How do you sum up a year? Looking back at 2023, these are my highlights.
The year began with Georgetown Glow, an annual show of light art in Washington, DC. This piece along the Potomac was a good reminder of how ephemeral our lives are. Time is running out for all of us.
Later that month, I was in the right spot at the right time to capture the perfect photo of a chud facing justice.
This wasn’t luck. I knew who this strange character was: Ron J Spike, a “rapper” associated with the Freedom Corner January 6th cult outside the DC Jail. I saw him causing problems at the Women’s March and figured that he was dumb enough to get himself in trouble. He slapped at a woman and was detained.
March brought the cherry blossoms again. I read an article about this persevering cherry blossom tree and visited a couple times before I made this photo.
The Rage Against the War Machine Rally brought together many surreal sights, including seeing Code Pink collaborate with the Proud Boys against aid for Ukraine. But what was most shocking for me was seeing Communist emblems in the heart of Washington. I thought we won the Cold War?
The mountains of North Carolina are my happy place. Visiting in April, I got to experience multiple seasons as I went up and down elevations. Spring had just begun in Waynesville when I arrived.
This was the year I became Red Bike Guy. If I knew I was going to be on TV, I would’ve dressed better, lol. Everyone should be famous for fifteen minutes just to feel what it’s like. It was thrilling, gratifying and overwhelming all at once.
Right after I became famous, I went to the Sunshine State for a family event, where I was blissfully unrecognized. Florida is a different kind of place, where free-range roosters are not unusual.
Back in DC, I went to one of my favorite events of the year: Exposed DC. This annual photography show features views of DC that you won’t see in any tourist brochure. I’ve had photos in the show before. In 2023, the photos were displayed in a Mount Pleasant alley.
And then came the highlight of the year for me: biking across the Netherlands! Four friends, five bikes, six days and countless adventures as we biked from Amsterdam to Bruges. A life-changing journey that taught me that a better world was possible, one in which the auto doesn’t reign supreme. If you want to see what heaven looks like, visit the Netherlands.
I wasn’t the only troll who went famous in 2023. Anarchy Princess did too, after triggering Peter Navarro with a sign reading, “Trump lost (and you know it).” It was surreal to see her blast off on the same rocket I did. She deserves all the fame and accolades for harassing the fascist 1776RM and Freedom Corner movements.
Anarchy Princess became a meme and then her words became chalktifa outside the Federal Court House, part of the trolling shenanigans in DC.
Open Streets Georgia Av is one of those beautiful urban events that sadly only occurs a few hours a year. In Europe, the streets would be closed to cars but open to people all the time. Georgia Avenue was transformed as people of all ages got to enjoy the street (briefly) before it reverted to a traffic sewer.
Beyond Granite was a wild series of art installations that livened up the august spaces of the National Mall. The Soil You See… by Wendy Red Star is a monumental fingerprint with the names of the Apsáalooke (Crow) nation chiefs who signed treaties with the U.S. government, in dialogue with the nearby 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial.
The photo is blurry but trust me: I yelled at Trump. Less than a hundred feet away and he definitely heard me. After seeing his mob trash my city, this was a moment that I can only describe as cathartic.
Not a good sign for the environment, but this year featured some incredible sunsets.
No one does Halloween like the people of Capitol Hill. Hats on the Hill featured black hats hanging from wires as if they were floating in air.
The workers of the Washington Post went on a one-day strike for better pay and benefits. Sadly, Jeff Bezos continues to gut the paper as writers and columnists take buyouts and leave.
The best Christmas tree in Washington is not at the White House or the Capitol, but at the Canadian Embassy.
The year ended as it began, with Georgetown Glow. Is this a preview of what is to come? Taking Heads by Viktor Vicsek highlights how we’ve invested too much in our machines and not enough in people. Now, they threaten to overtake us, and replace us with a world of ones and zeroes, with a few billionaires at the helm.
Rudy Giuliani outside the court house in Washington, DC.
Rudy Giuliani owes Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss $148 million.
The election workers were awarded this sum by a DC jury after being wrongfully accused by Giuliani of stealing votes and passing around a “USB port like a crack vial.”
He was unrepentant to the end as he continued to smear the women even during his trial.
I saw him outside the federal courthouse in Washington, DC, before the verdict.
Hannah Arendt was right about evil: it is banal. Giuliani did not look like a villainous traitor as he emerged from the courthouse and made a beeline for the press in his slow, shambling fashion.
