daily dog archives

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

By Patrick O'Grady
Mad Dog Media

0 7 | 2 9 | 2 0 0 8

Not exactly must-see TV

  That's the word from Versus via Media Life, which reports that viewership of the Tour de France was down 18 percent through July 22, dropping to an average 140,000 viewers from 171,000 last year. The culprit, says Marc Fein, Versus executive vice president of programming, production and business operations at Versus: "Some people might be turned off a bit by the bad things that have happened, the doping in the sport." No flies on that boy, are there? Pretty soon he'll have his very own key to the executive washroom.

  Media Life also notes that Versus saw "a huge jump" in online video views, reporting that during the first week and a half, downloads surpassed last year's total of 3.5 million, and by Friday had hit 5.9 million. Thank God for the cube farmers following the action from work — they're what keeps the lights on at VeloNews.com.

0 7 | 2 6 | 2 0 0 8

For Evans, TT means 'Ta ta'

  Cuddles Evans couldn't get it up today in the final time trial and thus it seems that Carlos Sastre will win the 2008 Tour de France. The traditional post-Tour bitch-slapping has already commenced, though one stage remains, the ceremonial roll onto the Champs-Elysees: Evans says CSC-Saxo Bank outspent his Silence-Lotto squad, George Steinbrenner style, and S-L manager Marc Sergeant retorts that Evans is a wanker with the legs of Olive Oyl.

  Meanwhile, The New York Times asks the question, "Online, R U Really Reading?". WTF? ROFLMAO! L8R!

0 7 | 2 5 | 2 0 0 8

Printing the legend

  Fresh nonsense a-poppin' up at VeloNews.com as John Ford and I analyze the 2008 Tour de France from a Western perspective.

  Meanwhile, if you'd like to read something with actual content, pay a visit to Bicycling.com, where m'man Joe Lindsey takes up Garmin-Chipotle's doping controls. It's a good read, even for those of us who prefer cheap jokes to deep thought about the doping issue.

0 7 | 2 4 | 2 0 0 8

Look! Up in the sky!

  Bor-ing. That is all ye need to know about today's Tour stage, unless you're all hot to see Damiano Cunego looking like he went 10 rounds with a batting-practice machine full of hand grenades. Dude just can't keep the rubber side down. Other than that stage 18 was a whole lot of nothin', with all the hot dogs saving their legs for the stage-20 time trial on Saturday. Garmin-Chipotle's Will Frischkorn expects big doin's tomorrow, but I dunno — myself, I think Carlos Sastre is gonna take another rest day and try to kick out the jams in the TT, spoil Cadel Evans' little party on the Champs-Elysees.

  Much more interesting is the news from the People's Republic of Boulder, where a pilot in a refurb'd T-33 buzzed the hemp-and-tofu crowd until they were foamier than a sissy's latte and even Zen masters arose from the zafu and zabuton to mutter, "What the fuck?"

  I have spent many a long year living on or near military installations, or close to railroad tracks. When we left Randolph AFB outside San Antone for scenic suburban Bibleburg, I had trouble sleeping without the lullaby of T-33s, T-38s, B-52s, B-58s, C-130s and whatnot thundering about. Ditto the freight trains paralleling Mill Street off South Tejon, where I spent my dropout year, the Amtrak zipping past the Greeley trailer park I infested while in college, and the F-16s screaming over Tucson with wheels down as I ogled pulchritudinous sunbathers at the University of Arizona swimming pool.

  Now all I have to rattle my windows is the Flight for Life chopper, which looks like an aging Bell Jet Ranger and sounds like a commercial laundry dryer full of empty Coors cans on spin dry. That, and the sound of eardrums popping and tempers fraying in Boulder. Haw.

0 7 | 1 8 | 2 0 0 8

Tours, Turks and turds

  Ay yi yi, has it really been four days since the last post? OK, then, here's a quick rundown:

• Yes, the Tour de France is still going on, and the French cops are jerking riders out of it like dumb trout from a polluted creek. All of them are, of course, innocent.


• Turkish — a.k.a. The Turkinator, Turkenstein, Big Pussy, Mighty Whitey the Blue-Eyed Bully of Bibleburg, et al — woke up drooling and sluggish today, which is to say a lot like me. But The Turk' has no thirst for the hops and so off to the vet we went, after first purchasing a top-shelf $50 plastic cat carrier that probably cost the Very Fine Hangzhou Cat Carrier Company about 50 yuan.


