Not Rides 5/19: Not This Again

Hello.

The vicissitudes of life foiled my plans to try to write some posts last week, but this week's vicissitudes, so far as they've revealed themselves thus far, have presented me with an opportunity to write one tonight. Lucky us.

I'm beginning to come to the realization that everyone else might not enjoy my atonal mumble singing of contemporary pop hits as I do. So long as I've bike commuted, I've mumble sung and I'm not going to give it up just because "people" think it's "awful" and when they turn around and look at me, it's "mortifying." SO WHAT? You like Tay Tay? WHY DON'T YOU LIKE ATONAL MUMBLE SUNG TAY TAY? She's deliberately not on Spotify because she wants her music to be atonally mumle sung to the world by dorky 30 something bike commuters. It's her preferred delivery method! I promise. And if it you don't like the musical styling of Tay Tay, that's on you, dude. I can't be held responsible for your bad taste. I can only be responsible for mine.

There's a lot to like about atonal mumble singing and I would heartily encourage you to adopt the practice if it's not part of your repertoire already. Because:
1) it's fun
2) bicycling is a sort of rhythmic and repetitive activity and it's kind of amazing to see where your brain takes you when you let it. I'm quite confident that some rhythm of the road prompts whatever bad pop song I feel compelled to sing and who am I to reject the rhythm of the road. That would make Walt Whitman cry. DO YOU WANT TO MAKE WALT WHITMAN CRY?
3) drivers get to sing encased in their glass and metal boxes and bicyclists are required by law and custom to do everything that drivers to out of spite and to prove a point
4) how else are you going to get people to not ask you for directions? (I wasn't atonally mumble singing this afternoon and a woman on H Street asked me where K Street was and I was like 'two letters thataway, man')
5) other reasons

In conclusion, if you want to continue to be a totally lame self-serious, unfun bike commuter, by all means, continue to not atonally mumble sing contemporary pop hits, the lyrics of which with you are only vaguely acquainted and the melody of which proves elusive beyond the ten to twelve seconds you can somewhat recall. That's fine. Whatever. But if you'd like the opposite of those things, consider atonally mumble singing. You might even like it.

As for the bike commuting, Bike to Work Day was fun. Good job everyone.