Approaching the microphones he insisted that he wasn’t going to comment before doing nothing but commenting.
It was an astonishing performance. Reporters had been speculating if Giuliani would be dumb enough to imperil his case by talking to reporters again. He was.
Fresh after being chastised by the judge for repeating his election lies the day before, he came up with new, fantastic lies, rambling about how the election workers that he defamed were connected to Hunter Biden and Burisma.
I snapped photos, amazed that he could be so dumb. He was alert and cogent as he continued to spread the lies that forced Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss to go into hiding.
He knew that what he was doing was evil yet he did it anyway, again and again, like Satanic Tourette’s syndrome, in a desperate bid for attention. Again and again, he said, “I can’t talk about that” before talking and talking as his nurse boy assistant tried to guide him to his car. This was a man with no soul, an empty vessel, who lived only for the glare of TV lights.
If ever there was a chud who deserved to be mocked, it was Giuliani.
Fortunately, Anarchy Princess was on the case, standing behind him with a sign behind him reading:
Rico Rudy, Buckle your pants! Racist pig!
Anarchy Princess and Rudy Giuliani
His nurse boy tried to box her out but AP has dealt with the violent chuds of Freedom Corner and the oily Peter Navarro; nurse boy didn’t have a chance.
She followed him to his car, yelling at him. Like the former mayor, AP is from New York, so this is personal for her.
Another AP opponent is Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, who has repeatedly demanded the hanging of Nancy Pelosi.
She makes her violent threats at a nightly vigil outside the DC Jail. “Mama Micki” and her supporters sing patriotic songs and eat dinner in a picnic atmosphere. They call it Freedom Corner, their little open-air traitor party outside the jail.
The banality of evil is eating casserole off a paper plate while you summon a lynch mob to hang your enemies.
Like Giuliani, she knows what she’s doing.
On Friday, after the $148 million award was announced, Giuliani again came out of the court to lie to the press.
This time, there was a new court watcher in the crowd: Bryan Betancur. He’s a mentally-disturbed January 6th rioter who has expressed the desire to shoot up a school.
He’s also stalking Anarchy Princess.
A Freedom Corner regular, and a close friend of Micki Witthoeft, he’d shown no interest in Giuliani until he saw that Anarchy Princess was there.
Rudy Giuliani smeared Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman knowing that his followers would drive them underground – or worse.
Donald Trump spread lies about the election knowing that his supporters would “fight like hell.”
Micki Witthoeft calls for her enemies to be hanged knowing that one of her people might just take her up on the offer.
Giuliani, Trump and Witthoeft are cowards who won’t do the dirty work themselves. But they know if they demonize their opponents enough, someone will do it for them.
Moms for Liberty, founded in Florida, has worked with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to ban books in public schools. Novels by Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Jodi Picoult, Art Spiegelman and, of course, Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale.
In America, it’s said that everything not forbidden, is allowed. The new laws in Florida flip that on its head: only books approved by Moms for Liberty are allowed. Everything else is forbidden.
Teachers can be charged with a felony if they shared an unapproved book with a child. This has had a chilling effect, where many schools have responded to the new law by removing all the books from classrooms.
The Minivan Taliban, as they are known, will not be satisfied with banning books for kids. They also plan to target public libraries, so that they can take books out of the hands of adults, lest they be exposed to progressive ideas.
I went to high school in Florida.
And read many of the books now banned, including Slaughterhouse-Five. This brilliant novel by Kurt Vonnegut is filled with real horror, not the macabre kind, containing the truth of what men with access to fleets of airplanes and high explosives can do to helpless civilians. There are also some sex scenes, as well as time-jumps and other features of experimental literature. It changed how I looked at fiction, teaching me that novels didn’t need to be linear and orderly. They could be as chaotic as the real world.
The sex scenes did not turn me into a rapey Republican who preaches morality while breaking his marital vows to be in a throuple. Being exposed to Slaughterhouse-Five did not make me a book-banning hypocrite who wants to use the power of big government to restrict choice.
I read Slaughterhouse-Five as a senior in AP English. Not surprisingly, Ron DeSantis and the Minivan Taliban want to end Advancement Placement courses in Florida, too, the “champions of freedom” seeking to prevent exposure to liberal ideas while they engage in gross, tanned Sarasotan perversion. Sunshine State kids will receive an inferior education due to the work of this tiny group of hypocritical Christian fanatics.