• Fifty bucks worth of veterinary care and a half-can of high-fiber cat food later, the litter box was enlarged by a Turkenturd the size of a Clinton cigar, but twice as smelly, and now the big fella is happily playing Shower Curtain with Herself and Mia Sopaipilla. Had I only known he was all bound up, I would've poured the big guy a cup of my special java, given him a copy of the Gazette and strapped him onto my private throne for as long as it took for him to clear his furry, shovel-shaped head.

  Meanwhile, there's fresh Dog Breath up at VeloNews.com. If that doesn't send you straight to the toilet, try some of this cat food. But keep a couple of matchbooks handy.

0 7 | 1 4 | 2 0 0 8

Fire on the mountain, lightning in the air

  Almost wished I had plugged the cable in for today's Tour stage, featuring the Col du Tourmalet and the climb to the ski station at Hautacam. Then I remembered how seldom cycling catches the wandering gaze of The One Big Eye and decided I was better off listening to Limeys foaming at the mouth via Eurosport audio. CSC put the wood to the favorites on Hautacam and just missed the jersey by a second. Cadel Evans will be having nightmares tonight about giant Swiss bullet trains towing Luxembourgers past him ("Pardon me boys, is that the Cancellara choo-choo?")

  But enough about the Tour. The real news is, I finally pulled the trigger and bought a scooter. It's the one I didn't think I'd buy — a Vespa LX 50 — and it's lots more fun than chasing skinny Spaniards up French mountains. It's a four-stroke 49.4cc scoot and thus comparatively green, albeit a little poky off the line and on the hills. But I don't need much speed while learning the ins and outs of driving the first powered two-wheeler I've ever owned. I consider the Vespa's comparatively sedate performance a virtual pair of training wheels, which I will discard when the fine folks at Sportique Scooters hop the sumbitch up with a 79cc cylinder kit later this month.

  I test-drove a few of these things — the Honda Metropolitan, the Genuine Buddy 50, the Kymco People 50 2T, the Yamaha Zuma 50 — and thought I might wait to see what the 2009 Yamaha Vino Classics were like, the '08s being all sold out in Colorado. Then I took a spin on a Vespa and thought, "Hmm, not too shabby." The sales guy asked how I liked it, and I said it was fine, albeit a tad on the slow side, and how would it like the climb up West Uintah with my fat ass in the saddle? "You want the 79cc cylinder upgrade," says he, and breaks one out. World o' difference, as the saying goes. I'd have unlimbered the plastic and driven it home if it weren't baby blue — instead, I scored this red rascal and scheduled the surgery. I'm naming it Red Eddie for comedian Eddie Izzard, who made mention of Italians, scooters and fascism in his standup video "Dress to Kill":

"Italy invented fascism in 1922. Mussolini said, 'Right, we're all fascists!' but most Italian people are always on scooters going, 'Ciao!' And they're into football, and life, and they're not fascists, you know? He said, 'We're all fascists!' 'All right — ciao!' "

  Since making the buy I've seen a few Vino Classics on the street and I believe I made the right choice. The Japanese scooters are all smaller than the Vespa, which has a 50.4-inch wheelbase and a seat height of 30.5; the Vino is even tinier than the Honda Metro', which made me feel like a big frog squatting on a very small lily pad. Maybe I'll get one of those for Herself, who test-rode a Genuine Buddy at Sportique and kinda liked it, in a nervous, tentative is-this-thing-gonna-kill-me sort of way. Anyway, thanks to everyone who chimed in with recommendations, consternation and vilification.

0 7 | 1 1 | 2 0 0 8

Our dopers v. their dopers

  OK, here's a little something you can lay on the next sports fan who tells you how dirty cycling is: Travis Henry, recently released by the Denver Broncos, is said to have tested positive once again for THC (the active ingredient in wacky tobacky) in May.

  If Henry is found guilty of testing positive for ditch weed, it would be his third offense and merit a year's suspension, says The Denver Post. But early last season, after the NFL ruled Henry tested positive for Mexican oregano, Broncos coach Mike Shanahan and attorney Harvey Steinberg won an argument against the testing procedure and the ruling was overturned on appeal. Since winning that appeal, however, according to an NFL source, Henry has missed three drug tests. Under the league's drug policy, a missed test is the same as a positive. Follow me so far? So this numbnuts — who has fathered nine kids with nine women at age 30, and cashed $6.7 million worth of the Broncos' checks — is either three or four dope tests in the red and looking for work.

