I've established a bit of a reputation for myself as a Professional Amanda Palmer basher, ever since I wrote an angry little parody poem in response to her "Poem for Dhzokhar" which ended up exploding onto BuzzFeed and The Guardian UK. I was never particularly fond of her, even before that — some of her music is fine, sure, but her Neutral Milk Hotel Jukebox Musical left a very sour taste in my mouth1, and her production of Cabaret at the American Repertory Theatre was the single worst (not to mention most masturbatory) professional theatre production I have ever experienced — but it wasn't until recently that I really started seething at the mention of her continued existence on our shared plane of reality. That might sound a little extreme — she hasn't, you know, killed anyone or anything — but the cognitive dissonance between the message that Amanda Palmer conveys and the things that she actually does fills me with such insipid anger, that I feel the need to articulate the ongoing problem that she continues to present. I'm choosing to write about this now is because I've had a number of people bring my attention to her latest blog post about Justin Bieber's arrest, all saying that they awaited my snarky response to it. And while sure, I could do that (hell, maybe I still will), I thought it would be better for me to take the Amanda Palmer approach and express myself my feelings in a rambling blogpost which I can then in turn proclaim to be "art" and thereby diminish any and all criticisms of my own shortcomings by blowing a raspberry at my detractors and say "IT'S JUST ART YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I'M JUST TRYING TO EXPRESS MYSELF AND THAT IS BEAUTIFUL."

I have a problem with self-loathing. I'm a playwright and a theatre artist, but most "theatre people" drive me nuts. I love comic books, but I think most comic fans are idiots. I listen to a lot of indie music, but find a lot of indie music fans to be judgmental jerks (like me, judging them right now). But, as a bicyclist, there is no group of people I hate more...than bicyclists.

I've been the victim of several bike accidents, and still, nearly every day on my two-wheeled commute to work, I see another fellow bicyclist do something that makes me go, "See? People like that are the reason people like me deserve to get hit." Because karma doesn't always work out quite so evenly, and sometimes you're forced to pay for the sins of other bicyclists.

And so, this week's FiveByFiveHundred is dedicated to anyone who's ever been run over by a bicycle while trying to walk on the damn sidewalk (which is where people are supposed to walk).