Books will not make you a pervert. Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler, and Moms For Liberty cofounder Bridget Ziegler, did not get the idea for a throuple from Slaughterhouse-Five or any other novel that they may have read in high school. Their twisted, violent hypocrisy came from another source: the Republican Party.
House members leave after removing Speaker McCarthy.
With the removal of Kevin McCarthy from his post as Speaker of the House, has the long-expected Republican Civil War kicked off?
For “moderates” in the party (moderate in the sense that there’s a moderate Taliban), it is far too late to expunge the radical elements in the GOP. The time to fight this civil war was years ago, when Trump was in the 2016 primaries or, failing that, in the wake of January 6th.
Instead, Republicans embraced the chaos, dysfunction and treason of the Trump era as Kevin McCarthy put aside his scruples and flew to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring of the mob boss.
Everything which has happened since then was inevitable.
Rather than repudiating the bomb-throwers, moderate Republicans invited them inside the tent.
Nancy Pelosi was able to govern with a narrow majority but Republicans could not, failing to pass a budget and relying upon Democratic votes to bail them out to prevent a government shutdown.
Kevin McCarthy then bad-mouthed the Democrats that had saved him, dooming his fate.
Moderates are a step behind, failing to imagine that what the bomb-throwers want is a not deal or a compromise, but to burn the country to the ground. They want to finish what they started on January 6th.
MAGA voters are marching with banners reading, “Trump or Death” and moderate Republicans think that they can finesse this issue, rather than realizing that they are in a life-and-death struggle for their party, democracy and the survival of the United States.
I watched House members exit after overthrowing their Speaker and leaving the institution leaderless.
Rather than stay and elect a new Speaker, they were going on vacation for a week.
But the visual was like a scene from the West Wing, all these august white men (and they were virtually all white men) descending the marble steps of the Capitol to talk to the press.
Watching this serene and somber moment, you could imagine that democracy in our nation is timeless and secure. But just 1000 days ago, a Trump mob stormed up these steps and sacked the Capitol.
Democracy is fragile, and there are millions of our fellow citizens willing to do away with free and fair elections if it means that they can remain in power.
For moderate Republicans, it is far too late. They had multiple opportunities to rid themselves of Trump and his mob but they were too weak and self-interested.
Now, they have reached the finding out stage, as the bomb-throwers will tear apart the party from within.
As President Biden said in March, 2021, about the 2024 election, “I have no idea if there will be a Republican Party.”
He was scheduled to speak at 7 PM at the Concerned Women for America conference at the Washington Hilton but here we were, on the sidewalk, near the side entrance and he was nowhere to be seen.
I was there with my camera. I didn’t have a picture of Trump. For all four years of his administration, he hid behind walls and phalanxes of Secret Service agents, never interacting with the real city. He rarely even left the White House, which he turned into a fortress during the tumultuous year of 2020.
Flashing red and blue lights appeared, blocks away. His post-presidential motorcade was smaller than expected. When he was President, motorcycle cops blocked intersections for his progress through the city, trailed by media trucks, communication vehicles and an ambulance – all the trappings of empire, roaring through the city as a helicopter hovered protectively overhead.
Now, he was reduced to a motorcade of just six vehicles, escorted by a couple of cops with lights and sirens, fighting their way through Friday night traffic on L St.
The black SUVs didn’t look much different than the Ubers that had been dropping off passengers at Shoto, the fancy sushi place across the street. People continued to come and go from the restaurant, Washingtonians accustomed to the continuous presence of sirens in the city.
Only a cluster of Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers at the side entrance of the Hilton were a clue that a VIP was arriving.
When Trump emerged from his SUV, I couldn’t see him, though he was less than a hundred feet away – far closer than I ever imagined. It was dark and he was surrounded by agents and his entourage.
I glimpsed a hunched figure and a shock of orange hair. I clicked away but none of my photos came out, so I shouted, “Fuck you, Trump!”
It was cathartic, refreshing, a joyful moment, a message from DC residents like me who suffered through four years of horror culminating in the January 6th terrorist attack on the city.
While I couldn’t see him, you can spot him in the zoomed-in and enhanced video by Anarchy Princess (AP). Does he hear us? Does he react? The viewer can decide.
During this whole scene of yelling and sirens, a hotel staffer in gray had sat on the curb playing a game on his iPhone, ignoring everything. Amazing.
There is no better city for people-watching than Washington, DC. The arrival of Trump was high tension – me and AP keyed up, police officers in protective mode and bystanders suddenly pausing on the sidewalk.