  What do you want to bet he finds it? Shit, with nine kids he's gonna need it.

  Now, you can argue that mary-wanna is not a performance-enhancing substance, and looking at my high-school and college transcripts I would be hard-pressed to mount a convincing defense. But if you're a running back for the Denver fucking Broncos, how much damage can a couple of doobies do? I'd be doing bong hits in the backfield until the DPD cuffed me for impersonating a professional football player, a charge many a Bronco would find tough to fight in court.

0 7 | 0 9 | 2 0 0 8

Man down revisited

  The Los Angeles Times has an expanded version of the road-rage incident that sent my man Ron Peterson to the hospital. The doctor has lawyered up and his mouthpiece says it's all a horrible misunderstanding. A hyphenated neighbor says he's "a great guy who has been active in the community." That's a funny way of describing an unrealized homicidal maniac, but then Americans' language skills have been deteriorating for quite some time now. Meanwhile, Ron e-mails to say the media scrum has already become wearisome:

"In the past 72 hours I've been on the radio, ABC, NBC, and CBS local news. Of course, my acting career isn't going to be helped at all as I look like Frankenstein. Oh, well. Man, if you want this 15 minutes of fame, you can have it. What a pain in the ass. I'd much rather be out riding my bike."

  More as I hear it. Meanwhile, if you'd like to drop Ron a get-well note, shoot me an e-mail and I'll forward same.

  Late update: Apologies for the brief and infrequent assaults on all we hold dear, but it's Tour de France time for those all too few of us tugging on the oars at VeloNews.com and deadline week over at Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. The cheap comedy should resume shortly. Meanwhile, my dopplegänger Patrick Brady is said to be pitching a story on the road-rage incident to both outfits; stay tuned for the grim details.

  In the meantime, here's a gratuitous pussy pic to keep you occupied. It's Turkish — a.k.a. Turkenstein, The Turkinator, Big Pussy, Mighty Whitey the Blue-eyed Bully of Bibleburg, et. a — bagging some Zs in a neighbor's garden.

0 7 | 0 8 | 2 0 0 8

Man down

  Former Dogs at Large Velo rider Ron Peterson was the victim of an apparent act of road rage on the Fourth of July, according to the website LAist and the Los Angeles Police Department. According to the LAist, Ron and another cyclist were riding to the top of Mandeville Canyon off Sunset and down again as part of a 300-rider holiday outing when a motorist roared up behind them, honking and hollering. Cyclist Christian Stoehr picks up the story:

"We moved to the right in single file within seconds and the motorist pulled along Ron and started screaming at him. He then pulled in front of us with 3-5 feet to spare and slammed on his brakes, giving us no time to stop. I swerved and almost made it, clipping the car and flying through the air and landing in the street. Ron had no room to move and he went straight into the back of the car, putting his face through the back window."

  According to LAist, the driver stopped his car and continued acting the fool, identifying himself as a doctor but never offering medical attention; Stoehr sat on the hood of his car, hoping to dissuade the motorist from leaving the scene, as a third cyclist stopped to lend a hand. An ambulance ferrying a rider injured in an earlier mishap then pulled up and L.A. Fire Department paramedics administered first aid.

  The motorist, identified as Dr. Christopher Thompson, 58, has been arrested and the matter is being handled as a felony criminal assault, according to Mike Bonin, chief of staff for Councilmember Bill Rosendahl. Thompson posted $30,000 bail, according to KFI-AM, and faces a court date next month.

  Ron took 90 stitches in the face and lost a couple of teeth, but was lucid enough to speak following the incident. He told the LAist that a couple other cyclists were recently run off the road by a motorist fitting Thompson's description, though that remains unverified, and no charges were filed. More as I get it. Meanwhile, here's to a speedy recovery for Ron and swift justice for the motorist. A tip of the Mad Dog skid lid to Big Jonny at DrunkCyclist for the tip.

0 7 | 0 4 | 2 0 0 8

Forth on the Fourth

  Dennis the Menace, Dr. Viktor von Schenkenstein and I took a leisurely two-hour spin on the 'cross bikes today in honor of the vast melting pot that is America: a lapsed Catholic, a Jew and an atheist, all three of us self-employed and clinging to our meager incomes and fitness levels despite the decline of the Republic. Two of us have wives, two of us have ex-wives, and two of us have children (not the same two in each instance). One of us has hair. Is this a wonderful country or what? As long as you avert your eyes from the people who are running it, that is.

