April 2, 2008
Don't Mess With the City Paper's Matt Borlik
Since we didn't witness it ourselves, the above is a representation of the City Paper's Matthew Borlik's impassioned and rageful rant against one -- or all -- of the District's drivers. A key passage (though don't let it stop you from reading the whole thing):
So it is for you, the stupid car-owning resident of Washington, D.C., that I write this blog entry—as well as those that will inevitably follow it as I continue to be almost killed by stupid shits such as yourself during my daily 10-minute walk to work. No, no—don’t thank me. Thank the batshit crazy driver of the silver Nissan Pathfinder who refused to stop at the crosswalk on Columbia Ave. NW in Adams Morgan even though I was in the middle of it. Thankfully, he wasn’t going fast enough to prevent the big fat fucking loogie I hocked up from landing right in the middle of his rear passenger side window.Borlik is an angry, angry man. But he sure knows how to express it.Yeah, that’s right. I spit on your fucking car. Deal with it.
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people in DC who have cars deserve to be loogiefied.
Continuing City Paper's fine tradition of serving as a vehicle for it's writers' petty personal grievances.
I'm pretty sure you could have drawn his head a bit bigger. This guy does write for the City Paper, after all.
I save my loogies for clowns and people who double park in front of Popeyes.
Columbia Ave? This guy really knows his city!
Didn't he get kicked out of Q and Not U?
dude, it's columbia ROAD, not columbia AVENUE. maybe if he were watching where he was going, he wouldn't have nearly gotten hit by that car AND known where he was in the first place.
I was talking to my father on the phone the other day when I heard what sounded like a car accident. I looked over and saw that a car had hit a person near New York and 11th.
Preach!
Geographical nomenclature aside, he's right as rain, he's on the crosswalk, those are the times I wish cops were around, and not off on some side street snoozing in their cruisers with their siren lights flashing Tel-Aviv style.
I got hit running on Wilson Blvd the other week after some lady went right through the yield sign, over the crosswalk, while I had a walk symbol. DC drivers are almost worse than Bostonians......almost.
eloquent
I was wondering what the hell that splatter was on my rear window.
The problem in DC isn't the local drivers, its all the lost, unfamiliar drivers dilly dallying and looking around. I used to live in Miami and I'm sorry but DC has nothing on that nightmare.
jpk - really? REALLY?
who the heck is you to say people with cars in the city deserve to be loogified? i have a car, a bike and i walk a ton and there is one immutable truth here and everywhere else - there are shitty pedestrians, shitty drivers, shitty bike riders, shitty cabbies, shitty bus drivers, etc.!
how about instead of assuming all car owners deserve to be covered in mucus, we just go with the fact that shitheads who drive, walk, bike, etc deserve to get spit on?
As a both a frequent driver and a frequent walker in this city, I must say that the average pedestrian/cyclist/scooter rider/segway wierdo is FAR more of a menace to himself than any driver is.
People seem to think that cars are supposed to stop for you because they received a vision from the future that you were about to walk in front of them. I have nearly killed stupid pedestrians and cyclists who crossed against a light or just went in front of me in the middle of the road on many occasions. I can't think of a single time that I had to jump out of the way of a car while I was on foot, though.
I wonder if this guy owns a car.
(note: I do not.)
DCist not have any material today?
I eagerly await the City Paper cover story by Jason Cherkis featuring his sepia-toned memories of Sunday drives with his grandmother when they would spit on pedestrians and now that she's gone...it's just..dammit, it's just not the same. I'm already getting teary eyed just thinking about it.
Um, I have jumped out of the way on foot countless times. Seriously. And once I was not able to jump quickly enough.
That said, there are just as many awful pedestrians as awful drivers. I see so many peds walk out into the most busy street, like 16th, with a baby in a stroller even, against the light and watch in horror as the cars come flying down at them.
I must see scenes like this almost once a day.
my goodness, this drawing should be put in the national gallery near the rest of the dutch painters... a masterpiece!
Haven't had a good pedestrian-vs-car-vs-biker thread in a while. Not since the great dcist pedestrian tirade of ninteen dickety two. We had to say "dickety" because the Kaiser had stolen our word for "twenty." I chased him down the road but gave up after dickety-six miles.
Is anyone really surprised that Pathfinder drivers have the IQ of a Dove Bar?
Or that a City Paper writer feels the need to write a story about his own passive-agressive expectorating habits?
Or that I really hope these two meet again and beat eachother's faces into bloody sponges?
the amount of road rage in this city has been driving me crazy lately. just yesterday a woman honked at me for meandering between cars at a RED LIGHT IN A CROSSWALK. i asked her why she felt the need to obliterate my ear drums on my calm walk home from work? when is it ever appropriate to honk at people walking or on bikes? people don't know how terribly loud and scary it is. i attributed her ignorance to the fact that she was on the phone and applying lipstick while she drifted her suv into the part of the street where people are supposed to walk. alas, calling her a dumb bitch was not as rewarding as it could have been. i'm going to carry an air horn from now on.
guest33, maybe you spend most of your time on foot after having one too many of those chimays. Sure, drivers often don't yield to you. But I'm not stupid enough to just saunter into a street, even at a crosswalk, without making sure I'm safe. Because you ALWAYS lose at chicken when you're on foot.