But once he was inside, everyone relaxed. Not knowing that he would ramble for more than an hour in front of the Concerned Women of America on subjects diverse, we waited for his return.
We had a very interesting discussion with the MPD officers about crime, drugs and kids. Drivers kept pulling into an empty parking spot near the side entrance, oblivious to the massive security presence, and then getting annoyed when the police waved them off.
Anarchy Princess: Trump Lost Badly
A couple of tourists came up to us and asked us what was going on.
“Trump is inside,” AP said with careful neutrality. To say his name is the ultimate litmus test. There is no neutrality; everyone has picked a side.
“Oh god,” they replied. They hated him.
And they were so excited to have the ultimate Washington experience of seeing an ex-President and his motorcade.
The police had come to attention. Lights and sirens were being turned on, there was activity around the side entrance.
“Stand back,” I told the tourists. “It’s about to get loud.”
Anarchy Princess fired up the speaker on her cart. If you’ve been to anti-Trump protests, then you know this song, the chorus of which now echoed off the buildings of L St.
Fuck Donald Trump
Fuck Donald Trump
Yea, yea, fuck Donald Trump
I didn’t even try to get a photo this time; instead, I concentrated on my yelling and obscene gestures. The motorcade went right by me, the orange head of Trump behind a window, just feet away. They made a left on 15th St and the sirens trailed off.
“Well, that was exciting!” the tourists said.
Anarchy Princess packed up her gear. She was going to follow Trump to his second speaking engagement of the evening in Woodley Park.
I was going home. Satisfied. Ever since witnessing the Trump mobs on January 6th in my neighborhood, in my city, I’ve wanted payback.
And I got a small measure of it on that night on L St.
Chaos continues in the nation’s capital as the government slides toward shutdown, Congress talks impeachment and Freedom Corner veers into absurdity.
The pro-January 6th “prisoner vigil” outside the DC Jail has long been a comedy of right-wing dysfunction but it reached new heights of ridiculousness last night.
George Santos came to visit Freedom Corner and the chuds demanded action from him, as if the Congressman could do something about judges and juries delivering long prison terms to the Proud Boys and other insurrectionists. He’s not going to be in Congress much longer and soon may be inside a jail himself.
He was far more interested in the newly-famous Anarchy Princess and crossed the street to get a selfie with her. After she trolled Peter Navarro with a “Trump Lost” sign, she’s rocketed from zero Twitter followers to more than 44,000 in less than two weeks, and you’ve probably seen her all over your TV, especially if you watch MSNBC.
As Santos left, he was heckled by another powerful woman, Patricia Eguino, who taunted him about his future in prison. She is currently an ANC Commissioner but will one day be Mayor.
"An embarrassment to New York!" yelled DC Commissioner Patricia Eguino (D) (who was a counter-protester at the Capitol on January 6, 2021) at Rep Santos as he left the DC Jail.
"I flipped the seat that your party failed to keep!" Santos replied.
But the evening was not done yet. One of the chuds, Jericho Steve, recently assaulted Anarchy Princess outside the United States Courthouse where the J6 trials have taken place.
This was an assault that was seen on CNN and recorded from multiple angles. The chuds came to DC more than a year ago with the 1776 Restoration Movement yet they still haven’t learned not to film their crimes.
He got a late night visit from Park Police investigators, who seized the flag pole that Jericho used to assault AP. All this talk of standing up to the deep state but he just wilted when confronted with a pair of officers.
America can sleep easier now that the flagpole that Jericho Steve Girard used to assault @SatireAP is is custody of the U.S. Park Police.
The encounter was helpfully filmed by the chud known as Meatwad. Yes, the same Meatwad who inspired AP to troll Peter Navarro leading to her viral fame. He rode on a train for 26 hours just to get back to DC for this moment.
You can’t make this shit up. To add a new character this late in the second act, and make him so central to the drama, is such a brilliant turn that not even Shakespeare could pen. This is why Freedom Corner has such a devoted audience (of trolls) who follow along at #freedomcorner.
And let’s not forget the voodoo. Earlier in the day, Biketifa chalked a series of curses on the sidewalk at Freedom Corner designed to upset Jericho Steve and the others. It did.
Chalktifa at Freedom Corner
And then a few hours later, the police showed up at Jericho’s van.
So maybe I was wrong about chalk. It can hurt you. Voodoo is real. The chalk never lies.
As I watched all of this unfold last night on Twitter and YouTube, I thought: this is only 2023! What kind of craziness will arrive with 2024 and the most consequential election of our lives, when America will choose between democracy and tyranny?
Brace yourselves.
UPDATE: Sept 14, 2023
Gaetz and Meatwad
Things can always get weirder on Freedom Corner. The night after the Santos stunt, Congressman Matt Gaetz arrived. Unlike Santos, he was willing to appear on camera and gave a short speech on releasing the J6 tapes (do they really want that? It would be a boon for Sedition Hunters.)
Gaetz didn’t spend more than five minutes there but the ubiquitous Meatwad managed to get in the shot several times. He is the Zelig of Freedom Corner.
What happens when four friends bike for six days in Europe?
Let’s find out! Joined by my friends Rachel, Shira and Neeraja, I recently completed the Amsterdam to Bruges on Wheels trip through Natural Adventures.
Day 1: Amsterdam to Bodegraven
38 miles
The adventure begins with rain gear that we would all soon replace.
After a hearty breakfast, we rolled out from Amsterdam. While the trip was booked through Natural Adventures, it was fulfilled by Dutch Bike Tours who provided hefty Juun bikes that we would come to know far too well. Each bike had a handlebar bag and a side pannier. The bikes had wheel locks and chain locks.
Bike touring is hugely popular in the Netherlands. At our hotel, we met some Canadians who were doing the same trip we were doing. We’d see them over the next six days, hopscotching each other as we rode. There was also an Italian couple who we met that first day, all of us paused at a crossroad trying to decipher directions.
Biking in the Netherlands is easy and safe. Dutch Bike Tours provided us a printed guide for each day. On the back of the guide was a series of numbers: 85, 17, 23, 44. These corresponded with the bike routes that we had to take. We had also loaded the routes into Ride with GPS and Strava to ensure that we stayed on track.
Dutch Bike Tours transported our luggage from hotel to hotel; all we had to do was bike.
Once we got out of Amsterdam, cars disappeared. We were in a quiet, serene world of canals, windmills and farms. It was how quiet everything was that I would remember most from this trip.
We had our first little splash of rain (a recurring theme of this trip), went over our first ferry and were entranced by a hand-operated bridge over a canal, the four of us filming as a young family got off the boat, raised the bridge (it had a massive counterweight), motored forward, and then lowered the bridge.
Day 2: Bodegraven to Dordrecht
32 miles
Soaked and waiting for a ferry, I believed that the hotel was nearby. It was not.
The next day was the worst day.
We awoke to pouring rain. My handlebars had gotten progressively wobblier the first day. I thought we could fix it ourselves (Rachel brought a bike tool) but we couldn’t seem to tighten the stem. After calling Dutch Bike Tours, we rode to Gouda (pronounced Gow-da) where they said we could find a bike shop to fix it.
I rode through the rain, my handlebars loose and floppy. I had to be careful turning because my front wheel would go one way and the handlebars the other. When we got to Gouda, I had to jump off my bike as the wheel went sideways.
After stopping at two bike shops, neither of which could fix the Juun, we called the company: they’d bring a replacement at 1.
We passed the time wandering through the beautiful medieval streets of Gouda and visiting the Gouda Cheese Experience.
My bike was delayed so it wasn’t until near 4 PM that we got on the road again. We had thirty more miles to do. While in Gouda, we had all purchased new rain gear to cope with the steady Dutch downpour.
I was glad to be rolling again but the weather was a miserable mix of rain and wind. All of us got cranky. At one point, I thought we were close to the hotel. When I was told it was another six miles, I almost lost it. Only finding a half-eaten stroopwaffle in my raincoat kept me going. I ate it under a bridge as the rain poured down.
To add insult to injury, the sun came out once we reached the hotel.
Day 3: Dordrecht to Willemstad
24 miles
Windmill in Willemstad.
In retrospect, I’m glad the worst day was the second day. After that, I was thankful for any non-raining moment and confident I could handle anything that the Netherlands could serve up.
It was a dreamy bike day. After biking through the tranquil green spaces of De Biesbosch National Park, we stopped for lunch in the cute market town of Zevenbergen. Like nearly all Dutch towns, it has a car-free city center full of shops and historic churches. We bought more clothes (it was in low 60s for much of the trip) and lingered over coffee.
After lunch, we biked to Willemstad, a fortified town built inside a seven-pointed fort with thick walls and a harbor filled with pleasure craft.
We went to a creperie for dinner, virtually the only customers. All of the Netherlands seemed to be on holiday in August. A lot of places were closed and finding open restaurants was a challenge.
Day 4: Willemstad to Schuddebeurs
30 miles
If you see this many windmills, it is going to be windy.
This was the day of wind.
The country had been growing steadily more remote as we traveled south and then east from Amsterdam. We rode into hefty winds blowing off the North Sea as we traversed narrow causeways lined with massive windmills spinning in the stiff breeze.
But it was not raining. I was happy to pound away into the wind as long it was sunny and dry.
We were now in Zeeland, land that the Dutch had wrested from the ocean, much of which was below sea level and protected by massive dikes.
During the trip, we stayed in all kinds of hotels, from self-service modern places along the highway to historic inns with winding spiral staircases.
The Hostellerie Schuddebeurs was the most interesting of all. Surrounded by farmland, the hotel is secluded among trees that form a barrier against the constant wind. A historic manor (it is more than three hundred years old), it is renowned for its restaurant. I had the best piece of salmon I have ever had in my life – and that was just the appetizer! It was a tranquil respite from the tour.
Day 5: Schuddebeurs to Vlissingen
31 miles
Everyone bikes in the Netherlands.
By this point, we were seasoned bike travelers with a steady routine. The four of us would meet for breakfast at eight, where we would eat as much as possible (the breakfasts were all delicious on the tour). On the first day, I had laughed at Rachel for packing herself a little sandwich from the breakfast buffet for later but now I was a devotee of the idea. I had an emergency cheese supply in my handlebar bag. You really can’t eat enough on a tour.
We’d roll out at nine. By now, we were unfazed by the rain and stopped in the village of Zierikzee for pictures of the historic port.
Then we had the 5k long Zeeland Bridge to cross, which the guidebook described as having “stunning views over the Oosterschelde on both sides.”
When we reached the bridge, it seemed to stretch out into the open ocean, with swirling whitecaps below.
An ambulance crew was parked at the foot of the bridge, removing a cyclist who had been knocked over by the howling gale that was blowing perpendicular to the span.
We decided to walk but then, halfway across, threw caution to the wind (literally) and biked the rest of the way.
The great thing about the Netherlands is that all the bike routes are safe. Even average bike infrastructure there is nicer than anything we have in the United States. We changed our route to get away from the foaming sea.
After a ferry ride (and an encounter with the Canadians, who looked refreshed since they were on e-bikes), we reached the charming village of Veere, which was once home to Scottish wool traders. We also initiated a new tradition: the afternoon waffle.
This was a really interesting day for outside of Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, we rolled through housing developments which looked like American “new town” suburbs but without the crushing weight of cars and innumerable parking lots. Instead, people used bikes, buses and trains. And it was so quiet.
Then it was an easy roll down a canal to Vlissingen, a town that looked rough and industrial until we got to the beach. It was Florida on the North Sea, with people playing volleyball and a few hardy swimmers wading into the ocean. We had dinner on the beach under glorious skies.
Day 6: Vlissingen to Bruges
32 miles
We biked from Amsterdam to Bruges!
The day began with a minor mechanical issue on Neeraja’s bike. I stood around and watched as Shira and Rachel fixed it.
After some confusion (we couldn’t figure out how to get across a canal), we rolled our bikes onto the ferry to Breskens. Bikes were kept on the lower deck and secured by a clever little knotted rope.
We were all anxious to get to Bruges so we ignored the meandering directions along the coast for a more direct route, stopping in Sluis for lunch and Damme for the requisite waffle break, leaving the Netherlands and crossing into Belgium. Only a slight difference in the road signs told us that we had entered a new country.
After donning our rain gear for one final shower, we pedaled into Bruges, arriving in glorious sunshine.
An ancient market town (home to the world’s first stock exchange), it had its golden age in the 14th century as a trading center. Known as the Venice of the North, it is criss-crossed by canals.
And it is absolutely beautiful, like rolling into a Medieval dream as we reached the market square at the heart of the city.
We were all very, very ready to get off the bikes.
So, we decided to climb some stairs, going to the top of the Historium Tower for a photo opp.
After dropping off the bikes at the bike-themed Hotel Velotel, we went back into the heart of Bruges for a delicious dinner (and chocolate) to celebrate.
Final Thoughts
Every great adventure has its challenges, if only to make the reward that much sweeter. I will never complain about the rain again. Here’s what I took away from the experience:
The Netherlands is a heaven for cyclists but it’s also paradise for walkers, runners, kids, families – everyone. It’s a country that didn’t pave every square inch but made the conscious decision to use buses, trains and bikes instead. This makes Dutch towns safe, quiet and pleasant. We could bike side by side and talk, not worrying about cars.
I pictured leisurely rides through the European countryside; this was much more difficult, due to the wind and the rain. Rachel, Sheera, Neeraja and myself are regular cyclists used to doing distances but this was a challenge. 30 miles doesn’t sound like much until you bike against 30-mph winds.
It was a remarkably affordable trip, averaging around $200/day, including hotels, luggage transfers, the bikes and meals.
I had never been on an overnight bike trip with other people but the Bike 2 Belgium crew got along really well. There’s something about a shared adventure that brings people together.
On the last day, I wanted to get rid of those hefty Juun bikes but I also wanted to keep going into France. I’m already thinking about my next bike adventure.
The Anarchy Princess video is a simple tableau: a woman standing up to a grabby man. With her shades on, AP cooly holds her “Trump Lost” sign out of the reach of Navarro, adding the rejoinder, “Bro, you’re already facing charges.”
After a judge ruled against him in his criminal contempt case, former Trump advisor Peter Navarro attempts to snatch a "Trump lost" sign from a protester at his press conference.
Two people in a frame. A famous man and an unknown woman expressing her First Amendment rights.
It’s such a simple video that no explanation is needed. You can see it on screen: a man is trying (and failing) to bully a woman.
But there’s a lot of backstory behind this seemingly simple moment.
Navarro had just lost his court case on executive privilege. He was one of the architects behind the January 6th coup attempt, author of the notorious Green Bay Sweep designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans and install Trump as President for Life.
She had seen Meatwad, a Freedom Corner regular, hold up a pro-January 6th sign up during a live broadcast and decided to duplicate the idea when Navarro came out to address (and insult) the media.
But you don’t need to know any of that, because the video itself tells the story: a woman standing up to a powerful man.
2. Visual
You don’t need sound to understand the AP video. A flustered man turns around and tries to grab a sign while a woman holds it out of reach. A simple conflict captured in a few seconds of video.
The same is true for my viral video as Red Bike Guy. Part of its success was due to the framing. Filmed by Skyflyer Channel 8 News (who isn’t credited), it presents me seemingly alone on a red bike standing up against a phalanx of Proud Boys.
This is a visual language that we understand from movies and TV shows. The lone hero.
Of course, this is a simplification, because just out of frame are about forty police officers on bikes. And a couple of other hecklers. But we don’t see that, for the video is taken from my perspective, over my shoulder, as if you’re the one facing off against the fascists.
3. Inspiring
This is the most important element to going viral.
As soon as I saw AP’s video, I knew it was going to go viral. It was simple, visual and inspiring. She won her little battle with Navarro and he looked like a fool.
“This girl is AWESOME” was one of the early comments. And then the video took off, going from C-SPAN to the Republican Accountability Project to the Young Turks, getting amplified by almost the same set of channels which blew up my video in May.
There is a hunger for inspiring videos. We want to see good triumph over evil. We want to see the January 6th coup plotters and Trump dead-enders punished.
The AP video provides encouragement for all who stand up against fascism. It tells people to be brave. It shows that anyone can be a hero.
You Can’t Make a Viral Video
When I rolled up to the Patriot Front on a red bike, I expected to see Anarchy Princess yelling at them.
When she wasn’t there, I decided that I needed to represent. I live in DC and saw what happened on January 6th. No way are we going to let fascist groups march through the city unhindered again.
I didn’t know I was being filmed. Going viral was a complete surprise.
The same is true for AP. There are thousands of hours, from multiple perspectives, of her hassling fascist groups like the 1776 Restoration Movement, Freedom Corner and forced-birth zealots.
But a thirty-second clip made her famous.
In addition to being simple, visual and inspiring, viral videos capture something ineffable in the zeitgeist. They connect with an unexpressed need in the audience. They are creatures of the moment, like fireflies, magical and briefly luminous.
You can’t make a viral video. But you can make videos that are simple, visual and inspiring. The audience will make them viral – or not. They decide how to make a viral video.
The 1776 Restoration Movement on the National Mall
Well, it’s over. For real, this time time. With a typically dramatic video, the kind that long-time viewers of this series love, David “Santa” Riddell announced the end of the 1776 Restoration Movement. He dismissed the board, turned off the auto-renewal membership grift and dismissed the national team.
The reasons are many. Since being driven off the National Mall a year ago, the Christofascist cult has struggled for relevance, and has resorted to increasingly desperate schemes to gain attention, like live-streaming the birth of a new #1776RM member.