  Meanwhile, there is a new O'Grady half-witticism up at VeloNews.com in honor of the Tour de France, which starts tomorrow. We've changed the name of the column from "Friday's Foaming Rant" to "Dog Breath" in the hopes of giving me a slightly larger yard in which to scamper about whilst peeing on things. With luck, it won't be six months before the next installment. But if it is, and even if it isn't, you can partake of the real deal — the movie Gonzo, describing the life and times of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. That is all ye know and all ye need to know. Selah.

  And lastly, my man Chris Cosby and his Fuller Center for Housing bicycle posse will be southbound and down starting at 7 a.m. from Ascension Lutheran Church, 2505 N. Circle Drive, in scenic suburban Bibleburg. They hope to raise $100,000 toward the center's goal of providing "adequate shelter for all people in need worldwide." They'll be cycling to Rocky Ford following (more or less) the route of the Saturday ride out of Acacia Park before heading south toward Pueblo around the now-defunct PPIR. If you'd like to hook up for a ride, maybe work off all that BBQ and brew, you can catch them at the church or somewhere along the Marksheffel-Link-Old Pueblo corridor. Sluggards can follow the gang around via their blog.

0 7 | 0 2 | 2 0 0 8

We hold these truths to be self-evident

  My man Ed Quillen rewrites the Declaration of Independence for The Denver Post, just in time for the Fourth of July. And you thought I was a grumpy old man.

0 7 | 0 1 | 2 0 0 8

Hot time, summer in the city

  Scorchin' right along here in Dogpatch — 90 wonderful degrees, with the faux rain clouds that queue up daily and then vanish like a cash surplus entrusted to the manicured mitts of a Republican. Watering the lawn, a guy feels like scampering back and forth through the sprinkler.

  Speaking of hot news, my man Chris Cosby is cycling around and about with a mob representing The Fuller Center for Housing, hoping to raise $100,000 toward the center's goal of providing "adequate shelter for all people in need worldwide." It's a Christian deal, but if you can get past that, the riders will be passing through scenic metropolitan Bibleburg on Saturday en route to Rocky Ford and would love some two-wheeled company. I'll keep you posted as to their whereabouts, or you can follow them around via their blog.

  I was out for a short spin on the road bike around midmorning and I swear steam was venting out of my helmet as I ascended the Col du Mountain Shadows, otherwise known as Flying W Ranch Road. Some poor sod was all kitted up and sitting on the curb, his bike laid down next to him, so I asked if he was OK. "Yeah, blew out a tire." "Someone coming to get you?" "Yeah, thanks." And off I rolled, thinking how fortunate I am to be a great fat bastard who, with an ass the size of two medicine balls in a Hefty Leaf Bag, doesn't mind lugging around the extra weight of two spare tubes, tire irons and a pump. I learned my lesson after having to jog a half-dozen miles home in the old Sidis up in Weirdcliffe, having failed to notice that my saddlebag contained two "spares" that were actually two flats in need of repair.

  Once back home, there was some word count to process for the VN.com gang, and while chasing commas I get a note from Jerry Vanderpool at Hippietech, who read my last BRAIN column and decided I could do with some of that voodoo that he do so well in order to give my teen-age mountain bike a bit more of the old bouncy-bouncy. A few e-mails, a couple of phone calls and a quick nip at the old credit card later and a Hippietech suspension fork is in the works.

  The bike, a 14-year-old DBR Axis TT, came stock with a Manitou 4, and when that crapped out a decade later I tried a RockShox SID with 100mm of travel. Bad idea. Turned the DBR into a Frankenbike that was half chopper, half downhiller, and all trouble. I found myself unable to climb, corner, or descend, and anyone who says these were not fork-related issues is probably right but the fork change didn't help. So now I'm looking at a 63mm Judy in original yellow. Fat city.

  This just in: "The military trainers who came to Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of 'coercive management techniques' for possible use on prisoners, including 'sleep deprivation,' 'prolonged constraint' and 'exposure.' What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners."

  That is the lede and the second graf from a New York Times story further outlining how communist interrogation methods have become par for the course here in the Land of the Free (or wherever we happen to be jailing people). Gung ho, y'all.

Return to The Daily Dog

Read The Daily Dog's 2007 archives