Public Restrooms?

Since Mike Magnuson has become aware of our ongoing investigation into him, it has become increasingly difficult to track his movements through the City of Los Angeles. Yesterday afternoon at 3:00 p.m., he appeared in his driveway on a bicycle, ran the bike into the street and did a sort of strange, legs-splayed leap onto his bike and then bombed at a rather terrifying speed toward the stop sign at the bottom of the hill. He skidded to a stop and turned to face us and flipped us the bird and said, “Come and get me, assholes!”

We tried. We dispatched our operative on a Silver Lake Hipster singlespeed Masi to chase after him. Apparently, on the mile downhill to the Los Angeles River, Mike Magnuson did his best to prove that in fact the regular readers of Mag’s Sentence who think Mike is losing his mind are correct: Mike rides his bike through city traffic like a crazy person, out of the saddle, weaving in and out of traffic, bunny-hopping potholes. He will not live much longer if he keeps riding like this.

He slowed for a second when he reached the L.A. River Bikeway and our operative got within 100 yards of him, but at that moment, a cyclist with a Mellow Johnny’s jersey and a helmet mirror passed Mike. Our operative saw Mike raise his hand, strike himself on the helmet, then charge of in pursuit of the Mellow Johnny’s rider. Before long, our operative reports, Mike was long gone into the distance, and our operative caught up to the Mellow Johnny’s rider, who said, “Did you see that guy? What a jerk!”

A hour later, after our operative assumed that Mike was somewhere in Griffith Park – probably climbing Bryce Canyon because he reportedly loves the crappy road surface and the larger numbers of coyotes along the road – our operative stopped for a nature break at some public bathrooms near the soccer fields along the 5. Lo, Mike Magnuson rolled into the parking lot, bunny-hopped the curb on to the grass and jumped off his bike and took his helmet off and saw our operative.

Full transcript of the exchange:

Operative: What are you doing here?

Mike Magnuson: I’m gonna hang out in one of the stalls and see if I can pick up guys, what do you think?

Operative: Really?

Mike Magnuson: (winks) You never know.

Operative: You’re awfully sweaty. Were you riding hard?

Mike Magnuson: Nah. I just sweat a lot.

Operative: Do you know who I am?

Mike Magnuson: Listen, if I go in there and take a piss, you’re not gonna steal my bike, are you?

Operative: Maybe.

At this point, Mike grabbed our operative by the collar (the picture above was snapped at the very instant the violence began).

Mike Magnuson: If you wanna ride with me, that’s excellent. If you want to keep following me around and asking me stupid questions, well, fuck you.

Mike shook his head then and sprayed our operative with sweat and then released our operative from his grasp. Our operative, understandably, got the hell out of there but reports turning back to see Mike taking his bicycle into the bathroom stall with him. We hope no harm has come to that bicycle.