Yes, you read that correctly. A #1776RM organizer filmed herself in a tub giving birth while a crawl at the bottom of the screen encouraged donations to her Cash app.
Meanwhile, elderly members of the group drove around the country in an RV, stopping in small towns to sit in lawn chairs and wave flags. This was their outreach strategy. Trolls online called it the “Traveling Old Folks Home.”
Viewers Got Bored
But even the trolls, the most devoted #1776RM viewers, got bored, feeling that the series lacked the conflict and drama of the National Mall occupation in the summer of 2022. They moved on to mocking Freedom Corner, a more dangerous little group of insurrectionists.
On Twitter, I posted a “looking back” series of tweets from a year ago, during the group’s heyday. It’s amazing comedy. The poop bucket, “Your car’s on fire!”, “Penis-shaped picture of my mom,” the nightly battles against trolls and each other – no wonder it was such a highly addictive series to the thousands of people around the country who tuned in to see the latest twists and turns of this soap opera of right-wing dysfunction.
It was something you couldn’t explain to others, lest you be seen as the crazy one. “Biketifa saw Flopper so he started flopping around on the ground while Anarchy Princess yelled, ‘Flop, flop, flop!'”
IYKYK.
Filled with memorably dumb characters, absurd fuck-ups and wild turns of phrase, it didn’t seem real. My conspiracy theory is that it was the work of the greatest improv comedy troupe in history. Why else would people film their own humiliation?
It would make a great Netflix series. And maybe it will one day.
The Art of #1776RM
The amount of art that this little group prompted is just astonishing. Channels like Just a Lazy Gamer sprang up to document the group while Damnation Drive-In mocked it.
When one of the chuds announced that he was writing a book about 1776RM, a parody account began work on their own version, using ChatGPT. I’m betting that the parody comes out before the ChudBook.
Twitter is full of #1776RM memes and songs – and there is more, much more, hidden away in private forums, a whole community of folks devoted to satirizing the fascists.
It Was the Friends We Made Along the Way
So, maybe it was the friends we made along the way? It certainly provided entertainment to me, and meeting some of the trolls online and in-person was a plus. #1776RM brought together people from wildly disparate backgrounds for the purpose of chud mockery.
The trolls won. And now there is a network of folks experienced in disrupting fascist groups. Good preparation for 2024, and what will be the wildest election year of our lifetimes.
It’s been three years since I published LIKES, my little book of short stories about social media obsession.
LIKES began as a pandemic project in 2020. Suddenly without a social life as covid shut the world down, I searched for something to keep me busy.
After publishing THE SWAMP, a novel about Obama-era DC, in 2017, I had been working on short stories. I’m one of those people who always needs to be writing something; I find it relaxing.
At the beginning of 2020, my short story Apartment 101, appeared in the City Paper Fiction Issue. I thought I could put together this story and others into a collection of DC tales and self-publish them like I did THE SWAMP.
What should be included? Which should go first? How long should the book be?
My stories went into a folder in my computer and then I copied and pasted them into a Word doc. After moving them around, I noticed that there was one theme I kept coming back to: social media.
There was a story that I liked – Twitter Famous – that I wasn’t going to include because it was set in FL and not DC. But what if I changed my book into a collection of short stories about the perils of social media?
I deleted Apartment 101 and put my social media stories together.
Feeling that attention spans had been shattered by the internet, I wanted the book to be brief. Not a big novel that would scare people. Something that non-readers would read.
At the time, I had a little more than half of the stories in LIKES. I wrote and tweaked some more to fit, such as Avocado Toast.
Likes, the story that I conclude the book with, was written last, after I had settled on a title. I played around with a couple of different titles before concluding that the book was about the pursuit of social media fame. Or likes.
I had read about the perverse incentives built into Facebook and Instagram, these rat puzzles of rewards that we mindlessly contribute to, and I wanted to write something about how those incentives were initially devised. Thus, my story Likes, which goes back in time to show how the trap was set.
Designing the cover myself, using a photo I had taken during the Georgetown Glow neon display, I published the book in print and Kindle in August 2020.
Little did I know that reality would imitate art and that I would go viral like one of the characters in my book. And that the experience of going wildly viral (or fungal, as a friend said) would lead to a lot more people reading my little book about social media.
Which is why art is so important. Creating LIKES not only occupied my mind during the dark days of 2020, it was a vote for the future, and whatever it might bring.