That said, it's not too hard to make eye contact with someone in a car approaching you, and they almost always yield once they feel the guilt.
@aurelgrooves: "when is it ever appropriate to honk at people walking or on bikes?"
ha ha...ever been to a developing country?
I'm not sure why it's necessary to publicly humiliate someone for expressing their anger, especially when it's justified.
Granted, I've rarely read his work, so I'm not sure if he's normally a blowhard. But last week someone almost ran me over near Rosslyn in Arlington when I had the right of way in a crosswalk, so I yelled at the driver and did everything short of hocking a loogie.
I'm not sure why it's necessary to publicly humiliate someone for expressing their anger, especially when it's justified.
Aww, c'mon! You know as well as I do that Borlick's little rant was boring and unoriginal. I was hoping for some sort of hook, something that would make it stand out from the countless rants I've seen, read, and had, but there wasn't anything there.
aurelgrooves - I find the thought of a pedestrian (or biker) carrying an air horn absolutely hilarious! Thanks for the amusing visual on this super boring Wednesday afternoon.
@Jamie: Having been hit by a car before, I am a seriously safe pedestrian. The eye contact thing only works if you're really close to the driver. Doesn't help much when they are turning from a more distant lane.
And it's a banana cognac, biatch.
Also I've had my foot run over while being a very bad pedestrian. It didn't happen in the city but out in the 'burbs. Moral of the story? Let's just say it pays to look both ways before sprinting across a busy street even if you are trying to keep an idiot dog from getting run over by a car. Oddly enough the car I ran into (yes, I ran into the side of the car and ended up on the hood) was the owner of said idiot dog. Funny how those things happen...
Hmm, I think I'll have a Chimay and a couple cognacs this evening then drive around town looking for inattentive pedestrians to mow down.
I thought the loogie was the hook...
What the hell is a banana cognac? Doesn't sound very a-peel-ing.
this is all so simple. when i'm driving, i have the right of way. when i'm walking, i have the right of way. when i'm biking, i have the right of way. duh!
While there are some absent-minded pedestrians and half-mad cyclists in DC, horrible drivers take the cake in DC--no contest. I've lived in 4 cities on 2 continents and never before have I encountered so many just downright sh*tty driving by drivers. What is wrong with these people?
Considering that he posted his rant on a public website, I'd say he's publicly humiliating himself.
You know, if he gets this worked up every time he has a close call with an idiot driver in this town, he's going to have to start keeping an eye on his blood pressure.
@jamie: wow, i read banana colonic. probably even less desirable.
Cute. Chapelle Show reference.
I mean there are some basic ground rules here. If there is a lull in the cars, you can cross. And should a car approach you while you are crossing, they need to stop.
I mean technically, if I am standing in any part of a crosswalk, the cars should stop for you. But that never is the case. Especially on Columbia Road. Fighting that fight is like trying to argue that bicyclists get off the damn sidewalk. Valid arguments but not gonna happen.
goat boy, THAT is the quote of the day. and it's the best description of how everything works on the streets in this city.
the one addendum here is this:
cabbies have the right of way and the right to ignore any and all traffic regulations whenever and however they see fit. to remind them otherwise is to risk being killed by a mob of angry eritreans...
My favorite are moms that use their baby carriages as a shield in front of them as the barge out into traffic regardless of right of way.
I agree with the earlier poster. There are bad drivers, and there are bad pedestrians. And both are a direct result of 40 years of DC cops not giving traffic or pedestrian tickets.
I think that drawing should be used for those "Street Smart" pedestrian safety ads. I like Mr. Big-Head-Angry-Loogie far better than Mr. Lime-Sweater-Spilled-Latte.
Barkeep! A round of banana colonics on me. My treat. Everyone except that damned clown at the FDR Memorial.
The problem with DC, unlike NYC, is you don't have the critical mass of pedestrians to get out into a crosswalk, block the street and be like "Bring it on, you can't hit ALL of us." When drivers see one or two pedestrians trying to cross they think "I can brush this guy back, it's just one guy."
actually, one person can make a difference. I was crossing the street on bike the other day, with the right of way, and a man in a (what else) SUV actually made a shooeing motion with his hands, like "get out of my way girlie." I was irritated at his condescension in addition to his impatience so I stopped in the crosswalk and offered him a profuse and I must say long winded apology for being in his way. I think he might have missed his light. Kill em with kindness.
PS in the Final Four of "who is the biggest threat to our safety: cyclists, pedestrians, drivers or cabbies," I have one question. How the h*** did #16 pedestrians upset #1 BUSES???
i bike to work almost everyday but i also drive in the city as well. There are just as many idiot cyclists (ie: bikers not wearing helmets, riding on the sidewalk, not having lights in the dark) as drivers on the road.
I'll say this much, if you ever spit on me while I was biking or driving, I would pull over and stop, slowy walk toward you and punch you square in the mouth.