Tuesday, August 16, 2011

British Street Hooligan


And you were thinking street riots hooligan.  Sorry but this hooligan is a 2011 Triumph Speed Triple.

And one hell of a sweet bike huh?

If there was a ... in heaven ... well there is (I think most days) but still I am not likely to have one parked in my garage.  I am being punished for some stuff I did in high school or preschool ... not sure which.

AnyHowze, in the US this bike retails for $12.599 with ABS.  In South Africa you would have to sell your mamma, a couple of cousins and five liters of blood and still come up way short ... uugggh we are so ripped off by the motor industry here.

The government too but that is another story, or is it?

Dunno.

Did I tell you that I promised to buy myself a brand new motorcycle for my birthday in June this year?

What happened?  Ummm ...

Did I tell you that I once announced to a girlfriend that I planned to get married at the end of the year with or without her?

What happened?  Ummm ...

Did I tell you that I change my mind a lot ... like five minutes from now when I will worry about this confessional post?

Or maybe not.

Onward!

Ps: "Give me ambiguity or give me something else."  But if you want to give me one of the three above ... red is my color ... or white ... but I like black too ... or all three ... or maybe not.

Dunno.

Picture Credit

6 comments:

Kweli said...

I am going to subvert this post and speak about supposed British hooligans/rioters.

There is something laughable in the BBC/David Cameron portrayal of these events as riots. Let us stop the usual liberal apologies ("oh, it is not meaningless violence; it is an uprising") and for a second play into the hands of BBC and Cameron and say, "OK, this is meaningless violence."

Now, picture some bourgeois white man (because it is usually a white man) complaining that rap music is violence. There is a kind of bourgeois, entrenched power and privilege that seeks not only to deny the bureaucratic and even militaristic violence used to sustain its place in society, but that also seeks to control how the disenfranchised react/rebel against it -- so that it can complain that rap music, initially a reaction to racism and the poverty of the ghetto, should be less violent.

Isn't this the problem with Cameron and BBC? It is that they are not willing to admit that the natural outcome of their neoliberal and police-state violence is the very kind of violence we are seeing on the streets. Rather, they seek to use the power they already have to control the nature of the rebellion against them...to suit them, that is. This is power at its purest.

Lastly, haven't we gotten to that point in our liberal democracies when peaceful protests aren't heard anymore? We reduce protests to a kind of lethargic formalism that dissipates the voice of the marginalized and creates a coexistence of resistance and the "normal" everyday functioning of power -- with the attendant oppression etc.

Ok, time to end this incoherence.

Junaid said...

I agree with Kweli on the subversion! I will make excuses for you and say that the fast got you but this dream shopping online needs to end asap. Phansi retail therapy Phansi!!

Charmaine said...

Aah ambivalent Ridi still.

Stop breaking more hearts and buy the bike already. When you coming to visit?

XOXO

Ridwan said...

Hey Kweli. Subvert away brother. I connect with what you are saying so well.

I remember the protests against the Iraq War in downtown Portland. It was so well organized and policed.

Folks applied for a permit and the authorities pursed their lips and allowed the protestors - while the government mowed down innocents.

It is crazy - this "manufactured consent" even in protest.

J & S thanks for your comment. Ummm ... would you prefer chocolate pictures? ;0) Be good my sista.

Hey Charmaine. I want to visit very soon. I miss real-imitation Ethiopian food like the kind you get in Adams Morgan.

Trust you well in the belly of the beast. ;0)

Peace to all of youze,
Ridi

Tony said...

I'm with Charmaine. Get the red one and if you have some spare cash, I'll take a black one thanks.

Ridwan said...

Tony I am with you and Charmaine.

I think she should get all three - a black one for you; red for me; and she can have the white one.

We can look at it like a kind of reparations - I know you shaking your head at me Charmaine but Tony and I are oppressed brothers who need a little upliftment :0)

Broer I hope you are well.

I should tell you that Erica sent and email last night saying she did not mind any of the many many motorcycles I have posted over the years here but this Triumph looked like it was gonna kill someone.

Said she was scared.

Then this morning I got a message she sent late last night saying she was in love with the new VW Beetle.

Ummm I feel and intervention is necessary don't you think.

Though I must say I think the new Beetle is cool - sorry boet I guess I'm just falling apart now.

Onward! Tony

Ridi