My ability to quickly get around the city and take photos is only possible due to the bike. I am Red Bike Guy so I used Capital Bikeshare a lot but also spent a lot of time on my Brilliant Cooper, which I like because it uses a belt instead of a chain (no maintenance required).
Fuckery
We love fuckery.
– Anarchy Princess
Trump cultists love to dox people. It’s what the right does.
Doxxing means that they will flood your social channels with threats and try to get you fired from your job. They target not just you, but anyone connected to you, including your family.
The chuds of Freedom Corner threatened to dox my friend Biketifa, an “agitator” who angered them with his mocking posters on a dumpster outside their vigil.
With my help of myself and Anarchy Princess, we decided to get ahead of the story. She interviewed him on YouTube and I wrote a profile in Biketifa Exposed.
Now it can be told: not everything in my article is true. I planted half-truths and lies to send the chuds off-course as they tried to find out his employer and spouse. And it worked! We watched them conspiring on Twitter as they went down rabbit holes in the wrong direction.
As AP stated: We love fuckery. It was not the only bit of misinformation I created to disrupt the insurrectionists. Don’t believe everything you read on the Internet.
And Biketifa turned his trolling into an art exhibit at Artomatic, the massive temporary art show in downtown DC. His posters mocking the chuds went from the side of a dumpster to being framed and sold to collectors.
Early in the year, I wrote a lot about the Take Our Border Back Convoy because it was so much damn fun.
This was quite a con, a convoy that raised money with the aim of putting bodies on the border to stop immigration. Instead, it was a live-streamed farce as a parade of personal vehicles broke traffic laws in multiple states before reaching a compound that was near the Texas border, but not on it. Participants were fleeced of their money and baptized in a horse trough.
And I continued to cover the ongoing failure of Freedom Corner, including how they inadvertently ensure that J6ers get longer sentences, lie about their violent activities, are unable to attract a crowd and continue to get even weirder in their cult-like devotion to Trump.
There was also a moment of justice, as Freedom Corner attendee Steven Girard was found guilty for assaulting Anarchy Princess. This was a fascinating lesson on the use and abuse of the legal system, as Girard delayed proceedings for a year before ultimately being forced into a court room.
How I Became Red Bike Guy
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.
– Steve Jobs
In 2024, I published How I Became Red Bike Guy, a memoir of the Trump years in DC and my fifteen minutes of fame for mocking the Patriot Front.
It was a book that I tried writing multiple ways. During our chaotic times, I had written blog posts, articles and much more – how could I put them together into a book?
Becoming Red Bike Guy gave me the ability to bring these disparate experiences into a coherent narrative. It was what gave those moments meaning.
The experience of watching a Trump mob march down your street on the way to sack the Capitol – that changes you. As does photographing years of demonstrations in the nation’s capital.
My rage at seeing DC attacked on January 6th and the experience of watching the trolling and fuckery of the Freedom Corner chuds made me the person to mock the Patriot Front. Biking, photography, humor – the dots connected. I am Red Bike Guy.
What Is Next?
I won’t make any predictions because I’ve been consistently wrong about well, everything, since 2016. Sadly, I overestimated my country’s commitment to democracy and basic sanity.
Anything is possible.
Contemplating 2025, all I can think is:
